Podcasts and Upcoming Movies

Lately, I've been listening to podcasts during my nearly 3 hours of commute each day. It makes the trip go much faster than turning on the radio and hoping the hour-and-a-half one way trip shrinks down to something more manageable. If you're not familiar with them, podcasts are audio shows, usually produced on a regular basis, that you can listen to on an iPod or mp3 player. Mostly I've been listening to comics podcasts (The Acme Comics Dollar Bin is the best, by far), but the geek in me has really been enjoying Grammar Girl's 2-10 minute discussions on, well, grammar.

Anyway, I downloaded a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-related podcast the other day, and found out about a bunch of interesting films that Sarah Michelle Gellar will be involved in over the next year.

Of course, I knew about Happily N'ever After (out now). I'm struggling with whether or not to see it before I take my four-year-old, Julianna. It's PG, and if it's at all Shrek-like, it could have some humor that, in my opinion, is a little too old for children that young. (Have you seen Shrek 2? Call me old-fashioned, but I don't need to answer questions like, "Why is Pinocchio wearing girl's panties?") Plus, it's got Andy Dick and George Carlin. Not exactly kid-friendly.

Because of its comics history, I had already been following Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (out in March).

Also, Richard Kelly (creator of Donnie Darko, one of my favorite films of all time) is following that with Southland Tales, to be released this year.

What I didn't know, is that Gellar (or SMG, as all the Buffy-related sites refer to her) is also starring in an interesting film called The Air I Breathe. She plays Sorrow, opposite Forrest Whitaker, Kevin Bacon, and Brendan Frasier, who play Love, Pleasure, and Happiness, respectively. It's based on a Chinese proverb that breaks life down into those four emotional cornerstones. Sounds interesting. Maybe it'll come to Florence. (It's a May release, according to IMDB.)

The only reason I picked up on this next one is because I remember Krista reading The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing. That will be adapted into the film Suburban Girl, to be released later this year. Why do they change names like that? It's already got a great name, and as the podcaster mentioned, pretty widely recognizable from the book's popularity.

And finally, the most exciting news. She'll also be starring in an adaptation of American McGee's Alice, which is one of the most interesting video games I've ever played. It is, of course, based Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, but takes place after that story. After Alice returns from Wonderland, her father and mother die in a fire, and she lands in an asylum. She ends up returning to Wonderland, only to find that it's become a much darker place and she determines to help set things back to normal. Or at least what constitutes normal in Wonderland. According to IMDB, this one should be hitting the theaters in July.

I can't wait!