Movie News and a Google Cell Phone Feature

Well, it's a new week and I hope everybody reading this got to the SF Library's Big Book Sale this past weekend. I went on Thursday and picked up a large bunch of books. From architecture to graphics to poetry- hey I got a several books printed in the 1800's for a buck or two (Milton's Paradise Lost, Hougton, 1866; Robert Service's Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, 1916; Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, 1867; a leather bound Scott's Complete Poetical Works, Crowell, 1894, and other books).

Don't even get me started on the cd's and movies I picked up for a dollar each. My faves (so far) are the Floetry cd maxi-single of wannaBwhereUR (thisizzaluvsong) featuring Mos Def w/ an a cappella version that is just poppin' and the glory of Gershwin featuring Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and many others.

I also picked up Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Stand By Me, and The Legend of Bagger Vance for a buck a piece. I loved WFRR when it came out, and clearly stands the test of time very well. What an original story, with great effects, and some very sharp dialogue.

Now, film news. First, I can't believe it's taken this long for the Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game to be made into a movie. Originally a 1977 short story (I think for Omni Magazine?) and first printed in 1985. A remarkable book that should be well worth a view if it's done at all intelligently. Bummer I don't have a signed copy of Ender's Game, but I've got a hardcover first edition signed of Speaker for the Dead. A really great series.

Robert Downey Jr. is now cast to play the role of Tony Stark in Iron Man. It is reported that director Jon Favreau may have up to $165 million to work with for the pic. Wow, I guess the screenplay must be pretty compelling to fetch that kind of cheddar.

Some of you may have read a while back my blog post about the onslaught of comic-genre films to come: Ant Man, Iron Man, The Mighty Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Hulk 2, Dark Knight (Batman), Superman Returns, and Spidey 3. X-Men 4 is still being talked about also as far as I can tell. Add the Transformers movie and you have a serious amount of Hollywood's investments.

It seems Emma Watson may not be in any more Harry Potter films. Aparrently somebody has been talking in her ear or she has the idea it's not interesting or good for her career. She's getting all grown up, and I'm sure she'll be looking for some more mature roles soon. I doubt she'd have a tough time landing them with her looks and her CV.

Now, I've just learned a really, really helpful tip that many peeps may already know about (or not). Sometimes I'm the last to know, but in this instance, I've taught a couple peeps and it's useful (did I already mention it's helpful? Yeah, helpful and useful... wow).

Okay, using your cell phone, did you know you could Google a place for infomation? Yup. Here's the low down. It works on at least Cingular and Verizon, but the smart money is it works with any service that offers text messaging. I know it works in NYC and SF, I dunno if it's nationwide. Let's say you wanna look up "Chapeau" (a great French restaurant in SF). Type everything in between the [brackets] below.

1. you start to compose a text message in your phone
2. type [CHAPEAU] then a space then [SF] then a space then [CA]
3. prompt will ask to send, send message
4. dial [466453] (that's "Google" peeps)
5. press "send message" when prompted.
6. wait about 40 seconds-ish for reply.
7. my reply looked like this:

Text: Local Listings:
Chapeau
1408 Clement St.
San Francisco, CA
94118
415-750-9787
3.1 mi, W

You can even scroll down to the number and dial it directly (without typing it in). That's just wicked. If you have a text charge, it will apply; but I'd figure it's less (about 5 pennies) than directory assistance (about 2 bucks) on your celly. I realize 466453 is not even a 7 digit number, but it's a text message so it somehow sends to a "code" prompted, like some radio stations do.

I have about 40 restaurants listed in my phone, maybe I won't be adding many more now. Thanks Julie and Dami for the info!

image credits: Gershwin from amazon.com, Ender's Game from alibris.com, Iron Man from RottenTomatoes.com, Emma Watson pic from ImageWire.com on imdb.com.