There’s always more to give and while we should all definitely be giving around this time of year*, we have five news stories than we didn’t have time to craft into a bigger article but still though they were worth a read.  After the jump you can find out what’s coming up on Parks and Recreation, where you can HBO’s John Adams on Blu-ray for less than $30, and Edgar Wright’s loving tribute to actor Edward Woodward who passed away today at the age of 79.

One of my big films in 2010 is director Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”.  As the director of “Spaced”, “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”, Edgar Wright has proven that he’s one of the best directors working today.  While I’d be interested in whatever project he chose to do as his next film, the fact that he’s making the fantastic comic book series by Bryan Lee O’Malley is just awesome.  Anyway, people have been shown footage from “Scott Pilgrim” and the mini-reviews have been crazy.  Director Jason Reitman pretty much lost his mind after seeing 30 minutes.  And I’m beginning to figure out why.

I think the reason people are so excited for the film is Edgar Wright is pushing the boundaries of narrative storytelling.  While every movie has moving cameras and interesting shots, I’ve heard rumors that “Scott Pilgrim” is going to use a lot of split screens and animation to help tell the story.  And after speaking with Jason Schwartzman the other day, I can now confirm it.  While I do not know how many scenes use split screens, I think it’s a big part of the movie. Perhaps it’s all about trying to make comic book frames work on a movie screen. Anyhow, if you’d like to see Jason Schwartzman talk about seeing the first 19 minutes of the movie, working for Edgar and with Michael Cera, and what’s up with “Bored to Death”, hit the jump to see the interview.

We missed some stories this past week.  We’re sorry.  But we did not forget them.  We never forget.  We’re like elephants and people who hold grudges.  With that in mind, here are some stories that are a little late but they’re still great.  You can enjoy them all after the jump.

Writer-Director Jason Reitman has the privilege of being friends with writer-director Edgar Wright.  While I would kill to sit down at a table with both of those guys and then try not to bring up the murder I just committed in order to do so, their friendship is rewarding to all of us.  Why?  Because Wright showed Reitman 30 minutes of Wright’s upcoming film, “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”.  Wright swore Reitman to such a degree of secrecy that Reitman was surprised he didn’t have to make a blood oath.  That’s a good thing because Reitman has tweeted his thoughts about the 30 minutes.  He gives nothing away in terms of plot and everything he says is glowing.  Hopefully this won’t end the friendship between Reitman and Wright because if so that means I killed that hobo for nothing.

Hit the jump to read Reitman’s multiple tweets of love for “Scott Pilgrim”.

Writer, director, producer and actor Mike White is known for his rather eclectic dramedies, such as Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, School of Rock, Nacho Libre and Year of the Dog, which is totally fine with him. Not looking to be a producer or director for hire, he enjoys working with his friends, like Jared and Jerusha Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) on their latest film, Gentlemen Broncos, about a lovable underdog (played by Michael Angarano) whose passion for writing science-fiction novels is turned upside down when his idol, the celebrated fantasy author Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement), steals his story at a writers camp.

At the press day for the film, Mike White gave some updates on what he’s currently working on, including the HBO pilot Enlightened, headed into production in January 2010, as well as the status of Them (with Edgar Wright) and School of Rock 2. Look for what he said on “Gentlemen Broncos” very soon.

I knew that once the triumvirate of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost were all on Twitter, it would yield great comedic rewards and so it has.  Yesterday, the three happily skipped down the road of slash fiction.  For those that don’t know (and it is more than okay if you don’t), “slash” is the process of taking two characters from any property and writing a story where they fuck.  It can be any two characters.  Hell, it can be one character or more.  Some really creative folks know how to take an inanimate object and transform it into an erotic masterpiece.

But once Wright, Pegg, and Frost got in on slashing their own characters, the fun truly began and below the jump, I’ve included some of their best tweets.  I think the campaign and the vision for “Hot Fuzz 2″ began today.

Last week I was with a small group of people and we were able to speak with Chris Evans for an extended amount of time. While most of what we talked about is under embargo, I’m able to post part of our conversation and it covers what Chris said about Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” and what he think about 20^th Century Fox rebooting “Fantastic Four”. As you might imagine, he was incredibly excited to talk about “Scott Pilgrim” and he was raving about working for Edgar Wright. And regarding the “Fantastic Four” reboot, I asked him if he would be willing to go back and play Johnny Storm again and he said it all depends on the director. Of course, it’s more than likely Fox is going to hire an all new cast and creative team when they reboot the property, but you never know. Exactly what Chris said is after the jump:

Earlier this week I wrote about Pixar maybe taking over Edgar Wright’s long in development “Ant-Man” adaptation. In that write up I speculated about a couple of things, since that is my job, but I while writing it I was hoping that the quote from EW, which started the rumor, was just a bunch of BS and that Wright would still be the man who would bring the at times little man to the big screen.  Thankfully, Edgar Wright has now cleared things up on “Ant-Man” and everyone who was hoping for a Wright directed “Ant-Man” can continue to anticipate the film.  You can read the full email after the jump.

When Marvel got bought by Disney the other week there was a lot of excitement about the possibilities of Pixar making a film based off of one of the Marvel properties. Even though Edgar Wright and writer Joe Cornish have been attached to an “Ant-Man” adaptation for awhile now it seems that Pixar might be taking over now.  In the middle of all of the Disney/Marvel a quote from EW saying that Pixar is “said to already be eyeballing an Ant-Man movie.” popped out.  So what does a Pixar “Ant-Man” movie mean for Edgar Wright’s film?  You can find out after the jump.

I started to anticipate “Scott Pilgrim VS  The World” the moment that Edgar Wright was announced as the director.  I’ve been a fan of the graphic novels for awhile now and its been fun being a fan and seeing this project come to life over the past year or so.  With every new casting announcement or blog post on the film’s website, the film just kept looking better and better.  If the film didn’t already sound like it was going to be as great as it could be, today Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley revealed that Beck has “recorded like 50 songs for my movie, or something”.  Beck making music for “Scott Pilgrim VS. The World”?  This is just too awesome.  You can hit the jump to find out the full details.

This is not a news article.  It is an order.  Best Buy has an early release-date deal for the Blu-Ray versions of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”.  They’re available everywhere else on September 22nd, but starting Tuesday they’ll be available at Best Buy and BestBuy.com.  They’re $19.99 each.  If you do not buy them in store or online immediately, your Blu-Ray player will be repossessed and given to someone who actually loves movies.  Your Blu-Ray player will belong to me.

Click here to buy the Blu-Ray of “Shaun of the Dead”.  Click here to buy the Blu-Ray of “Hot Fuzz”.  Do it now.

In a move previously thought unthinkable and then when thought of tragic, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost & Simon Pegg are filming movies separate from each other. Wright is currently getting his beard pummeled by “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” while Frost and Pegg are happily enjoying the scenery on “Paul”.  Thankfully, they’re not totally apart because on their respective blogs so they can play Frisbee through the Internet.  You can’t do this with any object but Frisbees can go through the Internet.  The Internet was constructed with this in mind.

Check out both videos after the jump.

Just because “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” won’t be at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, doesn’t mean they don’t love you.*  It just means that they’re insanely busy trying to finish this film and so in lieu of coming to “Comic-Con”, they’re showing us some love with a new video blog, this time with the focus on enemy band “The Clash at Demon”, led by Scott’s ex Envy Adams (Brie Larson) with Lynette Guycott on drums (Tennesse Thomas), and vegan/evil-ex #3 Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh) on bass.  This new blog explains the origin of the band and shows off all of their fake merch.

Hit the jump to check out the new video blog and remember that “Scott Pilgrim” creator Bryan Lee O’Malley WILL be at Comic-Con so you can bug him about the movie (although you should really bug him about the final volume of “Scott Pilgrim” and buy a bunch of SP merch).

Before principal photography commenced on “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”, Edgar Wright treated the citizens of Toronto to his patented “Wright Stuff” film festival with glorious movies and Q&As designed to make the rest of us question are patriotism and defect to Canada.  If you lived in Toronto and for whatever reason never made one of these screenings, fear not.  You have one more chance and you best not fuck it up.  Hit the jump to find out how to atone for your sin.

Just as I was starting to wonder when we’d get a new video blog for Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”, today we are treated to not one but TWO new video blogs.  The first up takes us inside the rooms of Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) and Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  What I like about this video blog is not only the attention to detail and how their domiciles reflect their characters, but how the actors contributed to the set design and where they feel a personal connection to their character through the room.

The Bonus Video Blog is where it all goes meta as the actors gather around a laptop (or is it a time machine?) and watch previous video blogs and comment on their greatness.  Hit the jump to check out both.

Our partners at Omelete recently posted an article about the picture above. However, Universal has asked them to take it down, so you’re going to be forced to imagine what Edgar Wright said about “Ant Man”. Sorry folks…when we can post the article again, we will.