Dennis Weaver, died Friday at the age of 81 at his home in Colorado. Two of Weaver's most memorable roles were in the TV series McCloud and Gunsmoke. CNN has an obituary.

¶ 2/27/2006 05:25:00 PM //

Drew Lachey, Nick's even less talented brother, won ABC's Dancing With The Stars competition. He beat out former football player Jerry Rice and wrestling hottie Stacy Keibler - even though Keibler was much better looking and clearly far more talented. (Not that I'm bitter…) But seriously, how does a guy with that goofy looking beat out a girl whose legs should be declared a national treasure? Something is seriously wrong here…

¶ 2/27/2006 09:35:00 AM //

Darren McGavin died Saturday of natural causes in Los Angeles surrounded by his family. His career included many memorable TV and movie roles, including a role in A Christmas Story. Canoe.ca has an obituary.

¶ 2/26/2006 08:14:00 PM //

Don Knotts, the man known best as TV's Barney Fife and Ralph Furley died Friday at the age of 81. Canoe.ca takes a look at his career, which spanned more than 50 years.

¶ 2/26/2006 03:08:00 PM //

Variety suggests (the link goes to E! Online's recap) that sequels to both Batman Begins and Superman Returns are in the works. The Batman sequel has been pretty well assumed given that the movie made more than $200 million during its theatrical release. The Superman Returns sequel seems a bit dicier given that Superman Returns doesn't even open until June. Variety notes that the actors playing Superman (Brandon Routh) and Batman (Christian Bale) are already under contract for sequels; although Batman director Christopher Nolan and Superman director Bryan Singer are not. And on a completely unrelated note, and am I the only one who thinks this Brandon Routh character looks just plain goofy as Superman?

¶ 2/23/2006 07:47:00 PM //

A group of fans annoyed by the choice of Daniel Craig as the new James Bond have launched a website in protest. In addition to pointing out the reasons why they think that he is a bad choice for the role, they are also asking for fans of the Bond movies to boycott the new film in protest. This latest rumbling from Bond fans comes just days after Craig suffered an injury while filming a fight scene for the new Bond movie, Casino Royale.

¶ 2/22/2006 05:02:00 PM //

This has been known for quite some time, but this is a good article explaining how early buyers of HDTV's aren't going to be able to benefit from either of the new high definition DVD formats. In a nutshell, the early adopters of HDTV, presumably the same people who would have been early adopters of the new high definition DVD formats, are being left out in the cold. Since older HDTVs don't have the "new improved" outputs (read outputs that prevent you from doing anything Hollywood hasn't dreamed up themselves) their HDTVs that they paid thousands of dollars for won't be able to display the high definition DVDs at full quality. Yep, that’s a wonderful idea. Screw over the people who are most likely to buy your product in its early days. Sounds like a sure-fire marketing technique to me. The more I hear about Blu-ray and HD-DVD, the more I'm rooting for both formats to fall flat on their faces. Hollywood deserves to loose because they are the ones who are insisting on the new draconian security features that the next generation of DVDs will include. The consumer electronics industry deserves to take a hit given that they've rolled over and let the movie industry tell them how to run their businesses. Sorry chumps, the current generation of DVDs are just fine by me. I won't be making a switch until you all get your collective heads out of your asses. I suspect that I'm not alone in that sentiment. Maybe some good old financial hemorrhaging as a result of these goofy products might wise Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry up. It's time they started asking their customers what they want instead of presuming to know what is best for them.

¶ 2/22/2006 04:42:00 PM //

According to the latest rumors circulating the internet, Hugo Weaving and Hugh Jackman are the latest favorites to play The Joker and Harvey Dent (AKA Two Face) respectively in the next Batman movie. Again, these are just rumors, but if it turns out to be more than that, it will be great casting.

¶ 2/21/2006 06:12:00 PM //

Steven Spielberg has told an Israeli newspaper that his next project will be Indiana Jones 4. Here's hoping that he is able to stick to that plan. Although, since we've been hearing about Indiana Jones 4 since 1989 (when Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade opened), it's probably safe to say that you shouldn't start lining up to buy your ticket just yet.

¶ 2/21/2006 05:54:00 PM //

Just hours after Mads Mikkelsen was announced as the new Bond villain in Casino Royale, Eva Green was confirmed as playing Vesper Lynd. Jeffrey Wright has also been announced as Felix Leiter, the CIA agent who frequently pops up in Bond movies. Wright appeared most recently in Syriana. Eva Green last appeared in Kingdom Of Heaven, although she is probably best known (at least on the internet) for her fairly explicit nude scenes in The Dreamers. Well, say what you want about these additions to Casino Royale, at least there is no doubt Ms. Green looks the part.

¶ 2/17/2006 09:30:00 AM //

As if the upcoming format war wasn't going to be enough, News.com has yet another in a long list of reasons that HD-DVD and Blu-ray are looking more and more like they are dead on arrival.

¶ 2/16/2006 05:38:00 PM //

Mads Mikkelsen has been cast as Le Chiffre, the villain in the next James Bond movie. You can read the fully story at CNN. Now I think that the casting of Daniel Craig as Bond will make the George Lazenby fiasco look like a good move, but I had held out some hope for the other roles. At least they could have cast somebody with at least some name recognition to fill the chief bad guy role. Zero name recognition in either of the two leads isn't going to help ticket sales. As an aside, the CNN article also confirms Judi Dench as M. Now maybe the producers slept through the last few movies, but the rest of us should remember that Dench was introduced as the "new" M in GoldenEye. In fact, there was a scene between M and Bond referring to her predecessor, someone whom Bond had obviously worked with for a while. Now since this movie is being billed as a prequel of sorts to all of the other Bond films, how can Dench's M already be on the job when Bond is just beginning his career, when she has been previously introduced as taking over as M long after Bond has been on the job? Anybody want to bet that before the month of November is over (Casino Royale opens November 17) some folks at MGM/Sony are going to be wishing that they had brought Pierce Brosnan back again?

¶ 2/16/2006 11:08:00 AM //

According to E! Online, Michael Bay has been hired to get yet another Friday The 13th movie into theaters. According to the report, the new movie will be a prequel to the earlier films. So while the E! website story prominently features everybody's favorite goalie mask-wearing psycho, Jason Vorhees, it's a little unclear whether he will actually be in this movie. For those with short memories, Jason didn't really enter the picture until the very end of the first movie, so it's hard to see him as the central character in a prequel. Of course, this is the same series that once resurrected Jason using lighting, and in a later movie teamed him up with a guy that kills people from within their dreams, so presumably anything is possible.

¶ 2/14/2006 07:48:00 PM //

Digital Home Canada has a good description of the new MovieBeam on demand system that Disney, Intel and Cisco have launched. It looks interesting, but one has to wonder if it will it be able to compete with the on demand service offered by cable companies. Judging by both the Digital Home article and MovieBeam's own website, they will only be offering 100 movies at a time. That doesn't seem to be substantially different number from what most cable on demand services are offering. In some cases, it may even be lower. If you already own a digital cable box, why would you want to shell out another $250 bucks for another box, which appears to do pretty much the same thing? Given that the service uses an indoor antenna, it seems likely that only the largest of urban areas are going to get access to this service for the foreseeable future. It's an interesting idea, but that seems to be about as far as it goes.

¶ 2/14/2006 04:47:00 PM //

eWeek has a story on how the German release of Mr. & Mrs. Smith uses a very questionable copy protection method. Scary.

¶ 2/14/2006 04:17:00 PM //

If you haven't already seen it, here's a link to that great Brokeback Mountain parody trailer that has been making the rounds on the web - Brokeback To The Future.

¶ 2/13/2006 10:58:00 PM //

During a screening of Brokeback Mountain, a woman asked another theater patron to tone down her cell phone conversation. When the dumbass refused, the situation turned nasty, and the police were called in. At least the police were apologetic about having to charge the woman. The incident happened in Texas, so I guess the woman should just be happy she isn't facing the death penalty. (Just kidding Texas.) If you ask me, people who talk on cell phones should be tossed out and permanently banned from the theater. Although, I'm not sure if I'd be completely opposed to death row…

¶ 2/13/2006 08:16:00 PM //

Peter Benchley died Saturday night at the age of 65. It was his 1974 novel Jaws, which became the basis for the Steven Spielberg blockbuster movie. CNN has an obituary detailing his literary and conservation achievements.

¶ 2/12/2006 08:01:00 PM //