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Marvel Studios starts looking at Dr. Strange

According to Mike Fleming in an exclusive for the New York branch of Deadline.com, screenwriters Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer have been tapped to write the script adaptation of the Marvel comic Dr. Strange.

This isn’t the first geek-oriented property that Donnelly and Oppenheimer have been involved with. The duo, which was credited along with two other writers for 2005’s Sahara, had also been hired by Columbia Pictures to work on the script for the adaptation of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and have also worked on the upcoming remake of Conan.

Fleming opined that the property would be the first superhero property that would be made into a movie under the studio’s new arrangement with the Walt Disney Company, something which geeks everywhere will be watching with a wary eye.

Fun and fabulous prizes in store at the end of June

In the interest of being responsible reviewers, there are some times in which we here at Geeking Out About.com will read, watch, or experience something that’s outside of our comfort zone in order to provide the most coverage. For example, in preparation for her “First Night Flicks” review of Twilight: Eclipse, lead movie reviewer Lyssa has decided to watch both Twilight and New Moon back to back in one day.

Being the loving, and caring editors we are—and just because we’re into the idea of doing some MST3K-style commentary on two potentially horrible movies—co-editor Jillian and I decided that she shouldn’t have to do this alone. So, we’re going to join her for the first two parts of this epic saga of a human-vampire love that was never meant to be.

“But what is this thing about fabulous prizes?  I want fabulous prizes!” Well, we’re glad you asked…

In order to make this fun for you as our potential audience, we’re also turning our Twilight-a-thon into a contest with fabulous prizes! (Okay, they’re $15 USD gift certificates to either Amazon or iTunes, but it’s better than a poke in the eye, right?)

How do you win?  The contest details are subject to change, but for now the idea is this:

  1. On Monday, June 28, check out Geeking Out About… for 10 trivia questions that we will ask pertaining to the Twilight movies, the books, and/or the fandom.
  2. Answer those questions in the most entertaining way possible. An example of a question we might ask is: “How did Edward first rescue Bella from certain death, or at least certain maiming?”

    A bad, but correct answer would be: “He prevented an out-of-control truck from hitting her.”

    An incorrect, but good answer would be: “He administered the Heimlich maneuver when she was choking on all her poorly-written lines.”

    A really awesome and potentially-winning answer would be: “Fueled only by the solar power harnessed by his alabaster skin, he transformed into Super!Vampire and stopped a truck from hitting her.”

  3. Email all of those answers to us at geekingoutabout@gmail.com, before or on July 9 and each of us will choose an entry whose answers we liked the best; those people will be our winners and have their answers published on the blog. There will also be Honorable Mention answers which will also be published because hey, we like publishing funny things.

Winners will be announced sometime the following week, but definitely before July 20. Any and all questions about these rules can be asked in the comments below and we’ll try and answer them as best we can.

Excited? Of course you are! Who wouldn’t want fabulous prizes for knowing that we’re suffering through watching two of the most popular movies in last decade?

And as a final, interesting note, when Jillian and I first conceived of this blog after having a meeting of the minds in the Desert Bus 2008 IRC chat room, we were sitting in the Starbucks cafe attached to the Barnes and Noble store near Union Square Park in New York City.

We were talking about books in connection to the initial idea for this blog you’re reading right now and how some authors really do need editors, how involved some people get into their fictional universes, etc., all using the Twilight books as an example and we were pretty merciless in our scorn.

We then got off of that subject and onto another one, and then I just happened to glance over to my left to see a girl who was not a teenager reading the book, and reading it pretty avidly.

I gestured at Jillers with my eyes, she looked over to see the book’s cover, and we both busted up laughing for a good five minutes.

Isn’t it nice when things come full circle?

Trisha’s (old) Quote of the Day: Brit journalist takes up anime cause

If I had a small daughter, I would try to wean her away from Edward Cullen and Miley Cyrus and towards such anime series as the thrilling steampunk saga Nadia: Secret of Blue Water — inspired by Jules Verne, conceived by Miyazaki and featuring a 14-year-old lion tamer/acrobat in 1889 Paris. And I would teach her to read subtitles, so she wouldn’t have to settle for naff dubbed versions. You want strong female role models? Anime’s got them in spades.
The Guardian film critic Anne Billson (@annebillson), finally discovers something anime geeks have known for ages.

Digital Manga to “hire” scanlators to translate manga

One hopes the results will be better than this (Source: K-Rotaku)

Erica Friedman, your questions have been answered.

Earlier this week, the founder of ALC Publishing (a GLBT-themed manga publisher) posted her musings about how the problem of fighting manga scanlation piracy could be solved. In short and apparently after two months of thinking about it, Friedman concluded that that someone with more money and more brainpower than she does needs to come up with a publishing model which allows the community to have its say in what gets translated, how it gets translated, how it gets published (digital only or also in print) and still be able to pay the creator (or his/her original  publishing house) for the rights to translate the original Japanese into whichever language they want.

Apparently, over in the man-on-man side of the manga world, Jennifer LeBlanc at The Yaoi Review.com dug around a little and discovered that a Japanese manga publisher is doing exactly that:

[Digital Manga Publishing] is working on a new ‘secret’ project for publishing more manga faster and cheaper than it is now. It would be via a digital format and they are looking to hire scanlators to help with this. Essentially, scanlators would be doing what they do now except there is the possibility of getting paid based on the sales of said manga titles they worked on. They also get to have their name on everything they translate and retain certain rights to the work they do. What rights I do not know. There is also the possibility of becoming a paid translator ‘if qualified’ and you’d be ahead of the pack when it comes to any other candidates that applied for the position.

Today, Anime News Network confirmed the details in LeBlanc’s blogpost, adding that DMP would start this program off with the “boys love” genre and gauging its viability before moving into other genres and novels.

Personally speaking, I think part of this is brilliant because crowdsourcing does seem to be the “new” way of getting things done and giving consumers a say in what they purchase. By giving the scanlator circles a bit of legitimacy, it takes away the “cool” factor in choosing the pirated works and also would make the scanlators want to work on the official material because, hey, they’re finally getting paid and recognized for their work!

Of course, if I were part of one of these manga scanlator circles, I’d demand to see a contract first and to have it vetted by a lawyer who’s familiar with international law because there’s nothing that would suck more than being screwed over by a work-for-hire contract.

I hope that the folks at DMP will be able to say more at the summer anime/manga convention panels.

Related Posts: Comic Non-Sans: Learning from Online Manga Scanlations

Trisha’s Take: How to desegregate the World Series of Poker

Shaun Deeb says: "I support women poker players. Poker is a gender-neutral game. I am here to promote abolishment of gender-specific or segregationist events at the WSOP."

Back when Secretary of Geek Affairs Wil Wheaton was writing a lot about poker in his blog, I took it upon myself to learn more about the modern game and why Wheaton liked it. My Internet meanderings eventually lead me to the Tiltboys, a group of friends and poker players in the California Bay Area who had been regaling the online poker community for years with their outrageous exploits, prop bets, and antics which surrounded their weekly home game.

Eventually, they gathered these writings into a book called Tales from the Tiltboys, the cover of which features former “Celebrity Poker Showdown” commentator Phil Gordon in drag. The reason why he was in drag was that back in 2006, he and and four of the other Tiltboys crashed a Bay101 ladies only tournament (please excuse the bright pink background); the reason written by Bruce “Bruscilla” Hayek is here:

If you’re not a ba-poker [Bay Area Poker] list regular, then you may have missed a recent debate about Bay101’s “Ladies Only” poker tournaments. A prolonged discussion ensued, with many complaints about reverse discrimination, and post after post enumerating the many reasons that women don’t need an exclusive poker tournament.

Very few dissenting opinions surfaced, with one notable exception: a post that lucidly and succinctly proposed that this was a “solution in search of a problem.” I was at a party on Sunday with several Tiltboys, discussing why Clifford Matthew’s posting was one of the more sensible ones we’d seen.

I then turned to Rafe [Furst] and mentioned that the current discussion kind of made pointless a previous discussion we’d had. (We had talked earlier about accepting a proposed challenge on the list to show up for the tournament in drag.) Rafe agreed with me, but we both regretted having to pass up on some good fun for reasons of principle, so we resolved the dilemma the way our religion dictates: a rock-scissors-paper match. We loaded the dice in fun’s favor by me taking the side of principle and Rafe taking the side of fun, and I somehow got skunked 3-0.

In short, “they did it for the lulz,” and according to Hayek’s account, only a few of the women there complained.

Fast-forward to the 2010 World Series of Poker where professional Shaun Deeb (that’s him in the picture above) and 11 other men who also wanted “lulz”—or legitimately wanted to bring attention to the fact that they feel that the inclusion of the “Ladies Event” is sexist—entered and played in the tournament which took place on Day 15 of the series. The poker blogosphere erupted with commentary about the proceedings, but I think the most interesting comment is from Linda Geenan, a former dealer and current grandmother, who was got her pocket aces cracked by American Pie starlet Shannon Elizabeth on the first day of the event:

My view on women in poker and Ladies only events are neither pro nor con. I have no huge push to segregate the poker field into categories but I also am not adverse to it. The Seniors Event and the Ladies Event, are categories that are not open to all players, it’s just the way it is, live with it kids. When you look at the realistic side of life and what it costs just to make a daily living, the $50K Poker Players Championship is in a category that very few of us will ever find ourselves standing at the cashier cage signing up for the event. It is what it is. If I had an extra 50K, I have too many other things going on in life to invest it in a grueling battle of wits, cards, poker skill, and physical exhaustion, to try to win the event or even finish in the money so I’m not bust.

As a former writer and editor for Sequential Tart.com, I’m very familiar with the arguments for and against single-gender only events, publications, and websites because ever since the Golden Age of comics began in the late 1930s, the world of both the comics themselves and the companies who published them have been the domain of mostly men. As a female geek, I know well what it’s like to be the only woman in a comics shop or one of the few women at an anime or comics convention.

And I will say to the people who run online poker sites and poker bloggers now what the women who write for Sequential Tart as well as female creators/editors like Johanna Draper Carlson, Lea Hernandez, and Gail Simone have been saying for years:

If you ask women what you can do to make them feel welcome at your table and then actually listen to what they say and follow up on that advice, your female audience will grow.

This means doing things like featuring women in your advertising as more than just armchair candy. It means refraining from calling women “spank-worthy” in the same blogpost where you provide links to other commentary about the 2010 Ladies Event. It means boosting the visibility of female pros who run good, giving us role models to follow and emulate.

It means continuing to dissuade men from entering into the Ladies’ Event until the amount of women who are playing in the donkaments and other lower entry fee games increases. It may mean creating a Newbie Event to parallel the Ladies’ Event or the Senior’s Event and restricting it to players who have never cashed in any major tourney in order to serve as that “free hit” that gets newer female players coming back for more.

It means doing these things to convert women like me, the casual home game player who runs well at her table into a casino-visiting player or an online player.

And that’s how I think the desegregation of the WSOP should start.

Trisha’s Take: Cyrus review

Cyrus

Directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass
Starring John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill
Rated R for language and some sexual material

Back when I had a Netflix account, I went on an indie movie-watching spree, and that’s where I encountered the concept behind “actor’s workshop” films for the first time.

For the people who aren’t acting or film geeks, I’ll explain. An actor’s workshop film is one where a bunch of actor who are taking classes together take what they’ve learned and make a movie out of it. The coolest thing, though, is that some of the best actors are always taking classes and workshops to hone their craft even further. Another thing I learned about was the mumblecore movement, wherein production is very low-budget, conversations are improvised, and the focus is on characterization over complicated plots.

Multi-hyphenate brothers Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass, who helped form the latter, seem to have taken the best of what’s cool about an actor’s workshop film, given it a mumblecore feel, and turned it loose into the world.

The plot to Cyrus is pretty simple. John C. Reilly stars as John, a divorcé who never really got out of the depressive funk that drove his now-ex-wife (Catherine Keener) away seven years ago. Strangely enough, they’re still friends—and may possibly also work together—and after she tells him that she’s getting married again, she tries to get him out of his rut by forcing him to go to a party. There he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) who sees something charming in his sad sack and “drunk on Red Bull and vodka” exterior and follows him back to his place.

However, she doesn’t stick around in the morning, but instead leaves him a note. Intrigued but not scared off, John invites her over for a proper first date which is as romantic as it is charming… only to catch her sneaking out of his room at night. Her vague explanation doesn’t satisfy him, so John follows her back to her house where he meets the source of her secrecy: her antagonistic live-at-home 21-year old son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill).

The meat of the story is the interplay between John and Cyrus as the former starts to really suspect there’s something wrong with the latter and his acceptance of the new man in his mother’s life. Any other director or writer would have turned this premise into a horror film (a mirror universe The Stepfather, if you will) or a gigantically broad comedy (Problem Child) but writer/director/producers Jay and Mark Duplass have kept to their ‘core roots by walking that knife’s edge between the extremes.

The audience I was with was completely engaged with this movie and its dark humor, especially during the parts where you’re not really sure if the relationship between Molly and Cyrus is well-meant and completely platonic.  In contrast to something lead Geeking Out About movie reviewer Lyssa Spero would say to me after the movie, I think that the choices Reilly and Hill make in their depictions of their characters are spot-on and a great service to the lines as they were conceived and improvised. At the same time, Hill stands up to and stands on his own against the veteran Reilly, and th choices he makes in the confrontational scenes between the two of them are pretty amazing.

I’ll agree with other critics who after this film’s premiere at this year’s Sundance thought that while this was a great film, Marisa Tomei wasn’t given all that much to do. The focus here is between John and Cyrus and to add a little more dimension into Molly’s character would have made this a much longer movie.

I’ll also say that though I do appreciate the lack of steadicam to emphasize the fact that this was a largely improvised film, sometimes it bordered on a parody of the exercise. I will say that I did appreciate the oddly cut romantic monologues, even if Lyssa didn’t.

For being the Duplass brothers’ first mainstream film, this is quite possibly the best way one could have gone about doing it, and much kudos are due their way.

After having opened the BAM CinemaFest on June 9, Cyrus goes into wide release on June 18 in the U.S., September 17 in the U.K., and September 23 in Germany; it must not have been farcical enough for the French.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: Why I read/respect some movie critics

If I’d been making The Last Airbender, I would probably have decided the story was so well-known to my core audience that it would be a distraction to cast those roles with white actors.

–Roger Ebert weighs in on The Last Airbender‘s “racebending… sort of (scroll to the third item).

Warner Bros. to turn “Supernatural” into an anime

If today you feel a wave of “WTF?” wash over you, check your nearest “Supernatural” fangirl for the source.

For according to Anime News Network and Cinema Today, Warner Bros. and acclaimed anime studio Madhouse are teaming up to turn the hit show about brothers who fight against the dark forces of the world into an animated series.

From the ANN article (because I can’t read Japanese):

The anime project will not only remake the best episodes from the live-action version, but also depict original episodes not seen in the live-action version. Those original episodes will include prologues of the Winchester brothers’ childhood, anime-only enemies, and episodes featuring secondary characters from the live-action version.

The project will be co-directed by Shigeyuki Miya and Atsuko Ishizuka (“Aoi Bungaku Series”), and there’s no word yet on which Japanese seiyuu (aka voice actors) they’ll get for the project.

Warner Home Video Japan will be releasing the 22 episodes on Blu-Ray and DVD in Japan over three volumes starting on January 12, 2011; no work on if there will also be an English-language release.

Trailer Watch: The Norwegian Ninja first English-subtitled trailer

To all you schlocky film fans out there, I heartily apologize for not mentioning anything about this sooner:

Here’s the synopsis, courtesy of the gang at TwitchFilm.net:

Kommandør Treholt & Ninjatroppen is the true story of how Commander Arne Treholt and his Ninja Force saved Norway during the Cold War. The story takes place in the time right before Treholt’s arrest on espionage charges in 1984, and reveals a spectacularly different version of our recent past than has been previously known.

A mix of true story and unabashed flights of fancy, the movie will premiere in Norway on August 13. An English-language blog is here, and I really hope someone decides to release this in the U.S.

Trisha’s Take: To buy an iPhone4, or not to buy an iPhone4?

If, like me, you were unfortunate enough to only have to rely on Twitter updates to find out exactly what new doohickies are going to be on the new iPhone rather than being able to stream it live, you can check it all out again courtesy of This Week in Tech’s special coverage of the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference (aka WWDC).

After reading Gizmodo.com’s official summary of the new features, the thing that jumps out at me is the selective multitasking, which pits it directly against the Droid phones and makes me swing back towards staying with AT&T. The video calling feature turns me off because it’s something I don’t think I’d use every day.

Gizmodo’s own rundown of why someone would want to buy one is telling, especially the part where it says that it’s much better at being a phone than previous models of the iPhone were due to its slimmer size, greater battery life, and noise canceling microphone.

I think that the reason someone should buy an iPhone should ultimately come down to how much it’s going to cost you on a monthly basis. Considering that I’m already paying about $110 a month for the most basic calling plan (but I’ve got an obscene amount of rollover minutes), unlimited data, and unlimited text messages–and that’s before my special day job-related discount could kick in–I’m still incredibly on the fence.

Anyone local got an iPhone or a Droid I could play with for a while?

Marvel announces same-day digital delivery; brick-and-mortar stores, fans freak out

After Marvel Comics announced last Wednesday (aka, the day that most comics hit the stores in the U.S.) that it would be offering Invincible Iron Man Annual #1 as a digital download on the same day as its regular print release, the blogosphere went into a tizzy and hasn’t fully recovered yet.

Written by Matt Fraction with art by Carmine Di Giandomenico, the annual will include a story about the Mandarin’s origins, which to date has never really been explored.

Reaction hit the ‘net on Friday, and I think the best place to find a nuanced argument would be courtesy of Dirk Deppey at The Comics Journal‘s Journalista! who today writes:

[You] need to keep in mind that no legacy media, — film, television, music or print — has found a proven and stable way to make the Internet pay for itself in the same way as has their previous business models. While it’s difficult to get firm music-industry statistics without paying for them, Wikipedia notes that record sales shrank by close to 40% in the United States between 2000 and 2007. A 2009 Yankee Group report makes the claim that television advertising revenue is dropping faster than the increase in advertising revenue for online video. This isn’t a swamp into which a content publisher leaps lightly, especially is you’re a division in a larger company, and doubly so if that larger company in turn is owned by Disney.

I personally don’t have a large enough cellphone screen to make reading comics on it a rational decision, but I can totally understand and get behind being able to get the newest release of a favorite book or series fed directly to my computer on a subscription basis. Once I finally decide between an iPhone and a Droid, however, this is definitely something that will become a concern.

Olivia Munn takes on Samantha Bee in battle of female correspondents

Congratulations are in order to “Attack of the Show!” co-host Olivia Munn who graduated to the big times last week by booking her first “special BLANK correspondent” segment for “The Daily Show.”

According to James Hibberd at The Hollywood Reporter‘s Live Feed blog, Munn is likely to be taping a few segments over the next few weeks and the response to her bits will determine whether or not she’ll be able to continue on as a regular special correspondent.

I have a love/hate relationship with geeky shows who hire non-geek-aligned women like Munn to host them. Sure, they need jobs like any other women do, but at the same time why not hire a host who has a little more experience in the field and is also attractive? At the same time, I’m glad that Munn was able to book this job because any step forward for Asian-American women in media is a good step, right?

Look for more work by Munn on “The Daily Show” in the weeks to come.

8-Bit Theater ends its run with a bang

One of the first webcomics to use sprites from video games for character art, 8-Bit Theater creator Brian Clevinger gave his nine-year old series a great sendoff by teaming up with artist Matt Speroni and letterer Jeff Powell to create a hand-drawn epilogue to his story which ended officially on March 20.

I have to admit that while it was never on my webcomics readling list, I do recognize that when it comes to being a pioneer of webcomics, Clevinger’s creation most definitely deserves to be on that honor roll. Many sprite comics have come and gone, but his story’s endurance had as much to say about good writing and great characterization as it did the fact that it was one of the first of its kind.

Congrats on a great run.

Inside the Lines: Romance author invades comics world, and other stories

  • In the “Damn, they stole my idea” department, New York Times best-selling romance novelist Janet Evanovich and her daugher Alex teamed up with Dark Horse Comics to create a graphic novel called Troublemaker featuring Alex Barnaby, a female racecar mechanic whose vantage point as a raceday spotter leads her into mystery and intrigue. The art is by Joëlle Jones (Dr. Horrible) and volume 1 will be out just days before the annual Nerd Prom in San Diego this July. (Source: Newsarama.com)
  • American manga artist Amy Reeder (Fool’s Gold) has “graduated” to the big times and will be penciling DC Comics’ upcoming ongoing Batwoman series starting with the second story arc which will see the light of day in early 2011. She’ll be working on scripts by artist/co-writer J.H. Williams III, whose pencils will kick off the series later this year. I’m rather hopeful about this prospect of seeing more female pencilers working on “Big Three” books, and really hope that she (and the book) does well. (Source: Newsarama.com)
  • After taking heat and a lot of licks for his underperforming directorial debut for The Spirit, comics artist Frank Miller is returning to the medium that made him great and revealed some of the first pieces of art for Xerxes, a 300 prequel story about the leader of ancient Persia who was the antagonist in the numerically-named film/comics series. Scheduled to be published by Dark Horse Comics in 2011, the ouroboros will begin its turn and if director Zach Snyder likes it enough, he said he’ll option it for a live-action adaptation. (Source: The L.A. Times Hero Complex blog)
  • Quick Cuts: Paul Rudd is an Idiot Brother, and other stories

    • Paul Rudd has just signed a deal to be the star of the Jesse Peretz-directed comedy called My Idiot Brother, about a sunshine-spewing optimist who brightens up the lives of his three sisters and overbearing mother. Written by Peretz’ real-life sister Evgenia and her writing partner David Schisgall, the film will start production in New York in July, even if the sisters haven’t been cast yet. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
    • Dustin Lance Black (Milk) is turning his writer’s and director’s eye towards comics; he will be doing both for the live-action adaptation of 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man. Originally a graphic novel from Dark Horse by Matt Kindt, the plot will concern the relationship between a daughter and her father–who just happens to be suffering from a strange medical condition where he can’t stop growing. Warner Bros. will be producing/financing. (Source: The Hollywood Reporter)
    • James McAvoy (Wanted) has been signed to star in X-Men: First Class as Professor Xavier; still no word who will be his star-crossed Magneto. (Source: Entertainment Weekly)
    • “Community” star Donald Glover has started a grass-roots campaign to get himself an audition to be in the Spider-Man 4 movie and all I can think of is that scene from the very first episode of “Boston Legal” where the Reverend Al Sharpton gave Alan Shore his rabbit by giving a speech in the courtroom which featured this line: “Give us an African-American Spider Man!” Glover, if you’re reading this, your people totally need to talk to Sharpton’s people (and the “Boston Legal” writing team). (Source: Donald Glover’s personal blog)