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SDCC 09: Photos from San Diego Comic-Con

Tomorrow kicks off the first full day of the 2009 San Diego Comic Con but already people are taking photos, Twittering and writing blog posts from ground zero. Before Thursday rolls along and the con begins in full, let's look at some of the sights that people are taking photographs of from the convention center so you can get an idea as to the mayhem that's about to be unleashed:

Nobody Watches the Watchmen

On the heels of Zack Snyder's director's cut of Watchmen coming out yesterday on DVD and Blu-ray arrives this latest original Funny or Die video short called "Nobody Watches the Watchmen". Someone is getting rid of the people that made the Watchmen movie and only masked vigilante Rorschach knows where the trail of clues lead...but I suppose that's only because the Funny or Die people didn't have the budget to make Nite-Owl or Silk Spectre costumes.

How excited is Danny DeVito about The Blood Factory?

Comic-Con International 2009 kicks off on Wednesday. One of the celebs attending the center of geekdom is Danny DeVito, there to promote a new internet venture he's producing/starring in called The Blood Factory. DeVito has a panel on Friday from 9:30 PM to 10:30 where I'm sure he'll go into detail and explain to us what gore-filled The Blood Factory is all about, but for now we've got this video to go on.

Fifth Element stones for your home

Luc Besson's The Fifth Element was one of those rare films that grew on me. When I first saw it back in the summer of 1997 I thought it looked fantastic but that the film was ultimately brought down by its threadbare storyline. After rewatching it a dozen or so times since then I've come to appreciate the film for what it is: the best version of a live action Heavy Metal or 2000 A.D. movie done so far. The art, costume and production designs along for The Fifth Element ensure that a copy of it will be added to my future Blu-ray collection.

Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters in September

When it was first announced a year ago, Quirk Books' Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sounded like it would probably be a one-note pony, a quick cash grab on the zombie film craze. However, when the book was released earlier this year readers were pleasantly surprised at how author Seth Grahame-Smith managed to pull it off. There's even a movie now in development.

Sunday's schedule for Comic-Con 2009 revealed

The final day's schedule of events taking place at Comic-Con International 2009 is out and once again I'm choosing to focus solely on the film, TV and DVD panels. If you want to see a complete list of all events taking place at the con on this day you can read Sunday's full schedule here.

Read Wednesday/Thursday's schedule.

Read Friday's schedule.

Read Saturday's schedule.

Saturday's schedule for Comic-Con 2009 revealed

Every day for the past three days the organizers of Comic-Con International have been releasing the schedule for a single day and today is the day we learn what's programmed for Saturday, July 25. Once again I'm choosing to focus squarely on the panels and events directly related to movies, television and DVD. For a complete list of all of the activity happening on 7/25 at the con read the schedule.

Friday's schedule for Comic-Con 2009 revealed

The breakdown of what's planned on Friday, July 24 at Comic-Con International has just been released. As with our rundown of Thursday's schedule I'm focusing on just the film/TV/DVD panels happening that day and leaving out a lot of other good stuff to do with comic books, video games, costumes and fandom. For the complete list of what's happening 7/24, hit the Comic-Con website.

Comic-Con 2009 partial schedule revealed

The 2009 Comic Con International has unveiled the line-up of programming for Wednesday and Thursday and it's loaded with plenty of movie and television related goodness. If this is what the con has in store for Thursday, heaven help those that cover it on the weekend.

Mock 2012 trailer confirms it's a disaster

Critics of Roland Emmerich's 2012 movie have already panned it as "disaster porn" based solely on the footage seen in the two trailers. These detractors do seem to have a point; has there been any other film in the history of filmmaking that's shown the end of the world in such a spectacular way? Not even at the height of the 1970s and that era's stream of disaster flicks like The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, The Day the Earth Caught Fire and every other Irwin Allen produced feature was there as much civilization mayhem as seen in the 2012 previews.

Optimus Prime's Late Night top ten list

For one of his program's Top Ten lists Late Night talk show host David Letterman brought out one of the bigger stars of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Mr. Optimus Prime. The Autobot leader presented the list of Top Ten things that sound cooler when spoken by a giant robot which, of course, Optimus then proceeded to do. (The really geeky thing that I dig is that Peter Cullen, the voice actor used in the movie for Optimus Prime's dialogue as well as the originator of the role back in the 1980s delivered Letterman's Top Ten list. +1 for geekyness!)

Watch this: From Hell to Heaven all in an elevator ride

One of my pals emailed me today about an interesting video mural that's installed in the elevator of the Standard Hotel in New York City. Displayed through the glass wall inside the elevator is a surreal, short film created by director Marco Brambilla, the guy that gave us the cheesy '90s flicks Demolition Man and Excess Baggage and then fell off of Hollywood's radar. Brambilla was asked by the owner of the Standard Hotel to think up a film that the elevator passengers could watch while going up or down. Given complete autonomy to dream up whatever he liked, Brambilla came up with "Civilization", a three-minute video showing a journey from Hell to Heaven -- or, if you're headed from a top floor down, Heaven to Hell -- using clips from hundreds of Hollywood movies over the years. The end product is fascinating, trippy, mesmerizing and I would imagine sort of creepy if you're taking a ride in the elevator all by yourself.

The A to Z of Awesomeness

Neill Cameron's A-Z of Awesomeness is like what would happen if all the worlds of pop culture collided. The premise is this: take one letter of the alphabet and design an image that goes with the word but instead of making it along the lines of "A is for Apple," you go nuts and mash together two or three geeky things that you would never imagine going together, like Indiana Jones meeting Doctor Who. Cameron, a comic book illustrator, is creating the picture dictionary of all things geek one letter at a time. Several of his creations border on the insane, the genius and the downright disturbing.

He-Man and the Masters of Bollywood

It shouldn't come as a surprise that someone in India's movie business made a Bollywood musical out of Mattel's He-Man and the Masters of the Universe action figures line. I've seen a Turkish Star Wars and another Bollywood film about Spider-Man, both of which had budgets equivalent to a night out dining at TGIFs. This He-Man video had better production values than those others.

Sesame Street's Cloverfield

Quick question for the monster fans out there: what's big, blue and can smash all of Sesame Street? Uh huh, someone made it: Groverfield.