Month: January 2020

A new movie about singer-songwriter legend Bob Dylan is in the works, and it’s now reportedly found its lead actor. Timothee Chalamet is in discussions to play Dylan in the upcoming film, according to Deadline. The movie is called “Going Electric,” and it’s being directed by Logan and Ford v. Ferrari director James Mangold.

According to Deadline, Chalamet will play a young Dylan at the point in his life when he elected to pursue rock music ahead of folk. Dylan himself is said to be “actively” involved with Mangold and production company Fox Searchlight (which is owned by Disney) on the film.

Deadline reports that Chalamet has begun taking guitar lessons to prepare for the role, though it’s uncertain if he will sing as well.

Dylan made waves at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he played electric guitar instead of acoustic. Some people got really upset, leading to a huge controversy, while others praised his new sound. It was certainly dramatic, so it’s no surprise a movie is finally being made about it.

The film will also reportedly feature portrayals of other ’60s music icons like Joan Baez and Pete Seeger.

Mangold has a history with biopics about legends of the music world. He also directed the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.

Chalamet was recently seen in Greta Gerwig’s new Little Women movie, and also starred in the Netflix movie The King. Later this year, Chalamet will appear in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which features numerous other big-name stars. One of Chalamet’s most memorable performances was in Call Me By Your Name, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as Elio.

Going Electric won’t be the first Bob Dylan movie, as 2007’s I’m Not There featured an unusual setup where six different actors played Dylan, including Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, and Marcus Carl Franklin. The Irishman director Martin Scorsese also made a documentary about Dylan’s life called “No Direction Home.”

Alienware has shown off a new prototype during CES 2020, and it looks an awful lot like the Nintendo Switch. The Concept UFO–which, as the name suggests, is still a concept that the company is working with rather than a finalized product–is a portable system with a screen that can detach from the controllers on either side of it, much like the Joy-Cons slide off the Switch.

CNET has gone hands-on with the Concept UFO, and said that, compared to many other prototypes shown at CES 2020, it “looks and feels finished, with a high degree of polish.” The prototype consists of a small Windows 10 tablet with two attached controllers on either side, and like the Switch it can output to a bigger screen as well.

There’s no news of a release date, or even definite confirmation that Alienware will release this as a consumer product, according to CNET, but they report that World War Z was “surprisingly playable” on the Concept UFO.

The Nintendo Switch, which serves as the clear inspiration for Concept UFO, is currently discounted on eBay. Here’s our list of the best games on the system.

Today is a memorable day in Xbox history. 19 years ago today on January 6, 2001, Microsoft formally unveiled the original Xbox during CES 2001. With that in mind, it’s as good a time as ever to re-watch the delightfully cringe-y announcement from all those years ago.

To reveal the OG Xbox, Microsoft recruited wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who at this time was not the bankable movie star that he is today. The announcement is a treat, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates repeatedly refers to him as “Rock” instead of “The Rock,” while the wrestler truly showed his acting chops reading the teleprompter.

Here’s what The Rock had to say about the Xbox:

“The Xbox is everything The Rock is. Cutting-edge, powerful, exhilarating, and like The Rock, it will be the most electrifying thing coming out this year. What The Rock is to sports entertainment to the WWF, the Xbox will be to the video game industry: a breakthrough and certainly an original. The Rock doesn’t impress easily–you know that, Bill. But I’m pretty damn impressed with what we’re seeing here today.”

The original Xbox, with its wimpy-by-today’s-standards 32-bit 722 MHz processor, went on to release in November 2001. Thanks in part to launch title Halo: Combat Evolved, the Xbox was a success that created an entirely new business unit within Microsoft, which at the time did not have a gaming presence beyond the PC.

The Xbox would be followed up by the Xbox 360 in 2005 and the Xbox One in 2013. The next iteration of the Xbox, the Xbox Series X, is set to launch in Holiday 2020.