Your first look at the Snipe, a major character in Disney/Pixar's 'Up!', exclusive to HitFix

Credit: Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar

Howdy, kids.  Ahhhh, it's a good morning when you've somehow managed to piss your wife off so much she won't even speak to you, and yet she is on a different continent.  That's just how talented I am.

If you're relatively new to HitFix, joining us after seeing me on G4 or following a link over from Ain't It Cool, take a moment to look around.  And even if you've been reading us for a while now, there are new features going live all the time.  For example, you can now e-mail/Send to a Friend any story, event or blog post.  Event Reminders are NOW working.  You can now set reminders for 15 min, 4 hours, 8 hours and the day before an event.  And on a member's E-Alerts page, you can now add the "Breaking News" option to your alerts.  On the appropriate stories, we can send out an E-mail blast to our users as soon as something goes live, in addition to the daily news blast we already send out.  So check all of that out while you're here.

Hey, how about that new image from "Up!" that we premiered today, eh?  That's the first official image Disney's released to feature not only Dug the Dog and his handy-dandy talking dog collar, but also The Snipe, a mysterious bird which is one of the things that kicks the whole movie off in the first place.  Thanks to Disney for sending that one over.

Did you see that some joker calling himself "Moriarty" published the first part of a story about his set visit to "Sherlock Holmes" in London?  It's worth reading, I guess, if you like weirdos with fake names giving you all your movie news and rumors.

And, man, Harry went review crazy.  I think that's the most reviews I've seen from him in one day in, like, forever.  He wrote about "Adventureland," "Moon," "American Prince," and the "Watchmen" ephemera of both "Tales of the Black Freighter" and "Under the Hood".  That's a whole lotta Grande Rojo all at once.

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I'll give Jay Roach credit for knowing a great title when he sees one.  He's signed on to develop a remake of a documentary, along with Neil Moritz.  It's called "The Complete History of My Sexual Failures."  The film practically writes itself, and I'm curious to see who they attach to star.  That's the thing that really makes or breaks it at this point.

I'm just as interested in the comments that follow this article as I am in the article itself, a short piece about the idea of audiences walking out of "Watchmen" en masse.  And in the comments section, it sounds like a certain percentage of the audience is genuinely offended or upset by some of the more extreme material in the film.  Maybe I am naive.  Maybe I'm too jaded as a viewer.  As much as I know "Watchmen" subverts on purpose, I guess I didn't expect to see the mainstream have quite this convulsive a time trying to digest it.  Even if he never sees the movie, this sort of extreme cultural backlash has to make Alan Moore happy.

There are a number of major implications to this article that ran in Variety about the making of "Tintin."  First, it really does raise the question of job descriptions in the fully digital age.  Is Spielberg the "director" of this film?  Is Peter Jackson the "producer"?  Are they both just artistic collaborators, each playing new, hard-to-define roles in the process?  Whatever they are, I think "Tintin" sounds fascinating, not least because of that script by Stephen Moffat, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish.  That's an exciting roster of writers, and I'm willing to bet this turns out to be something really special.  God only knows how long it is until we actually see any of it in motion, though.  Damn it.

I wonder what the Internet's going to look like in five years.  Or ten.  I wonder how the interconnective nature of it's going to work as the economic models change.  When you read David Carr's column today about how he thinks newspapers can save themselves, there's a lot of radical ideas in there that would change the nature of how we browse, what we read, and I'm only sure of one thing:  the internet will continue to change, and it will have to find new ways to generate revenue as it moves forward.

I find it heartening that even someone like Larry Gelbart still has to struggle to get things he believes in made.  I'm sure he's not crazy about it, but it proves that it's a battle every single time, and all you can do is keep fighting if you believe in what you do.

Preach it, Milius.

Alex Proyas blogged about "Dark City" over at /Film today.

I love Charles Schulz.  I'm familiar with "Sin City."  If only someone would make something that combines the two...

I struggle to find the words to express my amusement at the idea of 20th Century Fox trying to "reboot" their franchise on "Fantastic Four."  Why?  What's changed?  What does Fox know now that they didn't know five years ago?  What's changed at the executive level that means that this will be a different process leading to a different result?  It is alarming to me that people really think like this.  Or that this marketing game might actually play to the fanboy community.  I am no fan of the live-action "Fantastic Four" movies that exist, but I don't think a reboot button should be installed on the desk of every executive in Hollywood so they can just use their release schedules as one more form of development.  "We're going to keep making 'Fantastic Four' movies until one of them is good.  Then we'll copy that one forever."  This is not how you do it, gentlemen.

You know, Robert Popper is a very funny man, so it does not surprise me that he runs a very funny blog that could practically be called, "Hey Check Out This Dude.com," or that I've become addicted to flipping through it.  And while it was this over-literal version of "Penny Lane" that first led me to his blog, I honestly believe this is the funniest blog entry I've ever seen.  And the best part?  That video is seven minutes long.

Why does this exist?  And don't get me wrong... I think Pedro Zemora actually did real good with his media fame, and I think it's nice that MTV wants to memorialize him... but wasn't he the star of a reality show, meaning they have THOUSANDS OF HOURS OF ACTUAL TAPE OF HIM that they could use to maybe edit a new film?  Because it's the real Pedro that is inspiring and worth something as a symbol.  This?  This makes me embarassed for you, MTV, and these days... that's saying something.  It takes a lot for MTV to feel like they've somehow lowered their own personal bar in exploitation.

Sounds like they've started casting for the "Star Wars" live-action show.  I like the premise for the series, and I hope it stands alone as its own thing, that we finally see some "Star Wars" stories told without the weight of the main Skywalker family saga as baggage.  Using a crime family on Coruscant, torn apart by the idea of either joining the Empire or rejecting it... there's potential there.  Especially if Lucas lets his live-action team explore some of the seedier corners of his galaxy.

Of course, the biggest Lucas news online yesterday was the publication of the full transcript of the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" story conferences between Lucas, Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan.  The original post on Mystery Man On Film was a great one, and the transcript is absolutely worth reading if you're interested in the creative process.  What's interesting is how much of the film was hatched pretty much fully-formed in these conferences.  Talk about inspiration.

And it looks like the trailer for "The Pacific," produced by Spielberg and Tom Hanks, has finally shown up online.  It's sort of awesome, which should be no surprise to any fan of "Band of Brothers."

The Morning Read appears here every day, Monday through Friday.  Except when it doesn't.

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