This week we review Bad News Bears and The Island, and discuss a plethora of topics including blind dates with night vision goggles, gaming grandmothers, and Russian spammers. Tuneage provided by Koufax and Clor. Don’t be the only kid on the block who didn’t download this week’s edition of Space Junk Radio.
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The first trailer for the movie adaptation of Marvel’s Ghost Rider has arrived online. Something tells me it may be an unauthorized leak though, so I’d watch it while you can. Matter Music, the company that did the music for the trailer, has it up on their website now in Quicktime. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil) from another script by David S. Goyer, the movie stars Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stuntman who sells his soul to a demon to save his brother’s life. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people out there after watching this trailer thinking… The Punisher meets Constantine. I know I am. But of course, I also know Ghost Rider the comic has little in common with those two characters so we’ll see what happens. Ghost Rider hits theatres sometime in 2006. (Note: You will need the Quicktime 7 beta in order to watch this.)
Robert Greenwald, the director last year’s activist documentaries “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism” and “Uncovered: The War on Iraq” has formed a new media company called Brave New Films. Their first release will be a new documentary called “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price”. The movie examines the evils that the gigantic corporation perpetuates and the personal stories of many families struggling against it. While the film itself sounds interesting, I’m more interested to see what kind of effect it will have on the general public. Wal-Mart has announced that they will be responding aggressively to the film and holding a press conference the weekend before the film’s release. Perhaps we will even see a rebuttal documentary entitled “Wal-Mart: The Great American Success Story” or something to that effect. Head over to the film’s website to watch a short teaser trailer and follow the filmmaker’s blog. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price will premiere on November 13th, 2005.
The Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas controversy refuses to simmer down this week as an 85-year-old grandmother from New York has filed a lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of the game. She bought the game for her 14-year-old grandson, unaware that soon afterwards a mod would be released that could unlock sexually explicit content in the game. Now that the game has been retroactively rated Adults Only, she is horrified and has taken the game back from her grandson. The suit seeks unspecified damages for Cohen and all consumers nationwide. Now I don’t want to tell people how to raise their kids, but let’s see… the game is rated M for Mature, which means that according to the ESRB ratings, a 14-year-old kid shouldn’t be playing it in the first place. Does she even know that her grandson actually got a hold of the mod and experienced the hidden sex mini-game? My guess is that he didn’t. This situation could easily spiral out of control as there are many, many others who could file the exact same lawsuit. Hopefully someone out there has some common sense to throw out these kinds of crazy court cases.
Anyone who’s read my overly long best of 2003 list knows what a hardon I am for the Darkness. I had heard Justin Hawkins was putting out a solo album some time ago, but could never find the info about it. Here’s the reason why:
while it is a solo album, its going under the name “British Whale”.
The debut single, “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us”, a cover version of a song by the Sparks, will be released in the UK on August 15 with one b-side. No date is set for the full length album. In the meantime though you can check out the new video for “This Town…” featuring World Darts Champion Phil Taylor on British Whale’s site, or search for an mp3 elsewhere. If you find one, let me know.
Not much to say about this post except “Here’s a bunch of new music videos for you to watch”. Apparently the new Weezer vid is not going to be released in North America and was culled from clips of Grim Reaper’s 1985 video for “Fear No Evil.” Weird.
» Helmet - Smart
» Weezer - We Are All On Drugs
» Hot Hot Heat - Middle of Nowhere
» Supergrass - St. Petersburg
» Bright Eyes - Easy/Lucky/Free
» Supersystem - Born Into The World
» Maximo Park - The Coast Is Always Changing
» LCD Soundsystem - Movement
That Mel Gibson, I tell you… he’s one crazy trendsetter. First he went out on a limb and directed “The Passion of the Christ” with all the dialogue in Aramaic. It was a smash success at the box office for him, which of course had nothing to do with the fact that it was based on the Bible but rather that people can’t get enough of dead languages in modern movies! That’s why he has decided to do his next film, “Apocalypto” in ancient Mayan. Little is known about the movie except that it is a “unique adventure” that takes place 500 years in the past. It will begin production in October in Mexico with a tentative release date of summer 2006.
I’m not a big fan of racing games but I just recently picked up EA’s Burnout 3: Takedown after it received a hefty price cut. It’s anything but a boring driving simulation… the main point of the game is to orchestrate intricate crashes with other cars along the way. Anyways, I was just reading that Best Buy is giving away a demo of the next Burnout game, Burnout Revenge (due out in September). They are available for the PS2 and X-Box and are completely free. Has anyone seen these in Best Buy stores in Canada?
After over a year’s delay, The (International) Noise Conspiracy’s “Armed Love” will finally get released in North America on October 4th. Restructuring at their label American Recordings forced the band to get lost in the shuffle for an extended period of time. It’s kind of an odd situation because in the meantime, the album was released via Burning Heart in Europe back in July of last year and will be old news to many people who already bought it as an import. Still, I think it’s their best album to date and it’s good to hear that it will now be readily available in stores. The band’s line-up seems to have changed for this most recent album, organist Sara Almgren is no longer with them. To preview music from Armed Love, check out the E-card and videos for “A Small Demand” and “Black Mask“. Also possibly of interest: Dennis Lyxzén’s solo project The Lost Patrol has turned into a full-blown band and released a new self-titled album on Burning Heart earlier this year.
IGN Filmforce has posted the first trailer for the upcoming Doom movie based on id Software’s ever-popular video game series. Judging from the buzz, a lot of people think this could be the first actually good game-to-movie adaptation. I beg to differ. Doom stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Karl Urban, and is directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak (Cradle 2 the Grave, Exit Wounds, Romeo Must Die). Although some of the creature FX in the trailer look promising, I tend to think we’re looking at something on the same level as Alien vs Predator here (if not worse). Click below to be DOOMED.
