With the heated debate over the moral repercussions of Eli Roth’s latest blood fest currently dominating the blogosphere, it’s high time to switch over to a lighter and altogether more pleasant subject…

You’ve probably heard by now that they’re planning a Barbarella remake. Some are screaming blasphemy already, but I’m all for it. Apart from the shagadelic art direction and Jane Fonda’s impossibly sexy leading role, the original has lots to improve on.

Robert Rodriguez will be helming the project. Sounds like a groovy choice to me. The guy has a natural flair for superficial, glossy trash and Barbarella’s universe should be right up his alley. What’s more: this is the man who gave us Desperado’s Carolina and Sin City’s Gail, so I trust him to push the costume designs in the appropriate, sleazy direction.

There’s just one big question: How on Earth are they going to find an actress as INSANELY HOT as Jane Fonda in her prime? It’s impossible, right?

Well… almost impossible.

I present you: Katherine Heigl.

A spectacular blonde with dark brown Bambi eyes, a killer body and genuine acting chops. If this isn’t tomorrow’s It-Girl, I’ll eat my shoe before a rolling camera. Honestly, you don’t actually believe it’s the dorky Seth Rogen that’s responsible for drawing massive crowds to Judd Apatow’s sleeper hit comedy Knocked Up, do you? Of course not, it’s Izzie Stevens from Grey’s Anatomy!

Just watch this clip and nod in approval:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vaRY5IHCC4&mode=related&search=]

No need for a screentest: Katherine Heigl is the 5-star double-rated astro-navigatrix of the future!

Sure, I’ve heard the other names that have been tossed around. I love Salma Hayek and Scarlett Johansson, but they’re too short for the role. Uma Thurman or Cameron Diaz? Old hat. Drew Barrymore? Sorry, not up to standard. Angelina Jolie or Rose McGowan? Way too dominant. (Barbarella is submissive at heart, not a sexual predator!) Jessica Alba? Small potatoes. Kate Beckinsale? Hold on–that’s actually a pretty decent second choice, but surely no match for Heigl…

Just picture this girl in a transparent perpex top and plastic thigh-high boots… Mr. Rodriguez, are you paying attention? (And now we’re at it: for God’s sake, keep the title sequence, will ya?)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwNEnh9uaM]

Is anyone with me on this? Am I leaving out any promising contenders? Let me know! Meanwhile, here’s one more pic:

After discovering Dennis Cozzalio’s blog entry on the hilarious Chuck Norris Facts website, I was reminded of the chart below that I had filed under “Nonsense” on my laptop.

Mr. Norris may come with a mean pack of one-liners (There is no chin under Chuck Norris’ Beard. There is only another fist), but mr. Seagal is armed with lethal acting skills. Lev Kuleshov would have a field day experimenting with this master of action cinema.

Sunshine, a sci-fi epic, directed by Danny Boyle, about a team of scientists sent on a mission to reignite a dying sun, is neither a mindless Michael Bay extravaganza nor a chin-strokey affair in the vein of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. It’s the cinematic oxymoron many of us have been waiting for: the thinking man’s action movie. It also happens to be gobsmackingly stunning, ruthlessly intense, handsomely cast and blessed with a 100% INSANE last act that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but had yours truly grinning from ear to ear. Danny Boyle’s Sunshine is a spectacle quite impossible to put into words, and that’s exactly what makes it brilliant cinema–albeit the kind that’s difficult to defend on theoretical grounds.
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Read the rest of this (spoiler-free) article on The House Next Door. Yes, you heard me. Go on now!

Listen up, Negative Space travelers: I need to hear what you think. This week I’m posting three (!) new cartoons (Sparky Goes To Hollywood being the first), and I’ve got a few more in the sketching stage. If you like the sound of that, then this post is for you…

When I posted my first film-related cartoon on the 1st of January this year, I had no idea I’d still be drawing them four months later. These little doodles have turned out to be a very satisfying form of criticism for me. The response so far has been more than positive (both online and in private) and after encouraging words by the likes of Jim Emerson, Matt Seitz, Dennis Cozzalio, Andy Horbal, The Shamus alias That Little Round-Headed Boy and Girish Shambu, I’m seriously getting into the swing of it.

A while ago, 24Lies contributor Bob Cumbow half-jokingly remarked, “Once you have done enough of them, I expect you to publish these cartoons in a book, which I will happily buy for myself and several of my friends.” For someone with a background in graphics, this seemed a tantalizing prospect, albeit a little far-fetched. You just don’t publish and distribute a book that easily. Or do you?

Apparantly, one does. Not long after Bob’s email, I discovered the Print On Demand service Lulu.com, and it dawned on me: I could actually do this. The digital age has finally made it possible. With a little effort, I can self-publish a book – paperback, hardcover, glued or binded – sell it online and have it shipped automatically to anywhere in the world. I wouldn’t have to sell my soul for it, and I’d still own the copyrights. Better yet: publishing won’t cost me a penny–not even if nobody would buy it.

Can you tell I’m excited? 🙂

So there it is: my statement of purpose for 2007. I’m going to continue posting one cartoon a week in the image resolution you’ve grown accustomed to. By the end of the year I’ll have 52 of them. The cartoons will then be collected in bookform (Negative Space Year One?) and printed in their original high-res, full-color glory. I may even decide to include my celluloid fantasia Nighthawks, a 24LiesASecond essay not unlike a cartoon stretched to short story length. As an online publication, Nighthawks suffered from being too long and dense to read on a computer screen, but it might blossom as part of a book.

My questions for you are: Would you be interested in buying this book? If so, would you go for the hardcover coffeetable-version or the cheap pulpy pocket version? Would you want it to come out in time for Christmas? And now we’re at it: Is any of you interested in other publications of this kind? (An anthology of 24LiesASecond essays, for example.)

Perhaps it’s time for us bloggers to reach out beyond cyberspace. What do you think: Is print the final frontier, or an evolutionary step back? See you in the comment section (or drop me an email, if you’re shy)!

OK, you’ll have to allow me this little detour into teenage obsession. When I was about ten, my parents bought me a View-Master with a 3-reel set of Tarzan of the Apes. Being the dreamer that I was – and still am, I suppose – I just loved to get lost inside those stereoscopic images, and I’ve looked at them so often that they must have left a questionable imprint on my young brain. The lush, nightmarish tableaux struck a nerve in me. All that muscle, the big hairy apes, plus a Jane outfit so tight that I kept expecting it to burst open… Let’s be honest: This was nothing less than a sexual awakening.

Unfortunately, I lended my View-Master reels out to a friend, who lost them when he moved to another house. Since then, all I had left was my memory of them. Enter the Internet… More than twenty years later, I googled the words “Tarzan view master” and guess what? There they were: All 21 images collected on a single webpage, captions included! As soon as I discovered this link, a wide grin appeared on my face. Too bad the pictures looked a tad fuzzy, I thought. Then it occurred to me that they were perhaps fuzzy for a reason. I grabbed the red-and-green glasses that came with my son’s Spy Kids 3D DVD (no recommendation), and yes sir: Glorious 3D! A lot of detail, sense of depth and color information got lost in the translation to cyberspace, but this 36-year-old kid is grateful nonetheless.

There’s something about this artwork (a combination of miniatures, clay models and matte paintings?) that I still find incredibly appealing. It’s the sensuous mixture of realism and artifice, kitsch and craft, romance and savagery; the melodramatic poses; the chiaroscuro (some of the lighting is pure Caravaggio); the meticulous staging. This is what Ray Harryhausen‘s wet dreams should look like.

Go get your 3D glasses (I know you saved them in a drawer somewhere) and have a look yourself. Do any of you recognize this View-Master set? Is there someone who can tell me more about who made it, and how? Which animation studio will have the guts to produce a CGI-feature that looks as awesome as this?