The Sly Oyster | culture & entertainment on the sly

My confession is thus: More than Iron Man, The DarK Knight or even Indiana Jones the movie I’m most looking forward to this summer is Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

There’s no reason behind it, but I sort of jibe to the Hellboy world and how he’s this petulant teenager that may or may not be the son of Satan, but rather than succumb to his destiny he chooses to be good.  That makes the tagline of this poster really sweet: “Believe it or not he’s the good guy.”

Director Guillermo del Toro looks to be hitting his stride creatively and it’s kind of cool to see this movie advertised as “From the visionary directory of Pan’s Labyrinth.” [coming soon]

Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters on July 11th 2008.

The damn is starting to break on Joss Whedon’s upcoming FOX show Dollhouse, which was conceived alongside star Eliza Dusku.  The idea for the show came during a lunch meeting between the two, according to an interview that Joss gave with the LA Times.

“But I was trying to get a movie off the ground, “Goners.” “Wonder Woman” had already crashed and burned. “Goners” they had already lost control of the instruments, but who knows? So things were not that auspicious, but I was working it. Not shunning television but not intending to come back. But as we discussed Eliza’s predicament, I started giving her some ideas about what I thought she would need: a genre show so she could be political without being partisan; an ensemble show so she didn’t have to be in every scene. And I thought about it for a bit and then literally went, oh, curse word, I just came up with the show and the title. And it was the title that I knew I was doomed. Because if you have the title, you know it’s right. And that’s just bad,” said Whedon.

“When we really discussed the whole thing, she said, ‘You’re talking about my life. In my life, everybody tells me who they want me to be while I try and figure out who I am.’ And that spoke to me. I agreed that I’ll write and maybe oversee the pilot. So I went home and said, ‘Honey, I’m sorry, I accidentally agreed to a Fox show at lunch.’”

The show is set up as a midseason replacement that will air as the lead in show to 24, probably as good as any time slot as you could hope.  It’s just dependent on how fatigued the audience is for 24. The past two seasons have been pretty poor quality wise.  Regardless, it’s a good slot for Joss and Eliza’s new show.

What’s interesting though, is that FOX is going to try a new advertising model with Dollhouse and the J.J. Abrams produced Fringe. According to the Hollywood Reporter, FOX has decided to show only five-minutes worth of commercials during the hour-long shows, which is significantly less than the standard 15-20 minutes.

“It’s a simple concept and potentially revolutionary,” Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori said. “We’re going to have less commercials, less promotional time, and less reason for viewers to use the remote. We’re going to redefine the viewing experience.”

But ultimately that depends on the quality of the shows.  Whedon and Abrams are two of the best in the business and now FOX needs to stand by them and support the shows by guaranteeing a full season order.  That’s one reason why people don’t become invested in shows right away, because there is no guarantee that the show will air for more than five or six episodes.

So, what can you expect of Dollhouse? Here’s the press release:

Joss Whedon, creator of groundbreaking cult favorites “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Firefly,” returns to television and reunites with fellow “Buffy” alumna Eliza Dushku for a thrilling new drama, DOLLHOUSE.

ECHO (Dushku) is an “Active,” a member of a highly illegal and underground group who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Confined to a secret facility known as the “Dollhouse,” Echo and the other Actives including SIERRA (Dichen Lachman, “Neighbours”) and VICTOR (Enver Gjokaj, “The Unit”) carry out engagements assigned by ADELLE (Olivia Williams, “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Rushmore”), one of the Dollhouse leaders.

The engagements cater to the wealthy, powerful and connected, and require the Actives to immerse themselves in all manner of scenarios romantic, criminal, uplifting, dangerous, comical and the occasional “pro bono” good deed. After each scenario, Echo, always under the watchful eye of her handler BOYD (Harry Lennix, “Commander in Chief,” 24), returns to the mysterious Dollhouse where her thoughts, feelings and experiences are erased by TOPHER (Fran Kranz, “Welcome to the Captain”), the Dollhouse’s genius programmer. Echo enters the next scenario with no memory of before. Or does she?

As the series progresses, FBI Agent PAUL SMITH (Tahmoh Penikett, “Battlestar Galactica”) pieces together clues that lead him closer to the Dollhouse, while Echo stops forgetting, her memories begin to return and she slowly pieces together her mysterious past. DOLLHOUSE revolves around Echo’s blossoming self-awareness and her desire to discover her true identity. But with each new engagement, comes a new memory and increased danger inside and outside the Dollhouse.

Sounds intrigueing and the premise leaves lots of room for Whedon to balance the mythology of the show with stand alone episodes.  Something he did to great effect with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Given the time he no doubt would have done it superbly with Firefly.

Update: Seat42F has an exclusive clip of the show.  I’m at work so I haven’t been able to watch.  The clip appears to be a finished scene and is, in all likelihood, out of context.  Take it for what you would. 

Sometimes the radio is good for something. I was cruising home from work, if you consider stop and go rush hour cruising, and the DJ mentions some Girl Scout sold enough cookies to fund a trip to Europe.

Then he mentions that she might have broken some record, but there’s no way to tell since these kinds of records aren’t kept. One, it’s crazy they don’t keep records like this to breed competition amongst the Girl Scouts and two, that’s a lot of cookies.

“When I was in third grade, the top seller was 10,176. … I turned to my mother and said, ‘That’s going to be me one day,’ and it took me seven years,” [Jennifer Sharpe], 15, said.

Jennifer, a fan of the Thin Mints, used a retail-inspired strategy. She set up shop in the parking lot of Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church in Dearborn. She manned that booth 3-7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sundays, she sold cookies outside a local auto parts store from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“When I was young, I knocked on doors,” said Jennifer, in her 10th year of scouting. “Now that I’m older, I get too many rejections face to face. People don’t want to buy from a 15-year-old. They want to buy from a cute little Brownie.”

Damn straight. And yes, her cookie selling prowess led to her and members of Troop 813 going to Europe.

Jaw Dropping. It’s really all I can think of. Street artist Blu has pulled off this dazzling animation called “Muto.” His creation hops out of the wall and bounces along walls, city streets, etc. I don’t know much about the artist other than what’s on his website, but this video speaks volumes about his/her skills.

The video was made in Bueno Aires and Baden, Germany. Reminds me of these old animated videos I used to watch as a kid where some old dude’s head would slowly morph into a baby or like the head would open up and something would crawl out and it would turn into something else and it would keep morphing. I can’t remember who that artist was, but all his sketches were really short and totally blew my mind as a seven year old. Anyone have an inkling what I’m talking about?

The guys over at b3ta.com have a competition going on whereby designers extended album artwork covers.  So you would imagine what the album cover would be if it kept on going past its borders.  Some of them are really clever.  You should go and check them out.

Maybe because I’m nuts about Pink Floyd and Star Wars this one made me chortle.

We’ve all seen the video of Bill O’Reilly losing his shit when he hosted Inside Edition thanks to College Humor, and we’ve even seen Stephen Colbert pay homage to that clip.

Well, now we get Bill O’Reilly the dance remix.

Update: O’Reilly jokes that he’s contractually obligated to perform these kinds of routines to keep things light around the set.  Also, Hypeful, doing their job, has the Mp3 for you to download and listen to O’Reilly going crazy with dancebeats.  Might make for something special on your gym playlist. 

“Now it’s time to reveal all. . . those fans who don’t want to know the plot, turn away now.

The film opens up in the present day and all is looking rosy for three of the SATC girls. Carrie is living with Big and they’re due to get married. Charlotte and Harry have adopted their Chinese daughter and are playing happy families while Samantha has moved to California to be with her sexy younger man Smith.” [continue for spoilerage]

Woody Allen has only made one decent movie in the past two decades.  And really, if someone were to argue with me that Match Point wasn’t all that great I probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight.  But still, I thought it was good because it was so un-Woody Allen-esque.

Apparantly, the guy has just outright given up and made a movie wherein he reenacts his sexual fantasies.  Think of Vicky Christina Barcelona as is SFW-Brown Bunny. Anyway, the movie is about two American girls (ScarJo and Rebecca Hall) who travel to wait for it … Barcelona and encounter Penelope Cruz and the softer side of Anton Cigurgh (he’s a painter!).  Cue romantic entanglements and ScarJo on her back for lots of the movie.

I’m glad Woody Allen just said “ah the hell with it.  I wanna make a movie where Scarlett Johansson has lots of sex.”  Still, this trailer definitely makes me not want to see the movie and actually makes me think it’s a foreign commercial for perfume or a Spanish Cava.  Mmmm… sparkling white.

This is the third movie with Woody Allen and ScarJo.

When you need a pick me up you can do no worse than Gnarls Barkly and Portishead.

Gnarls drops the Jamaican shot “Get On” and Portishead drops one of the best cuts from Third, with “The Rip.”

Enjoy your day.

Zap2It has script reviews for two highly anticipated television projects. The first is for Fringe by JJ Abrams, starring Joshua Jackson (Pacey) and the second is Dollhouse by Joss Whedon, starring Eliza Dushku (whom I attended high school with when she was there and not filming some movie or whatnot).

Both series will air on FOX in the fall season.

Fringe is “going to be sold as FOX’s attempt to reclaim the X-Files demo that the network has jeopardized with the swift cancellation of too many shows from folks like Whedon and Tim Minear. The script lends itself to a large-scale pilot and it should leave viewers knowing exactly what to expect in the episodes to come, which is more than can be said for.” Also, getting into the JJ Abrams business is a good thing. His track record is fairly spotless and his following is very loyal.

The same thing can be said about Joss Whedon. His following is not so much loyal as it is messianic. But his track record with FOX is horrible. They’ve canceled every good show he’s done and not just his shows, but shows from Whedon’s acolytes like Tim Minear.

“While recognizably Whedonesque, Dollhouse finds Joss going in different direction, one that may be less quippy and less plot-driven than some might expect. The fans will still love it, I suspect, but will Dollhouse be able to find an audience beyond the Whedonverse? I’m not sure. So this could be one of those “Enjoy it while you’ve got it” gems.” That doesn’t sound good. Well it does, it just sounds like it will get canceled too soon.

In case you’re wondering how these could potentially play out as pilots, the article goes on to expound on what makes a compelling pilot.

A good pilot should do one of two things: It should either lay out the blueprint for the rest of the series or it should intrigue you so much that you can’t wait for the second episode. Fringe falls into the first category. It leaves almost nothing to the imagination in terms of what’s coming next. Dollhouse falls into the second category.

Taking some time off from campaigning for Sen. Barack Obama, The Arcade Fire are about to hop into a recording studio to score the new film for director Richard Kelly.

Kelly, who is in need of a moderate to big hit after the stink turd that was Southland Tales, didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet.  In interviews for The Box he was very coy about the “very famous band who is honoring us,” unfortunately, producer Markus Dravs wasn’t so tight lipped.

On his website, he writes “”…. having finished Coldplay’s forthcoming album VivaLaVida - now off to Canada to work with Arcade Fire on a Sound-track for the forth coming Richard Kelly film…..”

The Box stars Cameron Dias and James Marsden (who can act up a shit storm.  Seriously, Cyclops from the X-Men.  27 Dresses is perhaps one of the worst romantic comedies ever made but he’s quite good in it.) as a couple who open their door to find a box containing a button. If they push the button, they will receive $1 million. Only thing is–someone will die if they press it.  It’s based on a Richard Matheson short story, which is always a good thing.

I’d love to see what this band can do on a film score.  Their music is so atmospheric and foreboding to begin with.

Also: Richard Kelly is not involved with that Donnie Darko sequel, S. Darko. Which means the sequel should be straight to DVD.

The Duke Spirit played a brief, but incredible set last Thursday.  They’ve become more polished since the last time I saw them and relied on the majority of cuts from their sophomore album Neptune. Still, they haven’t lost the roughness of their sharp, shoegazer style of blues.  They played loud and vicious and unhinged.  It’s a sound perfect for small venues - a sonic wall derived straight from My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Jesus & The Mary Chain and The Velvet Underground.

Frontwoman Leila Moss is captivating as she shimmers around the stage, banging a tamborine and yelping from the bowels of her soul.  She is banshee, a lioness, a frenetic force of energy.  The band around her is a tight unit, led by guitarist Dan Higgins and drummer Olly Betts.  It’s a good night when you’re only complaint is they didn’t play longer.