The Browser: News and links to lift your eyebrows and furrow your forehead

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Many, many thanks to all of you who have sent me “congratulations!” messages about the Christy Award nominations. I haven’t had time to reply to you all yet, but I will, eventually. I’m too busy counting down the hours to the release of the new Grand Theft Auto.

Just kidding.

I’m still sort of dizzy with the big surprise. What’s next? A topless photo shoot in Vanity Fair? Woo hoo! The awards aren’t until July, and the only person who already knows how they’ll turn out is Paula Abdul. In the meantime, I’ve got a book to finish and another one to start.

And now, on with the news…

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Another leaked Dark Knight trailer… sort of.

Tyler Durden strikes again. But I think he’s overdoing it this time. That gimmick wore out about fifteen seconds into the trailer.

UPDATE: I just received this:

I don’t have a Wordpress account to relay this and am too lazy to register, but I wanted to relay that the defaced Dark Knight trailer is *NOT* what’s appearing in theaters. The “Jokerized” version is from a reel that was given away to one viewer in each of the twelve cities in which fans played an online “ARG” game to get an advance view of the new trailer:

http://batman.wikibruce.com/Whysoserious.com/Itsallpartoftheplan#The_reward

The trailer that will be online Sunday and may be seen in theaters this weekend will almost certainly *NOT* be Jokerized.

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A new Hulk trailer shows a lot, lot more.

Strange, this trailer makes me think of Jackson’s King Kong as much as it does Ang Lee’s Hulk.

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Archaeologists discover another new Indiana Jones trailer
“I’d cover my ears if I were you.”
[UPDATE: THIS TRAILER HAS BEEN TAKEN DOWN.]

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McKellen slips a copy of The Hobbit into the pocket of his Gandalf robe
Tolkien fans can rest easy. McKellen will don the pointy hat again for Guillermo Del Toro. Was there really any doubt of that?

And speaking of Del Toro…

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It’s a good time to be named Del Toro

It seems that the Academy might as well etch Benicio Del Toro’s name onto an Oscar now for his performance as Che Guevara in the upcoming two-film biopic by Steven Soderbergh. It’s a perfect actor/character match, and who doubts that Soderbergh will give Del Toro plenty of room to dazzle us with his talents?

Jeffrey Wells is coming unglued, he’s so enthusiastic about this project. And his latest blog, declaring the project “Lawrence of Latin America,” is stirring up just the sort of Che-love/Che-hate debate that is inevitable whenever Guevara’s name is mentioned.

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Will Nicole Kidman be Dusty Springfield?

Sounds like she’ll give it a try.

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Expelled producer denies that he’s a creationist

The Expelled debates continue, every attack by its critics bringing this little movie into bigger new headlines.

While the film doesn’t make a case for creationism, it spends some time explaining its more nuanced cousin, “intelligent design” theory.

“I’m definitely not a creationist. I’m the furthest thing from a creationist,” says Mr. Ruloff, who produced the film through his company, Premise Media. Just a mild-mannered West Coast Anglican venture capitalist, he maintains, who was trying to do a bit of biotech investing one day when he stumbled upon what he believes are the taboos of biology.

“The first thing I discovered in talking to these biotech engineers was they weren’t allowed to ask a whole bunch of questions; they weren’t allowed to collaborate under these new paradigms that were being discovered,” he says.

“They were all kind of talking in code.… I realized that the issue was that what they were discovering has massive metaphysical implications and so they were trying to retrofit their findings back into a Darwinist position.”

Coming from the software business, Mr. Ruloff explains, he was used to tossing commonly accepted thinking out the window every few months. “People in the biology field and biotech and microbiology are kind of on the threshold of some massive breakthroughs, and they need to be able to collaborate. And if what they find has metaphysical implications … who cares? If Darwinism is going to collapse, well, who cares? Let’s move on.”

Meanwhile, Ben Stein continues to ensure that Expelled remains an easy target for derision by saying things like this:

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

Um… I thought science was one of the many avenues by which we can discover the glory of God…. Since when did science become evil?