A while back, Dreamworks teamed up with a company called Global Creatures to produce a $20 million theatrical version of How to Train Your Dragon which is premiering this March. They recently invited press in for a preview, and holy crap this looks awesome. I’m generally against adapting movies into plays, since it’s kind of the least creative thing ever (what if we took Hairspray and Legally Blonde, subtracted the satire, and added gay songs and horrible cheesy theater smiles!). But you know what’ll always change my mind?  Giant, fire-breathing dragon puppets. Now that’s what I call theater! My God, I’d never have been so down on theater if I knew it could be so much like Truckosaurus.

And that dragon. He’s so soulful and expressive. I wonder if that’s Andy Serkis in there. I bet it is. He’s such an amazing actor.

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ACTUAL PLOT: Danny Glover plays Captain Ahab opposite Vinnie Jones in a retelling of Moby Dick in which the white whale is a dragon. (*Air guitar*)  Seriously though, that’s the plot of the $5 million-budgeted Dragon Fire, and the best part is, we learn all of this through a local TV news report from adorable Utah.  I’ve prepared a rough transcript:

VOICE OVER: “The lights and cameras are shining in Provo this week as cast and crew work on what they hope will be the next box office-smash.  Writers and producers are taking the American classic Moby Dick and putting a fantasy twist to it.”

FRENCH PRODUCER IN A HAMMOCK: “Well, eet’s Moby Dick… weess dragons.”

DANNY GLOVER: “We all know a moral dilemma Moby Dick mumble mumble I seem drunk.”

VOICE OVER: Blah blah blah, Danny Glover’s been to Utah before, “But most remember him from the Lethal Weapon movies.”

DANNY GLOVER: Mumble mumble *hiccup* mumble mumble

VOICE OVER:  “But it’s ultimately moviegoers who will decide if dragons does indeed make this timeless classic  more exciting.”

Interesting stuff, John.  Coming up at the top of the hour, the US death toll in Afghanistan passes 1,000 and Sally Roberson of Lehi teaches us how to make lawn sculptures out of old kitty litter scoopings.  Stay tuned.

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This is the trailer for Assault Girls, directed by Mamoru Oshii, and put at the top of his to-do list by Roman Polanski (haha, good one, Jay!).  It opens December 29th in Japan and the trailer’s all in Japanese except for a couple of lines. But as my old home ec teacher Mrs. Stevenson used to say, the language of hot chicks blowing up dragons with guns is universal.  It also has robots and J-pop, because why not.  And the monsters are vaguely phallic, which I’m sure was totally accidental.  I wish Octopussy had been made in Japan.  It’d be about a girl with eight vaginas getting raped by an octopus.  Works on multiple levels, you see.