Slashdot Mirror

She spells it Marg, not Marge, and her full name is Mary Margaret Helgenberger. As for a lack of sex, Marg sure spends a lot of time bending forward into the camera while wearing a low-cut blouse. Not that I'm complaining.

Lockheed Marin

Lol, is that a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Cheech Marin?

Jes bustin' yer chops...

Ummm... you mean that kid RIver Phoenix that OD'ed 8 1/2 years ago?

LucasArts may be quite talented, but re-animating the dead I don't think is in their power.

Anyways, I take some offense at the "ignorant citizenry" bit. Am I to educate myself on every fucking thing the gov't does? This is a hallmark of American society. We, at least what appears to me to be a large majority, trust our gov't to do the right things.

You have just pointed out what the problem with democracy in America today is. For a democracy to truly work it requires an educated populace that is well informed about the issues of the day and participates in electoral activities frequently so as to give politicians feedback on what actions they like and dislike.

Sadly, a lot of Americans are like you and think that their duty in a democracy doesn't extend beyond voting along party lines (if they do vote at all) in what has slowly become a popularity contest akin to high school elections where discussion of the issues or of the past performance of incumbents is not debated but instead mudslinging and name calling are the order of the day.

Anyway so this isn't completely offtopic. In real life, the character played by Ewan McGregor in Black Hawk Down is based on real-life Army Ranger John "Stebby" Stebbins, who, aside from being a hero in the Battle of Mogadishu, is now a convicted child molesterwho is now serving a 30-year sentence for raping and molesting a young girl.

This is completely bogus. It was the truck driver who was found dead, and this happened more than one year ago

1. Fabio was injured by a kamikaze goose. Worthy target, but clearly they've got a predilection for suicide-assassination missions.
2. Gras doesn't mean "goose"; it means "fat", as in Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). Foie gras means fatty liver. Nice try, though.

Don't know if this will impact the scheduling of the movie but......

'Terminator' breaks ribs in motorcycle crash
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger was hospitalized with several broken ribs after a weekend motorcycle accident, his publicist said Monday.

The 54-year-old star of the "Terminator" movies was resting at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica after the Sunday afternoon crash, publicist Jill Eisenstadt said.

Schwarzenegger, who is negotiating to appear in a third "Terminator" film, was "in good spirits, feeling sore, but otherwise fine," she said.

"Don't worry," the actor said in a statement. "This won't affect my skiing with my family at Sun Valley (Idaho) this Christmas."

Details of the motorcycle accident, which also occurred in Santa Monica, were not immediately available.

Schwarzenegger underwent elective surgery to replace a heart valve in April 1997.

His new movie "Collateral Damage," which was postponed after the Sept. 11 attacks because it's about terrorism, now is scheduled to open in February.

link to another news source...

This is fairly reminiscient of other stupid crossover attempts by "artists" speaking outside their medium.

Old Dirty Bastard broke a law (in California, not NY) prohibiting convicted violent felons from wearing body armor. This is similar to other laws prohibiting "those people" (felons, not black people) from owning firearms and / or voting.

I thought Neo was The One. Anyway, the movie is getting average ratings from papers across the globe. Here they are if you'd like a second opinion:

Chicago Tribune: 3 stars

Detroit Free Press: 1 star

E! Online: C-

Entertainment Weekly: C-

Did you know that the movie was originally going to star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson of WWF fame?

Her name is Jennifer Garner, more info here.

buh-bye...

[All links pulled from google's first page for each letter - sick, ain't it?]

Here we've spent the past year or so training her so she doesn't put things like rocks, button, the lens cap to my camera, a quarter that fell out of my pocket, a bug crawling along the ground out of fear she might swallow them (that and chewmarks on my lens cap really causes some problems).

Then again, it might be a valuable tool for trying to figure out if my car keys are in her cute little belly. Even more useful if they added a GPS so I could keep track of the little stinker when she decides she's had enough of the back yard.

Ok, if they don't pop to the back, that would definitely bump them up in the suck factor.

But the scantily clad babe thing is a fringe benefit: you can now, in fact, browse any of the soft-core "E!-Network" brand of pseudo-porn and when caught, just claim "It was an X10 popunder ad!"

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution - (grade: C+) "Maybe Darwin was wrong: this remake shows no sign of evolution."

• Chicago Tribune - "...a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house."

• CNN.com - "...this is one really bad script."

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - (3 stars) "...when it's good, it comes close to being great."

• E! Online - (grade: C+) "...offers an eye-appealing world but a truly disappointing story."

• Entertainment Weekly - (grade: C+) "...[features] everything...but imagination."

• L.A. Weekly - "...underwritten..."

• Los Angeles Times - "...over-plotted and under-dramatized..."

• Mr. Showbiz - (rating: 2/5) "...despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation."

• New York Times - "...both a gas and distant, a toy sealed in its unbreakable box."

• People - "The fault lies not in the stars here but in the script."

• Roger Ebert - (2.5 stars) "I expected more."

• Salon - "...stops far too short of being completely seductive."

• San Francisco Chronicle - "...an amazing display of imagination."

• TV Guide - (2.5 out of 5 stars) "...sorely deficient on the story front."

• USA Today - (3 out of 4 stars) "...[the costumes] allow the power of the performer inside the ape gear to break on through."

• Search the Movie Review Query Engine

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" wants to be all things to all men, and all apes. It's an action picture and a satire of an action picture. It's a comedy and then it gets serious. It's a social satire and then backs away from pushing that angle too far. It even has a weird intra-species romantic triangle in it. And it has a surprise ending that I loved, even though Matt Drudge spoiled it last weekend with a breathless "scoop."

The movie could have been more. It could have been a parable of men and animals, as daring as "Animal Farm." It could have dealt in social commentary with a sting, and satire that hurt. It could have supported, or attacked, the animal rights movement. It could have dealt with the intriguing question of whether a man and a gorilla having sex is open-mindedness, or bestiality (and, if bestiality, in both directions?).

It could have, but it doesn't. It's a cautious movie, earning every letter and numeral of its PG-13 rating. Intellectually, it's science fiction for junior high school boys.

I expected more. I thought Burton would swing for the fence. He plays it too safe, defusing his momentum with little nudges to tell you he knows it's only a movie. The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" was made before irony became an insurance policy. It made jokes, but it took itself seriously. Burton's "Planet" has scenes that defy us to believe them (his hero survives two bumpy crash-landings that look about as realistic as the effects in his "Mars Attacks!"). And it backs away from any kind of risky complexity in its relationships.

The key couple consists of Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who is the human hero, and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the apes. They're attracted to each other but don't know what to do about it, and the screenplay gives them little help. Leo is also supposed to be linked romantically, I guess, with a curvy blond human named Daena (Estella Warren), but her role has been so abbreviated that basically all she does is follow along looking at Leo either significantly or winsomely, as circumstances warrant. At the end, he doesn't even bid her a proper farewell.

Leo, to be sure, is not one for effusive emotional outbursts. He's played by Wahlberg as a limited and narrow person with little imagination, who never seems very surprised by anything that happens to him--like, oh, to take a random example, crash-landing on a planet where the apes rule the humans. He's a space jockey type, trained in macho self-abnegation, who is great in a crisis but doesn't offer much in the way of conversation. His basic motivation seems to be to get himself off the planet, and to hell with the friends he leaves behind; he's almost surly sometimes as he leads his little band through the wilderness.

The most "human" character in the movie is, in fact, the chimpanzee Ari, who believes all species were created equal, casts her lot with the outcast humans, and tells Leo, "you're sensitive--a welcome quality in a man." Helena Bonham Carter invests this character with warmth, personality and distinctive body language; she has a way of moving that kids itself.

There's also juice in a character named Limbo (Paul Giamatti), a scam artist who has a deal for everyone, and a lot of funny one-liners. That he sounds like a carnival pitch-man should not be held against him.

The major ape characters include the fearsome Gen. Thade (Tim Roth), his strong but occasionally thoughtful gorilla lieutenant Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sen. Sandar (David Warner), who is a parliamentary leader and Ari's father. There's also a cameo for Charlton Heston, as a wise old ape who inevitably introduces a gun into the plot and has a curmudgeonly exit line. Watching the apes is fun all during the movie, while watching the humans usually isn't; the movie works hard to bring the apes to life, but unwisely thinks the humans can take care of themselves.

It's interesting that several different simian species co-exist in the planet's ape society. It may be a little hard to account for that, given the logic of the movie, although I will say no more. One major change between this film and the earlier one is that everyone--apes and humans--speak English. The movie explains why the apes speak English, but fudges on how they learned to speak at all.

The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker's makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe, and there's one neat long shot of the ape city-mountain that looks, when you squint a little, like Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." There are lines inviting laughs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice") and others unwisely inviting groans ("If you show me the way out of here--I promise I'll show you something that will change your life forever"). And a priceless moment when Leo wants to stop the squabbling among his fugitive group of men and apes and barks: "Shut up! That goes for all species!"

"Planet of the Apes" is the kind of movie that you enjoy at times, admire at times, even really like at times, but is it necessary? Given how famous and familiar Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film is, Tim Burton had some kind of an obligation to either top it, or sidestep it. Instead, he pays homage. He calls this version a "reimaging," and so it is, but a reinvention might have been better. Burton's work can show a wild and crazed imagination, but here he seems reined in. He's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

Let's make a tradition of this!

Someone should remind Dr. Dre of that ...

Of course, Dre may not be the patron saint of music ethics, either. He's just been sued for copyright infringement by George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd., which claims the rapper stole its "THX Deep Note" sound for the opening of his quadruple-platinum album, 2001. http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,6363,00.html

This was actually Duchovny's idea, and not originally in the script, at least, according to his interview at EOnline.[1]

I agree with your rant. I quit watching shortly after the movie, and nothing I've heard about recent seasons makes me regret it.

[1]While I'm posting, might as well throw in the Beeb's coverage of Anderson's career move, since I haven't seen it linked here yet.

this article tries to explain the whole thing. Both "nadia" and "laputa" (that share a good deal of plot and characters) came form an idea originated inside Studio Ghibli, when ANNO Hideaki was still working there, before creating GAINAX. Now, the folks at Disney are re-using some of the same ideas; this time, at least, they are acknowledging MIYAZAKI Hayao's work (he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place). When someone asked them if they where referring to TEZUKA Osamu with their "Lion King", they answered like "tezuka who?". And Tezuka was a great fan of Walt Disney.

Actually, you don't need to look to something as radical as logic to see the source of Dr. Laura's allegedly moral objections to porn.

It turns out that her attacks on the American Library Association and pornography in libraries began, by a strange coincidence, shortly after some amateur porn photos she'd done during an extramarital affair in the 70s leaked onto the net (search on "Dr. Laura Naked" to find the uncensored version). She sued over the photos, but the suit was dropped. Interestingly, the porn company that bought the photos also brought a lawsuit against the amateur sites which posted them. There was a great interview with the guy who took the photos which I'm afraid I can't find. He talked about her "sleeping her way to the top" of the radio industry.

Whenever somebody takes the moral high ground in attacking others, I immediately suspect them of doing the same. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," as I'm sure Dr. Laura herself would quote.

See also the Stop Dr. Laura site for further amusements.

They're holding back payments because they're trying to save Gary Coleman. Once Mr. Coleman's debt is handled, it'll be business as usual.

Who wouldn't get the Space 1999 reference?

BTW, Martin Landau rules... (He was the captain/leader on Space 1999) even if he hasn't aged very well...

The planned end result is pretty standard. Band, bar, dance floor, DJ booth, webcams, Internet kiosks, all of which have been seen in SF nightclubs before. No hydraulics, robots, or Vegas-style effects. I'd expected something more exciting, or at least more innovative.

In San Francisco, there's also the "BGP Problem". For over two decades, Bill Graham Presents had a lock on the better bands and venues. Nightclubs not under BGP control were stuck with inferior bands. Only 1015 Folsom and the Maritime Hall, both big venues, successfully booked major acts without BGP cooperation. Since Bill Graham died and BGP was acquired by The Contemporary Group, the local industry has changed somewhat, but it's still rather centralized.

Oh well.

Marissa-Eve Ayala was conceived and born specifically to save the life of her sister Anissa, who had leukemia.

Anissa's mother was over 40, and her father had had a vasectomy years earlier. Anissa's dad's vasectomy was reversed, they got pregnant, and the baby matched Anissa's blood type perfectly.

There was only a 1 in 4 chance the baby was going to match Anissa's blood type, but the family was willing to continue to have more and more children until they bore a child that matched Anissa.

Anissa is fully recovered now (after two transplants from Marissa, which isn't exactly a painless procedure) and you can read a news blurb about it here.

There was even a TV movie made about the story here.

not_anne

/. article mentioning interview wherein Sir Alec clearly shows his distaste for Star Wars.

Oh yeah, Harrison Ford didn't like it either (though it made him who he is today.)

Someone else can respond to the idea that he never would have been Indy had he not been Han.

--

Of course, people actually downloading the whole human genome probable wouldn't worry about this, but couldn't they use a better compression format than .zip? I bet using bzip2 or rar would shave a couple of hundred MBs off of that 753MB file. Also, the differences in compression techniques would be interesting to see on a large group of files mainly consisting of G, A, C, and T. -- demiurge You find a file that appears important and obliterate it from memory!!! Score one for the downtrodden hacker!

• G -- 00
• A -- 01
• T -- 10
• C -- 11

This would only work for the .fa files, but .fa files can contain "N"s also. If you just want to browse the Genome, look through the pieces directory. .

&gtanother point, are you paying less now for phone service than your parents did under ma bell?

Lucent Technologies is precisely the kind of "no-name" spin-off that I am thinking about. They had to make a name for themselves once they ceased to be Bell Labs, and they have steadily produced decent quality things that Ma Bell would never have created.

In Bill Cosby's Himself (1981), he mentions taking his wife to the hospital in his $17,000 Ferarri. How much is a new Ferarri these days? Just skimming the net turned up numbers from the mid- $40k range for a 1986 model to the mid $170k range for a new one. Yeah, take my phone bill and cut it down 90% and it is lower than my parent's phone bill of the time.

It's called preview. Learn to use it, you jackass.

This has dropped through so many hands so far. Glad to see Burton was able to get a hold of it.

Here's a story about how James Cameron was going to do it.
That article also mentions how Oliver Stone had been named as a possible director and Arnold Swarzanegger as the lead role. Now that Burton appears to be in charge, I would be very surprised if the Terminator was sent to dispatch all those damn hairy apes with a mini gun.

To clarify your comment:
"I think the one where Michael Milkin guest starred, where Mulder and His character switched bodies would also qualify as this type of episode."
Michael Milkin was a Wall Street junk bond trader who did time...
The person you are referring to is Michael McKean, who has been involved in everything from Laverne and Shirley to Spinal Tap to Saturday Night Live.
Mmmm...Goooogle...and HTML posting... Yummy...

"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)

The linked Prowse story has a picture of him sans Vader garb.

The linked Prowse story has a picture of him sans Vader garb.

There's no such thing as "bad" press.