Posts

Posted on

Rango gets best animated film at lackluster Oscars

Per usual, the Academy Award had little accolades for genre, though Industrial Light & Magic Rango took advantage of the Pixar-free spread to take the Oscar for Animated Feature.

Martin Scorsese’s Hugo – one of the few lead nominees that had any (tentative) connection to genre – swept the technical awards, with Oscars for Cinematography, Art Direction (beating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part 2,) Sound editing (over Potter and Transformers 3,) Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects (over Potter, Transformers, Real Steel and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.)

Harry Potter also lost out in Makeup, to The Iron Lady. One bright spot: The Muppets took Original Song.

As for the show itself…. It seemed like they just gave up on the younger demographic entirely. The whole show had a tone of ‘Remember how great movies used to be? Before blockbusters and computers? When we, the voting members of the Academy, were young?’ (Nothing, perhaps, says this better than The Artist wins: Old stuff and Hollywood self-absorption.) Billy Crystal may be ‘classic’ but about halfway through his painful song melody I was checked out of his performance and wishing for someone new. (Tom Hanks? Everyone loves Tom Hanks. And he doesn’t sing!) Or just bring back Jon Stewart, who made the montages actually fun. (Also, blackface? How far we’ve come, America.) Hell, let the Muppets host the whole damn thing. Last year may have been a disaster but is the answer really to pretend that anyone who’s clocked less than half a century cares? The Oscars have never been known for being populist, but this year the gap was especially glaring.

I’m glad the Oscars haven’t gone the Grammy route of rewarding their industry’s biggest moneymakers (no offense to Adele, but that path would lead to Oscar nominations for Twilight) but just… Mix it up a little, will ya?

Posted on

I’m dying for an (official) Star Wars nail polish collection

As you may have noticed, one of my other obsessions is nail polish. And it’s getting more popular overall, as well. In recent years we’ve seen celebrities and movies get their own collections – OPI has done collections for Alice in Wonderland, The Muppets and many more. Next month, China Glaze’s Hunger Games collection will be in stores. (One could argue that they started the trend with a Wizard of Oz-inspired collection.) Even the new Spider-Man film is getting in on the action. And hell, remember Revlon Carbonite?

So why not Star Wars? The prequels especially have very lush color palettes (you could do something decent off Padme’s wardrobe alone) and the original trilogy is no slouch either. (Neutrals! Very popular.) They’ll certainly sell – nail polish addicts may not always know or like the source material, but they snap them up anyway. And there are 5 more 3D re-releases to promote! Now is the time.

I went a little nuts on the topic this morning on Twitter. Have an idea, or know of an existing polish that screams Star Wars? Tweet to @clubjade! (Or retweet this if you’re in favor of the idea.) I’ve made a Storify, under the cut, for the subject: Check it out for some suggestions you can go out and buy today.

Continue reading “I’m dying for an (official) Star Wars nail polish collection”

Posted on

EUbits: Do we need George Lucas?

The blogside. With a title like ‘We Don’t Need George Lucas,’ the latest Action/Reaction over at EU Cantina was was bound to be controversial. Chris has some interesting points (yes, George Lucas worship does get out of hand from some aspects of fandom) but I don’t really agree with everything he says (I have no regrets on our coverage of Red Tails or Amanda Lucas) And course we’ve always had coverage of things outside the realm of Star Wars and the Expanded Universe. I’m not so fond of the ‘telling other people how to be a fan’ aspect, but it’s certainly an issue worth giving some thought.

Street date shuffle. In responses to a query about Paul S. Kemp’s duology, Frank Parisi says it’s “a very ambitious project” but the first book won’t be coming out this November as it was previously (tentatively) scheduled.

Excerpt. The latest mini-excerpt of Denning’s Apocalypse comes with bonus audio linkage.

Photoshoppery. What if Judy Blume wrote Star Wars books? (Bonus linkage.)

Review. James looks at Dark Times: Out of the Wilderness #4.

Posted on

Get ready for a ‘Massacre’ on The Clone Wars

Tonight’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars begins the final story arc of the season, a four episode tale that will eventually bring back Darth Maul in two weeks. In ‘Massacre’, Count Dooku sends General Grievous to start his attack on the Nightsisters of Dathomir, but Mother Talzin and Asajj Ventress are ready with their dark side powers to stop the droid assault. This first clip has Talzin counseling Ventress with sisterly love, while the clip below has Grievous getting his marching orders from the Count, who instructs him to wipe them out, all of them.

UPDATE. Entertainment Weekly is doing another chat during tonight’s episode, this time with Matthew Wood.

Want more? At the bottom of this post, get a sneak peek at Darth Maul and his brother in a video preview featuring Sam Witwer getting into the character of the horned half-Sith.
Continue reading “Get ready for a ‘Massacre’ on The Clone Wars“

Posted on

Filoni: I’m going to make Maul’s return “worthwhile for the fans”

USA Today features the return of Darth Maul and his Friday debut on The Clone Wars. Dave Filoni talks about the character and how he survived and the tone of the story:

He says it’s pretty dark and dramatic, and in regard to facing off with Obi-Wan again, “there’s going to be a lot of want for revenge in his mind, what he’s been thinking about through what must have been a terrible trial.”

Filoni promises fans will find out the secret behind his new lower half and, instead of wielding his double-bladed lightsaber from Phantom Menace, Maul will have only a fragment of it left since it, too, was damaged in battle.

The four-episode arc featuring Maul will close out the season.

Posted on

J.K. Rowling has a new book deal

The Harry Potter author has a deal with Little, Brown in the United States and Britain to publish her first novel for adults. Her last book was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the series finale, in 2007. (The Potter books were published by Bloomsbury in Britain and Scholastic in the U.S.) In the press release, Rowling writes:

Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.

Further details about the book were not released.

Update: Some news from Rowling’s Twitter account: It’s coming out later this year.