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Movie Make-out’s Recommended SDCC 2008 Schedule, Part 2

I’d like to start off this portion of the recommended schedule by saying that I made a mistake when I said that viewing of all three parts of the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog series would be “the perfect way” to end your Friday at the San Diego Comic Con because “perfect” is too weak of a word to use. Ending your Friday by watching Dr. Horrible would be so superlatively, stupendously, amazing that they would need to create a new word just to describe what a wonderful thing it is.

In a word, to borrow from one of Neil Patrick Harris’ TV characters, it would be totally awesome.

But let’s get to Saturday and Sunday’s schedule, shall we?

Saturday, July 26
10:00 am to 11:00 am Spotlight on Forrest J. Ackerman (Room 3)
Learn all about the history of horror films from the master himself, as he celebrates the 50th anniversary of his still-published Famous Monsters of Filmland. (Note: The actual anniversary panel takes place from 11 am to 12 pm in Room 10.)

1:15 pm to 2:00 pm Warner Bros.: Terminator Salvation (Hall H)
As of press time, there’s no word as to who’s going to be on the panel to introduce the trailer and talk about the movie. But at least it’ll be interesting to see how they plan on getting around the time paradoxes.

2:30 pm to 3:30 pm Disney Pixar: Bolt and UP (Hall H)
You may have to leave the room in order to get back inside, but it’s worth it to check out what will be coming up next from the House of Mouse and the company that an animated lamp built. Pay attention to the second part of the panel where director Peter Docter (Monsters, Inc.) introduces his newest comedy, UP.

4:30 pm to 5:30 pm Treasures of ASIFA Archive (Room 10)
Featuring animation director Ralph Bakshi (The Lord of the Rings), the ASIFA (that’s the International Animated Film Society) opens up its archive to show off rare animation footage and talk about the challenges of being an animator in today’s Wacom-tablet and Mac computer world.

5:30 pm to 7:00 pm Sony: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Quarantine, Pineapple Express (Hall H)
Sony Pictures bundles up three different genre films into one large session. First up is the third installment of the gothic horror Underworld series, starring Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, and Rhona Mitra. Next up is Quarantine, a zombie horror filmed camera verite style, while the last movie to be featured is the latest Judd Apatow-produced action/comedy Pineapple Express, of which very little has been written in the program guide. Feel free to ask Pineapple‘s co-writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg about the Green Hornet film, too.

7:00 pm to 8:30 pm In Search of Steve Ditko Documentary—Strange & Stranger (Room 5AB)
If you’re a fan of comics, you owe it to yourself to check out this documentary about comics creator and legend Steve Ditko, starring U.K. comedian Jonathan Ross (he who snogged British author Neil Gaiman at least year’s Eisner awards ceremony).

10:00 pm 12:00 am World Premiere! Mutant Chronicles (Room 6CDEF)
The Victorian steampunk genre is the newest “next big thing” and Mutant Chronicles will be one of the first live-action films to take advantage of its emergence. Stars Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, and Devon Aoki will be presenting the “work-in-progress” film and take questions about it as well.

Sunday, July 27
11:30 am 12:00 pm Focus Features: Hamlet 2 (Ballroom 20)
Straight from the wintry slopes of the Sundance Film Festival comes this surprise hit comedy which can be best described as “sacrelicious.” In addition to featured appearances by Steve Coogan and Elisabeth Shue, there will also be some other surprise appearances.

12:00 pm to 12:45 pm Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Ballroom 20)
Stick around for Kal Penn, John Cho, and the man himself, Neil Patrick Harris to talk about the second movie in the Harold & Kumar series. But honestly, it’s Neil Patrick Harris. Who couldn’t resist getting a chance to see him again?

1:00 pm to 1:30 pm Friday the 13th (Ballroom 20)
No word yet on who will be on hand to show off footage and talk about the retelling of the classic horror movie that spawned a horror movie subgenre.

Making Out With the Media: SAG To Meet with AMPTP, and Other Stories

AMPTP Goes On the Record About Today’s ‘Off the Record’ Meeting with SAG
Just in time for the evening news, the AMPTP released a statement yesterday which emphatically notes that SAG negotiators asked for the meeting, not them, and that they’re agreeing to it so they can listen to what SAG has to say–but they will not be renegotiating against their final offer. The meeting will take place this afternoon. Incidentally, I found SAG’s non-corporate website that’s devoted to rallying its members around the cause, and I have only this to say: Hire some people from the WGA or some people from Fans4Writers to conduct your website PR campaign, okay?

Robin Williams to Channel Dark Side Again in World’s Greatest Dad
Screechy comedian Bobcat Goldtwaith wrote and will direct the dark comedy, according to Variety, which is all about how a single father and high school deals with and covers up the fact that his son died in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident. Yes, you heard me: autoerotic asphyxiation. What’s next, a rom-com about the furry community? (First commenter to find me such a film gets mad props.)

Movie Make-out's Recommended SDCC 2008 Schedule, Part 1

While many of you are happily packing for the next week’s annual trek to Nerd Prom, aka the San Diego Comic Con (I refuse to call it Comic Con International), I will be crying into my beer because I haven’t been to a Comic Con since 2002. I’ve got many happy memories from Comic Cons past, including the time where I was immortalized in a Lea Hernandez Near Life Experience webcomic panel for which I’m always going to regret not buying the original art… but I digress.

Nonetheless, I will be wishing you much happiness and joy as you will have the toughest choices ahead of you. Will you blow your wad in the first 15 minutes, or will you wait till Sunday and pray that what you want to buy hasn’t been picked up by someone else? Will you wait in line for panels or will you wait in line at autograph booths? Will you be rejected at the bar by a hottie or whoop it up at the Masquerade? Will you use your DS to Pictochat during the Eisner awards ceremony or will you be Twittering?

Luckily, Movie Make-out is here to take some decisions out of your hands and help guide you through what we consider to be the cream of the convention’s movie and film-related offerings for Thursday and Friday.

Thursday, July 24
11:00 am to 12:00 pm The Disney Animation Story Process (Room 32AB)
Featuring members of the creative teams behind Bolt!, Rapunzel, and The Princess and the Frog, this panel focuses on “old school” drawn animation and how Disney does it. Stay as long as you can, for they’ll be giving attendees a sneak peek at Bolt! footage as well.

3:00 pm to 4:00 pm Disney: Race to Witch Mountain (Hall H)
Oh come on! You remember the two Witch Mountain movies from your childhood, right? Well, there’s a new one coming out, and stars The Rock–I’m sorry, Dwayne Johnson–and Carla Gugino (who will also be in Watchmen) and director Andy Fickman will be on hand to talk about the movie and how off footage.

6:00 pm to 7:00 pm Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels (Room 7AB)
There’s a reason why Plympton is one of the gods of American animation, and he’s been quoted as saying that he drew every single frame of his latest feature all by himself. You owe it to yourself to check this out.

7:00 to 9:00 pm Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist (Room 7AB)
Fresh from its premiere at New York City’s TriBeCa Film Festival, this documentary film profiles one of the greatest comics creators who ever lived.

Friday, July 25
10:00 am to 11:00 am TheOneRing.net: The Hobbit (Room 32AB)
Thanks to TORn’s coverage of the first three LotR movies, the website has a very close relationship to Peter Jackson and his teams, so expect to see and hear a lot of news you probably haven’t already read yet.

11:55 am to 1:00 pm Warner Bros.: Watchmen (Hall H)
Do I even need to explain what this panel’s about?

1:30 pm to 2:30 pm Joss Whedon (Ballroom 20)
In addition to talking about his comics projects, the writer/director, some of his other writers, and some cast members-to-be-named-later will be showing off clips from his new short film Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

2:45 pm to 3:45 pm Lionsgate and Odd Lot Entertainment: The Spirit (Hall H)
If you’re very lucky, you may be able to sprint over from Whedon’s panel just in time to catch an exclusive preview. If you don’t feel lucky, you could probably stand to chill out in line in Hall H after the Watchmen panel for a while, anyway.

4:00 pm to 5:00 pm The Saga Continues: Star Wars 2008 (Hall H)
Yeah, you’re probably never going to leave this hall. Looks like SDCC will get to premiere the Clone Wars footage instead of Japan, which is a small consolation for not being able to talk to Mark Hamil and Anthony Daniels.

7:15 pm to 8:15 pm Mystery Science Theater 3000 20th Anniversary Reunion (Room 6B)
You can go listen to his podcasts if you want to listen to Kevin Smith ramble about his newest film project. How often are you going to get most, if not all, of the MST3K cast and crew in the same room for a Q&A session? I thought so.

10:45 pm to 12:00 am Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (Room 6B)
No, not another panel, but a screening of the entire short film! What a perfect way to end a Comic Con day!

Making Out With the Media: Violence Trumps Sex, and Other Stories

Variety’s Peter Bart Uses Hancock to Call Out the Film Ratings Board
Stating that the Will Smith movie’s violent content was arguably far worse than the gross-out sexual innuendo humor in The Love Guru, Bart brings up the notion that once again, indie films are given the shaft when it comes to fair treatment and states, “Given all the inconsistencies of their rulings, they’d probably turn out to be a bunch of former IRS accountants.” Um, burn?

Eddie Murphy Misses Own Movie Premiere
The Meet Dave star was said to be off shooting for his next movie, A Thousand Words. Funny that, though… Dave‘s director Brian Robbins is also the director for Words and he managed to make it to the premiere. Best part? Nikki Finke says she’s got sources that say it was Murphy who wanted a big premiere to happen in the first place. Of course, Murphy’s people are denying this, but c’mon…

OMG! Yahoo Gets Into the Fame-Gossip Game
Click that above link only if you want to sear your retinas.

The Latest on the SAG/AMPTP Contract Negotiations

From Nikki Finke over at Deadline Hollywood comes the most recent missives between, around, and betwixt the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) groups. Let’s summarize in a much more simpler way, shall we?

AMPTP: Yo, SAG? We totally wanna make deal with you, which is why we’re telling you that if you just ratify the contract, we’ll make give you retroactive back pay to July 1. Fer sure! But listen up, if you don’t ratify the contract by August 15, we’re going to make you wait till your next pay period. And considering that some of you might not actually be working actors, who knows when that will be? (Ed. Note: They didn’t say that in the statement, but everybody’s thinking it.) Listen, we’re giving you $250 million more and actually trying to do something about this new-fangled Intarweb thing, so just freaking ratify it already, would ya?

SAG: Chill out, dudes. We wanna talk to you guys in person rather than jump the gun and let the media vultures pick apart our statements like they are probably already doing right now.

AMPTP: Oh, and btw, California state legislators? We totally did our part in giving the SAG folks fair demands and time frames and whatnot, and if this draws out any longer, it’s totally their fault, not ours. Neener-neener!

SAG: Fuck that! It’s so totally not a fair enough deal, and we totally don’t like the fact that the meanie-head producers are trying to diss us to you O benevolent legislators who we may want to turn to later on. It’s their fault for not giving us every single thing we asked for, and if there is a slowdown in one of California’s biggest exports, it’s because they’re not negotiating with us and giving us everything we want.

Update: Variety reports that SAG nixed the final offer and is also refusing to send it to its 120,000 members for a vote. They did, however, also present a counter-offer.

The AMPTP responded — and I paraphrase — “Dude, we’re just giving you what we gave the writer dudes, the director dudes, and the TV and radio dudes, so why you film folks gotta give us such problems? It’s totally your fault if you make this bad economy even worse for us Hollywood folks.”

No word yet on what the next step is going to be.

Making Out with the Media: EW and Variety Blogs Dissected

EW: The Effect of Heath Ledger’s Death on The Dark Knight’s Advertising
Very typical piece that is super-respectful of Ledger, tries to find humor in poking fun at Michael Caine’s portrayal of Alfred, and really doesn’t go into the tough decisions that the marketing team had to make because apparently, even they don’t want to talk about Ledger’s death. Then again, only nuts like me are into learning about marketing decisions.

EW: The 25 Faces of Eddie Murphy
Looking through this overview of Murphy’s career makes me realize that:
a) I’ve seen and liked more Eddie Murphy movies that I thought I did
b) The only one I haven’t seen yet that I want to see is Dreamgirls
Readers are encouraged to vote on their favorite characters of his. Currently, the highest score goes to Shrek and its sequels and the lowest score is for The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

Wilshire & Washington: LA’s Outfest 2008 to Feature Political Programming
Only briefly talks Saturday’s political panel which will feature a Democratic California state senator, an Obama campaigner, and someone from Courage Campaign talking about gay and lesbian rights. Doesn’t mention anything about the actual films in the festival, which include a heart-warmer about a 15-year old’s introduction to politics and Dan Butler (Bulldog from TV’s Frasier)’s growing love for Karl Rove, the latter of which I really want to see now.

The Pencils Have Stayed Down for United Hollywood 2.0

For those of you who were drawn avidly to the daily reports and good ol’ union solidarity offered up at the old United Hollywood blog, tuning into United Hollywood 2.0 may be a bit of a surprise. As of this writing, in addition to some very robust content on the Union blog and forums, there’s also a Flickr shoot (and wouldn’t it be nice if someone identified the T-shirt models?) on the Main site and one item on the Video side pimping Michael Eisner’s newest project.

That’s not half-bad—however that’s also the only non-union content the blog has had since March or April. Contributor Tom Smuts said in a reply to a comment on the Flickr shoot, “The problem is that all of UH’s founders have been pulled into jobs… jobs that in many cases are moving at a faster pace than normal to make up for time lost during the [WGA] strike.”

In the meantime, the About page says they’ll take tips and entire blog posts at unitedhollywood@gmail.com, so fire up them typin’ keys! Who knows, maybe this will be part of your big break into the biz?

Making Out with the Media: Your M-W-F Roundup of News Stories that Interest Me

Lucasfilm Animation’s Clone Wars Footage to Preview in Japan
Also on hand to greet fans in August will be animator Atsushi Takeuchi, original trilogy actors Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels. Can’t be considered a debut because we don’t know what the SDCC program track looks like yet.

Pick Your Favorite Shorties to Win SXSWclick’s Popularity Contest Prize
Favorite category? What the F*#!?

Digital Distribution Gets Independent Advocate in London
Pull quote from director/producer Luc Roeg features the words “adding value to product” while being described as “tub thumping.” Cue the Chumbawumba!

Movie Exec Profile: Fox Movie Channel Ignites Emmy Campaign for Fox Filmed’s Rothman
Though it is a puff piece, Fox Legacy itself is a tuner for old-school movie fans who want to see how it used to be done. Can I use the word “fox” more times in this bit?

Midnight Sun is the New Sundance
Who wants the over-under on when the quiet Finnish film festival will get overrun by posers, wannabes, and fame-hungry starlets?