Spider-Man Musical Mishaps are Adorable in Taiwanese Animation

· They’ve worked fast before, but the masterminds behind those Taiwanese CGI animations have struck again (in record time) with a tribute to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’s insane snafus. [YouTube]

· The FCC just approved Comcast’s merger with NBCU. Chilling, somehow! [Deadline]

· Tom Hardy’s looking lovable in this candid glimpse of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. [Slashfilm]

· Criticwatch’s “Whore of the Year,” an honor bestowed upon the worst shills in film criticism, goes to a man who gave Twilight: Eclipse five stars and declared it “exhilarating!” [Efilmcritic]

· And finally, here’s my Christmas gift to you: A wonderful old video of legendary Vogue/Harper’s Bazaar editrix Diana Vreeland rhapsodizing on surfing, skateboarding and waterskiing. It will melt your tree and then set it on fire. Happy holidays!

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured site: So, Why is Wikileaks a Good Thing Again?.

View the original article here

Why are Cinema's Finest All Working on This Damn Houdini Musical?

In case you needed the life of Harry Houdini explained to you in delirious song and super-quippy dialogue, Hugh Jackman’s upcoming Broadway musical Houdini should do the trick. The bad news: This musical is taking precious time away from some of the movies’ best artists. No amount of handcuff tricks can help them escape now.

According to EW, a team of cinematic greats has signed on for Houdini:

But an impressive creative team has quietly assembled around the project, including playwright Aaron Sorkin, composer Danny Elfman, lyricist Glenn Slater, and director Jack O’Brien — and despite repeated delays, Elfman says work on Houdini is now well underway.

“I’ve written music on and off for two years already,” Elfman tells EW. “It’s such a different process [from my film scoring work]. For me, it’s taking forever. But other people say, ‘Oh, no, you’ve only been on that a couple of years, that’s nothing!’”

The project has the potential for greatness, but does it strike anyone else as a bit… expected? Harry Houdini’s life has been revisited several times in several formats. If we were talking about under-appreciated musical geniuses like Whodini, I’d perk up more. Jackman’s got the pipes for a mean rendition of “Haunted House of Rock.” In fact, why isn’t Aaron Sorkin writing snappy, Eisenbergian dialogue for Whodini in that Soul Train movie? Whatever happened to that?

Aaron Sorkin is Writing Hugh Jackman’s ‘Whodini’ Musical [EW]

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.

View the original article here