Good news for all you sci-fi masochists out there...the Hugo Award winning novels, The Hyperion Cantos, are being adapted into a movie. According to Variety, Day The Earth Stood Still director, Scott Derrickson, is set to helm to the single film.

The sprawling and heavy books encompass a future where humanity has fled far into the galaxy by way of farcaster portals made possible by a symbiotic relationship with a Core (big C) of artificial intelligences. The titular planet, Hyperion, is the centerpiece of the drama, where a group of pilgrims travel, for various and complicated reasons, to visit Time Tombs and combat the elusive Shrike, an unknown entity of razor-sharp limbs who impales people on his big metal tree. Told you it was heavy.

The second book, Fall of Hyperion, goes way beyond the first, and deals with a Messiah main-character, and a war between The Catholic Church, mutated space-humans and computers. It’s all over the place. If you haven’t read them, go pick up the Cantos, immediately. And while I’m excited to see this story on the big screen, I don’t see how they can turn a multi-book, huge storyline like this into a short two or three hours.

[Article & image source]

Newcomers can be forgiven for being a little put off at first by comic Charlyne Yi. Like the late, great comedian Andy Kaufman, it’s impossible to tell if Yi affects an uber-dorky persona as part of her act or if it’s simply who she is. Also like Kaufman, the truth most likely contains elements of both. Those outside her circle of friends will likely never know for sure.

In the similarly half-truth/half-fiction Paper Heart, which premiered at Sundance last week, Yi sets out with director Nicholas Jasenovec (played by actor Jake M. Johnson in the film) to determine what love actually is and whether she herself is capable of such an emotion. Mixed in among interviews with real people in love are scenes from Charlyne’s budding relationship with actor Michael Cera, which grows increasingly troubled as the demands of the film intrude on what ought to be private time getting to know one another.

Yi’s pixie-like appearance and sincere sweetness prove disarming to every interviewee she meets, from stodgy biology professors in Lubbock, TX to jaded fast food marriage ministers – Elvis-impersonating and otherwise – in the sin-filled city of Las Vegas. Her questions are frank and to the point, the answers likewise. Each of the love stories shared in these interviews plays out on-screen in low-budg puppet theater, with the paper-mâché cutout players directed by Yi herself.

Then there’s the possibly-scripted budding relationship between the film’s star and Cera. Almost as soon as Yi denies the possibility that she herself is capable of finding love in the film’s opening moments, she meets Cera at a Los Angeles house party. Their awkward initial encounter eventually gives way to a romance built on common interests. The dreaded “S”-word never once enters the picture. Yi pulls up short of admitting that she may indeed have found love in Cera – and who can blame her, given the young age and for-viewing-pleasure nature of their relationship – but it’s clear enough that her stubborn façade is beginning to crumble.

Paper Heart is a sweet, touching exploration of the concept of love and what it means to different people. The documentary interviews provide a diverting counterpoint to Yi’s more personal story of young love in bloom. Regardless of whether or not it is scripted, the connection she and Cera share exudes an openness and honesty which is an absent ideal in all but the most fortunate of budding relationships, and the film is all the more memorable for it.

Directing: B+
Writing: B
Performances: A
Visual Appeal: B
Overall: B+

Director: Nicholas Jasenovec
Cast: Michael Cera, Charlyne Yi
Genre: Comedy

Reviewed at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival [Article and Image Source]

by igo.com

BOOM! Roasted!

This season of the Office has already surpassed last seasons overly awkward episodes and painful Jan and Michael storylines. We are back to the basics. Jim and Dwight hilariously feuding, Andy randomly singing, Angela being a bitch (but you still want to see her naked), and of course, Pam being so office hot. When the post Super Bowl one-hour special came sliding across my desk, I was a little skeptical. I always want the Office to be so good and for once I was not disappointed. I have not LOL’d this much at one episode in a long, long time. So as not to give too much away, here is a quick list of things you can expect from this episode:

- A Fire Drill
- Michael’s penis being compared to an iPod shuffle
- Someone going to the hospital
- Two trips to the corporate office’s
- Dwight using a knife strapped to his ankle
- A random office group sing-a-long
- Crying
- And the best of them all, the line: BOOM!! Roasted! (it will be a line you will use for year so to come)

So once the Super Bowl is over and you are thinking that you are going to pass out from 8 hours of casual drinking and wing consumption, pound some red bull and make sure you stay awake for this classic in the making.

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