FF:NSW That Haggis Thread

In my wanderings around the new news pages, I come across (what I think are) stories that are interesting but not really worth starting up a thread about. So I decided, what the heck - I'm bored - I'll start up a thread to post them in instead.

So that's what this thread will be: a semi-regular summary of news of semi-trivial interest to like-minded folks.

• Remember all the privacy issues about the mobile phones with built-in digital cameras? Now a new spin: a 15 year old boy in the US used the camera in his phone to take pictures of the face and number plate of a man he claims tried to abduct him. Police used the pictures to identify and arrest the man.



• Paramount has pushed the release date of the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD forward by two weeks.



• In what's becoming something of a trendy new marketing ploy, the makers of Jeepers Creepers 2 have released the first 8 minutes of the film online.



• A sequel to The Mask - no Jim Carrey, Jamie Kennedy stars as a different character - begins production next year.



• Another Ewan MacGregor project to look out for: Robots, a cg film where he voices (surprise surprise) a robot. Also features Halle Berry (his love interest) & Mel Brooks.



• And finally, my big news for the first edition of the Daily Haggis, a LOTR: ROTK production update from Peter Jackson: "We're shooting, we're cutting, the visual effects still have a long way to go before they are done, we haven't started recording the music yet - so for me there may be light at the end of the tunnel, but the premiere in December still seems a long, long way away from where I am at the moment. I have experienced my last day of shooting Elijah Wood as Frodo and my last day of shooting Viggo (Mortensen) as Aragorn. Those to me are more profound than what my personal last day is going to be. ... It is the movie that I want to be most proud of, so I am working very hard to make sure that happens. I think when people look back at the three films, I want Return of the King to be the one that really lingers with them in terms of the emotional experience. I want it to be the reason why we made the other two films"

 

Some movie news - and I have to admit, this thread will probably be mostly movie news, and a bit of tech news, and whatever weirdness I find ...

• SPOILER-ISH: Before Freddy v Jason is even released, New Line Cinema is apparently looking at possibilities for sequels, and one popular one is ... *gulp* Freddy & Jason v Ash from Evil Dead.



• Harry Potter: TGOF director has been announced: Mike Newell, director of Four Weddings and a Funeral - also the first British director to have a whack at HP.



• New James Cameron movie: Aliens? Terminator? Titanic 2? Nope. A biopic about cuban freediver Audrey Mestre, who died in 2002 during a record attempt.

 

My news > your news

• And in Tulsa, Okla., in July, suspected shoplifter Jacob Wise, 18, had cleverly removed security tags from clothes he was allegedly walking out of a store with, but the alarm went off anyway because he had merely put the removed tags in his pocket.


• Two Harare, Zimbabwe, mortuary workers were charged with renting out corpses to motorists so they could go to the head of gas-station lines, since hearses get preferred treatment.


• A 23-year-old man who opened the passenger door of a pickup truck to urinate (even though the truck was zooming along Houston's Southwest Freeway at the time) fell out and was fatally run over (June).

 

Stintrab: are you seriously suggesting your news is greater than mine?

I wasn't really going for the weird stories, but if you want to be the weirdsville correspondent for the Daily Haggis, fine by me. (That goes for anyone - if there is actually anyone reading this ... lol) The more the merrier.

• Microsoft has confirmed that it's ceased development of Microsoft Outlook to devote itself to MSN & Hotmail.



• Also on MS: a federal court in Chicago ruled that Microsoft must pay $521 million to a Web technology company and the University of California after finding that Internet Explorer infringed on their patents.



• AOL has asked AOL Time Warner to remove AOL from its name. The reason: it doesn't want to be associated with current investigations into accounting irregularities at AOL Time Warner. The irony: the investigations involve the AOL division of AOL Time Warner.



• In an interesting move, after paying Jennifer Lopez $4 million to star in his movie JERSEY GIRL, Kevin Smith has left most of her on the cutting room floor.

 

• As the file-sharing community faces its bleakest hour, there arises a new hope: a new file-sharing service that claims to be beyond prosecution. And how so? It's running it's servers from a refugee camp in the Palestinian West Bank. It's operators claim that no lawyers will dare enter the camp to serve papers.



• If you don't already know, there is a new live-action Peter Pan film due out soon (Tagline: The first Peter Pan film in history where Peter Pan is played by ... a boy!) But wait - there's more! It looks like there is another "official" Peter Pan movie in the works, JM Barrie's Neverland, starring Johnny Depp.

 

• J.M.Barrie's Neverland is in fact a biopic about J M Barrie, played by Johnny Depp - who is, rumour has it, up for the part of Willy Wonka in Tim Burton's "remake / re-imagining" of WWATCF.



• ROTK: There are lots of new widescreen pics posted online at herr-der-ringe-film.de. Looks pretty damned good.



• The Further Adventures of SCO: SCO is now targeting the GPL (General Purpose License) used to distribute Linux and other open-source software - according to SCO, the GPL is illegal under US law because copying software other than for backup is illegal. Not happy with that, they are also targeting users: SCO wants $32US a pop for any product that uses linux (such as mobile phones, etc) and $699 a pop for each installation of Linux - which, funnily enough, would make Linux more expensive to run than Windows. Curious, isn't it?

 

• WONKA: It's official. Tim Burton is making a new version of Willy Wonka, and Johnny Depp has officially agreed to star as Wonka. The mind boggles.



• MICROSOFT: After narrowly avoiding catastrophe at the hands of the blaster worm, Microsoft has moved WindowsUpdate to a new, secure server ... a linux server. Or, at the very least, using a linux device as a first-wall defense. It's a funny world.



• MICROSOFT: In an effort to win back Thai pc users, Microsoft has launched a promotion in Thailand offering WinXP & Office XP for the bargain basement price of $36US per pc. And, at the request of the Thai government, they have also removed product activation from both products.

 

• LOTR: New Line is planning to screen the SE versions of LOTR:FOTR & LOTR:TT in 120 cinemas in the US & Canada prior to the release of FOTR:ROTK - including a movie marathon that will conclude with the premiere screening of LOTR: ROTK.


• MSN Messenger: From mid-October, in an attempt to kill competition (such as Trillian), Microsoft will block access to its MSN Messenger services to anyone not using MSN Messenger (version 5 or later).


• Myers v Pinhead: After the (financial) success of Freddy v Jason, the latest rumoured pairing is Micahel Myers and Pinhead from Hellraiser ... gah


• Batman: Christopher Nolan is making Batman 5, and the actor rumoured to play his dark knight is Hugh Dancy from Black Hawk Down.

 

• MATRIX: Now, a 160 page Matrix comic. You can download a preview at
  Warner Bros



• SUPERMAN: A new Superman movie - of sorts. Truth, Justice, and The American way is a biopic about the life and mysterious death of former Superman tv star George Reeves.

 

i love u haggis

 

I bet you say that to all the offal ...

 

• Exorcist: Acccording to rumours, Morgan Creek Films were so unimpressed with director Paul Schraeder's early cut of Exorcist: The Beginning that they let him go. Apparently they were unimpressed that he had decided to film it as a bloodless psychological thriller.



• XMEN: Can't wait until the X-Men 2 dvd arrives? One site (that I obviously cannot name or link to) has posted all 11 deleted scenes from the dvd in various formats ...
  

 

• Spiderman 2: Production has stopped until September. Everything is shot except for the finale, which takes place on a set so mind-numbingly large that they have had to stop production for a month while it's built...



• Gladiator 2: Yup. Ridley Scott has confirmed that he will begin work on Gladiator 2 in 2005. But no Maximus. This one will "focus on Rome."



• Princess Diaries 2: Fear not! They are making a sequel!



• Catwoman: As if it wasn't confusing enough - not only is Halle Berry starring in Catwoman as Catwoman - but not as the Selena Kyle Catwoman - news is Michelle Pfieffer will be in the film playing Selena Kyle as Berry's "mentor."

 

• Hannibal Lecter: Who will play young Hannibal in the upcoming The Lector Variation? Rumour is that de Laurentis is considering Macauley Culkin, after seeing his performance in Party Monster. I believe the phrase is ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

u know his younger brother is quite good. Lin and i saw a film with him in it (i want to say his name is kieren?) though the name of it escapes me just now.

 

And his littler brother Rory was the son in Signs...

The only adult work I've seen of MC was an episode of Will & Grace, which he did pretty well, imho. I just don't see him as a convincing young Anthony Hopkins, or young Hannibal.

But I could be wrong. Besides, I guess they broke the whole continuity thing when they replaced Jodie Foster.

Anyway - right now it's just a wild rumour. So no need to get excited just yet.

 

• TROY: the first good look at Wolfgang Peterson's film about the Trojan war ... Brad Pitt as Achilles
  

 

...though the name of it escapes me just now.

Igby Goes Down. Haven't seen it, but I wouldn't mind hiring it out when it's available.

 

• Spiderman 2: Might be old news for uber fans, but the Spiderman 2 movie site is now open: Spiderman 2



• MARS: If you didn't get a good look, the NASA Hubble space telescope did. Pics and videos and stuff available at HubbleSite



• SCO: Tip for the day: don't upset linux geeks. Since SCO started its legal moves against linux, its website has been under constant Denial of Service attacks.

 

• Micro$oft: By mid september, Microsoft will block all access to the MSN network from third party IM clients such as Trillian. In the meantime, it is asking IM companies such as Trillian to pay a licensing fee.



• MSBlaster.worm: An 18 year old from Minnesota has been charged with releasing a variant - MSBlaster.B - of the original MSBlaster worm.

 

• Asian OS: China, Japan, and South Korea are going to develop their own operating system to "topple Microsoft's monopoly." The Japanese Trade & Industry minister is meeting with Chinese and S.Korean ministers to discuss the formation of a joint committee, which will include reps from NEC, Hitashi, and Fujitsu, to develop the new OS.



• The War on Microsoft: The US Computer and Communications Industry Association has informed the US Dept of Homeland Securities that Microsoft software is too vulnerable for the US Government to continue the risk of using it any longer.

 

• Office 2003: Microsoft Office 2003 now includes Digital Rights Management (DRM) for documents, which means that you won't even be able to view a document unless you are authorised. It also means you cannot view or open office 2003 documents in anything but office 2003 - which means if you have an older version of ms office, or a competing office suite, you will no longer be able to share documents.



• CD-Rs: According to tests by Dutch magazine PC ACTIVE, CD-Rs degrade within a matter of months, not years. After testing discs from 30 companies, they found that after 20 months several discs had serious errors or were unreadable. They suggest that the cause is cheap dyes used in CD-Rs - cheap discs degrade faster because they dyes they use are less stable. They recommend that you don't rely on CD-Rs for long term storage of valuable of data.



• MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS: Some pics from the film have been posted at Coming Soon

 

• Beer: IMI Cornelius ("The Global Ice, Frozen Beverage and Drink Dispensing Professionals") has created a drink dispenser that can pour a pint of beer in five seconds at 2 degrees celsius. It's currently being tested by Coors.



• Zorro: Antonio Banderas has been told by Steven Spielberg that the sequel to The Mask of Zorro will be a "much deeper ... more adult" movie focusing on relationships rather than action.

 

• ROTK Ooops: Anyone who has purchased the LOTR:TT dvd and watched the preview of the SE will notice that the pictures linked to above are in fact not from ROTK at all, but are from the SE of TT.



• EBAY: In an interesting experiment in digital music rights, someone is trying to sell a song bought through Apple's iTunes on eBay - they are claiming it as a test of the rights of consumers to transfer ownership of digital music.



• Batman: The official short list of actors testing for the lead in Chris Nolan's Batman: Jake Gyllenhaal (DONNIE DARKO), Christian Bale (AMERICAN PSYCHO), Joshua Jackson (DAWSON'S CREEK), Cillian Murphy (28 DAYS LATER), Henry Cavill (I CAPTURE THE CASTLE), and Eion Bailey (AND STARRING PONCHO VILLA AS HIMSELF).

 

A fascinating read....you must have some wide-ranging sources!