Supercool good times tonight - The Nightman Cometh...Live! More on that Monday with a review, but onto the top and bottom of the week...
Best of the week: Crashgate resolved!
This weekend is the second Singapore Grand Prix, and it's going to be a very scrutinized and highly important. With four races left, the duel between Brawn GP teammates Rubens Barrichello and current points leader Jenson Button for the title may well be determined in this race as only 14 points separate them out of a possible 40 left. But even with the dogfight at the top and the Red Bull squad still maintaining a mathematical chance to top the drivers championship, it's the spectre of last year's inaugral race and the year long effects that finally resolved this week.
Rewind to 2008: Despite being close to the top in practice, Renault had a poor qualifying session and started well down the grid, with Fernando Alonso starting in fifteenth place, and Nelson Piquet, Jr. alongside him in sixteenth. Alonso was the first driver to make a routine pit stop for fuel and tires on lap twelve, rejoining the race at the back of the field. He had put in a light fuel load in an attempt to pass the cars in front of him; most drivers that qualify in low positions tend to do the opposite.Three laps later, Piquet hit the circuit wall at turn seventeen, one of the turns on the circuit which did not have a crane nearby, necessitating the deployment of the safety car.
Felipe Massa was leading for Ferrari before the crash. The long-standing rule was that the pit lane remained open during safety car incidents, and because the cars had to travel slowly behind the safety car, teams took advantage of this to pit immediately and re-enter the race with less loss of track position. However, the regulations in 2008 ruled that the pit lane was closed until all cars were picked up by the safety car, meaning that the advantage of the lead cars would be eliminated before they were able to pit, and afterwards they would re-enter the race at the back of the queue. Under the previous regulations, the leaders could quickly pit before they were hauled up and their lead eliminated, meaning that they could still resume a front-running position. Some drivers needed to stop while the pits were closed to avoid running out of fuel, so they were handed penalties for their infractions.
Most of the leading cars ended up behind Alonso and some slower drivers, who proved difficult to pass on the narrow circuit, while those ahead of Alonso were lighter on fuel and were able to pull away, but had not pitted. After gaining the lead in the final third of the race, Alonso went on to win the race. No action was initially taken over the crash. Piquet characterised the crash as a simple mistake, and it was not odd given his abilities and consistant results in the lower half of racers.
Back to the present: Renault re-signed Piquet on a one-year contract for the 2009 season, once again alongside Alonso. By the tenth race of the season though, Piquet had failed to score any points, and was dropped by Renault in August. The departure was acrimonious, with Piquet criticising his former Renault F1 team and Flavio Briatore, the team principal, noted scumbag, and banger of some retardedly hot women (he put a baby in Heidi Klum!). By the month's end, word that Piquet was ordered to crash during the Singapore race prompted the governing FIA to investigate "alleged incidents at a previous F1 event".
In early September, Renault F1 were formally accused of interfering with the outcome of the 2008 Singapore race, conspired with Piquet to cause a deliberate crash with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of Alonso.
Piquet's statement was that he was asked by Briatore and engineer Pat Symonds to crash his car at a specific corner. Alonso denied knowing of any plan and was absolved of any blame by the FIA, who confirmed Piquet would face no action after making his whistleblowing statements, even if the case was found in favor of Renault. In response, Renault F1 stated that it intended to take legal action against Nelson Piquet Jr "concerning the making of false allegations and a related attempt to blackmail the team". Symonds was also reported to have been offered immunity from action if he provided the FIA with details of the alleged conspiracy, though it was reported that he told FIA investigators that the initial idea of a crash had come from Piquet.
Before the meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council at the top of the week, Renault announced it would not be contesting the charges, and stated that " managing director, Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team." Both men did not comment on the charges but essentially admitted guilt in drawing blame as to save the tarnished image of Renault. The FIA imposed a two-year suspended sentence on Renault (meaning that the team will be banned from Formula One indefinitely if a similar incident occurs again), while issuing a five-year ban to Pat Symonds and banning Flavio Briatore indefinitely from any FIA-sanctioned event. Furthermore, Briatore was effectively banned from managing drivers (such as current racers Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen) as the FIA stated that superlicences would not be issued or renewed to any driver associated with him in the future.
You could not ask for a more wildly interesting, unpredictable season in a sport. And it's not over yet.
Worst of the week: Burn, Hollywood, burn!
Fuck the studio system because it continues to pump out unoriginal ideas and make the worst possible choices. Here's a preview of what's coming to theaters soon...
• Diablo Cody’s heading back to high school, signing on to write and produce an adaptation of the “Sweet Valley High” book series for Universal. You recall the “Sweet Valley” novels, which followed the lives of identical twins with dissimilar personalities — the sensitive and practical Elizabeth and the flighty and boy-crazy Jessica — from the fictional town of Sweet Valley, right? There were more than 150 books in the series between 1983 and 2003 and a TV series with 88 episodes between 1994 and 1997. Good timing...
• No one actually watches Lost Boys sequels but they keep making them anyway, presumably as a way to keep Corey Feldman from making music. Anyway, here’s the plot of Lost Boys 3: The Thirst. See if you can spot the Twilight reference...
“When veteran vampire hunter Edgar Frog [Corey Feldman] finds himself destitute and almost friendless, he thinks his life has hit bottom - but wealthy vampire-romance novelist Gwen Liebling offers him a small fortune to go on the vampire hunt of a lifetime and rescue her son Peter from the Alpha Vampire D.J. Dusk. With the help of his friends Zoe, Lars and Blake, Edgar heads into a bloody battle to exterminate evil.”
Is that besed on real life, with Feldman actually friendless and poor? And who think D.J. Dusk is not an actual disc jockey
• Dreamworks is in negotiations to buy “Xombie,” a pitch about a zombie who is also a policeman, from cop-turned-scribe Will Beall, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci in talks to produce.
A zombie policeman? Written by a policeman? I wonder how he came up with such an idea! Kurtzman and Orci may have lucked out penning the not bad Star Trek, but they also wrote both the piece of robo-shit Transformers films, The Island, and The Legend Of Zorro. "Xombie” is based on a Devil’s Due comic book by James Farr, itself based on his online animated series. Farr’s creation centers on a zombie cop named Dirge (that's lame) who attempts to saves humanity’s remnants, particularly a young girl named Zoe, from evil zombies (that's trite).
• The He-Man movie that had been in development at WB and since dropped, has been picked up by Columbia. Fuck.
• The trend of taking anything printed as a latest graphic novel to spawn an adaptation continues.
“Mal Chance” tells the story of Lola, part of an ancient clan of assassins targeted for death by a powerful gangster. Her only recourse is to bring down the gangster’s entire operation with the help of an honest FBI agent who is unaware of her true identity.
Hmmm...will Lola be a hot chick wearing leather? Do she and the FBI agent could fall in love? When he discovers her secret identity, will it threaten everything? I guess Wanted is also getting this unofficial sequel.
• According to Mattel, the 50-year old Barbie has 99% worldwide brand awareness, is the number one girls property in the toy industry, the top doll property in the U.S. and the number one worldwide property in the traditional toy industry. So that means a movie should be made!
Producer Laurence Mark (Julie & Julia) has begun to canvas writers and decide a creative take for a family-friendly movie. He said there is no shortage of plot possibilities, since Barbie has held more than 120 jobs over the years. “Barbie may be the most popular girl in the world, and has always been a wonderfully aspirational figure, so we must do her proud.” And nothing is full of more pride than marketing your product as a film license.
All of these were the trade and blog fodder this week. And that's not even counting Scream 4, the remake of the remade The Fly, or Ghost Rider 2, which everybody was looking forward to...not being made.
Runner up: RealGold digging Useless Housewives of New York "star" Kelly Bensimon will strip down for the December 2009 issue of Playboy. At 40, the mother of two will only appear "partially nude" in the photos. Playboy is such weak sauce these days anyway, especially with the non-nude (read: partially) Heidi Montag and Olivia Munn pictorals, but would you even want to see that shitty boob job?
Best of the week: Crashgate resolved!
This weekend is the second Singapore Grand Prix, and it's going to be a very scrutinized and highly important. With four races left, the duel between Brawn GP teammates Rubens Barrichello and current points leader Jenson Button for the title may well be determined in this race as only 14 points separate them out of a possible 40 left. But even with the dogfight at the top and the Red Bull squad still maintaining a mathematical chance to top the drivers championship, it's the spectre of last year's inaugral race and the year long effects that finally resolved this week.
Rewind to 2008: Despite being close to the top in practice, Renault had a poor qualifying session and started well down the grid, with Fernando Alonso starting in fifteenth place, and Nelson Piquet, Jr. alongside him in sixteenth. Alonso was the first driver to make a routine pit stop for fuel and tires on lap twelve, rejoining the race at the back of the field. He had put in a light fuel load in an attempt to pass the cars in front of him; most drivers that qualify in low positions tend to do the opposite.Three laps later, Piquet hit the circuit wall at turn seventeen, one of the turns on the circuit which did not have a crane nearby, necessitating the deployment of the safety car.Felipe Massa was leading for Ferrari before the crash. The long-standing rule was that the pit lane remained open during safety car incidents, and because the cars had to travel slowly behind the safety car, teams took advantage of this to pit immediately and re-enter the race with less loss of track position. However, the regulations in 2008 ruled that the pit lane was closed until all cars were picked up by the safety car, meaning that the advantage of the lead cars would be eliminated before they were able to pit, and afterwards they would re-enter the race at the back of the queue. Under the previous regulations, the leaders could quickly pit before they were hauled up and their lead eliminated, meaning that they could still resume a front-running position. Some drivers needed to stop while the pits were closed to avoid running out of fuel, so they were handed penalties for their infractions.
Most of the leading cars ended up behind Alonso and some slower drivers, who proved difficult to pass on the narrow circuit, while those ahead of Alonso were lighter on fuel and were able to pull away, but had not pitted. After gaining the lead in the final third of the race, Alonso went on to win the race. No action was initially taken over the crash. Piquet characterised the crash as a simple mistake, and it was not odd given his abilities and consistant results in the lower half of racers.
Back to the present: Renault re-signed Piquet on a one-year contract for the 2009 season, once again alongside Alonso. By the tenth race of the season though, Piquet had failed to score any points, and was dropped by Renault in August. The departure was acrimonious, with Piquet criticising his former Renault F1 team and Flavio Briatore, the team principal, noted scumbag, and banger of some retardedly hot women (he put a baby in Heidi Klum!). By the month's end, word that Piquet was ordered to crash during the Singapore race prompted the governing FIA to investigate "alleged incidents at a previous F1 event".
In early September, Renault F1 were formally accused of interfering with the outcome of the 2008 Singapore race, conspired with Piquet to cause a deliberate crash with the aim of causing the deployment of the safety car to the advantage of Alonso.
Piquet's statement was that he was asked by Briatore and engineer Pat Symonds to crash his car at a specific corner. Alonso denied knowing of any plan and was absolved of any blame by the FIA, who confirmed Piquet would face no action after making his whistleblowing statements, even if the case was found in favor of Renault. In response, Renault F1 stated that it intended to take legal action against Nelson Piquet Jr "concerning the making of false allegations and a related attempt to blackmail the team". Symonds was also reported to have been offered immunity from action if he provided the FIA with details of the alleged conspiracy, though it was reported that he told FIA investigators that the initial idea of a crash had come from Piquet.Before the meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council at the top of the week, Renault announced it would not be contesting the charges, and stated that " managing director, Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team." Both men did not comment on the charges but essentially admitted guilt in drawing blame as to save the tarnished image of Renault. The FIA imposed a two-year suspended sentence on Renault (meaning that the team will be banned from Formula One indefinitely if a similar incident occurs again), while issuing a five-year ban to Pat Symonds and banning Flavio Briatore indefinitely from any FIA-sanctioned event. Furthermore, Briatore was effectively banned from managing drivers (such as current racers Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen) as the FIA stated that superlicences would not be issued or renewed to any driver associated with him in the future.
You could not ask for a more wildly interesting, unpredictable season in a sport. And it's not over yet.
Worst of the week: Burn, Hollywood, burn!
Fuck the studio system because it continues to pump out unoriginal ideas and make the worst possible choices. Here's a preview of what's coming to theaters soon...
• Diablo Cody’s heading back to high school, signing on to write and produce an adaptation of the “Sweet Valley High” book series for Universal. You recall the “Sweet Valley” novels, which followed the lives of identical twins with dissimilar personalities — the sensitive and practical Elizabeth and the flighty and boy-crazy Jessica — from the fictional town of Sweet Valley, right? There were more than 150 books in the series between 1983 and 2003 and a TV series with 88 episodes between 1994 and 1997. Good timing...
• No one actually watches Lost Boys sequels but they keep making them anyway, presumably as a way to keep Corey Feldman from making music. Anyway, here’s the plot of Lost Boys 3: The Thirst. See if you can spot the Twilight reference...
“When veteran vampire hunter Edgar Frog [Corey Feldman] finds himself destitute and almost friendless, he thinks his life has hit bottom - but wealthy vampire-romance novelist Gwen Liebling offers him a small fortune to go on the vampire hunt of a lifetime and rescue her son Peter from the Alpha Vampire D.J. Dusk. With the help of his friends Zoe, Lars and Blake, Edgar heads into a bloody battle to exterminate evil.”
Is that besed on real life, with Feldman actually friendless and poor? And who think D.J. Dusk is not an actual disc jockey
• Dreamworks is in negotiations to buy “Xombie,” a pitch about a zombie who is also a policeman, from cop-turned-scribe Will Beall, with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci in talks to produce.A zombie policeman? Written by a policeman? I wonder how he came up with such an idea! Kurtzman and Orci may have lucked out penning the not bad Star Trek, but they also wrote both the piece of robo-shit Transformers films, The Island, and The Legend Of Zorro. "Xombie” is based on a Devil’s Due comic book by James Farr, itself based on his online animated series. Farr’s creation centers on a zombie cop named Dirge (that's lame) who attempts to saves humanity’s remnants, particularly a young girl named Zoe, from evil zombies (that's trite).
• The He-Man movie that had been in development at WB and since dropped, has been picked up by Columbia. Fuck.
• The trend of taking anything printed as a latest graphic novel to spawn an adaptation continues.
“Mal Chance” tells the story of Lola, part of an ancient clan of assassins targeted for death by a powerful gangster. Her only recourse is to bring down the gangster’s entire operation with the help of an honest FBI agent who is unaware of her true identity.
Hmmm...will Lola be a hot chick wearing leather? Do she and the FBI agent could fall in love? When he discovers her secret identity, will it threaten everything? I guess Wanted is also getting this unofficial sequel.
• According to Mattel, the 50-year old Barbie has 99% worldwide brand awareness, is the number one girls property in the toy industry, the top doll property in the U.S. and the number one worldwide property in the traditional toy industry. So that means a movie should be made!
Producer Laurence Mark (Julie & Julia) has begun to canvas writers and decide a creative take for a family-friendly movie. He said there is no shortage of plot possibilities, since Barbie has held more than 120 jobs over the years. “Barbie may be the most popular girl in the world, and has always been a wonderfully aspirational figure, so we must do her proud.” And nothing is full of more pride than marketing your product as a film license.
All of these were the trade and blog fodder this week. And that's not even counting Scream 4, the remake of the remade The Fly, or Ghost Rider 2, which everybody was looking forward to...not being made.
Runner up: Real
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