This is unexpected. Evidently Warner Bros. really liked what Albert and Allen Hughes did with The Book of Eli, because the brothers are reportedly finalizing a deal to direct the long-discussed live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga Akira. Originally floated in early 2008 as a two-part film to be directed by Ruairi Robinson, the films were put off by the WGA strike, then the scripts took forever to crack and the project was reported dead. In September of last year the Akira remake was said to be alive and well, and that brings us to this interesting point. Did the Hughes Brothers show the proper chops in The Book of Eli to pull this off? Vulture has the news, and says that the plan is once again to make two films, the better to cram in all of the six-volume graphic novel's complexity. (Recall if you will that the animated film ...

Merrick here... Father Time, who has afforded me such great...

Here are some more highlights from Activision's conference call with financial analysts earlier today:

- As expected a new Call of Duty game is due for release in the 2009 fiscal year (again most likely this fall). No other details were revealed except that PS2 and Wii platforms will join the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms for the next game in the shooter series.

- As usual for Activision, the company will not release any new games for the current fiscal quarter that ends on March 31. The next quarter will see the release of the game based on Dreamworks's CGI movie Kung Fu Panda along with more downloadable content for Guitar Hero III and Call of Duty 4. The company will also release games later in the year based on another Dreamworks CGI movie Madagascar II.

- The James Bond game is still due for release this fall, around the time of the new movie's release. No other details on the game were announced.

The upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will bring with it an interesting new feature called Shadow Mode which will allow you to compete against AI designed to mimic some of the game's developers.

Downloadable content packs are planned for release that will each contain three staffers' teams and AI personalities designed to reflect the way they play the game. Capcom didn't offer up a great amount of information about Shadow Mode, including whether or not these packs would be something you have to pay for. It's not going to be the only DLC available for the game, though -- Capcom has already made it clear that certain characters will be released as downloadable content.

The first pack will be released next month and includes producer Ryota Niitsuma, assistant producer Akihito Kadowaki, and an unnamed quality assurance team leader. A blog teases that more DLC packs will follow "and may feature some personalities you already know."

The ultimate power of the dark side, the way it should always be.

NOm Nom NOm NOm

Recently we looked at eight different encrypted portable drives, and Apricorn's Aegis Vault landed in the middle, in fourth place.

The world of the undead. Kick some ass.

One of Kanye West's Fatburger fast food restaurants has closed in Chicago, Illinois due to disappointing sales figures. The rapper expanded his empire last year

Fox news discuss "full frontal alien nudity" in Mass Effect.

---

Rated 4.3793 / 5 | 891 views | 24 comments

Click here to watch the video
Submitted By: willy313
Tags: nudity alien xbox360 effect fox

Remember when Chris Matthews said that stupid thing about Obama after the State of the Union last night? "I forgot he was black for an hour tonight." Well, Jon Stewart and Wyatt Cenac made fun of this tonight.

Ha ha, Wyatt Cenac called Chris Matthews an irish lesbian gym teacher.

My wife and I had some time on our hands over the holidays. Rather than waste it by having deep conversations, playing with our daughter or contemplating the true meaning of Christmas, we decided to download music at our kitchen table. That was the plan, anyway. Ruth wanted to make a mixed CD to replace her old cassette tapes.

A sad fact of life is that nobody looks tough holding a ruler. But with the Gangster Ruler, $12, you can be all like, "what's up now, bitch?" [Atykpyk via Inspire Me Now]

Remedy Entertainment confirms that today's leaked footage is fake...

It could be! If a concerned reader and some troubling information about the cult is to be believed. The actress and Cruise-wife was at the SAG awards on Sunday, looking a bit... yellow.

The reader writes to us:

Usually such skin color is indication of impending liver failure (jaundice), most likely caused by high doses on Nicain. The yellow pigment is from bilirubin, a byproduct of old red blood cells that don't get filtered out by the liver.

Niacin is the vitamin that is used in high doses as part of a Scientology body cleanse detox program that hubby Tom Cruise was pushing on Ground Zero workers after 9/11. And "yellow skin or eyes" is a potential side effect of "prolonged use of extended-release niacin."

So, we found some recent pictures of Ms. Holmes and there does seem to be a slight tinting of her eyes. Or maybe we're just crazy. As for her skin, it could just be another tale of When Spray Tans Attack. Look at some pictures and judge for yourself.

Holmes' Eyes, Jan. 25th (at the SAGs)

Holmes' Eyes, Jan. 21st

Holmes' Skin, Jan. 25th

Holmes' Skin, Jan. 21st

Friday

Subway photographer Travis Ruse scores his own exhibit of subway staples: mothers with strollers the size of cars, teenagers groping each other, and a sleeping homeless person who peed himself two minutes before you got on the train. [NYMag]

Internal Affairs, also known as the movie that Martin Scorsese will forget to mention when he wins an Oscar for The Departed, plays at IFC for two nights only. [IFC]

Saturday

Supermarket Sweep meets The Amazing Race; gets knocked up with a bastard child named Idiotarod. [Flavorpill]

Second most disappointing MSCL castmember Claire Danes can at least dance. [NYMag]

Sunday

Paula Froelich pulls a Liz Spiers. [The Apiary]

Filed under: Nintendo DS

Just as with our beloved DS Lite, DS Fanboy Lite is like the original, but smaller. Sleeker. Only not necessarily better. Herein you can see some of the best we've had to offer in the last week, encapsulated for your reading ease.

Community

• DS Daily: Cheating
  Confess!
• StarLite blinks out
  And a small part of our souls just died.
• DS Daily: Left behind
  Started ... but never finished?
• Hentai homebrew appears as real demo
  If you read this, you're gonna need to have a seat over there.

Features

• DS Fanboy Review: Brain Challenge
  Finally, a brain-trainer that stands up to Dr. Kawashima.
• Promotional Consideration: Quote-basted strategy II
  When you -- or we -- are the ad.
• The DS Life: Shoreline
  Something to warm those winter nights.

News of note

• Update the Court Record: Apollo Justice bonus officially announced
  And it's not plush.
• Sleepless in Arkanoid DS
  The controller sucks, but not how you'd think.
• Taking a closer look at the Disney DS guide
  See it for yourself.
• Make those used game trade-ins worthwhile by donating to troops
  Help folks exercise those thumbs.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

SPONSORED BY: Age of Empires III - Real-Time Strategy Game Control a European power on a quest to colonize and conquer the New World. AOE3 introduces new gameplay elements, as well as new civilizations, units, and technologies. http://www.ageofempires3.com/

Wouldn't it be great if we could recycle all those old clothes lying in the back of our wardrobes, turning them into flexible batteries? By dipping fabric into an ink comprised of carbon nanotubes, their electrical properties are transferred over.

It's being worked on by some Stanford University scientists, and follows their efforts in turning paper electrical. Because of the nature of fabric, it's still flexible and can even be washed in water without affecting the carbon nanotubes residing in the fibers.

At its present state, it can't do much, but the Stanford University bods will be working on it some more to actually turn it into a functioning battery, or even solar panel apparel. If they can make a hoodie that charges your smartphone as you're in the sun, that'd solve a lot of problems. [BBC]

Gaming news site kotaku was just invited to an exclusive preview of the game that David Jaffe (creator of the original God of War and Twisted Metal) deemed the most visually impressive game he'd ever laid his eyes on. This could mean that the next and rumored to be last God of War isn't too far off after all.

Also don't forget to check the PSN on February 22nd for rumored new trailers for both GoW 3 and Uncharted 2: Among thieves!

Craigslist to Berkeley. Wow. Tracking the best from Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit: Deliggit. ExtremeTech: Checking out solar energy. TechCrunch — Del.icio.us integrated into regular Yahoo results? New William Wordsworth Collection, but I couldn’t get the search databases to work. PBS to expand YouTube channel offerings. Blogger adds Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian. Directory of Canadian and US [...]

It's important to shoot on location.

The PS3 port of Left 4 Dead is looking more real with Play.com listing it for PS3, no release date or cover but it's there. Click the link to see it in the list.

Video tour of home for sale in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Offered for sale by: Sandy Anderson Remax Alliance 303-434-8285 Ranked 3.20 / 5 | 203 views | No comments

Click here to watch the video
Submitted By: vid2r
Tags: real estate video tour home for sale highlands ranch littleton denver colorado vid2r 

Britney Spears has accused the paparazzi of attempting to "run her off the road" after a high-speed chase in Los Angeles, which resulted in the arrest of four snappers late on Wednesday night.

One dev says no immediate plans for WoW on consoles.

If you've feared one, you've feared 'em all. Our review.

Filed under: Animation, Comedy, Casting, Newsstand

Not that I have anything against Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but their Team America: World Police flick was a disaster, in my opinion. While I'm a huge fan of South Park, I could not, for the life of me, get past the first fifteen minutes of Team America without changing the channel. And I really wanted to love it -- had heard such good things about it -- but simply couldn't discover the proper vibe within myself to enjoy the puppets ... and the guns ... and the puppet sex.

Needless to say, newbie Edward McHenry will soon give us his take on the puppet gimmick with Jackboots on Whitehall, except he'll be using action figures to accompany some top notch voice talent. Comedy spoof will tell of a fictional scenario in which the Germans win the Battle of Britain during World War II, only to be defeated by the Scots ... and Ewan McGregor. That's right, McGregor has signed on to voice a "heroic Scottish farmhand who leads the resistance against the invaders and wins the girl." Joining McGregor in this latest round of casting is Richard Griffiths; he'll be playing the Luftwaffe leader Hermann Goering.

Also on the list of Brits playing Germans are Alan Cumming as Hitler, Tom Wilkinson as Hitler's propaganda minister Goebbels and Richard O'Brien as Holocaust-header Himmler. Rosamund Pike will play the object of McGregor's affection, while Richard E. Grant and Sanjeev Bhaskar have also snagged roles. Writer-director McHenry jumps from his popular short film, Baptism of Fire, to helming a feature film with an assortment of pretty big names. How did he do it? Not sure, but I'm positive the script (which won the Swipe Films Screenplay Scholarship) had something to do with it.

I've never seen Baptism of Fire, but apparently it utilizes a lot of the same techniques found in Jackboots. Brits as Germans, action figures instead of puppets and an unknown writer-director -- what do you make of this?

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Sarah, John and Cameron are still in 2007. Their ultimate goal, as Sarah’s voiceover tells us, is to stop Skynet from ever being created. You know, that droning voiceover by Linda Hamilton used to bug me a little bit, but Lena Headey’s isn’t quite so irritating, for some reason. Anyway, what they really need right now is new identities. So Sarah goes to see Enrique, her old pal who taught her and John the ways of heavy artillery.

DDoS attacks are back in the headlines. Thanks to the rapid proliferation of botnets, the threat may be bigger than the bad guys had even planned.

Does Conan O'Brien's contract give NBC the right to bump him to 12:05 to make room for Jay Leno at 11:35?

There are plenty of HDTV walls at CES, but the most beautiful, by far, is Panasonic's staggered arrangement of TVs ranging from the monster 150-inch plasma to its offspring of lesser size. Gorgeous.

Sources suggest to TVG that LEGO Indy 2, LEGO Rock Band (with possible peripheral), and LEGO Harry Potter are on the way...

BeefJack writes: "You know what we haven't had in a while? Renowned artists slamming Rhythm Gaming based on their fear of new things! In an interview with The Independent, Jimmy Page formerly of Led Zeppelin made another one of his legendary quips against the longstanding Guitar Hero franchise- also, to further the disappointment of fans, has once again shunned the possibility of a Led Zeppelin tie-in."

I'm told that Erik Olsen, SVP at Silver Pictures, just left to be a new exec at Rick and Julie Yorn's new management/production company. Jeff Kwatinetz Has Left The Firm Tonight Rick Yorn Exits The Firm; Julie To Follow Is Marty/Leo Manager Rick Yorn In Play?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that seven films remain in competition in the Makeup category for the 81st Academy Awards®.

Knock off oreos

Date Added: blowing up tennis ball 01/05/2009 03:42

Sony Pictures Animation has launched the official website for the animated Surf's Up , coming to theaters on June 8. At the site, you can check out the interactive map to hear fun commentary on cities around the world and there is a live webcam on Pen Gu Island as well.

Description Not Available

Despite Sony's "official" statement that their BDP-S1 standalone Blu-Ray player only uses similar parts to the Pioneer BDP-HD1, there's been more than a few similarities noted in their reviews. The Pioneer and the Sony players all have the same format support, menus, disc drives, back panels, and load times. Now, with the release of The Descent they crash and burn in exactly the same way.

Reason? Both players don't support BD-J (Java enhanced discs), which is what Lionsgate produced The Descent in. Gee, if people are having a hard time telling DVDs from Blu-Ray and HD DVDs, how do you think they'll react when you tell them their player won't support BD-J discs? The PS3 plays back these discs just fine, and Sony's said they will release a firmware update to upgrade to BD-J support "sometime early this year". – Jason Chen

'The Descent' Playback Problems Reported on Sony and Pioneer Blu-ray Players [HighDefDigest]

It's been an incredible year in the world of showbiz, with the usual headline-grabbing antics, scandal, sleaze, celebrity births, star weddings, and bitter break-ups. Here, WENN takes a look back at the final six months of 2010...

Date Added: Chick using a urinal 12/27/2006 00:00

Willie Nelson and Larry Miller have joined the cast of Blonde Ambition , Nu Image/Millennium Films' loose remake of the 1988 film Working Girl , according to The Hollywood Reporter . Jessica Simpson is starring, with Scott Marshall directing.

In addition to larger vendors, newcomers such as Embotics, PlateSpin, and Veeam are expanding their list of VM control products.

PlayStation LifeStyle writes:

With it being very last week for the PS Store team to finish their holiday shopping (they gotta shop too!) it's likely that this week's update wont be as massive as last week. But that doesn't mean we still aren't in for a great update featuring its own Massiveness with Zipper Interactive's MAG open beta which will be available to download tomorrow in the US PS Store. Also, as weather out side is frightful, Polar Panic will be so delightful as it makes its PS Store debut. It might be cold outside but not for LittleBigPlanet which is releasing its Water Level Pack / Pirates of the Caribbean DLC. For those of you with a Japanese PSN account, you really get to 'end' the year with a bang with a demo for End of Eternity which is already available at the time of this writing.

Enjoy this beautiful video. Don't waste your life. Please the ones you love, without forgetting yourself. And don't think it all sucks, you are alive, and that's what's important. Relax with this wonderful music Ranked 3.22 / 5 | 202 views | No comments

Click here to watch the video
Submitted By: lunatum
Tags: movie beautiful time life relax wonderful music alive gift please cute love money rule philosophy 

Print Club sticker booths, which still exist in some malls and big box stores, spawned a generation of Japanese young people who were referred to using the Japanese word for the machines: Purikura.

When the local K-Mart got a Print Club machine in 2000, I was stoked. Why was it so appealing to acquire sheet after sheet of these tiny stickers? I couldn't tell you. But I was into it. I admit it. A tiny sheet of photos of me and my best friend with our heads next to a cartoon drawing of a pineapple? Sign me up! I didn't have a digital camera at the time, and Polaroid film was pricy. These little doodads were a nice—if not completely satisfying—way to get quick photos of my nearest and dearest. And who doesn't love pineapples?

Print Club machines started popping up in Japan in the mid-1990s, but didn't make it to these shores until around 1999. All the kids I babysat back then had their school binders covered in them. I swear, put a sticky back on anything and it turns into crack for 11-year-old girls.

I still see these booths at malls sometimes, but they've lost their excitement for me. In the far reaches of my desk drawer, I still have a few Print Club sheets, each with a handful of stickers still on them. Occasionally I'll stick one onto a birthday card or a book, but I try to use them sparingly. One day, I know I'll run out. [Photoguide.jp]

Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image) and the creator of ObsoleteTheBook.com, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaJane.

Purikura sticker sheets image by slavin_fpo, and Purikura booth shot by Brian Adler, both from Wikimedia Commons under CC license