Episode 72 of Pressed & Bound is online! In this week’s episode we discuss:

Books:

• Fell Vol. 1: Feral City (v. 1)

Right click and download the seventy-second episode here:

• MP4 69mb

Comments or questions? Email us at: pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com

Guess what everyone who lives in the greater OKC area: you can’t see Terminator Salvation early during the advanced screening that will show May 18-19, two-thousand nine. BUT, if you happen to live in a more human-destroying robot friendly town, you might just have the opportunity to see Christian Bale yell at some metal bipeds rather than crew members a little earlier than your buddies.

All you have to do is send a text message to some crazy number, and via magic you will be entered into a drawing to win some tickets. Here are the instructions from Forty Three Kix (a place I’ve never heard of until just now):

Screening VIP passes mean no waiting in line & two specially reserved seats for you and your guest. Advance screenings will take place the week of May 18 – click here for list of cities.

To enter to win, you must fill in the forms below or text SALVATION and your zip code to 43549 (example text: SALVATION 91505). You will receive a text message with a link that is unique to your entry. You can forward the text containing the link to your friends, family or whoever you think will help you win. The more times people click on that link, the more entries into the contest you will get.

The contest will end on Wednesday 5/13 @ 11:59pm PDT. Exclusive VIP winners will be randomly chosen out of all eligible entries within a 30 mile radius of each theater and notified via text on Thursday 5/14 or Friday 5/15 with further instructions. The prize for the winner will consist of two (2) VIP seats held until thirty (30) minutes before the start of the screening. This film has been rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and language.

Now let’s just hope the movie doesn’t suck. I know we can’t trust Bale’s acting after that whole Batman thing.

If you haven’t read anything by Robert A. Heinlein, you’ve missed a huge chunk of 20th century American science fiction. You may feel bad about that. Maybe not. Anyway, one of the greatest Read more…

Episode 71 of Pressed & Bound is online! In this week’s episode we review:

Books:

• Sister Carrie (Enriched Classics)

Movies:

• The Happening
• The Happening (Special Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]

Right click and download the seventy-first episode here:

• MP4 342mb

Comments or questions? Email us at: pnbfans(at)gmail(dot)com

Yahoo! News reports today that this coming Monday will mark the first showing of Ron Howard’s “sequel” to The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons. The best part, as if Howard and Co. wanted to piss off the Vatican, is that the premier will be in close proximity to Vatican City.

“Angels & Demons ,” again starring Tom Hanks as Langdon and directed by Ron Howard , premieres in Rome Monday at a theater a mile away from Vatican City .

In the film, Langdon is recruited by the Vatican after the pope dies and four cardinals who are favorites to succeed him are kidnapped

One wonders if they set the film after or before “The Da Vinci Code,” as the novels were originally constructed, or if they went easy mode and somehow tried to make the events in “Angels & Demons” come afterward. One also wonders if the 5% who would actually care about this continuity will even give a flip.

Regardless of all of that, A&D is bound to be a more entertaining film simply because it costars Ewan McGregor and the freaking ILLUMINATI. Both of these things are way more cool that Holy Grail Ovaries.

As of now, the Vatican has yet to flip out over A&D, citing the publicity would just make more people go see the movie. They did that with The Da Vinci Code and don’t want to make that mistake again. You can fool the Vatican once, but not twice. They can’t be fooled again.

“Dramatizing the issue involuntarily gives publicity to Angels & Demons,” said Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, in an interview with Italy’s La Stampa newspaper.

“Be careful not to play their game.”

The Da Vinci Code upset the Vatican and some Catholics because of its storyline, in which Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children, creating a royal bloodline that Church officials kept secret for centuries.

Christians are taught that Jesus never married, was crucified and rose from the dead.

Despite the controversy, and a critical mauling at the Cannes film festival where it was launched, The Da Vinci Code went on to gross more than $750 million worldwide, supporting the theory that no publicity is bad publicity.

However, the Rome archdiocese did refuse Angels & Demons the right to shoot in historic churches, forcing the crew to recreate them in Los Angeles .

And in the United States, Bill Donahue , president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, accused Brown and Howard of “smearing the Catholic Church with fabulously bogus tales.”

The Vatican may be on to something with their silence, however, as any form of media that is outwardly highly fictional that might make a God fearing Catholic question the teachings of a centuries old book written and canonized by humans over the course of many years after the initial incidents is a bad thing.

Howard states that his movies are not Anti-Catholic, and who would argue, that face doesn’t lie.

“Angels & Demons” is set to release in the U.S. on May 15.