News Round-up

So just a little round up of film, music and a little literature news for you all to consume and investigate for yourselves.

• Hulk 2, the sequel to the ridiculously underrated original from Ang Lee will be released on 20/08/07 which should get the hype wagon rolling.

• Sci-Fi Wire has a short interview with Zack Snyder on his soon-to-start Watchmen adaptation which gives some good indications that they guy knows what he’s doing, even if he talks a little too-O.C for me. I would also like to request that the purists resist getting angry about the planned montage at the start to explain the imagined future in which Watchmen is set. We all know that if they were to just straight adapt the novel, it would likely be around 6 hours long so give the guy a little leeway.

• Martin Scorsese has signed a deal with Paramount to get first option and funding for his upcoming projects. This could mean light-of-day for his pet project Silence, an adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s novel about 17^th Century Portuguese missionaries sent to Japan to minister to Christians where the religion has been banned. He’s also currently working on a bio-documentary about The Rolling Stones on tour.

• Spiderman III’s new, full trailer will be airing across U.S TV tonight at 10pm and will likely be available on Youtube around the same time. The teaser’s can be found here.

• David Fincher’s new project about the Zodiac killer has been pushed back again, now to March 2007. The film, with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. looks superb and we’ve waited long enough for a new Fincher and hope deeply that the delay is for editing reasons artistically rather than the studio just hates the movie.

• Morgan Freeman has joined James McAvoy in the very loose comic adaptation of Mark Millar’s Wanted series. He’ll play the mentor to McAvoy’s trainee assassin.
  

• In literature, two superlative new books are currently just being released over here in the good ol’ U.K. George Pelecanos, the brilliant writer on The Wire (the best show on television) and author of a host of fine, elegant but brutal crime novels has got The Night Gardener out which you can read reviews of here and here.
  

• Even more excitingly, it seems Cormac McCarthy has topped it all with The Road, a stunning new post-Apocalyptic vision of desolate dystopia and companionship. After the wonderful No Country For Old Men a couple of years ago, it seems the man can’t be beaten right now. If you haven’t read his masterpiece, Blood Meridian, you must do so instantly. Here, here and here are some reviews for The Road. The latter is also being developed for the screen with Proposition writer/director John Hillcoat apparently attached.

• Finally a little music news for you with the great news the Bad Brains have reformed and will be touring soon. The D.C legends reunited for the closing of CBGBs and now will continue that triumph with a series of shows and possibly a new record.

• Rolling Stone ends this post with a selection of songs for a funeral:

1. Bob Dylan – ‘Not Dark Yet’

2. The Pogues – ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’

3. Lynyrd Skynyrd – ‘Free Bird’

4. Sleater-Kinney – ‘Funeral Song’

5. Oasis – ‘Live Forever’

6. Pink Floyd – ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’

7. Tom Waits – ‘Come Up To The House’

8. Bob Marley – ‘Redemption Song’

9. Johnny Cash – ‘Hurt’

• So a few more suggestions I guess, and you’re all free to start sending stuff too.

1. The Rolling Stones – ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’

2. White Stripes – ‘My Doorbell’

3. Elliott Smith – ‘Fond Farewell’

4. Jimmy Eat World – ‘Hear You Me’

5. Cat Stevens – ‘The Wind’

6. John Martyn – ‘Solid Air’

7. Pavement – ‘Stop Breathin’

8. Journey – ‘Don’t Stop Believin’

9. AC/DC – ‘Highway To Hell’

SOURCES: JOBLO, CHUD, ROLLING STONE, MOVIEWEB, BILLBOARD