Welcome to The Morning Read.

Hi, there, Cartoon Network.  Congratulations.  You're the new MTV.  Remember when they stopped playing music videos to become the "reality shows about teenagers you hate" channel?  Well, that's you now.  Way to maintain the brand, guys.

Okay, "Lord Of The Flies" just got infinitely creepier.

I thought Kim Voynar's piece on movies and her father was wonderful, and does a nice job of describing the way we attach memories to movies until they become interchangeable.

I find Molly Ringwald's tribute to John Hughes to be both surprisingly frank and unsurprisingly moving.  What a clear-eyed way of summing up the way our relationships with our mentors evolve as our lives progress, completely with disappointment and reconciliation.

Craig Mazin's new story at Popcorn Fiction is another winner from this young but already essential site.  Great stuff.

[more after the jump]

I know this is a movie blog, but I've got other nerdy interests, too, and I demand that you indulge them with me!  For example, I am absolutely blown away by this piece about the Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field experiments, and especially by the video at the end of the piece:

 

 

If that doesn't blow your mind, then I think we're just interested in different things, because that's about ten different kinds of awesome in my book.

Have you watched "Zombie Girl" yet?

It's only on Hulu this week.  And it's worth an hour and a half of your time, absolutely:

 

 

I will confess a massive bias to the subject matter, since I am personally very familiar with Emily Hagins and her mom, having seen them at event after event after event in Austin.  And from the very start, they've been a charming, engaged addition to the Austin film scene.  As much as I feel like I've gotten to know them over the years, and as fond as I've always been of them, seeing "Zombie Girl" underlines exactly why they're such a great fit to that whole film geek army down there: Emily is as geek as geek gets.  I wouldn't recommend the film just because of the subject matter, though... "Zombie Girl" is, regardless of who the film is about, energetically made and very affectionate, and I think it's got a lot to say about the passion it takes to make any film, whether you're Steven Spielberg or a 12-year-old girl who loves zombies.  Seriously.  Check it out.

Here's a quick lesson in who you can trust as a source on a story.  When the only outlet that prints a rumor is The London Mirror, that story is bullshit.  I saw several places pick up the story over the weekend that Brad Pitt was going to be a last-minute addition to "Sherlock Holmes," playing Professor Moriarty.  The story didn't make any sense, though.  The story claimed that studio executives just realized that Moriarty wasn't in the film, and they were so upset that they ordered weeks of reshoots and moved the film off its Christmas release date.  Really?  You mean they never noticed, even though the film was designed specifically to keep Professor Moriarty offstage for the whole film?  In every single draft of the script?  Really?  The studio has not changed the release date, of course, and Brad Pitt is not gearing up for ten days of shooting.  Over the years, I have found the Mirror to be absolutely without credibility, and I would wager that most rumors that start there are created by the staff of the paper based on what they think will get the most attention, no matter how removed from reality it is.  Nonsense.

On the other hand, you might want to listen if Bloody-Disgusting says that Robert Downey Jr. is circling "Interview With The Vampire," intent on playing Lestat.  I think it's an interesting choice, and as much as I love Neil Jordan's take on Anne Rice's world, I think the rest of that series is ripe for adaptation (hopefully heavy adaptation in some cases), and there's no reason "Queen Of The Damned" has to end things completely for Lestat on the bigscreen.  With Hollywood so crazy about vampires right now, I guess it was just a matter of time before they came back around to the character that kickstarted the modern vampire craze, and if Downey does play the part, it's a really canny match of actor and material.

Are you going to "Avatar" Day?  I put in for my tickets this morning, and I hope I get in.  Fox isn't making anything available specifically for press, so I'm in the same boat as anyone else here.  If you're interested, check at the official website, where starting at 12 noon PST today, August 17th, they tried to give away tickets for the upcoming sneak of footage that will take place in IMAX 3D outlets around the world.  Yes, I've already seen the Comic-Con presentation, but (A) there's different material being shown here and (B) I don't care, I want to see it again.  I'm not one of the people that strolled out of San Diego naysaying the film.  I think it looks like a rich and beautiful SF experience, a real adventure in world-building, and I want to see it on an IMAX 3D screen as soon as possible.  There was an official still released over the weekend, which first popped up on /Film, and it's a gorgeous first look at the Avatar for Jake (Sam Worthington), asleep in a biotube, waiting for Jake to connect and take control.

If you're having trouble with the main link above, try this alternate direct link and see if that helps.  That's how I got my seats for the 6 PM show at the Bridge.  The servers are down right now, but they're working to get them up again, and all that means is that you're not too late yet.

BoingBoing's awesome "Mighty Boosh" interview has finally concluded.  You can see part two of it here:

 

 

And then the conclusion, part three, is available now as well:

 

 

I really hope the guys come back to the States to tour, because I'm not missing them a second time.  I'll go see them live, and I really hope I work out an interview with them next time around.  I'm so powerfully jealous of Xeni Jardin right now.

I know this is a very short Morning Read, but I'm off to a G4 appearance this afternoon and I want to get another article up before that, so I'd rather post a short one than none at all.  I'll have plenty more for you tomorrow, including the G4 appearance, so I'll see you back here then.

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

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