*ahem* I told you so.

When Uwe Boll* calls [*may not be 100% true], Richard O’Brien listens. (Or not.) ‘Cos adaptations make the world go round.

(1944 Marxist sociology is often indistinguishable from rock journalism. Or how-tos.)

In the MPAA’s consumer assault, consider the shiny 5¼” disk the Maginot Line. DVD sales are slipping for the first time since 1997. And Blu-Ray “won” the format battle but is losing the war against the Great Slight Economic Downturn. Because statistically, no-one gives a hoot about high resolution, going for convenience every time.

Someone must be making a packet convincing executives that customers will buy what you tell them to, not what they want to. What’s the killer feature on the Blu-Ray release of Sleeping Beauty? Chat, messaging to and from phones, video greeting cards and quizzes for loyalty programme points! ‘Cos there’s vast untapped consumer demand for expensive stuff that’s like the Internet except shit.

At least Pixar’s been allowed to tell the rest of Disney that if you make a sequel, it’s gotta, y’know, not suck.

Going by the trailer, the Watchmen movie might not actually suck. The costumes are right, the scenes are right … the sculpture on Mars is right … even if it makes a tedious movie, it’ll win on eyecandy.

A brilliant single-take music video, for “Grip” by Dutch band zZz. High-quality MPEG4 also available.

(2002, dir. Michael Winterbottom)

Factory Records and its bands occupied thirty to forty percent of my brain between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. I had the most appalling collection of Joy Division and New Order bootlegs. (To the point where the record shop guy granted me access to the box of UK bootleg cassettes under the counter, knowing how far gone an addict I was.) I didn’t get to the stage of dreaming of having my own FAC number, but it was damn close.

24 Hour Party People was a religious experience for me. Wonderfully realised and very amusing.

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First, let’s get into character.

Go find a mirror.

Look into it.

Go “grrrrrrrrrrruff!”

Now hold that look. Hold it … hold it … hold it for 90 minutes.

Congratulations! You are the Vampire Lestat. (Cameron Rogers)

Queen Of The Damned was made in Melbourne with as many local extras as they could scrounge up. A great many of these are posters to the Usenet newsgroup aus.culture.gothic. They had a few words to say concerning the premiere …

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