1. Norio Ohga, a the former president and chairman of Sony and the man credited with developing the compact disc, has died at the age of 81. [via NME]
2. Take a look at the first new art from Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson in 16 years, a painting that he created for a fundraising project for Parkinson’s research.
3. The new album from Seattle folk rockers Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues, is streaming in full over at NPR. It’s officially due out on May 3.
4. Former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, who was most recently the chief film critic over at Movieline.com, has been terminated following an investigation into his review of Source Code, which appeared to be based upon an early draft of the script rather than the movie itself. [via Deadline]
5. Check out a well-bearded Paul Rudd in the new trailer for My Idiot Brother, a comedy which also stars Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer, and Rashida Jones. [via Perez]
Bonus link: Watch a Matrix-inspired body-popping breakdancing routine
1. City planners in China want to combine the nine cities in the Pearl River Delta into a 42-million-person megacity that’s the size of Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire combined. [via Gawker]
2. Patti Smith is currently “about 68 percent done” writing a detective novel that opens in the churchyard of St Giles-in-the-Fields in London. [via NME]
3. Keanu Reeves says that he met with the Wachowskis and that they are working on a “script treatment” for a fourth and fifth Matrix movie that would feature him as Neo. [via Kottke]
4. According to TVline’s Michael Ausiello, McG — who helmed the Charlie’s Angels movies and is an executive producer on Nikita, Human Target, Supernatural, and Chuck — has emerged as the odds-on favorite to direct the pilot for NBC’s much-hyped Wonder Woman remake.
5. While their reps aren’t confirming anything yet, there are reports that Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem are celebrating the birth of their first child, a baby boy. [via NYP]
Bonus link: Watch James Franco’s Run-In With a Daily Show Mini-Fridge
The Kick-Ass movie posters were released earlier today, and most of the blogger world is salivating over Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic book series of the same name. We’ll show you them after the jump, but what’s really interesting to us is the critical buzz generated by Lionsgate’s recent test screenings in London and LA. Readers wrote in to Ain’t It Cool and Slashfilm with their reviews, with one comparing it to a cross between Matrix and Shaun of the Dead and calling it “the best superhero movie ever made.” That bodes well.
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