Oh, dear. Everyone must go to Fluxblog and download the Bill Cosby song, "Dope Pusher" IMMEDIATELY. Like Neil Diamond's "Pot Smoker's Song" and William Shatner's entire musical output, this belongs in a genre all of its own.

Did you know that Johnny Cash wrote a alternate theme for the James Bond film Thunderball? Neither did I. Thanks to Bitter Cinema for providing the song along with an excellent observation as to why Cash and 007 don't fit: "One can imagine Bond shooting a man just to watch him die, but never lamenting the circumstances, nor be tortured by the consequences like the characters in Cash's songs."

More Tarantino for you... Found: Where Tarantino gets his ideas -- A guide to some of the grindhouse films referenced in the Kill Bill films: "One problem with Kill Bill's quotation of all these 'cool' movies, though, is that when the films are divorced from their original contexts, they are drained of all meaning. Beyond their aesthetic attributes, the movies playing at the ICA's Kill Bill season are remarkable for their political purpose: Lady Snowblood addresses Japan's postwar purification and reintegration. One of the victims in Female Convict Scorpion boasts of raping Chinese women during the second world war, while Thriller, for all its sex and violence, is a scathing attack on patriarchal 1970s society. What does Kill Bill represent? Is it about anything other than being cool?"

Comic geek ramblings:
There's been a lot of news floating around about that Fantastic Four movie over the past week. It's a comic near and dear to my heart and I'm terrified it's going to be one of the less-successful Marvel adaptations, like Hulk or Daredevil.
The good news: Casting rumours say Tim Robbins could play Doctor Doom, while Michael Chiklis could play Ben Grimm, the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing. I think Robbins would be better as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic but he's a good actor so I'm sure he'd make a good Doom. The idea of the actor formerly known as the Commish playing Ben Grimm is strange, but now that he's the badass cop from The Shield it's less ridiculous. It's certainly a better choice than Michael Clarke Duncan. The Thing is probably my favourite character of all-time so I don't want to see him get Affleck-ized.
The too-early to say news: Tim Story has been picked to direct. He's best known for Barbershop. Uh, yeah. Well, I'll try not to judge. Ang Lee had a great track record and look how Hulk turned out.
The bad news: The script sounds terrible, if this review is anything to go by. First, it's an origin movie, which I think is a mistake. I think it would've been better to have a film showing the FF several years into their careers and then flash back to the origin at the right moments. It makes more sense, considering a big part of the team is that, in the Marvel Universe, they are huge celebrities. Second, there are all sorts of lame attempts to "update" the team's origin. If the Hulk film taught us anything, it's that sometimes you can stray too far from the source material. Keep it simple, stupid! Thirdly, this sentence from the script review left me speechless: "The Thing meets blind tough Goth chick Alicia Masters in O'Donnel's Pub".

Another classic comic that looks like it finally might be getting the big-screen treatment is none other than Alan Moore's uber-classic, Watchmen! Just because the producer of Hellboy will be making it doesn't make me any less nervous. I'm at a loss to figure out how this series could ever be translated to the screen without being completely screwed up, just like every other Alan Moore creation to date. I mean, how could you ever make a film where one of the pivotal characters is an omnipotent naked blue man and another is a paranoid schizophrenic? Not to mention that the [*spoiler warning*] climax of the story would entail recreating a 9/11-ish scene.
Most importantly, since Watchmen is a deconstruction of superheroes, it requires a certain base understanding of superheroes from the audience. So when the producer has to point out in the Sun-Times article I've linked above that Watchmen doesn't involve Superman or Wonder Woman, it doesn't bode well that the public will get Watchmen.
All this would severely limit Hollywood's support of the project. Then again, I'm sure a lot of people in Hollywood thought Lord of the Rings had limited appeal as well.
Of course, all this could be avoided if more people would just read the book. But I guess that's never gonna happen, right?

Quentin Tarantino to guest judge American Idol -- Wha??! Worlds are colliding!

It's sites like this which erode the credibility of the left. I mean, sticking George W. Bush's face on women's bodies is just so childish. ... Ah, just kidding. It's great! A little disturbing, but great! (Via Blogumentary)