Chimpomatic

Nice fan-made Radiohead concert up at YouTube, filmed in Prague by 50 fans armed with HD Flip pocket cameras. Radiohead liked the project so much, they donated the soundboard recording for added fidelity....

interesting looking doc about Drew Struzan, film poster artist

Interesting article over at AICN featuring an unfinished Mickey Mouse cartoon that was shelved for being an awkward length (6m 52), followed by an open letter from Harry to Pixar's John Lasseter with a plea to finish it - along with other hidden treasures in the Disney archive.

Exciting trailer up for the new Danny Boyle movie 127 Hours, with the ever enigmatic James Franco.

new pop up cinema in disused Clerkenwell petrol station nice idea.

Monsters is picking up a lot of buzz recently for it's old-school shocks and clever premise - aliens arrived back on a NASA probe and have been mutating and growing for 6 years.

The movie is a firt-time directorial effort from effects man Gareth Edwards. It's not quite on the same clever-with-the-budget page as Panic Attack, 28 Days Later or Blair Witch, looking more like a low(er) budget version of Cloverfield or even the Dawn of the Dead remake, but certainly attention worhty.

Via Empire

In possibly the first bit of exciting Star Wars news for 10 years, Darth Lucas has announced that the original trilogy will be released on Blu-ray in Fall 2011.

The unaltered original trilogy is now being referred to as the 'classic trilogy' by Lucas, in a not dissimilar way to how Coke back-pedalled out of their new recipe fiasco in the 80's. He has previously put them down as 'workprints' for the eventual grand-vision cartoony versions he released in the 90's and re-tweaked in the 00's.

Of course it was obvious that he would re-jig the films back to their 'classic' state at some point, so if the franchise hasn't been poisoned for you too much this may hopefully be the first time you can get the original films in any kind of decent format. Or more decent than the 90's Laserdisc box at least.

All this info is coming from the Star Wars Celebration V convention being held this weekend, which is providing all sorts of tidbits, articles, links and clips:

• Great article about producer Gary Kurtz vision for a darker Return of the Jedi
• Great Today Show footage from 1980 with Mark Hamill, plus Harrison Ford discussing how much he likes Empire.
• Revelation that Harrison Ford has only seen Empire once.

There was also a screening of one of several deleted scenes that will appear on the Blu-Ray as bonus material. The originally planned opening for ROTJ (below) shows Luke receiving bad vibes from Vadar, while building his own lightsaber and hiding it inside R2D2 - a trick that paid off later in the film. Back when kids couldn't watch the films whenever they wanted I was sure this was the opening to the film - probably as it was in the novelization of the film that I had as an 8-year-old geek. The same goes for Luke watching the space battle at the start of Star Wars through  his binoculars.

Nearly all via La Times or AICN

UPDATE: Woodward & Bernstein might suggest a second source on this. AICN is talking original, original trilogy. No one else is that specific. Lucas just talks about the 'highest picture and audio quality' and how the old versions needed a lot of re-mastering, but StarWars.com doesn't actually specify if Han shoots first.... Whatever. Pick 'em up in the 2012 HMV Biggest Summer Sale Ever.

Loving the love-in-the-microchip-factory vibe of this video for Such Great Heights by The Postal Service from back in 2003. Bands of this size just don't get MTV-Ready videos like this any more. 

Lovely video up from creative agency Johnson Banks to document their re-branding of Virgin Atlantic;s fleet. Doesn't look like the cleanest place to work, but the results are certainly shiny.

Via Brand New

Great round up of pixel power for an attack on New York. 

Devour.com is an attempt to curate YouTube, getting rids of the dancing cats and just leaving the fancy stuff. Not bad, if a little snooty.

Sly Stallone's certainly pulling out all the stops on the PR machine for The Expendables. Check out their amusing custom YouTube page.

Here's the trailer again. In classic 80's style I'll be renting the VHS of this one.

Interesting sequel concept from Shane Meadows - a TV series follow-up to his excellent movie This Is England, set a few years later with the same actors reprising their roles. No big deal maybe, except that star-of-the-show Thomas Turgoose was only 13 in the original and now he's 17. See Channel 4's site for more info.

Although that's got nothing on Richard Linklater's forthcoming movie, which has been 12 years in the making....

Ridley Scott is flexing his advertainment muscles again, this time with the help of Kevin MacDonald for an LG-Sponsored project with YouTube: LIFE IN A DAY.

It's a pretty neat and simple concept - film your day and the 'most compelling and distinctive footage' will be assembled into a film documenting 24 hours on Earth, which is slated to be screened at The Sundance Film Festival. Not bad.

The only problem is what to do during your day in order to make it into this crowd-sourced Koyaanisqatsi. I had a day in front of the TV pencilled in, but that isn't going to impress anybody. I just might have to fake doing something interesting.

Some FAQs here.

In an increasingly common move, there's a free INCEPTION prequel comic online - which adds some non-essential context to the events in the excellent movie (review here). Head here to read/watch/download.

Via AICN

RIP underground comics legend Harvey Pekar 1939-2010