Karate Kid: The Remake, starring Will Smith’s son (and produced by Will Smith)?  Do we really need this?  Was there something wrong with the ones made 20 years ago?  If that wasn’t bad enough, Hollywood has now decided to make board games into movies.  Yes, board games.  Monopoly the movie, by Ridley Scott.  From the article:

The Hasbro-Universal collaboration “Monopoly” is jumping a large number of spaces up the board.

The feature project has brought on Pamela Pettler to write the screenplay; She penned Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride,” Gil Kenan’s “Monster House” and the upcoming animated adventure “9,” produced by Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.

And Ridley Scott, who has been attached as a producer on “Monopoly” and has been mentioned as a possible director, is now officially attached to helm the project, with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic “Blade Runner.“

Oh yeah, why not, right?  If that didn’t wet your whistle, how about Battleship the movie?  Maybe Ouija Board the movie is a bit better?  I mean, did the studios learn nothing from the mess that was Clue the movie?

Sadly, I didn’t even realize how bad movies had gotten until this last weekend when Jess and I decided that we hadn’t seen anything in awhile and went out to rent one.  It took us close to an hour to even find one thing we wanted to watch (Jess was a fan of The Other Boleyn Girl), and she actually ended up having me fast forward through the movie because it was completely different from the book.

It’s just upsetting that in the day and age of High Definition televisions and Blu-ray discs, there is almost nothing good to watch.  C’mon Hollywood… wow us!  You used to do it, and I believe that if you really try, you can do it again.

So with all that said… do you have any good movie suggestions?

Wii Ware – September 22, 2008
PSN – September 25, 2008
XBLA – October 1, 2008

Pure awesome!  Did you happen to see the “packaging” made for the game?

It may just be a press kit, but man I want one bad!!  Also, along the same lines, Mega Man 2 was released for the Virtual Console.

This is also pretty awesome news!  I was looking for some way to relax this week (I’ve been working our bi-annual tradeshow all weekend) and both of these games should help me do it!

Until next time!!

So, I’m off to see Jerry Seinfeld tonight at the Orpheum theatre in Omaha… I’m totally excited!  I can now add Jerry Seinfeld to my list of “Comics I’ve Always Wanted to See Live.”  So far that list contains Lewis Black and George Carlin.  After Seinfeld I dunno who else is on the list… I’d have to think about it.

Speaking of Jerry, did you get a chance to view his Microsoft commercials?  If not, you’d best get to watching because as of today, they’ve halted the campaign:

Microsoft is expected to announce Thursday that it will be suspending its ad campaign featuring Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and veteran comedy superstar Jerry Seinfeld.

Valleywag broke the news Wednesday, and Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw told the LA Times that the move was planned, despite the appearance that the company is reacting to negative reaction to the ads.

According to Mr. Shaw, the Seinfeld portion of the campaign, for which he was reportedly paid some US$10 million, was always intended to be just an introduction for the overall campaign — a two commercial introduction for $10 million.

“All along we said we were having a teaser campaign,” he told the LA Times. “We’re getting ready to start the second phase. This was the plan all along.”

Here is the first commercial:

And the second:

Sad that there won’t be more, but at least we got to enjoy it while it lasted.

Well, I have to go… I need to ponder peanuts on airplanes and why they have that little slot for razors (who is shaving on a plane?!).

Trailer for My Name is Bruce

Looks awesome!  That’s all for now… going to St. Louis tomorrow to see Jess’ grandparents then next week we finally get a real vacation.  Whoo!

Luckily we were one of the first people in line to see her (15th, actually!) so we were in and out real quick… based on how packed the place was there were probably people there for hours.  You can see a pic I took of the crowd here (a lot of people showed up):

And of course, here’s a pic of Jess with Mrs. Evanovich and her signing her book:

All in all, it was an eventful night, but Jess is happy and she got to meet one her favorite authors, so that makes me happy I could do that for her.  For any of you wondering if Janet will be coming to your town, check the site below for more info:

Janet Evanovich Tour Dates

Happy reading!

Feast your eyes—squinting a bit—on the leaked two-minute trailer that was briefly seen in YouTube and then pulled off just to be rescued at the last minute by a Polish Corvette, saved into an astromech droid, launched onto a desert planet, and found by us in a garage sale somewhere in Kraków. Or something like that. The trailer further shows the work of the three hundred 3D animators who have been working on this project at Lucasfilm Animation for the past three years. And except for its lousy quality it, it seems that we are in for a ride (here’s hoping Mr. Lucas didn’t write the dialog.)

Click here to watch!!!

For those who don’t know about the movie, check out CNN’s article about it!

Lucas offered a glimpse into the latest creation in his sci-fi universe at the theater-owners convention ShoWest on Thursday, showing a sequence from “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” a computer-animated movie due in theaters August 15. It will be followed by a TV series of the same name, to air on the Cartoon Network and TNT this fall.

The movie came about as an afterthought while Lucas was developing an animated TV show of the same name. That show debuts this fall, but Lucas figured it was ripe for big-screen treatment, too.

Mark your calendars, people!! 

Pushed back to August 2008

For all you Katamari fans out there, bad news. Beautiful Katamari for the Wii has been pushed back. Wondering if this game is really coming out, I checked a couple other places. Target shows that it is sold out of the game, while Gamestop doesn’t even list it. Interesting. And the only thing Namco shows is that Beautiful Katamari is available for the 360 (and has been). We will keep you posted though, no worries.

So, that got me wondering if anyone shows it for Pre-Sale with an August Release Date, and oddly enough, Walmart shows it for sale:

Coming Soon

Preorder this item today and it should ship on 08/29/2008

So Walmart shows it for sale (and allows pre-sale) with a ship date of August 29th, this year. I wonder if this is valid? I don’t wanna get my hopes up, but it’s nice to think we could be helping the Prince roll up items on the Wii.

While it’s not Katamari Damacy, De Blob seriously reminds me of the gameplay… check out the video showing it. Now that’s just the “sandbox,” but it is being made into a game for the Wii according to Joystiq:

THQ recently touted its original Wii games, saying that the company is creating titles especially for that platform, and pushing multi-platform, “next-generation” games on the PS3 and 360. de Blob is one of the first of these Wii-only games, although its origins go back to a student, PC project. Still, de Blob’s strange style matches the Wii.

In this cute game, players splatter color over a whitewashed world. That’s mostly it, all of the buildings, roads, trees, and other objects are blank, and its up to you to colorize the surroundings. The analog stick steers the blob character, while flicks with the Wiimote jump or perform other actions. The D-pad can change the camera angle, but it usually stayed in a clear position when I recently played.

It looks quite fun, and while not Katamari, it would be a nice laid back replacement, methinks.  If I find out anything else out, I’ll be sure to post it, but until then, just keep an eye out!!

And now, the News in brief…

ITEM: The Venture Bros. will premier on June 1st.

Best.  News.  Ever.  I have been waiting for season three since the Season 2 cliffhanger.  I have been a Venture Bros fan since it was just a “special” that would air once a year or so!  Also this news made me giddy:

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, Doc and I are also expected to begin writing season 4 and producing the DVD set for the not-even-finished-yet season 3.

That’s right!  They’re not waiting for the season to finish before starting on the next this time!  Season 4 is Go! 

Welcome back, Monarch!

Now then, I don’t really have any pictures of the show because it is not allowed. At all. They said any cameras would be confiscated and you wouldn’t get them back, as people using the flash could distract the artists and cause chaos. Sadly because of this, they won’t allow you to use a camera without a flash, just in case. I did manage to get 3 blurry cell phone pictures, though. The first photograph is the stage prior to the opening of the show:

You’ll see it is all covered with a sheet and looks almost carnival tent-ish. The stage remained like this until the show “officially” started. What do I mean by that? Well, as with most Cirque du Soleil productions, before the show really got started, the audience was messed with for about 10 minutes. Luckily everyone was a good sport about it and seemed to enjoy what was happening. Once that finished, the show really got started. I was going to write how it began, but Variety did a much better job at an intro for me:

Spooky masked, long-snouted clowns who look as if they might have arrived from outtakes of “Brazil” weave through the audience creating hilarity as a blue Alice-in-Wonderland cat-like mime prances on a shrouded white stage. The shroud is sucked through a hole in the sky as a rock band, beneath a stained-glass-like green canopy, launches into a pulsating song, and a caped, snake-haired master of ceremonies enters.

This is exactly what it was like. The band was amazing… seriously. I think that was a big part of what made the whole show so wonderful. The singer they had was amazing as well, she had a mesmerizing voice and didn’t lose the beat at all the entire show. In fact all the performances went perfectly with the exception of two. The juggler lost 2 of his balls when attempting to juggle 7 at once (after picking them back up he managed to get right back on track), and one of the “bungee-trapeze” artists missed his bar and took a minute to bounce back up to it. That’s pretty good, having just two minor goofs in an entire show like that.

My favorite part had to be the twin trapeze artists. Seeing them do absolutely everything in sync was an amazing thing to behold. I’m not very good at describing things like this, but apparently neither was Variety:

17-year-old twin sisters Karyne and Sarah Steben perform 50 feet up on a single trapeze like synchronized swimmers of the air.

I honestly suggest you go see this show, the entire thing is magical and hard to put into words. Here are my final two shots, showing the stage without it’s cover (I warned you it was blurry!):

The entire show was 2.5 hours, with a 15 minute intermission. I keep saying it, but I highly recommend it.

That’s right, tickets to the sold out Cirque du Soleil show, Saltimbanco, here in Omaha!  How awesome is that?!  Now we’ve never been to one of their shows, but Jessica wanted to go see them when she first heard about them coming to town, but the tickets are a bit pricy and have a habit of selling out immediately.  Sadly they don’t allow cameras, so I may walk away without any pictures.  I’m gonna give it a shot using my cell phone, but you know how bad those usually turn out.

So, what is this Saltimbanco thing, anyway?  Well, their website has this to say:

Saltimbanco -from the Italian “saltare in banco”, which literally means “to jump on a bench”-explores the urban experience in all its myriad forms: the people who live there, their idiosyncrasies and likenesses, families and groups, the hustle and bustle of the street and the towering heights of skyscrapers. Between whirlwind and lull, prowess and poetry, Saltimbanco takes spectators on an allegorical and acrobatic journey into the heart of the city.

Saltimbanco is a Cirque du Soleil signature show inspired by the urban fabric of the metropolis and its colorful inhabitants. Decidedly baroque in its visual vocabulary, the show’s eclectic cast of characters draws spectators into a fanciful, dreamlike world, an imaginary city where diversity is a cause for hope.

Hmmm… that doesn’t help me too much, but as long as Jess is happy, I’m happy!  Variety has a decent review of the show, as do plenty of other blogs, so I may end up really enjoying this!

Expect my thoughts about the show either late tomorrow (as it’s an evening show) or Friday!