Parties for the 7th and final book release
Summer of ’07 is turning out to be quite the party for Harry Potter fans — as I write this, the 5th movie, Order of the Phoenix, opened today just a few minutes before across theaters nationwide, and now it’s only a week more until the 7th and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Tags: harry potter, party
Update: Trailer is out, added below!
Emile Hirsch in full ‘Speed’ gear, Rain (South Korean pop sensation Bi) about to knock Speed out, the Mach 5 car on a crazy psychedelic racetrack, Christina Ricci and everyone else in funny haircuts — it can only mean one thing: Speed Racer pictures from the upcoming Wachowski Brother’s(The Matrix Trilogy, V for Vendetta) anime to live-action movie adaptation. Trying out what they’re calling car-fu - ‘kung-fu with cars’ – it seems they got the pop-visual look of the 60′s cartoon down pat. The movie will be Rain’s English-langauge debut, and also stars Susan Sarandon and John Goodman as Speed’s parents, Mom & Pops Racer. Gotta love the straightforward naming scheme.
Pictures of Rain, Ricci and more (plus the trailer) after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
The Arrival, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Shortcomings
My picks from tomorrow’s Times’ Sunday Book Review with a bent for the other, miscellaneous and alternative. Hopefully this will be a recurring linkroll that I can keep up with each week. This week of November 11 (11/11!), I choose you, Pikachu! I mean, the Children’s Book section reviews of Shaun Tan’s “The Arrival” — graphic novel, a wordless, timeless meditation on “not an immigrant’s story, but the immigrant’s story,” and Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, his first young-adult title. Also Adrian Tomine’s “Shortcomings,” another graphic novel, about 30-year-old “anti-hero” Ben Tanaka, dealing with his career-driven girlfriend that leaves Cali for NY, a lesbian Korean graduate friend, sprinkled with his penchant for blondes. “The Arrival” has also been picked as one of the Times’ ten Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2007. Link to slideshow gallery
And finally, despite all the other notable books written about in this weeks section including a Picasso biography, an elaborate Star Wars pop-up book, a new translation of Dante’s “Paradiso”… just for kicks… get ready for it… I would like to write about a book review I read today in the review section, of a book written about “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read”, and want you to keep in mind that I haven’t read the actual book, but rather only the book review. Translated from French, psychoanalyst and professor of lit Pierre Bayard gives reason and thought to why he “doesn’t blame us for fudging [about books we haven't read], and he doesn’t want us to blame ourselves.” He apparently says it’s okay!
Just one more reason I think a recap on books we haven’t read yet could become a nice record and incentive to do just that — read more.
All right. Now, choice quotes from each of the above New York times reviews after the jump, plus pretty books covers for you to judge by(!) And just how to talk about that book you haven’t read.
Tags: Adrian Tomine, manga, Shaun Tan, Sherman Alexie
John Cho (left), of Harold and Kumar, will play Sulu in the upcoming new Star Trek movie
John Cho has been cast to play Hikaru Sulu, in the new Star Trek XI movie to begin shooting by the end of this year. Directed by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), the film will tell the story of the original Trek-series characters as they first meet each other in their younger years. Paramount has given a new crop of actors the daunting task of filling the large boots of immortalized characters Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and others - and hopefully revitalize a “tent-pole” franchise that has been sagging in its absence the past few years, hampered by less-than-stellar interest in it the later (post-Next Generation) TV shows and competition from other sci-fi properties like Star Wars, Stargate SG-1 and the phenomenal Battlestar Galactica reboot.
Other actors confirmed for the film include Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) as Scotty, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, Zachary Quinto (Heroes) as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, and Eric Bana (Troy, Munich, The Incredible Hulk) as a villain character. In what sources say will be a smaller role than the name suggests, Kirk is Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: george takei, john cho, sci-fi, simon pegg, star trek
Beautiful Katamari might be go to PS3, but for now only on Xbox 360
Just a small update. There was much confusion of Beautiful Katamari showing up on various promotional material that it will appear on PS3 and even the Wii. In fact it’s been covered and corrected many times over that Beautiful will indeed be only for Xbox 360. 1up brings clarification that a new Katamari game will be coming our way soon to the PS3, according to Beautiful Katamari director Jun Morikawa at the Tokyo Game Show 2007. Likely not an exact port of Beautiful to the PS3 but some variation (and the name probably won’t be the same). Morikawa also “hinted at” a Wii version. So once again, PS3 version, definitely. Wii version, maybe. All I can say is yes, more please — at least until I get tired of it (which isn’t now).
In related news, 1up also has a preview of Beautiful Katamari on the Xbox 360 from TGS2007 and cites, among other things, the 1080p eye-popping factor and fun minigame sections during the reduced loadtimes. Online/downloadable content will apparently be a big focus of the game as well. Read the full preview here.
- via 1up.com
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