If you’re at work, you might want to think twice before clicking over but Playboy magazine are publishing a comic strip adaptation of a scene from Inglourious Basterds and it’s also available on their website. Perhaps more safe would be checking out two preview pages at The Huffington Post, where I first caught wind of this amusing PR trick. According to them, the scene in question was “hand-picked and edited by Quentin Tarantino” – as well, of course, as coming straight from his screenplay and movie.

A little disappointing, perhaps, that the opening caption simply reads “Occupied France” and not “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied France” as per the film. That title card is far from being an accident or just a twee novelty.

The artwork for the strip was done by R.M Guera and colored by Giulia Brasco who also collaborate on Vertigo comics’ Scalped. How amusing. I can almost imagine Tarantino hollering “And I want my (artwork done by the people who do) Scalped” with Lt. Raine’s deep southern drawl.

I’m not that convinced by this comic strip, I’m afraid. Not to throw any aspersions on the actual filmed scene, of course, it’s just that the adaptation is rather text heavy. This is not comics being pushed at all. A shame really, because Tarantino knows visual storytelling like nobody’s business and is clearly a genuine lover of comics too.

A Playboy tie-in is interesting. I remember that when I was younger and I had to start trying to find copies of Playboy in order to find interviews with filmmakers that I wanted to read (including a couple with Kubrick that were well worth the effort), I often felt a little coy, perhaps even embarrassed, when snooping around for copies in collectors’ shops and the like. I’ve no idea what the magazine is like now, but I’d imagine it’s still a moderately chaste stripe of “gentlemen’s magazine”. Do they still publish good interviews with filmmakers? Do all of the women still look ghoulishly rubberised and airbrushed?

Jon Heder, best known for playing the title role in Napoleon Dynamite, has signed on to star in an adaptation of Bradley Denton’s comic sci-fi novel Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede. Robert Rugan wrote the screenplay adaptation and will direct. Heder will shoot the film when he has time off from his untitled Comedy Central sitcom. The official plot synopsis follows

“February 3rd, 1959 was the “day the music died.” It was also marked the day when our hero, Oliver Vale, was conceived in the back seat of a car. And from that moment forward, he was raised to fervently believe in personal freedom, UFOs, higher consciousness and, of course, the power of rock n rock. Exactly thirty years from his conception, Oliver turns on the TV only to find Buddy Holly on every channel, broadcasting nonstop from Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. Buddy’s message to the world? Oliver Vale holds the key to Buddy Holly’s “re-birth” and should be contacted for details. Now in a slight panic, Oliver makes the decision to race towards Lubbock, the birthplace of Buddy Holly, to search for some clues into why this is happening to him. And with Oliver on the run, the film becomes an action packed romp through the desert – with Oliver trying to keep ahead of the pack and away from his therapist, a killer cyborg dog, a FCC assassin, a couple of aliens, and a mob of couch potatoes who want their TV back… NOW.”

Sounds like a really crazy story. You can read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Campbell Award-winning novel online for free. The character from the film, Oliver Vale, already has a twitter account, where he has been tweeting from the year 1988. Talk about advance marketing.

Rugan’s first indie feature Alice’s Misadventures in Wonderland won the Grand Jury Award for Best Feature Film at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival. He has done commercial work for Budweiser, Diet Pepsi, Philips, Verizon Wireless, MTV, IFC, and HBO. In his director’s statement, Rugan notes that the film “is a story that breaks down the walls of convention encompassing humor, a wild imagination and the heartfelt message that we, as human beings, are connected by fate, but that we motivate our own destiny and that life is always worth living.”

I’ve always wished that Warner Bros had filmed extended editions of the Harry Potter films, in the same vein as Peter Jackson filmed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Of course, anyone who knows the many differences between the books and the released films knows that it really wouldn’t have been possible. The squeeze the most important plot points into the films, scenes, characters and information have been combined in a way that sometimes eliminates the wonderful side stories that we loved from the novels.

Over the course of the series, there have been many scenes, sequences and moments that were filmed but ended up on the cutting room floor. And it appears that Warner Bros is hoping to squeeze a bit more money out of the very popular wizard franchise by releasing extended editions of all the Harry Potter films.

RopeofSilicon was the first to notice a listing in the latest MPAA Rating Bulletin for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Extended Edition) which earned the same PG rating, for the same reasons as te theatrical release (some scary moments and mild language). Ropes contacted Warner Bros Home Video about the mention, and they confirmed that “Although we’ve not announced [it yet], all Harry Potter films are being planned to get special upcoming releases!”

Will the new extended editions be released exclusively on Blu-Ray? DVD? Will the get a theatrical rerelease? We have no idea as no further details were mentioned.

And how much longer can we expect from an “extended edition”? Director Chris Columbus added 7 minutes of deleted scenes back into the movie for its May 2004 ABC broadcast premiere. The original two-disc DVD release of the film features seven deleted scenes, only accessible by searching for the Sorcerer’s Stone, which has been described by digitalbits as “a long, involved process that means getting a wand from one virtual location on the disc, and then going to another location and accomplishing a number of interactive challenges.” And from what I can tell, the deleted scenes didn’t add up to much more than 7 minutes. So I really wonder if the Extended Edition will be not much more than a marketing gimmick.

Will the extended editions be released theatrically, or just on home video? I’ve noticed that most of the director’s cuts released on home video are never resubmitted for MPAA approval. I’m not sure if this is because they usually include footage cut from a theatrical R-Rated release which the MPAA wasn’t too keen on to begin with, or if the MPAA rating doesn’t mean as much when releasing a film on home video. One could be quick to assume that by submitting the film for MPAA approval may mean that they are considering a theatrical release, even a limited one. But who knows?

Rumors of a home-video released extended editions have been floating around the Harry Potter fan community for a couple years now. A post from December 2007 on LeakyLounge.com claimed that Warner Bros was planning to release extended versions of the Potter films, starting with Sorcerer’s Stone in Mid-2008 which was going to run an extra 30 minutes in length. The rumor claimed that each film would be released in a 4-disc box set containing the original version, extended edition and two discs worth of special features.

Update: /Film reader Mark S points out that the Digital Bits reported that Ultimate Collector’s Edition Blu-rays for the first two films are now up for preorder on Amazon. It is very possible that the extended cuts will be included on these yet-to-be-officially-announced releases.