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Bytes: Superman DVD Redux
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The Geeks of Doom   |  @   |  
  • Disappointed by Superman Returns? No fear, Christopher Reeve is returning in special editions of the first four Superman movies. The big news is that Superman 2 has been reedited with a new beginning and ending and includes 15 more minutes of Marlon Brando footage. The DVDs will hit stores November 14.
  • And it seems that director Bryan Singer will get another shot at Superman. A sequel is being planned for 2009.
  • Also in 2009, SNAKES ON A PLANE will hit basic cable on FX.
  • An animated Iron Man series is in the works for the Cartoon Network. The series should debut next fall, a few months ahead of director Jon Favreau‘s live-action version, which is scheduled for a May 2, 2008.
  • Jack Black will produce an adaptation of Daniel Clowe‘s Death Ray comic. Black will also make a cameo.
  • There are rumors that Babylon 5 is returning in direct-to-DVD movies that should be available late next year.
  • Another Bruce Lee bio-pic is in the works. This is one is based on an upcoming biography by Bruce’s brother Lee Chun-fai.
  • Zach Braff might star in a new Fletch movie. Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence is directing a Fletch prequel and wants the Scrubs star to take over the role made famous by Chevy Chase.
  • Blair Underwood will join the cast of The New Adventures of the Old Christine in the fall.
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Star Wars Burlesque!
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The Geeks of Doom   |  @   |  

GiGi LaFemme performs “Star Wars” at Starshine Burlesque.

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Movie Review: My Super Ex-Girlfriend
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Empress Eve   |  @   |  

My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) is a loser in love, but he scores big time when the attractive Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman) falls for him after he heroically attempts to retrieve her purse from a mugger. Once the two get together, the sparks fly — and so does Jenny, who’s really New York’s own superhero G-Girl.

Matt’s new super sex life is exactly as you’d expect, and because this is a romantic comedy, all the details left out of conventional superhero tales are now revealed, like a nighttime in-flight romp over the city. At one point, Jenny gets so rough that she breaks the bed, then promises to get Matt a new one. “A new bed or a penis?” he replies.

While the sex is incredible, Matt just can’t get passed Jenny’s possessive, neurotic ways, which become more prominent whenever Matt is near his sexy coworker Hannah (Anna Faris). But breaking up with a superhero isn’t so easy, especially when she’s a mentally unstable one. The scorned Jenny goes on a vengeful rampage to destroy Matt’s life by busting a hole through his ceiling, using her heat vision to etch a foul word in his forehead, and throwing a live shark through a window at him. Matt must find a way to stop his ex from destroying his life, even if it means conspiring with G-Girl’s arch nemesis Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard).

Luke Wilson does a fine job as the emasculated straight man and seems at times to channel some of the late John Ritter’s ackward nervous ticks that make you so embarrassed for him that you have to look away. While the lead heroine role is nothing new for Thurman, playing one who’s also bipolar and psychotic (yet still incredibly sexy) is a nice spin. Both G-Girl’s super heroics and super vindictiveness are fun to watch as is the Zoolander-like finish.

MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND is anything but lighthearted and sappy. There’s plenty of hilarity surrounding Matt and Jenny’s courtship as well as the reaction to it from Matt’s best friend Vaughn (played wonderfully here by THE OFFICE‘s Rainn Wilson). Director Ivan Reitman really knows how to bring New York alive and in SUPER EX he revives the spirit of his 80’s comedies Ghostbusters and Stripes — a pleasant departure from today’s typical toilet humor offerings.

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Copyright or Wrong?
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Dr. Geek, Ph.D.   |  

Copywrong?Have you ever wondered what it would be like to write and publish your own Superman comic book? What if you could produce and sell your own illustrated sequels to Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” or Asimov’s “Foundation” trilogy? Does making your own Tarzan or Conan podcasts and charging 99 cents a piece for them hold any appeal? “Oh definitely,” you might say “but how? The owners of all that work might let me do something for free, but I could never make a profit by it, could I?”

Sadly, the answer to that question is no, but the idea really isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. To understand why, it is necessary to review a little history of copyright law in the United States. The notion of patents and copyrights is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to “promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” This power was originally embodied by the Copyright Act of 1790, which allowed authors to print, reprint or publish their work for a term of 14 years, with the option to renew for another 14 years if the authors were still alive. This act was modified in 1831 and 1909 to extend the term to 28 years with a 28-year renewal, and include all works of authorship to give composers the better ability to profit from sheet music.

As this was the state of the law in the United States until 1976, this opens up some intriguing lines of thought. All of the creative work produced or published in the United States before 1950 would now be in the public domain. Some of the work produced since then would also fall into the public domain because copyright renewal was not automatic. Think of what that means. All the Golden Age comic book characters like Superman and Batman would no longer belong to just DC Comics. Likewise, ‘The Hobbit’ (but not the Lord of the Rings) would be as available and quotable as Shakespeare. Though none of the music of the rock ‘n’ roll era would yet be free, a lot of the blues, jazz, and country that inspired those artists would be. Even Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny would really belong to all of us.

Of course, this cannot happen. Copyright law in the United States was amended in 1976 to conform with international copyright law. Terms were extended to the life of the author plus 50 years for individually created works, and works of corporate authorship were protected for 75 years. These terms were further extended in 1998 by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act to 70 years and 95 years to match statutes of the European Union.

This is well and good, but comes with a price. When does our cultural heritage cease to be the property of government-sanctioned monopolies and belong to everyone? The current statute says that ‘Star Wars Episode IV’ will belong to Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and the heirs of George Lucas until the year 2072. Given the rate at which intellectual and creative work can be made available to nearly everyone in the world, is that perhaps excessive? What of the vaults of more obscure, material that appear on sites like YouTube.com? The live concert footage of Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin or old episodes of the Harlem Globetrotters animated TV show (a Bill Gates favorite, evidently) are cultural artifacts that no media conglomerate is ever going to see fit to issue on DVD. Shouldn’t those works be available to everyone who is interested in them instead of merely living on in the minds of the few people who bother to remember them?

These are tough questions to answer. Still, it is fun to dream. Would you let Superman marry Lana Lang instead of Lois Lane? Would there be additional adventures of Bilbo Baggins or Gandalf The Grey after finding The Ring but before Frodo Baggins appears on the scene? Would you try to revive the lost art of the exciting radio serial with your thrilling adaptation of the adventures of Flash Gordon in Podcast? The creators of those works would have understood your right to do so when they were alive and working.

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On DVD This Week! 07-25-06
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The Geeks of Doom   |  @   |  

MOVIES:

The Benchwarmers
Final Destination Three
Ask the Dust
Halloween: 25 Years of Terror
Awesome, I Shot That

TELEVISION:

Chappelle’s Show: The Lost Episodes
The Boondocks (S1)
JAG (S1)
La Femme Nikita (S4)
Laguna Beach (S2)

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