ZNAK SAGITE — više od fantastike — edicija, časopis, knjižara...

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http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/

Foo Fighters tuže Marvela

Američka grupa Foo Fighters juče je podnela tužbu protiv Marvel studija, ogranka čuvenog izdavača stripova Marvel, zbog neovlašćene upotrebe dve njihove pesme.

Prema tužbi podnetoj u Los Anđelesu, Marvel je bez dozvole upotrebio numere Best of You i Free Me sa njihovog albuma In Your Honor ('05) u najavi animiranih serija Wolverine i X-Men.

Prema pisanju E! Onlinea, bend zahteva odštetu, kao i plaćanje advokatskih troškova i, naravno, zabranu daljeg korišćenja njihovih pesama u te svrhe.

Ispravno. S obzirom kako se Marvel svinjski ponaša u pogledu borbe za kopirajt i trejdmark zaštitu, ovo je sasvim OK i na mestu.

THE WAR FOR OIL, COMING TO A CONSOLE NEAR YOU
By BRIAN GARRITY

February 22, 2008 -- There will be blood - and sore thumbs.

At a time when oil prices are hovering around $100 a barrel, video game publisher THQ Inc. is tapping into consumer anxieties over the cost of heating their homes and gassing up their cars with a new shoot-'em-up that imagines a world war being fought over the scarce resource.

"Frontlines: Fuel of War," from New York-based Kaos Studios, hits stores on Monday and pits a Western coalition of the US and the European Union against an allied Russia and China in a global war for oil.

The action takes place in the year 2024, amid "a global energy crisis, environmental decay, and economic depression," where "players assume the role of elite soldiers in a desperate, near-future setting where controlling the planet's depleted fossil resources determines the ultimate fate of civilization."

That may sound like anything but escapist fun for some, but Agoura Hills, Calif.-based THQ is betting it's the kind of realistic fantasy that will lure droves of gamers looking for an alternative to typical war games, centered around historical events or sci-fi adventures.

The company, best known of late for games like "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008," "Cars: Mater-National" and "MX vs. ATV Untamed," is in need of additional hits.

While most of the game industry enjoyed record gains over the Christmas season, THQ posted a 75 percent profit drop in its December quarter due to a pair of expensive flops and the company's decision to scrap a number of projects for quality reasons.

The company, which has developed game versions of a number of recent Pixar hit films, also reportedly lost out on its bid to develop a game spin-off of the upcoming Pixar movie "Toy Story 3" because Disney is moving its games in-house.

Meh... Videću kakve su kritike pre nego što je skinem. Kupovina mi ipak deluje kao vrlo daleka mogućnost.

,,Slayer" 24. juna u Beogradu

Američka treš metal grupa ,,Slayer" nastupiće 24. juna u Beogradu. Nakon njihovog zapaženog nastupa na festivalu ,,Egzit" pre tri godine, publika u Srbiji će imati priliku da uživo vidi i čuje ovu legendarnu metal grupu. Koncert će, kako nezvanično saznajemo, biti održan na otvorenom, a uskoro će biti poznato više detalja kao i cene karata.

Bend je nastao 1981. godine u Kaliforniji, a oformili su ga mladi gitaristi Džef Haneman i Keri King kojima su se kasnije priključili pevač i basista Tom Araja i bubnjar Dejv Lombard. Prvi album ,,Show no Mercy" objavljen je 1983. godine kada je došao do izražaja njihov izuzetno brz bubnjarski ritam. Dve godine kasnije ostvarenjem ,,Hell Awaits" osetili su prvi ukus slave, da bi sledeći veoma popularan album ,,Regin in Blood" objavili za čuvenu rep izdavačku kuću ,,Def Jam Records". Pesme kao što su ,,Necrophobic" i ,,Angel of Death" imali su približno 250 bitova u minuti što su kasnije počele da kopiraju i druge grupe. Bend ,,Slayer" je tada, a i mnogo puta nakon toga, bio kritikovana zbog satanističkih i nacističkih simbola, a članovi grupe su izjavljivali da ne veruju ni u jedan sistem zbog čega su im otkazivani brojni nastupi. Bez koncerata i bez distribucije, nastalo je veliko iznenđenja kad je ,,Reign in Blood" dospeo u top 100 ,,Bilbordove" liste, a tiraž je dostigao zlatno izdanje. Kako je popularnost benda rasla, to je bilo više unutrašnjih problema i menjanja članova. Najviše problema bilo je sa bubnjarem Lombardom koji je u jednom momentu izbačen iz benda jer je navodno provodio više vremena sa svojom suprugom nego sa bendom.
Pre četiri godine originalni bubnjar se vratio na poziv ostalih članova te se odmah uklopio u bend. ,,Slayer" su tokom karijere često bili osporavani, negde su zabranjivani njihovi morbidni omoti albuma, ali to nije uticalo na pad njihove popularnosti. Uz ,,Metallicu", ,,Megadeth" i ,,Antrax" smatrani su velikom četvorkom kada je treš metal u pitanju. Devedesete su objavili izuzetno popularan album ,,Season in the Abyss" kojim su utvrdili status kao jednog od najvećih metal bendova na sceni, prodavši ga u više od milion kopija. Godine 1996. objavili su album ,,Undisputed Attitude" na kome su obradili numere pank bendova, što je privuklo još veći broj publike.
Poslednji studijski album ,,Christ Illusion" grupa je objavila 2006. a u najavi je objavljivanje novog materijala. Njihov koncert u Beogradu trebao bi da bude jedan od izuzetaka pošto na ovoj turneji uglavnom nastupaju na festivalima.


Svirka na ,,Egzitu"
Bend ,,Slayer" je nastupio na festivalu ,,Egzit", na Mejn stejdžu 2005. godine kada se videlo da su veliki profesionalci koji još uvek umeju energično da sviraju. Na hiljade ljudi tada se sabilo ispred bine tako da šutke u prvim redovima skoro da i nisu bile moguće jer su ljudi stajali jedni na drugima. Kiša koja je na momente pljuštala za vreme nastupa grupe ,,Slayer" čini se da nikome nije pokvarila ugođaj...

Ou, vau, konačno!!!

Konačno, posle 2 godine.

Zar nije Slayer speed metal?

   

Ne računam ono kad su svirali u prestonci separatističke Voevodine. Naravno da sam odbio tamo da idem kolima sa bratom, kumom i njihovim suprugama.

Propustio si odlično valjanje u blatu.
Tad sam bio u velikom iskušenju da mu ga dam po Rastko Nemanjic goes Sveti Sava tripu, kad sam video ko sve nosi dugu kosu.

Ispravno razmišljanje. Metalci su grdna jedna stoka. Nadam se da će ovaj koncert biti održan negde gde nema blata...

Quote from: "Meho Krljic"Nadam se da će ovaj koncert biti održan negde gde nema blata...

misliš, van srbije?

Quote from: "Ghoul"

Quote from: "Meho Krljic"Nadam se da će ovaj koncert biti održan negde gde nema blata...

misliš, van srbije?

Jedva čekam Slayer u Beogradu!

Are just 1,000 fans the key to success?
Tim Dowling
The Guardian, Thursday March 6 2008
This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday March 06 2008 on p3 of the Comment & features section.
In the business model commonly known as the Long Tail, online sales of extremely low-demand products - little-known music, forgotten books, overlooked films - form a significant market when taken as whole. A product need no longer be popular to be profitable - you just have to sell a few of each to a whole lot of people.

This is good news for companies such as Amazon, and for customers, who are able to source obscure material cheaply, but for the artist, being part of the Long Tail is tantamount to failure. It is the reason you hang on to the day job. Someone may finally be making money out of your very narrow appeal, but it isn't you.

Now, Kevin Kelly, former executive editor of Wired, has identified one way to escape the Long Tail: 1,000 True Fans. With 1,000 True Fans to their name,
he argues, an artist, writer or musician can earn a decent living from their work, even while toiling in relative anonymity.

Kelly defines a True Fan as "someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to hear you sing. They will buy the super de-luxe reissued hi-res box set of your stuff, even though they already have the low-res version."

Already the True Fan sounds a bit scary. Kelly estimates that True Fans would part with about £50 a year of their disposable income on whatever it is you have to offer. "They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They get you to sign their copies. They buy the T-shirt, the mug and the hat."

He doesn't mention that they might also harbour a desire to cut off your skin and wear it as a suit, but this model of success presents an obvious problem. One does not necessarily want too much contact with one's True Fans. In the TV series Flight of the Conchords, the struggling New Zealand pop duo are both plagued by, and dependent on, their only True Fan, Mel, a character who is clearly more stalker than devotee.

The real dream is to inspire mild admiration in millions, not obsessive fandom in hundreds. Imagine having to deal with the attentions of 1,000 True Fans day in, day out, for a gross return of 50,000 quid a year, and suddenly a plumbing course looks a better bet.

Lista najbogatijih superheroja:

Peter Parker (Spider-Man)
The perpetually broke Peter Parker is a freelance reporter for the Daily Bugle, but makes so little that he is often forced to take other part-time jobs to fund his studies at Columbia University. Still, he's a young man who's going places, with impressive scientific nous that could earn him a comfortable living in research.


Worth: $0.50 and a bag of crisps

Clark Kent (Superman)
As a featured reporter at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent should have a comfortable but not super-luxurious lifestyle - although there are handy perks like trips to Niagara Falls on the Planet's tab. As Superman, while he has almost unlimited moneymaking potential, he has no known assets but a cape and some boots. There's no evidence that he even owns the Fortress of Solitude.


Worth: $100,000 per year

Matt Murdock (Daredevil)
While Matt Murdock is a hotshot lawyer by day, his propensity for pro bono work and habit of exhausting himself running about on rooftops in his demonic alter-ego by night mean that he can't be functioning at the height of his earning powers. Still, he can afford a rather stylist Manhattan loft apartment, so he's not totally penniless.


Worth: $150,000 per year

Eric Lehnsher (Magneto)
Serious comic book geeks may remember the time that Magneto, working together with Charles Xavier, ended up stealing a mountain full of Nazi gold from evil organisation Hydra. Even assuming that Lehnsher spent lots of it on his Antarctic underground lair, stylish metal hats and covering wear-and-tear on cloaks, we're guessing that he still has a few hundred tonnes left - hence this estimate.


Worth: $400 million


Fantastic Four
Endorsements and patent ownership has allowed the Fantastic Four to purchase the Baxter Building, rebuilding it after it was transported into space (superhero insurers have to invent whole new branches of actuarial maths) and develop new technologies - but they're not as wealthy as some of their contemporaries.


Worth: $500 million

Professor Charles Xavier (Professor X)
Largely based on an inheritance from his nuclear scientist father, bolstered by his own shrewd investments and (we suspect) patents, Xavier is seriously wealthy. He's managed to rebuild his family mansion/school several times, each time extending and improving such amenities as its SR-71A Blackbird (price tag: $33 million!) landing pad and revolutionary Danger Room.


Worth: $3.5 billion

Lex Luthor
Luthor has been known to squander his fortune in madcap, evil schemes to take over the world, but as a general rule he bounces back onto the Rich list with room to spare. One of the world's smartest men (possibly the smartest, depending on who you believe and whether you count resident Sons of Krypton) and a ruthless business opponent, he makes Machiavelli look like Mary Poppins.


Worth: $4.7 billion

Warren Worthington III (Angel)
Worthington is now sole owner of Worthington Industries, described as being in the "bottom half" of the Fortune 500, hence the annual revenue we've used to estimate his net worth here. He also engages in charity work - founding Mutants Sans Frontieres - and has previously funded superhero mutant team X Factor as well as moonlighting for the X-Men.


Worth: $32 billion

Bruce Wayne (Batman)
Wayne Enterprises has interests in technology, shipping, steel, aerospace, food, biotech, medical science, electronics, heavy industry and entertainment. A family business since the 17th century and still going strong despite its CEO's diversions. This estimate is based on the fact that Wayne Enterprises has undeniably significant assets, and appears to be wholly owned by Wayne (going by the last film).


Worth: $80 billion


Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Sources on Stark's wealth are uncertain, with money tied up in funding the Avengers super-team, in his reportedly $7 billion-a-pop suits, and in a PLC that has had difficulties in the last few years. He has claimed $300 billion; Nick Fury pegs him at around $14 billion, Forbes says $6 billion, so we're taking a rough average.


Worth: $100 billion

mogu da se uporedim samo sa Spajdijem  

Warner Bros. Pictures and Disney/Pixar are teaming for "1906," the live-action feature directorial debut of Brad Bird ("Ratatouille," "The Incredibles") reports the trades.

The story centers on a college student who begins to investigate the murder of his father, uncovering a web of deceit that has left the city vulnerable to the sort of fire that breaks out when the Great Earthquake of 1906 hits San Francisco.

Bird is rewriting the original John Logan script. Bird has worked in live action before, helming an episode of "Amazing Stories" in 1987.

Disney/Pixar will co-finance the movie.

Exclusive: Writer-Director George Miller Announces 'Mad Max' As First Game From Creative Alliance With God of War II Director Cory Barlog
N'Gai Croal

Mel Gibson as Mad Max in the 1981 post-apocalyptic film "The Road Warrior"

Coy time is over, Dear Reader. Yesterday, we told you that God of War II director Cory Barlog--who'd left Sony Computer Entertainment last November partway through the development of God of War III--had formed a creative partnership with writer-director-producer George Miller. Today, we can finally reveal what they'll be working on first: a "Mad Max" action-adventure game, inspired by the "Mad Max: Fury Road" movie that Miller had been preparing to shoot in 2003 before the war in Iraq forced him to put everything on hold. Specific details on the gameplay are still fuzzy, as Barlog and Miller are still early in the planning phase, but we can confirm that melee weapons, projectile weapons and vehicles will all be present, just as you would expect. We spoke with Miller by phone in January, who personally informed us that Mad Max would be his first serious videogame venture. Here are some excerpts from our hour-long conversation:


On the balance between action and drama in videogames:

Games are a way more nascent medium than cinema. We're watching games evolve as we speak, very dramatically. The balance is going to tip the other way. I go back to the notion of immersion of the audience. Games, being highly interactive, are very immersive with the audience, but there needs to be some experience that the player takes from that. And it's a very fertile medium to work in if you're looking towards how you can inform a character. So what I'm saying is, just as movies are moving towards games, games are going to be moving towards movies, where that balance is going to be less--that sort of balance towards action over character, and any character or story is basically in support of the action sequences.

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On why he's resisted previous entreaties to work on a "Mad Max" game:


For many, many, many years--for as many years as I can remember, we've been asked to make games of the "Mad Max" story. I mean, we've been approached by every major game company or developer virtually, asking "Can we do a 'Mad Max' game?" And to me, it always felt like what I used to call empty calorie action. Where you just--the thing that you were alluding to before, which is just action for its own sake without anything underneath it.

On why the movie "Mad Max: Fury Road" was never filmed:


We were all ready to go, within eleven weeks of shooting the next "Mad Max" movie, "Fury Road." This was way back when the war in Iraq started, and that really threw this out for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which was that the American dollar crashed against the Australian dollar. And apart from that, just insurances, getting vehicles and stuff there on container ships--all that slowed down around the world. So we had to move on to "Happy Feet," because that was going to take a long time.

On whether Mel Gibson will star in the movie and the videogame:

Oh, it wouldn't be with Mel....I didn't realize it was so long ago but, he was 20, well, he was 21 when he first played Mad Max. He's in his 50's now--it's too old. Yeah, I think for "The Road Warrior" he was 22 or 23 or something, so he was just a baby back then.

After a few weeks of mutually-instigated international phone tag, spanning mid-December to mid-January, we finally caught up with writer-director-producer George Miller. Our mission: to get his take on how he'd come to be mobbed up with God of War II director Cory Barlog. And, more importantly, what they would be working on first? Could it be a "Justice League of America" game, set to tie in with the movie which had been put on hold because of the writers' strike? A "Babe: Pig In the City" game for Nintendo's still-sizzling Wii? The answer, when it was revealed, still managed to thrill despite the nonchalance of Miller's delivery: "Well, the first one will be a 'Mad Max' game."

An interactive "Mad Max" epic? With Cory Barlog at the helm? Game, set, match. Or at least that's what legions of fanboys will be thinking--until they remember that licensed games are often less than stellar. But quite aside from the talent involved, our interview with Miller reveals not only the appropriate measure of respect for the medium, but also an understanding of the need to give this game the time it needs in order for it to be good or even great. In Part I of our Q&A, Miller explains how he became interested in working on videogames; the differences and similarities between action sequences and action games; and what it was like watching Barlog play God of War II in their agent's offices at CAA. Enjoy.


How did you become interested in working in video games?

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Well, it sort of crept up on me almost imperceptibly. I realized that the kind of filmmaker that I am, I unconsciously try to make films that are as immersive as possible. I tend to use very wide angles and move the camera through space rather than zoom. My cutting patterns and compositions try to exaggerate--well, not exaggerate, but try to enhance a kind of three-dimensionality and an immersive quality to my storytelling. That of course is what games do so well.

The realization was, as I started to work in the digital realm, that film suddenly is able to do things that you weren't able to do before. And once I got into that, like everyone else, I saw the obvious convergence of film towards games and games towards film. So, I got swept along and found myself sort of in a current that was heading towards games.

The other big thing for me was the fact that film is a pretty closed narrative--it moves along at 24 frames a second, it's extremely linear, and in that sense rigid, whereas games bust that open. So in a way, with games being more exploratory, it's closer to what a novelist can do in many ways. A novelist can stop the forward momentum of their story and go explore little cul-de-sacs and then come back again. Games allow you to do that as well. Basically, games and films and just about everything else comes from the heading of storytelling. So it's just another way to tell stories, I think.

It's interesting that you say that, because looking at one of the films you've made in the past like "The Road Warrior"--it was an extremely well-received film, but I think critics would say compared to certain other stories that that wasn't necessarily the most complicated or richest of stories in a movie. Yet, that story and storytelling is probably more involved and more sophisticated than what you get out of most games, if that makes sense.

Yes.

If you look at games as a medium overall, for a lot of games--particularly action games--the story's almost an afterthought. It's almost like a premise; a set-up; an excuse for the action, and then it goes into something else. So it's interesting for someone like yourself, coming out of a storytelling medium, to say this. When you look at storytelling in games, how far along do you feel games are relative to other media when it comes to storytelling?

Well, I think that's where games are tending to move. One of the things when you're doing a film--an action film, for instance--that you always need to be mindful of is that any action shouldn't be empty. Any, let's say stunts or action sequence shouldn't be empty. It should always, in some way, inform the audience about character or the forward momentum of story.

So often we'll see the exact thing that you're excusing games of doing in film, where the movie will stop while you have an action sequence. And the action sequence in a sense doesn't do anything to inform the character or the story. It just simply is a lot of noise and movement and almost a distraction. But the great action sequences in cinema of those that integrate character and the forward momentum of the story. And the same things would apply to games as the technology allows the storytelling in games to be more sophisticated. You're going to see a lot more of that creeping into games. In the past the technology hasn't allowed you to do it. But now I think you're beginning to see more and more of it, so that the action of games can be very characterful.

Another challenge with storytelling in games--particularly in action games--is that in a game the action has to, in many ways, be more repetitive than it would be in an action movie. For instance, you might have an action sequence in one of your movies that goes let's say, even as long as 15 minutes, from the sort of initial set-up to the actual denouement, right?

Yes.

Now for the overall movie, let's say you've got three or four major set pieces which will definitely get the audience excited and cheering. But in between that, there's a lot of drama, a lot of character stuff, a lot of smaller stuff. Whereas in games, you sort of take those 15 minute action sequences and you have to repeat them ad nauseum. There's got to be a lot more of them. They've got to be stretched out and spread out more, throughout the story, in order to keep the player engaged. So there is a way in which, like you're saying, in a movie--even in an action movie, for it to be truly done well, the action has to support character. But in a game it seems like it's almost the inverse, where all of these other elements have to support the action because that's the lingua franca of games.

Yes, but I think from watching games--games are a way more nascent medium than cinema. We're watching games evolve as we speak, very dramatically. The balance is going to tip the other way. I go back to the notion of immersion of the audience. Games, being highly interactive, are very immersive with the audience, but there needs to be some experience that the player takes from that. And it's a very fertile medium to work in if you're looking towards how you can inform a character. So what I'm saying is, just as movies are moving towards games, games are going to be moving towards movies, where that balance is going to be less--that sort of balance towards action over character, and any character or story is basically in support of the action sequences.

What's tended to be the case in games is that you have the cut scenes interrupting the game play and so on. Now those lines are blurring and in the best of the games--you don't have that kind of stop/start staccato thing like you do in in those action movies, where you have you know the second unit stuff and the main unit stuff. So they're all blurring together. I'm repeating myself but that's a very obvious place where games could evolve.

Were there any particular games that helped build this sense of conviction that you have? Not only that the two media were converging, but also that you were starting to see things in games that you maybe hadn't in the past.

Well, first of all, when a character has a choice or a player has a choice between doing one thing and another and when you begin to see the consequences of that choice. In a sense, it's always what's happening in drama. And as I start to see that even in every game, from the really popular ones to even much more subtle ones. I can't remember the game now--the Japanese one where the guy goes off and has to save this princess by killing--

Ico.

Ico, yeah. Well there's an example. Which I didn't actually get to play myself--but I watched people play it and talked to people about it--because I didn't have the time. But, that was a really great example of a game where a character had moral choice and quite often you didn't even know what the consequences of those were until you got to the end. Which is no different from classic drama. And when I started to sort of hear and get a taste of those sort of games, I began to say, "Holy cow, it's all heading in the right direction." Except games, by definition in a sense, are more immersive for the audience. And the audience--the player has a greater sense of being in control of their destiny in some way. Does that make sense?


It does.

So I don't think I'm wrong. I don't think I'm the first to observe this. I think everybody's picking this up. And when I spoke to Cory Barlog, that was what I found really, really interesting. Here is somebody who is as obsessed with how to tell story through games as I am obsessed telling story through film. How to make that experience between the player and the character on the screen--that line between them--almost invisible, and let them go into an experience which completely carries them along.

Along the way, as in film, you shouldn't know how you're being worked, what's happening to you morally or emotionally. You shouldn't see the mechanics of it, but somehow you do end up going through an experience when you come out the other end, and in some way you're informed about yourself and the world. I think you could argue that that's one of the elemental functions of storytelling.

So were you able to play--or were you able to see someone play--God of War and God of War II?

I'm one of those parents who tends to watch their kids playing games, because of their higher skills. Actually I had Cory play it for us. To see God of War II played by the guy who created it was very exciting.

Do you remember when it was that Corey played God of War II for you?

About nine months ago.

That's interesting. Maybe the equivalent would be if I were to have you over to my place and you were giving your director's commentary right next to me while we're watching, say, "Babe: Pig In the City." What was it like watching him play God of War II and then talking with him, or having him answer questions while you were watching him play?

Well it was--it obviously felt like a privileged moment. Because obviously I was at the source of it, and he was explaining what he was trying to achieve and how he would achieve it. More than anything else, I think we were trying to get into each others heads; really understand each other's process and to see where there was commonality. That's why I was so excited when we said, "Let's work together." Because as I said, he approaches games in the same way that I like to approach film. Very rigorous--almost obsessively thinking about how to do it better. And I said, "Well, that's just very familiar." I spend most of my waking hours and probably half my dreams trying to figure out how to do it better in film. He's doing the same in games and for me, that was very exciting. But to actually watch him do was another thing. My kids have played it but, then to watch the guy doing it--it was just a pretty cool moment.

How did you get put in touch with Cory?

Well, as I said, I'd played games but I never really thought about what was happening until I started to really get involved in the digital realm of filmmaking. Mainly through the you know, the early experience of the first "Babe," and then ultimately "Happy Feet" and so on. Realizing how there have been very, very bad games made out of very good films, and then occasionally a good film made out of a not-so-bad game. But usually the games are a marketing adjunct or to a film and never, never something that has its own sovereignty. I began to think a lot about that sort of thing.

But also, realizing what I said at the beginning of the conversation, I felt that games had the ability to do things that I've been trying to do in cinema; that I realized cinema in a sense can't do as well as games can: totally directed immersion. And then like everyone else, I began to observe the convergence between the two. So, I spoke to Bryan Lourd from CAA and Seamus Finney--do you know him, from CAA?

Seamus Blackley?

I'm sorry, not Seamus Finney, Seamus Blackley. Seamus said, "When you talk about film, it's how Cory talks about games. Would you like to meet him?" I said, "Yeah, of course," and that's how we met. In fact, it was in Seamus' office where Cory came in and played God of War II.

What were you looking to do? Obviously CAA has a videogame division, and they're very aggressively trying to put together deals on the game front. Were you looking to make games yourself? What was it?

As Seamus said, I think what happened is a lot of filmmakers looked up one day and saw that games were in many ways eclipsing film. Eclipsing film in even the box office, as it were; I don't know if they call it box office in games, but, revenues. And so [some of these filmmakers] said, "Okay let's get into the game business."

Now, to be as honest, that wasn't what was driving me. Because for many, many, many years--for as many years as I can remember, we've been asked to make games of the "Mad Max" story. I mean, we've been approached by every major game company or developer virtually, asking "Can we do a 'Mad Max' game?" And to me, it always felt like what I used to call empty calorie action. Where you just--the thing that you were alluding to before, which is just action for its own sake without anything underneath it. Without any real subject. It came across as though you went through the experience, but you came out the other end and you almost forgot it the next moment. It didn't stay with you.

Then I realized at a certain point--maybe about three or four years ago--that, "Wait a minute, the world of story telling--if you approach it from the point of view that this is all storytelling--is changing way, way rapidly" It's very bewildering. If you stick to the old orthodoxies, it's very, very confusing. And so people tend to become very, very rigid and they say, "Well, the only way to tell stories is in cinema. Or the only way to tell stories is on television. Or the only way to distribute the stories is to make big blockbusters or do small independent films," or whatever. Everyone's got their own orthodoxy.

What I realized is that in this new digital age, the storytelling is the same. It's just the means by which you tell the story that shifts. So, in a sense, it's, "Create the story once but publish it many times in many different forms." Go back to the novels of Dickens. They started off as serializations; they were basically serials. And they were only later written as novels. Almost like serialized TV shows like a "Lost" or something, where you end up with a kind of a question at the end of each episode to bring you back to the next episode, as it were. And it was only later they said, "There's a novel in there." So it's a similar thing, but in an extreme way; there's many, many forms in which you can take your story out into the world. There are many, many platforms in which you can do it. And you have to include games as part of it. And the other thing--does that make sense?

Yep.

Good. The other thing that was happening--there were three scripts I've been working on, including another "Mad Max" film quite some time ago, before "Happy Feet." I found that all of them were tending to have very similar qualities to what were in games. So I was writing films, without being an obsessive game player myself, that would make very interesting games. They had that same quality and that's when I realized, "Wait a minute, where I'm going in my filmmaking is to try to make the film experience as immersive as possible. And that's exactly what games already are doing well." So, that's what happened and that's what drew me to games.

It wasn't so much looking at a business plan, it was really an opportunity to see what you could do in terms of storytelling. To deal with the same world but, to put it out there in two different media and have each one of them do what it did best, so that your story is told much more comprehensively. When it's very linear you tell it as a very closed narrative--you make that as well as you can in the cinema. When you want to be a little bit more exploratory, you can look at other tangents. You can expand on other characters that you might only meet tangentially in the middle of a movie; secondary characters. You can explore them much more aggressively in a game. And in a game you can bring all the moral conflicts and emotional conflicts that you'd normally get in drama.

Were you involved with the "Happy Feet" game?

I had no time. I really, really wanted to at the beginning, and in fact its one of the things I had promised myself that I would be involved. But because we were trying to do the first digital animation I'd ever done, and it was way more involving than I thought it would be, I just ultimately had no time even to review what was happening in the game.

Right.

To be honest--and I probably shouldn't say this, but I haven't been able to bring myself to look at the game. Because, I just know its going to be one of those games that's kind of surfing off the movie rather than a game that has its own integrity.

And so was that part of the reason for wanting to have a creative partner? The--

Yes, definitely.

--video game equivalent of a George Miller--

That, that's one way--

--to work on the game project?

Yeah, that's definitely one of them. What I want to do is bring the two sensibilities together and workshop a project together. Bringing the art departments of the film and the game together. Sharing the characters; you cast the same actors and the same voices, so the two are very, very highly integrated. You don't get an actor who sounds like the lead in your actor, you get the same actor. The two go hand in hand so that the two feel of a piece, just a different way to experience the same story. Does that make sense?

Absolutely.

I would never pretend to be able to do a game. All I know is, there are certain things I know about storytelling that have been acquired over a lot of filmmaking. I still find myself thinking about how to tell stories. I just know that there's certain things that we can teach the game developers, as it were. And I know that there's certain things that the game developers can teach us. If we set that out under the heading of us all trying to explore characters and worlds through the different types of games, through the two different media, then we might have something that's much more integrated and I think more powerful.

We first met Cory Barlog in 2005, just before the original God of War was set to arrive in stores back in 2005. Over a soul food dinner at The Shark Bar in Manhattan, we discussed how his role as lead animator on the original game had grown to the point where he'd been tapped to fill David Jaffe's shoes by serving as the director of the inevitable sequel. It was clear from our conversation that he was thrilled to have been given the opportunity to work on a truly great franchise rather than some of the games he'd worked on in the past. And after he knocked God of War II out of the park, we were eager to see what he would do with a potential God of War III on the Playstation 3.

So it came as something of a shock last November when we got a call from a source informing us not only that Barlog would soon announce his departure from Sony Computer Entertainment, but that he would be working with veteran film writer-director-producer George Miller--best known for the "Mad Max" series of movies that starred Mel Gibson--on some videogame projects. We immediately began negotiating with Barlog's representatives to secure on-the-record interviews with Barlog and Miller about their collaboration. This resulted in three interviews that we'll be publishing all week on Level Up. First is our Q&A with Barlog, in which he remains tight-lipped about precisely what he and his new partner's first game would be, but goes into great detail about why he felt he had to leave Sony Computer Entertainment. Next up is our conversation with Miller, who gave up the goods and explained why he's become fascinated with videogames. And finally, we'll publish our follow-up with Barlog, who, freed of the burden of secrecy, provided some terrific insights into how he plans to approach his first post-Sony project. Strap in, sit tight and enjoy.


So Cory, how did you get approached by George

Wow, it was a while ago that I got connected with CAA, through other people at [Sony Santa Monica]. I think it was just a random emailing from people that somehow got me connected with Seamus [Blackley, head of Creative Artists Agency's videogame division] and Ophir [Lupu, an agent in the same group]. They just wanted to have a meeting, to talk and hang out, and from that it was kind of like, "Well all right, it would be interesting to get you connected with different people." There was never any specific person that we were talking about connecting with; it was just like, "Let's try talking to some people."

So I met with a bunch of different people and one of them was George, when he was in town. It was funny because when I first met him the first thing I said was, "You know, you really messed me up as a kid, flying, because of that 'Twilight Zone' thing that you did." I don't know if you ever saw that, but the whole thing was very, very, very freaky for me and from that point on I hated flying,because of the whole Jon Lithgow, crazy guy, monster on the plane wing.

You mean the "Twilight Zone" movie?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right, the one with Steven Spielberg and all those other directors.

Yeah. So it was an interesting first meeting. He and I actually had the same sort of sensibilities as storytellers: the way both of us really want to take people on a bit of a journey. And from that he was like, "Hey, I'd really like to meet again and just chat." So I ended up going out to Sydney and hanging out with him for a couple of days. And it turned out that we really kind of thought the same way. Even we both came from two different disciplines, we had the same approach to things, and from that, we both really wanted to do something together and it just kind of ended up like that.

Is Miller a gamer?

He has some knowledge of games. A lot more than some people that I have met in the movie industry. He also has a son who's a really big gamer and he's very familiar with games, but probably not to the extent that he goes home and plays Halo 3 for six hours.

Having worked for a number of years in the videogame industry, what attracted you to partnering with someone who has a really strong reputation in movies, but not in games?

You know, I started out in the film industry. Granted, it was on the visual effects side. I was really attracted to the film industry from an early age. Actually, I guess I really started out in acting--really bad acting mind you, but acting nonetheless. And so I always loved the film industry.

I'm not necessarily leaving the game industry, just to be clear on that, but when I was doing visual effects I kind of came to the realization that I love movies way too much to stay in visual effects. Because I was working next to guys that worked on the original "Star Wars" and I realized how long it was going to take me to ever get anywhere on the visual effects side. Up until that point I'd been working on Inspector Gadget, nothing of all that high quality, and I love movies way too much to continue to slog on the bad movies.

I've always kind of maintained a connection to all of that, but I do enjoy the fact that there's a bridge being created between film and games. We've always had a lot of false starts given the fact that most game and movie collaborations--whether they be game first and then into a movie or vice versa--have a tendency to have a shoddy reputation. I definitely think that we're getting closer to a time when it's a lot more of a cross-fertilization that  is happening, I guess, for lack of a better term.

You said that CAA introduced you to a bunch of different people. I'm assuming that some of them were closer in age to you, maybe even gamers themselves. Yet you ultimately decided to partner up with Miller. So again, what about your interactions with him in particular made you say, "Hey this is the guy who's right for me to connect with," rather than some guy who does go home and play six hours of Halo 3 or both God of War and God of War II over a couple of weekends?

Good point. When I parted away with Sony, my goal was to broaden things. I wanted to get a better portfolio. To creatively be able to work on multiple things. Right now it's more of a consulting thing, so George and I partnering up is one part of a master plan, for lack of a more creative term.

When I met with him, the interaction was like two storytellers getting together, in the way that both of us were able to relate to various subjects. He has a game knowledge. While he may not be a hardcore gamer, he has a game knowledge, and he comes from an angle that I'm very passionate about. I don't really want to make casual games or games with no sort of story backbone or character backbone. Our conversations, they kind of were all over the map, but they went to the heart of so many things as opposed to being kind of like, "Hey, so what do you like?" and "What do you like?" It was detailed conversations about character interactions and the way that each of our industries can kind of push things further.

George is really big on the integration of content in all aspects. I mean, from his animation studio that he's doing with new media and the film stuff that he's doing. He's really interested in the game side as well. He really has an interest on all these fronts and in bringing everything together. They're big on this concept of workshopping over there and they really involve everybody. Say you're workshopping a script for an animated feature; they'll bring in people from the game side, people from the film side and people from the animation side. If they're going to be working on a game, they'll bring in people from all different aspects to come together; bringing in new concepts, new ideas, things that maybe you hadn't necessarily thought of in your own singular little gaming world. But having said all that, I still am connected in the gaming industry and still want to work with people within the gaming industry.

I guess the idea behind my whole thing really came from looking at directors in the film industry as they sort of matured in the mid-60's. The idea that when you were a director, even in the 50's, you were owned by a studio, say Warner Brothers or Universal or whomever. They would basically employ a director on salary and the director would just direct whatever the studio had available to him. And now it's changed. Directors choose the projects they want to work on and have a wider variety in their portfolio. That's what I'm looking for now in the game industry. I'm seeing that it can change. We are on the beginning steps of a journey of everybody kind of moving towards this idea that creative can be a bit more valuable within this industry, and perhaps we can at least learn a few things from the film model. Maybe we don't take the film model exactly, but I think there's lots of things we can learn from it.

So was this something you were already thinking about before you met with CAA? Or did Seamus and Ophir strap you in a chair, pin your eyes back and force you to watch lots of violent movies--

While putting eye drops in my eyes?

Exactly.

No, no, no, this is something I was thinking about for a while. I was basically working on God of War II and starting to write it before I finished working on the first one. I had a very, very short break and then I was immediately onto II. And then when I was finishing up II, I was supposed to have a longer break, but I ended up having to just go straight into writing and planning III. So I didn't have much of a break there. And I started to realize after about four years of just nonstop--go, go, go, go, go--I was looking down the barrel of another three-and-a-half years.

It would've been the completion of obviously something that was very dear to me, but it was still another God of War, and I was kind of like, "Wow, man--in seven years I haven't had much of a break." It started eating at me a little bit and made me realize, "All right, you know what? Let's try and go to the table here." So Sony and I negotiated for probably eight months. Right after II finished, I opened discussions up. And I really wanted to find a way that we could all get on the same page and just find something that was comparable for both of us, since I had been living sort of under the comfort of Sony for so long.

That's interesting. Obviously, I know that the various divisions of Sony Corp are very siloed. But at the same time, Sony as a whole has a movie studio, an animation studio, a music division, electronics and all these things. So by the end of the negotiations, were you sort of surprised that that in the greater Sony there wasn't a way to come to terms on something that would have that cross-media fertilization that you were looking for; that you needed to leave in order to achieve that?

Yeah. I mean, there was a little bit of that sort of cross-media fertilization that was taking part in [the negotiations]. But I think most of it really dealt with--and what I was really surprised about--was just I wanted to escape the concept of solely being owned by one company. That had me a tad bit uncomfortable, because of all the things that I wanted to be able to do. It had me in a situation of, "Oh, I'd really like to change this. I'd like to figure out a way to not necessarily be in that situation." But the decision I ended up having to make was absolutely not a decision I wanted to make. You know, I was not in a position where I was like, "Yes, I one hundred percent want to get out of here." I was definitely in a situation where I was prepared to do it, but I wanted to see God of War III to its completion. Where I ended up having finished the story and laid out the entire game, I did at least get to see it finished the way that I wanted: the story, the trilogy and the concept of where the game is going to go.

But as far as sort of Sony's multiple silos, the movie "God of War" was picked up by Universal. It wasn't even picked up by Sony Pictures. God of War I and II were released by Capcom in Japan and not Sony. So their separations are pretty strong across all their departments. There isn't much coming together.

Under the current videogame model, which I think for a good portion of the industry--I'm not saying this is something that needs to widely change and be so broad and sweeping that everybody is affected by it instantly, but for the higher up creatives I don't think it's a model that fully works. Because anything you do, anything you think of, it's sort of owned by that parent company that you're working for. You're locked into this concept that if you go over and meet somebody who creatively you're like, "Wow, man I'd love to do something with you; I'd love to consult and just write something for you," you're kind of stuck. You're not really able to do it because if it ever crosses over to any sort of game, you are competing with yourself, because you're owned by that specific parent company.

That was a really long-winded answer, wasn't it?

You know me; I'm long-winded myself.

That's right. [Laughs.] I'm talking to the right man.

Exactly. Now, I'm sure my readers will be wondering--and I myself too even though I've heard some things--what are you going to be doing with George Miller?

Well, right now we don't have anything specific to announce or talk about, but I'm going to probably be working with him on various things; whether they're on the film side or on the videogame side. We're pretty strong on the direction that we want to go in, but we have lots of other ideas that have been kicked around. So that's a "stay tuned." I'd love to talk about something specific, but it's really, really early.

Will you be based in North America, in the U.S., or are you going to be based in--

Oh, I'm based in North America, yeah. A consultant, I guess is a good term to use. I have a lot of people that are solely in the game industry that I've been communicating with and talking to and potentially be doing things with. Right now, nothing is set in stone, but in an ideal world for me I'll be working on three or four projects, and maybe after a year I'll probably get back in the director's chair and do another game. But I think right now, after finishing those two games, the next one I do has to be pretty amazing. It has to be something that I'm really passionate about, that I feel very strongly about.

At Sony, with God of War I and II, I was all in, one hundred percent. There was zero hesitation. At the end of II, I started seeing a lot of the people who I leaned on very heavily--people that I was very, very reliant upon--starting to depart. I lost Derek Daniels, who is an amazing combat guy; he went over to Activision. Charlie Wen, the lead concept artist who was there for God of War I and God of War II, an amazing, amazing concept guy.

And for me, the last straw was Eric Williams, who for all intents and purposes for me was always like an AD [assistant director]; like a second director almost. He's a very technical combat guy. Me and him basically built Kratos on God of War I. We established all the bosses; the way that the whole game felt; what God of War's gameplay from a navigation, combat and platforming perspective felt like. And having lost him on III, that was a defining moment for me to go, "All right, this is not what it was before," even though there's still an incredible team there. Those guys there are amazing and they know everything they're doing, but I really, really enjoyed working with Eric. So for me, working on a project without him was like, "Well, I'm not feeling as strong about it."

Kind of like Steven Spielberg without John Williams?

Exactly. That's a perfect example. If there was a good sort of director-DP [director of photography] team up, it would kind of be something like that. Even though he's not necessarily an aesthetics guy, he is experienced in so many various fields. Plus I have worked with him for nine or ten years, so we have that kind of like brotherly relationship where we can fight and get really angry at each other, but always end up finding a solution within that fight. That's sort of our process, which is good.

If you haven't worked with somebody for very long, it's very hard to get to the meat of something, to have somebody challenge you. He's worked with me for so long that he's not afraid. So when something is stupid, he says, "That's dumb," and when I don't like something of his, it's the same thing. We have a really, really good relationship. He's kind of doing the same thing as me--he's in the consulting field as well and working with various companies--and we're kind of teaming up on a few things so it's good.

And where did Charlie go?

Charlie ended up working on a movie. The name escapes me right now, but apparently it was a remake of something that he's been very passionate about his life. I can't remember the name of the film though, but he is really, really excited about that. Like I think a lot of artists, after a certain point your portfolio becomes solely one thing--he'd been working on God of Warfor probably five and half years and that's pretty much all he was drawing--so I think he really wanted to broaden his horizons a bit more and get some more diversity.

Just to make sure that we're crystal clear on this: you're not an employee or a vice president or anything like that in Miller's operation down in Sydney. You're going to consult with him and work with him on various projects, but you're not an employee, right?

Uh-uh.

Got it.

Not right now, no.

So in plotting out your move to this next phase of your career, did you talk to any of the people who do consulting? People like--and his name escapes me right now--the guy who consults on the Ratchet and the Jak games--

Mark Cerny?

Yeah.

Mark actually was in and out of our offices a lot. I talked to him a little bit, but I made this decision based solely on my negotiations with Sony. It was a measured decision, a calculated decision. But at the same time, while we were in negotiation,; I knew I had to have a stopping point. And I knew from talking to several companies a few months before--the end point I'll call it--that I didn't see any projects out there that I was like, "All right, I want to go and work on this single project right now." There just wasn't anything that was grabbing me. But I realized that I could just work with these people in a short-term capacity, offering some of the things that I have.

So I would say that no, I didn't have too much communication [with other people] about this. In fact, there aren't that many doing people doing consulting right now. There's Dan Arey [formerly] from Naughty Dog; Mark Cerny from Cerny Games; I know Eric is doing it now. And I'm sure there's many other people that I'm just not aware of that are also doing it.

When you look back at the negotiations with Sony and you try look at the things from their perspective, why do you think it couldn't work? The vision that you described, of being able to say, "Hey, I'm going to do X, Y and Z on God of War III,"--and let's say for argument's sake if the God of War series continued you would oversee that, but you would still be free to work with George Miller on the "Babe" game for Wii, and something else with an artist that you met in Santa Monica whose stuff you love--why do you think that couldn't work from Sony's perspective?

Well, one answer to me was--I don't understand why. That was a difficult thing for me to come to terms with, which is why the negotiations went on for so long. I kept trying to find a way. I spent a majority of the time doing a lot of the legwork to figure something out, figure some solution out. But I think it really kind of boils down to this: I don't think they really want to be one of the first or amongst the first grouping of companies to embrace that concept.

The gaming industry as a whole is still grasping onto that old model, which is the, "We get a creative and we own him, so therefore we're going to throw four projects at him, and he's going to work on all four of those. And while it may make us as a whole as a company do really well, that creative is still just an employee." I think that they just weren't ready to embrace something different. There's a lot of legal stipulations as well; labor laws that have to be adhered to. So it always sort of mystified me, but at the same time I guess I can kind of see their side of it: they just really don't want to move in that direction yet. They don't want to accept that that's the way that that's what we're moving towards in the industry.

Take the concept of unpaid overtime. A lot of companies, prior to EA Spouse, were sort of denying that that ever existed or pretending that it wasn't an issue. Then when it became such a very public issue and such a heavily litigious issue as well, everybody kind of said, "Okay, wait a minute. This is a real issue; now we have to kind of deal with it." So I think there probably still are some companies holding into the concept that there isn't a problem with that unpaid overtime issue, but it changed.

I personally don't think that [my leaving Sony Computer Entertainment] is going to be a slap in the face to them or anything like that. That's not what it's meant to be, but--I don't think it's going to make them change immediately, but I do hope that it's best like this; that this is a step in the right direction for everybody in the industry and that more and more people can see that it is something that's feasible. That creatives as a whole need to take a bit more charge of their own careers to ensure that they're getting the best opportunities. That they are challenged and creatively excited. That they are constantly being able to say, "You know what? I'd like to work on this, and I'm going to work on that." I think you're just happier and you're in the end a hell of a lot more creative and passionate when you know that you're steering your own ship.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounded like what you were saying is that you were having a hard time seeing yourself scaling the same mountain that you had scaled twice before--with God of War and God of War II--under the same conditions. Is that a fair description?

Yeah, yeah, The concept of actually doing the game was definitely not anything that I would feel all that leery about. I wasn't nervous about doing it all, but it was about whether to do it under the sort of same conditions. You know, it's not something that was ever really about money. I know there's been some speculation about that, but it's not necessarily about money. The reality that we live in is that when you look at the idea that you are a pretty large influence on something that has turned out to be a several hundred million dollar franchise for a company, but at the same time you're still not feeling like anything more than just a cog in the machine. And that you're still just, "All right, whatever, they're telling you to do; there's nothing different that can be done; go do that, go do that." You're really feeling like you're not [financially] invested fully in it whereas creatively and mentally and physically you're totally invested in it. Definitely for me, it was not something I wanted to see happen to the rest of my career especially me, getting with all these directors on the film side and seeing the way that they sort of run their careers.

Like I said before I know that the industry can't change overnight; videogame directors are never going to be of that same stature of film directors. That's not even the point. The point is just from a creative standpoint, you've got to be in charge of your own direction and really feel comfortable and happy with each of the things you're doing. And I think that also comes from diversity.

The reason I'm asking this is that David Jaffe said exactly the same thing when I was talking to him about leaving Sony and putting together Eat Sleep Play.

Right.

The larger point is obviously the situation that you've described and your search for freedom, but is there something specific to directing a God of War game that takes people and turns them into these ambassadors for change? Is it like the drummer in "Spinal Tap" or something? What is it about the process of directing a God of War game that makes people finish it and say, "I've got to leave. I've got to control my destiny. I've got to start my own thing. I've got to do my own thing."

[Laughs.] It is funny. [Pause.] Man that's an interesting point, because....I think it could have something to do with the size of God of War. I mean, I was there on the first one and I think I had a huge influence on what it was; I was there on the second one; working on the PSP game and then working on III; kind of riding that--it did make me realize that prior to God of War, I'd worked on crap. I've worked with really good people; having worked with a lot of those combat guys that were the ones who pioneered a lot of the stuff on God of War--I guess "pioneer" is probably the wrong word, but really kind of pushed the process.

So I think when you finally get to that point, where you've made something that a lot of people are enjoying and paying attention to, you maybe expect that that same level of attention from the company you're working with as well. It's not necessarily that it's like, "Pay attention to me," and "Oh I'm so awesome," and "Look at me," but it does move a little bit more towards, "We've done something very, very good. We are confident in what we've done and we know we can do this again--but we'd like to do these other things," and you're not necessarily getting that same response.

Jaffe put it best: when you work for a large company like Sony or any of these large companies you are a small cog in the larger machine. You are not all that important. And it doesn't mean to say that they don't value people, I think it just means to say that you're never going to achieve what you want to achieve and have the amount of control if you're still just making something for somebody else; under the relationship that is comfortable for them which is, "We'll just hire you as a salaried employee."


Just compare a director in the mid '80's--don't even use now--just compare a director in the mid '80's to a director in the '50's. You know they made a salary per week versus, "Hey the last thing you did was amazing." A perfect example, in the film industry, you make one movie, one movie that's successful--it doesn't matter if you've done anything prior to that--you make one movie that's successful and everybody loves it, at that point you are bankable, marketable and you have your choice. You have an idea, people want to move with you on that, you know you have the opportunity to work with many more people of a higher stature and increase your audience.

With the game industry, you make ten games and people are still like, [skeptical voice] "Well, yeah, I don't know. Maybe, maybe it's good." But once you break away from that relationship that you originally have, then you realize that everybody else has kind of realized that, "Wait, I really want to do this. Let's try this. Let's do that. Let's do that." I hate the word "complacency," but it almost is like that sense of, "Well we own this guy, what do we care? Let's just keep pumping them out." I definitely don't want to become associated solely with just God of War.

Right.

And I could see--this franchise is very successful for Sony and I think it's awesome. I was big part of making that a success for them and I think it's great that they should continue doing it, but I don't want to make God of War IV and God of War V and God of War: The Expansion Pack and God of War: The Role-Playing Kart Racing Game. I definitely could see that there is a potential for that.

At one point I was working on three games while finishing up II, and it was really exhausting. It was all God of War and it was all good and everything, but at the same time I can see that same road being traveled down the longer you stay in the same situation. And that was the onus behind changing the situation a little bit; still continuing to do this, continue to finish God of War III, but under a slightly different agreement.

Well, Stephen Totilo at MTV News is going to be pretty upset that you didn't stick around long enough to do God of Paper Mario.

That's right.

I guess he'll have to live with it. With that last burst of what you said, you're now sounding like what we're sort of imagining Bungie was probably sounding like. Now they've publicly denied that they left because they were sort of being forced to work on just Halo games, but I certainly heard from multiple well-placed sources that that was in fact one of the tensions that they had with Microsoft. And they had created a multi-billion--I don't know if it's billions now, but certainly multi-million dollar franchise for Microsoft.

I look at the industry and its origins as one or two or three programmers in a garage sort of doing it all. Then it sort of becomes this cottage industry, where you have some guys who have a background in sales or something else, and they start sort of running these small companies. Then at some point, like maybe during the 80's, you have this influx of guys who come from a product marketing and a brand marketing background; like from a Johnson &  Johnson or Procter & Gamble. And if you look at /those/ kinds of companies, the person who invents a new brand of baby oil or toothpaste, you don't even know their name. They're not seen as that important because Crest is what's going to be on the front, and the person who invented that third flavor of Crest or decided, "Well, we'll put the anti-tartar fighting stuff in there," we don't even know what their names are.

I don't know if you feel the same way, but it seems like that product marketing mentality got brought to the game industry and took over. Because there was a time when the names of creators used to be on the front of the box--

America McGee's Scrapland. Exactly. [Laughs.]

Yeah. It seems like now that's gone away. And if you talk to a variety of people in the industry like it's almost religion, it's pervasive, the thinking that, "You know what? You can take away that key guy--even the creator--and we can keep it rocking and rolling. It doesn't matter."


Exactly. That's exactly the way it is. It's sad really when you think about it. Because you look over at like, Crest or the baby oil; all right, they're selling a product and it is much more of a scientific endeavor, for lack of a better term. I'm sure there's some creative thought that goes into that. But when we're talking about things like writing and video games and film it really is a creative-driven industry. And being a creative person; a person who helps drive that kind of mentality, that kind of product-driven mentality, it does make you sad.

I don't necessarily know if I would really want Cory Barlog's Scrapland or anything like that, but by the same token, there are a lot of people I think are the key integral part of making something a success. But this is the mentality of these giant conglomerates, and there's less and less that's the amazing thing. More and more people are getting bought up, so that we will eventually have four companies, you know? We'll have EA, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and they'll own everybody. It'll just be like, "You can have a choice: you can work for one of these companies and you will just be a part of making these individual products successful, but they still are a Brand X product." But I see so many really, really, really talented people that a huge and very extensive pedigree in the industry that they're kind of moving towards dramatic change as well.

Will Wright's breaking out of the game industry into other industries, as far as other people's awareness of him. It's not just people in the game industry who know him, like Cliffyb [Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski], although I guess he's probably getting known a little bit more outside of the industry as well.  But we have a long road in the game industry before we're going to be taken seriously by everybody. I think that some people's reaction to the writer's strike--and I think mostly people are very supportive of this and understanding of it, but there probably are people out there that are like, "Oh come on get back to work." And that's the way everybody views the game industry right now. It's just like, "Whatever man, you make videogames." I don't think they sort of see the individual achievement because it isn't like this in the industry. There isn't television shows about the directors, television shows about the producers, television shows about the biographies of actors and biographies of people who make these games.

We're so inundated with everybody on the film side and their process that there's kind of an inherent respect, whereas with the game industry I think there's still a belief from most people that we use Super Nintendo controllers and tighten up the graphics on level three like that Westwood College commercial. That or "Grandma's Boy." That's what people probably think the game industry is: a bunch of flaky people hanging out and playing ping pong and video games in a break room for most of the day.

I think even some of the language that gets used is part of the problem.The word "product" is used an awful lot. I mean, you know, Penny Arcade made fun of Bobby Kotick repeatedly using language like "exploited" in talking about Blizzard and the Vivendi merger. Look they're business guys--I'm not saying that they're committing a crime by using this language. But it's kind of like runes, right. Runes are derived from the concept that words have power and I feel the very language of the video game--well, I was about to use the word "industry."

Yeah.

The very language we use helps define this reality that you've been talking about and that you've been chafing against.

Yeah. Games are very expensive. In the next generation, they are even more expensive. I think more expensive than anybody ever anticipated. Budgets are going so high that nobody ever thought that we'd be getting to this sort of height of these budgets. So the business side is important, to actually say, "All right, something's going to cost 30 or 40 or 50 million dollars"--some people are even saying that Metal Gear Solid 4 is going to cost 70 million dollars--and there has to be a business side to it. But when you consider that the film industry can still have kind of an art side, I guess. A side of people sort of saying, "This is a product, of course, but it's also a piece of art. It's just something that somebody felt very passionate about. This is a piece of the director, of the writer, of the true backers that all came together and made this thing that moves me." Moving me on a level of, "This is such an exciting two hours," or "This was something that made me stop and think." Film still has that inherent respect.

We still have people in the industry continually talking about how all we do is make product and it's not art. It's like this whole concept of people saying, "Oh, because we intentionally make this to sell to other people it can't be art. The goal initially is that we are creating a product that is going to be sold to somebody so it can't be art." That's ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard, when you consider that Andy Warhol's considered a very talented pop artist and the entire intention behind all of his work was, "This is product. I'm going to sell this to you. I'm going to create factories of people. I'm not going to create half my stuff." But he was still revered within the art culture.

The statements people make with games have gone far beyond a couple of lines and a little ball. I think we've graduated from Pong. We've gone through so many changes from text adventures to playing point-and-click adventure games to the full-on epic games that we have today. There are these games that reach a little bit further. I think Ken Levine's game is awesome. BioShock is a great sort of testament to the idea that perhaps it doesn't have to be some sort of diluted story about a convict who is also a soldier who breaks out of jail and saves the world from an alien invasion. It doesn't always have to f--king be that. I think that's really important and I hope that as an industry as a whole we can  continue to strive for that.

The more you look at it; the more you start to realize, "Okay, we are more comfortable with the concept of 15 million dollar and 20 million dollar budgets," once they double imagine how scared everybody's going to be, like, "Wow, man, I really don't want to take a risk." And then you start to see the idea that there's going to be more and more sequels.

Right.

Sequels aren't bad as long as there's attention paid to them--the same attention that's paid to the first one, where you put the same amount of effort and love into each version. You're still going to have people going, "Oh, I wish they would've just totally made something different," but by the same token if it's a fun experience; if it takes them on a ride that may be somewhat familiar, but can at the same time still be as grand or maintain the same sort of spirit of the first one, it's a good thing.

Just a couple more questions, this is winding down.

Cool.

I know you can't really get into specifics, but what are you doing right now? What constellation of things, generally speaking, are you working on now?

Writing, finishing up some work on some script stuff.

Game script stuff or movie script stuff?

Kind of a combination of both. There's movie script stuff and then there's some game script stuff. A lot of it is just meeting with people, because it really is kind of a fresh thing, my departure. So a lot of it now is just connecting with people who I've either met through various conferences or people who've seen my work and they're just wanting to get together and hang out and see where that goes. And then there's some preparation of design docs type stuff; throwing around concepts, meeting with Eric and kind of brainstorming some stuff and refining things.

And what is it that you're refining?

I wish I could get specific actually, but I can't. [Laughs.]

I wish you could too. What does it feel like, this new phase of your career? When you made the decision, when you had your last day, what did it feel like? How does it feel different from where you were before?

Wow. For me, cumulatively it was about eight months until that final day and /literally/ seven months and 24 days was spent saying, "We're going to work this out." There was definitely a very strong belief that it was always going to be, "Whatever, we'll figure it out," and maybe a little bit too much complacency on my end of, "Yeah, it's going to be fine."

You had a little Stockholm syndrome?

Yeah. I just totally believed that there would be no way that it would end in the nuclear option. It didn't seem sensible to me at all that that's how it would go down. So there was only about six days for me to kind of adjust initially to like, "Wow, I really have to make this decision." But believe me, it wasn't at all scary. It didn't really freak me out. At first I was like, "Man, I won't have a job at this point, how do I feel about that" But I felt great.

Because I think if I had tried to something like this while working on, you know, Backyard Wrestling or Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots or something like that, I think I'd be a hell of a lot more freaked out. I worked on the original X-Men game and Jeremy Dunham from IGN had said that the animation was "stiff and unrealistic," much like the original Mortal Kombat. And I've carried that quote with me my entire career, because of that one sort of defining moment where I said to myself, "All right, I thought I had achieved something," but then I looked in the mirror a bit and realized, "No, I haven't gotten anywhere." And that kind of drove me a lot. But after leaving Sony I feel fantastic.

The people that I've met over the last like month-and-a-half and the opportunities that have arisen from all of that have made me realize that I would have been very, very, very unhappy not seizing some of these opportunities; not being able to take advantage of any of these things simply because I was locked in. If I really step back for a minute, I probably should've been at least somewhat afraid, like, "Oh my god, [Sony] is security," because that's what a lot of those jobs offer you--and kind of rely on--is the idea that you have security. The game has a guaranteed budget and you know it's going to get made and you're going to have a job and you're going to have a paycheck coming in. All these things are really important, but at the same time, you have to have a bold move in order to sort of reap a great reward. And I say that in the the sense of reap a great reward creatively not necessarily reap a giant paycheck.

Well, thanks very much for taking the time to speak with me.

Yeah, man. This was awesome.

Absolutely. Best of luck with your bold move and hopefully the great reward.

Yeah, thank you.

Writer/Director Kurt Wimmer ("Equilibrium") will possibly pen the Sony Pictures film adaptation of Konami's hit video game series "Metal Gear Solid" reports Coming Soon.

Talking with Mike DeLuca at the premiere of "21" in Las Vegas, the producer revealed that they hope to meet with Wimmer in the next few weeks to talk about him writing the script (and possibly directing).

Metal Gear Solid's story centers on Solid Snake, a retired soldier who infiltrates a nuclear weapons disposal facility to neutralize the terrorist threat from FOXHOUND, a renegade special forces unit. He attempts to liberate their two hostages, the head of DARPA and the president of a major arms manufacturer, and stops the terrorists from launching a nuclear strike.

The fourth game in the series comes out in June exclusively on the Playstation 3 and is one of the single most anticipated games of the year.

E, još kad bi David Hayter igrao Snakea... Da ga jebeš, naviko sam se na njegov glas i vbez njega mi neće biti isto.

Quote from: "Alexdelarge",,Slayer" 24. juna u Beogradu

Američka treš metal grupa ,,Slayer" nastupiće 24. juna u Beogradu. Nakon njihovog zapaženog nastupa na festivalu ,,Egzit" pre tri godine, publika u Srbiji će imati priliku da uživo vidi i čuje ovu legendarnu metal grupu. Koncert će, kako nezvanično saznajemo, biti održan na otvorenom, a uskoro će biti poznato više detalja kao i cene karata.

Bend je nastao 1981. godine u Kaliforniji, a oformili su ga mladi gitaristi Džef Haneman i Keri King kojima su se kasnije priključili pevač i basista Tom Araja i bubnjar Dejv Lombard. Prvi album ,,Show no Mercy" objavljen je 1983. godine kada je došao do izražaja njihov izuzetno brz bubnjarski ritam. Dve godine kasnije ostvarenjem ,,Hell Awaits" osetili su prvi ukus slave, da bi sledeći veoma popularan album ,,Regin in Blood" objavili za čuvenu rep izdavačku kuću ,,Def Jam Records". Pesme kao što su ,,Necrophobic" i ,,Angel of Death" imali su približno 250 bitova u minuti što su kasnije počele da kopiraju i druge grupe. Bend ,,Slayer" je tada, a i mnogo puta nakon toga, bio kritikovana zbog satanističkih i nacističkih simbola, a članovi grupe su izjavljivali da ne veruju ni u jedan sistem zbog čega su im otkazivani brojni nastupi. Bez koncerata i bez distribucije, nastalo je veliko iznenđenja kad je ,,Reign in Blood" dospeo u top 100 ,,Bilbordove" liste, a tiraž je dostigao zlatno izdanje. Kako je popularnost benda rasla, to je bilo više unutrašnjih problema i menjanja članova. Najviše problema bilo je sa bubnjarem Lombardom koji je u jednom momentu izbačen iz benda jer je navodno provodio više vremena sa svojom suprugom nego sa bendom.
Pre četiri godine originalni bubnjar se vratio na poziv ostalih članova te se odmah uklopio u bend. ,,Slayer" su tokom karijere često bili osporavani, negde su zabranjivani njihovi morbidni omoti albuma, ali to nije uticalo na pad njihove popularnosti. Uz ,,Metallicu", ,,Megadeth" i ,,Antrax" smatrani su velikom četvorkom kada je treš metal u pitanju. Devedesete su objavili izuzetno popularan album ,,Season in the Abyss" kojim su utvrdili status kao jednog od najvećih metal bendova na sceni, prodavši ga u više od milion kopija. Godine 1996. objavili su album ,,Undisputed Attitude" na kome su obradili numere pank bendova, što je privuklo još veći broj publike.
Poslednji studijski album ,,Christ Illusion" grupa je objavila 2006. a u najavi je objavljivanje novog materijala. Njihov koncert u Beogradu trebao bi da bude jedan od izuzetaka pošto na ovoj turneji uglavnom nastupaju na festivalima.


Svirka na ,,Egzitu"
Bend ,,Slayer" je nastupio na festivalu ,,Egzit", na Mejn stejdžu 2005. godine kada se videlo da su veliki profesionalci koji još uvek umeju energično da sviraju. Na hiljade ljudi tada se sabilo ispred bine tako da šutke u prvim redovima skoro da i nisu bile moguće jer su ljudi stajali jedni na drugima. Kiša koja je na momente pljuštala za vreme nastupa grupe ,,Slayer" čini se da nikome nije pokvarila ugođaj...

Cijena? Prava sitnica 2500 din. Ali kako sam propistio da ih gledam 2005. god naćiće se već novci
Evo malčice detaljnije: http://www.popboks.com/vest.php?ID=6993

Nešto mi govori da ću da uzmem akreditaciju...

Tako je Mehmete!

Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here.

I haven't read Mark Millar and John Romita Jr's new collaboration KICK-ASS, but that title rocks, and it sounds like the book is a lot of twisted fucked-up Millar-style fun.






And now, if my sources are correct, it looks like Matthew Vaughn (LAYER CAKE, STARDUST) is going to be writing and directing the film version. He's evidently holed up with Jane Goldman (his writing partner on STARDUST) right now and working hard to get the script right. Considering Millar's only got the first two issues out at this point, this may turn out to be a case like Edgar Wright and SCOTT PILGRIM, where Vaughn is working directly with Millar, already privy to where the series is headed.

I'm going to do some more digging on this one, and when I take Toshi on a comic run this week, I'll pick up issue one of this so I can see for myself what Vaughn's getting himself into. Right now, it looks like we'll see this before we see THOR, especially if WANTED connects with audiences the way I think it will this summer.

Prva epizoda Kick-Ass, koja je izašla pre dve nedelje je skoro svuda po Internetu dobila dosta negativne kritike. Mislim da se Millar dobrom broju comic bloggera popeo na kuras svojim radom u poslednje dve godine, pa su ga sad dočekali na volej, kad je krenuo sa creator-owned stripom posle dosta vremena.

Meni je Kick-Ass zapravo bio prilično zabavan, ali ZAISTA ostaje da se vidi kuda će da ide dalje pre nego što dam ikakvu ozbiljniju ocenu. Romitin crtež je, naravno, izvanredan. Takođe, naravno, znao sam da će Millar i ovo uspeti da proda Holivudu. Taj čovek je mađioničar samopromocije.

Jackman

Hugh Jackman and "Eli Stone" co-creator Marc Guggenheim are teaming with Virgin Comics to create "Nowhere Man," an original comicbook series that is designed to be transferred to the bigscreen as a Jackman vehicle.
Story was being kept under wraps, but Jackson's Seed Productions partner John Palermo said it features a protagonist reminiscent of the one Will Smith played in "I Am Legend." The concept is a futuristic world where mankind has traded privacy for safety, a premise that sprouted with Seed, Virgin CEO Sharad Devarajan and chief creative officer Gotham Chopra.

"This is our first comic, and we feel the concept is transferable to other arenas, perhaps first as a videogame, and then a movie," Palermo said.

Guggenheim has also written installments of "Amazing Spider-man" and "Wolverine" for Marvel Comics. Jackman is in Australia, starring for 20th Century Fox in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," the spinoff movie that will hit theaters May 2009.

Said Jackman: "I've had so much fun in the graphic novel world with the 'X-Men' franchise that I wanted to get even more involved. I'm excited to work with Virgin and Marc and create a compelling character and story that hopefully will also make it to the bigscreen."

"Nowhere Man" will be published under the Virgin Voices line, which also includes "Voodoo Child," which Nicolas Cage hatched with son Weston Cage. Virgin is getting close on its first comics-to-screen transfer, with the Guy Ritchie comic "Gamekeeper" being scripted by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell for producer Joel Silver at Warner Bros. The John Cox-scripted "Virulents" also is taking shape at Fox and New Regency, with John Moore attached to direct.

Jackman next stars in the Marcel Langenegger-directed drama "Deception," which 20th opens April 25, with Summit distributing overseas. Fox bows the Baz Luhrmann-directed "Australia" Nov. 20, with Jackman starring alongside Nicole Kidman.

Emerging victorious in a bidding war, Warner Bros. has picked up "I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President."

The studio acquired the book proposal from "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" scribe Josh Lieb for McG to produce via his Wonderland Sound and Vision shingle. Lieb is on board to adapt his book -- which might be the snappiest title of the year and certainly is among the longest.

The premise centers on a chubby 13-year old boy who everybody assumes is the dumbest kid in the seventh grade. He really is an evil genius and the third-richest person on the planet, with a secret compound beneath his unsuspecting family's modest suburban home. He hides his identity to keep himself safe from his enemies and because he can't legally claim his empire until he turns 18.

The story concerns the boy's attempt to prove himself in the eyes of his do-gooder father by being elected class president. Unfortunately, the tactics he uses to stage coups in Central America prove to be less effective in running a middle-school campaign.

The proposal sold to Penguin Books.


Jon Berg is overseeing for Warners.

McG is prepping to direct "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins," starring Christian Bale and Sam Worthington.

Lieb's credits also include "NewsRadio" and "The Simpsons." He is repped by Endeavor.

"...if we took into account only race,  gender and age,
 Obama's chances of being in prison
 would be 550 times higher than Clinton's.

 Here's a good question for a presidential debate:

 "Do you think 46-year-old black men
 are 550 times more likely to deserve
 to be in prison than 60-year-old white women?"




"The report's methodology differed from that used by the Justice
Department,
 which calculates the incarceration rate -

 by using the total population
 rather than the adult population -

 as the denominator.
 Using the department's methodology,
 about one in 130 Americans is behind bars....

"In the past 20 years,
 according the Federal Bureau of Investigation -

 violent crime rates fell by 25% -

 to 464 for every 100, 000 people in 2007 -
 from 612.5 in 1987...

"In 2007,  according to the National Association of State Budgeting
Officers,
 states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections.

 That is up from $10.6 billion in 1987,
 a 127% increase - once adjusted for inflation.

 With money from bonds and the federal government included,
 total state spending on corrections last year was $49 billion.

 By 2011,  the report said,
 states are on track to spend an additional $25 billion...

"The numbers -

 based on January statistics
 released by the International Centre
 for Prison Studies at King's College,  London -

put U.S. prison numbers far above those of China,
which has 1.5 million people behind bars *
even though its total population
is more than four times bigger than the United States'.

South Africa has 341 prisoners per 100, 000 citizens (0,34%),
Iran has 222 per 100, 000 (0,222%),
and China 119 (0,119%)
according to the King's College centre's World Prison Brief...

The authors said the U.S. - with 750 inmates per 100, 000 people

"is the global leader in the rate at which it incarcerates its
citizenry,
 outpacing nations like South Africa and Iran.

————————————————————————
———————————
*P.S.:

"Nationwide,  the prison population grew by 25, 000 last year,
 bringing it to almost 1.6 million.
 Another 723, 000 people are in local jails  -

total - 2,323,000

 The number of American adults is about 230 million,
 meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars... (1, 01%) -

————————————————————————
—————————



Russia and other former Soviet republics
had the highest rates of incarceration in Europe.

Russia,  with a total of 890, 000 people in prison,
has 628 inmates per 100, 000 people (0,628%),
followed by Belarus with 426 per 100, 000 (0,426%),
Georgia with 401 per 100, 000 (0,4%0
and Ukraine with 345 per 100, 000. (0,345%).




http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html?
_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


US Spends 6 Times More on Prisons than Education
http://www.coastalpost.com/08/04/9.html


U.S. is world's biggest jailer
as more than one in 100 adults languish behind bars
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?
in_article_id=522834&in_page_id=1811

We're No. 1 in incarcerations
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/02/were-no-1-in-
incarcerations.html

Some prisoners find freedom inside jail
http://austinweeklynews.1upsoftware.com/main.asp?
SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=1666&TM=1995.276

""You got a lot of people in the Bible
  that spent time in prison" - said Rev. Greg Livingston,
 pastor of Austin's Mandell United Methodist Church,

 and an advocate with Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

 Livingston cited Joseph,  Daniel and Paul -
 as his biblical examples.


"[They were] confined by their circumstance
 but they were able to transcend that," he said.

 But there are practical hurdles for prisoners to overcome,
 not least of which are
 the conditions surrounding their imprisonment -

 Livingston warned.

"There is also a reality
 that 'Maybe you ain't Paul. You're not Joseph.
 You just got locked up.

 You in jail.'"




High US prison figures reflect failed social policy
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-
brmail916pnmar15,0,32411.story

"As freedom-loving people,
 we should be shamed by the Feb. 29 story
 reporting that 1 in 100 adults in the United States is behind bars.

 With just 5% of the world's population,
 we account for 24% of the world's locked population.

 Even so,  we have the highest crime rate
 of the rich democracies.



The Prison-Industrial Complex
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199812/prisons

Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding.
Others see opportunity.

The nearly two million Americans behind bars -
the majority of them nonviolent offenders -

mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers...

Today the United States has approximately 1.8 million people behind
bars:

about 100, 000 in federal custody,
1.1 million in state custody,
and 600, 000 in local jails.

Prisons hold inmates convicted of federal or state crimes;
jails hold people awaiting trial
or serving short sentences.

The United States now imprisons more people
than any other country in the world -

perhaps half a million more than Communist China.





Black Prison Gulag and the Police State
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=554&Itemid=1



"America's prison model is directly derived from slavery -
the virtual imprisonment of an entire people."



"The purpose of U.S. prisons is
to socially erase masses of Blacks,
to subject them to social death."

FilmsActu reports that "Onimusha", the film adaptation of the best-selling PlayStation 2 game series, has been delayed due to various factors.

The games followed historic figures that shaped Japan's history, retelling their stories with supernatural elements.

The potential S.A.G. strike has apparently prevented producers from casting a key young male character called Jacob, whilst the already cast Takeshi Kaneshiro's busy schedule is apparently in flux.

On top of this, the delay of Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" has meant that producer Samuel Hadida has also had to change his schedule.

These factors were enough that French director Christophe Gans will now direct an adaptation of Leo Perutz's novel "The Swedish Cavalier" first, taking over the reigns from Gilles Mimouni.

That project is a tale of switched identities and reversals of fortune concerning a nameless theif fleeing the gallows who crosses paths in 1701 with a noble-born deserter from the Swedish army.

Emilie de Ravin, Satomi Ishihara & Tsuyoshi Ihara remain attached to "Onimusha", no word on if they'll be let go.

Valjevski metalci idu na turneju sa death prvoligašima

Valjevski death/thrash metal sastav Amon Din krenuće u septembru na evropsku turneju sa američkom grupom Nile, švedskom Grave i austrijskom Belphegor.

"Ovo će biti jedinstvena prilika za jedan domaći bend da dokaže da u Srbiji ima potencijala i kvaliteta što se tiče metal muzike", navodi se u saopštenju Legacy Promotiona, koncertne agencije koja je uključila valjevce u ovu turneju.

Turneja počinje 1. septembra u Bratislavi, a među 10 gusto raspoređenih datuma - do kraja turneje 11. septembra, predviđen je samo jedan dan pauze - pored Praga, Ljubljane, Bolonje... naći će se i Beograd (5. septembar, SKC).

Amon Din će prethodno nastupiti na Legacy festivalu, koji se odrzava 30. i 31. maja u Expo XXI centru na Novom Beogradu.

Na ovom festivalu će, između ostalih, nastupiti i Testament, Obituary, Destruction, Dark Funeral, Belphegor, Amorphis, Finntroll i Unleashed.

Lepo,bar nek' idu deca da vide malo inostranstvo,kod nas naravno postoji dovoljno veliki kapacitet muzicke raznovrsnosti i stilske razlicitosti bendova,to nikad nije bio problem,PROBLEM JE U OVOJ DRZAVI STO MEDIJE KONTROLISU ORTODOXNI SELJACI I MUZICKI RETARDI,uglavnom(barem jedno 99%)pa onda sve sto nije vidjeno na doticnoh 5-6 televizija,UKLJUCUJUCI I RTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,kao da i nikad nije postojalo !

Second Skin
(Documentary)
By JOE LEYDON
A Pure West Films production. Produced by Peter Brauer, Victor Pineiro Escoriaza. Executive producers, David Heilbroner, Kate Davis. Directed, edited by Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza. Written by Victor Pineiro Escoriaza.

With: Dan Bustard, Kevin Keel, Heather Cowan.

Is "Everquest" a harmless distraction or an addictive scourge? Does "World of Warcraft" forge communities or fray relationships? The answers are as diverse as the interviewees in "Second Skin," a sometimes celebratory, sometimes cautionary look at the phenomenon of massively multiplayer online computer games (MMOs). Filmmaker Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza includes cogent observations by scientists, social commentators and game designers, and repeatedly flashes germane factoids (example: The latest edition of "Warcraft" software posted $96 million in first-day sales). But the human dramas of individual gamers are what really make this technically polished docu so fascinating and potentially commercial.

Pic emphasizes the allure for male and female players of assuming the identity of a dashing digital avatar in a virtual online universe of swinging swords and derring-do. Interactive gamers can compete against -- and establish friendships or begin romances with -- unseen strangers hundreds or thousands of miles away. Trouble is, gaming can be extremely habit-forming, leading, in extreme cases, to alienation and depression. Gamer Dan Bustard struggles to recover after losing almost everything while lost in virtual worlds; unfortunately, his is not the worst-case scenario in "Second Skin."

Dolph Lundgren will star in and direct Millennium/Nu Image's action thriller "Command Performance" which he co-wrote with Stave Latshaw reports Reuters.

The story follows a drummer for the warm-up band of a big American performer giving a concert for the Russian premier. Naturally, the bad guys break up the show. And just as naturally, the drummer is an ex-Marine.

The former major action star began directing with 2004's "The Defender". His most recent directing and acting vehicle, Sony's "Missionary Man," premieres at next week's AFI Dallas festival.

Lundgren will not be using a stunt double for the truly complicated scenes, including the percussion sequences. "Command" is scheduled to shoot in Moscow and Bulgaria's Nu Boyana Studios in the summer.

"Wanted" comic creator Mark Millar won't confirm or deny the involvement of acclaimed British filmmaker Matthew Vaughn ("Stardust," "Layer Cake") on the proposed film adaptation of his comic "Kick-Ass".

Millar tells Newsarama that "I can't confirm or deny any director at this stage. Sure, Matthew and I are friends and I think Layer Cake and Stardust tie with 28 Days Later as the best British films of this decade so having him onboard would be amazing.

But at this stage I can't even give you a little wink, except to say that the director is already in place and we're looking to rapidly go into production once we're finished a polish on the final script next month. Some casting has already been worked out too, but I can say nothing beyond this annoyingly vague statement."

Vaughn remains attached to direct "Thor" for Marvel Studios.

Heh. Neviđeno je koliko Millar hajpuje sebe i svoje stripove kao nešto štoniko nikad nije uradio. Pre neki dan je u intervjuu za njuzaramu zapenušao o tome kako je njegov upcoming projekat za Marvel (Marvel 1985) toliko genijalan strip da ga je režiser Wanteda (zaboravio sam mu ime) pitao nešto u stili 'Crni Marče, pa što mi nisi ovo prodao kao ideju, ja bih ti po tome film snimio!!!!' Ideja? Superheroji u - realnom svetu. Zaista, kao da se NIKO pre njega nije setio tako nečega. Osim Alana Mura, Granta Morisona, Aleksa Rosa i par stotina drugih autora...

Reditelj je Kazah Timur Bekmambetov... Iz intervjua bih rekao da su se njih dvojica fino razumeli.

Kako Gunse naterati da izdaju album?

Jedna kompanija za proizvodnju gaziranih pića iz Teksasa izazvala je grupu Guns 'n' Roses da do kraja 2008. izda novi album koji se već godinama unazad najavljuje.

Obećano je da će, u slučaju da se to desi, častiti pićem "'skoro sve' ljude u Americi".

"Pozivamo (molimo), Axl Rosea da konačno izda svoje remek-delo Chinese Democracy 2008. godine", stoji u otvorenom pismu firme Dr Pepper.

"U znak solidarnosti bez presedana sa Axlom, svi u SAD, osim bivših gitarista Slasha i Bucketheada, besplatno će dobiti konzervu pića - ako album bude izdat 2008", navodi se u pismu kompanije.

Reagujući na ovaj izazov, Axl je rekao da njegova grupa sa teksaškom firmom nije vezana nikakvim komercijalnim ugovorom i da ne zna kada će bit objavljen njegov novi album.

Chinese Democracy se najavljuje već punih deset godina, a New York Times ga je 2005. okarakterisao kao "najskuplji album koji nikada nije snimljen".

Guns 'n' Roses su poslednji album - kolekciju obrada The Spaghetti Incident? – izdali 1993. godine.

A link? Gde je link za Popboks???

Nego, ja taj Chinese Democracy imam već skoro godinu dana a još se nisam naterao ni da ga preslušam...

Quote from: "Meho Krljic"Nego, ja taj Chinese Democracy imam već skoro godinu dana

prokleti bili vi što radite u nevladinom sekretu... ili sektoru?!

Hoćeš da pomenem Popboks pa da opet imamo probleme i ti i ja. Ja sam čuo to što je leakovalo na Internet ali moram priznati nisam do kraja siguran da li je to taj album.

Ma, da, ko zna kako će finalna verzija da zvuči. I ja imam isti taj leak... Ali, eto, ne vuče me da ga slušam... Za razliku od recimo The Iron Maidens - The World's Only Female Tribute to Iron Maiden koji sam slušao ovog jutra.

QuoteMetallica Announce Breakup

In a move that's sure to shock the metal community the world over, Metallica have called it a day. Apparantly, all the criticism they've been receiving from metal fans on the internet and beyond has finally struck a chord and the group have decided it's just not worth putting another album out.

Says drummer Lars Ulrich, "Whatever we do, it seems it's just not good enough for the elitist metal community. We tried experimenting with our music and became metal public enemy number one. We did a stint with an orchestra and were accused of being self indulgent (but hey, I guess it's a different story for Deep Purple and Kiss huh?). We even released a collection of covers from some really cool bands like Mercyful Fate and Discharge but that still wasn't good enough for everyone out there in metal land. Then when we finally decide to try and go back to our roots, people proclaim it as our worst album to date. The reason our new album has been taking so long was because we've been keeping close tabs on websites such as Blabbermouth to see what people are saying and already people are panning us. So we decided that no matter what we do, our best efforts just aren't worth it anymore. I don't know when metal became so facistic about what is and isn't metal but as of now, there isn't a Metallica. We're done. We would however like to thank our fans who were still loyal enough to stick with us, you made a long trip worthwhile."

None of the other members have made announcements regarding the split but it's believed that frontman James Hetfield will be busy working on a new project featuring Corrosion Of Conformity/ Down member Pepper Keenan. There also rumours that he and guitarist Kirk Hammet will revive their 80s side project Spastik Children. There have been no rumours on what any of the other members will embark on next.

Obviously this announcement comes with the news that all of the bands tour dates have been cancelled. There is no word yet on who will replace them at the Reading/ Leeds festivals and other festival shows.

Otidoh da natočim rakije posle ovoga i onda sam se setio da je danas jebeni prvi april...

Čuveni američki hip hoper i bivši direktor kompanije Def Jam Jay-Z potpisao je 10-godišnji ugovor sa promoterskom kućom Live Nation u vrednosti od 150 miliona dolara.

Osim organizacije turneja i prava na objavljivanje albuma, ugovor predviđa i osnivanje nove kompanije Roc Nation.

U okviru Roc Nationa, Jay-Z-ju će biti omogućeno da vodi sopstvenu etiketu, kao i agenciju za podršku i pružanje menadžerskih usluga talentima.

Live Nation očekuje da će Jay-Z tokom dekade obuhvaćene ugovorom objaviti najmanje tri albuma, a za potrebe snimanje svakog će dobiti po 10 miliona dolara.

Jay-Z je Timesu rekao kako želi da funkcioniše poput indie benda, da mnogo više nastupa a manje se oslanja na radio.

"Pretvorio sam se u Rolling Stonese hip-hopa", dodao je on.

Podsetimo, nedavno su U2 potpisali 12-godišnji ugovor sa Live Nationom koji se odnosi samo na turneje, a Madonna je prošle godine potpisala ugovor sa ovom kompanijom u vrednosti od 120 miliona dolara.

Apr 3, 2008 10:51 AM
Subject:  lutke & ventolin on tour 2008  
Body:  sa radoscu mozemo da objavimo da LUTKE I VENTOLIN idu zajedno na
turneju cetri skakaonice 2008.



za sada su potvrdjena 3 nastupa i to:

Lutke & Ventolin

Mesto: Dom kulture, Starčevo
Vreme: 18.



april 9,30h

Mesto: Living Room @ SKC, Beograd
Vreme: 23.



maj 9,30h

Mesto: Klub Dublin, Petrovaradin, Novi Sad
Vreme: 31.



maj 9,30h

uskoro jos datuma. znaci ovo prolece i leto cemo biti zajedno.



pozdrav Lutke

Jebote, u tom Dablinu sam svirao više puta nego što sam u Novi Sad išao poslom....