I picked up Captain America #25 today. It seems that they've decided to bump off Cap.
Now, for guys like me who've been reading comics for a while, it's tough to buy that anyone who ever dies in a comic is, in fact, dead. Comics are passed from creative team to creative team, and the idea is that creators should act as the best custodian possible for a comic series, but never leave the series in tatters.
Writers may get to play god within a certain framework, but how excited do you think Publisher Dan Buckley would be to head to the meeting of the Board of Directors and explain why Captain America, the fighting symbol of the United States, can't help them sell T-shirts, ice cream or be around for a potential multi-million dollar movie? I'm betting our friend, Steve Rogers, isn't actually going to be gone for too long.
Oh, sure, I bought the issue. My greedy little mits pulled the final copy right off the shelf (only two hours after the store opened, at that). You don't get buried this far into comic geekiness wiithout listening to that squeaky little voice in your head that says, "Ah, it's just one more comic! Pick it up! Now go torch the library."
You sort of have to pick and choose from the options League-Mite gives you. Some of them are burny.
Anyhow, it's interesting to see that the press bought into the "Dead Icon" deal again. I guess folks don't really remember that Superman "died" and came back. Or that even our friend Robin "died" and came back (although that took well over a decade).
I don't mean to be so cynical, but I can't really buy into this one. What I CAN buy is that Brubaker is a darn good writer, and that this series will probably be worth picking up. Marvel's on a roll from a universal standpoint. I can't vouch if each and every title is a good one, but there's some interesting stuff going on in the House of Ideas.
Heck, they got me and League-Mite buying Marvel comics again.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Zodiac - my $0.02
Saturday I saw Zodiac with Matt Mangum. The theater, I think it's worth mentioning, was filled with dudes. A lot of those dudes were in their early to mid-20's.
The previews may be a bit telling as to the appetite of the "target" audience for a movie like Zodiac.
trailer #1) Bruce Willis in a hair piece and slimmed down is a magazine publisher who is meeting girls online and killing them.
trailer #2) Anthony Hopkins kills his wife, or does he? Is he merely pulling more flies into his daibolical spider's web?
trailer #3) Teen-age "Rear Window". A seemingly normal guy living next door to a kid with a police-installed ankle bracelet sees his neighbor killing people. he sends the minority-guy best-friend to his doom.
Zodiac is, ostensibly, a serial killer movie. Zodiac was one of those names that used to be brought up in news reports alongside names like Son of Sam, the Green River Killer, John Wayne Gacey, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, and more recent acquisitions to the pool of whackos. Operating during the 1970's, Zodiac claimed to have killed dozens. But as Zodiac is real, and was never caught, short of writing speculative fiction, there shouldn't be much of a narrative angle to the story. Heck, they finally even made an arrest in the Green River killings a few years ago, so that story has some closure.
Instead of telling yet another post "Silence of the Lambs" serial killer story, Zodiac works more like a bit of a detective story, following a few key players in the Zodiac investigation from 1969 through the 00's as various real-life people become pulled into the investigation. Some viewers may find the film's refusal to cast any specific person as the point of view for teh audience a bit troubling, but in a lot of ways, that would take away from what director David Fincher seemed to be attempting in representing the facts of the case as a drama.
The movie is far more interested in the manner in which the investigations occured than dwelling over the grim details of the murders. Once Fincher provides the audience with a fairly brutal look at the murders (not for shock value as much as to contextualize the action to follow), the story begins to unfold in a series of frustrating stutter steps. Real-life jurisdictional disputes, human foibles, arrogance and simple mistakes may have left multiple law-enforcement teams unable to piece together the identity of the murderer.
With three sensationalistic serial killer movies previewed before this movie, there's a certain maturity I could appreciate regarding Fincher's decision not to romanticize, glorify or mystify the subject matter. It doesn't take a huge leap to see that Zodiac isn't regarded as any kind of genius by the filmmakers, and no attempt is made to make much out of him other than as a brutal megalomaniac.
There are a few narrative tricks I enjoyed that seemed to be the Fincher's "up yours" to the Zodiac, and once you see what he's doing, you sort of want to send Fincher a big valentine.
There's a lot to this 2.5 hour movie, but, for me, it never dragged, and I thought that the script and actors did an excellent job of presenting some seemingly mundane but convoluted case work as succinctly as possible.
Performances are very good. Robert Downey Jr. plays himself (can't wait to see his Tony Stark), Jake Gyllenhaal has a lot to carry, and does it well. Mark Ruffalo really surprised me. And even Dermot Mulroney may have found his niche. Apparently some guys behind us had an issue with Chloe Sevigney not being "hot" enough for them, but that died down quickly. And feature film fixture Brian Cox was excellent in his scenes (man, I love Brian Cox).
You can't really say "Hey, Zodiac is a fun movie!". It's not. But it is an interesting movie, and, if like the film's Robert Graysmith, you enjoy puzzles... or if you dont mind a little detective work in your movies about detectives, it's not a bad way to spend 2.5 hours.
The movie certainly makes a case for identifying a certain player by film's end, drawn from the work of amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith. As with any real-life mystery presented as a film, and with only the facts of the film to work with, the finger pointing seems as reasonable with their choice of suspect as anyone. If true, it's fascinating to consider. Fincher is smart enough to leave it somewhat open ended, but with Graysmith working on the film, the film manages to bring some closure, if not a conviction.
I did read on someone's blog that they felt that with today's police tactics that such a case could never occur again. I assume he was referring to cross-referencing of data, etc... I'm not so sure. Computer systems are only as good as the people using them. Cops are only as good as the evidence they find and can prove in court. Juridictional issues are always jurisdictional issues, and if we learned anything from 9/11, it's that data that should and could be shared often doesn't make it into the hands of the right people.
As Matt and I were sort of trapped on the seats in the aisle when the credits rolled, I heard the same conversation three times from those young men who filled the threater.
"I thought it was going to be... you know..."
"Dude, it's a true story."
"I know, but..."
"They can't just make stuff up."
"Yeah, I guess not."
So, yes, if you're expecting Saw IV, you might be disappointed.
The previews may be a bit telling as to the appetite of the "target" audience for a movie like Zodiac.
trailer #1) Bruce Willis in a hair piece and slimmed down is a magazine publisher who is meeting girls online and killing them.
trailer #2) Anthony Hopkins kills his wife, or does he? Is he merely pulling more flies into his daibolical spider's web?
trailer #3) Teen-age "Rear Window". A seemingly normal guy living next door to a kid with a police-installed ankle bracelet sees his neighbor killing people. he sends the minority-guy best-friend to his doom.
Zodiac is, ostensibly, a serial killer movie. Zodiac was one of those names that used to be brought up in news reports alongside names like Son of Sam, the Green River Killer, John Wayne Gacey, Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, and more recent acquisitions to the pool of whackos. Operating during the 1970's, Zodiac claimed to have killed dozens. But as Zodiac is real, and was never caught, short of writing speculative fiction, there shouldn't be much of a narrative angle to the story. Heck, they finally even made an arrest in the Green River killings a few years ago, so that story has some closure.
Instead of telling yet another post "Silence of the Lambs" serial killer story, Zodiac works more like a bit of a detective story, following a few key players in the Zodiac investigation from 1969 through the 00's as various real-life people become pulled into the investigation. Some viewers may find the film's refusal to cast any specific person as the point of view for teh audience a bit troubling, but in a lot of ways, that would take away from what director David Fincher seemed to be attempting in representing the facts of the case as a drama.
The movie is far more interested in the manner in which the investigations occured than dwelling over the grim details of the murders. Once Fincher provides the audience with a fairly brutal look at the murders (not for shock value as much as to contextualize the action to follow), the story begins to unfold in a series of frustrating stutter steps. Real-life jurisdictional disputes, human foibles, arrogance and simple mistakes may have left multiple law-enforcement teams unable to piece together the identity of the murderer.
With three sensationalistic serial killer movies previewed before this movie, there's a certain maturity I could appreciate regarding Fincher's decision not to romanticize, glorify or mystify the subject matter. It doesn't take a huge leap to see that Zodiac isn't regarded as any kind of genius by the filmmakers, and no attempt is made to make much out of him other than as a brutal megalomaniac.
There are a few narrative tricks I enjoyed that seemed to be the Fincher's "up yours" to the Zodiac, and once you see what he's doing, you sort of want to send Fincher a big valentine.
There's a lot to this 2.5 hour movie, but, for me, it never dragged, and I thought that the script and actors did an excellent job of presenting some seemingly mundane but convoluted case work as succinctly as possible.
Performances are very good. Robert Downey Jr. plays himself (can't wait to see his Tony Stark), Jake Gyllenhaal has a lot to carry, and does it well. Mark Ruffalo really surprised me. And even Dermot Mulroney may have found his niche. Apparently some guys behind us had an issue with Chloe Sevigney not being "hot" enough for them, but that died down quickly. And feature film fixture Brian Cox was excellent in his scenes (man, I love Brian Cox).
You can't really say "Hey, Zodiac is a fun movie!". It's not. But it is an interesting movie, and, if like the film's Robert Graysmith, you enjoy puzzles... or if you dont mind a little detective work in your movies about detectives, it's not a bad way to spend 2.5 hours.
The movie certainly makes a case for identifying a certain player by film's end, drawn from the work of amateur sleuth Robert Graysmith. As with any real-life mystery presented as a film, and with only the facts of the film to work with, the finger pointing seems as reasonable with their choice of suspect as anyone. If true, it's fascinating to consider. Fincher is smart enough to leave it somewhat open ended, but with Graysmith working on the film, the film manages to bring some closure, if not a conviction.
I did read on someone's blog that they felt that with today's police tactics that such a case could never occur again. I assume he was referring to cross-referencing of data, etc... I'm not so sure. Computer systems are only as good as the people using them. Cops are only as good as the evidence they find and can prove in court. Juridictional issues are always jurisdictional issues, and if we learned anything from 9/11, it's that data that should and could be shared often doesn't make it into the hands of the right people.
As Matt and I were sort of trapped on the seats in the aisle when the credits rolled, I heard the same conversation three times from those young men who filled the threater.
"I thought it was going to be... you know..."
"Dude, it's a true story."
"I know, but..."
"They can't just make stuff up."
"Yeah, I guess not."
So, yes, if you're expecting Saw IV, you might be disappointed.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Tuesday Short Bits
-Walter Reed Army Hospital/ Bob Woodruff and Veteran's Affairs Hospital
Wow. This is just one of those things that I recall some folks being concerned about in the run up to the Iraq War. It's easy to send in the tanks and helicopters. It's in the following years that we, as a nation, have to answer the tough questions. Will we honor our soldiers when they come home, but don't come home in a box? When they took a piece of metal to the head for us, will we make sure we take care of them?
I watched the Woodruff special last week, and the answer appears to be: we'll help out a bit, but don't expect too much. Oh, and we'll report that injuries are coming in at a rate of 1/10th of the actual numbers of soldiers receiving treatment.
-Anna Nicole Smith's Mom
I totally think I saw her at the Austin airport when I went to pick up Jamie Sunday night. Jamie assures me it wasn't her, but I think it was.
-Ann Coulter
At what point did folks decide it was okay again to use bigotry as part of the political process? And just outright hatred?
How can you even do much but roll your eyes anymore when Coulter speaks? One horribly distasteful comment can sink a career, but it's no secret that a steady line of reprehensible comments builds a career.
I spent enough time in suburbia to know that this is the sort of discourse that occurs over a cold beer or three, and that, however idiotic and seemingly juvenile Coluter's comments, she's speaking for some segment of the population. Do we give too much credit to the Conservative Political Action Conference? At least to some attendees.
-Kyle MacLachlan to voice Superman
Here's some good news (in my book). Special Agent Cooper is scheduled to play the voice of the Man of Steel in the upcoming "New Frontier" straight to DVD feature-length cartoon.
I think MacLachlan should have landed the George Reeves role in Hollywoodland, but I guess the producers didn't think he'd sell enough tickets. He was, after all, up for the role and is the appropriate age.
Keep your eyes peeled for "New Frontier" when it's released. The comic series was excellent stuff, and Darwyn Cooke's style will most likely be maintained for the feature (think 1950's and 60's cartooning). Hopefully the series was self-contained enough that nobody will feel they need to tweak the story too much. I loved the Right Stuff meets Mort Weisinger sensibility of the whole thing.
Just wait until you see Cooke's Lois and Wonder Woman.
-Superman at accident, but not particularly helpful
And before anyone assumes I do not have a TV or the interwebs...
-Extreme Make-Over Home Edition airplane family
Upon occasion on Sunday nights Jamie I watch this horrible, horrible program while we DVR stuff on other networks. The formula is simple: Find people who have simply too much responsibility and a ton of misfortune fall upon them, and give them a McMansion and flat screen TV. Usually the family has someone who is chronically ill and lives in a hovel, or they've taken in 6 foster kids and a tornado levelled their trailer.
The show has been on a while, but last night was the first time I thought (a) these people are badly off not just because fate dealt them an unlucky hand, but because they made a stupid decision by cancelling their home owner's insurance while refinancing, and then living across the street from an airport. Yes, a plane ran into their house. And (b) these people fully knew what was in store for them when they got on the program. They fully expected the amenities of the McMansion and kept saying things like "Oh, this is totally what I wanted." Not, "Wow, I am used to sharing a room with six people and ten rats." IE: these people weren't exactly slumming it prior to the show, or at least prior to getting hit with an airplane.
A few weeks ago, the show was about a family in Austin with 5 autistic kids and a dad who worked two blue-collar jobs to try to cover the bills, but their house was days from being foreclosed upon. But with five autistic kids, the bills were piling up, the house was in serious disrepair and mom was at her wit's end.
These people cancelled their insurance as part of a plan to refinance their existing house. Had the plane NOT hit the house, they'd still be a comfortably middle class family with very few problems. Sure, their son was a marine who'd been in Iraq, but he wasn't injured. And he was 21. As mentioned above, we have a lot of our troops who are not so fortunate. And, he's 21... How long was he expected to live at home?
I dunno. The funny thing is that the cast usually spends the whole episode talking about how amazing the families are who they're helping out. In this instance, they were sort of quiet on the subject. I think they knew, and we knew, that there were probably a lot of families in Florida in much worse shape than these folks.
Wow. This is just one of those things that I recall some folks being concerned about in the run up to the Iraq War. It's easy to send in the tanks and helicopters. It's in the following years that we, as a nation, have to answer the tough questions. Will we honor our soldiers when they come home, but don't come home in a box? When they took a piece of metal to the head for us, will we make sure we take care of them?
I watched the Woodruff special last week, and the answer appears to be: we'll help out a bit, but don't expect too much. Oh, and we'll report that injuries are coming in at a rate of 1/10th of the actual numbers of soldiers receiving treatment.
-Anna Nicole Smith's Mom
I totally think I saw her at the Austin airport when I went to pick up Jamie Sunday night. Jamie assures me it wasn't her, but I think it was.
-Ann Coulter
At what point did folks decide it was okay again to use bigotry as part of the political process? And just outright hatred?
How can you even do much but roll your eyes anymore when Coulter speaks? One horribly distasteful comment can sink a career, but it's no secret that a steady line of reprehensible comments builds a career.
I spent enough time in suburbia to know that this is the sort of discourse that occurs over a cold beer or three, and that, however idiotic and seemingly juvenile Coluter's comments, she's speaking for some segment of the population. Do we give too much credit to the Conservative Political Action Conference? At least to some attendees.
-Kyle MacLachlan to voice Superman
Here's some good news (in my book). Special Agent Cooper is scheduled to play the voice of the Man of Steel in the upcoming "New Frontier" straight to DVD feature-length cartoon.
I think MacLachlan should have landed the George Reeves role in Hollywoodland, but I guess the producers didn't think he'd sell enough tickets. He was, after all, up for the role and is the appropriate age.
Keep your eyes peeled for "New Frontier" when it's released. The comic series was excellent stuff, and Darwyn Cooke's style will most likely be maintained for the feature (think 1950's and 60's cartooning). Hopefully the series was self-contained enough that nobody will feel they need to tweak the story too much. I loved the Right Stuff meets Mort Weisinger sensibility of the whole thing.
Just wait until you see Cooke's Lois and Wonder Woman.
-Superman at accident, but not particularly helpful
And before anyone assumes I do not have a TV or the interwebs...
-Extreme Make-Over Home Edition airplane family
Upon occasion on Sunday nights Jamie I watch this horrible, horrible program while we DVR stuff on other networks. The formula is simple: Find people who have simply too much responsibility and a ton of misfortune fall upon them, and give them a McMansion and flat screen TV. Usually the family has someone who is chronically ill and lives in a hovel, or they've taken in 6 foster kids and a tornado levelled their trailer.
The show has been on a while, but last night was the first time I thought (a) these people are badly off not just because fate dealt them an unlucky hand, but because they made a stupid decision by cancelling their home owner's insurance while refinancing, and then living across the street from an airport. Yes, a plane ran into their house. And (b) these people fully knew what was in store for them when they got on the program. They fully expected the amenities of the McMansion and kept saying things like "Oh, this is totally what I wanted." Not, "Wow, I am used to sharing a room with six people and ten rats." IE: these people weren't exactly slumming it prior to the show, or at least prior to getting hit with an airplane.
A few weeks ago, the show was about a family in Austin with 5 autistic kids and a dad who worked two blue-collar jobs to try to cover the bills, but their house was days from being foreclosed upon. But with five autistic kids, the bills were piling up, the house was in serious disrepair and mom was at her wit's end.
These people cancelled their insurance as part of a plan to refinance their existing house. Had the plane NOT hit the house, they'd still be a comfortably middle class family with very few problems. Sure, their son was a marine who'd been in Iraq, but he wasn't injured. And he was 21. As mentioned above, we have a lot of our troops who are not so fortunate. And, he's 21... How long was he expected to live at home?
I dunno. The funny thing is that the cast usually spends the whole episode talking about how amazing the families are who they're helping out. In this instance, they were sort of quiet on the subject. I think they knew, and we knew, that there were probably a lot of families in Florida in much worse shape than these folks.
When Good Sentiments Go Wrong
This dude had this hair as late as September 12th, 2001.
I'm probably mistaken, but is that the same beach from the end of "Planet of the Apes"?
Found at this blog.
Along with this Captain America/ Team America video.
editor's note: Mom, Dad... do not watch. This has naughty, naughty words.
Scenes are from the little-seen 1990 Captain America feature film starring the son of JD Salinger. Yes, I have seen it. And it rulz.
I'm probably mistaken, but is that the same beach from the end of "Planet of the Apes"?
Found at this blog.
Along with this Captain America/ Team America video.
editor's note: Mom, Dad... do not watch. This has naughty, naughty words.
Scenes are from the little-seen 1990 Captain America feature film starring the son of JD Salinger. Yes, I have seen it. And it rulz.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
week end
Well, with Jamie gone for the weekend, I still managed to entertain myself fairly well.
Friday night I enjoyed an extended dinner engagement with Jason, Mandy, Greg Johnson, Susan and a girl who I believe was named "Shelly". We wound up at Homeslice Pizza on S. Congress, which is pretty much just a dimly lit, overcrowded pizza joint, but it's a nice destination for a night out when you don't have much planned. But, it's also apparently a bit of a hipster locale as evidenced by the lengthy wait we had for a table.
Saturday, Peabo's 10:55 AM call woke from slumber. I have no internal clock anymore. Each morning I rise with either dogs or wife harassing me (or an alarm), and long ago I lost any natural ability to just wake up from sleep. Lately Jamie's been doing little "fly-by" wake-up's. She comes by the bed for 30 seconds and says "are you going to get up?" when I am clearly dead asleep and in deep REM. It's enough to sort of wake me up, but then she wanders off in disgust, and I fall asleep once more, only to have the process repeated every 30 to 45 minutes until I finally roll out of bed. I'm not sure what strategy she believes she's employing, but it's not working.
So, Saturday morning, I showered, dressed and headed for Peabo's, where I caught the second half of the Texas/Kansas game (Texas lost). Then, Peabo and I sort of hung out while Adriana took a much needed nap. Adriana and Peabo have about 7 weeks before little Jefferson is born, and it's safe to say they're both excited, but not in a "WE'RE HAVING A BAYYY-BEEEEE!!!!!" creepy kind of way that we non-breeders fail to get properly jazzed about.
I've known Peabo since 4th grade (when we kicked it old skool on the corner of Taterwood and Pencewood). Peabo will be a good dad, although it may take decades for his kids to appreciate that their father's continuous mocking laughter was born out of love. I expect Adriana shall be the voice of reason at Casa de Peabo. I suspect there shall be a lot of "survival of the fittest" going on with Peabo and his brood. You want to be one of Peabo's kids, you gotta be tough.
Saturday night I went with Mangum to see "Zodiac", which is long enough, but add on 30 minutes of really horrible trailers (all of the trailers were about crazed, guy next door, secret genius murderers. There were three in a row) and we walked out of the movie at 12:30 AM.
I spent today cleaning. We haven't done any serious cleaning since a solid, post-Christmas attempt. We've done some vaccuuming, etc... but not a "today we clean the house" sort of cleaning, and it shows. With Parental Units in town next weekend, and then (hopefully) Nathan and Wagner coming for Spring Break/ SXSW, plus a surprise announcement of a visit from former roommate and now crusading attorney, K. B., the house needs to be in order. There's also a chance for a visit by The My.
So, today I cleaned toilets and such. Which was good, but i missed the lovely weather. Furtunately, I hear it's going to be 70+ and sunny all week, so...
Also, I spoke with the birthday girl at length this afternoon.
More on "Zodiac" later.
Hope everyone had a good weekend.
Friday night I enjoyed an extended dinner engagement with Jason, Mandy, Greg Johnson, Susan and a girl who I believe was named "Shelly". We wound up at Homeslice Pizza on S. Congress, which is pretty much just a dimly lit, overcrowded pizza joint, but it's a nice destination for a night out when you don't have much planned. But, it's also apparently a bit of a hipster locale as evidenced by the lengthy wait we had for a table.
Saturday, Peabo's 10:55 AM call woke from slumber. I have no internal clock anymore. Each morning I rise with either dogs or wife harassing me (or an alarm), and long ago I lost any natural ability to just wake up from sleep. Lately Jamie's been doing little "fly-by" wake-up's. She comes by the bed for 30 seconds and says "are you going to get up?" when I am clearly dead asleep and in deep REM. It's enough to sort of wake me up, but then she wanders off in disgust, and I fall asleep once more, only to have the process repeated every 30 to 45 minutes until I finally roll out of bed. I'm not sure what strategy she believes she's employing, but it's not working.
So, Saturday morning, I showered, dressed and headed for Peabo's, where I caught the second half of the Texas/Kansas game (Texas lost). Then, Peabo and I sort of hung out while Adriana took a much needed nap. Adriana and Peabo have about 7 weeks before little Jefferson is born, and it's safe to say they're both excited, but not in a "WE'RE HAVING A BAYYY-BEEEEE!!!!!" creepy kind of way that we non-breeders fail to get properly jazzed about.
I've known Peabo since 4th grade (when we kicked it old skool on the corner of Taterwood and Pencewood). Peabo will be a good dad, although it may take decades for his kids to appreciate that their father's continuous mocking laughter was born out of love. I expect Adriana shall be the voice of reason at Casa de Peabo. I suspect there shall be a lot of "survival of the fittest" going on with Peabo and his brood. You want to be one of Peabo's kids, you gotta be tough.
Saturday night I went with Mangum to see "Zodiac", which is long enough, but add on 30 minutes of really horrible trailers (all of the trailers were about crazed, guy next door, secret genius murderers. There were three in a row) and we walked out of the movie at 12:30 AM.
I spent today cleaning. We haven't done any serious cleaning since a solid, post-Christmas attempt. We've done some vaccuuming, etc... but not a "today we clean the house" sort of cleaning, and it shows. With Parental Units in town next weekend, and then (hopefully) Nathan and Wagner coming for Spring Break/ SXSW, plus a surprise announcement of a visit from former roommate and now crusading attorney, K. B., the house needs to be in order. There's also a chance for a visit by The My.
So, today I cleaned toilets and such. Which was good, but i missed the lovely weather. Furtunately, I hear it's going to be 70+ and sunny all week, so...
Also, I spoke with the birthday girl at length this afternoon.
More on "Zodiac" later.
Hope everyone had a good weekend.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Jeter, Bush and Mantle
An employee at Topp's after my own heart inserted images of George W. and Mickey Mantle into a new Derek Jeter baseball card.
Here.
Here.
Open Weekend and Romantic Movies
So, through an odd turn of events, Jamie's mom is under the weather (everyone give a Huzzah! for Judy) and Jamie's Dad is headed for Brazil. It's complicated, but it involves large, migratory birds and a German/Canadian physicist. More than that, I cannot say.
So Jamie is trading positions with Judy and is heading to Lawton for a few days to go run the show, wrangle cats and make sure Judy doesn't try any stunt driving. Which means The League is left to his own devices from Friday mid-day to Sunday evening.
Luckily, I have a lot of booze left over from the Christmas Party, so Mel and I are going to raise a pirate flag, stand on the upstairs balcony and wave sabers menacingly at the neighbors until the police show up. Yarrrgghh...
I'm also totally poor. So this weekend may mostly entail a lot of catching up with comics, cleaning, and trying to lay low.
A job would be totally sweet right about now.
We're headed for Erica F.'s wedding in a few weeks, and Jamie bought a shiny dress for the event. I have learned it is outside in Houston in March, so I hope Bug won't mind when I show up in shorts and my OU812 tour shirt. The following weekend we've got another outdoor wedding for Denby. I am sure Denby will want to change her name, but that ain't gonna happen. She'll always be Denby to me.
She's marrying a purveyor of fine meats. Go figure.
So a special shout out to the Loyal Leaguers who addressed my probing questions regarding romantic movies.
go here.
Once again, RHPT refuses to elaborate, leading me to believe that he was the kid in class who plagued the teacher with the "do we have to know this for the test?" questions. Hang your head in shame, RHPT.
As always, I've written questions without having any answers in mind of my own. Here goes:
1) What movie do you think best exemplifies the ultimate expression of romantic love?
I want to say that flying around the world so fast that you travel back in time for love is pretty good. But Maxwell points out another candidate in "Somewhere in Time" where Chris Reeve once again travels through time, but this time to meet the super-foxy Dr. Quinn, and that's good, too.
This is a particularly tough one as I don't watch too many romantic movies.
There's something about sacrifice for love that's sort of nihilistic and romantic. For example, Casablanca as love means letting go. But I think the never-realized love of Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is particularly poignant.
Plus, you know, Michelle Yeoh. Yowzah.
I might point out that this category was romantic love, not love between a boy and his dog. But if that's how you want to define romantic love, that's cool. I only ask that you stay far, far away from my dogs.
2) What movie do you think demonstrates the most fun look at Mad Love?
True Romance. Those are too crazy kids in some crazy, mixed-up love.
And, of course, The Quiet Man.
3) What movie do you think most accurately depicts or reflects how you feel about romantic love in your own reality?
I sort of think Jamie and I have a real nice Gomez and Morticia Addams thing going on.
But there's also something very visceral about "Punch Drunk Love" that, though the events don't reflect anything familiar, there's something I respond to about a semi-obsessive, self-conscious guy with borderline social skills realizing he has a good thing and realizing he's going to have to fight for it.
Also, I love pudding.
So Jamie is trading positions with Judy and is heading to Lawton for a few days to go run the show, wrangle cats and make sure Judy doesn't try any stunt driving. Which means The League is left to his own devices from Friday mid-day to Sunday evening.
Luckily, I have a lot of booze left over from the Christmas Party, so Mel and I are going to raise a pirate flag, stand on the upstairs balcony and wave sabers menacingly at the neighbors until the police show up. Yarrrgghh...
I'm also totally poor. So this weekend may mostly entail a lot of catching up with comics, cleaning, and trying to lay low.
A job would be totally sweet right about now.
We're headed for Erica F.'s wedding in a few weeks, and Jamie bought a shiny dress for the event. I have learned it is outside in Houston in March, so I hope Bug won't mind when I show up in shorts and my OU812 tour shirt. The following weekend we've got another outdoor wedding for Denby. I am sure Denby will want to change her name, but that ain't gonna happen. She'll always be Denby to me.
She's marrying a purveyor of fine meats. Go figure.
So a special shout out to the Loyal Leaguers who addressed my probing questions regarding romantic movies.
go here.
Once again, RHPT refuses to elaborate, leading me to believe that he was the kid in class who plagued the teacher with the "do we have to know this for the test?" questions. Hang your head in shame, RHPT.
As always, I've written questions without having any answers in mind of my own. Here goes:
1) What movie do you think best exemplifies the ultimate expression of romantic love?
I want to say that flying around the world so fast that you travel back in time for love is pretty good. But Maxwell points out another candidate in "Somewhere in Time" where Chris Reeve once again travels through time, but this time to meet the super-foxy Dr. Quinn, and that's good, too.
This is a particularly tough one as I don't watch too many romantic movies.
There's something about sacrifice for love that's sort of nihilistic and romantic. For example, Casablanca as love means letting go. But I think the never-realized love of Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is particularly poignant.
Plus, you know, Michelle Yeoh. Yowzah.
I might point out that this category was romantic love, not love between a boy and his dog. But if that's how you want to define romantic love, that's cool. I only ask that you stay far, far away from my dogs.
2) What movie do you think demonstrates the most fun look at Mad Love?
True Romance. Those are too crazy kids in some crazy, mixed-up love.
And, of course, The Quiet Man.
3) What movie do you think most accurately depicts or reflects how you feel about romantic love in your own reality?
I sort of think Jamie and I have a real nice Gomez and Morticia Addams thing going on.
But there's also something very visceral about "Punch Drunk Love" that, though the events don't reflect anything familiar, there's something I respond to about a semi-obsessive, self-conscious guy with borderline social skills realizing he has a good thing and realizing he's going to have to fight for it.
Also, I love pudding.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Hollywoodland
This review is spoiler-laden:
Going into the movie, I probably knew more about the topic than I should have. I do not consider myself to be any sort of expert in matters George Reeves, but my reading on Superman has lent itself to some reading on the life and death of George Reeves.
I believe that there is very good reason to think that George Reeves did not kill himself. But I don't know. But it certainly colored how I saw the movie.
The film, itself, is a sort of mix between a standard detective picture and Citizen Kane flashback sequences (also used in Immortal Beloved). The detective in question is Louis Simo, a fictionalized character/ convenient amalgamation of many real people who lives the standard movie detective life of the shabby apartment/ office, the messy divorce and kid left behind, and a girlfriend who will dump him before the end of the picture.
Ben Affleck, who is never as old as the character he is portraying, especially for the second half of the film, still manages to portray a reasonable fascimile of Reeves without giving in to parody or imitation. We've got lots of Reeves to look at, and with six seasons of The Adventures of Superman to pull from, Affleck manages to use that both to his advantage and manages to overcome the problem of mis-playing someone with whom some viewers might be fairly familiar.
For me, the story failed on a few fronts.
I take some umbrage at insertion of a fictional detective with a fictional dysfunctional family life as the framing device for the film. The film is really the story of Louis Simo chasing down the truth, and coming to the revelation that mediocrity in Hollywood is okay. A suspect moral, I think, but the lesson we're to understand Reeves' death has taught us is that hoping to become something better than what you are is a way to drive yourself mad. At least in Hollywood. At the end we're supposed to get really excited to see Simo in a suit (I guess he's gotten a straight job) and is coming over to check on his kid in the two bedroom LA-style tract house. With a promise of him giving up on the chance for the abstract greatness of private detective work, I guess. Hooray?
Further, the movie really spares no expense in setting up the husband of Reeves' spurned lover as a potential murder suspect, then backs down completely. This build-up includes details that seemingly make no sense if Mannix is NOT the murderer, such as an MGM rep's appearance at Reeves' funeral and the one scene between Hoskins as Mannix and Simo. Add in some mysterious tarot cards at the crime scene, and some fudgy actual details of the murder included in the film, and the final resolution seems like a lot of back-peddling.
Which raises the question: Did the producers wimp out? As folks looking for jobs in LA once Hollywoodland was in the can, did a moment of clarity tell these guys that fingering a studio exec using studio resources to bump a prominent actor might not be a good idea, career-wise?
I'm also fairly certain that as a non-actor, the melancholy and despair presented by Affleck as Reeves at his lot in life as the Man of Steel is something that's fairly foreign to me as a person (though, certainly not Affleck). Whether a personal failure or one of the movie, I felt that there was too much telling and not enough showing of Reeves' frustration at not being able to land other roles, and it was difficult to garner much sympathy for Reeves as a working actor and kept man, aside from the "Here to Eternity" sequence (which, I've read Reeves and Mannix did not actually attend). That said, as Superman was ending, Reeves had directed a few episodes of AoS, and as the movie indicates, was making a move to television directing. His career wasn't exactly over, though it might have been over in front of the lens. It's a detail, but a detail glossed over in the movie. And as the movie is trying to point to the certainty of Reeves' suicide, the ommission becomes somewhat problematic.
Reeves' death is a huge questionmark, and that lends itself to Rashoman type-speculating. Unfortunately, none of the answers provided by the film-makers are particularly satisfying. And that means that the movie isn't particularly satisfying, either.
Brody isn't bad, but there's a bit of New York to his LA born and raised detective. Diane Lane is excellent as Toni Mannix, and makes a very believable romantic interest for Reeves.
Some additional minutia:
It also can't help that I have read multiple conflicting stories regarding whether or not Adventures of Superman was actually cancelled. After all, as a syndicated show, the principles never knew whether the show was actually cancelled or not until someone called them to show up for work. Secondly, in the wake of the death of Reeves, the studio tried to put two other shows on the air (Superpup and Superboy), indicating that they planned for more Superman product. In fact, they used the exact same set for Superpup as AoS, so they hadn't torn down the sets as if the show was over. Further, I'd read that Noel Neill was under the impression that additional seasons were in the future and that Reeves' death was what ended the program.
For some eye-brow raising comments, you can also turn to a recent Noel Neill interview at the Supermanhomepage. It's known Noel was not necessarily socially involved with Reeves off the set, but it's definitely worth reading.
***UPDATE***
Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane for the first season of Adventures of Superman (Neill had predated her in the Kirk Alyn serials), also takes issue with the portrayal of Reeves and events. Read here.
***UPDATE UPDATE***
Noel Neill was interviewed on KryptonFan this week. There is some mention of Hollywoodland. 02-28-2007
Going into the movie, I probably knew more about the topic than I should have. I do not consider myself to be any sort of expert in matters George Reeves, but my reading on Superman has lent itself to some reading on the life and death of George Reeves.
I believe that there is very good reason to think that George Reeves did not kill himself. But I don't know. But it certainly colored how I saw the movie.
The film, itself, is a sort of mix between a standard detective picture and Citizen Kane flashback sequences (also used in Immortal Beloved). The detective in question is Louis Simo, a fictionalized character/ convenient amalgamation of many real people who lives the standard movie detective life of the shabby apartment/ office, the messy divorce and kid left behind, and a girlfriend who will dump him before the end of the picture.
Ben Affleck, who is never as old as the character he is portraying, especially for the second half of the film, still manages to portray a reasonable fascimile of Reeves without giving in to parody or imitation. We've got lots of Reeves to look at, and with six seasons of The Adventures of Superman to pull from, Affleck manages to use that both to his advantage and manages to overcome the problem of mis-playing someone with whom some viewers might be fairly familiar.
For me, the story failed on a few fronts.
I take some umbrage at insertion of a fictional detective with a fictional dysfunctional family life as the framing device for the film. The film is really the story of Louis Simo chasing down the truth, and coming to the revelation that mediocrity in Hollywood is okay. A suspect moral, I think, but the lesson we're to understand Reeves' death has taught us is that hoping to become something better than what you are is a way to drive yourself mad. At least in Hollywood. At the end we're supposed to get really excited to see Simo in a suit (I guess he's gotten a straight job) and is coming over to check on his kid in the two bedroom LA-style tract house. With a promise of him giving up on the chance for the abstract greatness of private detective work, I guess. Hooray?
Further, the movie really spares no expense in setting up the husband of Reeves' spurned lover as a potential murder suspect, then backs down completely. This build-up includes details that seemingly make no sense if Mannix is NOT the murderer, such as an MGM rep's appearance at Reeves' funeral and the one scene between Hoskins as Mannix and Simo. Add in some mysterious tarot cards at the crime scene, and some fudgy actual details of the murder included in the film, and the final resolution seems like a lot of back-peddling.
Which raises the question: Did the producers wimp out? As folks looking for jobs in LA once Hollywoodland was in the can, did a moment of clarity tell these guys that fingering a studio exec using studio resources to bump a prominent actor might not be a good idea, career-wise?
I'm also fairly certain that as a non-actor, the melancholy and despair presented by Affleck as Reeves at his lot in life as the Man of Steel is something that's fairly foreign to me as a person (though, certainly not Affleck). Whether a personal failure or one of the movie, I felt that there was too much telling and not enough showing of Reeves' frustration at not being able to land other roles, and it was difficult to garner much sympathy for Reeves as a working actor and kept man, aside from the "Here to Eternity" sequence (which, I've read Reeves and Mannix did not actually attend). That said, as Superman was ending, Reeves had directed a few episodes of AoS, and as the movie indicates, was making a move to television directing. His career wasn't exactly over, though it might have been over in front of the lens. It's a detail, but a detail glossed over in the movie. And as the movie is trying to point to the certainty of Reeves' suicide, the ommission becomes somewhat problematic.
Reeves' death is a huge questionmark, and that lends itself to Rashoman type-speculating. Unfortunately, none of the answers provided by the film-makers are particularly satisfying. And that means that the movie isn't particularly satisfying, either.
Brody isn't bad, but there's a bit of New York to his LA born and raised detective. Diane Lane is excellent as Toni Mannix, and makes a very believable romantic interest for Reeves.
Some additional minutia:
It also can't help that I have read multiple conflicting stories regarding whether or not Adventures of Superman was actually cancelled. After all, as a syndicated show, the principles never knew whether the show was actually cancelled or not until someone called them to show up for work. Secondly, in the wake of the death of Reeves, the studio tried to put two other shows on the air (Superpup and Superboy), indicating that they planned for more Superman product. In fact, they used the exact same set for Superpup as AoS, so they hadn't torn down the sets as if the show was over. Further, I'd read that Noel Neill was under the impression that additional seasons were in the future and that Reeves' death was what ended the program.
For some eye-brow raising comments, you can also turn to a recent Noel Neill interview at the Supermanhomepage. It's known Noel was not necessarily socially involved with Reeves off the set, but it's definitely worth reading.
***UPDATE***
Phyllis Coates, who played Lois Lane for the first season of Adventures of Superman (Neill had predated her in the Kirk Alyn serials), also takes issue with the portrayal of Reeves and events. Read here.
***UPDATE UPDATE***
Noel Neill was interviewed on KryptonFan this week. There is some mention of Hollywoodland. 02-28-2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Movies: Before We Leave The Month of Love...
It's Interactivity Time, Leaguers!
I was planning to do a Valentine's Day post about Romantic Movies, or movies that are, essentially, about romantic love. But I thought I'd leave this one to you
This would probably be a good "Mellies" question, but let's just think of this is a warm up.
3 questions:
1) What movie do you think best exemplifies the ultimate expression of romantic love?
2) What movie do you think demonstrates the most fun look at Mad Love?
3) What movie do you think most accurately depicts or reflects how you feel about romantic love in your own reality?
Now add a "Why" to each of those categories.
I was planning to do a Valentine's Day post about Romantic Movies, or movies that are, essentially, about romantic love. But I thought I'd leave this one to you
This would probably be a good "Mellies" question, but let's just think of this is a warm up.
3 questions:
1) What movie do you think best exemplifies the ultimate expression of romantic love?
2) What movie do you think demonstrates the most fun look at Mad Love?
3) What movie do you think most accurately depicts or reflects how you feel about romantic love in your own reality?
Now add a "Why" to each of those categories.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The League's Past Few Days
The weekend has come and gone.
We now have both wireless and wired internets delivering packets to our modems.
Natalie was supposed to be in town, but I don't think she was here as she never got in touch.
Friday night was dinner and then not much. Saturday Jamie and I played with Andy and Jason, me on bass, Jamie on piano. I am a bit unsure as to this whole band business. I hear I may be slated to play one tune with the rock band "Crack" at SXS1st during SXSW (although our configuration will be called "Sigmund and the Steans Monsters). I have also been told that I am to keep my ideas to myself. It's a tough way to start in with a band. Apparently I crossed some very upsetting lines when I was trying to come up with lyrics. It seems I don't carry the same filter when facing a crowd that the others shoulder, and there were fears of police action.
All I'm sayin' is that nobody else was coming up with any ideas.
Saturday night Jamie and I hit Kerbey Lane, and I drank too much coffee. I was still flying at 2:30AM.
Sunday Jamie woke me from my slumber with the following message:
"If you want to watch the Intel Building implode, I taped it. Also, there's bagels and coffee downstairs."
It's the little moments like that which make me realize I am the luckiest guy alive.
Around Noon'ish, we assisted Steven G. Harms and Lauren in their move. Steven is the best movee ever. "I have six boxes, two chairs and an armoire," he instructed. "The rest is already moved." Apparently Lauren, who is in no way what one envisions as a burly mover-person, had already moved most of their joint property while Steven was out of town.
So it was pretty quick work. And they still bought us lunch. Kudos to Steven and Lauren for their good work and excellent choice of a new pad. It's quite the set-up.
Today I looked for jobs and realized how dangerous I am with a computer in an office and no other distractions. I have found that I will disappear into this room, intending to check e-mail and emerge three hours later. I completel missed going to the bank today as I went to check e-mail at 4:00 and when I looked at the clock next, it was 6:00. Kind of scary.
Still, I'm happy to be at a desk of sorts instead of sitting on the couch with the laptop burning a rectangular spot on my stomach (I sit sort of inverted, with my legs propped up).
Comic reviews are up at Comic Fodder.
We now have both wireless and wired internets delivering packets to our modems.
Natalie was supposed to be in town, but I don't think she was here as she never got in touch.
Friday night was dinner and then not much. Saturday Jamie and I played with Andy and Jason, me on bass, Jamie on piano. I am a bit unsure as to this whole band business. I hear I may be slated to play one tune with the rock band "Crack" at SXS1st during SXSW (although our configuration will be called "Sigmund and the Steans Monsters). I have also been told that I am to keep my ideas to myself. It's a tough way to start in with a band. Apparently I crossed some very upsetting lines when I was trying to come up with lyrics. It seems I don't carry the same filter when facing a crowd that the others shoulder, and there were fears of police action.
All I'm sayin' is that nobody else was coming up with any ideas.
Saturday night Jamie and I hit Kerbey Lane, and I drank too much coffee. I was still flying at 2:30AM.
Sunday Jamie woke me from my slumber with the following message:
"If you want to watch the Intel Building implode, I taped it. Also, there's bagels and coffee downstairs."
It's the little moments like that which make me realize I am the luckiest guy alive.
Around Noon'ish, we assisted Steven G. Harms and Lauren in their move. Steven is the best movee ever. "I have six boxes, two chairs and an armoire," he instructed. "The rest is already moved." Apparently Lauren, who is in no way what one envisions as a burly mover-person, had already moved most of their joint property while Steven was out of town.
So it was pretty quick work. And they still bought us lunch. Kudos to Steven and Lauren for their good work and excellent choice of a new pad. It's quite the set-up.
Today I looked for jobs and realized how dangerous I am with a computer in an office and no other distractions. I have found that I will disappear into this room, intending to check e-mail and emerge three hours later. I completel missed going to the bank today as I went to check e-mail at 4:00 and when I looked at the clock next, it was 6:00. Kind of scary.
Still, I'm happy to be at a desk of sorts instead of sitting on the couch with the laptop burning a rectangular spot on my stomach (I sit sort of inverted, with my legs propped up).
Comic reviews are up at Comic Fodder.
NFL Draft Guys Dot Com
Congrats to Sigmund Bloom on his launch of NFL Draft Guys.
From the Press Release:
So bookmark it.
From the Press Release:
Football junkies have a new home.
NfL Draftguys showcases:
* Accessible, in-depth, year-round college
scouting.
* Decisive fantasy projections for your rookie
drafts.
* Insightful commentary that goes deeper than the
stats.
Cecil Lammey.
Sigmund Bloom.
The stars of The Audible and Footballguys.com know the
game.
The offseason is the new season of NFL football, and
everything that's anything related to the draft can be
found right here. Our scouts attend every major event
from the Shrine Game through the draft, and they don't
mince words when it comes to their projections. You
want informed opinions? You got 'em. In spades.
But our coverage doesn't just start when the players
hang up their helmets -- NFL Draftguys updates player
profiles and rankings constantly throughout the
college season.
So bookmark it.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Academy Awards
When many of you were in college and were expanding your musical horizons, The League sort of made a half-hearted effort to do the same. Our passing interest in David Bowie increased seven-fold, We went through a period where we bought every Talking Heads, David Byrne and related album (and slept happily beneath a subway poster of the least-exciting looking band in rock). And, when JAL took me to the Paramount to see "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" around March of 1995, I fell for the film scores of Ennio Morricone.
I was familiar with soundtrack to "The Mission", and a few other Morricone works, but first "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" and then "Once Upon a Time in The West" and continuing with "Once Upon a Time in America"... Morricone stood out to me (as a wide-eyed film student) as the perfect blending of film and music, rivalling John Williams for pure, iconic themes that told the story as much or more than, oftentimes, the dialogue itself.
The score to "Once Upon a Time in America", along with the one-sheet movie poster, are probably actually better than the final product of the film. The score manages to accomplish what many scores fail to do (but what I thought Ottman managed to accomplish quite well with "Superman Returns"), and that is speak the inner monologues for the characters.
As long-time Leaguers will know, I gave up on the Oscars several years ago when I realized most of the pictures nominated either never made it to my neighborhood, or could not possibly live up to the hype once it began. In addition, why on earth would I watch a bunch of over-paid actors run through a list of agents and producers to get their name on the air and thereby force the actor in question to beg for more work even as they're supposedly receiving their profession's highest accolade?
Hollywood is a sick, sick town.
So it was this evening that Jamie lured me down from the Fortress of Nerditude to watch the "honorary" or "lifetime achievement" award to Ennio Morricone, as he must not have ever won an award before and it was making the Academy look kind of dumb. Especially if Morricone died with no awards and having re-written the way in which film scores could work.
It was awkward enough that Eastwood didn't wear his glasses and in front of an audience of 1 billion people couldn't read the teleprompter, but...
well, (a) nobody in the audience really applauded for any of Morricone's scores as they played, except for "Good, Bad and the Ugly". And (b) as if to add insult to injury, someone tapped Celine Dion to lay words over the score to "Deborah's Theme" from "Once Upon a Time in America". Apparently not Dion, the lyricist, the Academy, any directors or producers had actually seen "Once Upon a Time in America" and knew that "Deborah's Theme" was not a song about finding one another in the moonlight. I don't want to get too much into what I THINK it's about, but it is not about filling up four extra minutes in your show at the Bellagio.
Also, Celine forgot the words at the mid-point of the song and just let out a "whooooo!" to cover it up. Well played, Celine. Well played.
This was followed by the appearance that the Academy was unaware that Morricone does not speak English. They invited him to give a speech, and a few awkward moments went by as Eastwood stood there and was supposed to translate, I guess. or Eastwood forgot his glasses and couldn't read the teleprompter again. We may never know.
The good part was that when Morricone got up to give his speech (in Italian, which Paltrow was pretending to understand), Quincy Jones and his daughter (Karen, from "The Office") totally stole Morricone's seat. No, he didn't steal it. He moved down to fill in for the cameras, but I like to think he and his daughter were treating it like a baseball game and thinking "if that guy leaves, we're totally snagging those seats!"
Also, for some reason, a Mussolini look-alike was seated behind Morricone's wife. I guess the Morricone's are old school Italians..?
I suppose I'm mostly irritated to know that the Soccer-Moms of America will now be driving around in their Ford Excursions listening to "the new Celine", unaware that Dion has butchered a once perfectly reputable bit of movie scoring.
Only at the Oscars would people choose to honor a man by taking one of his greatest works, render it unrecognizable, and hand it over to help a hokey Vegas-act sell some CD's at Wal-Mart while diluting any sense of the man's genius from the song. After all, Celine's producer's soft-rock sensibility know that lowest common denomintaor sound that really sells.
Congrats, Ennio. Welcome to LA.
I was familiar with soundtrack to "The Mission", and a few other Morricone works, but first "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" and then "Once Upon a Time in The West" and continuing with "Once Upon a Time in America"... Morricone stood out to me (as a wide-eyed film student) as the perfect blending of film and music, rivalling John Williams for pure, iconic themes that told the story as much or more than, oftentimes, the dialogue itself.
The score to "Once Upon a Time in America", along with the one-sheet movie poster, are probably actually better than the final product of the film. The score manages to accomplish what many scores fail to do (but what I thought Ottman managed to accomplish quite well with "Superman Returns"), and that is speak the inner monologues for the characters.
As long-time Leaguers will know, I gave up on the Oscars several years ago when I realized most of the pictures nominated either never made it to my neighborhood, or could not possibly live up to the hype once it began. In addition, why on earth would I watch a bunch of over-paid actors run through a list of agents and producers to get their name on the air and thereby force the actor in question to beg for more work even as they're supposedly receiving their profession's highest accolade?
Hollywood is a sick, sick town.
So it was this evening that Jamie lured me down from the Fortress of Nerditude to watch the "honorary" or "lifetime achievement" award to Ennio Morricone, as he must not have ever won an award before and it was making the Academy look kind of dumb. Especially if Morricone died with no awards and having re-written the way in which film scores could work.
It was awkward enough that Eastwood didn't wear his glasses and in front of an audience of 1 billion people couldn't read the teleprompter, but...
well, (a) nobody in the audience really applauded for any of Morricone's scores as they played, except for "Good, Bad and the Ugly". And (b) as if to add insult to injury, someone tapped Celine Dion to lay words over the score to "Deborah's Theme" from "Once Upon a Time in America". Apparently not Dion, the lyricist, the Academy, any directors or producers had actually seen "Once Upon a Time in America" and knew that "Deborah's Theme" was not a song about finding one another in the moonlight. I don't want to get too much into what I THINK it's about, but it is not about filling up four extra minutes in your show at the Bellagio.
Also, Celine forgot the words at the mid-point of the song and just let out a "whooooo!" to cover it up. Well played, Celine. Well played.
This was followed by the appearance that the Academy was unaware that Morricone does not speak English. They invited him to give a speech, and a few awkward moments went by as Eastwood stood there and was supposed to translate, I guess. or Eastwood forgot his glasses and couldn't read the teleprompter again. We may never know.
The good part was that when Morricone got up to give his speech (in Italian, which Paltrow was pretending to understand), Quincy Jones and his daughter (Karen, from "The Office") totally stole Morricone's seat. No, he didn't steal it. He moved down to fill in for the cameras, but I like to think he and his daughter were treating it like a baseball game and thinking "if that guy leaves, we're totally snagging those seats!"
Also, for some reason, a Mussolini look-alike was seated behind Morricone's wife. I guess the Morricone's are old school Italians..?
I suppose I'm mostly irritated to know that the Soccer-Moms of America will now be driving around in their Ford Excursions listening to "the new Celine", unaware that Dion has butchered a once perfectly reputable bit of movie scoring.
Only at the Oscars would people choose to honor a man by taking one of his greatest works, render it unrecognizable, and hand it over to help a hokey Vegas-act sell some CD's at Wal-Mart while diluting any sense of the man's genius from the song. After all, Celine's producer's soft-rock sensibility know that lowest common denomintaor sound that really sells.
Congrats, Ennio. Welcome to LA.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
Coming soon...
I now know this film will have everything I ever wanted to see in a single movie.
Thank you, movie poster.
I now know this film will have everything I ever wanted to see in a single movie.
Thank you, movie poster.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Justice League of America: THE MOVIE?
Great Rao!
Warner Bros. to try the impossible and make a JLA film!
Randy sent along this link.
Comic Fodder had this to say (Shawn's words, not mine).
Ain't It Cool News
And the all-seeing eye of Variety. Note that Variety used a JLU comic cover with Vibe right smack dab in the middle. I take this as an ill-omen.
***UPDATE***
I've posted a bit on some thoughts for WB as they embark on this venture.
Warner Bros. to try the impossible and make a JLA film!
Randy sent along this link.
Comic Fodder had this to say (Shawn's words, not mine).
Ain't It Cool News
And the all-seeing eye of Variety. Note that Variety used a JLU comic cover with Vibe right smack dab in the middle. I take this as an ill-omen.
***UPDATE***
I've posted a bit on some thoughts for WB as they embark on this venture.
New Machine
No Obama
I didn't see Obama today. I'm a bit down about it. Apparently Texans for Obama underestimated the appeal of their own candidate as I circled for twenty or thirty minutes looking for a place to park north and south of the river, and as I was on my lonesome and it began raining, I threw in the towel and went home.
News8 was estimating 20,000 folks were there to see Obama, and Texans for Obama thought they'd max out at 16,000. Originally the meet had been scheduled for Gregory Gym. That would have been a fiasco as Gregory Gym sits at the center of campus and has zero parking and accessibility for non-UT staff and students.
I take it Mr. Obama's campaign is going well.
At lunch the other day we were discussing Obama, and I think his appeal over Clinton is that Hilary might be the smartest person in the room... or she might not. She's sort of the valedictorian who got there by sacrificing every moment of social time and spending lunches in the library. She knows she's worked for it, and thus believes she deserves the position and the accolades. But when she goes up to give her big valedictorian address, she comes off bitter and weird and demanding of respect. When she talks about her high school years, and what she sees for the future, everyone sort of realizes "Wow, you spent every Saturday night watching SNL alone, didn't you?"
Let the Conversation Begin? ...yikes...
Oh, Hilary, you over-achiever, you.
Obama might be more of the same, but he's so new to the national political scene and he's been fairly consistent since he came on the scene that one doesn't look at him with 16 years of baggage tied on. And, as my friend Juan said, he's got that "Mr. Obama Goes to Washington" vibe going on.
I guess since I missed him, now I have to read his website.
A Vista with a View
Leaguers may recall that I recently purchased a new desk. Leaguers may also recall that the motherboard on my laptop recently took the dirt nap.
So, unable to deal with the realities of the modern world sans computer, I went and ordered a Dell Desktop. As you can imagine, all new Dell's come with Microsoft Vista.
I was pleased with the haul I got with my fairly standard desktop. 20" monitor, printer, some fairly nice speakers, optical mouse and a really, really clacky keyboard. Clack. Clack. Clack.
I'm sort of non-plussed with Vista, as I suspected I would be. They've sort of changed everything just enough that you have to spend an extra twenty seconds poking around for once familiar icons, etc... As the Mac commercials promise, Vista does have the Agent Smith security asking you questions as you plug along, but I don't think it's really any different from what MS has tradionally done with Windows. That's not to say I love the pop-ups, but I sort of feel like that's par for the course when dealing with Microsoft's security problems.
The look is certainly inspired by the gummy, glassy look Mac's UI has sported for the past few years, although it's tinged with a bit of the ol' MS sterility.
One thing MS should do when you get your new computer is ask you: Are you an idiot? Click here for "yes", click here for "no". In a week or so, the questions and "getting to know you" screens will quit appearing. For now I just minimize them and occasionally poke around, but for the most part... Windows is windows, and I don't really need a tutorial. And my guess is, most folks buying Vista aren't going to welcome those screens, either.
There's a feature called "Gadgets" that's sort of dumb, but I confess to liking the big, shiny clock and calendar living in the background.
I sort of miss 3.1 every once in a while. Oh, sweet Packard Bell 486, you were my first love. We got through the Clinton years together. Sure, it was weird in those final months when I had to tap the hard drive on the desk to get it to start spinning... but those were good times. Good times.
New Route
The problem now is that I think I figured out that my Linksys wireless router's WIRED portion isn't working. In short, I can either run the WAN into the wireless router and Jamie has access, or I run it into my machine and I have internet access.
Is four years too late to return a wireless router to Best Buy?
I didn't see Obama today. I'm a bit down about it. Apparently Texans for Obama underestimated the appeal of their own candidate as I circled for twenty or thirty minutes looking for a place to park north and south of the river, and as I was on my lonesome and it began raining, I threw in the towel and went home.
News8 was estimating 20,000 folks were there to see Obama, and Texans for Obama thought they'd max out at 16,000. Originally the meet had been scheduled for Gregory Gym. That would have been a fiasco as Gregory Gym sits at the center of campus and has zero parking and accessibility for non-UT staff and students.
I take it Mr. Obama's campaign is going well.
At lunch the other day we were discussing Obama, and I think his appeal over Clinton is that Hilary might be the smartest person in the room... or she might not. She's sort of the valedictorian who got there by sacrificing every moment of social time and spending lunches in the library. She knows she's worked for it, and thus believes she deserves the position and the accolades. But when she goes up to give her big valedictorian address, she comes off bitter and weird and demanding of respect. When she talks about her high school years, and what she sees for the future, everyone sort of realizes "Wow, you spent every Saturday night watching SNL alone, didn't you?"
Let the Conversation Begin? ...yikes...
Oh, Hilary, you over-achiever, you.
Obama might be more of the same, but he's so new to the national political scene and he's been fairly consistent since he came on the scene that one doesn't look at him with 16 years of baggage tied on. And, as my friend Juan said, he's got that "Mr. Obama Goes to Washington" vibe going on.
I guess since I missed him, now I have to read his website.
A Vista with a View
Leaguers may recall that I recently purchased a new desk. Leaguers may also recall that the motherboard on my laptop recently took the dirt nap.
So, unable to deal with the realities of the modern world sans computer, I went and ordered a Dell Desktop. As you can imagine, all new Dell's come with Microsoft Vista.
I was pleased with the haul I got with my fairly standard desktop. 20" monitor, printer, some fairly nice speakers, optical mouse and a really, really clacky keyboard. Clack. Clack. Clack.
I'm sort of non-plussed with Vista, as I suspected I would be. They've sort of changed everything just enough that you have to spend an extra twenty seconds poking around for once familiar icons, etc... As the Mac commercials promise, Vista does have the Agent Smith security asking you questions as you plug along, but I don't think it's really any different from what MS has tradionally done with Windows. That's not to say I love the pop-ups, but I sort of feel like that's par for the course when dealing with Microsoft's security problems.
The look is certainly inspired by the gummy, glassy look Mac's UI has sported for the past few years, although it's tinged with a bit of the ol' MS sterility.
One thing MS should do when you get your new computer is ask you: Are you an idiot? Click here for "yes", click here for "no". In a week or so, the questions and "getting to know you" screens will quit appearing. For now I just minimize them and occasionally poke around, but for the most part... Windows is windows, and I don't really need a tutorial. And my guess is, most folks buying Vista aren't going to welcome those screens, either.
There's a feature called "Gadgets" that's sort of dumb, but I confess to liking the big, shiny clock and calendar living in the background.
I sort of miss 3.1 every once in a while. Oh, sweet Packard Bell 486, you were my first love. We got through the Clinton years together. Sure, it was weird in those final months when I had to tap the hard drive on the desk to get it to start spinning... but those were good times. Good times.
New Route
The problem now is that I think I figured out that my Linksys wireless router's WIRED portion isn't working. In short, I can either run the WAN into the wireless router and Jamie has access, or I run it into my machine and I have internet access.
Is four years too late to return a wireless router to Best Buy?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Update
BIG COMIC WEEK
Goodness. After a few lackluster weeks, this week was kind of nuts. Superman finally hit the stands again. Civil War #7. Amazing Spider-Man. Wonder Woman. Checkmate. A good week. I'll be posting reviews, etc... to Comic Fodder.
Can't Vote for my Candidate
So after swearing off American Idol, I decided to spend some time with Jamie last night, and that meant watching American Idol.
I think I'm letting my prior irritation with the show go as I understand AI understood they may have crossed a line with their audition shows this year, and at this point, they are getting down to the nitty gritty of actually caring about how people sing.
Anyhoo, I only watched about half of last night's show, but I thought it was pretty clear that Lakisha Jones is in a completely different league from the other teeny-bopper contestants trying their best to emulate better singers. Lakisha simply IS one of those better singers. She's simply not been discovered to this point.
Lakisha is not beautiful, and when not singing, her self-esteem drops to nil. But I think AI voters are smarter than they used to be and no longer just vote for the poodles the first few rounds.
As mentioned above, I couldn't vote for Lakisha. I tried. I tried calling on and off for about an hour and could never get through as the line was busy. I take that as a very good sign for Ms. Jones.
'08
Friday I am taking time out of my busy schedule to go and see Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama speak at Auditorium Shores. Schedule providing, I want to see everyone who swings through Austin and speaks in a public venue which does not require $1000 a plate dinners. This includes folks from any party you want to throw at me.
I am, of course, most curious about Obama. I've no idea what his politics and policies actually are (I guess I could read his book or his website), and aside from being relatively fresh to DC, and having a smoking habit, I don't know much about the guy. So Friday I shall go to hear some platitudes and get some vitamin D.
I 2 IKEA
When I was 17 we were headed back from a weekend in San Antonio visiting College Jason. I have no idea how long it had been there, but it was the first time I'd ever noticed Ikea, and the first time I had to go there.
As a grumpy 17-year-old with lots of homework to do and with no plans to buy furniture, I was more or less shanghied into a shopping trip to the amazing assemble-it-yourself furniture store. If Ikea was looking to create a nightmare scenario for a reluctant shopper, they'd fully succeeded.
For those of you have never been to Ikea, it's the only shopping experience I'm aware of that demands a forced march out of its patrons. Like Disney World, there are probably hidden doors and passagways for use by the staff, but for schlubs like me, you have an endless march through adorable housing goods ahead of you.
The bottom line is that Ikea requires that you make a visit to their store an event. You cannot go to Ikea just to buy, say, a spatula. You're going to pick up a table, an ottoman, cutting board, drapes and various unnecessary plastic objects.
So this week I needed an inexpensive desk. I'd done my due diligence at Target, Wal-Mart, Office Depot and the Office Max site. But as a gentleman of generous vertical and horizontal proportions, and with a mass close to that of a white dwarf star, I was pretty sure one of the particleboard specials designed for college kids wasn't going to work for me.
So, after a little bit of browsing their website, I decided Wednesday would send me to Ikea.
Ikea is located north of Round Rock, which is a pretty good jog from South Austin. When I was a kid, Round Rock was but a happy little hamlet without much going on. In fact, their two claims to fame were (A) during the cowboy era, a notorious criminal named Sam Bass had been gunned down in the streets of Round Rock, and (B) the actual Round Rock, which was a point for turning around in a creek on the Chisolm Trail.
Now, it's suburban sprawl of the Chandler-kind. JoAnne Fabrics abound. Restaurants like "Cheddar's" dot the freeway. A huge flyover is being put in at an intersection that used to be a swinging stop light. It's a true oddity how Austin stops a few miles South of downtown, but goes on for an infinite distance North of town.
The Ikea was a looming monstrosity of Univ. of Michigan blue and gold, clearly visible a mile or two before reaching the store. What struck me immediately is that Ikea's philosophy is fundamentally different from virtually any other store. They trust their own shoppers to handle their shopping. There are not chipper teenagers positioned every thirty feet (who can't answer your questions, anyway). Items are marked fairly well, and you're able to grab a pencil and paper and write down the items you need to pick from the bins at the end. Further proving their faith in their shoppers, Ikea requires that if you want a desk, you don't just write down the table name. You have to write down the tabletop model, the frame number and the sort of legs you'd like as all parts are mix-n'match. There's a bit of personal responsibility associated with your purchasing. No commissioned sales staff showing you items you don't want to look at, and because you live by the laws of polite society, you are forced to look at.
Also, they had a totally sweet late-80's mix playing over the PA at a comfortable volume everywhere you went.
But I still had to walk through The Maze of Scandinavian Consumer Madness. I can't say it didn't work. I bought a cheese grater Octavio had once described to me in glowing terms, a spatula I thought would solve my pancake-and-egg-turning problem, a cutting board for properly shuffling chopped vegetable bits into a pot, and a turtle pillow for Jamie's delicate noggin. But mostly, I found a desk of the exact dimensions I'd imagined, with adjustable legs to fit my elephantine body structure, and it was white. I did not want stained wood as the colors of my office are, shall we say, not exactly reminiscent of a woodland meadow. I also have to mention the price was in line with what I might have paid for a low-end desk elsewhere, the furniture was easier to assemble than any Target furniture, and was made out of materials I have some faith in.
I'm definitely much more supportive of the Ikea than I was prior to my shopping expedition. I am not crazy about the near-hour drive to get there, nor the aimless meandering of shopping there, but I suspect repeat trips to Ikea will not be a frequent occurence. However, return we will. I saw options for our kitchen and for our upstairs hall/ oddly proportioned upstairs area that gave me some ideas. And that, Leaguers, is the point of the forced march. I may not have bought a hallway's worth of bookshelves yesterday, but I might next time.
Ikea, you win again.
Goodness. After a few lackluster weeks, this week was kind of nuts. Superman finally hit the stands again. Civil War #7. Amazing Spider-Man. Wonder Woman. Checkmate. A good week. I'll be posting reviews, etc... to Comic Fodder.
Can't Vote for my Candidate
So after swearing off American Idol, I decided to spend some time with Jamie last night, and that meant watching American Idol.
I think I'm letting my prior irritation with the show go as I understand AI understood they may have crossed a line with their audition shows this year, and at this point, they are getting down to the nitty gritty of actually caring about how people sing.
Anyhoo, I only watched about half of last night's show, but I thought it was pretty clear that Lakisha Jones is in a completely different league from the other teeny-bopper contestants trying their best to emulate better singers. Lakisha simply IS one of those better singers. She's simply not been discovered to this point.
Lakisha is not beautiful, and when not singing, her self-esteem drops to nil. But I think AI voters are smarter than they used to be and no longer just vote for the poodles the first few rounds.
As mentioned above, I couldn't vote for Lakisha. I tried. I tried calling on and off for about an hour and could never get through as the line was busy. I take that as a very good sign for Ms. Jones.
'08
Friday I am taking time out of my busy schedule to go and see Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama speak at Auditorium Shores. Schedule providing, I want to see everyone who swings through Austin and speaks in a public venue which does not require $1000 a plate dinners. This includes folks from any party you want to throw at me.
I am, of course, most curious about Obama. I've no idea what his politics and policies actually are (I guess I could read his book or his website), and aside from being relatively fresh to DC, and having a smoking habit, I don't know much about the guy. So Friday I shall go to hear some platitudes and get some vitamin D.
I 2 IKEA
When I was 17 we were headed back from a weekend in San Antonio visiting College Jason. I have no idea how long it had been there, but it was the first time I'd ever noticed Ikea, and the first time I had to go there.
As a grumpy 17-year-old with lots of homework to do and with no plans to buy furniture, I was more or less shanghied into a shopping trip to the amazing assemble-it-yourself furniture store. If Ikea was looking to create a nightmare scenario for a reluctant shopper, they'd fully succeeded.
For those of you have never been to Ikea, it's the only shopping experience I'm aware of that demands a forced march out of its patrons. Like Disney World, there are probably hidden doors and passagways for use by the staff, but for schlubs like me, you have an endless march through adorable housing goods ahead of you.
The bottom line is that Ikea requires that you make a visit to their store an event. You cannot go to Ikea just to buy, say, a spatula. You're going to pick up a table, an ottoman, cutting board, drapes and various unnecessary plastic objects.
So this week I needed an inexpensive desk. I'd done my due diligence at Target, Wal-Mart, Office Depot and the Office Max site. But as a gentleman of generous vertical and horizontal proportions, and with a mass close to that of a white dwarf star, I was pretty sure one of the particleboard specials designed for college kids wasn't going to work for me.
So, after a little bit of browsing their website, I decided Wednesday would send me to Ikea.
Ikea is located north of Round Rock, which is a pretty good jog from South Austin. When I was a kid, Round Rock was but a happy little hamlet without much going on. In fact, their two claims to fame were (A) during the cowboy era, a notorious criminal named Sam Bass had been gunned down in the streets of Round Rock, and (B) the actual Round Rock, which was a point for turning around in a creek on the Chisolm Trail.
Now, it's suburban sprawl of the Chandler-kind. JoAnne Fabrics abound. Restaurants like "Cheddar's" dot the freeway. A huge flyover is being put in at an intersection that used to be a swinging stop light. It's a true oddity how Austin stops a few miles South of downtown, but goes on for an infinite distance North of town.
The Ikea was a looming monstrosity of Univ. of Michigan blue and gold, clearly visible a mile or two before reaching the store. What struck me immediately is that Ikea's philosophy is fundamentally different from virtually any other store. They trust their own shoppers to handle their shopping. There are not chipper teenagers positioned every thirty feet (who can't answer your questions, anyway). Items are marked fairly well, and you're able to grab a pencil and paper and write down the items you need to pick from the bins at the end. Further proving their faith in their shoppers, Ikea requires that if you want a desk, you don't just write down the table name. You have to write down the tabletop model, the frame number and the sort of legs you'd like as all parts are mix-n'match. There's a bit of personal responsibility associated with your purchasing. No commissioned sales staff showing you items you don't want to look at, and because you live by the laws of polite society, you are forced to look at.
Also, they had a totally sweet late-80's mix playing over the PA at a comfortable volume everywhere you went.
But I still had to walk through The Maze of Scandinavian Consumer Madness. I can't say it didn't work. I bought a cheese grater Octavio had once described to me in glowing terms, a spatula I thought would solve my pancake-and-egg-turning problem, a cutting board for properly shuffling chopped vegetable bits into a pot, and a turtle pillow for Jamie's delicate noggin. But mostly, I found a desk of the exact dimensions I'd imagined, with adjustable legs to fit my elephantine body structure, and it was white. I did not want stained wood as the colors of my office are, shall we say, not exactly reminiscent of a woodland meadow. I also have to mention the price was in line with what I might have paid for a low-end desk elsewhere, the furniture was easier to assemble than any Target furniture, and was made out of materials I have some faith in.
I'm definitely much more supportive of the Ikea than I was prior to my shopping expedition. I am not crazy about the near-hour drive to get there, nor the aimless meandering of shopping there, but I suspect repeat trips to Ikea will not be a frequent occurence. However, return we will. I saw options for our kitchen and for our upstairs hall/ oddly proportioned upstairs area that gave me some ideas. And that, Leaguers, is the point of the forced march. I may not have bought a hallway's worth of bookshelves yesterday, but I might next time.
Ikea, you win again.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
2007 Mellies?
Hey, Leaguers. Last year I think I got a little overambitious as far as The Mellies went. We had tons of questions, about 4X the number of respondents I'd expected, and I spent an insane amount of time putting the whole thing back together. Basically, by the end, I swore I'd never do it again.
Instead of abandoning the Mellies, I'm looking for interest levels to see if I should run this again.
How did you feel the last round went?
If we did it, would you participate?
Would you be willing to place your answers in the comments section rather than have me assemble everyone's responses?
It's in your hands, Leaguers. Tell me what you want.
Instead of abandoning the Mellies, I'm looking for interest levels to see if I should run this again.
How did you feel the last round went?
If we did it, would you participate?
Would you be willing to place your answers in the comments section rather than have me assemble everyone's responses?
It's in your hands, Leaguers. Tell me what you want.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Bone Headed Movie
Just saw "Ghost Rider".
Wow.
Curiously, it's not Nic Cage who is going to drive you nuts. I think Nic Cage must have held both the director and the script in contempt and chose to just sort of do his own thing. And that's the only brilliance you'll see in "Ghost Rider".
After the movie spends somewhere near twenty minutes putting together the set-up, the rest of the action is just sorta obvious. Sorta. They pretty much say "Here's Ghost Rider, here's what he does. He has to keep X from happening." But this is also one of those movies where things were either lost in script versions, on the editing room floor, or because the director didn't know what he was doing. This is the same director as Daredevil, so who knows. Not me. There's just some action that seems to occur just to occur and not because it makes much sense. Like Wes Bentley's wardrobe.
It's not really clear why Satan's son is in a fight with daddy, or what his master plan is. Or why he...
Oh, heck. At least the movie moves along really, really fast. And Eva Mendes is very good looking, even if she has the least believable presence as a news reporter in recent memory. But, again, she's very good looking, and so we can forgive her.
Sam Elliot plays the old Ghost Rider, who actually DOES have precedent from the comics, if my West Coast Avengers memory serves.
I dunno. It's a dumb movie. But the FX are decent, Cage was funny, and Eva Mendes is, I repeat, very good looking.
I've not read a lot of Ghost Rider comics. Frankly, I thought the character was sort of one note. But that can work okay in a movie. It just doesn't sustain over an ongoing comic series.
Wow.
Curiously, it's not Nic Cage who is going to drive you nuts. I think Nic Cage must have held both the director and the script in contempt and chose to just sort of do his own thing. And that's the only brilliance you'll see in "Ghost Rider".
After the movie spends somewhere near twenty minutes putting together the set-up, the rest of the action is just sorta obvious. Sorta. They pretty much say "Here's Ghost Rider, here's what he does. He has to keep X from happening." But this is also one of those movies where things were either lost in script versions, on the editing room floor, or because the director didn't know what he was doing. This is the same director as Daredevil, so who knows. Not me. There's just some action that seems to occur just to occur and not because it makes much sense. Like Wes Bentley's wardrobe.
It's not really clear why Satan's son is in a fight with daddy, or what his master plan is. Or why he...
Oh, heck. At least the movie moves along really, really fast. And Eva Mendes is very good looking, even if she has the least believable presence as a news reporter in recent memory. But, again, she's very good looking, and so we can forgive her.
Sam Elliot plays the old Ghost Rider, who actually DOES have precedent from the comics, if my West Coast Avengers memory serves.
I dunno. It's a dumb movie. But the FX are decent, Cage was funny, and Eva Mendes is, I repeat, very good looking.
I've not read a lot of Ghost Rider comics. Frankly, I thought the character was sort of one note. But that can work okay in a movie. It just doesn't sustain over an ongoing comic series.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
What up
I think at this point I've more or less explained what that post from the other day was all about to the folks who asked. Let us all put that behind us now, shall we?
I learned an important lesson this week regarding my expectations of my own life, and, I think, in keeping my ears and eyes open when it comes to the big decisions.
In less exciting life lessons, I also learned that the comic store is going to do everything their power not to give you any money for your comics when you go to resell back issues. The good news on this is that I held onto a lot of my Spider-Man comics, so those didn't just disappear on me. I also still have my runs on X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. And more closet space. But I will never, ever try to resell comics at the comic shop. I guess I don't mind too much that I practically gave away the comics I gave away, as I had no plans for reading them ever again, and was pretty certain nobody was going to be that interested in reading them, either.
But, yeah, the whole thing left a sort of bad taste in my mouth. I can't say my tastes are really that much more refined today than they were when I bought a lot of those comics in the last twelve years or so, but I was given some good tips by my Comic Shop owner/manager in PHX. His advice: Pick one thing you're going to collect, focus on that, and if you manage to collect all of those, great. Then you can move on. Now, this applies for purchase of back-issues and less for purchase of current titles. Obviously if I buy Extreme Combat Rats #1, it doesn't mean I should buy every issue of Extreme Combat Rats. But it does mean that if I am to "build" a collection, it's best to have long runs ona title. There is, basically, no advice for what to do with your copies of Extreme Combat Rats numbers 1 -4 that you purchased, but gave up on, and then saw was cancelled with issue 13. It's unlikely anyone will ever really want those.
(Although there will be someone out there who will set up an Extreme Combat Rats fan site, possibly with their own fan art and fan fiction.)
What I did get was some store credit to Austin Books, with which I picked up the Invincible Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, as per JimD's recommendation. And JimD was right. Invincible doesn't necessarily bring a lot new to the superhero genre, nor even really the Teen Superhero genre. Instead, the series takes the concept and simply chooses to execute on some fairly well worn ideas extremely well. In fact, a forward thinking movie producer would find a way to turn the first 13 issues into a very popular 2-2.5 hour movie.
Saturday jason auditioned me for our new, non-existent band. Jamie played key boards, I played the bass and Jason played drums. Sigmund showed up for the end and played the trombone, and thus was born: Sigmund and the Steans Monster (and Andy). Look for us to be filling stadiums next summer, as people rock out to our hit "If I was a Fish".
Last night we headed to Jeff and Keora's place over on Enfield. Apparently Jeff and Keora live in a quad-apartmenet building tucked amongst some obscenely expensive homes in one of Austin's older, monied neighborhoods. I do not know why, but their rent is insanely reasonable. A while back I kept asking Jeff why he didn't move, but I will never ask him that question again.
Anyway, Jason just called and I think we're headed for food, coffee and maybe the dog park.
I learned an important lesson this week regarding my expectations of my own life, and, I think, in keeping my ears and eyes open when it comes to the big decisions.
In less exciting life lessons, I also learned that the comic store is going to do everything their power not to give you any money for your comics when you go to resell back issues. The good news on this is that I held onto a lot of my Spider-Man comics, so those didn't just disappear on me. I also still have my runs on X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. And more closet space. But I will never, ever try to resell comics at the comic shop. I guess I don't mind too much that I practically gave away the comics I gave away, as I had no plans for reading them ever again, and was pretty certain nobody was going to be that interested in reading them, either.
But, yeah, the whole thing left a sort of bad taste in my mouth. I can't say my tastes are really that much more refined today than they were when I bought a lot of those comics in the last twelve years or so, but I was given some good tips by my Comic Shop owner/manager in PHX. His advice: Pick one thing you're going to collect, focus on that, and if you manage to collect all of those, great. Then you can move on. Now, this applies for purchase of back-issues and less for purchase of current titles. Obviously if I buy Extreme Combat Rats #1, it doesn't mean I should buy every issue of Extreme Combat Rats. But it does mean that if I am to "build" a collection, it's best to have long runs ona title. There is, basically, no advice for what to do with your copies of Extreme Combat Rats numbers 1 -4 that you purchased, but gave up on, and then saw was cancelled with issue 13. It's unlikely anyone will ever really want those.
(Although there will be someone out there who will set up an Extreme Combat Rats fan site, possibly with their own fan art and fan fiction.)
What I did get was some store credit to Austin Books, with which I picked up the Invincible Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, as per JimD's recommendation. And JimD was right. Invincible doesn't necessarily bring a lot new to the superhero genre, nor even really the Teen Superhero genre. Instead, the series takes the concept and simply chooses to execute on some fairly well worn ideas extremely well. In fact, a forward thinking movie producer would find a way to turn the first 13 issues into a very popular 2-2.5 hour movie.
Saturday jason auditioned me for our new, non-existent band. Jamie played key boards, I played the bass and Jason played drums. Sigmund showed up for the end and played the trombone, and thus was born: Sigmund and the Steans Monster (and Andy). Look for us to be filling stadiums next summer, as people rock out to our hit "If I was a Fish".
Last night we headed to Jeff and Keora's place over on Enfield. Apparently Jeff and Keora live in a quad-apartmenet building tucked amongst some obscenely expensive homes in one of Austin's older, monied neighborhoods. I do not know why, but their rent is insanely reasonable. A while back I kept asking Jeff why he didn't move, but I will never ask him that question again.
Anyway, Jason just called and I think we're headed for food, coffee and maybe the dog park.
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