• Buzz keeps building around the French feature film The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec. It seems to cross a little bit of Egyptian mysticism with some insanely improbable archeology, living mummies, and pterodactyls – plus it looks funny, which is no small accomplishment considering I don’t speak French. Tons of new clips have been released, along with sexy photos, and this subtitled trailer.

• This list purports to deduce what your favorite television show, from The Price Is Right to True Blood to Big Bang Theory, says about you. Mostly I think it says that list compilers need to get out of their mother’s basements more often and meet people.

• Parisian photographer Mac Da Cuhna Lopes has a new series called SKLT taken with fanciful skeletons in odd, anticipatory poses, such as this one that appears to be waiting for his owner to arrive home. I’ve no idea if the tail holds together once it starts wagging.

• You’ll have to forgive my gaming knowledge – I’m much more of a Wii Sports guy than I am big PS3/X-Box games, so I know very little about Crysis, and by extension, Crysis 2. But when you see the avatar walking around a desolate New York City, with the saddest version of “New York, New York” I’ve ever heard playing in the background, it does catch the eye.

• In other news that’s depresses me, Meinhardt Raabe died on Friday at age 94. The name may not mean much to you, but you know him best as the Munchkin who pronounced the Wicked Witch of the East “most sincerely dead” in The Wizard of Oz.

• Some viewers are complaining that the new series of Doctor Who is too sexy, with the companion working in the kiss-o-gram business with short skirts and costumes. Plus she ogled The Doctor when he stripped down and changed clothes. I’m actually completely enchanted with what Amelia Pond brings to the table.

• Neil Gaiman has a lovely new illustrated book of stories, Instructions, coming out with artwork by Charles Vess, and to entice us to buy (as if he needed bother), we have this trailer for the book.

• In a scene right out of an iCarly episode, an amusement park mechanic has built a street-legal, V-8 powered Colonial Viper worthy of Kara Thrace.

• Tremors was absolutely one of the campiest monster movies ever produced with a straight face, and is the spiritual father to every SyFy Original Movie ever made. So it seems fitting that 20 years after the release, you’ve got a browser-based video game called Tremerz popping up for you to waste your Monday playing, complete with a misappropriated image of Kevin Bacon.

• Silly comedy Date Night walked away with the weekend box office win with $27.1 million, while Clash of the Titans dropped 55% and held onto second with $26.9 million, while How to Train Your Dragon, in the third week, slipped a mere 11% to $25.4 million for third place. For those keeping score, that means Clash isn’t quite the Watchman-level bomb we suggested it might be — although it’s by no means the runaway-hit the studio wants (and has portrayed) it to be either. We still say a sequel isn’t a given.

• Late news says that Starz doesn’t want to lose their audience for Spartacus: Blood and Sand while star Andy Whitfield undergoes cancer treatment, so they’re developing a six-episode prequel series.

• I’m completely enchanted with the trailer for the indie film  The Boy with a Candy Heart. A piñata maker wanted a child, so she built a boy, and he grew up, and started to work in a candy store, and eventually started dating. The imagery seems clever, with a skinned knee leaking Skittles. I’m curious to see how it holds up beyond trailer length, but I’m hopeful.

• Chris Hemsworth flew in to support baby brother Liam at the premiere of that awful Miley Cyrus movie (best review? Miley Cyrus Upstaged by Sea Turtles). And Access Hollywood got him to take a moment to discuss Thor, and somehow it became a Norse fashion discussion.

• A while back, fantasy king Neil Gaiman responded to a reader complaining about the next Song of Fire and Ice book from George R.R. Martin. His rather blunt response was to say “George R.R. Martin is not your bitch.” This wise piece of rather disappointing information has now been developed and set to music.

• I was looking through the ratings for syndicated shows, and it explains a lot about the fate of Legend of the Seeker. It’s nowhere near a Top 25 syndicated show, and none of the Top 25 have to support original production of a scripted program. Most are reality or game shows. Not fair, is it?

• Just because we hate the idea of things like Battleship, Monopoly, and Candyland (O.K., Candyland could be cool) being made into movies, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t work. This is evidently old, but I’d never seen the trailer for Pacman: The Movie.

• AMC has greenlit The Walking Dead zombie series for six episodes. The latest rumor is that the main role in the series is being eyed by Eli Stone himself, Johnny Lee Miller. I’m not a zombie person, but I have feeling that if zombies are chasing Johnny Lee Miller, it might not be because they’re just after his Braaaaaaains.

• The Bram Stoker Awards have been handed out, and winners include Audrey’s Door by Sarah Langan, Damnable by Hank Schwaebel, and Chimeric Machines by Lucy A. Snyder.

• Brian Froud says work is progressing on Dark Crystal 2, including character build by Henson. The only reason that I’m not terrified of them touching this fond memory is that Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack fame is onboard to direct. Can puppets still thrill us after so many years of CGI?

• I’m not sure, but this bizarre new Muppet music video of ‘Stand By Me” surfaced yesterday. While it’s the classic tune, I keep hearing a children’s song about “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” in my head when I watch him hunting the forest. Maybe puppets can still excite after all these years of CGI.

• We’ve got the first concept art for what is Ridley Scott’s Forever War movie. Honestly, the concept of an elite military task force going off on a brief battle and returning to earth find 20 years lost and everything changed sounds a little tired, but the art looks a little unique for that synopsis.

• There’s a strong rumor that Louis Leterrier is attempting to resurrect Y: The Last Man and get production restarted at New Line. After years of languishing behind less ambitious films, it sounds like someone is interested in bringing it from the page to the screen.

• Whedonesque has all the details on the writers for Firefly: Still Flying, and it’s like a guest list for a dinner party with old friends: Jane Espenson, Ben Edlund, Brett Matthews and Joseph Molina. Now if they could just give us a date.

• Seth Grahame has done an interview about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and why it seemed like the perfect idea. The more I hear about the book, the more I want it for a summer beach read.

• The Iron Man 2 onslaught continues, and now we have a trailer meant to hype why you should see the film in IMAX. There’s a couple of new fight scenes in the film and a much better look at the opposing mechs. Best part is that Tony Stark is so freaking funny.

• When speaking to io9.com, Beth Williams, who’s taking over the production side of Doctor Who talks about bringing The Doctor into the 21^st century (sounds weird to say). From the new TARDIS, to the new Doctor, new sonic screwdriver, and brand new CGI, everything is updated. Much attention has been lavished on the musical score, and they have budget for things like helicopters. Can’t wait for the U.S. premiere.

• I was unaware a Twitter exchange between Craig Ferguson (funniest late night host) and Grant Imahara (MythBusters) was to result in Craig getting a robotic sidekick for the Late Late Show. But delivery of our future robot overlord of comedy is to take place on the April 5^th show.

• Funny thing: On April 1, SyFy had a press release about a new SyFy Original Movie called Scream of the Banshee. Here’s the issue: I have no idea if something this bad is a real film, or if it’s an April Fool’s Day joke. How sad is your production if an entertainment blogger can’t tell the difference?

• The saddest thing to me about Lost approaching the series finale is that I can’t mock it anymore. Unless someone wants to take this drawings for Lost: The Animated Series and turn them into something?

• The first stills from Resident Evil: Afterlife seem to involve a lot of hot women in skintight clothes pointing guns in an unrealistic fashion. The fact that I noticed there were guns in the pictures should tell you something about me.

• Here’s my favorite part of the column, because I was without a closer this week until the last minute. I’m sure you’re all aware of the fantasy web series The Guild, created and starred in by the delicious Felicia Day? Here’s the animated spinoff series, Lil’ Guildies. Have a great weekend!

• Crystal Reed sat down to talk a bit about the new MTV movie/pilot for Teen Wolf, and she swears it doesn’t suck. She claims it has a darker, more romantic tone, and is visually more like True Blood. She also says the wolf is more human than wolf because he’s a young werewolf.

• Doctor Who will arrive on American shores April 17^th, two weeks after it hits the traditional Easter Eve broadcast in the UK.

• Danny Glover is back on the silver screen, this time starring in Dragon Fire as Captain Ahab. If that made you do a double take, it should, because Dragon Fire is Moby Dick, but with dragons instead of a white whale.

• Brian Dorf has another photo gallery of the construction on The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Orlando, and while there’s still some scaffolding up, it looks about ready to put some landscaping down under the roller coaster.

• The Telegraph has this really neat gallery of a sculpture contest sponsored by Scotch tape — you read that right. My favorite piece is the dragon pictured here (it sparkles full size), but you should really go and look at all of them. These are people with talent — and a great deal of time on their hands.

• The ratings for Spartacus: Blood and Sand rebounded considerably from the dip they took against the Opening Ceremonies. In fact, it was almost a series high this past week for the duel against the Shadow of Death.

• I came across two visits to the set of Nightmare on Elm Street 2010, and both said basically the same thing: this might not suck. Dark Horizons describes a few scenes in detail, while Bloody Disgusting emphasizes the stunts and the underpinnings of the world that’s being rebuilt in this film. And we have the trailer below.

• Warner Bros. thinks it can manufacture success like Twilight, and is moving forward with plans for Girl With the Red Riding Hood, a modern update on the Grimm Brothers tale. To ensure success, they’re replaced the wolf with werewolves, and brought in Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke to direct.

• In comics news, launching next week, at the same time as the Star Trek:TNG #24, we have the rather poorly titled Star Trek Movie Adaptation #1, based around the slightly skewed Roddenberry universe of last summer’s film. Looking at a few pages though, all the characters look like Commander Data to me, but I’m not much of an art student.

• The Guardian has a list of tips for aspiring authors from some of the greats in the field, including fantasy legend Neil Gaiman. While most of the authors seem to focus on syntax and structure, I like that Neil focuses on writing, one word after the other. That’s the hardest part, even as a blogger. The first sentence of this news summary took two hours to write. All the others flowed much more easily.

• While we’re talking about Neil Gaiman, he put a short post over on Tor.com saying his very existence in the literary field is entirely Michael Moorecock’s fault. So if by some chance you don’t like Neil, you know where to send the complaints.

• Charles Stross is mainly know for his science fiction, but some of his early work deals with the concept of the occult and monsters, and what would happen if the government had to get involved in regulating that like it does weapons of mass destruction. Which makes a lot of sense in the books, but less when summarized. In any case, he crosses genres, and he recently sat down for a casual interview with Tech4Thought.com to discuss what science fiction is.

• Recently, Action Comics #1 sold for a record $1 million (said best in Dr. Evil voice). Action Comics #1 is the first appearance anywhere of Superman, or after this event, Superwallet. Fortunately, Action Comics #1 ranks at the top of the list for most expensive comics.

• The shooter in the deaths at the University of Alabama played Dungeons & Dragons, so that must of been why the killings happened. Of course it’s not why the killings happened, and people need to stop saying such silly things about such tragic news.

• I’ve groused a bit before about the apparent lack of humor in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and this interview with Jackson Rathbone, who plays Sokka, doesn’t help my concern. Sokka is the comic relief, and the humanizing factor in the cartoon, as he has not bending of the elements. Here he mostly talks about fighting in the movie, and how it helped him for Twilight: Eclipse.

• Matthew Goode has auditioned for the part of Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, which is good news in that they seem to be making progress if auditions are happening. It’s bad news because I just can’t see Matthew Goode as Bilbo — he’s almost impossibly handsome and would make a better elf.

• Fox has picked up the rights to a series of science fiction books by John Twelve Hawks called the Fourth Realm Trilogy and has set Watchmen co-writer Alex Tse to turn them into screenplays. While the description says they’re science fiction, it also says the heroes can use a sort of astral projection to send their spirits into other dimensions, so it seems to scramble some genres. Has anyone read them?

• io9.com gives a gallery of some DC Comics cosplayers from France, and frankly, they’re hot. These are not your normally gathering of geeks – some of these girls could be runway models. As for the guys, well, that looks about normal.

• The most recent ratings for The Legend of the Seeker show that through February 13, it was tying season highs, and looking really good. The only issue I see for renewal is that the syndication market is really rough right now, and original programming is pricey. But this looks like a consistent performance.

• How To Train Your Dragon has stopped bombarding us with silly Olympic spoofs and release a theatrical trailer. I have to admit, the more I see, the less opposed I am to seeing this movie. I’m not sold yet, but I do like some of the action scenes in this trailer, and I’m willing to forgive what I see as an uninspiring animation style.

• Mickey Rourke is in demand these days. Not only is he finishing up his role as Whiplash in Iron Man 2, he’s also being pursued for a couple of fantasy scripts, including the role of Conan’s father in the Conan the Barbarian remake starring Jason Mamoa. Also in the fantasy realm is casting for King Hyperion in War of the Gods with Henry Cavill of Tudors fame.

• There’s a list available of all the authors that are opting out of Google’s book scanning project, and it’s bad news for science fiction and fantasy fans, because all the big favorites are on the list, not just Ursula K. Le Guin.

• Peter Berg’s Battleship movie won’t begin with an alien battle, even if it gets there eventually. And it won’t be in 3D, either, making it a bit of an oddball for action films. But not to worry – Taylor Lautner’s Stretch Armstrong will be reach out from the screen to grab you in full, wondrous 3D.

• I want to finish with two clips from Alice In Wonderland, which is opening next week. The first is the most extensive world building and interview piece we’ve seen to date, and several new actors like the Tweedle’s Matt Lucas appear in it.

• And the second is a short clip from the film where Anne Hathaway as the White Queen makes a magic potion to shrink Alice back to the right size. Some of the ingredients are a little questionable – I might just stay tall.

Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

You’ve never seen anything like Coraline.

The new animated adaptation of the popular children’s book by Neil Gaiman tells a story that is both daring and sophisticated: a girl bored with her distracted, busy parents discovers a secret door in her new house that leads to an alternate reality with a loving, doting “Other Mother” and kindly “Other Father.”

There’s just one problem. They have buttons in place of eyes. And to stay in this almost-perfect family unit, Coraline might have to make a few sacrifices–starting with the fact that she just might have to replace her own eyes with buttons.

Things just get weirder and creepier from there, until Coraline finds herself in the middle of a pre-pubescent retelling of the Faust story.

We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore–or the palace of talking utensils in Beauty and the Beast, or even the harsh post-Apocalyptic landscape of WALL-E.

The overall visual sensibility of the film is amazing, simultaneously both edgy and retro, reminiscent of the Tim Burton-produced trio of flawed stop-motion films, The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, and Corpse Bride–though Coraline is more successful as a whole than even the best of the three Burton projects (by far), Nightmare. (Henry Selick, the director of Coraline, also directed Nightmare and Peach.)

Meanwhile, the stop-motion animation in Coraline, presented in 3-D, is so seamless and complicated that I was convinced it was CGI until the movie was over, and I was able to look the film’s specs up online.

As for the characters, I especially loved the character of the all-knowing cat–a refreshing departure from endless (and totally unfair!) movie portrayals of cats as devious and prissy.

So what’s the problem? Why is Coraline only getting three and a half torches out of five?

Unfortunately, like all the Burton films, Coraline is thematically ambitious and visually sumptuous, but only partly successful as a story. In short, it seriously sags in the second act. Long sequences involving the eccentric characters who live near Coraline feel like padding and, although they too are often visually arresting, simply don’t work. A new character not in the book, Wyborn, who Coraline finds annoying really is annoying.

In addition, after a gripping, unsettling start, the movie’s creep-factor is suddenly dialed down–probably at the behest of some studio executive eager to accommodate the film’s would-be family audiences. But by riveting down the tension, the film seems to lose most of its momentum. Things pick up before a terrific ending, but ironically, the result is a film that seems so leisurely-paced in the middle that it’s almost impossible to imagine an actual child being fully engaged by it.

Which is a real shame. So much of this film is so original and so challenging that, had the unsuccessful plot elements been worked out, it probably would have qualified as a classic.

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