We’re coming up on the one year anniversary of the release of the Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs album.  To commemorate all the accomplishments and awards and accolades surrounding this album, director Spike Jonze shot a 28 minute film based on the album.  A network called MUBI was granted the rights to debut the film online all over the world.

What’s that you say?  You can’t seem to view this film about a Canadian band here in Canada?

That’s because access to MUBI’s stream has been geo-blocked. Unless you jump through a bunch of complicated proxy hoops, fans in Canada, the US, Germany and Australia have been banned from watching the film online.

Why?  Because the Arcade Fire’s manager says “Well, the film is coming out on DVD with the new version of the album on August 4 and we don’t want to hurt sales.”  Awesome.

You can watch a preview here–and it looks pretty good.  But if you want to see the full thing, we’ll have to pay.

Whatever happened to that proposed adaptation of Year Zero into an appropriately dystopian mini-series? It’s been, what, nearly two years since the chatter started?

Patience.  These things take time.  HBO and BBC remain committed to a co-production.  It’s just that everyone’s been…busy.

But finally, some good news.  If you did a little digging through The Hollywood Reporter last week, you would have found a short little update on the project.

Jim Uhls–the guy who wrestled Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club from novel into a screenplay–has been hired to write the script.  Now all he has to do is come up with a story based on a concept, an online alternative reality game and some song lyrics.  No mean feat, that.

Still, it’s progress.  We’ll see this thing.  Eventually.

In the fall of 2004, I was invited to a private high-security listening session for the new Green Day album.  I couldn’t really understand all the fuss because back then, a lot of people—including me—figured that Green Day’s run was over and they were basically done.

The album, of course, was called American Idiot and obviously, Green Day was not done.

After the album was over, I talked with Pat Magnarella, the band’s manager and he calmly explained the plans they had for the record:  a series of single releases, the videos, the kind of tour they’d do.  After that? A live album, probably.  And beyond that?

“Well, this is a concept album,” he told me.  “Maybe we could make it into a musical.  And we’re talking about turning it into a movie.”

Yeah, right.  A musical.  A major motion picture.  Whatever.  It’ll never happen.

But Pat and the band nailed it.  Almost everything he talked about on that day nearly seven years ago has come true.  The only thing missing is the movie.

But wait.  Playtone Productions, the movie company owned by Tom Hanks, is developing American Idiot into a big screen version.  Billie Joe Armstrong will star as St. Jimmy in the movie and the director will be Michael Mayer, the same guy who did the stage production on Broadway.

And Playtone knows their stuff when it comes to adapting stage musicals for the big screens.  They grossed $600 million on Mamma Mia.

So now I’m officially 0-for-everything on what I was thinking that afternoon in 2004.  Pat, I’m sorry I doubted you.  I, apparently, am a Canadian idiot.

One of my all-time favourite movies is Trainspotting, the film based on the book by Irvine Welsh.  Great, great soundtrack.

A new Welsh story is being made into a film.  It’s called Ecstasy and it, too, will come with a killer soundtrack:  Arcade Fire, Brian Eno, Primal Scream, Deadmau5.

But here’s the weird bit. Ecstasy wasn’t filmed entirely in England.  The movie was shot in largely in, er, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Director Rob Heydon is in post-production right now and hopes that he can get it into the Toronto International Film Festival this September.

A new sample of the soundtrack has appeared—and it’s a cover. Trent has reworked Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” with Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on vocals.

There’s a new film coming called The Other F Word.  It’s based on the book written by Jim Lindberg, ex of Pennywise.  It’s all about punk rock fathers and the tough choices they have to make when it comes to being in a band and being dads.

Jim has firsthand experience at this.  The movie also involves Time McIlrath of Rise Against, Mark Hoppus from Blink 182, Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz, Lars from Rancid and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh.

They’re shooting for a theatrical release in the fall—and the company behind the movie is Oscilloscope Laboratories, which is owned by Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys.

Someone is FINALLY going to make a movie about CBGB, the legendary New York club that gave birth to punk rock in the middle 1970s.  No CBGB, no Patti Smith or Ramones or Talking Heads or Television or Blondie.

It looks like this film will focus on the early years (1974-1976) and it looks like shooting will start in the fall.  The big challenge will be to secure all the necessary music rights.

In 1976, the Kinks released a concept album called Schoolboys in Disgrace.  Over the years, people have said “You know, this should be made into a musical or a movie”—but nothing has ever come of it.  Until perhaps now.

A movie site reports that the project is a go as a British/German co-production with Ray Davies of the Kinks serving as executive producer and with Bobcat Golthwait acting as producer.  Yeah, he’s a little crazy, but he has a growing reputation as a director.

Meanwhile, Jack White is being talked about as the guy who would re-record the music for the film.  No release dates have been mentioned, but apparently, this whole thing is going to happen.