Song of the Week | "Andrew in Drag" by The Magnetic Fields

NSFW

Terra Nova cancelled, Tarzan arrested, and other news

Seems like a lot of cool/interesting stuff happened this week. Let's recap.

Terra Nova cancelled

• FOX announced that there would be no second season for Terra Nova, at least not on their network. The show was a modest ratings success, but not the blockbuster hit it needed to be to justify its expense. It never came together well creatively either. FOX was trying to figure out how to tweak a potential second season, but gave up.
  
  I'm not a fan of the mediocre relationship drama of the show - especially the way it sidelines the dinosaurs - but my son likes it pretty well and I've heard from other fans who are disappointed by this news. There may be a glimmer of hope for those folks. Though nothing's been signed yet, Netflix is thinking about picking it up.

My new favorite Tarzan movie

• Over at  Flick Attack, I reviewed Tarzan and the Valley of Gold.

MIT Certificates of Piracy

• The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has had a secret pirate program this whole time.

Ron Ely Tarzan series on DVD

• Finally! When I was growing up, this was my Tarzan. [Atomic Pulp]

Kickstart an ERB documentary

• Filmmaker Mark Linthicum is hoping to crowdsource a film exploring the life, imagination, and legacy of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

James Cameron's 3D underwater documentary

• The Titanic filmmaker already has co-funding for his trip to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench and Deepsea Challenge, the film documenting it.

Tarzan arrested for keeping tigers

• Steve Sipek (aka Steve Hawkes) starred in a couple of Spanish/Italian Tarzan films in 1969 and 1972. It was during the filming of the second of these, Tarzan and the Brown Prince that something amazing happened. According to The Wild Eye:

During the shooting of a scene in which Tarzan had been tied down to be tortured, some spilled fuel ignited. The crew scattered, leaving Sipek tethered to two iron stakes at the centre of the flames. Tied to his arm on the end of a long rope was Sampson, a lion trained to rush to his rescue and rip off the restraints when given the cue.

“As the fire came towards me, I pulled hard on the rope and Sampson came charging in,” recalls Sipek. “He pulled off the rope and dragged me out and my life changed for ever. I said that if I lived, I would care for any animal that needed me.”

Sipek kept that promise and opened an animal sanctuary called Jungleworld in Florida. He and his animals were in the news several years ago when one of his tigers escaped and was killed by a wildlife officer. The Daily Mail reports that Florida wildlife officials began looking into Sipek's sanctuary again this past October and after a lengthy investigation determined that Sipek didn't have the proper licenses or training to keep his animals and that the compound was a threat to public safety. He was arrested on misdemeanor charges.

RIP Disney songwriter Robert B Sherman

• He wrote the songs for The Jungle Book along with many other Disney movies from that era. He passed away on Monday at the age of 86.

Lots of cool projects coming

• David Gallaher and Steve Ellis (High Moon) are trying to Kickstart The Only Living Boy, a four-volume series of 50-page comics "inspired by pulp adventure novels[...]like John Carter, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Killraven, and the Jungle Book." [Robot 6]
• Jeff Lemire (Animal Man, Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE) will have a new graphic novel in August about an expectant father who encounters something strange deep in the sea. Top Shelf describes The Underwater Welder as "equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending science fiction epic."
• How did I not know about a 380-page graphic novel about a cowgirl who wears a yellow string-bikini? Bikini Cowboy has been out since last fall and I'm just now getting it.

LXB | March Madness: James Bond vs John Connor

For the first three weeks of March, we're going to answer the question, one match at a time, of who would win if 12 movie tough guys were airdropped into an abandoned city and only one could escape.

That's not exactly a fair photo match-up, but it accurately illustrates the outcome of this fight regardless of which versions of the characters we're talking about. If we match toughest with toughest, Daniel Craig still beats Christian Bale. And at their weakest: Roger Moore takes Edward Furlong.

I suppose we could get goofy and make Woody Allen the weakest Bond, but then we're going to have to allow Fetus John Connor from the first Terminator and I think even Woody Allen might be able to take him. The only way this works in Connor's favor is to let Christian Bale fight Woody Allen.

Unless we allow gadgets and count the T-800. I reckon Arnold Schwarzenegger trumps a wrist-mounted dart gun, but that seems outside the spirit of determining the toughest badass. Daniel Craig wins and for the purpose of the rest of this contest: he'll be our Bond.

The East River Bridge Hates Cephalopods

By Matthew Buchholz, who has lots more prints of these vintage postcards spiced up by giant monsters and other coolness at his Etsy shop.

LXB | March Madness: Snake Plissken vs Frank Martin

For the first three weeks of March, we're going to answer the question, one match at a time, of who would win if 12 movie tough guys were airdropped into an abandoned city and only one could escape.

This is the hardest fight to call yet. So far, the Round 1 bouts have been unevenly matched, but Snake from Escape from New York and Frank from The Transporter are pretty close to each other in terms of badassery.

I think Frank probably has the upper hand for straight-up fighting ability. It reminds me a bit of the Bruce Lee/John McClane fight. Snake's an awesome scrapper, but Frank's got more moves.

The difference between this bout and that first one though is that Frank is no Bruce Lee. I don't imagine him dominating Snake the way that Bruce Lee would John McClane. He'd make it awfully tough on Snake, but in the end he's beaten by Snake's resourcefulness and willingness to do whatever it takes to survive. It's a close fight (and I'm willing to be argued with), but I think Snake would take it.

LXB | March Madness: Colonel James Braddock vs Jason Bourne

For the first three weeks of March, we're going to answer the question, one match at a time, of who would win if 12 movie tough guys were airdropped into an abandoned city and only one could escape.

Who looks tougher? Answer carefully, because it's a trick question. Chuck Norris has a bandana and a huge gun, which he is firing. There's also an explosion going off behind him and he Does Not Care. Popular Internet Memes be damned though, he's over-compensating. The real badass in this match up is Jason Bourne.

Heck, all he has to do is sit there next to Julia Stiles and he still looks like he'll kill you before your next breath.  As Ben Caldwell pointed out on Twitter, a very likely outcome to this entire contest is that Bourne just kills everyone in the first round and then forgets he did it.

LXB | March Madness: Rambo vs Dirty Harry

For the first three weeks of March, we're going to answer the question, one match at a time, of who would win if 12 movie tough guys were airdropped into an abandoned city and only one could escape.

This one's easy. As John Rambo demonstrated at the end of First Blood, he's unstoppable even in an urban environment. It's going to take more than a giant pistol and a catch phrase to beat him.

LXB | March Madness: Bruce Lee vs John McClane

For the first three weeks of March, we're going to answer the question, one match at a time, of who would win if 12 movie tough guys were airdropped into an abandoned city and only one could escape.

I'm not proud of this, but I don't think I've ever seen a Bruce Lee movie all the way through. In a weird way though, that makes him more dangerous to me. He's purely legend, which makes him tough to beat in my mind.

On the other hand, I've been a John McClane fan since the first Die Hard and one of the things I love about him is his scrappiness. He simply refuses to go down and always comes up with a way out of impossible situations. His defining moment for me is in Die Hard when he's pinned down by the bad guys' guns, barefoot, and the only escape route is covered in broken glass. I still remember thinking to myself that he was totally screwed, because my mind couldn't conceive of running across that glass in bare feet. John McClane gets done what needs to get done.

But...against the legend of Bruce Lee? There's going to come a point where John has to stop running and hiding and planning and just fight. And there's no way that fight lasts longer than about five seconds.

Winner: Bruce Lee. (BUT: I want this to be participatory as much as possible. Can you think of a way that McClane comes back from defeat and figures out how to win?)

Song of the Week | "Orono Park" by The Wilderness of Manitoba

Didn't discover anything new this week, so here's one from last year:

If my childhood plans had panned out...

Inspired by this Pleated Jeans cartoon, if my childhood plans had panned out...

My profession would be:



Space smuggler.

My wife would be:



Jaime Sommers, the Bionic Woman.

My car would be:



The Ark II.

My home would be:



The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse.

My best friend would be:



Chewbacca.

My backyard would have:



The Batcave beneath it.

All my dinners would include:



My mom's homemade pizza.

My kids would be named:




Athena and Apollo.

What about you?

Power Rangers pirates

I've never been a Power Rangers fan, but this is fantastic. Thanks to Erik Johnson for bringing it to my attention.