The rumor started circulating earlier this week that 20th Century Fox was going to remake the original Alien movie. This sent sci-fi and Ridley Scott fans in to a frothing-at-the-mouth rampage that could have very well cost someone their lives. Luckily Collider.com talked with Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother, about it at a press event for The Taking of Pelham 123, and luckily he cleared up the fact that is actually a prequel to the original film, and will be directed by relative newcomer Carl Rinsch.
If this somehow finally answers the questions fans have had about the crashed egg carrier in the first film, I’ll be all for it, but otherwise, do we really need it?
I’m a bit of an oddity when it comes to the series as I have enjoyed all four films, and don’t have an out right hate for any of them as most do. I feel all four films are very different studies of similar themes, and each has its pros and cons. So while I don’t just dismiss a prequel outright, I’m just not sure we really need it. Do we really want to know where the aliens come from? Even though fans have questions about the Space Jockey (the huge corpse you see in the first film in the egg carrier), do we really need to know the answers
Heck, we don’t even know yet what this film will address or if it will go off in some total weird angle no one has thought of before. Some reports indicate it will deal with the events immediately preceding the first film which would lead me to believe it has something to do with how and why the Weiland-Yutani Company knew to direct the Nostromo to the planet LV-426 in the first place, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
The current plan calls for production to begin by the end of the year, but no release date has yet been set, but it will probably be summer 2011.
What would you like to see addressed in a prequel?
The G.I. Joe movie looks worse and worse with each passing moment.
While I always thought the G.I. Joe property was ripe for a movie, they seem to hae gone out of their way to make this thing look like a complete cheese fest. I thought the Super Bowl ad looked bad, but this new clip is just horrendous. I can live with the Baroness (Sienna Miller) not having an accent, but these power suits the Joe team are just… I just don’t get them.
At no point in the 25+ years of this version of G.I. Joe featured in the movie did they wear “power suits”. They wore battle armor, went into space and even fought a war on drugs, but they never put on silver suits that gave them super human strength and agility. So why does this movie feel the need for them? There is more than enough back story out there already to build multiple movies, but they felt the neex to build something so over the top that it een looks bad? Good job folks!
I actually was looking forward to this movie for a while, but I think all of that interest is now gone. Judge for yourself below.
- The teacher sex scandals just get dumber and dumber, and it makes me worry about this country as a whole.
Here’s
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A new twist to the age-old story of teacher sex scandals where the mother actually knew it was going on.
Maria Guman Hernandez, 32-years-old, has been asked to resign from her position as a sixth-grade teacher at Our Lady of Charity in Hialeah, FL. The reason is that around May 20th rumors began to circulate that Ms. Hernandez was having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old eigth-grader at the school. Principal Xenia Torres struggled with the idea of reporting the rumor to the Department of Children & Families (DCF). She was informaed by a school lawyer that they had no choice under Florida law, so they made the call.
While the police sought the teacher for questioning, they had to wait for her to return from a vacation she was taking with the student to Walt Disney World.
During the time where they waited for the pair to return, they spoke with the student’s mother and discovered that she was well aware of the relationship and had approved of it because she felt Hernandez “was a nice enough person and a good influence on her son.”
Upon Ms. Hernandez’s return from the vacation, she was taken into custody and admitted to the relationship after she was read her rights. The student also admitted to a sexual relationship with the teacher, and he informed the police that the sexual relations began in March of this year and that they used his family apartment for their meetings with his mother’s approval.
The mother has not yet been charged with anything, but that may change as the investigation continues. On late Wednesday a juvenille judge ruled that the mother could keep custody of both the 15-year-old and her 4-year-old, but she would have to under go counseling, and the two boys would have to be checked for emotional damage. The court also said that a guardian would have to live in the house for a while to help the mother out, and DCF was authoried to make unannounced visits to check in on how the family was doing.
There is still no word on if Hernandez has resigned, but she did make her bail of $10,000 and is currently out of jail.
This women now joins the roll call of teacher sex scandals for 2009!
I don’t normally get all that excited about fan made stuff. I have nothing against it as a hobby, I just don’t ever see much point to watching them. Well, seeing as I am suffering a bout of writer’s block on the article I’m working on, and someone Tweeted about a fan made Green Lantern trailer, and I thought, “Oh, what the heck”, so I checked it out.
Wow.
This is one of the best fan made videos I’ve seen, and yes, I know that the majority of the footage comes from other films, but it works, and it works well. And, I have to say, seeing Nathan Fillion in connection with Hal Jordan, he would be excellent in the role,but I don’t expect him to get it.
I would say for those of you unfamiliar with the mythos of the Green Lanterns, this covers it pretty well. I’m not sure how much the movie will deal with the other members of the Green Lantern Corps, it was a cool concept seeing so many of the recognizable members in there. (Kilowog and Tomar-Re to name a couple)
Good job to whomever made this, lets hope Warner Brothers treats the property with as much reverence as you did.
Really, what else can you say about the idea of a totally new Buffy, The Vampire Slayer movie that will probably not involve Joss Whedon, the creator of the concept? According to the Hollywood Reporter, that may be exactly what we are in store for.
The 1992 movie was produced by Kuzui Enterprises which still owns the rights to the character to this day. They obtained the rights after Fran Rubel Kuzui, the eventual director of the film, found the script by the then unknown Joss Whedon. Her husband, Kaz Kuzui, obtained the financing they needed and… it was a disaster. Although it technically made a profit on its modest $7 million budget, it only grossed $16 million at the box office, and it was viewed as a flop.
When it came time for the series, the Kuzui’s still owned the rights to Buffy herself, but not the characters created specifically for the series such as Willow, Xander, Angel and Spike. While the series was a success, and even went to spin off a seperate series, it appears that the Kuzui’s feel it could do with, you guessed it, a “reboot”.
Roy Lee and Doug Davison of Vertigo Entertainment are working with the Kuzui’s to secure a studio and funding to launch an entirely new relaunched franchise that would ignore the television series, and would be separate of the first movie. The plan is for a darker, eent-sized movie that would set up its own history, and hopefully launch a whole new franchise.
The problem is that at this time Joss Whedon is in no way involved with the project. While it isn’t unusual for reboots/relaunches to not involve their original creators, you are talking about a beloved property that has one of the most loyal fan bases out there. Die hard fans of Whedon and the original works will more than likely avoid this new movie like it has the plague. True, we aren’t the entire potential audience for this movie, but without the long time fans behind it, it’s easy to imagine things won’t bode well for this project.
Hopefully someone will come to their senses and kill this before it gets anywhere close to being a reality.
Forget summer! I want it to be November 10th, 2009!
As promised, this weekend brought about a full trailer for Call of Duty 6, also known as Modern Warfare 2. While most of it appears to be cut scenes from the single player campaign mode, it still looks amazing. The only problem is that the vast majority of people who play these games, it’s all about the online mode. Sure, we all play the single player game once, we need to know what to expect from the multiplayer!
It does look like we’ll be globe trotting again this time around with at least Brazil and some unkwnon spot in Europe, it appears we’ll get the same flavor as we did last time around. It is beginning to look more and more likely we may actually drive the snowmobiles, not sure how I feel about that as vehicle driving in these games doesn’t always work out the best, but we’ll have to wait and see. And, hey, a castle blows up, so it can’t be all bad!
A 23-year-old music teacher at Greenfield High School in Greenfield, Missouri has been arrested on allegations that she had a sexual relationship with a student.
Back on May 15th, Alison M. Peck was charged with two counts of statutory rape of a child under the age of 17. These were followed up on May 18th with charges in a second county and she is now facing statutory rape and sodomy charges.
Reportedly the relationship with the student began in December 2008 via text messages that eventually evolved into sexting, and then became physical in January of this year. The liaisons were said to have happened in two different counties, and the charges are for statutory rape in Dade County, and statutory rape and sodomy in Lawrence County.
Now, this is where the story takes an odd turn. I originally passed on covering this story because I had done so many of these lately, and even though this happened in my own state, I showed restraint and passed over it, but then she was arrested again on May 22nd on completely new charges.
After the original charges were filed, Ms. Peck was instructed to have no contact with the student or his family. On May 15th, two friends of Ms. Peck contacted the 16-year-old boy and arranged for him to meet with her at the American Inn in Springfield, MO for pizza. The two friends picked up the boy and transported the boy to the arranged meeting spot. After her friends left, Ms. Peck and the minor were reported to have spent the night at the hotel and engaged in sexual relations.
When authorities learned of the liaison, she was arrested again and charged with one count of statutory rape and her bond in that county was set at $200,000. Under the new court orders she is to have no contact with the boy or his family, to remain 1,000 feet away from his home and school and to also have no contact with the two friends that assisted her with the May 15th meeting. She was also ordered not to leave Missouri and had to surrender her passport to the authorities.
In a May 19th interview with KSPR, Ms. Peck’s lawyer, Bob Torp, said the following.
She’s going to cooperate. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, investigate it.
I want people to understand that she’s a person. She’s not a monster. She’s innocent until proven guilty.
Torp said his client is “doing as well as can be expected. I think that, you know, there’s a certain amount of shock that comes with something like this. It’s just starting to sink in.”
This was of course four days after the reported meeting at the American Inn, and three days before she was arrested again.
UPDATED 06/04/09: Age corrected from 14-years-old to 16-years-old. At the time of the original posting he was being reported at the former, so that is what I went with.
This women now joins the roll call of teacher sex scandals for 2009!
There’s bad taste, and then there is REALLY bad taste. One guess which category this idea falls in to.
It seems that Mary Kay Letourneau and her husband Vili Fualaa are hosting a “Hot For Teacher” night at a Seattle nightclub named Fuel. In case you don’t remember this pair, Mary Kay was Vili’s teacher in 1996, and they began a sexual relationship when he was 13 and she was 34. Her husband found a letter between the two in February 1997, and between this and Vili’s cousin learning of the relationship, she was arrested and charged with statutory rape.
She was sentenced to 7 & 1/2 years in prison, and four months after starting her sentence she gave birth to a baby girl fathered by Vili. Two months later she was released on January 1, 1998 for good behavior, and ordered not to see Vili.
On February 3,1998 she and Vili were found in a car by the police and was arrested for violating the court order. She has also failed to join the sex offender program, and evidence was found in the car the implicated she was abut to leave the country. She was placed back in prison for her full possible sentence of 7 & 1/2 years.
In March 1998 it was discovered she was pregnant with a second child by Vili, and she gave birth to that child in October, 1998. In May 1999 she and her husband, Steve Letourneau, were divorced, and he moved with their four children to Alaska. Then, in November, 1999, she got six months in solitary confinement for smuggling letters out of prison to Vili.
On August 4, 2004, she was released from prison, and by August 7th Vili was filing for the ban on them seeing each other to be lifted. They wed on May 20,2005, and Mary Kay is still registered as a Level 2 sex offender who has to have her address verified every 90-days.
So, a woman convicted of committing statutory rape against a student, and her victim-turned-husband, are going to host a party at a night entitled “Hot For Teacher”. I can’t be the only one who thinks this may be one of the most tasteless ideas ever, can I? Nope, I’m not. How anyone can think this is a good idea, from the nightclub to Mary Kay and Vili themselves thinks this is a good idea, is just totally beyond comprehension. And when did Vili start thinking he was a DJ?
Perhaps some of this year’s teachers involed in sex scandals can make a lucrative career out of hosting nightclub nights that are in bad taste.
This week Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself took on, as usual, a lot of subjects. I return to my opinionated self this week as I’m not dealing with tornadoes or computers.
- Should Valleywag take up vetting political appointments?
- The FTC wants to make life for bloggers a LOT tougher and more annoying. We, of course, don’t agree.
- Hulu will finally be shown in a country outside of the USA… but it’s only England so far.
- We lost an advertiser this week when they learned of our network name. We made them “umcomfortable”. Grow a pair.
- Twitter has a business model!… maybe… sorta… kinda… huh?
As always, I make a joke about Canada. Thank goodness Steven has a sense of humor.
- A bit of a recap on what is going on with the TV schedules for next fall.
Everyone have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!
Here’s
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The CW has released their new schedule. New shows are in bold.
MONDAY
8PM GOSSIP GIRL
9PM ONE TREE HILL
TUESDAY
8PM 90210
9PM MELROSE PLACE
WEDNESDAY
8PM AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL
9PM THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE
THURSDAY
8PM VAMPIRE DIARIES
9PM SUPERNATURAL
FRIDAY
8PM SMALLVILLE
9PM AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL Encore
New The CW Fall Show Descriptions
MELROSE PLACE
In an elegant Spanish-style apartment building in the trendy Melrose neighborhood of Los Angeles, a diverse group of 20-somethings have formed a close-knit surrogate family. Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton, the original “Melrose Place”) is the landlady, still beautiful at 40, and a central figure in the lives of all her tenants, especially handsome and rebellious David Breck (Shaun Sipos, “Shark”). Sydney started an affair with David despite her turbulent history with his estranged father, Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro, the original “Melrose Place”). Both father and son learned through experience that Sydney was not above using blackmail to control people. Another tenant, high-powered publicist Ella Simms (Katie Cassidy, “Supernatural”), once considered Sydney her mentor, but their friendship was destroyed by betrayal, and Sydney threatened to evict Ella and ruin her career. Sydney also played a pivotal role in the career of Auggie Kirkpatrick (Colin Egglesfield, “All My Children”). After they met at an AA meeting, she became Auggie’s sponsor and encouraged his dream to become a chef. Now a successful sous chef at the trendy restaurant Coal, Auggie has been avoiding Sydney since she began drinking again. The other tenants include Lauren Yung (Stephanie Jacobsen, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”), a medical student in desperate need of money to pay her student loans, and Jonah Miller (Michael Rady, “Swingtown”), an aspiring filmmaker who has just proposed to his live-in girlfriend Riley Richmond (Jessica Lucas, “Cloverfield”), a first-grade teacher. The newest tenant, 18-year-old Violet Foster (Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, “7th Heaven”), has just arrived in LA with her own secret connection to Sydney. When a bloody body is found floating in the courtyard pool, David is the leading suspect. However, as the police are soon to discover, almost everyone living at Melrose Place had a reason to want the deceased out of the way. An updated version of the popular 1990s series, MELROSE PLACE is from CBS Television Studios with executive producers Todd Slavkin & Darren Swimmer (“Smallville”). Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) is the director and executive producer of the pilot.
Sean’s Take: Well, since The CW has no standards for success it seems, why not bring back another dead show. Like all the other CW shows of this style, it will find some sort of audience.
THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE
The life of a high-fashion model appears glamorous and sexy, but as every new model quickly learns, behind the beautiful faade is a world of insecurity and cutthroat competition. Two teenage models who are about to discover this world for themselves are Raina Collins (Sara Paxton, “Last House on the Left”), a stunning beauty with a secret past, and Chris Andrews (Benjamin Hollingsworth, “The Line”), a strikingly handsome Iowa farm boy. When Raina makes an unforgettable impression at a show introducing the new line from designer Zac Posen (appearing in a cameo role), she steals the spotlight from her friend Sonja (Mischa Barton, “The O.C.”). Sonja has been out of the country for mysterious reasons and is now desperate to reclaim her standing as the reigning supermodel. While Raina and Sonja live at the top of the fashion food chain, Chris is starting at the bottom, having just been discovered by agent Simon Lockridge (newcomer Dusan Dukic) of the Covet Modeling Agency, which is owned by former supermodel Claudia Foster (Elle Macpherson, “Friends”). At his first photo shoot, Chris’ inexperience almost derails his career until Raina comes to his rescue, showing him how to relax and work the camera. That afternoon, Raina brings Chris to the “models’ residence” where she lives along with other young hopefuls, including Marissa Delfina (Ashley Madekwe, “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”), Egan (Jordan Woolley, “As The World Turns”), Issac (Corbin Bleu, “High School Musical 2″) and the current alpha-male-model known as Kai (Nico Tortorella, “Twelve”). At an exclusive industry party that night, Chris is again impressed by Raina’s generosity when she steps aside to make sure Sonja lands a job that will resurrect her career. However, after an ugly scene with Simon, Chris is left to question whether he can survive in this world of dangerous excess and fleeting fame. THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE is from Katalyst Films in association with CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Ashton Kutcher & Jason Goldberg (“True Beauty,” “Punk’d”), Karey Burke (“True Beauty”), Mike Kelley (“Swingtown,” “Jericho”) and Carol Barbee (“Swingtown,” “Jericho”). Christian Duguay (“Coco Chanel”) directed the pilot.
Sean’s Take: Well, at least they are up front about this show just being about “beautiful” people for once.
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
Four months after the tragic car accident that killed their parents, 17-year-old Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev, “DeGrassi: The Next Generation”) and her 15-year-old brother, Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen, “Everwood”) are still trying to cope with their grief and move on with their lives. Elena has always been the star student; beautiful, popular and involved with school and friends, but now she finds herself struggling to hide her sadness from the world. As the school year begins, Elena and her friends are fascinated by a handsome and mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley, “Army Wives”). Stefan and Elena are immediately drawn to one another, and Elena has no way of knowing that Stefan is a centuries-old vampire, struggling to live peacefully among humans, while his brother Damon (Ian Somerhalder, “Lost”) is the embodiment of vampire violence and brutality. Now these two vampire brothers – one good, one evil – are at war for Elena’s soul and for the souls of her friends, family and all the residents of the small town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. Based on the series of books by L. J. Smith, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is from Alloy Entertainment and Bonanza Productions Inc in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Television Studios with executive producers Kevin Williamson (“Dawson’s Creek,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer”), Julie Plec (“Kyle XY,” “Wasteland”), Leslie Morgenstein (“Gossip Girl,” “Privileged”) and Bob Levy (“Gossip Girl,” “Privileged”). Marcos Siega (“Dexter”) directed the pilot.
Sean’s Take: Well, we all knew this was coming. Vampires are hot again… this has a built-in audience… now lets see if it’s any good.
New The CW Midseason Show Descriptions
PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED
After spending all of her 15 years bouncing from one foster family to another in Portland, Oregon, Lux (Britt Robertson, “Swingtown”) has decided it’s time to take control of her life and become an emancipated minor. Her journey through the legal maze leads Lux to her biological father, 30-something Nate “Baze” Bazile (Kristoffer Polaha, “Mad Men”), who owns a bar, lives like an aging frat-boy with two slacker roommates, and is astonished to learn that he has a teenage daughter. Lux is equally astonished when Baze reveals that her mother is Cate Cassidy (Shiri Appleby, “E.R.”), a star on the local “Morning Madness” radio show, along with her on-air partner and real-life boyfriend, Ryan Thomas (Kerr Smith, “Eli Stone”). Lux has been listening to Cate’s voice on the radio as long as she can remember, so she feels an instant connection with the mom she’s never met. Baze takes Lux to meet Cate, who is shocked and saddened to learn that Lux has grown up in foster care, but thrilled to finally meet her beautiful daughter. When a judge decides that Lux isn’t ready for emancipation and unexpectedly grants temporary joint custody to Baze and Cate, they agree to try to get past the awkwardness and make a belated attempt to give Lux the family she deserves. PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED is produced by Mojo Films in association with CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television with executive producers Liz Tigelaar (“Brothers and Sisters,” “What About Brian”) and Gary Fleder (“October Road”). Gary Fleder directed the pilot.
Sean’s Take: This on The CW? It almost sounds too… nice. Oh well, they have had a gap since Gilmore Girls ended.
Sean’s Overall Take on The CW
How is this “network” still running? Smallville is going into season 9? They aren’t even on the air two nights a week! I really have no clue how they keep going.
There’s going to be a fifth Alien movie… oh joy.
The G.I. Joe movie looks worse and worse with each passing moment.
Scattercast is 45… and it’s turning in to an old yelling guy.
A new twist to the age-old story of teacher sex scandals where the mother actually knew it was going on.
I don’t normally get all that excited about fan made stuff. I have nothing against it as a hobby, I just don’t ever see much point to watching them. Well, seeing as I am suffering a bout of writer’s block on the article I’m working on, and someone Tweeted about a fan made Green Lantern trailer, and I thought, “Oh, what the heck”, so I checked it out.
No.
Forget summer! I want it to be November 10th, 2009!
A 23-year-old music teacher at 
After the original charges were filed, Ms. Peck was instructed to have no contact with the student or his family. On May 15th, two friends of Ms. Peck contacted the 16-year-old boy and arranged for him to meet with her at the American Inn in Springfield, MO for pizza. The two friends picked up the boy and transported the boy to the arranged meeting spot. After her friends left, Ms. Peck and the minor were reported to have spent the night at the hotel and engaged in sexual relations.
CobWEBs episode 4 is in the can!
MELROSE PLACE
THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE
THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
