AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Sony Announces Reboot Of Spider-Man Reboot

SAN DIEGO (CAP) - Producers from Sony stunned the Comic-Con audience this week when they announced another "reboot" of the Spider-Man franchise, whose first reboot isn't even slated to appear in theaters until next summer.

"It's clearly time for a reinvention of this venerable character," said Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Amy Pascal, making a surprise appearance at the popular convention. "Frankly, audiences have clearly tired of the incarnation of Spider-Man that will make its debut next July."

Pascal was referring to The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield as the web-slinger, which will be released July 3, 2012. The trailer debuted at Comic-Con last week.

"At the beginning of the trailer I was like, yes! This is the greatest version of Spider-Man ever!" said Josh Carlisle, 21, who had traveled to San Diego from Freehold, N.J. for the event. "But by the end of it I was like, eh, I'm ready for something different."

Pascal said she expected the reboot of the reboot, tentatively titled Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, to be ready in time for a summer 2014 release. She told the crowd she expected many of the classic elements to remain, including a red-and-blue costume with a spider on it. But she said other elements would be different; for instance Peter Parker will likely be black or Hispanic, and possibly gay, with "Flash" Thompson mentioned as a likely love interest.

"Also, Spider-Man's webbing will come out of his rear end, like an actual spider," said Pascal. "That's if we can do that and still get a PG-13 rating."

This announcement led to a three-hour panel discussion among fans as to whether the butt webbing should be organic, or the result of web-shooters that Peter Parker invents and sticks up his butt.

"Dude, you absolutely can't have organic butt webbing and still be true to the spirit of the comic books!" said Carlisle, prompting a group of fans in hastily scrawled NO ORGANIC BUTT WEBBING t-shirts to rattle their Mountain Dew cans in approval.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

The Conan the Barbarian original score is making me nervous

I get a lot of publicity emails about upcoming movies and CDs, but I have to admit that something seems a little off in the one for the "Conan the Barbarian Motion Picture Score." It could have something to do with the titles of the various pieces. Take a look at the press release:

***

Conan The Barbarian Original Motion Picture Score features music by recording artist, composer, and music producer Tyler Bates. Bates is known for his surprising juxtapositions of music styles and flair for delicate, atmospheric touches, as well as stressing emotional vibrancy. All of these should come in handy in a movie like "Conan The Barbarian."

Original Motion Picture Score track-listing is as follows:

1.Prologue (2:09)

2.You Can Call Him Conan ... But Don't Call Him Late for the Beheading (3:35)

3. Beheading (2:49)

4. Flogging (3:15)

5.Old Fashioned Cimmerian Draw and Quartering (3:19)

6.Another Beheading (1:54)

7.Me and My Broadsword (3:08)

8.Horse Chase (2:37)

9.Donkey Chase (3:36)

10.Other Activities You Can Do With Donkeys (1:44)

11.Monastery Battle: Do You Feel Lucky, Monk? (1:10)

12.Catapult! (3:03)

13.Boiling Oil (2:51)

14.Beheading Again (2:36)

15.Obligatory Sex Scene (:55)

16.Buddy Can You Spare a Loin Cloth? (4:50)

17.A Battle of Wits (:8)

18.I've Grown Accustomed to Your Breastplate (2:42)

19.Zym's Demise (1:56)

20.Zod's Demise (2:41)

21.Shemp's Demise (2:37)

22.A Bunch of Other Demises (11:21)

23.Happily Ever After (2:08)

24. Beheading (2:28)

When I hear 'Springsteen,' I think, 'polymer roofing tile.'

I can’t be positive, but in looking at this press release that name-drops "Born in the U.S.A.," I think it may be even worse than what Reagan did with it:

“Born in the U.S.A.” Roofing Colors

KANSAS CITY, KAN. – Several hundred miles north of Asbury Park, N. J., where Bruce Springsteen originally sang his heart out about being “Born in the U.S.A.” lies a region known as “Slate Valley.” The 24-mile long, six-mile wide area stretching northward from Granville, N. Y. and Rupert, Vt. to Fair Haven, Vt. is the true home to “Born in the U.S.A.” slate roofing colors.

The chemical and mineral composition of the veins of slate in this area produce a rare variety of colors — green, gray, gray black, purple, mottled green and purple, and red. This small region is the only place in the world where these natural slate colors are found.

“Move westward on the map to Kansas City and you’ll find this rainbow of slate colors can also be found in what I like to call the ‘Colored Polymer Slate Capital’ of the world,” says national color expert Kate Smith, president of Sensational Color. “DaVinci Roofscapes, which manufactures all its products in the U.S.A., has perfectly duplicated these rich colors in their polymer slate roofing tiles.”

And in case you were wondering, this is what they look like:

Just picture Bruce Springsteen’s butt in front of that and suddenly it all makes sense.

(More about Springsteen at my other blog, Blogness on the Edge of Town.)

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: Murdoch Scandal Proves Existence Of Newspapers

LONDON (CAP) - The phone-hacking scandal that brought down media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Of The World

newspaper has shocked millions who had no idea that newspapers were still being published.

"So you're telling me they're still printing the bloody things? On paper?" asked Sarah Murphy, 27, of Tottenham. "That's just crackers."

News Of The World staffers apparently used the information garnered from illegal cell phone hacking for "stories" that they subsequently published on newsprint via large, expensive "printing presses."

The resulting newspapers were then carried - often via truck or similar gas-powered delivery vehicle - to people's homes and retail outlets. This practice is still going on in some places today, despite the common belief that all news is delivered over the Internet, primarily via Google.

"I'm just gobsmacked," said Harry Murch, 32, of Borehamwood, upon being told of the News Of The World scandal. "I thought Google had figured out a bloody algorithm to generate news at least five years ago."

The situation is reminiscent of what happened with the once-venerable Boston Globe, which ceased publication in 2010 and "almost nobody noticed," said Boston-area media critic David O'Kennedy.

"There are probably thousands of people who assume the Boston Globe is still being published today," said O'Kennedy. "You hear stories of the occasional elderly person shuffling up to the shuttered building to try to place a classified listing - it's very sad."

Apparently in America, many readers thought the only newspaper left was USA Today, which rebounded from declining circulation in 2007 when it announced that it would only publish photos of attractive people. And by 2009, studies showed that most teenagers could not identify a newspaper when presented with one, with some of them finding the unfamiliar combination of paper and ink "extremely disturbing."

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: NASA Prepares To Shoot Nancy Grace Into Space

ATLANTA (CAP) - Headline News talk show host Nancy Grace said she is "honored and humbled" to have been chosen to be shot into space as part of NASA's first follow-up to the soon-to-be-defunct shuttle program.

"I am not a preacher, and I am definitely not a rabbi," Grace told CNN's Piers Morgan yesterday. "But as I accept this honor, I would say that the devil is doing the opposite of dancing tonight, whatever that would be. Maybe just sitting quietly in hell, not drinking champagne. Something like that."

Grace has been in the public spotlight recently with her coverage of so-called "tot mom" Casey Anthony, who was acquitted of murder charges last week despite Grace's assertion that she was "the most guilty person ever to exist in the long, sordid history of guilt."

"Even more guilty than that lady I talked into committing suicide that time," she added.

She also referred to the jury in the case as being "full of kooky kook-heads" and spent a full 20 minutes of her most recent show throwing darts at 8-by-10 glossy headshots of the jury members.

"Hey, I got Juror No. 3 right in the eyeball!" exclaimed Grace after one particularly accurate toss. Then she looked directly into the camera, raised an eyebrow and said, "Does that give you any ... ideas?" followed by a laugh that one cameraman, who asked not to be identified, described as "the most bone-chilling sound I've ever heard."

"And I used to work in a slaughterhouse," he added.

According to NASA spokesman Marvin Federer, a panel made up of astronauts, scientists, administrators and elected officials was unanimous in its choice of Grace to be the premier participant in its new Shuttle+ project.

"The project involves sealing someone in a seven-foot-long capsule, placing them in a state of suspended animation and shooting them into space for seven to 10 years," said Federer. "Nancy was the first name that came up."

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

AT LARGE Fake News Wednesday: Study - Transformers 3 Same Movie As Transformers 2

WASHINGTON D.C. (CAP) - A new study conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that the new Transformers movie, Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is actually the same movie as 2009's Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, and more than 80 percent identical to 2007's original Transformers.

"Some of the scenes are in a different order, and the soundtrack has been altered slightly," said Dr. Francis Spitznagel of the Pew Center. "But for all intents and purposes they're the same movie - you could watch the first half of the second one and the second half of the third one and not notice more than a marginal difference."

In fact, the study shows that for most of Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, the only difference is the digital insertion of Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley into several scenes that had previously featured Megan Fox.

"Although even in those cases, our researchers determined that Huntington-Whiteley was more than 80 percent identical to Fox," Spitznagel noted.

As for star Shia LaBeouf, the study determined that all three movies combined (total running times: 9 1/2 hours) required no more than 25 minutes of footage of LaBeouf, possibly 15 minutes if it turns out his facial expressions were changed digitally in post-production.

"Not that they changed that much," noted Spitzagel.

To perform the study, Spitznagel's team of researchers dissected all three movies frame by frame, which resulted in at least three of them being admitted to Georgetown University Hospital suffering from mental exhaustion and hearing loss.

"Subsequent examination showed they had actually lost 8-10 IQ points," said Spitznagel, who noted many of the researchers begged to be put back on the study counting pictures of cats on the Internet.

The study comes on the heels of the rumors posted at both TMZ and PerezHilton.com that the recent Pirates Of The Caribbean sequel, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, was actually cobbled together from outtakes from the first three movies and footage of the animatronic Johnny Depp from the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disney World.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]