Hollywood has lost it's effing mind.

DreamWorks eyes View-Master pic

In negotiations with Mattel to buy movie rights to the toy

By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez

July 6, 2009, 09:03 PM ET

Remember View-Master, the Fisher-Price toy with those little 3D picture discs of mountains, rivers and caverns that you could rotate through a viewfinder? Well, DreamWorks is in negotiations to acquire movie rights to the toy from Mattel (which owns Fisher-Price) and has asked Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to do some "Transformers"-style magic on it. Brad Caleb Kane, who worked as a writer-producer on the duo's Fox series "Fringe," is on board to write the screenplay. Kurtzman and Orci would produce.Story specifics are being kept under wraps, though Kane, who tweeted his involvement during the holiday weekend, said, "It'll be like the old '80s Amblin movies: 'Goonies,' 'Young Sherlock' ... in that vein." That post has been taken down. Amblin-style movies has been the modus operandi of the Kurtzman-Orci banner.DreamWorks is hoping to make a family-friendly movie.

DreamWorks, the producers and Kane will be coming up with a story from scratch, a practice that seems to be happening more and more as Hollywood picks up properties based on the allure of brands and board games. Universal last week picked up rights to the Atari video game "Asteroids" and under its Hasbro deal is developing movies based on such games as "Battleship" and "Candyland."Kurtzman and Orci do have some experience with toy brands, however: The duo's resumes include the two "Transformers" movies, which are based on Hasbro toys.The View-Master deal, which is not yet signed, has been brewing for some time. One time-consuming element has been getting Kurtzman and Orci on board. The two writer-producers -- whose work on "Star Trek," "The Proposal" and "Transformers" has contributed to more than $1 billion to the worldwide boxoffice -- are very much in demand. Ironically, with Hasbro hoping to continue working with the duo beyond this summer's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," Kurtzman and Orci could end up working on movies for two rival toy companies.Steven Puri brought it in to Kurtzman/Orci and will work alongside shingle president Bobby Cohen in spearheading the project. Mattel's Barry Waldo and Chris Pardi of Fisher-Price will executive produce.

Quick Hits

Hi All,

So I decided to re-format my computer. Basically that means that I wipe everything out and reinstall Windows so that it's almost like I have a new computer. I had too much rubbish in there and I wanted a nice fresh start, so I went to work.

This is something I've done many times, so I wasn't concerned in the least. The first thing I did was order some recovery disks from HP which I needed to do it. So I called them up told them that I had an HP Pavilion dv6700 (just like it says on the sticker under the laptop) and they sent them off. When they arrived and I attempted to go at it, I got a message telling me that these disks were for the wrong computer. Nice - the dipsticks at HP sent the wrong disks. So I called them again, explained what happened and they overnighted the right disks. Okie doke, then. But when I went to install them, same message. Uh-oh. I decided to forget about those recovery disks and have at it in a different way. So I clean it out, reinstall Windows, and everything seems great except that I can't get on the web. Now here's where things get weird.

I have done this a whack of times before and I know that when you start fresh there are usually a ton of updates that you have to install for the damn thing to work properly. I borrow a computer so that I can get web access and download all of the drivers and updates that I need and I start installing. I installed a total of 85 updates and a few dozen drivers and nothing changed. And I don't mean just the internet access, but NOTHING was changing. No graphics improvements, no audio improvements, no nothing. And believe me, after installing all of that, there should be a whole whirlwind of crap happening.

So I try it again, and nothing. I hit the web with the borrowed computer and start looking for answers and I can't find any. How could it be that all of the drivers are wrong? I spent a total of four days battling this (again something that should have been utterly painless and taken two hours tops) and I was exhausted and out of ideas. For a final Hail Mary I decided to go to the site where I bought it and look over the receipt to see if something jumped out. I pulled it up and there it was. It wasn't that I had the wrong drivers, it's that I had the wrong computer. The spec sticker on my laptop, as I wrote above, says HP Pavilion dv6700, as did the Belarc print-up, but the receipt said it was an HP Pavilion dv6812nr.

Now you may be thinking,"What kind of a meathead doesn't know what type of computer he owns?!?" An excellent question. The thing about it is, the model number isn't written anywhere on the computer except for on that little rainbowy sticker on the bottom, and I assumed that HP got it right. It's the idiots at HP that put the damned sticker on! So that's it. Four days wasted. I could have spent that time doing far more productive things, like pursuing a meaningful relationship with a woman who shares my interests. Thppt. I'd love to meet the douche who stumbled into the factory all hungover and stupid and slapped the wrong sticker on my laptop. An earful he would get! Time for some quick hits.

1) Badass of the Week, one of my favorite websites, did a feature on one of the great badasses of all time: Elliot Stabler.

2) I decided to give USA's Royal Pains a shot because, let's be honest, USA rarely gets it wrong with their TV shows. Sadly they sure did with this one. The plotlines are dull and all of the characters (save the wealthy teenage couple) are entirely without charm. Not Recommended.

3) Needed this recently. How to remove dead tracks from iTunes 7 in Windows.

4) ATTENTION DADS! Odadeo is a social network for fathers who want learn how to be better dads. It allows fathers to make pledges about things that will make them good parents, keep a record of these promises and get DASDAQ graph of their performance.They can also connect with other dads, get to know what they’re pledging, browse each other blogs, send and receive messages with tips, guidelines, links, suggestions, questions and answers.

5) Learn to Fold a Dress Shirt Effectively.

6) Oh good. They're making a T.J. Hooker movie. Can't wait.

7) 10 Awesome Celebrity Casting Call Auditions.

8) The Criterion Collection of junk food: 19 snacks and sodas we wish were still on the market.

9) Here are the movies out on DVD today.

Knowing

Push

No and thank-you. Time for a little 60s J-Pop. Here's Melon No Kimochi by Kayoko Moriyama. Have a great one.



AB

Frozen Robbery

Video Games Frozen Robbery Phillips 21:9

XBox 360 Playstation 3 Nintendo Wii

First thing in the morning, people give me s***. That's how I know my day's begun.

They didn't listen to the warnings.

Scalps (1983)

Baffling

Steve McNair Found Shot to Death

Posted Jul 04, 2009 6:07 PM
By KRISTIN M. HALL
(AP)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (July 4) -- Former NFL quarterback Steve McNair, whose most noted drive was the final one of the 2000 Super Bowl, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head Saturday afternoon in a downtown condominium.

Police said a woman was also shot dead.McNair was 36 and played 13 seasons before retiring in April 2008. Police spokesman Don Aaron said officials tentatively identified the woman, but did not release her name. He confirmed she wasn't McNair's wife, Mechelle.

He said authorities were still investigating the shootings and that no suspects were in custody."I don't have any answers for you now as to what's happened, who's responsible,'' Aaron said."There are persons who were around the complex today, visitors, who have been taken to headquarters for questioning, just to see what they know, what they may have seen,'' he said.

Name That Celebrity!

The one on the right.