The Godfather Of Soul has died at the age of 73 this Christmas day.

Well known as an innovator and influence on music for the past 50 years, it was not until very recently that I came to understand who the true James Brown is.

He is a crazy person. A force of nature trapped inside of a man that can only be unleashed in the form of music.

Rolling Stone magazine recently published the article Being James Brown and its a shockingly hilarious look inside the world of the hardest working man in show business. Its a long read, and probably not your idea of holiday entertainment, but unhinged insanity that begins when James Brown enters a room and lingers long after he leaves… well its a good metaphor for his legacy in music as well.

From the article:

James Brown writes a lyric, to record over a long, rambling blues-funk track titled “Message to the World.” For anyone who has ever wondered how James Brown writes a song, I have a sort of answer for you. First: He borrows Mr. Bobbit’s bifocals. James Brown doesn’t have glasses of his own, or left them at home, or something. Second: He borrows a pencil. Third: He sits, and writes, for about fifteen minutes. Then he puts himself behind the microphone. The result is a cascading rant not completely unlike his spoken monologues. Impossible to paraphrase, it meanders over subjects as disparate as his four marriages, Charles Barkley, Al Jarreau, a mixture of Georgia and Carolina identities he calls “Georgia-lina,” the fact that he still knows Maceo Parker and that Fred Wesley doesn’t live very far away, either, Mr. Bobbit’s superiority to him as a checkers player, the fact that he believes himself to have both Asian and Native American ancestry, and, most crucially, his appetite for corn on the cob and its role in his health: “I like corn, that’s a regular thing with me. Gonna live a long time, live a little longer.”

Mr. James Brown will live a little longer. Here he is just a year and a half ago at the Live 8 benefit concert, in top form.

Halo fans would do well to hop on Xbox Live Marketplace and get the new video documentary on the role of the Brutes in Halo 3. For those of us without access to the 360’s video download service, its also on GameTrailers.

At seven minutes, Bungie staff speak of the shortcomings of Brutes in Halo 2, and the masive overhaul the species will get in the sequel. With the Elites no longer in the Covenant, Brutes will become the dominant enemy in Halo 3’s campaign.

Much of the video is concept art and early animation tests, but we do see about 2 minutes of gameplay an in game graphics. Bungie.net is quick to point out everything is a work in progress and while there are new weapons in the video, they may look and/or function differently in the final game.

I got to hand it to Bungie on this one. As secretive as they continue to be, they are offering more access than many other developers do to the process of forming the game. It doesn’t come close to what fans have been clamoring for, but its more of an inside look than other AAA titles for 2007 like Mario Galaxy or Metal Gear Solid 4.

The hotly anticipated trailer for the 2007 Transformers movie from director Michael Bay is now online at Yahoo UK.

At 1 PM EST, this trailer will be available in multiple formats on the US Yahoo Movies site.

Joseph Barbera now joins his partner William Hannah in history. They formed the production duo Hannah-Barbera, responsible for the most recognizable and loved cartoons outside of the old Disney and Warner Bros vaults.

In 1940, their first short for MGM “Puss Gets the Boot” had the dual distinction of being the nominated for an Academy Award and the first in many, many Tom And Jerry cartoons. In the 60s, they went solo and created The Flintstones, Jetsons, Jonny Quest, and Scooby Doo. And even into the 90s working under Turner Broadcasting, they produced Cartoon Network’s earliest breakout hits.

William Hannah passed in 2001, but just last year Joe Barbera wrote and produced a new Tom and Jerry short. It is a testament to his talent and longevity that he return and finish his career with the characters that made him famous 65 years prior.

read more: Wikipedia, AP Obituary

thanks to Sindra and Matt

TrekMove.com, a site I can only assume was founded to unearth information about the still hazy JJ Abrams movie, has some news on a possible new animated (!) internet(!!) series.

Under the headline “CBS Considering New Animated Trek Series For The Web” Trek Movie reports:

The idea for a new animated Trek started back around the time that Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled. David Rossi and his partners didn’t buy into the notion that Star Trek ‘needed a rest’. “We wanted to spark a little life into Star Trek and to keep it alive in people’s eyes,” explains Rossi. They knew CBS and Paramount weren’t going to be keen on a new (and very expensive) live action show so they decided that animation was the way to go. Their first notion was to do a show set in the Original Series era (but not on the Enterprise), however that notion didn’t sit well with the people at CBS. Rossi then took the advice he got from LeVar Burton on how ‘Star Trek should always be about moving forward and what is next in the human adventure.’ So the team came up with the notion of taking a big leap forward and setting a show 150 years after the time of Picard and Star Trek Nemesis, but in a very different and somewhat dark Trek universe. CBS were more open to that idea and over the last year and a half have asked the team (now formed into Zero Room Productions) to flesh out their idea. Although CBS have not committed to the series, they have asked the team to develop test artwork and scripts for 5 mini episodes.

I always liked LeVar Burton.

No more prequels, no ancient history, no revamps. Taking a big leap into a “Next Next Generation” will give them lots of room to play around while not abandoning the races and planets we know.

So I’m firmly in the camp that loves the concept. Why am I nervous? Because they’re going for “mini-episodes” meaning all stories will have to be low character development but high action. This is not Trek’s strong point. At the risk of comparing to Star Wars (cue groaning), All the characters there were defined by actions and broad dialog, where as I didn’t feel like I knew a character like Picard until the show had been on for years, and they still managed to surprise me for years afterwards. Star Trek may be overshadowed by Battlestar, Stargate, and other sci-fi series these days, but lets not forget that the character based sci-fi drama began with Trek and its only fair that Trek come back to reclaim it. I don’t think they’ll do it with cartoons for the YouTube audience.

Best case scenario: The ‘toons take off and a real new series is developed to flesh out the new timeline. Worst Case scenario: we’re pretty much already living it, so we’ve got nothing to lose.

Thanks Shiv’Kala

Live Free or Die Hard’s trailer is boring as hell. And Justin Long is a poor follow up to Die Hard 3’s sidekick, Sam Jackson.

Frank Miller’s epic graphic novel is being turned into a experimental film using digital sets. Nope, not a rerun of Sin City, its a new trailer for 300

SHREK THE THIRD! DOES ANYONE CARE? NOT ME. The clip prominently features “Do You Remember Rock N Roll Radio?” by the Ramones for no reason what-so-ever, and lists Justin Timberlake as a cast member. I missed the first two movies. Can I three-peat?

iFilm collects what they call The Best Trailers of 2006. I’ve seen all of them, but only half of the movies.

DC comics have traditionally done well when animated for the small screen. The universe established with Batman the Animated series which concluded in Justice League Unlimted this year is probably only surpassed by Star Trek for its amazing ability to take multiple series and tie them all together.

Live action has fared less well. George Reeves had a good run as Superman, and Adam West and Burt Ward certainly made TV history as Batman & Robin (even if the show was more parody than adaptation). But The Flash got one season out of CBS, Birds Of Prey was panned and canned, and Smallville seems to be losing steam in its 6th year.

Apparently someone more than a few years ago thought the Justice League would make a good show. The Movie Blog is hosting the pilot for this show, which you can download right now. You could download it, but I’d advise you not to. Its so bad. Guy Gardner and Barry Allen are roommates. Atom’s costume makes me laugh just looking at it. Martian Manhunter is the only one who doesn’t come off as completely terrible. The “big 3” are nowhere to be found. These are all things that were possible to fix with casting, writing or simple asthetic choices.

The thing they couldn’t fix is the visual effects, which are pretty good for 80s TV, but do a disservice to the characters because they’re so distractingly fake. Green Lantern’s ring powers form goofy umbrellas or helicopter blades. Atom fights a kitten in local news weather quality green-screen.

Anyway, yeah its bad. Horrible actually. I think I’m having an allergic reaction thinking about it.

After being buried in 12 inches of snow last week in a hotel that refused to pay someone to plow, hopping in snowdrifts isn’t high on my list of priorities right now.

None the less, Nintendo has pushed a fun flash based platformer on to the web to help push their holiday game line up. In Mission In Snowdriftland you play this little snowman who has to run and jump and… well if you ever played a Nintendo side scroller, this won’t be hard. At the end of the first level I was rewarded with a Yoshi’s Island DS Ringtone, so I think it was worth my time playing.

Mission In Snowdriftland is basically a clever web distraction that puts a banner up for a Nintendo game and then rewards you with extras like wallpapers, MP3s, and computer icons. Its not bad really, though keyboarding platformers may be hard for those of us who don’t make a habit of emulating ROMs regularly.