According to The Hollywood Reporter, a third installment of the live-action Scooby-Doomovie franchise begins shooting in Vancouver today. Unfortunately (hey, I thought the second one was a pretty faithful adaptation), the movie will be a direct-to-video release and all our favorite characters have been recast with unknowns. At least the voice of Scooby will now be performed by veteran voice actor Frank Welker, who has voiced the cartoon dog in tons of series and films and even worked on the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, for which he actually played “Freddy”.
Because there are likely few people talking about Scooby-Doo 3 and there are plenty of people instead discussing the possibilities surrounding the third installment in the Batman Begins-The Dark Knightseries (such as who will play Catwoman, if the character is involved), here’s a clip from the animated classic Scooby-Doo Meets Batman that combines the two properties. Man, I’d sure love to see a live-action version of this. If only Heath Ledger’s Joker wore a tree log as part of a disguise. It might have been even better than his nurse uniform scenes.
Sure, it’s just a guy dressed up like The Joker. And sure, he really was a Romney supporter. But it’s an endorsement for the Republican ticket nonetheless. Really, who knew so many Comic-Con attendees were conservatives? Including that woman with no pants. And Wolverine.
Obviously the video is meant to be humorous, so part of the point was to show weirdos stating that they’ll be voting for McCain or, worse, Ron Paul. And to show the ditzy girls who can’t make up their mind — that zombie chick frightened me in so many ways, but it was the girl who quickly flipped her choice to agree with her friend that made me scared for the future.
Poor Disney. The studio tries to do good by finally producing an animated movie featuring a black princess (The Princess and the Frog, out Christmas 2009) and it’s still called out for being racist. Since this past weekend’s debut of the teaser trailer for the film, a return to traditional 2-D animation (can the new computer-assisted techniques still qualify these films as “hand-drawn” or “cel” animation?) after a five-year drought, blogs such as Vulture and Defamer have noted possibly offensive stereotypes in the movie.
Well, what do you want? A return to traditional Disney films or racism-free films? As displayed in the montage featured as today’s clip of the day, most of our beloved Disney classics unfortunately have their share of racist portrayals. And let’s not forget some of the more contemporary Disney films, like Aladdin, which can be seen in this other YouTube clip as also being racist. So, perhaps Disney’s return to tradition is about more than just 2-D animation style. I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I’m just not all that shocked by it.
Editor’s Note: The “official” AOL release of the trailer is not embeddable, and the MTV player isn’t working for us, so we’ve embedded a lesser quality version above with the first couple of shots missing. Watch the trailer full quality here.
After watching the new teaser for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I personally had no comment. Having stopped reading the series somewhere in the center of the previous book, I didn’t feel I had any authority on the matter. The only thing I thought while watching the clip was that it seemed more like one of those annoying prequels that comes after a series to humanize that series’ villain with an origin story (y’know, like the Star Warsprequels and Young Hott Hannibal(wait, that’s not what it was titled?). And until I read an interesting trailer analysis on MTV Movies Blog this morning, I thought that couldn’t actually be the case.
Actually, MTV’s look at the teaser began last night with a frame by frame analysis, in which Shawn Adler reveals his expert knowledge of J.K. Rowling’s text by pointing out the myriad ways that David Yates’ film is different from the book, from a previously reported added-in scene to little changes within adapted sequences. My favorite observation:
0:43: Our first glimpse at young Tom Riddle, the boy wizard who would grow up to be Voldemort. Surprisingly, I’m more interested here in Dumbledore, who is costumed differently than in the novel, where he was described as wearing “flamboyantly plum velvet.”
No, I don’t yet have any footage from the new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. But at least you didn’t get Rick Roll’d, like I unfortunately did while optimistically searching for a leaked copy (actually getting Rick Roll’d at your lonely home office isn’t too bad. In fact, I got up and danced. Because I can).
What I do have for you instead, while you wait for the trailer to premiere on AOL tonight at 9pm EST, is a new clip related to Harry Potter, courtesy of MTV Movies Blog. It’s a Street Team news report on the HP Alliance’s Wizard Rock the Vote movement (aka Wrock the Vote), which helps Harry Potter fans register to vote.
If you still haven’t had enough goodies from Comic-Con, feel free to check out the bootlegged clip of the new traiiler for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Personally, I’m ready to move on, and so here’s a look at another superhero story: Oliver Stone’s W. Or, as I like to call it, U.S.-President Origins: George W. Bush.
It looks a little more serious than I anticipated. For all we’ve read and heard about the campiness of the script, the thing is now at least being marketed as a drama about a clash between father and son. Even the roll call of characters (captioned as such, rather than crediting the players) makes each part look less like caricatures than I’d expected.
While much of the Spout team is across the country covering Comic-Con (and what a great job they’re doing), I’m staying home and relaxing. Sure, it looks like a lot of fun out in San Diego, but I bet it can get really stressful, too. I hear yesterday there was a little problem with Hall H collapsing early in the morning. I can do without that kind of excitement.
Maybe this weekend I’ll just lounge around the house in a Batman costume while my brother (who alerted me to the amusing ‘toon above) comes over and hangs out in a Spider-Man costume. Or, should I have said Baman and Piderman? Watch the clip and be inspired to have your own lazy Comic-Con in the privacy of your own home. And if you don’t think it’s the quite same, since you don’t get to attend the panels and what not, just keep checking back to SpoutBlog for all your liveblogged updates. It’ll be just like the real thing. I pwomise.
One of the many fads for cinephilic YouTubers, perhaps next in popularity after mashups and sweded remakes, is the condensed movie. Actually, thanks to a recent Empire contest, the art of sweding and the art of fitting features into a 60-second time frame is now also a mashed-up fad (though I guess sweding has always involved shortened versions). But while in this day and age any fanboy can do a shortened remake of his or her favorite movie or an abridged recut that breaks a film down to its bare essentials (i.e. its use of the f-word), condensing a film is not necessarily a low art.
Just look at the 76-minute video Academy by R. Luke DuBois, a conceptual artist who works with both audio and visual mediums. A couple of years ago, using a time-lapse process, DuBois crafted this compilation of sped-up versions of Best Picture Oscar winners, which he says “allows us to explore the temporal, formal, and aesthetic progression of the first seventy-five years of the Academy awards by taking each film and compressing, sound and picture, into a single minute.”
If you’re attending Comic-Con this weekend, don’t worry about missing out on any of the big events. Chances are, the random people in your vicinity are just as cool. Thanks to YouTube, just about any of the convention attendees may be minor celebrities. Take for instance Michael Agrusso and Brinna Li, the duo behind the hugely popular YouTube Channel appropriately named ItsJustSomeRandomGuy, which a New York Comic Con press release referred to as “a genuine internet superstar.” You’ve probably seen their videos, at least here on SpoutBlog, which feature Marvel and DC character action figures in brilliant parodies of the “I’m a Mac; I’m a PC” commercials.
Speaking of which, last week they had another excellent episode satirizing the huge buzz over The Dark Knight. After that films gigantic opening, though, I’m a bit surprised there’s not a response from the Iron Man and Spider-Man figures. But I guess maybe they’re too busy with Comic-Con plans (Agrusso and Li, I mean, not Iron Man and Spider-Man).
Anyway, as you can read in the video, ItsJustSomeRandomGuy is one of probably many webcelebs without an official presence on the convention floor, either in panel or booth form. So, if you’re like me and are a fan of the videos, keep your eyes peeled for them and say, “Hello.” And since I’m not attending, give them a hug from me, while you’re at it.
Behold the latest episode of The Dr. Steel Show, about an evil doctor bent on taking over the world. Sound familiar? Apparently it’s been ripped off by the new Joss Whedon project, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which Karina commented on yesterday. And as early as Adam’s praise last week when Whedon’s series launched, SpoutBlog has been receiving comments from followers (known as the Army of Toy Soldiers) of the allegedly real-life Dr. Steel. Every other online acknowledgment of Whedon’s project also seems to be getting hit with similar allegations that Dr. Horrible is a copycat.
Personally, I can’t figure out the deal with Dr. Steel or his faithful subjects. It’s one of the many viral things on the web that confuse me and make me glad that I actually spend much of my non-blogging time away from a computer. Funny enough, in the past I’ve had the same issue with Browncoats (followers of Whedon’s series Firefly), who seem to be forever monitoring the internet for reasons to defend their beloved franchise. So far, I’ve only watched a few clips of Dr. Steel-related stuff and only some musical clips from Dr. Horrible. Just to be fair, I think I’ll avoid both, though I have to admit that I’m far more interested in a singing Doogie Howser.
Anyway, I await the flames from fans on both sides. I won’t mind the attacks if someone at least clues me into the stuff so I don’t have to spend my evening playing catch up.
