Movie news to make you cry like a little girl...

In a bad way:

The Xanth movie
Why do I think the Christian right media is going to have a field day with Anthony prior to the release of Xanth? I'm calling it here and now, yo.

If it doesn't involve giant ants, there's no point

Singer annoys more X-Men fans

Mere Words Cannot Sum Up this Movie


...but I'll try.

Lionsgate has acquired U.S. distribution rights from Crystal Sky Pictures to the first "Bratz" live-action theatrical feature reports the trades.

The film centers on four teenage girls from diverse backgrounds who use their friendship to discover their individuality,

me: ... and clothing....

is set to begin production in February. Casting has not been announced.

Huh. I wasn't aware that the big-eyed token race fashion dolls *had* individuality, let alone that they were going to discover it through... friendship. By "friendship" I presume they mean trips to the mall... How is this going to work again?

To make y'all feel better though, I'm linking to one of the 300 trailers. Go see it, if you haven't yet. There's nothing like batshit Spartans on a Sunday morning to put you in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Random reading notes

In 1551 the "Company of Merchant Adventurers" was formed "for discovery of regions, dominions, islands and places unknown." It sounds a lot more appealing than most of the clubs I joined as an undergrad.

In 1576 Sir Humphrey Gilbert argued for the existance of a Northwest Passage. He also argued that North America was in reality the lost island of Atlantis.

In 1714 the British givernment formed the Board of Longitude to help solve the problem of determining where a ship was on the globe. The subsequent invention of the sextant, chronometer and improved compasses allowed the calculation of both lattitude and longitude by the 1760s.

Since ancient times, geographers had believed in the existance of a southern continent called the Antipodes that theoretically should exist at the bottom of the world in opposition to the known world. According to tradition, this mysterious land was the real source of the Nile, which flowed beneath the earth's surface under a zome of scorching tropical seas to emerge in Africa. In the Middle Ages, Christians were taught to reject the concept of the Antipodes as being contrary to the word of God, who did not make rain to fall upward , trees to grow downward or men to stand upon their heads. Post-Marco Polo, however, people began to believe that the existance of a vast sourthern continent was needed to counterbalance the northern continents and prevent the world from toppling over.

(...into what? I wonder.)

At any rate, belief in the existance of this continent was so widespread that it was depicted on all the surviving maps we have of the globe after 1477 or so.

That's it for tonight's dose of randomness.