Have you seen the movie trailer for the Steven Spielberg-produced JJ Abrams-directed sci-fi film Super 8? Did you notice the Easter eggs hidden at the end of the trailer? This is how JJ Abrams rolls people.

SlashFilm pointed out that during the last seconds of the trailer, some letters flash through the lens of the film camera.

Peeps over at UnfictionForum were able to screencapture all of the letters:

It says, “Scariest Thing I Ever Saw”—-

The website ScariestThingIEverSaw.com was register a little over a week after the film’s official website super8-movie.com, and by the same registration company.

I read the article posted below the other night and thought, “yeah I guess he took the idea from the comic.”

Does it matter? He made an excellent film and visually it’s not a Disney flick. I mean a 3-pointer is a 3-pointer, but each one of us shoots it different right?

The article states that the characters all have totems and the images show all the characters having their sleep controlled kinda like in the movie.

Article Source:  videogum.com

You can read the full comic here, or download a PDF here. (Via IWatchStuff.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

In fact, all the gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium and ruthenium that we now mine from the Earth’s crust, and that are essential for our economic and technological development, came originally from the rain of asteroids that hit the Earth after the crust cooled

At today’s prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1 mile contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals.

I say lets do this. So how did you become a trillionaire. I rode a frakin asteroid bitches. Bill Gates money? Please. That’s a spec compared to my wealth.

This month, “Battlefield Earth,” the blockbuster bomb based on the novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, won the Razzie for “Worst Movie of the Decade.” J.D. Shapiro, the film’s first screenwriter, accepted the award in person. Shapiro, who also wrote the screenplay for “Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” “We Married Margo,” and is developing a King Arthur spoof called “524 AD” (524AD.com), explains what it’s like to be attached to one of Hollywood’s most notorious flops.

Let me start by apologizing to anyone who went to see “Battlefield Earth.”

It wasn’t as I intended — promise. No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.

It started, as so many of my choices do, with my Willy Wonker.
It was 1994, and I had read an article in Premiere magazine saying that the Celebrity Center, the Scientology epicenter in Los Angeles, was a great place to meet women.

Willy convinced me to go check it out. Touring the building, I didn’t find any eligible women at first, but I did meet Karen Hollander, president of the center, who said she was a fan of “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” We ended up talking for over two hours. She told me why Scientology is so great. I told her that, when it comes to organized religion, anything a person does to reward, threaten and try to control people by using an unknown like the afterlife is dangerous.

Nonetheless, Karen called me a few days later asking if I’d be interested in turning any of L. Ron Hubbard’s books into movies. Eventually, I had dinner with John Travolta, his wife Kelly Preston, Karen — about 10 Scientologists in all. John asked me, “So, J.D., what brought you to Scientology?”
I told him. John smiled and replied, “We have tech that can help you handle that.” I don’t know if he meant they had technology that would help me get laid or technology that would stop Willy from doing the majority of my thinking.

I researched Scientology before signing on to the movie, to make sure I wasn’t making anything that would indoctrinate people. I took a few courses, including the Purification Rundown, or Purif. You go to CC every day, take vitamins and go in and out of a sauna so toxins are released from your body. You’re supposed to reach an “End Point.” I never did, but I was bored so I told them I had a vision of L. Ron. They said, “What did he say?” “Pull my finger,” was my response. They said I was done.

During my Scientology research, I met an employee who I instantly had a crush on. She was kind of a priestess, and had dedicated her life to working for the church by becoming a Sea Org member. She said that she signed a billion-year contract. I said, “What! Really?” She said she got paid a small stipend of $50 a week, to which I said, “Can you get an advance on the billion years, like say, a mere $500,000?” And then she said as a Sea Org member, you can’t have sex unless you’re married. I asked her if she was married. She said yes. So I said, “Great! That means we can have sex!”

As far as I know, I am the only non-Scientologist to ever be on their cruise ship, the Freewind. I was a bit of an oddity, walking around in a robe, sandals, smoking Cuban cigars and drinking fine scotch (Scientologists are not allowed to drink while taking courses). I also got one of the best massages ever. My friends asked if I got a “happy ending.” I said, “Yes, I got off the ship.”

But if you’re reading this to get the dirt on Scientology, sorry, no one ever tried to force me to do anything.
Even after all the “trouble” I’d gotten into, people at the church liked me, so I read “Battlefield Earth” and agreed to come up with a pitch to take to studios.

I met with Mike Marcus, the president of MGM, and pitched him my take. He loved it, and the next day negotiations went under way. A few days after I finished the script, a very excited Travolta called, told me he “loved it,” and wanted to have dinner. At dinner, John said again how much he loved the script and called it “The ‘Schindler’s List’ of sci-fi.”

My script was very, VERY different than what ended up on the screen. My screenplay was darker, grittier and had a very compelling story with rich characters. What my screenplay didn’t have was slow motion at every turn, Dutch tilts, campy dialogue, aliens in KISS boots, and everyone wearing Bob Marley wigs.
Shortly after that, John officially attached himself to the project. Then several A-list directors expressed interest in making the movie, MGM had a budget of $100 million, and life was grrrrreat! I got studio notes that were typical studio notes. Nothing too crazy. I incorporated the notes I felt worked, blew off the bad ones and did a polish. I sent it to the studio, thinking the next I’d hear is what director is attached.

Then I got another batch of notes. I thought it was a joke. They changed the entire tone. I knew these notes would kill the movie. The notes wanted me to lose key scenes, add ridiculous scenes, take out some of the key characters. I asked Mike where they came from. He said, “From us.” But when I pressed him, he said, “From John’s camp, but we agree with them.”

I refused to incorporate the notes into the script and was fired.
I HAVE no idea why they wanted to go in this new direction, but here’s what I heard from someone in John’s camp: Out of all the books L. Ron wrote, this was the one the church founder wanted most to become a movie. He wrote extensive notes on how the movie should be made.
Many people called it a Scientology movie. It wasn’t when I wrote it, and I don’t feel it was in the final product. Yes, writers put their beliefs into a story. Sometimes it’s subtle (I guess L. Ron had something against the color purple, I have no idea why), sometimes not so subtle (L. Ron hated psychiatry and psychologists, thus the reason, and I’m just guessing here, that the bad aliens were called “Psychlos”).

The only time I saw the movie was at the premiere, which was one too many times.
Once it was decided that I would share a writing credit, I wanted to use my pseudonym, Sir Nick Knack. I was told I couldn’t do that, because if a writer gets paid over a certain amount of money, they can’t. I could have taken my name completely off the movie, but my agent and attorney talked me out of it. There was a lot of money at stake.

Now, looking back at the movie with fresh eyes, I can’t help but be strangely proud of it. Because out of all the sucky movies, mine is the suckiest.

In the end, did Scientology get me laid? What do you think? No way do you get any action by boldly going up to a woman and proclaiming, “I wrote Battlefield Earth!” If anything, I’m trying to figure out a way to bottle it and use it as birth control. I’ll make a mint!

By J.D. SHAPIRO

From the New York Post

… have a good design sense and understand the fundamentals / design principals.

… know all the major design software including the entire Adobe Creative Suite.

… have some basic video editing skills.

… know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

… know enough about server-side languages (PHP, ASP, Ruby, Python, etc) to understand how they work, what they do, and the possibilities of their use.

… know about servers, hosting, domain registrants, DNS, etc. Setting it up, and fixing it when it breaks.

… know OS X really well (and enough Windows to get by) or know Windows really well (and enough OS X to get by) and know a huge variety of utility software that goes with.

… are good photographers.

… can color correct photos and work in RAW.

… can cut clipping paths or otherwise extract objects from photos.

… have a killer online portfolio.

… are a personable, nice people that are good with clients.

… can help clients with anything even vaguely computer-related.

… are quick to adapt to new software and new technologies.

… can train fellow employees.

… can train clients on the use of their websites.

… are good communicators.

… are team players.

… have good taste in art, music and movies.

… are up to date on social media.

… are good at logic and deduction.

… are good at user experience and user testing.

… are SEO experts.

… know about and how to handle web accessibility (and the laws surrounding it)

… understand copyright laws.

… do progressive enhancement and graceful degradation techniques.

… can debug cross-browser problems and older browser bugs.

… can bring your own client base.

… are healthy, well groomed, and wear fancy t-shirts.

… can be on-call at all times for emergencies.

… have college degrees in design-related fields.

… own very nice and expensive computers full of expensive software.

… can design for mobile devices.

… are good typographers.

from CSS-Tricks

This is a great article about how one man caught a thief who stole his iPhone. So worth reading trust me. He used all the technology he could find to track this guy down.

http://iphonetheif.blogspot.com/2010/01/iphone-theif-bust.html

During the Rwandan genocide, when neighbors killed neighbors and friends betrayed friends, some crossed lines of hatred to protect each other.

At the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from participating in the killing of the Tutsi. As the country became a slaughterhouse, mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other.

KINYARWANDA is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing.

KINYARWANDA interweaves six different tales that together form one grand narrative that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.

Follow Director Alrick Brown at Twitter.com/AlrickBrown

Official website: http://www.kinyarwandamovie.com/

In European folklore, the witching hour is the time when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons and ghosts are thought to be at their most powerful, and black magic at its most effective. This hour is typically midnight, and the term may now be used to refer to midnight, or any late hour, even without having the associated superstitious beliefs. The term “witching hour” can also refer to the period from midnight to 3am, while “devils hour” refers to the time around 3am.

[edit] History

One of the earliest known uses of the exact phrasing “the witching hour” is from the 1831 edition of Frankenstein in the introduction by Mary Shelley: “Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by before we retired to rest.”

In 1835, the phrase appeared in the last line of a short story by Washington Irving: “Two pairs of eyes are watching me now, from the couch and the ledge by the window. Faerieland shines in those eyes. And I must leave you, for it’s the witching hour and a full moon is rising. . . .”

However, variants of the phrase were in use much earlier; Shakespeare refers to “the witching time of night” in a soliloquy in Hamlet:

Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on.

[Act III, sc. ii]

[edit] Witching hour in popular culture

“Witching Hour” is the title of a song by British black metal band Venom, from their album Welcome to Hell (1981). It has since been covered by several other bands in related genres; Mayhem and Sigh have recorded cover-versions of the song, and many other bands, such as Slayer, Therion, and Machine Head have played the song live.

The first novel in Anne Rice’s The Mayfair Witches series is titled The Witching Hour (novel) (1990).

The Foo Fighters’s Another Round mentions the witching hour. Ring in the witching hour, Spells that I’m singing,.

Radiohead’s The Gloaming mentions the witching hour in the opening line. Genie let out of a bottle, it is now witching hour… This relates to the time of day, “the gloaming” literally meaning twilight.

The tagline for the movie The Craft is “Welcome to the Witching Hour”

The Witching Hour was a Harry Potter-themed symposium held in Salem, Massachusetts from October 6, 2005 to October 10, 2005.

In Roald Dahl’s novel The BFG, the opening chapter in the book takes place during the Witching Hour. This is when the little girl, Sophie, spots the BFG.

In the Tori Amos song “Almost Rosey,” there is the lyric “I sober with the witching hour.”

In the 2008 film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button character Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton) proclaims, “I’m afraid it’s the witching hour” after the sound of a clock chiming in the background.

In Def Leppard’s song, Animal, there is the lyric “Like a movin’ heartbeat in the witching hour.”

In an episode of King of Queens, Arthur looks at his watch and says “Oh it’s 9:30, the witching hour.”

In the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose makes heavy reference to the witching hour, noting its origin as a demonic mockery of the trinity, as well as the inversion of 3 P.M., the hour that is claimed to be when Christ died on the cross.

In the 2009 film Paranormal Activity, a demon would typically haunt and disturb the couple between midnight to 3am.

In the 1979 film Amityville Horror always shows 3:15 A.M. on the clock indicating the timeframe when the “voices” speak and evil occurs.

In the 2009 film The Fourth Kind 3:33 a.m. is the usual time of the abductions implying that possession may be involved.

ok, so i know i’ve mentioned this everywhere my emotions are available online (facebook, twitter, eharmony…jk!) …but, on a whim i watched twilight for the first time last weekend and have since found myself thinking about it ALL THE TIME. wait…before i say any more let me state that i don’t believe the movie, as a whole, was that earthshattering. at the end of the flick i didn’t stand up and applaud “well done, well done!” while i really enjoyed it, if you look at it from the script’s point-of-view, well, it was kind of…simple, and other times the movie was just unintentionally funny. i mean, those scenes where rpat is running extra fast? the baseball stuff? …the makeup (their faces and necks were two different colors!)

kinda ridiculous. someone on set should have been fired.

but, there’s just something so moving about raw intensity, passion and love that….wow, i don’t know, it was just spot on in this movie. i felt it! even months and months and months behind schedule with viewing this movie, i finally got it. so this is why people are obsessed with rpat and bella.

lets be honest though – it’s been done before – a la the notebook, where you can just feel the chemistry and attraction between the two lovebirds…but the difference with twilight is that it has vampires (sexy!) and is much shorter (thank you jesus). plus there’s something internally significant about seeing a strong sense of family. that vampire fam is as thick as thieves! it struck home a little bit. and i also loved rpat’s role in protecting bella and being like…welp, we’re together for life now and nothing will ever harm you. yes!

I LOVE THAT.

great movie. and i realized new moon is coming out soon…perfect timing, i’m so fresh off the high!…but if you know me you know that i won’t be at the theaters on opening day. nuhuh, homey don’t do frenzied crowds, especially those consisting of teenage girls. (i did it once for an american idol concert and that’s a mistake you make only once.)

anyway, im not anywhere close to the batshit insanity other twilighters exhibit…but after the hysteria calms i will see it over thanksgiving weekend and will happily go through the emotions all over again.

i’m single, what do i have to lose? beats eharmony.

long story short: i’m pretty much obsessed with all things twilight and will be scouring the internet for mall appearances where the new moon cast will be appearing.

jk.

or am i? today i watched twilight for the second time, not even 24 hours since the first time i viewed it. my excuse being that the second time i watched the movie it was with my mom. and she’s normally a hard sell (aka she always falls asleep not even 20 minutes into a movie, regardless of content, just like yours truly) but she too managed to stay awake the whole time and was completely caught up in this shizz. so don’t judge me!

AM I ONE OF THOSE FREAK TWILIGHT PEOPLE NOW??? you know, the ones you see on tv that FLIP SHIT about all things rpat and twilight and vampirish?

i just might be. oops!

GUILTY! lock me up.

I read this and was reminded again why I love Joss Whedon’s writing.

——————————————————————

November 02 2009

An Open Letter to the Terminator Owners. From a Very Important Hollywood Mogul

Dear Sirs/Ma’ams,

I am Joss Whedon, the mastermind behind Titan A.E., Parenthood (not the movie) (or the new series) (or the one where ‘hood’ was capitalized ’cause it was a pun), and myriad other legendary tales. I have heard through the ‘grapevine’ that the Terminator franchise is for sale, and I am prepared to make a pre-emptive bid RIGHT NOW to wrap this dealio up. This is not a joke, this is not a scam, this is not available on TV. I will write a check TODAY for $10,000, and viola! Terminator off your hands.

No, you didn’t miscount. That’s four — FOUR! — zeroes after that one. That’s to show you I mean business. And I mean show business. Nikki Finke says the Terminator concept is played. Well, here’s what I have to say to Nikki Finke: you are a fine journalist and please don’t ever notice me. The Terminator story is as formative and important in our culture — and my pretend play — as any I can think of. It’s far from over. And before you Terminator-Owners (I have trouble remembering names) rush to cash that sweet cheque, let me give you a taste of what I could do with that franchise:

1) Terminator… of the Rings! Yeah, what if he time-travelled TOO far… back to when there was dragons and wizards? (I think it was the Dark Ages.) Hasta La Vista, Boramir! Cool, huh? “Now you gonna be Gandalf the Red!” RRRRIP! But then he totally helps, because he’s a cyborg and he doesn’t give a s#&% about the ring — it has no power over him! And he can carry it AND Frodo AND Sam AND f@%& up some orcs while he’s doing it. This stuff just comes to me. I mean it. (I will also offer $10,000 for the Lord of the Rings franchise).

2) More Glau. Hey. There’s a reason they’re called “Summer” movies.

3) Can you say… musical? Well don’t. Even I know that’s an awful idea.

4) Christian Bale’s John Connor will get a throat lozenge. This will also help his Batwork (ten grand for that franchise too, btw.)

5) More porn. John Connor never told Kyle Reese this, but his main objective in going to the past was to get some. What if there’s a lot of future-babies that have to be made? Cue wah-wah pedal guitar — and dollar signs!

6) The movies will stop getting less cool.

Okay. There’s more — this brain don’t quit! (though it has occasionally been fired) — but I think you get my drift. I really believe the Terminator franchise has only begun to plumb the depths of questioning the human condition during awesome stunts, and I’d like to shepherd it through the next phase. The money is there, but more importantly, the heart is there. But more importantly, money. Think about it. End this bloody bidding war before it begins, and put the Terminator in the hands of someone who watched the first one more than any other movie in college, including “Song of Norway” (no current franchise offer).

Sincerely, Joss Whedon.

from his website. Read more here.