Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon The Movie Stills & Canned Interview

Author: Stephen Gerding March 15th, 2007 No Comments »

Here’s a canned impromptu interview we also received conducted with the creators of this fine piece of cinematic beauty. And after the jump we have a few new stills from the upcoming Master Shake epic that’s bound to rock your socks off with your feet still in ‘em. Enjoy!

How did you two meet?

Dave Willis: It’s interesting. Matt and I didn’t meet until we worked together over here, but when I was in college, Matt was filming Hellraiser III on my campus. We never met, but they were busy blowing up the new student life building or the business administration building or something.

Matt Maiellaro: I worked on Hellraiser III, Children of the Corn 2, Basketcase 3…I sort of sought out the pictures and got myself a job on them. I was a big horror fan growing up.

DW: Matt helped start Space Ghost. I came into that in the middle. I worked on a Cartoon Network shoot, and they hooked me up with Andy Merrill, who is the voice of Brak and was a Space Ghost producer in the early years and throughout a big chunk of the ’90s. But I sent him a letter. My sister’s a Special Ed teacher, so she had one of her students copy a letter I wrote. It basically says “Dear Sirs. My name is Robert. I am 8. I recommend Dave Willis without reservation. He’s a fine, upstanding…” and then there’s a picture of a car and then “Love, Robert.” I got hired off that and worked my way up. It’s weird. I’d just gotten hired, and Matt had just quit three weeks earlier to do some movie stuff in L.A., and then he came back…So I’d been working on Space Ghost from ‘96 to ‘98, and then Matt came back to write for it, so we started working together…We’d just written this Space Ghost Coast To Coast script…

MM: Space Ghost had gone to a fast food restaurant and he’d ordered a ton of food. He didn’t have the money to pay for it, so in lieu of money, the burger chain said: “We’re going to put our mascots on your show.” That was going to be Master Shake, Meatwad and Frylock, and they were gonna just sort of hijack the show.

So that’s how Aqua Teen Hunger Force was born?

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Interviews, Movie/TV, Comics, Animation

Mark Millar’s Pedo-comment Makes Waves

Author: Stephen Gerding March 5th, 2007 No Comments »

Looks like Millar isn’t content to yank the capes of comic book fans alone. In a recent Newsarama interview, the man behind “Civil War” had this to say:

Like all my pals, the TV and movie people have come calling and even the computer game people (which is weird because games are for pedos and I have no interest).

A tongue in cheek comment, to be certain, but one that was totally out of left field and without any sort of grounding in the interview itself. It went unnoticed for a short while, until video game site Kotaku picked up on it. Then the shizznit hit the fizzan.

Wait, a guy who writes comic books for a living is saying that games are for pedophiles? I think tipster Neal put it best: What a jackass, especially coming from someone who works in an industry that is often geared toward a young market. What is this, Comic Industry Stupidity Day?

I did note that the phrase was in parentheses, but judging by their use throughout the interview it appears they are meant to denote asides Miller said.

Then the commenters get into the action!

That’s pretty good lulz coming from a guy who writes about muscle men in short shorts as though it actually means something. The Marvel universe has been a hot, overlarge turd for a long long while now and all Civil War did was break the turd open and mush it up a bit, and if you think dogshit smells bad when it’s just sitting there on the road, then try *stepping* in it. So while games might be for pedos, at least we’re not, y’know, scat-fanciers.

Tony Stark tried to touch me where my bathing suit covers.

I’d like to personally kick MM in the balls for wasting 10 months of my life and hundreds of dollars on that Civil War bullshit.

Hey Mark, I don’t want to write comics because they take it up the pooper.
Asshole. I don’t care if he was joking. Civil Wars has fucked up the Marvel Universe for years to come.

*Spoiler*

Cap in Jail? Who the fuck in their right mind would conclude a series like that?

It’s Mark Millar, he’ll say *anything* to get himself some publicity.

Of course, some posters understood that Millar was simply maing a joke, albeit a stupid one, but the damage was done - instead of reaching out again to fans of an industry that spend money comic book companies would kill to get even a piece of, Millar crapped all over himself and laughed while doing it. Kudos!

Interviews, Comics, Video Games

Frank Miller: ICON

Author: Stephen Gerding February 27th, 2007 No Comments »

Frank Miller is slated to be on an episode of G4’s icons. series airing Sunday, March 4 at 11PM. I’ve never seen the show, but dude, it’s Frank Miller talking about 300, so it’s gotta be worth watching, right? And hey, if Frank’s not enough eye candy for ya, Jessica Alba is one of the people they’ve landed to talk about Miller.

You can catch a short preview from the episode online here.

Interviews, Movie/TV, Comics

Stan Lee On NPR

Author: Stephen Gerding December 28th, 2006 No Comments »

NPR currently has an interesting little interview online for your listening pleasure. It’s mostly your standard fare, hyping Lee’s stature as a creator, talking about the Marvel Universe’s early days, but I thought this was an odd atatement by the interviewer: “Peter Parker had…dandruff. He cried.” Good old Stan doesn’t blink, though, so maybe I’m just not remembering the issue where Peter had to fight off the hordes of snow monsters living in his hair.

Stan does seem to be in an odd mood during the interview though. At one point, describes how he wakes up in the morning in a somewhat melancholy tone.

“…What do I think I can sell today? If nobody is looking for a story, and I have no reason to write a story, I would reallly much rather do anything else because it’s no fun writing stories, particularly. Not for me. I just do it in order to sell ‘em and make a couple of bucks.”

This throws the interviewer who tries her best to bring the mood back up, asking if Lee really has to work or if there’s still a level of joy he gets from it. Stan seems to snap out of it and back-pedals with “It’s fun to stay in the game.”

Listen for yourself.

Interviews, Comics, A/V Club

Dunst, Stewart On Spider-Man Fans VS History Buffs

Author: Stephen Gerding October 20th, 2006 No Comments »

I’d love to be able to argue that John Stewart and Kirsten Dunst’s take on Spider-Man fans is a totally unfair stereotype and completely inaccurate. I’d love to be able to do that, but the truth is, they nailed it.

Download Link

Interviews, Movie/TV, Comics, A/V Club

Ronny Yu Teases “Freddy VS Jason VS Ash”

Author: Stephen Gerding September 22nd, 2006 1 Comment »

It’s entirely possible that Yu just happens to follow all the same geek sites as the rest of us, but the man is in abetter position than 99% of the idiots who post rumors online. Here’s hoping he knows more than most when it comes to his statement at the end of a recent interview with ComingSoon.net.

CS: Any chance you might direct a sequel to “Freddy vs. Jason” if New Line decides to do one?
Yu: Yeah, they’ve been talking about it, and they even talk about bringing Ash [from Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” movies] into the equation, and I thought it’s terrific. It’s almost like an updated version of “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.” If they really want to do it and they want me to do it, I’d love to do it. It would be a lot of fun.

Interviews, Movie/TV

Affleck On That Other Superman Movie

Author: Stephen Gerding September 5th, 2006 No Comments »

This article claims the title, Truth, Justice and the American Way, was changed to avoid confusion with “Superman Returns,” but I was certain that they changed the title only after Warner Brothers threatened to sue them. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m less interested in seeing “Hollywoodland.” The George Reeve death-opic easily looks to be the best thing Affleck’s been involved in years, and it’s about a subject that fascinates just about ever comic book or movie fan in existence. Between this and “Black Dahlia,” are we on the cusp of a Hollywood trend of vintage true-crime flicks?

The obvious tragedy of Reeves was his relatively early death. The film questions whether it was indeed suicide or murder, but up until then, Reeves was so despondent that his career went the way of popcorn, he seemed like he could have used a telephone hotline.

“There is a line where George Reeves says, ‘It should’ve been enough for life’ [regarding] what he had. To me it’s about the condition of humanity whereby it’s never really enough. It’s that feeling, that ambition that drives you to achieve and for people to invent rockets and to build machines and the industrial age. It also keeps us perpetually kind of dissatisfied, that sort of grass is greener thing. Those things that at propel us at the same time frustrate us and stifle us in trying to live and manage those two things. It’s really that contradiction and the contradictory impulses that are universally human that I believe everyone can understand and that are really painful. It’s like in life us going, ‘If I just had this then I would be happy.’ And then finding out that that’s not really the thing, and I think that’s really what’s at the root of it all for me and I think that it really kind of transcends Hollywood even though it is a really good example of that kind of thing because it is to the extreme.”

Full article here.

Trailer here, featurette here.

Interviews, Movie/TV, Comics

Is Megatron Striking Down Online Dissenters?

Author: Stephen Gerding August 29th, 2006 1 Comment »

There’s an interesting, if slightly paranoid column up this week at CinemaBlend.com that posits that Michael Bay and company have decided to go on the offensive against websites that have been talking trash about their crappy transformers designs. I’m not sure that I believe Paramount’s iron grip can really reach far enough to shut off the ill will that’s been pouring from fandom’s collective pipe towards the movie, but there’s probably some truth in the piece’s theory about them at least attempting to quell the dissent.

But over the past few weekends there’s been a shift. Paramount’s goons have taken control of the situation by pouring a wad of cash into it, and suddenly everything’s coming up roses. For instance, go to the once fan populated message board of Transformers producer Don Murphy… and you’ll find nothing but popcorn and bubblegum for the film where outrage, disappointment, and calls for boycott once stood.

There’s a reason for that. The dissenting voices have been banned and beaten down with threats.

Surf around the internet to those movie sites that were once critical of the film, and in place of their hard hitting reports about how Paramount might be screwing up, you’ll find set reports praising the film for being “faithful” and lauding the very things about the film they’d trashed only a few weeks before. It’s easy to be positive when you get an all expenses paid vacation to a movie set I guess. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have been lured in by it myself. But let’s not blame this all on set visits. For some of these offenders the ass-kissing began when they got their first call from Paramount weeks ago. It’s only culimated in this.

Interviews, Comics, Toys