The mobiBLU DAH-1500i taunts me.

First of all, let me just say that I thoroughly love my iPod Shuffle even more than I thought I would. The tiny, lightweight combination thumbdrive / mp3 player design is incredibly elegant, and the sound quality is fantastic. Sure, it doesn't have a screen, so navigation beyond the first couple dozen tracks can be a hassle (especially when you have a couple hundred), but frontloading your playlist with what you most often want to listen to largely solves that - and otherwise it's kinda cool to just take the hint and set it to shuffle, and enjoy something akin to your own private radio station that just plays music you like.

That said... I must admit I'm tantalyzed by the tinier (one cubic inch!) DAH-1500i mp3 player from South Korea's mobiBLU. Granted, it has a completely forgettable name, but includes an OLED display, multi-playlist navigation, and FM radio - at the same price points of the iPod Shuffle ($130/1GB, $100/512MB - though Shuffles are currently $5 off on Amazon, with free shipping). It seems to be sold semi-exclusively through Wal-Mart.com in the U.S., and comes in six colors. (I4U recently gave it a favorable review with lots of pictures.)

Roboraptor (and Robo Pet) are coming.

Remember Robosapien? Well, not only is he on sale, he's also getting some freaky friends. Check out the disturbing commercial for Roboraptor, which you will probably want to preorder right now - unless you'd prefer the somewhat less expensive/threatening Robo Pet. Both are $20 off (if you preorder) and will be released on September 1, which history may record as the day robots finally took over the world from their foolish human masters.
UPDATE: Roboraptor is now shipping - and still $20 off!

Anthony Bourdain returns with No Reservations

Anthony Bourdain, celebrated chef-at-large at New York's Les Halles Brasserie and author of Kitchen Confidential, A Cook's Tour, and the Les Halles Cookbook, returns to television tonight with his new series, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (10pm / 9pm CST on The Travel Channel). It's a semi-sequel to his previous show, A Cook's Tour, which I was a fan of. (In fact, I'll admit that Bourdain is probably my favorite celebrity cook who's not an original Iron Chef.) Anyway, tonight's premiere episode is entitled "Why the French Don't Suck," and garnered an amusing review in today's New York Times. I'm definitely TiVoing it.

INTERVIEWS: Wong Kar-Wei, Christopher Doyle, Tim Burton

Today's Los Angeles Times offers a fascinating profile of filmmaker Wong Kar-Wei, whom they dub Hong Kong's Poet of Regret. (His long-awaited new film 2046, a semi-sequel to In the Mood for Love, opens August 5 in the U.S. - some six years after it started shooting.) Tangentially, last week's Observer published an equally intruiging interview with Wong's celebrated cinematographer Christopher Doyle (who's currently prepping M. Night Shyamalan's next film).

Oh, and The Guardian does a superb job of examining the enigmatic Tim Burton by way of his sketchbook in a feature entitled Dark Arts.

TRAILERS: Shinobi, Mirrormask, V for Vendetta, Memory of a Killer, Grizzly Man & Stealth

In case you haven't seen 'em yet, here are the new trailers for Ten Shimoyama's Shinobi; Dave McKean & Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask; James McTeigue & the Wachowski Brothers' adaptation (bastardization?) of Alan Moore & David Lloyd's V for Vendetta; Erik Van Looy's The Memory of a Killer; and Werner Herzog's acclaimed documentary Grizzly Man. (Oh, and check out the kickass Stealth sizzle reel that played at ComicCon.)

I admit it. I liked The Island.

The Island may have earned a disappointing $4ish million Friday and gotten mostly crapped on by critics, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say both are thoroughly undeserved. This is a good movie - consistently entertaining and even engrossing - and probably director Michael Bay's best (and definitely most restrained) to date, thanks in large part to the eclectically interesting cast (Ewan MacGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi, Djimon Hounsou, Ethan Phillips and Michael Clarke Duncan). It is certainly the best science-fiction film of the year so far (though nowhere near as brilliant as the forthcoming Serenity, which is the best film I've seen this year).

Granted, I generally like Michael Bay movies as stylishly fun escapist guilty pleasures (except for the astonishingly horrid Pearl Harbor, which I loathed), so there's that. But you don't have to take my word for it - check out Roger Ebert's three-star review ("The first half of Michael Bay's new film is a spare, creepy science fiction parable, and then it shifts into a high-tech action picture. Both halves work.") and A.O. Scott's positive review ("This lavish, exhaustingly kinetic film is smarter than you might expect, and at the same time dumber than it could be."). But it's nowhere near as dumb as Star Wars: Rots or War of the Worlds.

For more, check out the L.A. Times' fascinating behind-the-scenes article on the making of the film, USA Today's interview with Michael Bay, and Newsweek's amusing conversation between Bay and critic David Ansen (who, from his stupid first question, reveals he either didn't pay attention to the film, or is rather dense).

David Lynch wants kids to meditate. And $7 Billion.

Filmmaker David Lynch wants to raise $7 billion to bring about world peace through a massive transcendental meditation program. Towards that end, he has established The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace in order to bring transcendental meditation to schoolchildren everywhere, and hopes to someday make it a standard part of every school's curriculum.

"People laugh at $7 billion," says Lynch, who has practiced meditation for over thirty years. "But it would stay in a bank account and the interest would be enough to keep things going on a permanent basis."

Godspeed, Mr. Scott.

36 Years Ago...

Boing Boing recommends a Moon Day party (with Tang and Moon Pies, of course). Also be sure to check out Google Moon (be sure to zoom in all the way) and the stunning Apollo QuickTime VRs at panoramas.dk.

Bob Newhart: Unbuttoned on American Masters

Tonight (9pm / 8pm CST), the acclaimed PBS biography series American Masters premieres filmmaker Kyra Thompson's documentary Bob Newhart: Unbuttoned, profiling one of my all-time favorite comedians. There are brief companion interviews online (with Newhart and Thompson), as well as some video clips. (It will re-air through the weekend; check local listings.)

Serenity International Trailer

Sadly not in high resolution, but still pretty damn shiny. (And yes, it's still my favorite movie of the year... so far.)

Texas A&M leads the world in cloning animals

The Associated Press released a fascinating and disturbing story the other day regarding how my alma mater Texas A&M leads the world in cloning animals. Allow me to summarize (via selectively edited excerpts, of course)...

Through painstaking experimentation, A&M is the world's first academic institution to clone six species in six years: cattle, a boer goat, pigs, a deer, a horse and - most famously - a cat named cc. (Michelle Thew of the Animal Protection Institute faults Texas A&M for trying to clone a dog and promoting the idea of pet cloning when millions of animals remain in shelters.) But for all the technological breakthroughs, A&M researchers say only 1 percent to 5 percent of cloning procedures succeed. "Animal cloning has resulted in a lot of issues with deaths and deformities that have been the norm, not the exception," said Lisa Archer, a spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth. She said an A&M study released in 2002 documented a 94 percent failure rate in efforts to clone pigs. Twenty-eight piglets were born without an anus and tail, a fatal condition.

Holy mother of crap!

Catching up on (lots of) weekend reading...

USA Today has a nice dual interview with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp regarding their shared taste for the surreal that has resulted in four film collaborations to date. "At times, it's as if our brains are connected by some invisible hot wire that can shoot sparks at any second, " says Depp. Burton concurs. "We like the same obscure things. Like Dean Martin roasts." And the L.A. Daily News has articles on the film, Danny Elfman's music for the film, and Deep Roy, who plays the Oompa-Loompas. (Oompa-Loompii?)

Meanwhile, Time has an interesting profile of Richard Linklater about his forthcoming remake of The Bad News Bears (though they incorrectly report the budget of A Scanner Darkly at $3M instead of $8M), while Salon offers an entertaining interview with Bruce "Don't Call Me Ash" Campbell about his new book and various tangents.

And finally, yesterday's New York Times Magazine offers a fascinating chronicle of Battlestar Galactica's rebirth (even if they give short shrift to the Bryan Singer / Tom DeSanto Galactica sequel series that almost was) and the Chicago Tribune has a stack of interviews with the cast.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is delicious joy.

Having now seen it twice to make sure I hadn't imagined it the first time, Tim Burton's new adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is his best film in over a decade, and ranks right up with the finest work he's ever done. It's a wonderfully weird, spellbinding phantasmagoria - spectacularly designed by Alex McDowell (who deserves an Oscar nomination), and populated by surreally vivid characters who look like moving Loretta Lux portraits. But more than all that, it is a surprisingly thoughtful and moving tale of destiny and karma - and remarkably faithful to the deliciously twisted book. The key is making Charlie the main character, and casting Finding Neverland's amazing Freddie Highmore in the role, though everyone else in the film is spot-on, as well. (Johnny Depp is, of course, daringly bizarre.) Danny Elfman's gleefully inspired music for the film is a particular treat, especially the five Oompa-Loompa songs for which Elfman provides all the vocals - four of which take their lyrics from Dahl's book. (The New York Times has an interesting article about this.)

This is a brilliantly delightful film (which thankfully and deservingly earned over $20 million yesterday). Highly recommended. (For more, I recommend reading ComingSoon.net's recent interview with Burton.)

Battlestar Galactica and SG-1 return...

Battlestar Galactica may have been robbed of Emmy nominations for Best Drama Series, Best Supporting Actor and more yesterday, but it's still the best science-fiction series on television (assuming you don't consider Lost sci-fi). After a surprisingly strong 13-episode first season, the series is back for a 20-episode second season that kicks off tonight (10pm / 9pm Central) on Sci Fi Channel, and I'm anxious to see where it leads.

Meanwhile, the venerable Stargate SG-1 enters its ninth (yes, ninth) season tonight (8pm / 7pm Central) , which is notable for intruiging cast additions that include Farscape's super cool Ben Browder as the new lead and Beau Bridges as a series regular, as well as Louis Gossett, Jr. and Farscape's Claudia Black as recurring characters. (Tonight is also the second season premiere of Stargate Atlantis, though that holds considerably less interest for me.)

About those Emmy nominations...

Emmy nominations were announced yesterday. Here are the major categories, along with my picks and predictions...

BEST DRAMA: Deadwood, Lost, 24, Six Feet Under, The West Wing. For me, it's a really tight race between Lost and 24, but I'd probably vote for 24, although I predict Lost. (And btw, I think House, Battlestar Galactica and Rescue Me were more worthy than The West Wing and Six Feet Under.)

BEST COMEDY: Arrested Development, Desperate Housewives, Everybody Loves Raymond, Scrubs, Will & Grace. Hands down, Arrested should win; sadly, Desperate will. (And The Venture Brothers deserved a nod far more than Will & Grace.)

LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA: Hank Azaria (Huff), Hugh Laurie (House), Ian McShane (Deadwood), James Spader (Boston Legal), Kiefer Sutherland (24). Probably the strongest category this year (even without Lost's Matthew Fox and Rescue Me's Dennis Leary, who were also deserving). I'm torn between Laurie and Sutherland, but I gotta give it to Laurie, who I think may actually win.

LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA: Patricia Arquette (Medium), Glenn Close (The Shield), Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under), Jennifer Garner (Alias), Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU). I'm kinda ambivalent about this category, but I'll guess Close will win, and probably deserves to.

LEAD ACTOR, COMEDY: Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Zach Braff (Scrubs), Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), Tony Shalhoub (Monk). Bow to the Bateman!

LEAD ACTRESS, COMEDY: Marcia Cross (Desperate Housewives), Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond), Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle). I watch none of these shows, so I find it hard to care (although I do adore Ms. Hatcher).

SUPPORTING ACTOR, DRAMA: Alan Alda (The West Wing), Naveen Andrews (Lost), Terry O'Quinn (Lost), Oliver Platt (Huff), William Shatner (Boston Legal). O'Quinn's both my pick and prediction, though I think James Callus (Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica) was robbed, as he consistently gave perhaps the single best performance on TV last season, period.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, DRAMA: Stockard Channing (The West Wing), Tyne Daly (Judging Amy), Blythe Danner (Huff), Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy), CCH Pounder (The Shield). Most of these shows I don't watch, so more ambivalence (though I adore Channing).

SUPPORTING ACTOR, COMEDY: Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond), Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond), Sean Hayes (Will & Grace), Jeremy Piven (Entourage), Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development). I'm really torn between Piven and Tambor, but there's no way Piven won't win.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS, COMEDY: Conchata Ferrell (Two and a Half Men), Megan Mullally (Will & Grace), Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond), Holland Taylor (Two and a Half Men), Jessica Walter (Arrested Development). Walter should and hopefully will win.

TRAILERS: New World, Constant Gardener, Brothers Grimm, Secuestro Express and more.

The industrious folks behind Apple's Movie Trailers webpage have unleashed a whopping fifteen trailers over the last two days. At the top of the list for me are the second trailer for Terrence Malick's The New World (one of my Top 10 Must-See Films of 2005), plus trailers for Fernando Meirelles's The Constant Gardener (with Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, based on the John Le Carré novel), Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm (with Matt Damon, Heath Ledger and Monica Belucci) - and I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Jonathan Jakubowicz's directorial debut Secuestro Express (starring Mia Maestro and Ruben Blades, and executive produced by my friend Elizabeth Avellán).

There are also trailers for David Mackenzie's Asylum (with Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen), Asif Kapadia's British Academy Award winner The Warrior, Ingmar Bergman's Saraband, Gus van Sant's Last Days, Michael Showalter's The Baxter and Malcolm D. Lee's rollerskating drama Roll Bounce, not to mention new international trailers for Stealth (an automatic must-see simply because it's written by Buckaroo Banzai director W.D. Richter) and The Legend of Zorro (which I'm still on the fence about). And in case you missed 'em, last week they posted trailers for Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown and Louis Leterrier's Transporter 2.

P.S.: If you're wondering, the above image is from The New World (and to remind me I need to go to the grocery store).

GEL Tv & SuperTalk Concern will fry your brain.

If you dare... click here and make your choice. Once the loudness is over, feel free to move your mouse around and click on stuff (like, say, the number 2), even though none of it will make any sense, and much of it will be highly disturbing.

Still have some synapses left? Then click here, and select your video format and size of choice for a bonus round. Just don't say I didn't warn ya. (But if you need to convert yen to dollars, go here.)

Announcing the Fantastic Fest!

In case you were wondering why the updates around here have been a little, um, sporadic lately, it's partially because I'm starting an international sci-fi/fantasy/horror film festival with Tim League and the good folks at the Alamo Drafthouse, based on an idea Tim McCanlies and I have been kicking around for about a year, and with some help from Harry Knowles and Matt Dentler. It'll take place the first weekend of October at the new Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar, and tickets go on sale in early September. For more info, check out our groovy official website at fantasticfest.com (designed by Milkshake Media, who are sponsoring the event), and today's announcement on AICN.

Hellboy & Screw-On Head news

In case you haven't heard, Mike Mignola's Hellboy returned to comics last month with The Island, the long-awaited sequel to 2002's The Third Wish. (Originally slated for 2002, it was delayed by Mike's work on the Hellboy movie, which inspired a major rethink/expansion of the work.) In it, Hellboy washes ashore on a mysterious island littered with shipwrecks after spending over two years wandering the bottom of the ocean (following the events of Wish). Issue #1 is in stores now, while #2 ships next week, concluding a major turning point in the saga as Hellboy learns the secret history of the world, the origin of the Ogdru Jahad and his Right Hand of Doom. Great gothic stuff.

Meanwhile, the treasure trove that is Hellboy.com - the official Hellboy website - has been relaunched and redesigned, and is the definitive source for all things Hellboy, including links to a new Mignola Q&A with WizardUniverse.com and a Mignola video interview with FangoriaTV, among other goodies.

Finally, my other favorite Mignola creation - The Amazing Screw-On Head - is being turned into an animated series at this very moment by Wonderfalls creator Bryan Fuller, Kickstart and Mignola himself for Sci Fi Channel, which has announced some truly inspired casting: Paul Giamatti as Screw-On Head, Patton Oswalt as his manservant Mr. Groin, David Hyde Pierce as his arch-nemesis (and former manservant) Emperor Zombie, Molly Shannon as Patience the Vampire, and Mindy Sterling as Zombie's henchwomen Aggie and Geraldine . (For the uninitiated, Screw-On Head chronicles the untold history of a robotic secret agent who worked for President Lincoln in the 1860s, battling supernatural forces threatening our civilization. And it is genius.)

OH! Mikey coming to America

ADV Films has announced they've acquired the rights to two of my favorite cultural phenomena from Japan - the unfathomably surreal "mannequin drama" OH! Mikey (which they'll release in the U.S. as "The Fuccons"), and the unhinged late night sketch comedy show that spawned it, Vermilion Pleasure Night. Trust me, this is momentous news.

For those of you who haven't endured my import DVDs (or attended a Super Happy Fun Monkey Bash at the Alamo Drafthouse), OH! Mikey is a relentlessly psychotic spoof of '50s sitcoms, hypnotically chronicling the suburban adventures of a giddily white-bread American family living in Japan. The catch is that the entire series is exclusively and inexplicably cast with mannequins, resulting in a show that can readily drive unprepared viewers insane. I can't get enough of it.

Natasha Leggero rules MTV's The 70s House

I'm still recovering from the horrifying premiere of MTV's Real World Austin a few weeks ago, which was one of the most reprehensively depraved things I've ever seen. (I will speak no more of it, except to say that everyone associated with it should be profoundly ashamed.) But this week I was pleasantly surprised by the premiere of MTV's The 70s House, which was actually - dare I say it? - delightful, in large part due to the gleefully insane host Dawn, played by comic Natasha Leggero (who I've been somewhat smitten with since she killed on The Late Late Show a few months ago).

Basically, a dozen hapless examples of MTV's target demographic are conned into thinking they've landed a spot on Road Rules XXIII or something, but are instead imprisoned in a Brady Bunch-esque suburban time warp to 1976(ish), where they must discard all trappings of modernity - cell phones, iPods, the internet, their clothes, their slang, you name it - in exchange for the deliriously-designed decade before the one they were born in. Now, as someone who personally considers Dazed and Confused a horror film, this is just far too rich for words.

Granted, the show is only modestly inventive, built around a shamelessly derivative off-the-shelf reality show format, but it's breezy fun to see these dim-witted MTV drones teasingly tortured by the subversively inspired Leggero, who seems to be channeling a kinder, gentler, and nuttier version of Parker Posey's character from Dazed. MTV is repeating the hell out of the first episode over the next several days, so check your listings and tune in. (The second episode premieres Tuesday night.)

Fantastic Four is crap.

I haven't written much about this year's batch of big summer movies because for the most part they haven't been worth writing about. So far, I think the only ones really worth your time (and dime) are the magical Howl's Moving Castle, the magnificent Batman Begins, and the masterful Cinderella Man, all of which I highly recommend. (War of the Worlds, btw, I do not, mainly because it's fundamentally stupid and completely cops out in the third act. Don't get me started.)

Anyway, earlier this week I dutifully endured Fantastic Four, which is the latest in an astonishing string of bad/failed comic book movies Marvel's been carelessly churning out without sufficient time, money, common sense, or basic respect/understanding of the characters/material (see Blade: Trinity, Man-Thing, Elektra, The Punisher, Hulk, Daredevil - or don't, actually), even though their own history has instructed them otherwise (see Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2).

Fantastic Four is boring and stupid. I really kinda hated it, save for Michael Chiklis' Thing, and some of his mildly amusing interplay with Chris Evans' [inexplicably non-blond] Johnny Storm. But overall, I concur with the majority of critics like Roger Ebert, who in his withering one star review says the film should be ashamed to show itself in the same theaters as Batman Begins. Meanwhile, at various points in his New York Times review, A.O. Scott calls the film proudly dumb, loud, inconsequential, cheap, cheesy, content to be trashy and, my favorite, fantastic only in its commitment to mediocrity (though that's something the film only barely achieves at its intermittent best). Harry also offers an insightful (if a tad too forgiving) take on the film's problems, though when you get right down to it "comparing any of this film to The Incredibles is painful. There's nothing in this that even comes close to being that cool." - and "of the big summer films so far, it is by far the worst." Avoid. Like the plague.

P.S.: And btw, the film is also responsible for The Worst Movie Tie-In Toy Ever.