Culture

The extended edition Return of the King DVDs will include (original): 2 disc 250 minute movie cut Commentary by the director and writers Commentary by the design team Commentary by the production team Commentary by the cast (with split personality dialogue between Gollum and Smeagol) Tolkien documentary From Book to Script documentary Designing Middle-Earth documentary Big-atures documentary (?) 2 WETA documentaries Costume design documentary Horse Lords documentary Cameras in Middle-Earth documentary Documentary on completing the trilogy Music documentary Soundscapes documentary 2 documentaries about the end of it all Cameron Duncan documentary Two Cameron Duncan short films, “DFK6498” and “ Strike Zone” Mumakil battle multi-angle feature Abandoned concept: Aragorn battles Sauron feature Photo galleries (2,123+ images) Tracing the Journeys of the Fellowship map feature New Zealand as Middle-Earth map feature That’s a hunka hunka burning DVD. Via Twitch (original).

Anyone know what happened to the blog known as “Frank Booth”? I was really digging his movie writing and then poof up and vanish.

“We’re not Oingo Boingo, but it’s a dead man’s party.” This is a pain for some, because it’s Flash, but here’s what you do: go to the Dead and Breakfast official site (original). Click on the poster. Blah blah lengthy Flash intro which you can skip some of. Stick with it. Eventually it comes through with a menu. Select “Music”. Woo hah! Hit “comin to kill ya.” That’s what I call a country/rap splatterpunk groove, baby.

Criminal, the remake of Nine Queens with John C. Reilly, Diego Luna, and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Ju-on, one of the best Japanese horror movies of recent years; Shaun of the Dead, zombie comedy; Bright Young Things, Stephen Fry doing Evelyn Waugh; and of course the three Boston Film Festival flicks I want to see this weekend. Kontroll is getting mixed (original) reviews (original) from Toronto, but who doesn’t like “ a cute girl in a bear costume (original)?” This is what I get for, um… deliberately rekindling my enjoyment of movies.

Jandek On Corwood, 9:30 PM, Coolidge Corner Theater. More here.

If you want to see the Sin City footage shown at Comicon, you can. It’s being filmed in digital on digital sets, and the trailer is really oriented towards demonstrating how well Robert Rodriguez is capturing the look of the comic book. (Answer: quite well.)

The Pixies cover Warren Zevon: Take a listen (original). (Via Jim Henley (original), who will also point you at the tribute album.)

On the Kill Bill: Volume 2 DVD, there’s a deleted scene — Bill throws down with Michael Jai White. The scene was intended to show how bad-ass Bill was, but Tarantino decided that it wasn’t really necessary. He was right, but it is a true pleasure to watch anyhow.

OK, here’s the deal with the Enter… Zombie King! DVD. The film has been sold to a distributor and will be out on DVD in October; the DVDs will be available on the Tijuana Bibles site and High Spots. It’s also going to air on TV in winter/spring 2005. (Whoa!) Straight from the horse’s mouth (original).

If you live in the Bay Area, you may wish to help save the 4 Star (original). Or not — it’s not as if people down on the Peninsula get up to San Francisco that often. But believe me, it’s a great theater. I used to go there all the time and it’d be a shame if they had to close. Also, it’s the business I want to run someday.