.A 20-year-old Brazilian model who lost her hands and feet to an infection has died in hospital of medical complications, according to a family statement on her website.
“It’s with great sadness that we inform you of the death of Mari, today [Saturday] at 2:30am [local time],” her family wrote on the site of Mariana Bridi da Costa.
They said she died of a generalised infection and abdominal bleeding.
Doctors at the Dorio Silva Hospital in Serra, in the south-eastern state of Espirito Santo, earlier this month amputated Bridi’s hands and feet because of irreparable tissue damage caused by a urinary infection.
National news websites, including G1, O Globo and Estadao, quoted authorities confirming the information.
Bridi was an up-and-coming model before the tragedy struck.
She was diagnosed with the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium, which can prove fatal.
She twice made it into the national finals for the Miss World contest, and last year travelled to China to participate in the Miss Bikini International pageant.
“It is important to stress that, in Mari’s 20 years of life, she lived intensely and was very happy,” the family said in their statement.
Her family and media on Friday had launched an appeal for blood donors to help Bridi, who had the rare O negative blood type.
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O Globo said Bridi was to buried late Saturday

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Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber says the long-awaited sequel to Phantom of the Opera should be ready at the end of 2009, with a possible simultaneous opening on three continents, the Associated Press reported.
Lloyd Webber told The Times of London that he hopes the new musical, to be called Phantom: Love Never Dies, will open in New York, London and possibly Shanghai or another Asian city. The sequel will be set about 10 years after the original, which has been seen by approximately 80 million theatergoers in 124 cities worldwide.
The locale of the celebrated musical will be switched from the Paris Opera to New York’s Coney Island. .
And who will play the Phantom? Lloyd Webber is keeping that secret for now.

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Hugo Award-winning SF author Elizabeth Bear told us that her latest novel, All the Windwracked Stars, is something she’s been working on since time immemorial–or what feels like it, anyway.
“Basically, it’s the conjunction of a lot of different things: my love for post-apocalyptic science fantasy and my desire to do something slightly different with it are probably the most deep-seated motives, however,” Bear said in an interview. “I also wanted to build a world where the cultural foundation was a bit different than our own–something a little divorced from Romano-Christian ideals and emotional logic. .”
In the novel, in the last city on a dying world, the last Valkyrie encounters the ancient enemy she blames for the destruction of her society . and then “wackiness ensues,” Bear said.. “The book’s main protagonist is Muire, a historian and sculptor who happens to be 2300 years old, and a supernatural being,” she said. “Actually, the book was easy to write, although it took me many, many drafts to get it right,” she said.
Bear said that a ton of research went into the book, but added that she hopes it’s not immediately apparent. I like this place and these people and their story. “But writing it was an awful lot of fun, as I was very engaged with the characters and the world the entire time. “The bit I think is amazingly cool, and which soaked up most of the research, was integrating traditional Norse magic and religion into a technological society and trying to make them seem as if they had grown up together, inseparable,” Bear said.”
The book is science fantasy, so the science deals mostly with well-established tropes. “The setting is also very fun. “The setting is also very fun. She’s also writing for the ongoing collaborative Web fiction project , which is gearing up for season two.”
Other recent projects of Bear’s include the recent novels Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth, which she describes as Elizabethan fantasies featuring poets, spies, devils and faerie queens. –John Joseph Adams

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In a surprise ruling, a federal judge in Los Angeles said he intended to grant 20th Century Fox’s claim that it owns a copyright interest in the Watchmen, a movie shot by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures and set for release in March, The New York Times reported on Christmas Eve.
The decision was disclosed in a five-page written order issued on Dec. Gary A. 24.
Fox has been seeking to prevent Warner from releasing the film. Feess, a judge in the United States District Court for Central California, said he would provide a more detailed order soon. . The superhero adventure, based on the Watchmen graphic novel, is being directed by Zack Snyder (300) and has shaped up as one of most eagerly anticipated releases for next year.

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At the San Diego Comic-Con last July, writer/producer Joss Whedon raised the possiblity of a sequel to his hit Internet musical Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which is available on DVD today. To which we say: Heck yeah!
The three-part musical/comedy/drama came together during last year’s writers’ strike and hit the Web with much fanfare. Horrible’s efforts to woo the laundromat girl, Penny (Felicia Day) to defeat his archnemesis, Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) and to qualify for membership in the Evil League of Evil. Centering on a wannabe supervillain played by Neil Patrick Harris, the show chonicled Dr. With a crashing economy, crippling ice storms and the unfortunate return of short-brimmed hats as a male fashion statement, the nation needs Dr.
By turns silly, heartwarming and heartbreaking, the webisodes practically cried out for follow-up. Horrible more than ever.
Dr. Here’s why. After Penny’s unfortunate encounter with the freeze ray, Dr. Horrible is ready for a new adventure. He’s got a fancy new red costume, and he’s been accepted into the Evil League of Evil. H goes full evil. Captain Hammer is in therapy, and our favorite bad guy has every reason to seek revenge. Captain Hammer is in therapy, and our favorite bad guy has every reason to seek revenge. in horribleness can think of fantastically evil ways to exact it.D.

Captain Hammer could become something even crazier.
This story continues below the image. Just imagine the weirdness that could come out of the brain of someone who saves damsels in distress by throwing them into a pile of garbage. Aside from the fact that Fillion is just plain pretty to look at, he pulls off smarmy superhero like nobody’s business. Everyone loved Day as sweet, doomed Penny. And the questions: What special muscles has he been working on?
Penny is gone. Now that Dr. But she was all wrong for the doc. Of course, Penny could always come back–Whedon’s brought characters back from the dead before. Of course, Penny could always come back–Whedon’s brought characters back from the dead before. In fact, he’s brought them all back from the dead, come to think of it …
The Evil League of Evil. The head of the league is called Bad Horse, and he’s an actual horse, accompanied by a retinue of singing cowboys. . Still to be heard from: Professor Normal, Fake Thomas Jefferson and Dead Bowie.
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Because the fans demand it! Do a search for Dr. Horrible fan fiction and prepare to be amazed. The Facebook fan site has 89,608 members the series has been nominated for a People’s Choice Award and Time Magazine gave it the number 15 spot in its Top 50 Innovations of 2008. Show us it’s not just a fluke.

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Science fiction shows–including NBC’s Heroes, ABC’s Lost and Fox’s Fringe–were among the year’s top 10 most “time-shifted TV series”–the most TiVo’d, to you and me–according to the Nielsen Co., Variety reported.
In a second list that ranked shows in order of the percentage increase attributable to time-shifted viewing, SCI FI Channel’s Battlestar Galactica came out on top, notching a whopping 53 percent jump in households. The new list is a ranking of the programs that saw the biggest increases in DVR use in 2008. .
Other strong cable showings included SCI FI’s Sanctuary (35 percent) and Eureka (34 percent)

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us spoke one on one with Scott Derrickson, director of The Day the Earth Stood Still, mainly to ask him: What were you thinking? A remake of Robert Wise’s 1951 SF classic? Keanu Reeves as Klaatu??
What he had to say persuaded us to reconsider the project, which opens today.
In it, Reeves plays an alien who arrives on Earth, takes human form and carries a warning to humanity. But before he can deliver it, he is captured and subjected to interrogation. Klaatu, Helen and her son, Jacob (Jaden Smith), find themselves on the run. Upon his escape, he forges a bond with a sympathetic astrophysicist, Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). 12. (There are some spoilers ahead!) The Day the Earth Stood Still opens in conventional theaters and IMAX theaters on Dec.
Keanu actually brings a lot of subtlety to his portrayal of an alien who finds himself in a human body and isn’t quite sure how it works. You know, when he turns to Kathy Bates and has that dialogue with her, his eyes are, like, really black, and that’s not an effect or anything: That’s the actor, just in this weird space.
Derrickson: It’s subtle and yet very effective.. . And Kathy Bates came up to me between takes when we were shooting that scene, she said, “Hey, he’s really freaking me out..” She was, like, generally kind of disturbed! And I thought, “My God, if you can throw Kathy Bates off in an acting scene, that’s something.” She was, like, generally kind of disturbed! And I thought, “My God, if you can throw Kathy Bates off in an acting scene, that’s something. Yet you know there is something going on.

The other thing is that he’s playing emotions, just not human emotions, and they don’t express themselves in the way that you would read a human emotion..
Derrickson: . The only other actor I’ve been able to compare him to in his ability to do that is Harrison Ford, and I think that they’re both actors that never got enough credit, never got any nominations [Ford's actually been nominated for an Oscar], and what they do is something that very few actors can do, to make you feel that, to feel there’s something going on on the surface which is very interesting and complex, and I’m tracking it and I’m feeling it and I understand it, but to articulate it would almost be impossible… .
You got a question about this film’s ending.. At first it bothered me, and then I realized what Keanu said about a big stick: that it’s one thing to force the human race to change, it’s another to decide that you have faith after this experience that the human race will evolve in the right way on its own. At first it bothered me, and then I realized what Keanu said about a big stick: that it’s one thing to force the human race to change, it’s another to decide that you have faith after this experience that the human race will evolve in the right way on its own. Is that kind of what you had in mind?
Derrickson: One hundred percent. … Klaatu’s journey is a journey of discovering what he ultimately believes we are capable of doing. And it starts with Mr. Wu [James Hong], you know, which is my favorite scene in the movie. That was the reason I did the movie, aside from the script. … . [That humans] do have a capacity, especially when under duress, to make radical and significant changes. That, coupled with his own love that he developed for what humanity was, I think that he was examining at it then and deciding, “I can’t just sacrifice them or the planet. I’m going to take a shot at keeping both.” And that’s kind of the decision that I think he makes at the end. That’s certainly the story that I was trying to tell.
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Jennifer Connelly is Dr. Helen Benson and Keanu Reeves is Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still. (Doane Gregory for Fox)
So in that sense he doesn’t need to necessarily tell anybody. He just needs to step back.
Derrickson: Yeah, he basically just needed to stop this process that he had started and see what happens. And I think that it’s very likely that he would monitor it and see what’s going on, but he definitely is going to step back and let us do our thing. And, I think, I like the idea, like I said, the Jesus analogy is the only one I can use, because it is the one that I thought through with the ending: that, you know, when Jesus died, people didn’t know his message, and it was only a handful of people, but it became the thing that went and changed Western civilization. And I liked the idea that he is this messianic kind of figure that makes the sacrifice, and that when he’s done, what he did and why he did it … would spread and that [it] would be the roots of change itself. That’s my prediction at the ending. And … the other thing that’s interesting, to me, is that there’s nothing in the movie that gives any indication for how long the power is going to be off. Is it off forever? Is it off for the day that the Earth stands still? … Are we going to figure out how to get it back on? I don’t know. And I liked leaving that open, because that’s the stuff that’s fun to talk about.
I was talking with a friend, saying that this film is really the prequel to The Road.
Derrickson: [Laughs] That’s great. …
Your remake is careful to include things that come from the original movie. Are there specific things that you wanted to make sure were in there?
Derrickson: I definitely wanted to keep the math equation with Barnhardt [John Cleese]. It was always one of my favorite parts of the movie. … The character of Barnhardt being this great mind and that he comes in and he has this equation that he deals with. …
The spaceship and the spacesuit that Klaatu comes out in and Gort: It’s not just a matter of having those things in the movie, but … the fact that those three things so didn’t belong to the normal world of that movie, [but] that they so belonged to the world of each other. Like they all had a relationship to each other that felt [right] they all fit together, they all belonged to each other. And that was something I tried to preserve, too: that the ship, in this case this giant sphere, and the spacesuit and then Gort had some kind of an interesting biomechanical kind of relationship to each other that’s alien … [but] that they do fit to each other. …
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Keanu Reeves stars as Klaatu, an alien whose arrival on our planet triggers a global upheaval in The Day the Earth Stood Still. (WETA)
I think that the number-one thing on the overall picture–it’s not a specific, it’s more a sensibility–when I saw the film for the first time, what I was most affected by the story just being a great story, this alien observing human nature. But I … am still really impressed and struck by the uniqueness of that film’s balance between spectacle and big entertainment value and big spaceships and big robots and thrills and scare–and these kind of quiet, intimate moments. And the big, giant sci-fi scale combined with quiet, human, serious, real character material. And … there aren’t a lot of science fiction films that have done that, and I think that that overall sensibility was the thing that I most wanted to take from the original to this story as well, because it’s not usual, it’s not typical.
I also noticed you threw a theremin in there, too.
Derrickson: There’s actually theremin all over that score. … When people think of the theremin, of course, they think of that weird, unworldly sound from the Bernard Herrmann score. I told … Tyler Bates, our composer, that I would love him to work a theremin in if he could. And he got the best theremin player in the world, and a lot of what you hear is theremin. I mean, a lot of the main instrumentation, she can do amazing things, this girl who played. And things that sound like sound effects, a lot of the stuff that you hear in the surgery sequence [was the theremin]. … He ended up using it a lot more than I was even expecting, and I’m really happy about that, because it is a really interesting instrument, and watching her play it was amazing. –

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No matter how many good movies Keanu Reeves makes, people will always make fun of him. Sci-fi fans should stick up for the surfer dude because he’s been their biggest advocate in Hollywood.
Reeves has given some of his best performances in genre movies, and even when he’s just phoning it in, they still seem to make some cash. Surely their support would mean the world to him when he’s crying himself to sleep on silk bedsheets strewn with $100 bills.
The Matrix movies. In anticipation of Reeves’ remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, us assesses the quality of his sci-fi and fantasy outings so far, with comparisons to their actual box office (domestic figures). Really, it’s only Revolutions that flies off the deep end. You’ve got to give this one to Keanu on the strength of the first movie alone. But the first Matrix was seminal sci-fi the moment it hit theaters, and it’s one of Keanu’s best performances, too. Reloaded’s so-so. Rating: Matrix, 4 stars. He delivers his trademark “Whoa” in the most perfect context, and when he realizes he has kung fu skills, he’s like a kid with his first Nintendo. Revolutions, 1. Reloaded, 3.
Johnny Mnemonic. Box Office: $591 million. The premise of this movie–downloading data directly into a human brain–was intriguing for the time. Keanu did his best to portray the physical discomfort and inner turmoil of being a human flashdrive. It was like the filmmakers tried to do Speed with Keanu as the bus, only there’s no cutie Sandra Bullock taking the wheel. But the movie itself was cheesy, light on action and even lighter on scientific plausibility. Box Office: $19 million. Rating: 2 stars.

The Bill and Ted movies.
This story continues below the video window. The best part is when the boys get into a tight spot and use their time machine to go back and set stuff up later. The best part is when the boys get into a tight spot and use their time machine to go back and set stuff up later. Then the stuff they plan to set up is, like, already set up for them. Excellent! Rating: 4 stars each. Box Office: $77 million total. (But that’s ’80s dollars!)
The Lake House. This sappy time-travel romance was so overwrought it was no fun at all. Keanu’s living two years in the past, but getting letters from his Speed co-star Bullock in the present, and he never once asks her for a stock tip or Super Bowl score. Then they make plans to meet, and he doesn’t show up. Well, why do you think he’d miss their future date? A lot of tragedy can happen in two years. Ugh. Rating: 1 star. Box Office: a reasonable $52 million.
Chain Reaction. There’s no problem believing that Keanu is a brilliant physicist. Honest. It’s just that the scientific set-up–he’s working on a miracle alternative fuel–is just a MacGuffin for a standard chase movie. . Even Morgan Freeman couldn’t bring depth to it. Rating: 2 stars. Box Office: $20 million.
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A Scanner Darkly. This rotoscope-animated movie may be faithful to Philip K. Dick’s book, but it makes no sense to an average viewer. The filmmakers draw a Keanu cartoon over Keanu, and he’s wearing a suit that changes his face several times a second. He talks about scanning lightly versus darkly and blah blah blah. Whatever, Keanu. Rating: 1 star. Box Office: $5.5 million (not bad for an indie).
The Gift. Keanu has a small but well-played role in this Sam Raimi supernatural movie. Cate Blanchett plays a psychic plagued by horrific visions. Keanu’s a scary wife-beater who keeps threatening her for getting in the way. And yet women still find him dreamy. Go figure. Rating: 3 stars. Box Office: $12 million.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This Francis Coppola adaptation of Stoker’s classic vampire novel is pretty good, if for its visual style alone. But Keanu is not good in it. Way. And that accent? It’s enough to wake the undead. Rating: 3 stars for the movie, 1 star for Keanu. Box Office: $82 million.
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The Devil’s Advocate. Who would have thought a movie about Satan as a lawyer would be so convincing? Keanu plays a hotshot Southern defense attorney who gets a job for a big-city firm, only to realize that his boss is the devil. Literally. The hellish stuff totally works, though it’s a bit obvious, and Keanu plays it straight as a guy dealing with demonic temptation. Rating: 3 stars. Box Office: $61 million.
Constantine A supernatural tale with religious iconography, this film–based on the Hellblazer comics–is pretty exciting visually, and Keanu makes a credible, conflicted action hero with a damnation issue. You believe his inner turmoil: He’s dying of lung cancer and facing perdition for an earlier suicide attempt. He also kicks ass. Rating: 3 stars. Box Office: $75 million. –Fred Topel

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Showtime is developing a character-driven SF-themed drama called Syns with Jericho consulting producer John McNamara and Supernatural supervising producer/writer Sera Gamble, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Syns (formerly Dolls’ Hospital) centers on a world in which humanlike synthetic organisms, known as Syns, are used for various purposes.S. Showtime has bought U.
Stephen Volk created the British version Gamble and McNamara are credited as co-creator/executive producers on the U. rights to the project, which originally was developed at the BBC. .S. Clerkenwell Films is producing with Pangea, the scripted arm of RDF USA. Gamble also is writing the script.

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Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, director of the upcoming SF mind bender Timecrimes, told us that he has been dreaming of making movies his entire life. After toiling for a few years as a commercial actor, Vigalondo received universal acclaim for his short 7:35 in the Morning in 2003.
It took some time and a lot of patience, but Vigalondo was eventually able to scrape together the finances for his feature-film directorial debut, Timecrimes. The short was later nominated for an Oscar.
Timecrimes is a cinematic head trip requiring close attention in order to follow the intricate and constantly changing time-travel storyline. He also wrote the screenplay and played the crucial part of Chico.
Hollywood has already taken notice and picked up the rights for an American remake, shooting next year. It features an unlikely hero, Hector (Karra Elejalde), who is unwittingly thrust into a series of increasingly bizarre circumstances when he enters a time machine and travels one hour into the past. 12. The original Spanish film will be released stateside in limited release on Dec. Below is an edited version of the interview.
us spoke with Vigalondo recently about the stateside release, the American remake and his future plans in Hollywood. I love time-travel stories.
Where did you first get this idea?
Vigalondo: I’d been reading shorts and science fiction literature all of my life. You cannot be the same when you’re making a time-travel story. When you’re making a time-travel story, you are supposed to make a new step in a new direction.
This story continues below the video window. This was a big challenge, to make something about time travel that somehow felt new.
Vigalondo: Yes.

It seems like a tricky story to write, because you must go over and over each little detail to make sure it all lines up. When you’re making a movie like this, and you think this or that will be great, you have to assume everything will require extra effort. I made a rough draft of this story, which was maybe [already] too much. I wasn’t worried, because if you just make a film that matches, you will just make a film that is logical but boring. The challenge is not only making something that matches, but also making something fun.
I’m not worried if someone gets lost watching the film.
I’m not worried if someone gets lost watching the film. I’m worried if they get bored. The movie works somehow based on the audience reactions. People seem to really, really like it and love talking about it after they’ve seen it. They keep talking about all the paradoxes. Is it intentional or an error in the script?
The best movies are always the ones that the audiences discuss afterwards rather than something they simply forget about right after leaving the theater.
Vigalondo: Yeah, yeah. Once a friend told me that he had friends that had been talking about the film all night, as if that was something bad. I was like, “If you’re telling me that you’ve been talking about the film for more time than the length of the movie, I win.”
I don’t like when a movie starts in an explosive way and then, by the third act, it’s just a repetition of a cliché. I hate that. I wanted to make a film in which the third act is the best.
You wrote and directed Timecrimes and also acted in it. Which is your preference?
Vigalondo: I started as an actor. I worked in commercials in the ‘90s. It was easier for me to work as an actor, to make it. Now it’s the opposite. All my offers come for making films. Being an actor is more complicated. I think now I’m going to focus on the writer/director thing.
What are your thoughts on the real-life applications of time travel?
Vigalondo: I love to put time travel in the stories. I’m not worried about those elements in real life. I love time travel as a pop culture icon. I love when something so complicated becomes a cultural icon, and I love to work with that. I love when you have to deal with this impossible element in a very intimate way.
What is your next film?
Vigalondo: I don’t know yet. I’m playing with several projects. I’m writing a script and at the same time trying to develop another script in the U.S.A. I don’t know what’s going to come next.
How involved will you be in the Hollywood remake of Timecrimes?
Vigalondo: I’ve been, all my life, dreaming of making films, and I cannot picture making the same one twice. I want to make a different one as soon as possible. I don’t want to be involved in the remake. I feel honored that these big names want to make the remake. It’s amazing, but it’s not my turn. .S.A. I exist in Hollywood because of the remake. That’s my only benefit.
They are going to shoot it next year. United Artists is going to produce the remake, and the guy from Children of Men is going to write the script. It’s going to be a huge remake. It’s going to be fun. I have mixed feelings, because I want to know everything, but at the same time, I don’t want to know anything (laughs).
Will you visit the set?
Vigalondo: It depends on the star. You can be sure that if Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt are in it, I want to be on the set. –Jeff Otto