Posted by Daniel Frank at 10:42 AM

A NY Times article on Alan Moore's rift with DC contains one of the most implausible spins I've ever seen. It starts with Alan Moore receiving a phone call from Larry Wachowski about the movie:

"I explained to him that I'd had some bad experiences in Hollywood," Mr. Moore said. "I didn't want any input in it, didn't want to see it and didn't want to meet him to have coffee and talk about ideas for the film."

At a press conference for the movie, Joel Silver states

[Alan Moore was]very excited about what Larry had to say and Larry sent the script, so we hope to see him sometime before we're in the U.K.

Joel Silver's explanation for the misrepresentation?

Mr. Silver said he had misconstrued a meeting he had with Mr. Moore and Dave Gibbons nearly 20 years ago, when Mr. Silver first acquired the film rights to "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta." "I had a nice little lunch with them," he said, "and Alan was odd, but he was enthusiastic and encouraging us to do this. I had foolishly thought that he would continue feeling that way today, not realizing that he wouldn't."

Given that Silver specficially mentions the conversation with Wachowski, this explanation doesn't pass the smell test. My suspicion is that Silver was just repeating what Wachowski told him had happened. Joel Silver doesn't want to say that because you don't call the guy who made you millions and can make you more millions a liar.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 1:52 PM

Tony Millionaire is working on a Cartoon Network pilot based on Maakies. Story here.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:03 AM

Build the Village (from TV's The Prisoner) with Legos.

For Freedom!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:16 AM

A nifty live-action version of the Simpsons opening.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:26 PM

If Defamer stops live-blogging, it's because his head exploded.

Speaking of Defamer, Crash and live-blogging, here's a great joke from him:

The presentation of Crash's Best Original Song nominee, complete with burning cars and multiculti couples dancing among the flames (of racism, we assume), is roughly 300% more subtle than the movie itself.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:22 PM

Ang Lee does a "I wish I knew how to quit you" joke entering in the Pantheon of Brokeback Mountain jokes.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:51 PM

Phillip Seymour Hoffman didn't bark! (Killing the joke by explaining it.)
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:40 PM

Will Smith also doesn't claim that a billion people are watching. And that's Academy scripted rather than Stewart scripted.

Also notice "Palestinian territories".
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:37 PM

Guess, Don Knotts gets next year.

And no love for John Fielder. Piglet! Jack the Ripper!
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:22 PM

Oscar manages to make rap gay! And a song about being pimp, they made gay!

On a similar topic, if you ever wondered what it would be like if Ludacris had to read Bruce Villanch-scripted banter, wonder no more!

Update: I like to think that as Villanch was listening to Ludacris, he realized he should have included "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and rushed to Queen Latifah to have her deliver the bon mot.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:58 PM

Big screen spectacles. How many can you name?

(You know, when I started this running gag, I didn't realize there'd be like twenty montages. But I started this and, damn it, I'll see it to completion.)
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:53 PM

Is the reason they're showing clips of Best Picture nominees without intro to prevent unscripted speechifying?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:46 PM

Is the director trying to say something by cutting to Mickey Rooney when the Academy president talks about how nothing beats the in-the-theater experience? They cut to him just as I was mumbling "Yeah, yeah, grandpa."
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:38 PM

Issue movies! How many can you name?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:16 PM

Film noir! How many can you name?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 6:03 PM

Allusion to the Rachel McAdams Vanity Fair thing. Nice.

UPDATE: So, wait, the tech ceremony actually is going on now?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:54 PM

Movie biographies! How many can you name?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:52 PM

Meanwhile in Japan..."Hey, she thanked us. That's so sweet. She didn't have to do that!"
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:35 PM

Ways to guarantee applause: When you win the Visual Effects award in a theater full of actors, say you need an actor and thank him.

I liked that Stiller stayed in character and read the nominees in spooky special effects voice.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:24 PM

What's with the music underneath the speeches? Trying to avoid the whole "Don't you pick up that baton" thing, I guess.

"Clooney mentioned Hattie MacDaniel Cut to black guy cam! Cut to black guy cam!"
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:10 PM

Stewart wouldn't use the "1 billion" myth in a joke set-up but rather said "hundreds of millions". Interesting.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:03 PM

Ways to abuse Tivo technology: Pause and slow-mo when Superman shows up in the computer-generated montage (How many can you name?) to see if it's Chris Reeve logo or Brandon Routh logo.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:59 PM

So Jon Stewart and the Daily Show gang are writing his monologue and Bruce Villanch and his folk are writing the celebrity banter. Yeah, that's not going to clash.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:48 PM

I was hoping the montage of Best Picture nominees would challenge us to name them but alas no.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:37 PM

For variety's sake, the pre-show has switched up the montage intros from "How many can you name?" to "Try naming these pictures".
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 4:25 PM

"Many movies are about people, places and things. We're going to take a look at movies about people, places and things both present and past. How many can you name?"
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:32 AM

The History of Brokeback Mountain Jokes via Ted:

Some of the earliest examples can be found in Egyptian hieroglyphics. This one dating back to roughly 4000 B.C. shows two men, possible farmers, talking. One compliments the other on his hair and the other replies, "What is this? Brokeback Desert?" It's a weak joke, but not as bad as many that would come later.
[...]
In 1969, Neil Armstrong makes the first Brokeback Mountain joke on the moon to fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin: "Buzz, maybe we can start a little ranch up here, have a life together. Just like in Brokeback Mountain.
[...]
In its October 13, 1997 issue, The New Yorker finally publishes Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain" for the first time. Centuries of gay cowboy jokes finally make sense.

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Posted by Daniel Frank at 1:13 PM

Defamer points to this Craig's List casting call:

The sketch requires getting a direct shot of a woman’s vagina. To be specific, the role would have a woman walk onto a stage and sit on a stool with her legs open. Her face would not be shown, the camera would only show from the waist down.

I will bet anyone a steak dinner that the premise of this skit is that this is a commercial for the Vagina Monologues with the joke being that actual vaginas will be doing the monologues in question. [taps watch] Is it 2001 again already?
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:32 PM

The Amazing Spider-Man Rockomic from Scarstuff, a nifty site of kiddie records and novely horror-related records. This record is perfect for DJs that love to chuck cool stuff into their sets.
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Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:23 PM

A WSJ article on the disposition of collections after the collector dies. Often my reaction to seeing a complete or near-complete collection at a used book store or a comix store is "Who died?" Someone who went to the trouble of collecting and loveingly preserving that collection (in one case, library-binding his (or her) mid-1970's Marvel comics (who am I kidding? "his") was rarely going to give it up voluntarily.

A main exception is one in the article and has forced me to change my "Who died?" reaction to "Who died or got married?" Indeed, I've noted that part of the reason I'm collecting the Gasoline Alley collections is for when the hypothetical wife doesn't want me buying the Fantagraphics Peanuts collections and Krazy Kat collections. I can say "Fine, I'll drop the Gasoline Alley stuff. Happy?"

Exceptions to the death or marriage reasons for ditching collections are so rare that when I dropped in at an Austin science-fiction store after a two-year absence, the proprietor remembered me as the guy who sold a huge collection because I was moving to Hollywood.
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