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There seem to be some strange movies becoming television shows lately.

The movies themselves are of course successful -- it's just strange trying to imagine them on the small screen.

The premiere of the Terminator TV spin-off, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, is drawing near and the AP reports George Lucas is planning a live action Star Wars television show thirty years after the first film hit theaters.

A "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" television show is supposed to have been in the works for a while now. The pilot apparently didn't fly at ABC but is now being shopped around. I actually think this might work really well, as long as the camp is left in for that old-school Avengers vibe.

Also, talk of an Ocean's 11 TV miniseries

There have been far, far too many television shows going to the big screen in the last decade or so -- and I'm wondering if reversing the formula is a good idea.

Maybe I'm just nervous because of the old Robocop TV series.

Some movies that were arguably better once they became TV shows:

1) M*A*S*H

2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer

3) In The Heat of the Night

4) Stargate

5) La Femme Nikita (Fairly good TV show, though not as popular as "Alias." I actually liked the movie remake Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda -- for whom I have a thing spawned by this film and Single White Female.)

7) Highlander (the movies were sort of all over the place. The show, while a bit much, was at least consistently interesting.)

Rolling Stone has posted some of its new Springsteen interview.

Bruce is always a good interview -- and this looks like no exception.

But what's kind of freaking me out is how much this picture of Bruce looks like Yes Weekly's Brian Clarey before he cleaned up a bit.

And you thought right wing Christian groups hated Harry Potter because of the evil, ungodly magic.

Foolish muggles.

According to Reuters:

"Speaking at Carnegie Hall on Friday night in her first U.S. tour in seven years, Rowling confirmed what some fans had always suspected -- that she "always thought Dumbledore was gay," reported entertainment Web site E! Online."

Further, she said Dumbledore had once been in love with the evil wizard Grindlevald.

How are Potter fans reacting? Well...

"The audience reportedly fell silent after the admission -- then erupted into applause.

"This is even more awesome because it adds another layer to Dumbledore's character, which is already so rich and complicated. I hope he got over Grindlevald (sic) and fell in love again," wrote Amanda."

As a writer, I love this part:

"Rowling said she had read through a script for the movie adaptation of the sixth book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and corrected a passage in which Dumbledore was reminiscing about past loves by crossing it out and scrawling "Dumbledore is gay" over it."

SEATTLE (AP) — The guitarist for indie pop rockers Death Cab for Cutie still expects to release his solo album in January even though federal border agents seized a computer hard drive containing the master tracks.
A courier was headed to Seattle-based Barsuk Records from a studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, when U.S. Border Patrol agents seized the hard drive Sept. 19, Chris Walla said Wednesday.
Guards at the Peace Arch border crossing in Blaine let the courier keep the tapes but seized the hard drive for examination by computer forensics experts, according to Walla and Hipposonic President Rob Darch.

---

According to officials, the hard drive has now been cleared to be released -- but there's been no explanation as to why it was seized in the first place.

Last week J.K. Rowling outed top wizard Albus Dumbledore (of Harry Potter fame) as gay -- well after the last book of the series had gone to press.

There are some who are claiming they knew all along, or at least that the signs were there for those who were looking. Ed Cone pointed to a Metafilter comment thread in which someone said:

"He was a stylish 150-year-old-ish bachelor. You do the math."

If we're going to accept that a character's creator can out a character after all of the canonical work dealing with that character has been produced then I think there are some characters out there who are at least as likely as Dumbledore for a little homosexual retroactive continuity...

(WARNING: Comedic homosexual stereotypes ahead. Satirical. Not to be confused with actual homophobia.)

When I bought my red faux-Chuck Taylors from No Sweat Apparel a few months ago someone asked me where I thought I was going to get to wear them.

I certainly could not rock them while doing my gang coverage -- Bloods favor red Chucks but don't like poseurs wearing them, while Crips will break your legs for wearing them in their neighborhoods.

But I broke them out for ConvergeSouth this past weekend.

(Photo by Sue Polinsky)

David Hoggard gave me a little grief for them, but it was worth it. They helped me keep it light in a session that got way too stiff and serious.

Rapper Nas is having a bit of a spat with Al Sharpton and the NAACP after announcing that his new album, out Dec. 11, would be titled "Nigga."

Fox News, Al Sharpton and the NAACP were all over that one -- so as an extra little middle finger, Nas has retitled the album "Nigger."

The N-Word is a ball of dynamite whenever and however it's used. I know people (white and black) who refuse to use it for any reason and decry its use in any context. I blogged a little about this a few months ago, when Eddie Griffin got grief for using it on stage at a Black Enterprise event.

Nas seems to be coming from the Lenny Bruce school of thought in explaining the title of his new album, saying that not using the word actually gives it more power.

What do you guys think?

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which hit my mailbox this weekend:

- Great interview with Bruce Springsteen, who's on the cover, but no big surprise there. I think it would take some real skill to write a bad Bruce interview. Some great early pictures of Bruce with the story, including one of him rail thin and shaggy in a pair of jeans, size-small tank top and beat-up black Chuck Taylor All-Stars. He looks like every pseudo-hippie kid I went to high school with.

- More of their kind of crap election coverage by Matt Taibbi, whose continuing assignment to write nasty, sort of obvious things about all of the Republican presidential hopefuls brings him to Mitt Romney this issue. Taibbi shocks and appalls us by revealing that Romney is...a politician! He says things people want to hear (No!)! He uses (gasp!) stock public speaking techniques. He speaks in (for shame!) glittering generalities! Somebody stick a wooden stake in this guy's heart, quick!

- A pretty good piece on Internet gossip-monger Perez Hilton (AKA Mario Lavendeira), who makes his living by posting other peoples' celebrity photography for free and making catty comments about its subjects (as I'll do now, following his shining example).

His ability to post other peoples' work and be snarky about the rich and famous is apparently making him $250,000 a year and he's just landed a television show.

This piece would make me hate this guy even more than I already do...but somehow I can't bring myself to bother. What I do like: the piece reveals Hilton's Bond-villainesque origin as a cranky, chubby, misanthropic little kid whose parents let him lay in bed watching TV 12 hours a day and would bring him meals on trays so he didn't have to get up and go to the kitchen. People were mean to him in high school, so his being mean to famous people who commit the mortal sin of occasionally going outside without makeup really makes perfect sense.

"I think what I do is noble," Hilton says.

Get this guy a Pulitzer! And a swift kick in the nobility!

- A weird "Wheels 07" feature wherein musicians pose with cars, test drive them and offer their opinions. This makes me love The Dropkick Murphys more than I already do, as they test drive an Infiniti G37S. The Boston punks break all sorts of traffic laws in it, squeal into a Dunkin Donuts parking lot excitedly screaming "Dunkies!" and ultimately break the windshield while posing with the car with "props" like a sledgehammer and chainsaw.

"This is the car of a Yankee fan!" bassist/songwriter Ken Casey says after the "accident."

The writer theorizes that he should never have told them the car was fully insured.

Less than a week after J.K. Rowling's outing of the Harry Potter series' master wizard Albus Dumbledore more than 7,000 novelty t-shirts have been sold celebrating the occasion.

Above (from left to right): The "I Always Knew" Dumbledore Pride t-shirt and the more pithy "Wizards are Gay."

You can get them here.

Dragged a confirmed non-horror fan with me to see 30 Days of Night, the Vampires-eat-a-small-town-in-Alaska flick based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles/Ben Templesmith.

I was interested to see how the dark, atmospheric, solidly horror genre comic would translate to the big screen. The answer: the horror translates pretty well, everything else, not so much.

Let me start with some wild hyperbole: I'm not sure I've ever seen a better Western than The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

And I've seen (and loved) a lot of Westerns. From John Wayne as Chisolm to Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, from the grit of Sam Peckenpah's Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid and Eastwood's Unforgiven to the comic puckishness of Support Your Local Sheriff and Maverick.

But this one -- this one has it all. A strange, heartbreaking script that is at once timeless and topical. A knockout cast of some of my favorite actors (Brad Pitt, Sam Rockwell, a career-making turn for Casey Affleck). Great cameos (Nick Cave, James Carville). Beautiful, stunning cinematography. Brilliant, spooky direction.

And, beyond all that, it does not spare one of the greatest strengths of any authentic film of the genre: the ubiquitous weirdness of the Old West.

[SOME SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP]

Went to see "Saw 4" with my little (18-year-old) sister this weekend.

And man did it make me feel old.

Sweet cherry pie!

Do you guys realize the original 29 episodes of David Lynch's weird and wonderful mystery seriesTwin Peaks</em> is now available in a 10 DVD Definitive Gold Box Edition?