The truth about 'X-Files 2'

The following article was taken from CNN.com:

'X-Files' creator Chris Carter, writer Frank Spotnitz and other crew members gathered last Wednesday to discuss the TV series - and declassify some information about the upcoming film.

The popular Fox paranormal drama, which aired from 1993 to 2002, starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

"While this is not a mythology movie, it's true to everything that's come before," Spotnitz said at the William S. Paley Television Festival. "It's true to Mulder and Scully, who they are and where they would be this point in their lives and all of the experiences that they've had."

The series first made the leap to the big screen with 1998's "The X-Files: Fight the Future." Plans for another film were grounded in 2005 when Carter sued Fox over syndication profits for the show. The lawsuit was later settled.

Carter, who also directs the new movie, said it takes place in the present and uses a story envisioned when the series ended. While the show's sprawling alien mythology isn't part of the plot, Carter said there is a reference to Scully's seemingly supernatural son, William, who was born in season eight and later given up for adoption.

The film is due out July 25.

Carter was tightlipped about the title.

"I can't tell you," he said. "I know what I want it to be, but Fox has some ideas of their own."

Is Obama related to Clinton?

US Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt and Hillary Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend Angelina Jolie, a genealogical society has said.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society have discovered that Jolie and Clinton are ninth cousins, twice removed, while Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also related to Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette, researchers found. Other cousins include Camilla Parker Bowles and Jack Kerouac.

Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, on the other hand, shares his ancestry with six US presidents, including current commander in chief, George W. Bush, and his father, George H.W. Bush.

Other far-reaching Obama relations include Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison, as well as Vice President Dick Cheney and Sir Winston Churchill.

Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.

"It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn't necessarily expect," Child said.

Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates' genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts, author of the 1989 book, "Ancestors of American Presidents."

'Storm Riders 2' is coming

Universe Entertainment has just announced the production of their latest big-budget fantasy sequel 'Storm Riders 2', featuring the return of Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng as Cloud and Wind in the comic-book adaptation.

The $12 million sequel to the 1998 smash hit will start next month. Directors Danny and Oxide Pang ('The Eye') are spending big on post-production to get a '300' kind of feel to the movie.

The film is slated for release by the end of 2009 in Hong Kong, China and Asia.

'Storm Riders 2' will be the first Hong Kong movie that is filmed exclusively on blue screen and custom-made sets. Frankly I was not impressed with the visual effects in the first movie. I thought it was too fake-looking. Hopefully, after 10 years, the technology has improved.

The movie also stars Simon Yam as Lord Godless, Nicholas Tse as Heart, Charlene Choias Second Dream and rising star , Tiffany T, will play Chu Chu.

'Storm Riders 2' is an adaptation of comic master Ma Wing Shing's 1990s best-selling 'Fung Wan'.

***UPDATED 10-DEC-2008***
'Storm Riders 2' will also be known as 'Storm Warriors'. The Pang Brothers' sequel has been shooting for a while in Mainland China and now the teaser for the film, coming next year from Universe, has just been released.

Click here to view.

In the meantime, there's an animated version currently doing it's round in the cinemas. The movie is called 'Storm Riders - Clash of Evils'. It basically starts where the first live-action 'Storm Riders' left off, with orphaned martial artists Wind and Cloud taking on Conquer, the man who murdered their parents in order to make them his disciples and secure his rule of the martial arts world.

Review: August Rush

'August Rush' is one of those soppy, predictable, uplifting movie that you can't help but fall in love with!

The main character in the movie is Evan Taylor played by talented Freddie Highmore (from 'Finding Neverland' and 'The Spiderwick Chronicles'). Evan is being raised in an orphanage with no contact with his parents.

Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Evan's parents were a famous concert cellist named Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), and Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an Irish guitarist and lead singer from a rock band. They met and fell in love in one night, but through a series of events, were separated. Late in her pregnancy, Lyla was in a car accident and was told by her father (William Sadler) that her child didn't survive.

Evan believes that by creating and playing music, it will bring him back to his parent. So he runs away from the orphanage and head out to New York where he meets some colorful characters who teach him music.

Although some people might scoff at the logical flaws of the movie, I must stress that this is a 'fairy-tale' and the filmmakers must be applauded for making this as entertaining and uplifting as it can be.

My favorite aspect of the movie is definitely the music. The muscial performance by the stars are simply magical, especially Freddie Highmore's solo guitar performance (even though it was not really performed by him).

Overall, this is one of the best movies of the year. Don't miss this.

Final 'Harry Potter' book to be 2 movies

Harry Potter will be pleased to know that the eighth book in the series will be split into 2 movies.

Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday that the final book 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' will be made into 2 films, with the first slated for November 2010 with the second part following in May 2011.

"It was born out of purely creative reasons," producer David Heyman told the Times. "Unlike every other book, you cannot remove elements of this book."

The two final 'Potter' films will be shot concurrently, much like the 'Lord Of The Rings' trilogy.

Get ready for a new election campaign!

Now that the election fever is over for us Malaysians, it's time to get ready for a new election campaign....well, a fictitious one anyway.

IBelieveinHarveyDent.com is a website launched as part of the marketing campaign for the upcoming Batman movie, 'The Dark Knight'. The website is part of Harvey Dent's campaign in his run for District Attorney in Gotham City.


The website is asking supporters to submit pictures and videos of themselves holding the campaign poster (which can be downloaded from the website as well).

Another viral site is WhySoSerious.com which is supposed to be The Joker's website. Previously the site is contains a scavenger hunt with hidden messages, instructing fans to uncover clues at certain locations. Recently the site has been changed to link to another site called 'Rory's Death Kiss' where fans could submit photographs of themselves dressed up as the Joker. Those who sent photos were mailed a copy of a fictional newspaper called 'The Gotham Times', the online version of which led to the discovery of numerous other websites.

Harvey Dent will be played by Aaron Eckhart in the movie. Christian Bale reprises his role as Batman. 'The Dark Knight' opens in cinemas in July 2008.

(*spoilers ahead*)
Harvey Dent's campaign against crime ends tragically during the prosecution of crime boss Sal Maroni for murder. Enraged Maroni throws sulfuric acid on Dent, resulting in one side of his face horribly scarred.the left half of his face while leaving the other half undamaged. Dent's disfigurement brings out his latent multiple personality disorder and transforms him into the villainous Two-Face.

***UPDATES***
Two more websites have surfaced - Gotham City Clerk and Gotham Election Board. Not much info on these sites yet. Check back later for details.

New Iron Man Poster

New channel for women

It's time for women to reclaim the remote!

Korean American television personality May Lee says that Asia's modern women need a new voice. Which is why she is helping to launch a new channel which would focus solely on women. The Lotus Channel launches into a gap for a chic, sexy, useful television destination that doesn't pretend to be anything other than 100% focused on women.

Lotus Channel, targeting women aged 25-45, is looking to roll out in Southeast Asia by second quarter 2008.

Shopaholic comes to the big screen

Fans of Sophie Kinsella would be glad to know that the author's best-selling novel 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' will be coming to the big screen soon.

Sophie Kinsella, aka Madeleine Wickham, raced to the top of the bestseller lists in September 2000 when her novel 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' was published. To date, there are 6 books in the Shopaholic series. The entire series has been optioned by Hollywood.

Here's the synopsis:

The story is about 25-year old Rebecca Bloomwood who has a very boring job writing for a financial magazine. Her weakness is her shopping addiction.

When she was offered a hefty line of credit by a London bank, she blew the limits within a few short months, and begins furtively to scan her credit-card bills at work, certain that she couldn't have spent the reported sums. Struggling with her spendthrift impulses, she tries to heed the advice of an expert and appreciate life's cheaper pleasures: parks, museums, and so forth.

Eventually, Rebecca's uncontrollable shopping and her "imaginative" solutions to her debt attract the attention not only of her bank manager but of handsome Luke Brandon - a multimillionaire PR representative.

The lead role of Rebecca will be played by Isla Fisher. Isla is a former soap opera star who managed to break into mainstream Hollywood movies recently with roles in 'Wedding Crashers', 'The Lookout' and 'Definitely, Maybe'. Hugh Dancy ('Blood And Chocolate') will play the romantic lead role.

John Goodman, Joan Cusack and Krysten Ritter co-stars.

The romantic comedy will be directed by PJ Hogan and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The following are some other novels which will be made to movies:

• PS I Love You (Cecelia Ahern)
• Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
• Nim's Island (Wendy Orr and Kerry Millard)
• Marley and Me (John Grogan)
• jPod (Douglas Coupland)
• The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
• Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
• The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho and Alan R. Clarke)
• Angels & Demons (Dan Brown)

How to download videos from YouTube

Have you ever came across a cool video in YouTube and wanted to download it? Well, YouTube does not allow downloading of its video easily (unless you search in your cache file). Even then the format of the YouTube videos are in FLV and you probably have to download a FLV viewerto play the video on its own.

1-Click YouTube Batch Downloader

Anyway, I came across this excellent software which enables you to download videos from YouTube - either a single video or multiple videos in a batch. You can select the format of the downloaded videos as well (eg. MP4, WMV, AVI) The program is fairly easy to use, and comes with some video tutorials as well.

Click here to go directly to the Home Page to download the program. The software is freeware and adware-free.

Is David Archuleta the next American Idol?

David James Archuleta is a Honduran American with dark brown hair and hazel eyes who was born on December 28, 1990 in Miami, Florida, USA. When he was 12 years old, David won the Junior Singer category of Star Search. Four years later, David Archuleta auditioned for the 2008 American Idol in San Diego and won his ticket to the Hollywood auditions. After the last 2 performances ('Shop Around'and 'Imagine'), David is considered to be one of the front-runners in the show. Seeing how the producers and judges of AI is grooming him, many people have predicted that he will be the next American Idol.

Michael Slezak, from Entertainment Weekly says:

"I think at this point calling him the 'early front-runner' would be an understatement. He's that cuddly, cute contestant that tweens and grandmas alike can get behind, and that's a pretty powerful voting bloc. We've seen what Sanjaya Malakar and John Stevens and Kevin Covais did in the competition without being particularly great vocalists, just on the cute, teen merits alone, that I think this kid has that plus — what we've seen so far — a pretty good singing voice. I don't know if I'm ready to call it a great singing voice yet. It's too early to hand him the competition, but on the other hand, if someone said bet all your money on one contestant to win, it would be David Archuleta."