Coburn: Ready to blow?

With UC Irvine's announcement of the establishment of the Center for Computer Games & Virtual Worlds, you've got to wonder if U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn's head is going to explode. At least his virtual noggin must be staining a carpet in some sims world somewhere.

The Oklahoma Republican puts out annual "Worst Waste of the Year" reports, and among the examples of "outrageous federal spending" in the 2008 edition was the National Science Foundation having granted $100,000 to UCI to study the differences in how gamers from the U.S. and China play the popular online video game World of Warcraft.

Part of UCI's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, the new center is led by associate dean Magda El Zarki and senior research scientist Walt Scacchi of the UCI Institute for Software Research. Their goal will be to expand campuswide research activities involving the social and technological aspects of games and virtual worlds. More than 20 faculty members from computer science, arts, humanities, social science and education will collaborate in the center, according to the announcement.

UC Irvine was among the first major research universities to establish educational and research programs in computer game culture and technology, with its Game Culture & Technology Lab that was launched in 2001 having attracted nearly $5 million in external funding.

No doubt some readers recall my description of the Beowulf footage shown at Comic-Con, featuring a photo-realistic 3-D naked Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother.

While you won't see that exact footage until the film comes out later this fall, you can get a glimpse of all of Jolie, and much more, in the new Internet-exclusive, age-restricted Beowulf trailer.

As you'll see -- assuming you can get past the age filter -- some of the CG people look better than others, to put it mildly. But Jolie looks the best, and you can check her out in hi-def, along with the zombified Crispin Glover Grendel and a bunch of dragon stuff.

It's no 3-D IMAX, but it'll do for now.

If you haven't read Luke's endless Comic-Con coverage, be sure to flip through his feature. . .which has the best of his posts prettified and strung together.

And then there's my sidebar on travels with rainbow boy into the Heart of Dorkness.

So we said we were through with Comic-Con. We lied.

But if you'd like to revisit the panels, costumes and geekdom, by all means, skim the archives.

Comic-Cons are a bit like film festivals -- most people there just want to go to the big-name stuff, but you really get more out of the experience if you mix it up a little. So rather than see Kevin Smith tell his stories about Jon Peters for the umpteenth time, it seemed a better use of the moment to go watch Ray Harryhausen do a live commentary while screening the new DVD of his 1957 movie 20 Million Miles to Earth. (It bows on Blu-Ray Dec. 4.)

Harryhausen is, of course, a living legend of cinema and arguably the most important special-effects man ever. Worked with King Kong animator Willis O'Brien, and in the pre-CGI era did every amazing movie monster there was, from the skeleton warriors in Jason and the Argonauts to Medusa and the Kraken in Clash of the Titans.

He got a standing ovation when his chair was wheeled into the room. But the room was only 1/3 full.

It may go without saying, but the announcement of a film entitled The Strangers that stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman wasn't exactly super-exciting. Especially when writer-director Brian Bertino comes in and he looks about 17.

But ever so slowly, the presentation started to warm this cynic's heart. The premise of the movie is that a young couple are terrorized in their home by masked assailants for no apparent reason. In theory, this seems like a good way to tap into fears about the randomness of terrorism without actually getting political.

The first clip shown involved Liv being terrorized. Fine and good, and the cartoon-little-girl masks the attackers wear are appropriately creepy, but the trailer tries to milk scares from a record player needle becoming stuck.

Riddle me this: How many couples Liv and Scott's age do you know, in 2007, who play records?

Well that sucks. Los Angeles Times pop culture reporter Geoff Bouche was covering the con when he got jumped on a sidewalk in San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. He writes:

"In the 15 years I have been writing for The Times, I have covered wildfires, riots, gang murders and plenty of other mayhem. I never got hurt. This weekend I covered a comic book convention in San Diego and I'm going home with staples in my head."

Yipes! Read the rest here.

Via LA Observed.

Weekly investigative reporter extraordinaire Scott Moxley just informed me that our fab Comic-Con blogger - LYT - made today's edition of USA Today.

His rainbow 'do is apparently a camera magnet. That's not too surprising. Couldn't help snapping a few of him myself. And Luke was sitting at Hall H for hours on end...an easy target.

Photo via USA Today.

The article's titled "It's Good to be a Geek at Comic-Con."

Rebelscum has a good image of it right HERE

Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick kick things off by announcing a special screening of some early footage from Coraline, their new stop-motion collaboration. It'll be later in the evening at a nearby theater, and passes can be had at the Rogue booth. Those sitting in Hall H all day at the actual panels are out of luck. They couldn't have just shown us a little bit here? Nahh, make us wait in line all over again for something else.

Tidbits: the voice cast includes Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Teri Hatcher, Ian McShane; plot involves "people with button eyes who want to eat other people's souls."

Balls of Fury had a funny presentation last year, and since the movie still hasn't opened, Ben Garant (director) and Thomas Lennon (cowriter/costar) are back, along with the lead actor Dan Fogler (character name: Randy Daytona), who has that Jack Black vibe, but probably comes cheaper to the studio than Jack Black.

..cles of Narnia!

Director Andrew Adamson is live via satellite from the set in Prague, alongside Ben Barnes, who plays the title character of the new Narnia movie Prince Caspian (and also appears in the upcoming Stardust. Barnes has the Episode III Anakin hair going.

Adamson says Caspian was a more difficult adaptation than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (which, for my writing sanity, will hereafter be referred to simply as Lion). The structure of Lewis' narrative isn't as cinematic -- Adamson has fleshed out Caspian's past more, showing his battles in detail.