What PopCandy is Like After a 2-Week Vacation

[proggrrl]

Whitney you are a Goddess, what would I do without your news blips…such as...

• Jon Stewart’s production company is developing a new show around Dmitri “Trends Tracker” Martin.

• Natalie will be making a movie with Jake and Tobey. *swoon*

• I know many on my flist are getting excited about the new PJ Harvey album – well apparently you can preview the whole thing now on AOL.

• Anyone who is excited about Wes Anderson’s new film THE DARJEELING LIMITED, which just opened last weekend to amazing attendance in New York City, should check out all the links Whitney found of clips and the short “prequel” Anderson made with Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman.

• More good Anderson news: his early feature BOTTLE ROCKET is getting the Criterion treatment.

• Whitney is so right: we should all be celebrating Banned Books Week, every week of the year. Dammit!

• Ian McShane spoke to Cinematical about those fabled DEADWOOD films…and the news is superbly BAD, although my morning was made reading him say this:
  

"You feel cheated? Imagine how I feel!" McShane replied. "We all do. We all do. It was one of those one-off jobs that you do which has got an extraordinary creative brain behind it, and it kept getting better, and the actors were great. It was a fabulous place to be and work. It was a workshop cum theater cum film. It was an extraordinary time. But everything has to come to an end, babe."

And some utterly random goodness NOT via PopCandy:

• NewTeeVee posts advice for the TV nets on how to further attract and keep your geek audiences in thrall to this year’s new shows. Really good ideas here – the movie studios should be listening too.

• TVGuide talks about The Whedon Effect on this year’s new TV, and why NBC probably would never move BIONIC WOMAN to the Sci-Fi Channel (WARNING: you have to jump over some incredibly spoilery bits to scroll down to this stuff, especially if you’re staying unspoiled for FNL this Friday. Watch out!)...via Whedonesque.

• Did you HEROES fans catch this link to what SciFi Wire says is Adrian Pasdar’s YouTube account, including this hilarious one of Kristen Bell and other cast clowning around at the Emmys? I <3 Grunberg.

• Two very cool tutorials I just found: Photojojo on seam carving, and grrliz on cleaning up framegrabs to prep for icons.

• The BLADE RUNNER: FINAL CUT media push has begun in earnest now, leading up to the December DVD release. This directors-cut-to-end-all-directors-cuts just screened at the NYFF and opens this Friday in theaters for a very limited (as in RUN-DON’T-WALK) run in NYC (The Zeigfeld! OMG) and LA.

• Wired has a bunch of cool stuff this week: These two features about ROBOT CHICKEN, an interview with Ridley Scott and a nexus of all the cultural influences of BLADE RUNNER, and this incredibly disturbing yet sexy robot art. *wipes brow*