Trisha L. Renken-Sebastian (aka "Trisha Lynn" is a jill-of-many-trades. A former editor of both Wizard: Anime Insider and Sequential Tart, she has also been the managing editor for Saucy Goose Press, a small independent publisher, and contributed to a 2009 episode of the public radio show “This American Life.” She currently lives on Vancouver Island in Canada where she bides her time until she can create her own socially responsible media empire.
Will these guys be the next to make it big in Hollywood? (Source: Dunechaser)
After two years of blogging about upcoming movies, I thought that I’d seen all of the most ludicrous things you could adapt into a movie actually get the green light and funding to become a movie. Yes, even the upcoming Candyland and Battleship films.
Until this exclusive from Borys Kit over at The Hollywood Reporter‘s Heat Vision blog which announces that there will be a movie based on the LEGO franchise, that is.
According to Kit, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs) are in final negotiations to direct a blended live-action/animation movie featuring the ubiquitous building bricks for Warner Bros., under the supervision of producers Dan Lin and Roy Lee with Jill Wilfert handling the money and creative contributions on the LEGO side. And there is bound to be lots of creative influence from the LEGO folks, who are shrewdly and wisely protective of their brand, trademark, and copyright.
There is no word yet what the plot will be, but Kit reveals that Lord and Miller will be working on this film the second they’re done with the upcoming remake of 21 Jump Street.
Le Concert
Directed by Radu Mihăileanu
Starring Aleksei Guskov, Mélanie Laurent, Dmitri Nazarov, Miou-Miou and more
On Midsummer Eve, I was walking through a park in Brooklyn with some friends on our way to get some artisanal ice cream. As we neared the park’s exit, the unmistakable sound of a piano wafted towards us in the summer air.
There at the crux of two paths stood an upright piano, and a bushy-haired hipster was coaxing out a very familiar classical tune. No, not Für Elise or the Moonlight Sonata, but Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat (or Op.9 No.2 for the musical geeks). A crowd had formed, and everyone applauded with verve as the final notes died away, the pianist acknowledging the applause briefly before melting back into the crowd. A friend who was visiting from L.A. said later that it had been the fourth time that day he had encountered spontaneous music that day coming from people who weren’t busking.
It’s that idea of making music for the pure joy of making music or the beauty of it that permeates every frame within Le Concert, and I’m afraid that if you don’t understand that, you’re definitely not going to understand or like this movie. Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: Le Concert review”→
Back in May, the Internet was a-buzz with the release of the Batman XXX: A Porn Parody trailer. And while I’d normally link it here because I’m not a prude and I’m assuming you all are adults, I won’t because even if the version on the BoingBoing site is totally “safe for work,” I still feel guilty even writing about it while I’m at my desk.
However, what I really wanted to link you to is this oh-so-clever review of the film done in comic-strip form by by Ward Sutton, mostly because he manages to take every visual incarnation of Batman there ever was (including the LEGO version) and put them all into one strip. That takes a lot of artistic talent, and reminds me of the Batman: TAS episode called “Legends of the Dark Knight” (yes, the one with the poke-in-the-eye for Joel Schumacher), which did the same thing, but animated (they stuck to Dick Sprang and Frank Miller’s work).
The review alone—especially Sutton’s assertion that they used the actual 1960s TV series Batmobile—is pretty damn awesome and has firmly placed the movie into a “Rent if you’re secure enough not to download or pirate porn” list.
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I’m going to come right out and say it: I totally believe in Seth Rogan as the Green Hornet now.
Here’s the synopsis:
Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) is the son of LA’s most prominent and respected media magnate and perfectly happy to maintain a directionless existence on the party scene – until his father (Tom Wilkinson) mysteriously dies, leaving Britt his vast media empire. Striking an unlikely friendship with one of his father’s more industrious and inventive employees, Kato (Jay Chou), they see their chance to do something meaningful for the first time in their lives: fight crime. But in order to do this, they decide to become criminals themselves – protecting the law by breaking it, Britt becomes the vigilante The Green Hornet as he and Kato hit the streets.
Like many geeks, I was dubious at the thought of Rogen as an action hero, but then I was correctly reminded by the trailer that it wasn’t Van Williams who kicked ass in the 1960s TV show, but Bruce Lee as Kato.
I think I’m also fond of what Rogen seems to understand about Britt Reid as the movie-going audience of today will see him. He’s not as smart or as hot as Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark, nor is he as tortured and angst-ridden as Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, and that’s perfectly fine with me.
The Green Hornet comes to theaters in the U.S. on January 14, 2011.
According to Mike Fleming in an exclusive for the New York branch of Deadline.com, screenwriters Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer have been tapped to write the script adaptation of the Marvel comic Dr. Strange.
This isn’t the first geek-oriented property that Donnelly and Oppenheimer have been involved with. The duo, which was credited along with two other writers for 2005’s Sahara, had also been hired by Columbia Pictures to work on the script for the adaptation of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and have also worked on the upcoming remake of Conan.
Fleming opined that the property would be the first superhero property that would be made into a movie under the studio’s new arrangement with the Walt Disney Company, something which geeks everywhere will be watching with a wary eye.
In the interest of being responsible reviewers, there are some times in which we here at Geeking Out About.com will read, watch, or experience something that’s outside of our comfort zone in order to provide the most coverage. For example, in preparation for her “First Night Flicks” review of Twilight: Eclipse, lead movie reviewer Lyssa has decided to watch both Twilight and New Moon back to back in one day.
Being the loving, and caring editors we are—and just because we’re into the idea of doing some MST3K-style commentary on two potentially horrible movies—co-editor Jillian and I decided that she shouldn’t have to do this alone. So, we’re going to join her for the first two parts of this epic saga of a human-vampire love that was never meant to be.
If I had a small daughter, I would try to wean her away from Edward Cullen and Miley Cyrus and towards such anime series as the thrilling steampunk saga Nadia: Secret of Blue Water — inspired by Jules Verne, conceived by Miyazaki and featuring a 14-year-old lion tamer/acrobat in 1889 Paris. And I would teach her to read subtitles, so she wouldn’t have to settle for naff dubbed versions. You want strong female role models? Anime’s got them in spades.
—The Guardian film critic Anne Billson (@annebillson), finally discovers something anime geeks have known for ages.
Earlier this week, the founder of ALC Publishing (a GLBT-themed manga publisher) posted her musings about how the problem of fighting manga scanlation piracy could be solved. In short and apparently after two months of thinking about it, Friedman concluded that that someone with more money and more brainpower than she does needs to come up with a publishing model which allows the community to have its say in what gets translated, how it gets translated, how it gets published (digital only or also in print) and still be able to pay the creator (or his/her original publishing house) for the rights to translate the original Japanese into whichever language they want.
Apparently, over in the man-on-man side of the manga world, Jennifer LeBlanc at The Yaoi Review.com dug around a little and discovered that a Japanese manga publisher is doing exactly that:
[Digital Manga Publishing] is working on a new ‘secret’ project for publishing more manga faster and cheaper than it is now. It would be via a digital format and they are looking to hire scanlators to help with this. Essentially, scanlators would be doing what they do now except there is the possibility of getting paid based on the sales of said manga titles they worked on. They also get to have their name on everything they translate and retain certain rights to the work they do. What rights I do not know. There is also the possibility of becoming a paid translator ‘if qualified’ and you’d be ahead of the pack when it comes to any other candidates that applied for the position.
Today, Anime News Network confirmed the details in LeBlanc’s blogpost, adding that DMP would start this program off with the “boys love” genre and gauging its viability before moving into other genres and novels.
Personally speaking, I think part of this is brilliant because crowdsourcing does seem to be the “new” way of getting things done and giving consumers a say in what they purchase. By giving the scanlator circles a bit of legitimacy, it takes away the “cool” factor in choosing the pirated works and also would make the scanlators want to work on the official material because, hey, they’re finally getting paid and recognized for their work!
Of course, if I were part of one of these manga scanlator circles, I’d demand to see a contract first and to have it vetted by a lawyer who’s familiar with international law because there’s nothing that would suck more than being screwed over by a work-for-hire contract.
I hope that the folks at DMP will be able to say more at the summer anime/manga convention panels.
Le Concert
Back in May, the Internet was a-buzz with 
According to Mike Fleming in an exclusive for the New York branch of 