AQUA-DUDE

Wow.

Did tonight's episode of Smallville suck.

I don't often pop up to denounce anything Superman, but tonight's episode was unforgivably awful.

That said, I want to be clear that in the first thirty seconds of the show, Lois presented us with two fabulous reasons to continue watching that I hadn't noticed previously.


There are three terrific boobs in this picture. Can you pick the one which ruined the episode?

Yeah... this was the Aquaman episode of Smallville.

Aquaman.

Look, I am going to go out on a comic fan limb and admit that I read Aquaman. There's something appealing about an irritable sea-King I find interesting, but I always thought Marvel's Namor was... well, sort of dippy.


Just not The League's cup o' tea

Oddly, in the past five years, it's become a staple of comedy to make fun of Aquaman, and I'm not really sure where that came from. It's not that Aquaman doesn't have some room to poke fun, but have you looked at the useless line-up of the Superfriends? Samurai? The Wonder Twins? Robin the Boy Hostage?

Anyhoo, last season on Smallville Clark met the future Flash, so this season he had to meet somebody else. I guess it was going to be least confusing if he met the Crown Prince of Atlantis. In, you know, Kansas... Kansas, with its towering green mountains and shimmering fjord-like lakes. Yes, Smallville is filmed in lush, mountainous Vancouver. Thus creating the effect of what I like to call Canadasas, the magical Kansas where Clark Kent grew up.

Re-writes were necessary to make Aquaman fit into the world of Smallville, and we learn that "AC" (Arthur Curry for those of you wondering if Aquaman has a real name) is a surfer dude from Miami. Sure, in the comics he's from somewhere under-populated and with actual light-houses like New Brunswick, Canada... but, oh, hell, it's Smallville.. he's a guy from Miami who is written to speak with the irritating lingo of Southern California, repeatedly referring to everyone as "Brah". As in "Ready to go, bro'?"

We learn young Arthur has travelled via water passage all the way from Miami to Canadasas in order to stop the scheming Lex Luthor from testing a new sonic weapon intended for use by the Navy. Why? The weapon kills not just submarines... it kills fish.

And fish, we all know, are Aquaman's finny friends. It isn't covered in the scope of this show, but I assume Aquaman can still talk to fish, and this is why he's upset.

Truthfully, it's sort of tough to tell how Aquaman is feeling at any given time. I hate to be the one to say it, but Aquaman isn't much of an actor. He's not much of an actor to the point where one wonders what the hell the casting agents were thinking beyond the fact that the actor physically looks built enough to be a swimmer. The "surfer dude" take on Aquaman (appearing her for the first time, I assure you), has the same ring of surfer dudes written by the 40-year olds writing "Saved by the Bell". It's awful and unwelcome, and apparently was a huge problem for the actor playing Aquaman.

I looked up actor Alan Ritchson on IMDB. Apparently, this is it. Aside from appearing on American Idol during auditions, Aquaman here hasn't ever been in front of the camera before. And if that wasn't painfully obvious to the poor folks working on the episode, they should all get two demerits.

In his two scenes with Lex Luthor actor Michael Rosenbaum, one can almost feel Rosenbaum flailing, trying to get something out of Aquaman other than hammy posturing and stilted line delivery. Actor Tom Welling is serviceable as Clark Kent, but, let's be honest, he's not exactly John Malkovich. So the scenes with Clark and AC have a sort of dead-weight/ marking time feel one doesn't particularly take a shine to in hour-long TV.

But what's an Aquaman to do? He ends his scene by declaring billionaire corporate tycoon Lex Luthor is "a tool", and storms out of Lex's office.

So very, very phoned in by all parties.

If the powers-that-be at DC decided that Aquaman needed some screen-time, they really couldn't have botched the job any worse. From confusing priorities for Aquaman to a pointless romantic subplot between Aquaman and Lois, to casting a guy who wouldn't have made it as an extra into a high-school play, what could have been an interesting episode turned into so much chum.

I had to work late, so I missed the game.

Congrats to the Houston Astros for finally, finally, finally making it into the World Series.

The Lastros/ Disastros have had a long and goofy history of never making it past a League Championship series.

Now, The League knows little to nothing about baseball, but we're still happy for what we consider to be our hometown team. After having endured the cheesiness of the D-Backs for the past three years, we're happy to see the hard-luck heroes of the Houston Astros finally going on to greater glory.

And congrats to the Astros fans out there among you Loyal Leaguers. I know some of you are long time fans, while some of you (like the tiniest of the Cone Family) have only been following the Astros for a while.

Disclaimer for Jamie's parents: LOOK AWAY

I don't usually take time out to read my junk mail, but something about this one caught my eye.

This is the junk mail, verbatim:


Are you feeling shy over your inability to get much more than a semi-hard-on in the sack??
Do you feel depressed because of your ED problem???
Now here's the perfect solution for you --- wiagra.
It is truly a "Wonder Drug of the 90s."
You'll get the best erection you can remember in many years for sure.it is 14.99 $.The cheapest pack of wiagra.
%LANDING_PAGE_URL

1) What is this "wiagra"?
2) It's been several years since the 90's.
3) They couldn't even take the time to correct their type-o's.

Truly the work of a disheartened spammer. They're not even trying any more. So dispirited and sad. What happened to the halcyon days of spamming where I had to actually read my e-mail to determine if it was spam or real mail?

We've really lost something, man. The age of innocence has finally passed.

Lucy has her Super-Initiation



We bought this costume some time ago for Mel. Unfortunately, Mel is somewhat stout of nature, and the costume didn't really fit.

Well, the super-costume fit Lucy, but in the ten minutes she wore the costume, she managed to more or less tear it to shreds. And thus her Krypto the Superdog costume-wearing days come to an end.

Ya'll enjoy the photo.

WATCHMEN on Time's 100-Best Novels List

No, really. Check it out.

read the Newsarama post here.

I want to start chanting the Maxwell chant...

One of us...
One of us...

Whenever I think of Watchmen, I think of Shoemaker. I think of how he and my copy of Watchmen had a pitiless and antagonistic relationship that ended in the destruction of a perfectly good copy of Watchmen. I also think about how much I would love to try to be Night-Owl for Halloween, but I don't think anybody would get it. Nor would Jamie dress as the Silk Spectre.

I am proud to say I own an entire run of the issues and a copy of the trade. I confess, I also will be receiving the DC Absolute Edition of Watchmen in fairly short order. Oversized pages, re-colored, hard-bound, extra materials from Moore and Gibbons.

What can you say about Moore? The man is a mad-genius. His run on Promethea managed to totally freak me out. His "Supreme" stories were the best Superman stories in years (and they weren't even Superman comics). V for Vendetta still makes my head ring.

It must be interesting to not yet be 60 and know "this is the one they'll remember me for". Still, one can hope that Watchmen can be a gateway to the rest of Moore's work for a generation of readers.

SUPERMAN ON DVD TODAY

Hey, everybuddy!

The Adventures of Superman arrives on DVD today!

I won't be getting my copy in the mail for a few days, but I thought I'd make an announcement, knowing full-well, nobody but The League will be excited about this release.

WB has really stepped up and put together a nice package for ol' Supes. Not only is all of Season 1 of the series included (that's 26 episodes to you and me), but they also included the Superman movie, "Superman and the Mole Men".

I've only seen a handful of episodes of the Superman series, and it is some really silly fun. George Reeves cuts a great Superman and Clark Kent, Noel Neill is a foxy Lois Lane, and the Daily Planet gang is the slackest, most standing-aroundest bunch of journalists to ever put out a paper on a daily basis.

Crooks might as well be twirling their mustaches, and the plots are the sort of rare imagination one usually only finds in low-budget programming.

Anyway, at least check out the Mini-Site.

On the topic of: Infrequency of Posts

Dear Loyal Leaguers,

You may have noticed that my posts are not posted daily, or five times a week as I usually attempt to maintain. Nor are the number of posts matching the sheer volume of posts of the salad days of The League when one could expect a new post about twice a day.

We've had a rough few months here at League HQ. If you're a regular reader of this site, or you know Jamie and myself, you probably know that to which I refer.

I'll continue to try my best for regular updates. I'm not slacking off for the sake of slacking off. Nor is The League abandoning the blog because The League finally discovered girls. The League is just a little worn down right now, and may not feel that his free moments are best spent pondering the imponderables of the comic book world.

It's this fear of disappointing my readership when I know I don't have time to maintain The League that has made me threaten blogicide in the past few months. Well, all you Loyal Leaguers seemed to want to stick it out, so I want to try, too. But I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to manage expectations.

Look for upodates regularly, but don't feel I'm trying a side-door exit just because I haven't posted in a day or three.

We hope you'll stick with us. These things tend to come in waves and cycles, and when things return to steady-state, I assume we'll be off and running once again. Unless I discover girls.


Up, up and away,

The League

So, mid-day today Apple changed the mode in which people will watch TV forever and ever.

Did you see that?

I mean, I'm impressed with the new iMac v. 40,000 or whatever. Great! No, really, it's very, very cool. I love it, just as I loved the last ten iMacs that I don't own. If there's no echo in their built-in video conferencing systems, I'm already a fan of the bonus features.

Unfortunately, Jobs upstaged his new iMAc about two minutes later with the reveal of the Video iPod.

Is the Video iPod something none of us saw coming? No. It was an obvious next step, and Wall Street believed that to be so much the case that they actually DOWNGRADED Apple stock after the announcement of the cool new Apple releases. (Wall Street also downgraded Apple stock earlier this year amongst speculation that Apple had already saturated the market with iPods, which, given unit sales, they had not, but were slightly cooling. Wall Street was apparently having a fit of amnesia and forgetting Apple's ability to top themselves/ plan for obsolescence/ get their Kool-Aid drinkers in line to spend money on whatever the hell Apple puts out there with every single update. IE: Now is a good time to buy Apple Stock [League stock tips are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered valid or reasonable under any circumstances])

Up until recently, I wasn't a fan of the Apple Computer Corp.

My irritation with Apple has long stemmed not from any hardware or software issues (well, if you go back to 1997, it probably does), but from the cool-kid on the block mentality that's driven Apple's marketing, market presence and, honestly, their price-point. Up until Apple, I never saw a company actually sulk in the corner and complain that it was a misunderstood artist.

What baffled me was that Macs, while having the user interface of the everyman, have always been priced as the home computer of the wealthy. Not to mention the price of Apple-ready or aesthetically pleasing accessories. And the aforementioned drive to make whatever you just bought obsolete.

Example: I just bought my iPod about a month, month and a half ago. Now, for a few bucks extra, I could have the Video iPod. Had I bought the Mini at the time, I would have missed the announcement of the Nano by two days. Literally, two days.

Granted, I would have returned my Mini, but you get the idea.

So why am I a fan of Apple today? And why do I think Wall Street missed the point?

TV show episodes for $1.99.

Songs for $0.99

The newest Mac, cooler version? $1699. And this is one really nice Mac we're discussing.

Yes, the Video iPod can play back your $1.99 episodes of Lost. Super. I could care less. My phone can show me a shimmying Shakira any time I like, and that, to me, is VALUE. I don't watch video on a 320x240 window for long periods of time and I doubt I ever will.

What The League is enthusiastic about is the adoption of video into iTunes.

Apple has convinced Disney television that ad revenue isn't the be-all and end-all of funding programming. Steve Jobs and Co. have somehow gotten through to the Disney Corporation that they can sell programming directly to the consumer without having to buy a full season DVD set. So long shelf-loads of DVD's. Hello very large hard-drive.

And hello profit for Apple. Who is making money every time I download a video? Apple. If I want to locate a video and play it in a nice QT format, I know who's getting $1 of my $1.99. How Wall Street missed the implications of this sea-change is mind-boggling. Nobody else is set up to be THE place to get your online the video the way iTunes is. Well, maybe Microsoft, but just to stick it to The Man, I'm going with Video iTunes.

Has the technology been around for four years? Sure. The price point they've decided upon is the real break through. $1.99? I pay that for gum every two or three days. It's now officially 1/4 of the price of a movie ticket and I OWN it.

In two years I'll be able to download episodes of Smallville at 44 minutes a pop without having to watch a single commercial. (Perhaps the show will be cheaper with an ad for the new Le Baron on front, should I choose not to pay premium price). I will be able to download virtually any movie I like from Apple for a low cost (I'm guessing the cost of a movie ticket) and own it.

But the programming changes and changes to viewership habits?

1) Programs which have a rabid but small fanbase might continue to thrive at a premium cost to the cult audience. (I am still angry over the cancellation of Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Firefly fans could have kept the show going for another season or two.)

2) Networks will become a useless commodity. Viewers will pick whichever show they wish to watch from a production company's web-service or a location like iTunes. (I suspect there will be some consolidation of, say, shows along a theme).

3) Changes in formatting for non-narrative programs. The line between computer and information gathering/ instruction breaks down. And the format of the programming breaks down with it.

I could foresee a FoodNetwork location to download cooking shows that you can actually watch and match step for step as actual instruction.

Headline News could be nothing but a streaming medium or a downloadable segment of sections, skipping sports or weather if you don't care about those topics.

4) The Octavio option: My co-worker has long bitched about the fact that he has to buy cable "packages". The League doesn't watch the NASCAR channel, but I am paying for it out of my cable bill. Okay, so if I can pay for an episode at $1.99, can I pay $20 for a season pass? Or $75 for all the programming that network has to offer?

Or do I pay a monthly subscription rate to download X number of hours of programming?

You tell me, Michael Eisner.

I know I'm paying somewhere around $12/ a month for HBO now.

5) I don't have to worry about TV shows remaining beholden to the wildly arbitrary FCC standards simply because the material travels over airwaves. Once you're not using the broadcast spectrum, those rules no longer apply. Like HBO, adult TV can reflect adult life without constantly worrying about Pollyannas of all ages stumbling upon your show and becoming emotionally scarred.

6) Rated versions. So you DON'T want nudity in your TV (in which case, we have nothing to talk about)? Or you think "dammit" should be overlayed with "jeepers" at every opportunity? Production companies have an option of offering a "clean" version. I can do this with the latest offering from OutKast on iTunes. Why can't I do this with my TV shows?

7) Shows and networks will no longer worry about whole megacorps pulling sponsorship for a misstep, as advertisers will no longer dictate taste.

8) Television programs will no longer necessarily be written to have a break every 10 minutes so you can see another batch of ads. Who knows what the format would look like?

9) Live events like football. They lose their punch once you know the score. It's why I've never watched a single game which I've taped. Live events will need to be handled traditionally, I suspect, and will give advertisers some of the older model to play with.

10) Give me the same ability to move my DVDs to my iTunes that I did with hundreds of my CDs, and I will be your monkey boy for all time.

I worry about DVD format going obsolete. I worry about it all the time. I literally gave away hundreds of dollars of VHS tapes three years ago and spent hundreds picking up DVD replacements. Tell me I can copy my movies to iTunes, and I will never, ever look back. Tell me that $20 investment from last year in my director's cut DVD of "From Justin to Kelly" can stay with me until I die, following me from computer to computer, and I will tattoo whatever DRM clause you want me to onto my forehead.

Just don't tell me I have to start over completely when Toshiba figures out how to store movies on some solid-state block of crystal.

11) How will advertisers survive? I don't care. If this is bad news for them, tough. They feared TiVo, but they hadn't really seen anything like this yet.

Will more shows wind-up like "American Idol" where product tie-in's are a huge part of the programming (ie: the Coca-Cola Lounge)? No doubt. But that's a decision producers can make and set price-points accordingly.



Has all of this been around before? Yes! For years!

But so was downloadable music, and look at the raging success of iTunes. Apple does something RIGHT with the market for music. Maybe it's the exceedingly simple interface. Maybe it's the Apple name brand equating quality. Maybe it's the punchy commercials for the iPod (now being co-opted and lame-ified by the commercials of the kids dancing with their phones). I don't know. But I do know I trust them to deliver and to lead the pack for the next several years.

THis is going to take a while. $1.99 is still not cheap enough. The monthly cable bill is a fraction of what it would cost for me to download every hour of programming I currently watch at $1.99, and even at $1.99, I'm not sure how many new new shows I would try. I suppose pilots of shows would be free out of necessity. And that's a huge gamble for any network.

There's a huge audience who won't want the model to change, and so that'll go on for a generation or more, I guess. So advertisers can continue to subsidize programming.

But given the abject failure of cable television to really "break the mold" when it comes to programming, Im curious to see what happens. Cable has meant the proliferation fo what already existed rather than a mass movement to original programming. Julia Child and the Frugal GOurmet pre-date cable, let-alone FOod Network. NFL football was an early staple of TV, now it has ESPN, the NFL network and a million variations of pay-per view and deals with Direct TV.

Yes, this is all BS we covered in week 10 of RTF 101 when we discussed the impending world of digital convergence, but that was 11 years ago. I've been waiting so long, I'd sort of thought that it was some sort of blue-skying that Madison Avenue had somehow curb-stomped into submission.

I now open the floor for debate.

Oh, Leaguers

Quick notes time:

1) See the 2005 Halloween Contest below.

2) Jim and Reed never sent back responses to my incredibly insightful interview questions.

3) The Smurf's throw in with the anti-war movement. Click here for more.

Thanks to RHPT for the link

4) Dr. Doom's Top 10 Euphemisms for sex (funny only to us nerds...) Click here.

5) Apparently a disaster has hit Pakistan and India which is making Katrina and Rita look like a day at the park. Keep giving to the Red Cross, people.

6) Speaking of Rita, Jim D. is back in Beaumont, but it's been quiet on his end since his return. Sounds like the press has done a typically half-assed job of covering what's going on in East Texas in favor of the Katrina story. Apparently Beaumont and the surrounding areas are not "okay".

7) In more East Texas news: Is the East Texas Bigfoot okay in the wake of Hurricane Rita?

find out more here

8) Folks in Austin will want to attend an upcoming show at the Hideout Theater on Congress. Sample the comedy stylings of Hurricane Katrina refugee, Tami Q. Nelson (formerly of Spring, formerly of Austin, and now formerly of New Orleans) as she re-teams with her New Orleans based comedy troupe in the relative safety of Central Texas.

Check out the show

9) And because he's cool, here's Mr. Terrific

2005 League of Melbotis Official Spooktacular Halloween Contest:

I, MONSTER...!


I felt bad about not having any ideas for a Halloween Contest, so here we go:

We all watch monster movies and horror movies. We all have a favorite monster or horror character or two.

a) if you could be any antagonist from any monster, horror or spooky movie, who (or what) would you wish to be?

b) what sort of havoc would you wish to wreak?


c) why?

d) what would you do better than that fraud in the original film?

e) what would you find challenging?

f) how would you prevent the protagonist from defeating you?

g) how long do you think you could wreak your particular brand of havoc before it got dull?

h) which other spooky, horror character or monster would you take to task for not living up to the monster credo?



Send all responses to Melbotis's e-mail address over there on the upper left

<--------------------------------

CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE!!!! FA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!!

Yes, the Yuletide is upon us! It's the merriest time of the year.

Today I was talking to my boss, and over his shoulder I noticed the City of Tempe employees stringing the palm trees around my office with Christmas lights. 'Tis the Season!



On the way home I popped into the grocery, and in the floral section were several "Santa" bears tucked in between the Halloween bouquets. Later, Jamie and I went off to Walgreens, and it's a wonderfully merry/ spooky mix of Halloween and Christmas paraphernelia scattered about the store.

And, Jamie shouted out MARK IT!!!! at 7:40pm on October 10th when we saw our very first Christmas commercial. Yeah, sure, they were pitching taking a cruise for Christmas, but it was the first commercial of the year including Christmas decorations and fake snow and wrapping paper.

Sigh.

Wow, are we close to Halloween. Normally by now I'd have forced Jamie through a Frankenstein movie marathon and be walking around the house with a Dracula cape. But this year, not so much.

I can't think up a good Halloween contest, so we're not having one at The League. No hard feelings, I just can't think of anything.

It may also be that there's almost no transition from summer to the other season we have here, which isn't really fall, because it's more or less the same season until it gets hot again in May. The good news is that the heat actually broke, and the other season began today. The closest thing we have to a fall blew in and temperatures dropped below 90 for the first time in months.

The dogs are going nuts, not sure what to do with themselves when being outside for five minutes doesn't suck the life out of them. We took Lucy to the park for the first time today, and she had a blast. We walked on the leash and then let her run for a while. She's quite a runner, that little ball of energy. Mel was, as always, delighted to stretch his legs and go for a trot.

Anyhoo, we also got into the Halloween spirit by going to see "Curse of the Were-Rabbit", which, if you haven't seen it, it's pretty darn good.

So hopefully I'll be getting more into the Halloween spirit here shortly. We've got the decorations up at home, so Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney are all looking down upon me from atop the entertainment center, instructing me to crack open my monster movie collections for another year of Halloween mayhem.

It's sure to be SPOOKTACULAR.

Football Update

Dear OU fans,

Suck it.

Love,

The League

PS: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (breathe) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA


Man, it's about time. Sadly, the game was turning into such a blow-out that for week #2, ABC cut over to the UofM v. UofM game and I had to tune into ESPN to find out what the score was.

And don't you feel bad for A&M fans? No? Well, I don't either.

In a few years the cosmic balance will shift and UT will suck once again while A&M once again rules as a football juggernaut... but for this year, it's the year of the Longhorns.

Until, of course, they choke.

SERENITY NOW!!!

The League and Mrs. League toddled off to the local theater to check out sci-fi extravaganza, Serenity.

Jim D. had recommended the movie, Steanso and The Admiral had given the flick a thumbs-up, and the League's brother-in-law, Sneaky Frog, is a big "Firefly" nerd, and had thrown his support behind the movie.

For some reason, mid-summer, my theater quit carrying Hot Tamales. The League is a simple League with simple League wishes. When we go to the theater, we want a medium Diet Coke and we want a box of Hot Tamales. We’ve complained loudly to the people behind the counter that Hot Tamales are no longer to be had, but we’re coming to peace with the fact that Hot Tamales are gone, and, most, likely, will never return.

Today we decided we wanted Sweet Tarts, truly a staple of the movie candy industry, and we noticed that there were no Sweet Tarts as well.

“Well, what do you want?” asked Mrs. League.
“I want Sweet Tarts,” we replied.
“They don’t have them.”
“What? Everyone has Sweet Tarts.”
“Well, they don’t. Do you want Sour Patch Kids? Or Sour Wiggly Worms? Or Sour Straws?”
“My GOD!!! They’re all the same damn candy! Why do they have three kinds of sour candies and no Sweet Tarts?”
The kid behind the counter was starting to look a little concerned.
“They sort of are. Well…” Mrs. League tried.
“This is absurd! I don’t want anything sour and I don’t want chocolate,” I went on. “I want Sweet Tarts and Hot Tamales. Every other theater has these, but here I have to have Sour Wiggly Worms. It’s the Bizarro Theater. Nothing here is right!”
The kid behind the counter just sort of stood there, blinking.

When we went to see “Roll Bounce” at this same theater a week ago, I’d confronted the grouchy alt-rock girl behind the counter regarding the lack of Hot Tamales. “Nobody wanted them,” she explained. “Bullshit!” I’d declared. “I want them. I can’t be the only one!”

The League understands the laws of supply and demand, but believes that Hot Tamales fall safely within the Laffer Curve on this one. And who cares if they don’t move as fast as Wiggly Sour Worms? You know who eats those? Stupid little kids. Stupid little kids who don’t know that for fifty cents less they could get the exact same thing under the name “Sour Punch Straws”, but they’re too wrapped up in having the stupid worm on the package that they can’t see in the dark that they’ve bumped the Hot Tamales off of the shelf.

“It’s an outrage,” The League continued. “And when the hell is Zorro coming out? That poster has been up since May. I don’t even know if I want to see it anymore.”
“What do you want?” asked Mrs. League.
“I want Sweet Tarts.”
“They don’t have those.”
“Fine. I’ll have a Diet Coke.”
How hard is it to have Hot Tamales in stock? They’re not even food. They keep forever and a day. A man seeking non-Chocolate at a theater shouldn’t have to resort to eating sour candies or Skittles (which are gross and taste like fake fun).

You know how movie theaters make money? It’s not off of ticket sales, Leaguers. It’s by selling candy. They buy candy for the same prices you’d pay at the grocery and then mark it up 400%. You accept that the inflated price is part of the deal, pay $3.75 for a pack of M&M’s, and move on with life.

I COULD buy a box of Hot Tamales at the Walgreen’s or AM/PM on the way to the theater, but I don’t. I want my theater to stay in business. But I also have deep pockets. Not financially, but as a big man, I wear some big pants, and I can get a pack of Hot Tamales in the pocket with a minimum of fuss.

I don’t want to become the lady who turned around to me in the 10:00 show of Dennis the Menance I went to in 1993 who turned around mid-screening and said, “Do ya’ll want a plum?”
“Ma’am?”
“Do ya’ll want a plum?”
"Like... a plum?"
"Uh-huh. I don't need it."
Plums aren’t movie food. I don’t know if she’d brought in a small lunch, or a bag of plums, or just found a plum in the bottom of her purse. But she wasn’t a Hot Tamale lady, she was a plum lady, and the Greens Crossing AMC had failed to meet her half-way. Thus, she was bringing in her plum. Which, it turned out, she didn’t want anyway.

Only plum I ever ate in a movie.

In the end I got up before the trailers started and got a box of Milk Duds, because, honestly, I’m a bitch for sugar. But should I ever learn to show some foresight, the Gilbert WTC Theater is going to start losing my $3.75 every week.

And as I stood there at the counter, begrudgingly handing over my money, the little kid behind me was turning to his dad and saying, “Where are the Hot Tamales?”

So, how was Serenity? Pretty darn good. Now I need to seek out the Firefly DVDs.

I was a little skeptical for the first few scenes, but the movie did win me over. For those of you who have seen the commercial and think the movie looks sort of lame? The commercials pretty much show the first scene of the movie. It gets a lot more interesting from there.

Former Buffy-verse mastermind Joss Whedon is responsible for this movie, and that’s good news. He’s signed to write and direct an upcoming Wonder Woman feature. If this movie is any indication, Wonder Woman will probably be a pretty darn good flick, too.

So long and thanks for all the fish

--Mrs. League

NIPSEY RUSSELL, R.I.P.



read more here

HALLOWEEN PETITION FOR JAMIE

Hello, all.

Everyone who thinks Jamie should buy the costume depicted below for Halloween, please put an "aye" in the comments section.

Special congratulations to my brother, Steanso. After a brief period of unemployment, he's now got himself a job. Sure, he's free-lanced a little, but you can only moonlinght at Chippendale's so many days a week.

He's going to switch to the side of the law, becoming a prosecutor or something for the county. I guess the county doesn't do criminal background checks anymore.

So, he's a total sell-out, but now he has insurance and vacation days and stuff. And, like The League, he's suckling from the government teat. Keeping paying taxes, suckers. You're keeping the Bros. Steans employed.

Greetings, Leaguers.

Well, I received several e-mails today from Loyal Leaguers wishing to share the good news regarding Nicholas Cage's new kid, Kal-El Coppola Cage. For more info, read here.

This, of course, gave The League a moment of pause. For The League has long harbored a secret desire to name his own kid either Kal-El or Kara. Now, it's more or less public knowledge that Jamie's insides are a rocky place where my seed can find no purchase. Thusly, there shall be no little Leagues to carry my DNA on beyond my passing (and for that, the human genome is safe once again!).

I received an e-mail from Jamie today poking fun at ol' Nic Cage, and I was a little sad. You see, I thought maybe, if a child were ever handed over to The League that Jamie would be so distracted, I'd slide Kal-El into the name slot on the adoption form before she knew what had happened. Now, Jamie has had time to think about what a completely crazy idea it is to name your kid "Kal-El". It shall never happen.

Just a bit of trivia. Nic Cage is a big comic fan. His real last name is Coppola, but in order to hide the fact that he bore any relation to Francis Ford Coppola, his took on the name of Luke Cage, Marvel's own Power Man. Nic Cage was to star in a 1995-ish Superman film, but things didn't pan out, and the film was never made. Not to be deterred, Cage is now associated with a different comic book property, Ghost Rider. I am a bit skeptical, as I'm not a huge GR fan, but at least I think Cage will take the comic seriously.

In other Superman news, Bryan Singer's latest video diary is posted, and shows the old Jimmy Olsen from "Adventures of Superman" meeting the Jimmy Olsen from the new movie. Check it out.

One of the great things about being a Superman fan isn't just constantly being told Superman sucks by pretty much anyone who can slip it into conversation... It's also the near 70 years of legacy the Superman comics, movies and radio. It's not just trivia, it's also the chance to see new generations working with the old and enjoying the legacy. Noel Neill will now have appeared in the original Superman films, the TV series, Superman: The Movie (as Lois's mother with Kirk Alyn as Lois's father), and now in the new film. To The League, that's pretty cool. So, of course, we're very excited to see Jack Larson welcomed back into the Superman family.

And... What else?

Ah, football.

Oh, did anyone else watch the butt-show in Mexico? The Cardinals won their game by kicking 6 succesful field goals. I NEVER watch the Cardinals, but the game was so funny, I was glued to the TV.

Oh, and UT continues to dominate. To the point where ABC decided the game was boring and cut over to another game out here in AZ. Next week is the big test, but I think Adrian Petersen is injured, isn't he? Ah, well. UT hasn't choked yet, so this could be our week!

Oh, and here's little Arden with little Jill. Arden is now residing in Kalamazoo, MI. Jill is teaching at Western Michigan University. I think she teaches, uh... look, I'll be honest. I don't understand Jill's expertise. I think she's an expert in, oh, say... herpetology.

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN PREVIEW

Greetings, Leaguers.

As you may have heard, writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely have teamed up to create an all-new Superman tale under a new banner for DC COmics "All-Star Superman". The All-Star refers to the creative team more than the actual cast of characters.

Originally the All-Star line was thought to compete directly with Marvel's Ultimate line, but this isn't really the case. Instead, DC is allowing top creators to write and draw the best possible DC stories without worrying about what's going on in the monthly titles.

All-Star Superman is coming soon, and Newsarama has a preview (which appeared already in Wizard this month, but what the heck...) which should give you a feel for what Quitely and Morrison will do with the Man of Steel.

Honestly, in issue 2 I'm sort of feeling as if All-Star Batman is going off the rails, but I think the five pages here more or less re-assure me that Morrison is going to make me happy with his crack at the Big Blue Boyscout.

Included in the Newsarama article is an interview from a while back on how Morrison became inspired in his take on The Man of Steel. Good stuff.

Read the article and check out the previews here.