News-Record.com

Apparently.

The director of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels will be directing a new film version of the detective based on an upcoming comic by Lionel Wigram.

This is going to be interesting...

The trailer for Gonzo, the new Hunter Thompson documentary out next month, is up now.

It's narrated by Johnny Depp and looks as though it has a deep bench of political figures (Jimmy Carter, Pat Buchanan, George McGovern), celebrities and writers (Tom Wolfe, Jann Wenner, Tim Crouse).

Some great historical footage I'd never seen, too. Looks good.

The trailer for the new X-Files movie, I Want to Believe, is up at Yahoo now.

I didn't expect to be this excited about it.

Guess I missed it more than I realized.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling gave the commencement speech at Harvard last week.

Here's what she said.

From the speech:

"I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

...Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

Audiobooks are great for long drives or trips to the gym, but I usually prefer reading a book to listening to it.

That said -- I'll take a David Sedaris audiobook any day. A lot of people became familiar Sedaris, who was raised in Raleigh, through his readings of his stories and essays on NPR. His delivery can make a good story great.

His new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is available here as a completely DRM free MP3 download for about what you'd pay for the print version. I think it's a steal.

This month and next you can donate your old sneakers to charity at any Finish Line store and get $5 off a brand new pair.

Check it out.

If you're like me, you probably have too many sneakers anyway. Get rid of them -- bring in three or four pairs and bring home just one for $5 less. You'll clean up your closet, do something good and feel like you're coming out ahead.

Students at MIT have been tinkering with a 1976 Porsche 914 -- converting it to run on electricity and go 100 mph for 135 miles without a recharge. Plug it in for five hours and it's ready to go again.

Check it out.

Check out everyone's favorite industrialist/super-hero/summer action movie star guest-starring in the latest trailer for the Hulk film.

I'm interested to see the extent of Stark/Iron Man's role in the film -- looks like more than just an easter egg for those playing close attention, but you don't want to take the shine off of Ed Norton's Hulk by having Downey Jr. steal the spotlight.

Seen at the cash register of the Green Bean today:

There is going to be a Smurfs movie.

No, really.

I can't decide if I think this is a smurfy idea or if it's going to smurf the big smurf.

So who wins Top Chef last night?

Richard, the weird guy with the faux-hawk who cooks with liquid nitrogen?

Lisa, the combative lesbian who fights with fellow chefs and is constantly talking about how she's going to dominate the contest?

Stephanie, the quiet one with the cute smile and all that curly hair?

Find out after the jump, where spoilers (and links) abound.

The Hold Steady's new album, Stay Positive, is streaming now on MySpace.

They're going to be at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro on August 12. I'll be there -- you should too.

This shouldn't really be terrifying -- but for some reason it is.

Maybe it's just the memory of its probable inspiration...

This great new line of t-shirts from Wear Science ask creationists to "teach the controversy" in theories beyond evolution.

I've just ordered the one with the universe revolving around the earth.

Last night I watched the premiere of The Middle Man on ABC Family.

Based on a comic book I love that was (I didn't realize) intended to be a television show all along, The Middleman is strange, smart, well cast and well executed -- which, I fear, means it is not long for this earth.

I've learned over the years that shows that seem like they were made just for me rarely last -- the fact that The Venture Bros. is still going strong still amazes me.

The show, about a broke young female artist who is recruited to fight mad scientists, aliens and monsters by a mysterious figure with futuristic weaponry and a grumpy android assistant, is almost too good to be true. I was a little surprised to hear a few curse words, some gay jokes and a lot of obscure film, literary and comic book references on a show for ABC family -- but hey, it comes on at 8 p.m. and it's cable.

Here's hoping we get more than one season.

Oh, man.

The Mark Twain House and Museum, one of my favorite historical places in America, is in danger of closing.

I've been to the Twain house six times -- three times over the course of a summer I lived not far from it in West Hartford -- and always want to go back.

One of my favorite authors, one of the most fascinating American author related homes in America (walks all over Poe's places in NYC and Baltimore) -- and it may close to the public before my children can see it.

The museum is taking donations through PayPal here.

Sarah Silverman and Norm MacDonald have joined the cast of Match Game 2008.

"The comedians have signed on to be on the panel for TBS' updated "Match Game" pilot, shot this week in Los Angeles. Also taking seats are Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein), Kids in the Hall trouper Scott Thompson, Rashida Jones ("The Office") and Niecy Nash ("Reno 911!")."

I'll actually probably watch this, at least the first time. Back when I got the Game Show Network (curse you, TimeWarner, for taking it out of my cable package!), I used to watch the reruns all the time, and they were pretty amusing. Especially as relics of their era, with Gene Rayburn, Richard Dawson and the recently deceased Charles Nelson Reilly slipping double entendre after double entendre into the game.

It mildly amused/irritated me to watch the way women are treated on that show. There's no way women or female panelists today would let Gene Rayburn kiss them or say those sorts of things -- it would be a sexual harassment brouhaha.

It'll be interesting to see what the show is like in an updated version -- I have a feeling that overt lewdness and potty humor (which had it's place in the original) will replace the double entendres and subtle digs.

I guess it's not surprising, given that he was 71 -- I guess I just didn't think of him as that old. Oftentimes, copy editors will come up with great (but unpublishable) headlines for celebrity obits in the paper and share them among co-workers. However, here's a time where I almost think an irreverent headline would be appropriate in the newspaper. I saw a couple I liked -- "Headlining in Heaven" and "George Carlin dies; $%#@$" -- and I think he would approve.

Hear it here.

I'm going to miss that guy.

Bought David Sedaris' new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, over the weekend.

I've been reading a chapter or two a night, stretching it out. But it's tempting to finish the whole thing in one sitting. Good stuff.

Even some of the stuff I've read previously in magazines -- "Brother, Can You Spare a Tie?" for instance -- has been reworked and melded with other things for publication in the book, almost always for the better.

Go pick it up - or get the audio version, because hearing Sedaris perform his own stuff is great.

Saw both The Incredible Hulk and Get Smart this weekend.

I have to say -- the Hulk movie was better than I expected.

The non-Hulk bits were terrific, with Ed Norton giving us some real quiet desperation. A good sci-fi government chase movie even before the Hulk shows up. The special effects didn't take me out of the film as much as I expected. Especially enjoyed Tim Roth as the villain and am looking forward to another one.

I had incredibly low expectations for Get Smart -- so it managed to exceed them.

Slow start, some good bits, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson shone, it was the sexiest I've ever seen Anne Hathaway and Steve Carrell did his thing. Not going to get an Oscar nomination and I'm not dying for a sequel, but it was a fine summer popcorn movie -- some laughs, some action, some nostalgia.

Johnny Depp apparently gave the fedora he wore in his upcoming gangster flick Public Enemies to a 12-year-old boy who admired it on location.

Now that the film has wrapped, Depp sent the kid the hat in a package with some other cool movie stuff from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Like we need another reason to love Johnny Depp...

Total Guitar Magazine has named Celine Dion's version of AC/DC's "You Shook Me" the worst cover in history.

It's pretty bad...but worst ever?

I have a particular loathing for Rod Stewart's version of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train."

What would you have picked?

Think gas prices are making your commute to work sheer hell on the wallet?

Thank your lucky stars you're not a touring indie band.

Wilbur Hardee, founder of the Hardee's chain of burger joints, is dead at 89.

That's a good, long ride for an American male. Which, I presume, means he didn't spend a lot of those 89 years eating at Hardee's.

Looks like the Vampire detective show Moonlight is finally, truly dead.

Never saw it? You didn't miss much.

I love detective shows. I love supernatural fiction. I think they can be melded together well. This one didn't do it -- and it's going on the slag heap with Forever Knight.

Rolling Stone has posted George Carlin's first interview with the mag, from 1972.

Wouldn't it be great if they put him on the cover? Talk about a counter-culture hero - an influence on stand up comedy and comedy writing for two generations. I think he earned it.

Barack Obama's on the cover of Rolling Stone again -- this time without "FASHION TIPS FROM PANIC AT THE DISCO!" blaring from beneath or around him. Maybe the best cover shot I've seen of him yet.

In the interview he talks about (among other things) what's on his iPod -- Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Dylan -- and how well he gets along with Jay-Z.

Taking a lesson from John McCain's "Bomb Iran" Beach Boys flap, Obama cannily avoids saying something like "I got 99 problems but Hillary Clinton is no longer one."

Interview here.

I've become addicted to those little Red Box DVD machines in the grocery store, so I'm paying more attention to DVD releases lately. A bunch of movies I dug in theaters are being released on DVD this week. If you missed them the first time around, you should check them out now.

Charlie Bartlett - A teen angst flick that's just a little Wes Anderson, a little John Hughes and a little Cameron Crowe. Plus, it has Robert Downey Jr. as a high school principal who is also (in a shocking case of casting against type) an unstable drunk!

In Bruges - Colin Farell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes star in this strange tale of two hitmen hiding out in a very strange little Belgian city. But there are some things you can't run away from, no matter how many drugs, women and midgets you hide behind.

Persepolis - The animated (not CGI -- animated) film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution. Like Life is Beautiful, it's really a lot more fun than a plot synopsis makes it sound.

Definitely, Maybe - Just caught this one on DVD myself. You should too. Ryan Reynolds plays a recently divorced father who tells his little girl the story of how he met her mother -- but makes her figure out which woman she is in the story of his life, in which he's changed the names to protect the guilty. The concept actually works better than you might think -- and the funny retro-90s bits where Reynolds works on Bill Clinton's first campaign and discovers Nirvana's Nevermind may be the best bits of 90s comedy nostalgia yet committed to film.

In a recent interview with The Times of London, Jason Bateman confirms we'll see an Arrested Development movie in 2009.

Nice.

Michael Cera and Bateman (both of whom were in Juno) rocketed to film success after the show was canceled -- which Bateman attributes to the show missing with America at large but being beloved of people in L.A.

"..and those are the ones who hire us," Bateman says.

Why does this guy not have a record deal? I love, love, love his voice. And his pretty eyes don't hurt, either. Eli Kerr is much better than this show, but every so often, that happens.

This picture of Matt Damon from the set of his next film is birthing a lot of bad jokes online this week -- I'm Stuffing Matt Damon, The Bourne Obesity, The Talented Mr. Rumpley.

But I love pictures like this. Because looking like a fierce, ripped killing machine is Damon's job when he's filming movies like the Bourne trilogy. But it's good for people to see that his default mode is normal, human body. Whether he's doing it for a part of just letting himself go a little because he hasn't had a cheeseburger in three years, it's good for people to see superhero actors and actresses without makeup, hairy, flabby -- in a word, human.

A few quick reports on movies in various stages of not-out-yet:

* If you just can't wait for the new X-Files movie, the opening scenes are now online at Yahoo! Movies.

* Rolling Stone movie reviewer Peter Travers has an early review of The Dark Knight. He digs it - especially Heath Ledger's performance, which he calls "mad-crazy-brilliant."
"If there's a movement to get him the first posthumous Oscar since Peter Finch won for 1976's Network, sign me up," he says.

* A fourth Spider-Man movie has been scheduled for a 2011 release. Neither leading man-boy Tobey McGuire nor director Sam Raimi have yet signed on for the sequel -- and after the trainwreck that was the last one, I can hardly blame them. Still, I'll probably end up seeing it and feeling dirty afterward. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!

Having killed an entire bottle of Tums since my last Fast Food Friday outing, I decided to "think outside the bun" and head to Taco Bell this week.

There I found the new "Big Bell Box Meal," a cardboard chest of paper-wrapped faux-Mexican delectables whose advertising campaign encourages you to "eat like a man!"

My manhood thus challenged, I smacked down the $5 to prove I could down this 1,000 plus calorie "meal" and still stand up.

Unfortunately, I underestimated the Big Bell Box Meal. It made me its bitch, leaving me wrecked, bloated, nauseous and scared, twitching in a meat-cheese-sugar coma, softly sobbing: "No mas...no mas..."