To promote the upcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, the original production is now available as a new DVD release that features an extensive look back at the '50s classic.

The first big-budget, sci-fi message flick to come out of Hollywood, Day the Earth Stood Still presented the benevolent alien Klaatu, whose peaceful overtures are misinterpreted as an attack by a paranoid, post-war world. As depicted in a clip from the DVD's bonus features (presented exclusively to Wired.com), an over-eager G.I. wounds the space man. The world is about to realize the hard way that Klaatu's ship comes equipped with 8 feet of gleaming whoop-arse named Gort.

Sporting meticulously restored sound and image, the new DVD's most enjoyable extra is the commentary track by two great directors -- Day's own Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music) and DVD host Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Time After Time).

See also:

• Caspian DVD Reveals World Forged From Dedication
• Stockings Set for Animated DVD Stuffing
• Wanted DVD Package Spills Action Secrets
• Busy del Toro Talks Hobbit, Hellboy II DVD

To celebrate the holiday season -- and to hype the release of Santa Clause Conquers the Martians -- Cinematic Titanic is offering a collection of e-cards featuring snippets of St. Nick-themed riffs.

Offered via Rattlebox, Joel Hodgson and company are offering 10 e-cards featuring only the most bizarre bits of a very disturbing and poorly made Christmas classic from 1964.

Image courtesy Cinematic Titanic

See also:

• MST3K Update: New Titanic Release, Rifftrax Calls Out Martha
• NBC's Olympic Broadcast Mired in Montana MSTery
• IRiffs Lets Fans Cut Their Own Rifftrax

John Carpenter's 1988 aliens-control-everything thriller They Live featured the immortal line: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass ... and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Now that dialogue, uttered in the goofball original by pro wrestler-turned-actor "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, may live again in a remake currently in the works at Universal Studios and Strike Entertainment.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, former Alice Cooper manager Shep Gordon will executive-produce the picture. The remake would update the original scenario about sunglasses that enable a down-and-out construction worker to see through the camouflage of freaky-faced aliens hiding in our midst (pictured).

The special specs also let Piper's character see the constant barrage of subliminal messages -- "Stay asleep," "Obey," "Consume" -- the aliens and their human cronies use to keep humans docile. The knowledge leads him to join a resistance movement that takes on the alien-government-media conspiracy that controls the world.

Decisions about casting, directors and script writers have yet to be made for the possible remake.

Horror and sci-fi fan call-out: Did you see the original They Live? Is it worth a remake, or too goofy to get resuscitated? Weigh in below.

Photo courtesy Universal

See also:

• Xbox Channel Goes Live With 'Horror Meets Comedy'
• Tinfoil Hats, Anal Probes Land at Alien Abduction Fest
• Cool Early '80s Interview With Horror Mavens John Carpenter, John Landis and David Cronenberg
• The Creators of Master of Horrors Hang Out With John Carpenter

John Krasinski, best known for playing laid-back TV lothario Jim Halpert on NBC sitcom The Office, is getting serious.

In January, Krasinski (pictured) makes his directorial debut at Sundance Film Festival with Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, which he adapted from the novel by the late David Foster Wallace.

The film follows a doctoral candidate in anthropology (Julianne Nicholson) who interviews men as research to understand why her boyfriend left her. Timothy Hutton, Dominic Cooper and Krasinski co-star.

"This is the definition of a passion project," Krasinski told Wired.com. "Whether it was with some of my friends in my basement or onstage in a restaurant in New York, I was going to do it somehow, and I was lucky enough to get it done as a feature film."

Krasinski came across Brief Interviews while studying English at Brown University. "I just fell in love with the book and was asked to do a staged reading of it," he says.

After moving to Los Angeles and landing The Office, Krasinski acquired the rights to the book. "The only thing I'm terrified of now is David Foster Wallace fans," he says. "I hope I do him justice."

Photo courtesy NBC

See also:

• Writer David Foster Wallace Found Dead -- Los Angeles Times
• Jim From The Office Narrates New AppleTV Ad
• Strike TV Launches Shows From The Office, Daily Show Scribes
• What We Can Learn From The Office
• Mendes, Krasinski Team Up to Make Eggers' Movie

Felicia Day took a pleasant, if troubling, addiction to World of Warcraft and transformed it into a successful and popular web series, The Guild. Now that show is back with an exclusive distribution deal through Microsoft's Xbox and the game console's Independent Video Channel.

"The Guild's partnership with Xbox is revolutionary," Day told Wired.com. "Our little non-industry show is literally made in my backyard with talented, dedicated friends. But, it's getting equal status with network shows because of the millions of viewers we can reach with Xbox."

As online entertainment was beginning its 21st century emergence, Day was enjoying a recurring guest role as Vi on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now she's the latest in a string of creative types -- from shoe-shoppin' freak Liam Sullivan to Blue Velvet visionary David Lynch -- to snag big bucks for a web show.

Day explains that she was looking for a way to utilize her downtime between acting roles while also weaning herself off a two-year addiction to World of Warcraft. She put that gaming experience and her passion for web design, online entertainment, fantasy and sci-fi to work and mixed it all into The Guild, a sitcom "written for gamers, about gamers by a gamer."

Day originally wrote the show as a pilot, but was told a series about gamers was "too niche" for TV. She partnered with Kim Evey (Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show), and the pair decided to produce the show as a web series. The first season of The Guild consisted of shorts that ran from three to six minutes. The popular show was supported by fans who made donations through PayPal.

"Online production and distribution evens the playing field," Day said. "I consider Hollywood a dammed-up lake. There are only a few release valves for all of that creativity to flow through -- and that's keeping talented people and good material from reaching the public. Online lets that creativity flow without middlemen dictating what the audience should like."

Continue reading "Felicia Day Talks New Season of The Guild, Xbox Deal" »

A New York religious TV station has whipped up one hell of an advertising campaign.

The Devil himself plays the role of "anti-spokesperson" in The Prayer Channel's irreverent promos for its upcoming name change to NET (for New Evangelism Television).

The StopGoodTV.com website, complete with a Subservient Chicken-style guy in a devil suit responding to user questions (screenshot, right), will urge viewers to avoid the temptation to watch the rebranded channel. Television, radio and bus ads will also spread the tongue-in-cheek message, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

"The Church has used the good-versus-evil conflict to promote religion for two centuries," said Michael Migliozzi, a partner with Los Angeles-based agency Cesario Migliozzi, which cooked up the hellish ads. "In our campaign, the Devil urges viewers to avoid good TV and stick with 'crappy, pointless, bad television.'"

A devilish online petition encourages TV watchers to turn away from the freshly renamed channel, which is affiliated with the Catholic Archdioceses of Brooklyn and broadcasts religious news and entertainment to about 850,000 homes. The campaign's requisite YouTube channel and MySpace page deliver the same anti-NET sermon.

"Join me, my minions, to maintain all that is bad," reads the petition's call to action. "Keep television mindless. Plots dull and recycled. Music videos offensive. Together we can save the laugh track."

As of Wednesday night, it had 39 signatures.

[via Drudge Report]

See also:

• Company Fesses Up to Corn-Popping Cellphone Clips
• Physicist Debunks Cellphone Popcorn Viral Videos
• Porno Hen Hawks for Burger King
• Levi Strauss Scores Viral Gold With Back-Flipping Jeans Clip
• Fake Office Freakout Promotion for Assassin Movie Wanted

He's not likely to go back to the X-Files well any time soon, unless DVD sales of the summer flop I Want to Believe defy expectations and go through the roof.  But actor David Duchovny is officially back on board for a third season of his Showtime series, Californication.

The half-hour show stars Duchovny (pictured) as sex-obsessed Hollywood writer Hank Moody. In announcing the third season of Californication Wednesday, the cable network avoided mention of Duchovny's high-profile tangle with internet porn last summer.

Still, the art-imitates-life subtext seemed unavoidable in Showtime's description of Moody's "unapologetic obsession with truth-telling and self-destructive behavior (that) complicates every aspect of his life." 

Showtime Entertainment President Robert Greenblatt said: "Beneath its veneer of debauchery is a complex take on love and adult relationships that surprisingly turns poetic and romantic just when you least expect it. "

Californication, co-starring Natascha McElhone (Laurel Canyon) and Evan Handler (Sex and the City), resumes production in the spring, with plans to launch Season 3 episodes in late 2009.

Photo courtesy Showtime

See also:

• Showtime Streams Dexter, Californication Two Weeks Before Premieres
• Q&A: X-Files' Chris Carter Talks Paranoia, Secrecy and the Element of Surprise
• Review: X-Files Flick Falls Short of Show's Glory Days
• X-Files Provokes Wonderment at WonderCon
• The X-Files Are Coming Back, but They Never Left

Opening This Weekend

Cadillac Records

Synopsis: Set in the 1950s, this fact-based piece about race, sex, music and money tells the story of Chicago R&B label Chess Records and its roster of pioneering musicians. Beyoncé Knowles plays Etta James with Mos Def as Chuck Berry and Jeffrey Wright as blues shouter Muddy Waters. Adrian Brody co-stars as impresario Leonard Chess.
Rated: R
Photo courtesy Sony Pictures

Punisher: War Zone

Synopsis: Title character Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) resumes his one-man vigilante crusade to take on the disfigured mobster Jigsaw (Dominic West) and his thug army. Based on the Marvel Comic series.
Rated: R
Photo courtesy Lionsgate

Frost / Nixon (limited)
Synopsis: Director Ron Howard re-creates the 1977 post-Watergate interview between talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) and disgraced President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).
Rated: R

Continue reading "Movies: In Theaters This Week (Dec. 5)" »

Late-night comedy legends The Kids in the Hall are calling it a comeback.

Hot off another reunion tour, the famed Canadian troupe is writing a miniseries that will mark its anticipated return to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The group is even contemplating a film, with one important caveat.

"First we have to wait till everyone who ever saw Brain Candy is dead," cracked Dave Foley to The Canadian Press.

Foley, Mark McKinney, Scott Thompson, Bruce McCullough and Kevin McDonald formed The Kids in the Hall in 1984, and wasted no time in skewing the comedy landscape strange from 1988 to 1995, sending up sexuality, subculture and the mundane with surreal results. A mash of Monty Python's Flying Circus and Saturday Night Live, The Kids in the Hall stood out from the late-night pack like a sore Chicken Lady.

According to Foley, the new series, still in the writing phase and called Death Comes to Town, will "be an eight-episode arc with a narrative running through it and we will play all the characters, but it won't be sketch; it'll be a single narrative miniseries. Probably the closest thing to it will probably be something like League of Gentlemen, which I think was brilliant. So I hope it will be close to that."

See also:

• Monty Python Fights Pirates With Legal YouTube Clips
• Was George Carlin Our Mark Twain? Comedy Greats Say Yes
• Star Trek Meets Monty Python
• Video: Monty Python and the Holy Instrument
• Takei Takes a Swat at Shatner's YouTube 'Silliness'

While True Blood's vampires bare their fangs, the HBO series' female stars are baring something else entirely.

True Blood boasts two of the top 10 nude television scenes of the year, according to a celebrity skin website.

Lizzy Caplan, who plays blood druggie Amy Burley in the sex- and corpuscle-drenched series, tops the list, which was compiled by nudie site MrSkin.com. Anna Paquin (pictured), who portrays mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse, comes in No. 3.

"All the nudity on TV this year finally made good on the term 'boob tube,'" said website rep Mr. Skin in a press release crowning 2008's hottest nude scenes.

True Blood, based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries books by Charlaine Harris, takes place in a near-future Louisiana in which vampires walk among the living, thanks to synthetic blood and a "vampire rights" movement.

Before her True Blood portrayal of a hippie with a taste for mind-altering vampire blood, Caplan played Marlena in Matt Reeves' creepy creature feature Cloverfield and previously held down lesser roles in Smallville and Freaks and Geeks.

All the winners on MrSkin.com's list come from cable television shows like True Blood, Weeds and Californication, which thrive in a world where FCC restrictions don't apply (and clothes and profanity fly). See the complete list of winners -- and sound off on the picks -- after the jump.

Continue reading "True Blood Hotties Top List of TV's Best Nude Scenes" »

VAN NUYS, California -- Felicia Wright came to the Valley as a talented, mild-mannered magazine writer from Sydney, Australia. Within hours of her arrival, she had been forcibly transformed into a horrible monster -- a half-human, half-bird harpy. Fortunately, a little cold cream and rubbing alcohol changed her back again.

It was all part of an introduction to the movies based on C.S. Lewis' classic Chronicles of Narnia series, tied to Tuesday's release of Prince Caspian on DVD.

The press was invited to experience firsthand the immense behind-the-scenes effort required to forge Prince Caspian, which takes moviegoers on a darker, more complex journey than did The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Caspian unveils a richer, more detailed world than its predecessor -- and the DVD and Blu-ray discs carefully document the meticulous work required to create that world.

Disney, the film's stars and various creative department heads massed in Van Nuys and Hollywood to explore everything from the movie's art direction to its costume design to its makeup rigors (all elements also covered in the DVD's special features sections).

Reporters were invited to KNB EFX Group in the Valley to meet the sizable crew of makeup artists who applied the various creature elements to stars and extras every day of Caspian's filming.

When the two opposing armies meet in the film's climactic battles, each side brings a hefty contingent of mythical beasts and beings. Whether an extra in one of those armies was a centaur, a minotaur, a harpy or some other legendary creature, that actor sat down in a makeup chair in the early morning hours while an artist applied prosthetics and other illusions for two hours or more every day they were scheduled to work. That's before those same extras would have to wear that makeup on set for 12 hours and umpteen battle scenes.

Continue reading "Caspian DVD Reveals World Forged From Dedication" »

Scottish entertainer and Torchwood star John Barrowman incited a holiday tempest in a teapot after exposing his genitals -- on the radio. Even though no one actually saw the Torchwood wood, Sunday's incident nevertheless made the media rounds, waking everyone in the haze of too much turkey.

"I didn't take the whole thing out," BBC News quoted Barrowman as explaining, "but I got my fruit and nuts out."

Speaking of fruits and nuts, the superstar flash prompted only one listener to complain, but that's all it evidently takes to make something out of nothing. Barrowman was thus shamed into a crotch-centric mea culpa for doing something that actually made BBC Radio 1 exciting.

"I apologize for any offense I have caused," Barrowman confessed, adding that he "would never intentionally do anything to undermine the integrity of the corporation."

Don't look now Captain Jack, but I think you just gave it integrity, and excitement.

Photo: Wikipedia

See also:

• Torchwood Star Barrowman Heats Up Career, Controversy
• Torchwood Production Begins; Barrowman Wants Sex Toys
• Barrowman to Return to Torchwood Mini-Series
• Torchwood Star Undergoes Gay Testing
• New Torchwood Season Unveils Supporting Cast

It's official: Sci Fi Channel gave the go-ahead Tuesday to Caprica, a Battlestar Galactica prequel set 50 years before the events of the Cylons-versus-humans series. The new show, which stars Esai Morales and Eric Stoltz (pictured), begins production next summer and premieres in 2010.

"It's definitely not as dark as Battlestar, but like that show, this series has smart, dimensional characters who grapple with issues of love, sex and politics from a world in transition," says Sci Fi programming exec Mark Stern.

The 20-episode story arc, co-starring Paula Malcomson (Deadwood, ER) and Polly Walker (Rome), follows the clashing Graystone and Adama families as they try to control the 12 colonies' artificial intelligence industry, especially the robotic Cylons we know and love from BSG.

Caprica, executive-produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) and Remi Aubuchon (24), kicks off with a two-hour pilot directed by Jeffrey Reiner (Friday Night Lights).

Photo courtesy Sci Fi Channel

See also:

• Gritty Galactica Paves Way for Caprica, Revolution
• Imagine Everyone's a Cylon
• Inside Story of Galactica's Crazy Closers
• A Sneak Peek at Galactica Prequel, Caprica
• Betting Site Lays Odds on Battlestar's Final Cylon

December exists for the holidays, and the holidays exist for kids. It's no wonder the studios are sure to get the year's animated movies out on DVD in time for them to stuff St. Nick's stockings or serve as Menorah-lit Chanukah gifts. This is a quick guide to this year's crop.

With Disney and Pixar'sWall-e looking to corner the holiday market by hitting shelves in November, other outfits are sprinkling in their animated family fair, including the DVD and Blu-ray edition of the successful Kung Fu Panda. The special edition of the Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman-voiced martial arts comedy comes with a special 22-minute short highlighting the secrets of the feature's Furious Five.

Dr. Seuse's heroic Horton earned his own Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time this year, and it's not a coincidence that the animated Horton Hears a Who hit the market before Turkey Day. The big screen Horton expands on the children's book while keeping in touch with Seuse's unique blend of creativity and heart.

Alvin and the Chipmunks pair up nicely with Christmas as the group's chirpy novelty songs are seasonal standards. Their first CG-animated feature updated the look and the attitude of the melodic rodents and should keep them on the pop culture radar for a while.

Before Eddie Murphy seized control of the Nutty Professor name, it belonged to France's favorite comic, Jerry Lewis. Now, Lewis reclaimed the title with a CG, youth-orientated retelling of the Nutty tale with the title's professor looking to tame his equally experimental offspring.

Continue reading "Stockings Set for Animated DVD Stuffing" »

Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov is now working on horror sequel Twilight Watch, but fans who dig the Russian filmmaker's eccentric eye for mayhem can see the man at work starting Tuesday when a slew of Wanted DVD packages hit stores.

The two-disc Wanted set ($35) includes a featurette devoted to the film's wild action sequence work as stunt coordinators Nick Gillard and Mic Rodgers explain how they prevented cast members Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy from getting decapitated during their train-riding acrobatics.

True believers willing to plunk down $70 for the Blu-ray Hi-Def deluxe edition can check out the "Motion Comics" bonus, which illustrates precisely how the graphic novel compares to the movie in a side-by-side split-screen comparison. Blu-ray gimmicks also include a social viewing tool that enables users to host a text chat as other fans watch the movie in sync.

There's more to come: Next year, video game Wanted: Weapons of Fate will feature the film's Matrix-inspired "Curving Bullets." Also in the offing: Wanted co-writer Chris Morgan tells MTV that Universal plans to make a Wanted sequel.

Photo courtesy Universal Pictures

See also:

• Review: Angelina Jolie Speed-Races Through Wanted's Sexy Violence
• Secrets of Wanted's Insane Onscreen Action
• Movies: In Theaters This Week (Nov. 26)

The filmmakers behind street art documentary Beautiful Losers team with Nike Sportswear this week to launch a series of how-to videos aimed at DIY artists and filmmakers.

In the Make Something! clips posted on nikesportswear.com, Beautiful Losers director Aaron Rose offers a course in 'zine making while the doc's editor Lenny Mesina coaches Los Angeles student filmmakers on how to cut their own short movies using the Avid Media Composer system. He says "I believe we've created a blue print which can easily be followed for future workshops to happen wherever there are kids who are willing to be inspired and be creative."

Continue reading "Street Artists Launch DIY Vid Series " »

Stephen Colbert sings up a storm on an iTunes exclusive featuring songs from his holiday special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All.

The telecast snagged top ratings in the 18-34 male demographic Sunday, so now the always-savvy self-marketer is selling the music. His iTunes album includes Colbert and Jon Stewart's duet about Hanukkah (embedded).

More importantly, it features Willie Nelson's ode to marijuana and Baby Jesus. You don't have to be high on Santa and weed to appreciate it, but it sure helps.

Looking for more holiday help from Colbert? Download his virtual yule log, complete with burning books, including Ray Bradbury's immortal Fahrenheit 451.

See also:

• Review: Colbert Christmas Defends Santa, Beheads Heretics
• Colbert Bests Obama, Wins Marvel White House
• 'Truthiness' Could Swing Stephen Colbert Into Marvel White House
• Colbert Gets His Spider, Likes Neil Young Again
• 3001: A Stephen Colbert Space DNA Odyssey
• I Am Not a Jerk, Says Stephen Colbert

By Thanksgiving weekend, we've had our fill of turkey. But why not get a festive jump on end-of-the-year "Worst of" lists with a dash of holiday vitriol? Slamming the bottom 20 genre turkeys of 2008, we use the numbering system pioneered by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

20. Doctor Who, season 4: Russell T. Davies will be remembered as the man who not only brought the doctor out of retirement, he'll be the man who made the show more popular than ever. But season 4, with its lame stunt titling ("The Doctor's Daughter") and yet another return of the retread Dalek, proved it was a good idea for Davies to move on and hand the show over to a superior sci-fi writer: Steven Moffat.

19. Movie remakes: One after another. Halloween? Sleuth? Really? Don't re-make good movies. Sure, it saves studios money on development costs and intellectual property acquisitions, but when there's nowhere to go but down, that's usually where these flicks go.

18. Heroes: When even die-hard fans say a TV show is struggling, you know your superheroes have super problems. But even if it runs out of ideas, a series needs to do whatever it can to reach that 100-episode mark so it make a little scratch off syndication.

17. The Fox/Warner Bros. Watchmen legal war: It's a long way from over.  Even though fans promise to punish Twentieth Century Fox, we may not see this eagerly awaited graphic novel adaptation until the judges rule.

Continue reading "No Thanks Required: 20 Worst Film and TV Turkeys of the Year" »

Taking pause amid this best-of-times, worst-of-times autumn, pop-culture pilgrims have reason to rejoice.  A cornucopia of superheroes, fringe phenomena and beautifully twisted mavericks provided nourishment for the soul, gleaned laughs from the madness and sometimes scared the hell out of us — in a good way.  Slathered with extra-geeky gravy, here, in no particular order, are 14 movies, TV shows and other treats that stuck to our ribs over the past few months. Chime in with your thoughts after the jump.

1 The Colbert Report The greatest comedian alive, Stephen Colbert in 2008 raised the already sky-high bar on his unhinged brand of satire. Landing in the Smithsonian, running for president, winning an Emmy, teaming up with Spider-Man, and releasing a metafictional holiday special, Colbert remains the most important entertainer on either side of the cultural divide. -- Scott Thill

2 Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

Everybody knows dark meat is tastier than white meat, right?  The late Hedge Ledger turned in a performance for the ages as the pitch-black Joker. Villain as virtuoso, Ledger's disfigured clown bared an unforgettably gnarled heart hiding behind all that scar tissue. -- Hugh Hart

3 Barbecue and Chicken Shit Bingo at South by Southwest

Spring break for geeks, the three-headed beast of a conference in Austin, Texas, always rates a 10 on the fun meter.  But this year, the barbecue binge and a honky-tonk spectacle known as Chicken Shit Bingo pushed the whole thing to a Texas-size 11. -- Lewis Wallace

4 Cinematic Titanic

More comedy from the folks behind Mystery Science Theater 3000, in any form, is a good thing because laughter, in any form, is a good thing. This new effort from Joel Hodgson and company gets better with every relief. --John Scott Lewinski

Continue reading "14 Reasons to Be Grateful This Thanksgiving" »

A new online-only Star Trek trailer went live Tuesday. While it's largely the same as the preview attached to Quantum of Solace, it does offer new glimpses of previously unseen moments and characters -- including "what's his name" above.

The trailer comes to us from Monstersandcritics.com and includes imagery from the preview scenes shown to the press last week.

Image courtesy Paramount

See also:

• Worries Surface as Abrams Previews Star Trek in Europe
• Preview Photos Reveal Look of New Star Trek
• New Star Trek Teaser Posters Beam in Gravitas
• J.J. Abrams Promises to Reinvent Star Trek
• Inside the Mind of JJ Abrams