Anyone remember my self-congratulatory story on my time at The Disney Store?

Well, apparently I'm not the only one who sees the face of evil in the robotic friendliness and efficiency of the Disney Corp.

Heidi reports here from The Beat.

Reading this makes me want to watch Westworld again.

THANKS, SCIENCE!!!!

You know what's amazing but absolutely f**king gross?

Growing a jaw in your back.

It turns out, I am in class with a guy who played Spock's dad in Star Trek V.

How cool is that?

Hi all.

Still busy.

But, here we go anyway...

Comics legend Neil Gaiman has ventured continually into film and television, and is not set to see one of the projects he's worked on actually get wide theatrical release. He's most famous for his Sandman series, and the Death spin-offs.

The new flick appears to be a fantasy movie in the vein of Dark Crystal, Labrynth, Legend or something like that. I honestly have no idea, because all of the pictures look like images done by comic illustrator Dave McKean, a constant Gaiman collaborator. (McKean also worked on Arkham Asylum, I believe).

I don't know if McKean worked on this film, but it sure looks like he did.

The movie is called "MirrorMask". I don't know anything about it, including expected release dates.

Here's a pic

Here's another

another pic

Yet another

I already know my old pal, The My, will be a big fan of this movie. I doubt he knows if it yet, but he will.

There's a new Batman cartoon debuting this Fall.

Looks pretty much like Batman, all right. It doesn't appear to be any improvement over the Batman series from the 90's, but it does look okay. I have no doubt I'll DVR it (it's on Saturday mornings... The League is so very sleepy on Saturday mornings).

My guess is, WB is re-launching the entire Batman franchise with the release of Batman Begins, and they didn't want to pay Bruce Timm and Paul Dini a decent salary, so they started fresh.

Anyway, for a peek at the show, click here. There's a Flash intro and a stream of a sort of trailer for the show and skin for your media player.

You may or may not know this, but The League is involved with Distance Education by profession. I put classes online for the School of Engineering for a large public university.

Well, it's a fairly new field, this online learning. Maybe ten years old.

Anyway, this is the first time I've seen distance learning related humor. I'm a little blown away.

Check out this article in The Onion.

And just a little something if you have a few extra minutes at your desk...

an ad for Robot Insurance from Old Glory Insurance.

...Doesn't pay to get out of bed...

So it's the first week of classes, which means there are a lot of students on campus all of the time, running from building to building, finding classrooms, lounging about, etc...

Which also means there are lots of folks selling crap all around campus. There are the guys selling newspaper subscriptions, and people trying to move credit cards, etc... Last year there were girls in slinky dresses trying to give out samples of a new cologne.

So I just left a meeting and I'm walking on the street parallel to campus (think west side of The Drag) when this dude in the standard "gym-guy" uniform spies me. I see he has a handful of brightly colored flyers, so I steel myself.

"Hey, dude! You want to get the workout of a lifetime?!!! Be in the best shape of your life?!!!"

I give him the one hand "no" motion near my side, and do the curt head-shake. And I go on my way.

"Looks like you could use it!"

And that's when I stopped and turned to look back.

I THINK he was trying to be helpful or something, because he was still standing there with a flier extended out to me.

As always, I was at a loss for words, but I was standing there with the bird fully extended, so I guess I felt pretty good about that.

I just wondered what school of marketing this guy had gone to where you SHAME people into joining your gym. I can only imagine the hang-dog clientele, miserably trudging along on the treadmill.

"You'll never lose weight like that, fatty!"

Anyway, it was a nice, completely unexpected blow to my self-esteem I just didn't need today. And when that's the case, the finger just doesn't suffice.

Happy Birthday R2-D2!

Kenny Baker, the man in the can, is 70 years old today. 70 years old and they're still making him sit in the little robot while he should be out on the golf course. For those of you who think R2-D2 is Kenny's only claim to fame I direct you to item 4 on his IMDB filmography list.

--Mrs. League

This weekend I did what I always do when Jamie leaves. I freaked out, because, kids... The League does not do well when left to his own devices. At least Mel was there to pal around.

All that went sour, though, when Saturday night I took mel for a walk that ended with me getting him to go down a slide at the park near my house.

I also went to Best Buy this weekend, because there are no other video/ CD stores in Chandler for me to support.

On a whim, I picked up the new album by Scissor Sisters, based upon a strong review I read somewhere, and because they were willing to do a disco cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb."

It's an odd record, and is better than you think it is upon a first listen. Scissor Sisters seem to have two modes: Elton John and Disco Frenzy. I have no idea if that appeals to you, but I do like a good 3/5ths to 2/3rds of the record, which is a much better average then I have been hitting of late.

I also picked up Freaks, which was even better than I remember it being.

Gooble Gobble
One of us
One of us

The extra features are as fascinating as the actual movie.

For a nice little tune about Circus Folk by my old pals in Maximum Coherence, go here to listen.

Anyhoo, I am very busy with work. I welcome you all to enjoy this picture, and maybe write a story about it.

Huh.

Will Tom Welling (of Clark Kent/ Smallville fame) appear in the new Batman movie as Clark Kent?

SuperheroHype! thinks so...

I love the idea of a shared Batman/ Superman universe in the movies, and I'd love to see each franchise knock out two movies and then do a World's Finest movie. Batman and Superman shared a comic entitled "World's Finest" for decades. Ever since, when referring to the pairing of Batman and Superman, real comic geeks refer to it as "World's Finest." Just a little FYI.

If you CAN'T wait for a World's Finest movie, check out this fan film...

Also, a picture in the article features the ninja costumes worn by the bad dudes run by Ra's Al Ghul. Notice the Batman-like protrusions from the fore-arm guards. Pretty cool.

See, Ryan, we didn't have to get married at Green Pastures.

"Who gives this woman in marriage?" asked Stacey Garza of the Free Will Church.
"Her friends and family at Wal-Mart," Foruria replied.

When Worlds Collide

okay...

I just watched the last 50-60 seconds of Bill O'Reilly interviewing Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

My brain is melting.

Man, did anyone else watch the Women's Marathon this morning? That was awesome.

BTW, Deena Kastor came in 3rd, winning the Bronze. She's awesome.

The League Witnesses (and comments upon) Aliens vs Predator

Do you know when the last time was you checked your watch during a movie? I do.

It was about forty-five minutes ago when I was wondering how much more of Aliens vs. Predator I was going to have to sit through.

That was a seriously dumb movie.

Of course, I KNEW AvP was going to be dumb, which is why I waited until Jamie was safely out of the state before I went to go see it.

I've seen some seriously stupid movies in the theater. Here is a short list.

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior
Man's Best Friend
Street Fighter (not the Jackie Chan version, the Raul Julia version)
Out for Justice
The Relic
Event Horizon
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie
Deep Blue Sea
Halloween 6
Batman and Robin
Dracula 2000
Godzilla (TWICE!!!)

But even in these movies I never spent the duration of the movie saying to myself, "You know what would have created a more palpable sense of tension..? If X, Y and Z had happened."

I am not that smart. I shouldn't be able to out-screen-write the screenwriters while the film is going on.

Nor should I be able to say, "I'm no archaeologist, but their MO for exploring this site seems a little unorthodox. If even one of these clowns is a scientist, they would have put the kaibosh on this whole operation," or "Why are J, K and L even happening? That directly contradicts what we learned in the first six movies tied to these characters..."

Hey AvP screenwriters: Want to know a good way to build tension in a movie? I'll give you this tip for free... Don't use a huge, glowing, neon arrow to point to your "Ripley" at the beginning of the movie. Don't do it. The magic of movies where people get picked off one by one until only one remains is that you're not supposed to know who's gonna make it... Not so in Aliens vs Predator.

This was one lazy, sloppy movie. It was the kind of movie where you never actually catch anybody's real name, because it doesn't f**kin' matter. And stuff happens not because it's interesting or good, but because the movie has a sort of clumsy, tumbling momentum going, and if they look to the sides or back, the whole thing will just burn up the gears.

AvP was the kind of movie where rich-eccentric scientists bribe struggling scientists to join them, and then make silly, dramatic entrances. It's the sort of flick in which actors translate a roomful of runes in almost pitch black in about 5 minutes (no, seriously... 5 minutes). And actors are forced to spout well-worn cliches like "The enemy of my enemy... Is my friend!", only because the screenwriter and director can't trust their own audience enough to actually do some simple math.

I will say this: The Aliens effects looked okay, and the Predator guys looked pretty neat and had cool toys.

I will also say there's a shot at the end of the flick of some of the Predators in which the movie would have benefited from showing less of the Predators. Sadly, the shot makes it pretty clearly the "Predators" are just some dudes in (enormous) rubber masks.

If the rumor that this version I endured was a studio cut is true, and that the director really had some other footage up his sleeve is also true, I would be game to see the movie again to see the new footage. The League just has a hard time believing AvP was intentional.

It did occur to me we're sort of in the same boat folks were in back in the 1950's. Back then, the Universal monsters were tussling with each other regularly as the new creations filling the screen became progressively... sillier. There hadn't been any good horror franchises to come out in twenty years, so the money guys were green lighting Frankenstein meets Dracula , etc... Actually, I guess they literally did FvD with Van Helsing this year, but you get the idea.

I think we're going through that all over again. Which is good news, because it might mean some new, better movies will be coming along.

Anyway, that was $8.00 and 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Poop.

DC Character Profile: Green Lantern (1) / Sentinel



Secret Identity: Alan Scott

Rating: Pretty Danged Cool

Comic He Might Be In: JSA/ Justice Society of America

DC profile

What makes him a superhero: Alan Scott wears a magical green ring he forged from part of a green, mystical meteor. The rest of the meteor he forged into a lantern. The ring is powered by the lantern every 24 hours.

The ring is able to create tangible, 3-dimensional objects from a mystical green flame. These objects can be used as tools, weapons or defenses. The ring also allows Alan to fly, and has kept him in his physical prime since the 1930’s.

The weakness? For some bizarre-o reason, the ring doesn’t work on wood. So if you want to kill him, hit him with a baseball bat.

What he's about: These days, Alan is a sort of father figure to the other Green lanterns running around Sector 2814. While Alan is not officially part of the Green Lantern Corps, he does okay.

He’s also one of the founding members of the JSA, and is a key-player and heavy-hitter for America’s most publicly adored team.

These days, Alan is all about legacy, and serves the purpose of tying Golden Age comics to the current age of comics.

Why The League digs him:

I think he looks like my old pal, Trevor Dutton.

The League digs the crazy costume design and wild ideas which originally spawned the Green Lantern. His vulnerability to wood is a suspect plot point at best, but is still a nice tie to the past.

Alongside Jay Garrick and Carter Hall, I love the fact that these B-list characters are still kicking around the comics world, and have been since 1940.

Heidi McDonald looks forward to this year's Pimp-tacular Halloween stylings for both children and pets.

As mutually excited as Jim D. and I are about the DVD release of Tod Browning's Freaks, I am just as pleased to note that (surprise, surprise) Marvel and Columbia TriStar will be getting even more of my money. Two different DVD sets will be released for Spider-Man 2.

I have already pledged to pick up the deluxe set.

Was this really a bear, or Jim D. in his bear-suit?

It is the first anniversary of my vegetarianiasm.

And to celebrate, I have quit being a vegetarian. I just ate about a pound of grilled chicken.

And, my God... that was good. I ain't never lookin' back....

Honey, get some charcoal for the grill. Carnivore Ryan is BACK!!!!