A little glass vial?

A little glass vial!

…to observe/The rite of May”

You know, no matter how much analysis you put around it, I am now convinced that Shakespeare meant exactly as they played it in the 1999 movie. I just didn’t realize how far back that little ditty ran. :-)

Apparently, Pixar is going to be remastering Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in Disney Digital 3D to prepare for the release of Toy Story 3. I forsee a few extra trips to my parents’ over the next couple of years…

I just had the darnedest time tracking this link down, so I’m reposting it here so I remember where to find it. Words such as “Miles”, “Dendarii”, “cattle”, “Aral”, “Serg”, and “Bujold” will hopefully let me find it next time. :-)

Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Warrior’s Apprentice was optioned by a movie studio a while back: the script treatment approached Manos levels. Thank God, it never actually happened…

We’re inside a ship. A really big ship. A HUMONGOUSLY big ship, called
the Worldship , with “alien runes” carved on all the walls. It’s
inhabited by Fremen– oops, sorry, I mean by The Free Dendarii Peoples
of Space, a bunch of monk’s-robed, tattooed, primitive tribal types who
live all their lives on shipboard. Their mystic leader, Obi-Wan– I
mean Ky Tung– is gathering them for some ritual chanting in the center
of the ship. While this is going on, a Black Battle Cruiser docks, the
lock is opened by a Dendarii named Baz (yes, you heard right; Baz is a
Dendarii tribesman) and hundreds of space-armoured
s/t/o/r/m/t/r/o/o/p/e/r/s/ Armsmen pour out, slaughtering all in their
path. After them strides Darth Serg– I mean *Count Serg Vorbarra*, in
black space armour and a cape, stepping over the bodies of his fallen
foemen. (Now, *where* could they have borrowed *that* idea from?)

I went to see it last weekend, and was fairly impressed. There were things that didn’t quite seem right, but I thought they pretty much nailed the feel it should have had. Unfortunately, they ended it early, saving the end to launch the next movie, assuming it gets greenlighted. I hope it does: this movie really doesn’t work as a standalone.

Johnny Depp. Helena Bonham Carter. Alan Rickman.

Sweeney Todd.

Bob Harris, author of Trebekistan, explores the parallels between William Walker’s expedition to “stabilize” Nicaragua and Bush’s current adventure in Iraq. (h/t Laura)

Walker is never once seen as less than sincere in his madness, and it’s precisely that appearance of honesty amid utter self-delusion that attracts a cult of followers who can never allow themselves to see the grotesque horrors which result.

The parallels are so clear — not just to one side in one war, but to damn near any rationalization of violence as part of a better, higher good, anywhere — and the brilliant black comedy of it all is so relentlessly drawn, that I’m surprised the film hasn’t become more of a cult favorite among the current antiwar crowd.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was much better than I expected, given the last couple of outings in the series. Sure, they cut about 3/4 of the plot out, but I was expecting that…

Before HP, they ran a trailer for The Golden Compass. I’m pretty excited about this: it looks like they more-or-less nailed the look and feel (besides the altheiometer having too many symbols on it).

The Dark Is Rising, on the other hand, looks horrifying. I had been warned before, but was letting things play out to see what happened. After watching the trailer, I agree with the columnist who related the following story:

A joke among the journalists covering The Dark Is Rising set visit in Bucharest over the last couple of days was that the movie has only changed three things from the Newberry-winning novel on which it’s based: they’ve changed the lead kid’s nationality from English to American, they’ve changed the lead kid’s age from 11 to 14, and they’ve changed everything that happens in the story.

I am not going to waste my money on this one, even in the unlikely event that the girls beg to go see it after I give them the original novels. Sorry, Doctor, but I doubt even you can save this one.

FilkerTom was kind enough to link to a bunch of Ratatouille featurettes, including around 9 minutes of footage from the film.