Please watch and support our good friends Carl Jones and Titmouse Inc’s new Hip Hop Cartoon “Freaknik The Musical!”

Producer Carl Jones and T-Pain.
Adult Swim teams up with Carl Jones, the producer of the hit animated series “The Boondocks” and Grammy-winning recording artist T-Pain to debut Freaknik: The Musical March 7, 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT) on Adult Swim. Freaknik: The Musical is voiced by an all-star cast headlined by T-Pain and featuring Lil Wayne, Cee-Lo, Rick Ross, Big Boi, Snoop Dogg, Mack Maine, Charlie Murphy, DJ Drama, DJ Pooh, Affion Crocket, Kel Mitchell, Carl(Tubesteak)Jones, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Kelis, Lil Jon, Sophia Fresh, William “Clip” Payne and Young Cash. Ten years after the city of Atlanta shut down Freaknik, the biggest spring break party known to man, a group of kids searching for fun successfully resurrect the spirit of Freaknik, who appears in the form of a party ghost voiced by T-Pain. Students from all over America once again descend on Atlanta to perform in Freaknik’s Battle of the Trillest.
Freaknik: The Musical is created and executive produced by Carl(Tubesteak) Jones and Nick Weidenfeld. T-Pain is also executive producer.
Freaknik: The Musical is produced for Adult Swim by Titmouse Inc.

Posted under Art, Did you know?, Educate, Friends of MLT, Hollywood, Watch This!, You Tube

Captain America will be a USO performer in the movie, director says | Hero Complex | Los Angeles Times.

SPOILER ALERT: THIS POST REVEALS SEVERAL PLOT POINTS IN THE CAPTAIN AMERICA FILM

It’s one thing to take Batman off the comic-book page and make his costume still look good in a live-action feature, but Captain America presents a far bigger challenge — the hero is essentially a walking flag, which might leave many average moviegoers giggling instead of saluting.

But director Joe Johnston and the team at Marvel Studios have a plan for “The First Avenger: Captain America,” which is due in Summer 2011: They’ve added a new wrinkle to the classic mythology to explain why a scientifically enhanced super-soldier would venture out in the WWII battlefields in a costume that leans a bit heavy on the old Betsy Ross imagery.

“The costume is a flag, but the way we’re getting around that is we have Steve Rogers forced into the USO circuit. After he’s made into this super-soldier, they decide they can’t send him into combat and risk him getting killed. He’s the only one and they can’t make more. So they say, ‘You’re going to be in this USO show’ and they give him a flag suit. He can’t wait to get out of it.”

That’s a whole new concept and it’s one that sounds pretty promising. “It was never in the comics,” Johnston said, “because they didn’t really need it. In comics, he puts on the costume and the reader just justifies because of the nature of the medium.”

Johnston told me all this when we sat down for lunch today at the Four Seasons Hotel. For an hour we chatted about his new film, “The Wolfman” (which you can read about next week right here at the Hero Complex) but I had to ask him a bit about the Captain America production.  Filming starts in London at the end of June. “There’s a lot of work we have to do on it,” the 59-year-old director said.

And who will wear the costume and carry the shield? “Well, we’re testing five or six guys,” Johnston said. “The youngest is 23, the oldest is 32. Most of the guys in the war are just kids, 18 or 19, but we want to go a little bit older. We have to have somebody locked in before I leave March 1 for London.”

Read the rest of the article over at  Hero Complex.

Posted under Hollywood, News

IT’S ALIVE! THE UNIVERSAL MONSTER REMAKE STATUS UPDATE. via: http://chud.com

Photo courtesy of Bob Burns.

This Friday Universal tries to wash the taste of Van Helsing out of our mouths and begin the revival of their classic monsters with The Wolfman, based on the 1941 classic. However The Wolfman does at the box office the film, a throwback to the story of the original with a heaping helping of the Gothic atmosphere of Hammer movies like Curse of the Werewolf, shows that Universal is taking these characters seriously for the first time in years. What else is waiting in the pipeline?

Frankenstein. The good news is that Guillermo del Toro is attached to do Frankenstein. The bad news is that he’s got so many other projects that it’s hard to figure out when he could go. With The Hobbit looming it could be four years before GdT even sits down to really work on this film. But I hope Universal waits – no one loves this character like del Toro does. An avid collector of Frankenstein-related memorabilia, including tons of original artwork from Bernie Wrightson’s classic adaptation of the novel (side note: I’ve seen these pages first hand and what’s most amazing about them is that Wrightson uses no White Out and there appear to be no eraser marks on them, despite Wrightson’s incredibly intricate style).

Rick Baker told me this weekend that Frankenstein’s Monster is the dream character for him, and he’s not talking about a reimagining – he wants to do a modern take on the famous Jack Pierce make-up that originated with Boris Karloff in 1931. There are many who think this design, which has been co-opted by cereal and comedy, can no longer scare, but Baker insisted to me that with just some minor tweaks Pierce’s vision could be as horrifying today as it was in the 30s.

Bride of Frankenstein. For my money The Bride of Frankenstein, the first sequel to Frankenstein, is the best of all the Universal Monster movies. James Whale approached the film from a campier direction, but the humor mixed with a serious dose of weirdness and a heaping helping of beautiful character work elevates the film in ways I don’t think anyone at the time could have seen coming.

There’s been a remake before – The Bride, starring Sting and Jennifer Beals – but the less said about that, the better. Universal has been batting around a remake for a couple of years, with the latest version being set in the modern day New York, with a script by Sheri Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, although that was scrapped. The project has now moved on to Neil Burger, writer and director of The Illusionist, who is working on the script with partner Dirk Wittenborn. I don’t know what Burger’s take on the material is, but I imagine that his version will bring in the Bride before the last scenes, unlike the original Whale version.

Creature From the Black Lagoon. Possibly the final great Universal Monster, the Gillman has been poised for a comeback for years. The project has been stopped and started many times over the previous decades, and it has just recently undergone another change of leadership; Breck Eisner (questionably talented son of Michael) dropped off the project and has been replaced by Carl Rinsch, a commercials director who had been in line to direct the Alien prequel for daddy-in-law Ridley Scott (nepotism runs strong in the Black Lagoon). What Rinsch’s take might be is a mystery, but don’t be surprised that it’s in 3D, just like the original film.

The best case scenario is that we dodged a bullet with Eisner leaving. Monster maven Rick Baker has been involved in myriad Creature designs over the years, and the latest one he was pitched was one he opted not to do: Universal wanted to turn the Creature into some kind of amalgamation of various undersea life, including throwing tentacles on there. It sounds like this could have been from Eisner’s version. Hopefully Rinsch understands the beautiful simplicity of the classic Gillman design and sticks with something approximating it.

The Invisible Man. David Goyer has been working on a new version of The Invisible Man, but he’s the only one of these reboots that isn’t a remake – his version is actually a sequel to the original. In Goyer’s film the nephew of the original Invisible Man discovers the invisibility formula and perfects it. He’s captured by Scotland Yard and is forced into spying for Britain as part of the brand new MI6. Goyer is looking to bring a steampunk sensibility to the film, and it sounds like his take on the Invisible Man will be more of an action-adventure movie than a horror film, drawing on Goyer’s long experience with superhero comics and movies.

Dracula. You’d think that a Dracula reboot would be simple in this modern Twilight age, but Universal is doing something much stranger with the character: they’re making Dracula Year Zero, a movie about the historical Vlad Tepes Dracula, who inspired Bram Stoker’s immortal vampire. But the film, to be directed by Alex Proyas, also weaves in elements of the vampire mythos. The most recent rumors have omnipresent actor Sam Worthington toplining.

But it’s unclear if this film will be going forward; if it does it has serious competition from another Vlad movie called Vlad the Impaler, and that one is a more straight-ahead story, free of vampire associations. Vampire mania or no, it seems like there’s probably only room in the marketplace for one movie about a Romanian genocidal lunatic, so it’s quite possible that Universal blinks. I actually would rather they did blink and tried to find something more traditional for Drac.

Am I missing any films in development? Is any of my info out of date? Can you spill more beans about these movies and what’s happening with them? Drop me a line at devin at chud.com and keep me in the loop.

The Wolfman II. Yup. The new The Wolfman leaves open the ending for a possible sequel. I won’t spoil what that ending is, but the potential story implications are really intriguing and thematically fascinating. And that’s just a sequel to this film; when I talked to producer Scott Stuber, who did The Wolfman and is on Frankenstein, he talked about how much he loved the shared universe nature of the original Universal Monsters. With The Wolfman being set in Victorian times and with Guillermo del Toro all but assured to want to set his version in that same timeframe, how far off are we from a remake of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man becoming a reality?

Posted under Did you know?, Hollywood, guillermo del toro

 

May we have the envelope, please…? 

The Golden Globes, the Oscars, the Grammy’s, the Director’s Guild, the Writer’s Guild, the Producer’s Guild, ahhh!  The list goes on and on and on and… well, you get the point.  It’s definitely awards season; that time of year when there’s an awards show or ceremony for almost anything and everything in entertainment.  There’s even an awards show for things that suck.  Too bad there isn’t an award for the worst awards show…. hey, there’s an idea.  Well, we want to get in on this action by presenting the first Meltdown Comic Awards of 2009, or the MCA’s since every good awards show needs a nickname, and we need your votes to find the winners.  Since there’s no better authority in these categories than the people who actually read the comics themselves, we’re going to let you choose who will win.  The following categories were carefully selected by a painstakingly arduous process (we threw darts at a cork board), and the nominees were picked based off of Diamond Comic Distributors Top 100 Selling Books of 2009.  Take a peek at the following categories below, and like the saintly old knight warned Indy:

“You must choose, but choose wisely.”

 Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the 2009 Meltdown Comic Awards (cue cheesy orchestra music!)  And the nominees are:

1. Best Indie Series:                                                                             

1. KICK-ASS (Icon) 2. SCOTT PILGRIM vs.THE UNIVERSE (Oni Press) 3. CHEW (Image)

                     

 

 2. Best Series:

1. BATWOMAN – Detective Comics (DC) 2. INVINCIBLE IRON-MAN (Marvel) 3. INCOGNITO (Icon)

                    

 

3. Hero of the Year:

1. BATWOMAN – Detective Comics (DC) 2. GREEN LANTERN – Green Lantern: The Blackest Night (DC) 3. SPIDERWOMAN – Spiderwoman (Marvel)

                    

 

 4. Villain of the Year:

1. BLACK HAND (DC) 2. NORMAN OSBORN (Marvel) 3. NECRON (DC)

              

 

5. Most Horrific Death:

BLOB – Head bitten off by Hank Pym – Ultimatum #3 (Marvel) HAWKGIRL – Impaled on a spear by Sue Dibny – Blackest Night #1 (DC) ARES – Head split in two with an axe by W.W. – Wonder Woman #31 (DC)

                   

 

6. Best Return from the Dead:

THE FLASH – Flash: The Rebirth (DC) SUPERBOY – Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #4 (DC) CAPTAIN AMERICA – Captain America: Reborn (Marvel)

                     

 

7. Best Cover:

NOVA #22 – Cover by Juan Doe (Marvel) INCOGNITO #6 – Cover by Sean Phillips (Icon) SCALPED #30 – Cover by Mark “Jock” Simpson (Vertigo)

                   

 

8. Best Spin Off Series:

BATMAN & ROBIN – by Grant Morrison (DC) THE LITERALS – by Bill Willingham and Matt Sturges (Vertigo) DEADPOOL TEAM-UP – by Fred van Lente (Marvel)

                   

 

9. Coolest New Costume:

BATWOMAN – J. H. Williams III (DC) THE PLUTONIAN – Peter Krause (Boom) IRON PATRIOT – Mike Deodato (Marvel)

                    

 

10. Best Graphic Novel:

ASTERIOS POLYP – by David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon) THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN 1910 – by Alan Moore (ABC) FABLES: THE DARK AGES – by Bill Willingham (Vertigo)

                    

 

 11. Best Writer:

MARK WAID – Irredeemable (Boom) GEOFF JOHNS – The Blackest Night (DC) BRIAN K. VAUGHAN – Ex Machina (Vertigo)

                    

 

12. Best Artist:

JOHN ROMITA Jr. – Kick-Ass (Icon); Spiderman (Marvel) JOHN CASSADAY – Planetary (Wildstorm); Astonishing X-men (Marvel) STEVE McNIVEN – The Goon (Dark Horse)

                    

13. Best Celebrity Made Title:

KEVIN SMITH – Batman: Cacophony (DC) JOSS WHEDON – Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight (Dark Horse) GERARD WAY – The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)

                     

 

14. Best Event of the Year:

WORLD’S END (Vertigo/DC) DARK REIGN (Marvel) BLACKEST NIGHT (DC)

                     

 

15. Best WTF Moment:

HOUSE OF MYSTERY – The whole f’ing series (Vertigo) CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN – He was running around in four different titles before his actual resurrection! RED SHE-HULK – “’Nuff said” (Marvel) Write your own

                    

To have your vote count, post your selections in our comment section following this column.  For example: #1.-1; #2.-3; #3.-1; etc. (Even though she’s not nominated, we wouldn’t be surprised if Taylor Swift winds up winning something.)  The votes will be added up and the winners announced next week.  So, put on your best suit or dress, roll out the red carpet and get ready to be our judges!  Oops, there’s the music, we have to hurry this up before I get cut –

 

 by: Stacey Levin & Jason Vaughn         

Posted under Art, Boom!, News, Stacey and Jason, The List, WTF

Night of the Nick-Nacks: Art inspired by the movie Return to Oz and the books of L. Frank Baum.
Opening Reception: February 27th, 2010. 6pm-10pm.

Posted under Art, Do Something, Family, From the Editor, Meltdown Gallery, Nightlife, event