I don’t usually post press releases in my blog but it’s not like we have a Fashion newsfeed here, plus PR is one of my favorite shows. Probably one of the only *good* reality shows, and Tim Gunn is one of the main reasons why.

TIM GUNN WILL MAKE IT WORK ON THE FOURTH SEASON OF THE EMMY-NOMINATED HIT FASHION DESIGN COMPETITION SERIES PROJECT RUNWAY

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (April 5, 2007) – The Weinstein Company, Bravo, and Miramax are pleased to announce that Tim Gunn will return for the fourth season of the Emmy-nominated premier fashion design reality series PROJECT RUNWAY. Gunn will re-join the show as a mentor along with the panel of judges including designer Michael Kors, ELLE Magazine fashion director Nina Garcia and supermodel Heidi Klum. Klum will also return as host of the series, which is the most watched show on Bravo in the history of the cable network. The joint announcement was made today by Harvey Weinstein, Co-Chairman of The Weinstein Company and Lauren Zalaznick, President of Bravo.

The Weinstein Company and Miramax are co-producing the show through their co-financing agreement. The Weinstein Company is the lead studio and is handling worldwide distribution.

Tim Gunn stated, “I am thrilled to make it official that I will be back in the workroom for season four of ‘Project Runway’. We’re in the midst of casting the designers now and I can already see that it will be another amazing season.”

Harvey Weinstein stated, “We could not be more excited that Tim is back to mentor and inspire this season’s crop of aspiring designers. His passion, creativity and dedication to the contestants and the world of fashion have helped make the show such a commercial and critical success.”

Bradley Buchanan, vice president of business and legal affairs for The Weinstein Company, negotiated the deal on behalf of Project Runway. UTA and Eric Weissler of Jackoway Tyerman Wertheimer Austen Mandelbaum & Morris represented Tim Gunn in negotiations.

PROJECT RUNWAY gives aspiring designers a chance to break into the notoriously difficult-to-crack fashion world. Each week, a designer is eliminated from the competition after exhibiting their work in front of the panel of judges. The second and third seasons of this breakout series have generated critical acclaim and record ratings. The series has consistently been the top show on cable on Wednesdays among key demographics and has shattered the records set by the finale of season one. The series has been Wednesday’s number one show on cable among adults 18-49.

Open calls for designers interested in competing in the fourth season of PROJECT RUNWAY are being held in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago. For more details including dates, locations and official rules, applicants may visit www.ProjectRunway.com or www.BravoTV.com.

PROJECT RUNWAY is executive produced by Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz and Rich Bye of Magical Elves (“Project Greenlight,” “Last Comic Standing,” “Top Chef”). Heidi Klum, Desiree Gruber and Jane Cha of NYC-based Full Picture also executive produce the series. Barbara Schneeweiss will oversee the production on behalf of The Weinstein Company.

Have you heard about this movie, Pathfinder? Here’s the synopsis (shorter version):

An action-adventure set in the time when Vikings tried to conquer North America, PATHFINDER tells the heroic story of a young Norse boy left behind after his clan shipwrecks on the Eastern shores. Despite his lineage, the boy is raised by the very Indians his kinsmen set out to destroy. Now, as the Vikings return to stage another barbaric raid on his village, the 25 year-old Norse warrior (Karl Urban) wages a personal war to stop the Vikings’ trail of death and destruction. Forging his own path, his destiny is revealed and his identity re-claimed.

I felt the urge to blog (meaning, bitch) about this when I read it, but quickly conceded that me bitching about another movie about the white man saving us helpless colored folk wouldn’t exactly make Guy’s Top 5 Most Interesting, Thought-Provoking Blog Posts of the Week or anything. Insead, I did my bitching at the water cooler. Which was informative, because I found out that the movie was actually based on a graphic novel being published by Dark Horse. Which was useful in that it gave me the opportunity to post some preview pages from that book:

And so, dear readers, I have covered any possible obligation I might feel to make this post impart some semblance of useful information about Pathfinder to go along with me rolling my eyes at the latest addition to the White Man Saves Natives And Steals Their Women catalog. Well, not having actually seen Pathfinder, I can’t say for certain whether Ghost wins his beloved Starfire — but somehow I’m thinking he does. Just a hunch.

Speaking of Starfire, she’s played by Moon Bloodgood, who, despite a name which might suggest otherwise, is not Indian, but in fact (if we may trust Wikipedia as fact) is of Dutch, Irish, and Korean descent. Readers may recall that Moon recently played Taye Diggs’ not-black girlfriend on the short-lived Daybreak, which naturally didn’t please sisters too much.

Instead of the half-Korean, quarter-Dutch, quarter-Irish Moon Bloogdood (at least that’s how I figure Ms. Bloodgood’s parentage to break down), I was going to suggest that the producers of Pathfinder might have gone for Sandrine Holt — but then Wikipedia informed me that Ms. Holt is actually half-Chinese and half-French, and not in fact a Native American hottie despite playing one in two (perhaps three!) movies; naturally this discovery this lead, as it must when one is surfing the net at 2am, to all manner of interesting Sandrine Holt tidbits — so many in fact that I feel compelled to do a post just on her.

Like most of our readers, I’m definitely more interested in looking at the ladies of Grindhouse than its’ leading men — but even without having seen the movie yet, I gotta say Danny Trejo is looking like even more of a scary badass than usual. So today we’re breaking PCS tradition by bringing you some bad motherf*ckery for your desktop. (You’ll have to head over to the official Grindhouse site for the standard hot chick wallpapers).

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More PCS wallpapers: 1024×768, 1280×1024

This week Entertainment Weekly interviewed Malcolm McDowell, who plays the mysterious Mr. Linderman on NYBC’s hit show Heroes. The legendary actor apparently let out a number of tidbits, including confirming that Linderman does indeed have a power. (Click thumb for full-size scan)

“The beloved Bible tale springs to miraculous animated life in this enchanting and inspirational cartoon directed by Kyle Baker”, to quote Kyle’s blog (where you can download a higher quality Quicktime version, with better picture & sound).

Or, to quote Denys Cowan lauding Baker’s abilities: “King David is THE TRUTH”.

Cover of Marvel Spotlight – Civil War: Aftermath, on sale next Wednesday (March 16)

And more unintentional Cap fun in Moon Knight #8, also on sale next Wednesday.

Kill him dead!

So, I walk into Midtown’s Times Square store and it’s full of people, which isn’t unusual for a Wednesday morning, even one where it’s a bitingly cold 7 degrees outside. But today there seems to be a bit of an added bustle — it seems everybody’s abuzz about Captain America being assassinated. Which many of them found out reading the Daily News during their morning commute, or Yahoo’s front page browsing the net at work. So, while Marvel managed to keep Cap’s fate off the internet radar (or at least limit it to speculation), their hype machine was clearly running smoothly. My boss (as mentioned in my sidebar, I’m Midtown’s webmaster) informs me that FOX News and Spike TV have already been in-store to cover the Event. And Reuters, ABC and who knows who else will be by to do the same before the day is out.

As I’m writing this there’s a line going up and down the length of the store, taking up two of the three aisles, a sight which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen at Midtown since I started working here (so I try to capture it with my phone’s crappy camera). Noting the crowd, one frazzled staffer says to me “Happy Captain America Day”. I just wondered, ‘Will Cap even stay dead long enough for an anniversary of this?’

I’d probably be completely unmoved by all this, except for one thing — the story itself is a good one. Brubaker’s been planting the seeds and leading up to this for a while now, so you really can’t help but feel for the principal characters if you’ve been reading the book all along. (And if you haven’t been reading it, you missed out on some good stuff — if only we could’ve said the same for Civil War. The way Cap went out in CW, this is almost a mercy killing…)

At New York Comic-Con I saw nothing of Hayden Panettiere save the cheerleader’s back side. Howard and I were packing up after our doing our video interview with Reginald Hudlin and Denys Cowan in the press room when Hayden and her entourage walked by. Hudlin’s PR person pulled her in for a quick photo. Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture of Reggie and Denys smiling with everyone’s favorite cheerleader; all we got was her on her way out.

On a less breezy note, I really appreciated last night’s episode of Heroes. As much as the audience anticipates any revelations about anyone’s past, we’ve been especially interested in learning about HRG’s backstory. But even beyond those mysteries, I personally just enjoyed seeing how Bennet & Claire came to love and accept each other as real family because I’m adopted just like Claire was. Well I can’t say just like her as I’m not part of any secret agency machinations (as far as I know). And my parents never hid the fact that I was adopted from me like Bennet did — but then again when your kid is Filipino and you’re white (how do you think I have a last name like Haehnle?) it’s kind of hard to keep that a secret.

Though I find it hard to believe that any kid could accept the revelation that they’re adopted as quickly as Claire, I’m glad the writers showed that adopted parents can be your “real” parents. Because they definitely can.

Yknow, I was really thinking John Brown would win it all, just because I think egotrip would think it was highly amusing to crown a cross-eyed idio savant who proclaims himself “King of the Burbs” as the next great white hope. But no, they picked Shamrock — and that means you owe me dinner Talandon!

Sham was my choice by default, if only because he bugged me the least the whole time. I did like 100 Proof just because I really felt he was truly being himself, but I never entertained the prospect of him winning seeing how his style was more spoken word than rap. I was rooting for Sullee for a bit, but it’s kind of a lost cause when the man constantly forgets his damn rhymes. He even had to read his rhymes off a piece of paper when he finally gave up and eliminated himself. Then Jon Boy went and did the same thing, except with memorized rhymes. Those had to be the two lamest exits I’ve ever seen on a reality show.

I watched some bonus White Rapper clips on MTV and they explained that there were guys who auditioned and could freestyle endlessly — but their personalities were dull, so they weren’t chosen. Which I expect and accept. But I was just really disappointed by the degree to which the contestants were chosen for their colorful personalities above their actual skills. It seemed like half of them couldn’t write a rhyme to save their life. The one thing I will note is that the eliminations really were always based on skills.

When I first heard about The White Rapper Show I was really psyched. It never even occurred to me that an egotrip production with a legit host like Serch would be bad. But I guess egotrip was playing on everyone’s expectations anyway as a lot of stuff on the show was there just to subvert the by-now cliched conventions of reality shows. I’m sure a lot of that went over a lot of people’s heads, including mine at times.

Overall I find myself wishing the show was more of a real traditional competitive reality show, but it was still a decent & memorable show. Granted most of the unforgettable stuff involved John Brown. After all, who can forget the rock-steady composure of the dude as he had a crazy fat chick waving a dildo in his face. Etc. Hallelujah, holla back.

For those silly mortals who were born too late to experience the golden age of rap, the real Brother J was frontman for the colorful group X-Clan. (Actually I shouldn’t even say “the real Brother J” when I’m not even calling myself Brother J, I’m just using a favorite throway line of his as the name of my blog, but anyway…)

The reason I’m even bringing Brother J and X-Clan up now is because I just noticed they’re opening for Public Enemy at B.B. King’s in NYC on March 11.

Which probably prompts a lot of, They’re still around?? Yes, but it’s a different lineup. But believe it or not, Brother J and X-Clan did make some music after their first two albums.

This first track is “They Turned Gangsta” by Poor Righteous Teachers featuring Brother J from the album New World Order*
prt_they-turned-gangsta.mp3

And here’s “Weapon X” from the recently reformed X-Clan’s Return to Mecca album, released earlier this year. (Originally found on Freemotion**). Despite having an all new lineup surrounding Brother J, I think think this track does capture the old school X-Clan vibe.
x-clan_weapon-x.mp3

*This slept-on album sees PRT collaborating with like-minded talents ranging including the Fugees, KRS-One and more. I’ll probably do a post with some of these tracks soon. (Sooner than later if thre’s there’s any response to this post of course =).

**Despite infrequent updates, FreeMotion remains one of my favorite audioblogs.

Rest in Peace, Professor X! Not the X-Man, kids, I mean PX the Overseer…. *sigh* nevermind…