Barack Obama: Commander in Geek

Let The Movie Cabinet be touched by the Obama phenomenon. From E! Online:

When Barack Obama takes office as president in January, he'll make history.

As the first commander in chief conversant in geek, of course.

True, the young Bill Clinton collected comics, and the young Ronald Reagan devoured science fiction, but arguably no White House occupant was ever as steeped in the culture as a responsible adult as Obama, the fan and name-dropper of Spider-Man, Superman and a certain U.S.S. Enterprise engineer.

"Just the notion that perhaps someone that may have learned a bit of ethics and morality from [Gene] Roddenberry's future dream for mankind, or is familiar with Spider-Man's 'with great power comes great responsibility,' well, it warms my soul," says Ain't It Cool's Harry Knowles.

Well I wonder if the next Star Trek movie will have a special screening at the White House when it comes out next summer.

Clint Eastwood aims to revive Dirty Harry in new movie

I bought the very first Dirty Harry film a couple or so years ago. I enjoyed it although I thought by maybe the third film it was starting to lose its punch. Though I have to imagine Dirty Harry Callahan as a 77 year old man. Dirty Harry being the same age as Clint Eastwood, the man who brought him to life. Daily News:

Clint Eastwood's gun-slingin', smack-talkin' tough guy, Dirty Harry, is rumored to be returning to the big screen, but - spoiler alert! - he may not live to see a sixth sequel.

Britain's The Sun newspaper reports that Eastwood, 77, wants his Dirty Harry character - immortalized in five movies - to go out in style.

The ruthless policeman, who uttered the infamous "make my day" line, was first seen in 1971 and made his last appearance in 1988's "The Dead Pool."

In March, Ain't It Cool News reported a rumor that 'Gran Torino,' Eastwood's lastest production for Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow, was indeed this sixth installment in the Dirty Harry series. 'Torino' is slated for a December release.

This should be interesting!

Matrix Brothers to open a studio in Chicago

From the Sun-Times today...

The reclusive Wachowski brothers, two of Chicago's creative sons best known for their Matrix movies, have found an equally unassuming North Side spot to edit their projects.

City officials say a post-production studio will open in what has been known as the Ravenswood Studio, 5645 N. Ravenswood, just north of Bryn Mawr.

Late last year, Andy and Larry Wachowski, who grew up in Beverly Hills -- the South Side neighborhood -- approached Ald. Patrick O'Connor (40th) about the vacant North Side building in his ward.

"Actually, they came in to see me. [They] wanted to talk about what their plans were and that there were no impediments or prohibitions to putting it there," O'Connor said.

"They did say that they had had a fairly good search going on and this place fit their needs very well, and that they wanted to be in Chicago and on the North Side in general. . . . They said they loved the idea of doing work in Chicago and being in Chicago, and that was enough for me," he said.

"I did ask for a small part in one of their upcoming projects, but I don't think that will happen," the alderman quipped.

The brothers couldn't be reached for comment. But the city's building department records show that permits were pulled in recent months for interior renovations, a new roof, roof-mounted equipment and window replacement, according to agency spokesman Bill McCaffrey.

It is not clear whether the Wachowskis were able to use the studio -- where crews continue to work -- to finish their upcoming film "Speed Racer," an update of the 1960s cartoon out next month.

Perhaps Chicago can be a media mecca of sorts as New York and LA are at this moment.

More comic book superhero news

According to Gaper's Block Merge Chicago native and R&B singer Common will play Green Lantern in an upcoming JLA feature film.

For those of you James Bond fans out there...

The author who took up the authorship of James Bond after the death of Ian Fleming in the 1960s is dead. From the Chicago Tribune...

John Gardner, a prolific British thriller writer who authored more novels about James Bond than Ian Fleming did, has died. He was 80.

The author died Aug. 3 after collapsing near his home in Basingstoke, England. The cause was heart failure, said his daughter Alexis Walmsley.

By turns an Anglican priest, marine commando, drama critic and semiprofessional magician, Mr. Gardner wrote four dozen books in a career of more than 40 years. He was best known for the 14 Bond novels he wrote in the 1980s and '90s, which continued the work of Bond's creator, Fleming. Fleming wrote 12 Bond books.

In Mr. Gardner's hands, Bond is every inch a late-20th Century man. He smokes low-tar cigarettes and, in an authorial choice that anguished 007 purists, drives a fuel-efficient Saab instead of his Bentley Mark II Continental. Perhaps most shocking of all, he drinks only in moderation.

Though the reaction of critics was mixed, the novels were embraced by all but the most orthodox Bondians and appeared regularly on The New York Times best seller list. Among Mr. Gardner's Bond titles are "License Renewed," "Win, Lose or Die," "Brokenclaw" and, most recently, "Cold Fall."

John Edmund Gardner was born in the Northumberland region of England. His father was a priest in the Church of England.

As a boy, Mr. Gardner longed to become a writer, but his first job was in magic. An enthusiastic amateur magician, he auditioned in 1943 for the entertainment department of the American Red Cross. At 17 he was traveling to hospitals throughout England, performing for wounded American soldiers.

Toward the end of World War II, Mr. Gardner served in the Far and Middle East as a Royal Marine commando. He was, by his own account, "the worst commando in the world." While learning to fly, for instance, he bent an airplane, not an easy thing to do.

After the war, Mr. Gardner earned a bachelor's degree in theology from Cambridge, followed by study at Oxford. He received ordination as an Anglican priest in 1953. But he soon realized the vocation was not for him and left the priesthood after five years.

In the late 1950s and early '60s, Mr. Gardner worked as a newspaper drama critic. His first novel, published in 1964, was "The Liquidator." Its hero, Boysie Oakes, is an anti-Bond. Recruited as a secret agent entirely by mistake, Oakes is inept, vulgar and so cowardly that he hires a subcontractor to do his killing for him. Seven more Oakes novels followed.

After Fleming's death in 1964, his literary executors searched for a writer to continue the series, eventually settling on Mr. Gardner.

To be sure I read the novelization for Goldeneye that he wrote many years ago. I enjoyed it. And you know what else I have the novel Diamonds are Forever on my bookcase that I bought from the old defunt Crown Books many years ago. I never read it however.