MAD Magazine Animated Series Now on Cartoon Network
Sep 9th
Are there any loyal readers of Mad Magazine still out there? I’m talking to you ancient scions of decades past, who still remember what it to hold an actual printed publication in hand, with sole purpose of seeking out a few yuk-yuks in order to remind yourself of the lighter side of life (see what I did there?).
Well if Mad TV was never really enough for you Mad Magazine purists out there, then maybe you’ll be happy to hear that the (arguably) best element of that show – the animated portions – are now being set center stage in their own TV series on the Cartoon Network, appropriately title MAD.
The series debuted this past Monday (Labor Day) at 8:30 pm on Cartoon Network. The format is a 15-minute show (a la Robot Chicken) and…
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Pixar Considering Animated Dr. Strange Movie?
Sep 9th
Pixar may be working on a new superhero project far different in tone and content than their acclaimed 2004 hit The Incredibles – the animation powerhouse is reportedly looking into adapting Marvel’s Dr. Strange comic book series as a CGI movie.
This suggestion comes via British comic book artist Brendan McCarthy, who revealed in a recent interview with Bad Librarianship that he was “… over in Hollywood earlier this year mooching about, and I had a meeting at Disney and the conversation drifted around to Pixar animating a Dr. Strange movie.”
Marvel hired writers last June to begin work on a screenplay for a cinematic adaptation of Dr. Strange. That live-action project may not be either a feature-length or solo effort for the character, whose popularity outside of the comic…
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New Behind the Scenes ‘Devil’ Featurette
Sep 9th
A new behind the scenes featurette for Devil has been released, the forthcoming horror-thriller about five strangers trapped in an elevator who soon realize that one of them is not who/what they appear to be.
It’s an intriguing premise and I really hope that the directorial efforts of The Dowdle Brothers can do the idea justice. The film comes “from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan” as the promos all state, but I’m not so sure they should be bragging about that considering his movies have gone seriously downhill ever since Signs (the crowd at Comic-Con went from silently interested to booing when Shyamalan’s name came up onscreen during the trailer).
Nevertheless, Shyamalan only wrote the story for Devil (although the actual screenplay was written by Brian Nelson of 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy) and produced…
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Jeremy Renner & Noomi Rapace May Play ‘Hansel and Gretel’
Sep 9th
Over the years there have been plenty of adaptations of the classic fairytale Hansel and Gretel, from a 1954 stop-motion animated film to an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which put a new twist on the tale (to name but a couple).
We’re reportedly going to be getting yet another version of the tale, entitled Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters which is set to be helmed by Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow), who is making his English-language debut. That news apparently became known awhile back, but now we learn who may end up portraying the titular characters.
Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner, was doing an interview for Ben Affleck’s The Town at the Venice Film Festival and let slip that he’s up for the role of Hansel,…
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Bank freezes rates at record 0.5% low
Sep 9th
The Bank of England kept its key lending rate at a record low level of 0.50 percent for the eighteenth month running on Thursday, as data shows Britain‘s strong recovery from recession is stalling.
The central bank also kept easy money flowing to the economy.
“The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5 percent,” the BoE said in a brief statement following its latest monthly meeting.
The central bank also decided against altering its quantitative easing (QE) policy, under which it has pumped 200 billion pounds (242 billion euros, 308 billion dollars) of new money into the economy to fight the recent recession.
Decisions by the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to leave rates and QE unchanged after a two-day meeting had been widely expected by the markets.
The BoE’s reasoning behind its decisions will be made available when minutes of the gathering are published on September 22.
“The MPC may very well be becoming increasingly worried about the risk of a double-dip (recession), particularly given the recent markedly weaker surveys relating to services, manufacturing and construction activity in August,” IHS Global Insight analyst Howard Archer said following the latest policy announcements.
Meanwhile ahead of the Bank’s statement, official data released on Thursday showed that Britain’s trade-in-goods deficit had hit a record high level of 8.7 billion pounds in July.
Even though Britain’s economy grew at its fastest pace for nine years in the second quarter, it faces a difficult future as spending cuts and tax hikes bite.
Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 1.2 percent between April and June to record the fastest quarter-on-quarter growth since 2001.
“However, recent economic data suggest that the Bank’s current laissez-faire attitude towards monetary policy could be about to change,” said Benjamin Williamson, a senior economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research.
“It seems increasingly clear that a greater amount of monetary stimulus (in the form of QE) is required.”
Williamson noted that industrial production data published on Wednesday “provided further evidence that growth in the UK economy will ease over the third quarter.
“And today’s trade figures … suggest that the government’s plan for an export-led recovery is still some way off,” he added.
Britain emerged from a record recession in the fourth quarter of 2009, a few months before a general election saw a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition take power following defeat for the ruling Labour party.
The new government, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, has meanwhile moved swiftly to cut billions of pounds from public spending as it seeks to slash a huge pubic deficit.
From January meanwhile VAT — a tax levied on the sale of goods and services — rises to 20 percent from 17.5 percent, fuelling fears that British inflation could rise again after a recent fall.
The latest data showed that Britain’s annual inflation rate eased in July to 3.1 percent — though still far above the BoE’s target of 2.0 percent.
Nigerian police hunt hundreds of escaped prisoners
Sep 9th
Police hunted hundreds of inmates Thursday who escaped when suspected Islamists used machine guns and bombs in a Nigerian prison attack, while authorities warned other jails may be vulnerable.
The Islamist sect suspected in the attack that freed more than 700 prisoners had launched an uprising in the country’s north last year put down by a brutal assault, and Nigeria’s government said it would move to prevent a repeat.
More than 100 alleged members of the extremist group were among those who escaped in the Tuesday night siege in the northern city of Bauchi, police said.
The interior minister said the attackers, believed to be from a sect known as Boko Haram, used “overwhelming firepower,” and police described them as being armed with machine guns and homemade bombs.
They set fire to a section of the prison complex and fought a fierce gun battle with authorities. Police said four people were killed.
“We also wish to warn any potential troublemakers that the federal government will not fold its arms and allow the situation to degenerate unchecked,” interior minister Emmanuel Ihenacho said.
Leaflets were found at the scene after the attack warning of further violence and saying in the Hausa language that “this holy work was made possible by Allah’s grace, under the auspices of your mujahideen brethren.”
The head of Nigeria’s prisons visited the jail on Wednesday and said security would be tightened at other detention centres, particularly in areas that have been targeted in the past by the Islamists.
“We know there are some vulnerable prisons around,” said Olusola Ogundipe, naming two northern areas in particular, including Maiduguri, which was the centre of last year’s uprising. “We have beefed up security in these places.”
Police said a total of 721 inmates were freed in the attack, including 105 suspected sect members. Thirty-five had been re-arrested, they said.
According to Ogundipe, more than 120 prisoners had returned on their own. He said authorities were “combing everywhere” to find the suspects and escaped prisoners, and checkpoints were set up throughout the area.
Bauchi state police commissioner Danlami Yar’Adua said 11 suspected sect members had been arrested.
The attackers numbered around 200, officials said, and witnesses described terrifying scenes.
Bullet casings littered the area on Wednesday and the front gate to the prison was blackened by fire.
“They came in large numbers, heavily armed, and began shooting at the prison gate,” a prison guard, Salisu Mohammed, told AFP. “Some of us were hit while others fled.”
He said the attackers “gained access and moved from cell to cell, breaking in and freeing the inmates. They set fire to a section of the prison and burnt the vehicles parked outside the gate.”
One resident said the alleged sect members were chanting “Allahu Akbar” — or God is great — when they arrived.
Recent shootings blamed on sect members had signalled the group might be preparing to strike again in Africa‘s most populous nation, roughly divided in half between Christians and Muslims.
Last year’s uprising began with attacks on police posts, and police were among the victims of the recent attacks by motorcycle-riding gunmen in northern Nigeria.
The 2009 uprising was crushed by a police and military assault, with hundreds eventually killed and the sect’s headquarters and mosque left in ruins.
Tuesday’s attack came on the same day officials announced January 22 as the date for Nigeria’s presidential vote and was an ominous sign in a country where elections have often been tainted by violence.
Boko Haram means “Western education is sin” in local Hausa dialect, though the sect has been known by various names, including the Nigerian Taliban. It had fought for the creation of an Islamic state in Nigeria.
Philippines says police may have shot some hostages
Sep 9th
Philippine investigators admitted for the first time Thursday that police may have shot some of the tourists in a bungled operation that left eight Hong Kong residents dead on a bus in Manila.
President Benigno Aquino said he expects to get the investigators’ final report into the hostage incident on September 15, and pledged to fire officials found to have failed in their duties or file criminal charges against them.
“Our government is now focused on taking the necessary steps to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again,” he said in a live interview on national television.
“Let me just say that this incident will not define this administration.”
Armed with an assault rifle and a pistol, sacked policeman Rolando Mendoza took a busload of tourists hostage on August 23 in a desperate bid to clear himself of extortion charges and get his old job back.
Eight of the tourists were killed and seven others were injured in the central Manila standoff.
Police initially insisted the bullets that killed the tourists were all fired from Mendoza’s guns. Other bullets were fired into the bus by police snipers and an assault unit but they did not lead to fatalities, they had said.
But Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said Thursday: “There is a big possibility that there (was) friendly fire.”
De Lima, head of an official inquiry, also said the forensic reports on some of the slain victims did not match the account of the driver of the tourist bus, who had told investigators the gunman shot the tourists at close range.
“What is crucial, occupying our minds, is if the shots were made at close range, (these) are not consistent with forensic findings,” she added.
The entry points of the these wounds did not exhibit burn marks caused by the muzzle of a gun that was fired close by, she added.
Asked whether at least some of the victims could have been killed by “friendly fire,” de Lima said: “We are not focusing (on that), but we should never miss that. Otherwise our report will be less than thorough.”
The panel has asked the Hong Kong police to help with the ballistics aspect of the investigation, she added.
“Where did the shots come from, the hostage-taker, the assault team, or other teams? We doubt they all came from snipers and assault teams,” said de Lima.
Ballistics experts say some of the bullets that hit the bus were fired from a distance further than the location of the snipers, raising the possibility that other units deployed in the area could have fired into the bus, she said.
Aquino has taken responsibility for the fiasco that has chilled ties with Hong Kong and damaged the Philippine tourism industry.
He vowed Thursday to form an elite force, based on Britain‘s Special Air Service (SAS) to deal with similar hostage incidents in the future.
“We will copy to a degree the formation of that national unit,” which would be made up of between 200 and 400 soldiers and police capable of responding to any threat in any part of the country, he said.
Aquino said de Lima’s report will serve as the basis for dealing with police and government officials who handled the Hong Kong tourist bus hostage crisis. This could include possible criminal cases, he added.
The president said he has asked the former Manila police chief Rodolfo Magtibay, who went on leave amid criticism of his role as ground commander during the hostage crisis, to file for an early retirement.