Lucid News for December 18th, 2009

 
This week we have a  look at what happened this week in arts, entertainment and pop culture

Space Oddity to be possible Oscar contender

David Bowie’s son Zowie Bowie, now known as Duncan Jones, has won the Best Picture and the Best Debut Director award for his film Moon at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs), which recognize independent movies made for under $10 million.

Moon stars Sam Rockwell as a solitary caretaker stationed at a mining operation on the Moon along with his minder computer named Gerty, voiced by Kevin Spacey. The award has certainly enhanced Moon’s Oscar chances considering that last year’s winner of BIFA’s Best Picture Award was Slumdog Millionaire, which went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Other winners this year were Michael Caine for a Variety Lifetime Achievement Award, Daniel Day Lewis who won an award for Outstanding Contribution to British Film, while Tom Hardy took Best Actor honours for his role as Charles Bronson in the biopic Bronson based on Britain’s most famous violent prisoner.

Paradox Entertainment is coming out swinging

Paradox Entertainment is developing projects based on the creative genius of Robert E. Howard such as Solomon Kane and Conan. Well now it’s been revealed that they are also going to make a new version of Kull the Conqueror, which will be written by Matthew Sands (Ninja Assassins). If you don’t know the story, Kull of Atlantis became a mercenary and King much like his successor character Conan later did in the ‘Hyborian Age.’ With Kull, Paradox now owns the license to most of the REH stories with the exception of Red Sonja. With any luck, this new Kull movie will be much better than 1997’s Kull the Conqueror, directed by John Nicolella and starring Kevin Sorbo of Hercules TV series fame.

Dracula prequel in the works

Just when you think maybe there’s too much of the vampire on the big screen along comes an interesting prequel concept. The subject this time is Dracula himself in a re-imagining of the 15^th century tyrant Vlad the Impaler, the real life figure that Bram Stoker based Dracula on. Summit Entertainment, flush with money from the blood-sucking Twilight movies, has been interested for some time in the idea of an “action heavy” story of the brutal Romanian prince who resisted the Ottoman Empire. So when the actor Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) handed them a script, and the music video/photographer Anthony Mandler submitted a prepared “300ish” style reel, they decided to go forward with the project. The story of the vengeful Vlad Dracul has been told before, to some extent, in Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula, directed by Joe Chappelle in 2000. There was also a 1975 documentary narrated by Christopher Lee called In Search of Dracula (Calvin Floyd). The film will be produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment production company.

One Hit Wonders of the 2000s “Honoured”

Billboard has named Canadian Daniel Powter and his song “Bad Day” as the one hit-wonder of the decade. The song by Powter, which played on the 5^th season of “American Idol” as the ‘goodbye song’, was number one for five weeks in 2006 and was one of the biggest songs released that year. In order to qualify for this title your second song cannot have reached the Top 25, which was not a problem for Powter because he hasn’t even been back in the Hot 100 since. Next in line for the honour is the hip hop song “Lean Back” by Terror Squad in 2004, and the rap rocker song “Butterfly” by Crazy Town in 2001.

   
Lucid News for December 4th 2009.

The week in arts, entertainment and pop culture

The week in arts, entertainment and pop culture

The way we saw this week in Arts, Entertainment and Pop Culture news