Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Category: Movies

  • Not a Leap Year

    We saw the new Die Hard movie last Friday, “A Good Day to Die Hard.” It wasn’t terrible—the action sequences were good and the concept was there—but compared to the last movie it was disappointing, largely because (for me) the dialogue was very stilted and cliché, focusing more on the one-liners than advancing the plot or anything. Plus it didn’t really give John McClane the “nobody else is here to do this” kind of role that the character is really known for… I ended up thinking the movie is begging for a fan fiction rewrite that could really tighten things up and make it 100% better. Or a Phantom Edit-style recut.

    Of course, you always have to wonder about (yet another) sequel…

    Earlier this month I set up my old Commodore 64 computer system for the kids to see, just for grins. Basically their computer desk in the office has been empty since the (older) Sony Vaio all-in-one system started dying (the integrated LCD monitor light was starting to burn out, which is a huge pain) so I figured, why not? I have to say, it is amusing as hell to see that old system set up again—but other than that first day we were playing around with it, it hasn’t been turned on.

    Lots of beer things are happening, too: we’re planning this second year of Central Oregon Beer Week and that has been taking up a lot of time. Maybe I’ll do some “behind the scenes” type posts for that at some point. Suffice to say, there are a lot of good ideas floating around but trying to nail down details like sponsorship packages is a chore. Hopefully we’ll have that dialed in very, very soon and can get down to the fun stuff of drinking beer! Or at least planning out events where we get to drink beer.

    Incidentally, Central Oregon Beer Week is taking place from May 20 through 27 this year—the week leading into Memorial Day Weekend. It’s going to be awesome.

  • Star Wars + Disney

    Obviously it’s not news anymore that Disney bought the Star Wars franchise—or more specifically, Lucasfilm—but all the speculation about the announced new Star Wars movies (starting in 2015) is interesting, if amusing. I’m not particularly worried either way about this new trilogy of Episodes VII, VIII and IX, but I do wonder a bit at what tack they are going to take with them. After all, it’s been nigh on 30 years since the original cast were last on screen together, and while we would all love to see such an official reunion, it could be painful to watch.

    Plus, it’s not like there hasn’t already been stories told that take place after Return of the Jedi—that’s what the Star Wars Expanded Universe is all about, really—and much of it is already considered pretty official. Two post-ROTJ series of stories that post immediately to mind—starring the characters from the Original Trilogy—are Dark Horse Comics’ Dark Empire series and Timothy Zahn’s novels. In a lot of ways either one could be considered Episodes 7-9.

    And then on a completely irrelevant tangent, consider the possibilities of blending Star Wars with the other Disney properties. The Avengers vs. the Empire anyone?

  • Items of recent awesomeness

    Some of these links aren’t as shiny-new as they were when I started this post, but even so:

    The CDC’s zombie apocalypse preparedness plan: Yes, the CDC is all over the possibility of a zombie apocalypse. For real.

    If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine).

    Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn move trailer: I knew Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were making a Tintin movie, but I didn’t realize just how OMGAWESOME it was going to be until I saw the trailer:

    The Javascript PC emulator: pure amazing geekery. This is an x86 processor being emulated in Javascript inside a browser. And it’s running Linux. To be clear: what is essentially a full computer is running independently inside the browser. Which theoretically means you could run, well, anything inside of it.

  • Superman

    A few weeks ago I checked out Superman from the library (the first Christopher Reeve movie) so I could watch it with the kids; it had been far too long since I last saw it, and the kids (naturally) needed an introduction to the best “Superman” movie, well, ever. And I have to say, even though it was made in 1978 and some of the effects are, well, 1978, it holds up.

    I loved the Superman movies when I was a kid; considering the only previous “on screen” Superman adventures around were basically the old George Reeves ’50s television series and the Super Friends cartoons, those movies were like magic when they came out. They turned what I could imagine about a live adaption of the comic and turned it on its ear, they were that good. And Christopher Reeve was a genius bit of casting for that role—completely filled it out like nobody has before or since.

    I’m thinking of the first two movies, primarily, since they hold together relatively well. I was pretty excited about Superman III when it came out, but even then I could tell it wasn’t up to par for the first two; they gave short shrift to Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane (completely ignoring the circumstances of the second movie, it seemed), for instance, and adding Richard Pryor as a campy, weird sort of villain just didn’t click.

    And then Superman IV was just a mess, obvious even to me as a kid at the time.

    I never have watched Superman Returns, which purports to ignore III and IV and operate as a sequel instead to II. Too many bad reviews and from what I read about the movie itself, too much of pretty much the same things they already did in the first two movies, and Brandon Routh just isn’t Superman. And I’m sorry, but the costume looked horrible.

    I actually rather enjoyed the “Lois & Clark: New Adventure of Superman” show that was on during the 90s. Dean Cain was no Christopher Reeve, but he held up.

    And I love the Animated Series that was out around that same timeframe (and which continued into the Justice League series); I haven’t seen all of the episodes but I think it’s probably the best TV series done for the character.

    I haven’t watched “Smallville” though. No real reason, just missed the boat I guess.

    Now, you can probably see where this is going.

    So there’s this new Superman movie coming out, slated for December 2012… Man of Steel. I’m not sure what to make of it yet, but it’s got some pros and cons (in my mind) going for it.

    The good:

    • It’s a reboot. No more sequels or trying to tie into the past movies, this is a case where a reboot is definitely needed. And frankly, I think they can reboot Superman while foregoing the origin story (which I’ve railed against before); everybody knows Superman’s origin. Give it a nod during the credits, or in the first few minutes of the movie in flashbacks or something.
    • Zack Snyder is directing, Christopher Nolan is producing. Snyder directed 300 and Watchmen; Nolan rebooted Batman (and did it right). These are the guys you want doing a Superman movie.
    • The effects. We’re finally in an era where the effects can be believable and amazing and done right; in this case (since I didn’t see Superman Returns, but have to assume the effects were good) I’m thinking of Hancock, which for me pretty well nailed it in the effects department.

    The bad:

    • Well, I don’t know if this is bad, but I’m leery of the casting; I’m not against a Brit taking the role (Henry Cavill(?) has been confirmed as Superman), but Superman is such a tough role to cast properly. Doesn’t matter who they cast, I’ll be skeptical.
    • General Zod as the villain. Not again… General Zod was the main villain of Superman II (also featured in the beginning of the original movie), a thinly-veiled variant of Zod was in the Lois & Clark TV show (“Lord Nor”), and Zod cropped up again apparently on Smallville. (Not to mention, Zod has apparently been playing a prominent role in the recent comic books.) So, what, it was, I’ve got an idea! Let’s use General Zod as the villain in the Superman reboot! Seriously? No, it’s a tired idea. The smartest thing Batman Begins did was to not start with any of the usual villains; let’s see that here. Look, I know Superman is a hard character to pair with a challenging villain: He’s Superman. But it can be done. Frankly, learning that Zod was chosen as the villain again was disappointing as dampens any excitement I might have felt about the movie.
    • DC Comics really hasn’t had much success (with the exception of the last two Batman movies) with any of their franchised properties over the last, oh, dozen years or so. If the new Green Lantern movie coming out this year tanks, then that doesn’t bode very well for Man of Steel.

    Okay, deep breath… Yes, I’m excited for this movie. I hope it’s as good as the original Superman. But… well, we’ll see, won’t we?

  • At World’s End

    Finally got out to see “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” back on the first weekend of this month, and I quite liked it. I really liked it, I thought it was fun and supremely escapist with excellent action sequences and truly excellent special effects. A perfect summer blockbuster, in other words. And I think it capped the trilogy nicely, while being open-ended enough to credibly be able to do a fourth movie (if, as Johnny Depp has famously said, the script is right).

    In fact, I already know what the subtitle of the fourth movie should be: “Drink and the Devil.” At least, that’s from my working notes thus far. :)

    And as I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that something I’d read elsewhere was true: the “Pirates” movies really are the “Star Wars” movies of this generation. (I’m talking about the Original Trilogy, of course; the Prequel Trilogy doesn’t come close.) That’s a tricky thing to pull off; I don’t think it can be done intentionally. The “Matrix” movies might have come close, but ultimately they collapsed under their own weight.

    I won’t go into some sort of pedantic nerdly comparison essay between the two; suffice to say that the “Pirates” movies I can go back and watch again and again and still enjoy, like the Original Trilogy. That’s good stuff.

  • Pop culture segue

    Don’t let the title completely fool you, this entry is a rant, as much as anything else. And don’t think that I’m some sort of pop culture otaku; I’m usually behind the curve when it comes to such things, especially music.

    But I seem to consume a fair amount of it anyway, and so here we are.

    What do I really have to say about pop culture? Read on…

    TV: American Idol

    Yes, I’m watching it, yes, you can make fun of me for it.

    Overall, I think the finalists this season are really weak, and at least half of them should never have been chosen as finalists in the first place. It’s a freakshow headed up by Sanjaya. Seriously, what were the judges thinking when they chose him for the final 24?

    The top three are Melinda, LaKisha, and Blake. My pick to win is Melinda; she’s simply the best of them, and she’s humble about it. I would’ve picked LaKisha earlier on, but she started getting arrogant and too full of herself.

    Contestants aside, the show really, really needs to let Paula Abdul go. This season is really bringing home how worthless she is to the show. All she does as a “judge” is simply parrot what the others have said or make pointless comments about how well the contestant has dressed, and her drunken-slash-stoned antics are simply embarrassing. Her time is done. They need to bring in someone who’s not an assclown.

    There’s really not much more to be said, other than some snarky comments about some of the others…

    • Haley (who was mercifully eliminated last week) only got as far as she did because of her skimpy, revealing outfits. I’m surprised that even got her as far as it did; she’s simply a terrible singer.
    • Phil—dude, the bald look doesn’t work on you. At all. Combine that with the pale, deathly-ill look you seem to be sporting… let’s just say the initials for the nickname I have for him are “C.P.” Plus, he’s a terrible singer also.
    • Chris Sligh—wow, I’ve never seen anyone look like Sideshow Bob in real life before. Except for the weight part.

    TV: 24

    This season has turned out to be weak. Not as weak as the third season—I’m not sure they can get that low again—but coming off the success of last season, it just doesn’t hold up. Which is too bad, since the premise, previews, and first episode all seemed promising.

    But I just can’t buy into the premise that Jack, who was incarcerated and tortured in a Chinese prison for the past (nearly) two years, can walk off the plane and step right into such a physically demanding role and leadership position of CTU as if no time at all had transpired. It should simply be physically impossible.

    Also, the season is largely a retread of season two (which was strong, perhaps the strongest of all of them): the threat of nuclear bombs by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. One even goes off. Jack reappears from an absence to save the day. Nefarious forces at the White House attempt to remove President Palmer from power. Et cetera, et cetera.

    TV: Lost

    I’ve avoided doing any more extended ranting on “Lost” since last fall, mostly because I don’t want to become a cliché of myself. (Not to say I’m not already, but that’s a different blog entry…) Also because the quality of the season picked up since the terrible first six, but also because I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the series in general.

    After last week’s episode, just a few of the things that are bugging me:

    • Why did they neuter Jack? He sucks these days, and he had some of lamest lines ever. “She’s under my protection.” What?? Who says stuff like that? Is this some weird reversion to Middle Ages feudal dialect? And the end, when he’s babbling about trusting Juliet, “looked into her eyes” etc.—extraordinarily lame, and I was going to comment that he’s a fool to trust her when sure enough, they cut to the Juliet-as-traitor-betrayer flashback. Jack sucks.
    • Speaking of Juliet, can’t the writers make up their minds about her? They seem to be trying awful hard to make her a sympathetic character to the viewer but then they blow it. We all know she can’t be trusted, ever. So why waste screen time on it?
    • Sayid is the smartest person on the island, and he’s always right. Isn’t it about time (after nearly three seasons) that they start working that angle rather than just ignoring him? They need to kill off a bunch of losers and let Sayid take charge.

    Basically, I’m to the point where my suspension of disbelief has come crashing down. While I’ve enjoyed the season more than when it started, I think the producers and writers have dropped the ball big-time and have a convoluted mess that keeps getting compounded with bad writing.

    TV (General)

    Everyone keeps telling me how I should be watching “Heroes” and “Battlestar Galactica.” Apparently those are perfect for the geeky/sci-fi kind of person that I am, and they’re really good. I think I pretty much missed the boat on “Battlestar,” but maybe I can catch up on “Heroes” during summer reruns…

    Comics: Y: The Last Man

    The coolest thing I’ve discovered about the Deschutes Public Library in the last six months is that they have a decent collection of comic trade paperbacks; I’ve been going through and reading comic series that I missed the first time around.

    “Y: The Last Man” is one of them—the library has the complete set of trades (though the series is still ongoing). The premise: all the males in the world (technically, all mammals with a Y chromosome) are wiped out in a single day by a mysterious plague. All, that is, but one man and his male capuchin monkey. So it’s a post-apocalyptic type series, following the last man (whose name is “Yorick”) as he copes with being the last, and how that fits in with how the remaining women of the world deal with the crisis.

    It’s really good, utterly non-superhero, and for mature readers only. The trades are all fairly quick reads, but you’ll want to go back and read them again. Excellent stuff.

    Incidentally, the creator and writer of the series, Brian K. Vaughn, was recently hired to be a writer on “Lost.”

    Comics (General)

    “Fables” is a truly excellent comic series, also available in trade paperback form at the library and also an entirely non-superhero premise. In some ways it reminds me of Alan Moore’s beyond-brilliant “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” (not the movie. Never the movie), in that the characters are drawn from the literary (and public domain) world of fable and fiction.

    Pretty much any other comics-related stuff I could say I already said here.

    Books: Cell

    I read Stephen King’s Cell in something like four days. It’s that good and that quick a read. It’s also the kind of book that will make you seriously think about throwing away your cellphone. I won’t go quite that far… yet… but I’m thinking it would be prudent to watch other people to make sure they’re not going crazy on their cellphones before answering mine.

    What makes it especially good is that it’s not one of the marathon-length books King often writes; it’s straightforward, fast-paced, well-plotted, suspenseful, and graphic as hell. Some of his tightest writing I’ve read in awhile. I loved it.

    It’s basically King’s contribution/foray into the apocalyptic zombie genre. Since I followed it up with the “Y: The Last Man” comics, I guess maybe I’m on an apocalyptic binge… maybe I’ll seek out some zombie novels.

    Books (General)

    I’ve currently got three books going: Code by Lawrence Lessig (that link’s actually a cheat; I’m linking to the revised edition, because that’s more relevant, but the one I’m reading is the original edition published in 1999), Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, and Singularity Sky by Charlie Stross.

    Code is dense and thoughtful and sometimes a chore to slog through. Extraordinary Origins is light and interesting and parceled out into perfect bite-sized chunks; good stuff for the casual history buff. I’ve just started Singularity Sky this weekend but so far it’s promising; it seems to be a post-modern blend of hard science fiction with space opera with post-Singularity stuff (duh, from the title!).

    I keep eyeing my bookshelf, fingering through books I haven’t yet read. Beer brewing books, Vernor Vinge, Patrick O’Brian, Rudy Rucker, Stephen Baxter, Stephen King, some classics… it goes on. A reading binge is imminent now that TV is getting close to winding down, I think. So many books, so little time.

    Of course, if I were sticking to the “pop culture” theme with books, that probably means I’d have to stick to mainstream bestsellers. I think the last time I read a mainstream bestseller other than a Stephen King was a few years ago with The Da Vinci Code, which I reviewed. I wasn’t favorable.

    Movies

    Actually, when it comes to movies, I suck these days. I hardly ever see them in the theater anymore and I’m simply behind on what’s current. What’s worse is that this is a drool-inducing year of movies for me:

    • “300” – which I must make an effort to see while it’s still in the theaters.
    • “Spider-Man 3”
    • “Transformers”
    • “Live Free or Die Hard”
    • “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”

    Those are kind of the “must see” movies on my wishlist. Other movies which would be cool to see but don’t have that urgency include “Grindhouse,” “Shrek the Third,” “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” “The Simpsons Movie,” and “Ocean’s 13.”

    Yes, they’re all geeky movies and/or sequels. What? Did you think I was gonna go all Pavlov’s Dogs on something like “Georgia Rule” or “Miss Potter”?

    Of course, take it all with a grain of salt. I haven’t even seen “Casino Royale” yet. I suck.

    Music

    What do I know? I mostly listen to the radio and have a handful of CDs (nothing current). If you’re looking for music advice/wisdom/humor/whatever, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

  • Transformers. Live action movie. OMG.

    Okay, I was a little slow on the uptake for this one: Transformers: The Movie. Live action. For real. Opening July 4th of this year.

    I remember hearing the rumor about this way back when, thought, “Hey, that would be cool,” without thinking it would actually happen—you know, the usual Hollywood stuff, rumors are always flying. Then, suddenly, I recently spot the trailer online and nearly fall out of my chair.

    Yes, I’m fully aware I’m out-geeking even myself here, but back in the day Transformers were the toys to have and it was the cartoon on TV to watch. I even made paper Transformers, for crying out loud.

    Not surprisingly, Wikipedia has a comprehensive page on the Transformers movie. I only have one complaint: Bumblebee will no longer be a Volkswagon Bug—instead, he’s a 1974 Chevrolet Camaro. WTF?? That just ain’t right.

  • X-Men: The Last Stand

    I saw the third X-Men movie on Saturday, and while I don’t think it’s as good as the previous two movies, I rather liked it. It won’t classify as a great movie, but it was certainly enjoyable.

    So what follows is my review… although it’s less of a “review” than just a general geeking-out about things. And there are definitely Spoilers ahead so be warned.

    (more…)

  • The 10 best sci-fi films that never existed

    I just had to point to this: The Top Ten Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed. You gotta love it when he opens the Star Wars section with:

    Everyone remembers the exact moment when they realized that their Phanom Menace sandwich was filled with shit. For me, it was the scene on Tatooine where Qui-Gon is talking and Jar Jar is snatching fruit from the bowl with his tongue, eating like an insect. Annoyed, Qui-Gon reaches out and snatches his tongue out of the air and holds it in his fist while he talks. That was when I realized I was watching a cartoon.

    Good stuff. Via… I actually don’t remember where I first saw this. Oh well.

  • The Ultimate Star Trek Collection

    This is one of those over-the-top, for-the-person-who-has-everything, I-have-too-much-disposable-income type of things: The Ultimate Star Trek Collection on Amazon. It’s insane:

    • 212 discs
    • All 5 TV series
    • All 10 movies
    • Commentary, interviews, documentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, trailers, and more
    • All for the whopping-low price of $2,499.99!

    What a deal! Especially since you save $1,409.