Found it on twitter. New Call of Duty baby!

Video Game - E3 2009 - Video Game Trailers

Retro Pic, Right? /\/\/\

Atlantic Records filed the lawsuit in Manhattan yesterday against STP singer Scott Weiland and drummer Eric Kretz, saying that they're trying to get out of their record contract with Warner Music Group prematurely.

It seems the catalyst for this mess was when Weiland and Kretz sounded off that they'd refuse to play and terminate their contract unless the label made some big changes. In the suit, Atlantic says that despite STP recording six LP's, it has the right to a seventh, and two more, which could be live or greatest hits compilations.

The band issued a statement today, and sounds pissed:

"Stone Temple Pilots were deeply disappointed to see that Atlantic filed a surprise lawsuit against two members of the legendary band ... when they were in the middle of what were believed to be cordial and positive discussions about STP returning to the studio to make a new album after 5 years... Despite the allegations in the complaint, the band never threatened anything more than remaining away from the studio until equitable terms could be arranged. The precipitous filing of this action is yet another example of the difficulties facing artists in the new music environment, as relationships between artists and their labels fall further and further apart.

"Eric and Scott have not yet been served and hope that Atlantic will allow cooler heads to prevail and have the courtesy of shelving this action to permit negotiations to continue in a positive spirit rather than under a dark cloud of hostility," the statement continued. "Should everyone operate in good faith, STP are certain that a new album from the band will be available soon. Should Atlantic instead pursue this scorched-earth policy towards the band, the ultimate victims will be STP's fans, who will never be able to enjoy a new album from the group."

I really like these guys, and I think I want to continue working with them. Let's sue 'em!

[MTV.com]

So Google wants to get bigger, huh? News to me. Looks like they're about to buy Web 2.0 aggregation website Digg.com.

Check out this quote from Valleywag:

…we hear [Google’s Marissa] Mayer is pushing hard for an acquisition of Rose’s Digg, for a price below $200 million…A source familiar with the talks says Google and Digg reached an agreement last month; it’s not clear whether the offer was verbal or a formal termsheet. So why the delay? One possibility: Digg may have been exploring whether it could hire a rock-star CEO and raise more money.

I doubt the army of Digg users will be down with this, but it I dont see any reason why it wouldn't happen. Google is surely after the technology and algorithms that make Digg so effective. But a power so great can't be taken, it can only be given.

[ValleyWag]

Its getting closer and closer to June 30th, the when the Screen Actors Guild's Contract runs out and negotiations start. Maybe this means a strike, maybe it doesn't, but the film industry isn't taking any chances.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) says a de facto strike is already happening "limiting the green-lighting of features and disrupting pilot production" On talent attorney said "No one is doing anything that finishes after June 30, (and) nobody's starting anything now. There is the impact of a strike already."

There's a pretty fantastic lineup of films that will finish production before the contract deadline, but will they be enough to last another work stoppage?

Here's some for-sures.

DreamWorks' - John Hamburg's "I Love You, Man"; Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones"
Paramount - "G.I. Joe"; Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island with Leonardo DiCaprio
Warner Bros. - Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant"; "Observe and Report" starring Seth Rogen; and "Ninja Assassin"
Universal - Will Ferrell starring "Land of the Lost"
Disney - "When in Rome"; "High School Musical 3"
Columbia/MGM's - Newest Bond Film "Quantum of Solace"

That's not gonna be enough to satisfy the masses... not even close.

[Reuters]

Family Guy is somewhat of a legend since it's become such a force to be reckoned with not only as a cartoon, but as a primetime show in general. After being resurrected on Adult Swim, and making it's way back to FOX, the show has become a fan favorite and a huge financial success.

Now it has it's own spin-off and IGN did a preview of what to expect. Here's some of the finer points:

* Mike Henry, who played the voice of Cleveland in Family Guy, will return.
* Cleveland is more unattached after finding out that his wife was sleeping with Quagmire.
* He's moved on with an old girlfriend and moved to Stoolbend, Virginia to live with her and her teenaged daughter and infant son. Cleveland Jr. comes too!
* As you can tell from the image, Cleveland has two neighbors that are bears.. more on that later.



[IGN]

Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse that will begin production in 2009. The movie is based on a short that Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg created last year. It's about two losers who have to deal with the apocalypse and, after being cooped up for too long, not killing each other. Oh, and there's something about giant monsters taking over the planet.

The trailer is getting a lot of hype though. So much that various studios have been fighting for the rights for some time now. Mandate Pictures eventually won and is producing the film with Rogen and Goldberg. Mandate's Nathan Kahane has nothing but good things to say about Rogen, saying, "he's busy, but he's also unbelievably focused on his business… I've never seen anyone turn around material faster or notes or whatever. He's good." No director has been chosen yet.

Here's the trailer.


[FirstShowing]

HBO has bought a minority stake in funny-ass website, FunnyOrDie.com. And thats not all! They've also ordered 5 hours worth of online tomfoolery that will be broken up into half-hour episodes on their network.

Their stake is said to be less than 10% out of FunnyOrDie's approximately $100 million worth. I'm sure the fact that Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow have their names all over it has nothing to do with how much confidence HBO has in the site. I guess star power and an empire of a cable network is all it takes to make some of those dead internet presidents.

[Variety]

In the great American Tradition of recycling old material, the Smurfs are coming to the big screen for a live-action/CGI movie adaptation with Columbia Pictures. What a way to celebrate your 50th anniversary.

Neither the cast nor the director have been chosen yet, but the Studio is in talks with David Stem and David Weiss, who wrote both "Shrek" sequels and "The Rugrats Movie."

[Reuters]

The New York Times is reporting that the "Roadrunner," an American military supercomputer, has reached a long-sought-after benchmark by processing more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second. Part of it's insides comes directly out of the Playstation 3.

This (world's fastest?) computer contains 116,640 processor cores, with 12,960 chips that are an improved version of the Cell processor used in the PS3. "The Sony chips are used as accelerators, or turbochargers, for portions of calculations," said the New Work Times

"Roadrunner" takes a lot of power.. like enough to power a large mall, and requires three different programming tools since it has three different kinds of processors. Plus all 116,640 processor cores need to stay occupied at once for it to continue running. What a chore.

[NY Times]

This is what Terrence Howard to Military.com. Marvel has already claimed April 30, 2010 as the release date, so that leaves a little over a year to get it done.

Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jon Favreau are all expected to return, but don't forget you can also catch a Tony Stark Cameo in The Incredible Hulk, which hits theaters this Friday.

[Filmonic ]

I found this image over at FrostFireZoo

Torture Advert

It seems like not so long ago that Spider-Man 4 was a lost cause. None of the actors or the director seemed to want anything to do with it. But the word keeps changing, and quickly. I don't know if I would really want to see another wall-crawler flick anytime soon.

But for the time being, Sam Raimi is down for it. He spoke with ComingSoon.net about possibly helming the next sequel. "James Vanderbilt is writing the script and I'm excited to read it. I think it's going to be done in a few months. I'm hoping it's as great as our discussions were about it and I'm hoping it feels right for me because I love Spider-Man. I'm hoping I'm well-rested enough to embrace it and I'm hoping Sony wants me to do it. If all of those things come together, I would love to do it. There are a lot of unknowns about the future."

Regardless of the criticisms of the third film, I doubt Sony would pass up on having him in charge of the next one. The question is whether or not fans would want him to take charge again after all the previous hate on SM3.

Or if they'd pay to see another sequel at all.

Cinematical.com

Kevin Smith put up a gut-busting teaser trailer a few days ago for his next flick "Zack and Miri Make a Porno.' In doing so, he bunched some panties over at the MPAA and they forced him to take it down. I thought, probably like most of you, that this is bull and the MPAA doesn't or shouldn't have this kind of power. But Smith said on his News Askew website that the reason is "Weinstein Co. (like most studios) is a signatory of the MPAA. As such, there are protocols involving trailers that we failed to follow." That's a bunch of crap, but I guess the incident will only generates more exposure. I can't wait to see what other sort of religious types and activists come out of the woodwork to go toe-to-toe with this film.

Smith continues to explain that this teaser was never submitted to the MPAA because they assumed since there was no footage from the movie they didn't need to. I would have thought the same, but since there's no reliable way to check a viewer's age on the internet, and the trailer obviously deserves a red band rating, the MPAA thought they needed to approve it. Since it's already out there, and copies will obviously be made, it could live on the internet for a long time.

Here's a copy of the trailer at firstshowing.net that as of 11:30 this morning, is still live.

Source

According to Starpulse, Christian Bale was almost chopped up by a descending helicopter that narrowly missed him on the set of The Dark Knight. Apparently, he didn't even notice how close it was until he saw the freaked-out expressions on the cast members' faces.

In an interview with Details magazine, he said "I've been in situations where things could have gone very wrong. I saw a number of very anxious faces on The Dark Knight when a helicopter came incredibly close to me. I was standing on the corner of the Sears Tower, on the outside 110 stories up. I felt quite oblivious to it. I was looking at the face of the pilot and just hanging there, not fully aware that the blades were actually just feet away from my head."

Like Heath Ledger's Joker character wasn't reason enough to see it! Dangerous.

Starpulse.com

I don't know if you can read this, but it's a trip to look back and remember that some of these phrases came out of our President's mouth.

Filming continues for 'W' in Louisiana, and is set for release in October. Oliver Stone has said repeatedly that the film will be a fair and honest portrayal of George W. Bush, but the pic above sets a pretty obvious tone of how it will go down. I guess sad truth is better than lies, as long as it comes in blockbuster form.


IONCINEMA
via
First Showing

Jack Thompson, an anti-gaming attorney representing the families of two police officers and a police dispatcher slain by 18-year-old Grand Theft Auto player Devin Moore, decided to walk out on his own disbarment hearing today before it concluded. This led Dava Tunis, the presiding judge, to recommend an "enhanced disbarment" ruling against him. I'm not sure what that means either, but it must be worse than a "regular old disbarment."

The highlight of the proceedings is Thompson's statement where he called Judge Tunis "incompetent and arrogant" and threatened to have her removed from office "in the days and weeks ahead."

"I am “guilty” of being right and ahead of the curve when it came to Howard Stern and as to Grand Theft Auto. Because I took on Bar complainant, Al Cardenas, the Howard Stern Show is off terrestrial radio and his influence diminished." He continues saying "Because I took on this cop-killing, woman-bashing video game, the Presidential race is now addressing the issue and this particular video game… Try to get me disbarred. Go ahead, do your worst, Referee Tunis. I will continue to do my best."

If he is disbarred, he'll be prevented from applying to practice law for 10 years anywhere in the U.S.

The full 4,500 word statement can be found here at

Kotaku
via
The Feed

The two companies finally took the lid off their DRM-free music service promotion, which begins with a Super Bowl commercial starring Justin Timberlake.

The promotion is called Pepsi Stuff, and begins on Feb. 1st. Here's how it's going down:

* Pepsi will distirbute 4 billion specially marked packages that contain points;
* The points are good for free music downloads on the Amazon.com service;
* Participants bank their points at pepsistuff.com;
* 5 points is good for one free song
* The points are also good for "TV downloads, electronics gear, clothes, DVDs and CDs and other merchandise sold on Amazon, totaling $1 billion in prizes."

All of the big record labels selling music through the service are allowing their music to be used in the promotion, with the exception of Universal Music Group. However, UMG has licensed it's music for the service.

In order to get some of the labels to be involved with the promotion, Amazon had to agree to step up the marketing campaign. Hence the kickoff of the campaign begins with the Super Bowl. I guess that's a fair compromise, and explains why Amazon, who normally doesn't normally go big with advertising, is buying one of the most expensive TV time slots in the world.

This new contender in the music-distribution game may be exactly what the people asked for. Introducing it through a contest-based promotion will give people the opportunity to explore the site and get free content, provided they are all Pepsi drinkers. Sound like the ultimate beta test.

Billboard.biz
Pepsi, Amazon Unveil Long-Expected Promotion

At the moment, this is just one of those superfluous internet rumors credited to "a reliable source" (Joystiq.com) But there certainly is reason to believe movie execs are looking into 2k's new IP as a movie adaptation.

"Digging through all the praise heaped upon Bioshock, you're sure to scrape your nails across several repeated phrases such as 'engaging,' 'gripping' and 'atmospheric.' Some have even said it's 'pretty good.' The most common one, however, is sure to be 'cinematic,' a term that places Bioshock and Hollywood in rather close proximity."

With the Halo movie not expected any time soon (maybe never), Bioshock would certainly give gaming fans something to cut their teeth on. Thinking about Big Daddies on the big screen actually makes me pretty excited as well. The movie would be scary, action-packed, and (provided they keep the plot on track) would actually have some relevant meaning to our lives and histories without having to dive into subjects like Iraq and the War on Terror.

That is something to be grateful for. Relevant fiction.

Anywho, I've sang enough praises for the game. What do you think? Is this something you would want to see in theaters?

A patent filing on July 3, 2006 may foreshadow the next big thing from Apple: an ultra-mobile Macintosh. The patent filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office defines "a docking area configured to receive a portable computer."

Nice.

It's also supposed to enable the mystery device to communicate with the docking station using Bluetooth and IEEE 80.2.11 wireless connections.

Nicer.

Rumors about Apple working with Intel to make a new line of utra-mobile processors have been abound for a several months, but neither company will confirm it. It makes sense that Apple is interested in the ultra-mobile market, thought.

Regardless of what plans Apple has for the patent, I'm sure dudes with shiny black glasses and carefully mussed up hair will call it awesome.

Yahoo.com
Apple patent reveals innovative docking station

Apparently Brit refuses to be out done by her little sis and will just not leave her pop-culture limelight. This may be the biggest and best (?) Britney incident yet. Earlier today, police showed up and took Spears' children, who were supposed to be staying with their father, after she refused to give them up.

Well at least she's kind of acting like a real mommy. But the crown jewel of this story are these fantastic ambulance shots. Britney was hauled out of her home on a stretcher, alternating between sad-face and smiling like a maniac. Cedars Sinai hospital in Beverly Hills now has her under suicide watch... we could be so lucky.