Posted by Allen on April 27, 2007 under General | 
Summer movie season officially kicks off with next week’s release of Spider-Man 3, so now seems like a good time to spell out which films have me most excited this year. Please keep in mind when you read this: my tastes tend to run to the pedestrian during the summer. I’m a sucker for big, special-effects-laden popcorn flicks. While I appreciate small, talky character pieces as much as the next amatuer cinemaphile, summer’s the time for the big and shiny and explody. That’s become even more true since I’ve become a parent I’m only going to get to see a couple of these movies in the theater, so I tend to choose movies that will most benefit from being seen on the big screen.
1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (July 13)
Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite of the Harry Potter books to date, but damned if the newest trailer doesn’t vault it to the top of my must-see list. I’m happy to note that it sure appears the filmmakers did exactly what I was hoping for: they jettisoned a good chunk of the first 300 pages of the book. (I was about ready to punch Harry in the solar plexus for turning into such a whiny little bastard for much of that book.) The last half of Phoenix, though, reads like it’d be a hellacious movie, and the trailers certainly look like that’s where the focus of the action will be.
2. Ratatouille (June 29)
C’mon. It’s Pixar and it’s directed by Brad (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant) Bird. Plus Patton Oswalt voicing the main character? Oh, yeah, I’m there. I don’t honestly even care what it’s about it’s Pixar, it’s Brad Bird. That’s all I need to know.
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (May 19)
I’ll admit that I showed up late to the Pirates party. The first time I saw Curse of the Black Pearl I didn’t think all that much of it (except for Johnny Depp’s fantastic Captain Jack Sparrow). I thought it was, at best, okay. I must have just been in the wrong mood for it during that first viewing, because the second time I saw it I enjoyed the hell out of it. And then I enjoyed the hell out of Dead Man’s Chest. And the trailers for At World’s End make me think I’ll enjoy the hell out of it, too. Plus: Chow Yun-Fat!
4. Spider-Man 3 (May 4)
I have to be honest here: I’m not as excited about this movie as I feel like I should be. I’m a huge superhero geek, I loved the first two Spider-Man flicks, the trailers for this one look good… so why aren’t I looking forward to it that much? I mean, c’mon, I don’t find Kirsten Dunst that loathsome, not enough so that it should overshadow the natural enthusiasm I should exhibit toward any Spider-Man movie, and especially when her complete yuckiness is balanced out by the addition of Bryce Dallas Howard to the cast. And SM3 has the black suit, and Venom, and the Sandman… so why aren’t I hyped for it? Am I the only one that’s feeling this way?
5. Knocked Up (June 1)
Judd Apatow’s got my support for most anything he does after the brilliance of Freaks and Geeks. The 40-Year-Old Virgin managed to pull off the unlikely feat of being both crudely hilarious and touching at the same time Apatow made Steve Carell’s Andy a real person, presenting him as being in a funny situation without making fun of him. I’m betting he’ll be able to do the same thing with this story about a schlub who knocks up a woman way out of his league thanks to a drunken one night stand (doesn’t sound much like the premise for a comedy, does it?). I like the leads, too: I’ve liked Seth Rogen (a Freaks alum; Knocked Up looks to be full of ‘em) in everything I’ve seen him in, and Katherine Heigl’s Izzy is one of the few characters on Grey’s Anatomy I don’t want to stab in the throat. (Well, OK, sometimes I want to stab her, too.)
Posted by Allen on April 26, 2007 under Pop Culture, TV |
When the first TV ads aired for the new science fiction/western hybrid Firefly in the late summer of ‘02, the “from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer” hype FOX was laying on so thickly had zero effect on me. At that point, the name “Joss Whedon” meant nothing to me I’d never seen any Buffy (except the wretched movie). I wouldn’t become a disciple of The Way of Whedon for over another year.
No, what struck me was this: “Hey, cool, Nathan Fillion’s on a new show! Maybe I’ll have to check that out.” (Though I didn’t, of course, until after Firefly had been canceled and released on DVD.) See, I’m now in my fourteenth year of Fillion Fandom. All you people who first discovered him as the roguish-yet-lovable Captain Mal Reynolds? Pshaw. Newbies, latecoming bandwagon jumpers, the lot of you.
Way back in the summer of 1994, I wasn’t taking any college classes and my 25-hour-a-week job at a record store mainly took up my nighttime hours, so during most days I was pretty free. And with my afternoons unencumbered by anything resembling productive activity, what I did was watch soap operas specifically, All My Children, One Life to Live and Days of Our Lives. [1]
One of One Life To Live’s main good guys during that summer was Joey Buchanon, played by, you guessed it, Nathan Fillion. Joey was more in the romantic hero soap character mold than action hero or anti-hero, but heroic he was nonetheless. Most of the appeal of the character to me, anyway was from Fillion himself, who had an undeniable air of goodness about him. His Joey was very earnest and likable, even if I never could understand why he was so hung up on skanky Kelly, who was so full of bad news she might as well have been wearing a “Chico’s Bail Bonds” jersey.
Fillion might not have been the highlight of my soap-watching stint that summer my mild man-crush on him was far eclipsed by the gripping lust I felt for Maria and Julia, the Santos sisters, who spent the summer bludgeoning me with their exquisite hotness on All My Children. But he left enough of a positive vibe on me that I noted every time he appeared in my pop culture field of vision over the next few years. I took it as a sign that his career was going somewhere when he played Not The Ryan You’re Looking For in Saving Private Ryan; I thought his career must be taking a step back when he signed on to the occassionally-amusing-but-not-particularly-noteworthy sitcom Two Guys And A Girl And At One Time There Was A Pizza Place But We Dropped It After The Second Season.
Have you ever noticed how some actors seem to exhibit certain characteristics so naturally and so frequently that you just assume that person’s like that in real life? (Well, OK… I do, anyway.) That’s how Nathan Fillion’s always seemed to me in regards to that aforementioned fundamental goodness most of his characters exude. Much of what made Mal Reynolds such a compelling figure was the contrast Fillion’s natural (or natural-seeming) good-guy-ness brought to him: for all of Mal’s law-breaking and Fed-shooting and doctor-yelling, there’s never any doubt that he’s a good man who’s fallen on hard times, a hero in a less-than-heroic situation.
Yes, I’m aware that Fillion’s an actor and if he’s any good at his job at all and I believe he is then there doesn’t have to be any connection whatsoever between the parts he plays and the man himself. But there’s undeniably something of a strength, morality and dignity underneath most of the characters he plays [2], and whether that quality has any basis in the man behind the characters or not, it makes him an appealing presence on screen.
I’m still hoping that quality someday makes him a huge star.
(Funnily/sadly enough, between the time I started writing this post Monday night and the time I finished it Wednesday night, Fillion’s newest show, Drive, was canceled by FOX… after three episodes. Nathan, if you are going to be a Big Huge Star at some point soon, I don’t think it’s going to be any thanks to the bastards at FOX.)
[1] I’ll talk more about my history with soaps some other time, but I firmly believe that watching Days with my mom when I was little probably helped foster in me the love for serialized storytelling I’ve still got today.
[2] The most notable exception to this tendency was his arc as the evil preacher Caleb in Season 6 of Buffy; there was no underlying streak of good to be found in that character, and because of it I think having Fillion, who’d just been de-Firefly-ed, play the part struck something of a wrong chord.
Posted by Allen on April 20, 2007 under Five O\'Friday, Music, Pop Culture |
For most of this week, I’ve been afraid my iPod had died. Afraid and terribly depressed — the thought of an iPod-free life was quite funk-making.
Everything was working fine up until a Tuesday or so, when I noticed that the battery was dead dead dead, which struck me as very strange as I’d just charged it the night before. But dead dead dead it was, and I spent the next two days trying to charge it with no success. After several attempts at charging it across two different computers, I bought a new charger/sync cable last night which charged the thing right up. (The old cable apparently still works just fine for syncing, but won’t pull in enough power to charge the battery anymore. Strange.)
Anyway, my iPod was so happy to have a fully-charged battery again, it blessed me with a blood-pumping collection of favorites on the drive into work this morning. It would seem charging it up has also made its built-in moodometer function properly once again, as said blood-pumping songs meshed beautifully with the gorgeous, gorgeous spring morning we’re having here in N.C. Here, have a look:
“Rabbit Run” - Eminem I have an entire post brewing on this very song. I kid you not.
“All These Things I’ve Done” - The Killers I have not much to say about this song other than I loves it. It’s one of those songs that goes straight from my headphones to my spinal cord.
“Behind the Wall of Sleep” - The Smithereens She was tall and cool and pretty and she dressed as black as coal. No wonder I love this song, as I think that lyric described most every woman I crushed on in my early-to-mid 20s.
“The Waitress Song” - Blue Sky Salesmen Very, very few of you reading this will have ever heard this song, and those that have will understand and know why it brightened my mood this morning.
“Holiday” - Green Day This song brought on a most impressive fit of air guitar-n-drums from me this morning. My hands still hurt from enthusiastically pounding the steering wheel in time with Tre Cool.
Posted by Allen on April 17, 2007 under Personal |
Yesterday morning, I read a news bite saying that an actor I liked was going to be in a movie that I’d likely be excited about. I wrote up a quick post about it and scheduled it to publish in the afternoon since I wanted to give my legions of readers ample opportunity to laugh at the picture of 13-year-old me I’d posted yesterday morning.
In between the time I wrote that post and the time it was supposed to be published, more than 30 people were massacred at Virginia Tech.
I wrestled with whether or not posting such a piece of inconsequential fluff was appropriate given what was going on in Blacksburg; ultimately, as you can see, I decided to go ahead with it — if I tried to stop posting out of respect for every terrible thing that happened, I’d never write anything again. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter one way or the other whether I posted that article or not, I reasoned, so up it went.
But it did matter. It mattered to me.
Much like I’d imagine most every other rational, feeling person reading the news yesterday, I felt positively nauseated by what happened. It just made no sense to me. I can wrap my head around reading news stories about dozens of civilians getting killed in Baghdad — horrendous though it is, Baghdad’s a war zone and I can understand the types of things that happen there. It’s tragic, but it’s also expected (and possibly all the more tragic for it).
But what happened yesterday, the utter randomness of it… that I can’t wrap my head around. I can’t understand why someone thinks they need to kill that many innocent people before taking their own life. I simply do not get it.
And this particular incident has shaken me far more than any previous school shooting ever did. I think that it’s because unlike when, say, Columbine happened, I’m now a parent. It’s made me think more: thinking of those kids who got shot for no other reason than being in the wrong classroom when some psychopath decided it was time to make his mark on the world… thinking of the parents of those kids, watching the news, terrified, then getting the call that their child had been senselessly murdered…
It made what I wrote yesterday insignificant. It made the majority of what I ever write feel insignificant.
I know it’s not entirely so, of course; people need entertainment to help distract them from thinking too much of the likes of what happened yesterday, and I like to discuss that entertainment and to try occasionally to provide some of it myself. But those pointless murders really helped put what I do in some sense of perspective, to remind me of what’s truly important and what isn’t. Just because writing about pop culture isn’t “important” doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it, but I’m reminded how lucky I am that I’m able to do think about the trivial so much, that my worries aren’t greater, than my family is safe and happy and healthy.
My most heartfelt sympathies to the families of the victims at Virginia Tech.
Back to the frivolities of pop culture tomorrow. Tonight, I’m going to go home and give my family a few dozen extra hugs.
Posted by Allen on April 16, 2007 under Comic Books, Movies, Pop Culture |
Edward Norton has been cast as Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk, the quasi-sequel to 2003’s near-disastrous Hulk. (I say quasi-sequel in that I believe they’ll be skipping over all of the origin hoo-hah and such, acknowledging that we’ve already seen those bits without referencing the first movie at all.) Norton’s actually an excellent choice to play Banner — Banner’s supposed to be a world-class scientific intellect, and Norton, one of my favorite actors, is one of the best of his generation at playing smart. [1] Plus, scared and/or angry and/or conflicted Banner? Norton will be all over that.
The Incredible Hulk will be directed by Louis Leterrier, director of the Transporter movies, so we know we’ll be getting far more of Angry Action Hulk than Angsty Emo Hulk, which suits me just fine. As much as I respect Ang Lee and what he wanted to do with Hulk, it just didn’t work well. Knowing that the next movie will have Edward Norton and much more in the way of “Hulk smash?” Oh yeah, I’m there.
Unfortunately, this new configuration means I’m doubting we’ll get any Jennifer Connelly in the next movie, and that saddens me, but it’s a tradeoff I can live with.
[1] Jessica Alba as a genetic engineer in Fantastic Four? Not so much. Now if they’d cast Leelee Sobieski… her I could’ve bought as a big-brain scientist.
Posted by Allen on April 13, 2007 under Five O\'Friday, Music |
Stealing Beauty Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1996)
One of my all-time favorite sexin’ albums. The first four tracks (from Hooverphonic, Portishead, Axiom Funk and John Lee Hooker — which of these things is not like the others?) all feature sultry grooves which slink right into your spine and move on down to wrap themselves around your sacral chakra and give it a good squeeze. Skip the out-of-place Liz Phair song at five and slide right on into Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” at six to give your junk a little extra funk.
Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way (2006)
The first three songs which open Taking the Long Way — “The Long Way Around,” “Easy Silence,” and the goosebump-inducing “Not Ready to Make Nice” — are all marked as five-star songs in my iPod. No other album I have on my computer right now can boast that distinction. Sadly, as much as I like the album overall, it sort of shoots its wad early: a few of the songs on the album come close to that level of greatness those first three songs achieve, but none quite get there.
Green Day, American Idiot (2004)
The opener, “American Idiot,” starts setting the tone, but once you get past that song and into the opening bang of “Jesus of Suburbia,” you’ve got a solid twenty minutes of polished ass-kicking punk-pop coming your way: the operatic nine minutes of “Suburbia” bleeds right into the three-chord kick to the face of “Holiday” and into the arena-rock chants of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Billie Joe and the boys must have been popping some serious songwriting steroids when they were working on this album: these songs are muscular.
The Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen (1993)
Except for the dirge-like track five (When We Two Parted
Posted by Allen on April 12, 2007 under Comic Books, Links, Movies, Pop Culture, TV |
- I’m willing to grant everyone involved with the production of the kinda stinky Ocean’s 12 an Official Do-Over and pretend like Ocean’s 13 is the direct sequel to Ocean’s 11. The trailer for O13 sure makes it look like it’s going to have all of the same qualities which made the first one so much fun — qualities which Soderbergh, et al. apparently left in their other pants when making O12. This one’s now gone toward the top of my Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2007. (Hmm, what’s that smell? *snf snf* Oh, yeah, I think that’s the smell of another blog post coming up!)
- Hey, fans of Firefly: Yahoo! TV has a four-minute video preview of Drive, the new show from Nathan Fillion and Tim Minear. (The video’s on the right-hand side of the page.) I was planning on watching this anyway just because of the presence of Fillion and Minear, but after watching the preview I’m actually interested in seeing Drive on its own merits. OK, yeah, what little bit we saw of the battered wife was pretty cliche, but the scene with Fillion was intriguing. Time to TiVo up!
- Lee Iacocca has had enough from the current administration. Yes, legendary industrialist Lee Iacocca expresses his outrage at the Republican White House — kinda says something, doesn’t it? Iacocca rightly points out that the guys in office right now might be in charge, but they’re not showing a damn bit of leadership. Big difference there.
- At long, long last, the final issue of The Ultimates 2 has gone to the printer, and Marvel was kind enough to celebrate by offering a preview of Bryan Hitch’s stunning eight-page foldout spread from that issue. I’m not sure that any comic has ever needed an interior eight-page foldout spread in it before, but I’d imagine this one does, and that Hitch artwork is simply jaw-dropping. Personally, I’m just glad this comic’s finally coming out since that gets us that much closer to a hardcover collection, which means I can get that to go with my hardcover of the first Ultimates series.
- The Inbox of Nardo Pace, The Empire’s Worst Engineer.
Posted by Allen on April 11, 2007 under Hair Metal, Music, Pop Culture, Superman |
I still like action figures. I admit it. Yes, dammit, I’m a 36-year-old man who still digs action figures. My favorite present I got for Christmas last year was the two-pack of Superman and Batman figures based on the artwork of Ed McGuinness of all the Superman figures I’ve ever owned, and that’s a decently high number, this one’s by far the coolest.
Also, and I think this fact has now been established beyond all doubt, I used to be into hair metal in the 80s and early 90s. But you know what? Everybody was into it back then. I feel no shame.
OK, well, only a little.
But even with my love for metal-lite and for small posable toys… I’m still somewhat disturbed by the concept of these Bon Jovi action figures.
Yes, you read that right. Bon. Jovi. Action. Figures.
There’s three scenarios I can envision that might have led to these action figures being produced, and none of the three of them will really help me sleep any better tonight. One: the people at McFarlane Toys did some market research and decided there was enough of a market for Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora dolls that it made financial sense to move forward with the project. Two: Todd McFarlane himself is enough of a Bon Jovi fan that he decided this was a project he wanted his company to put into action regardless of the potential profit involved. Three: Bon Jovi and Sambora really, really wanted to see themselves as action figures and paid McFarlane Toys to make it so.
However they came to be… I’m sorry, but these things are too lame even for me, and I’m usually not scared off by lame. Hell, I’ve been known to snuggle up in front of the fire on a cold night with a steaming hot mug of lame while wrapped in a warm blanket of goofy.
But this is where I draw the line of lame.
(You know, I’ve never really seriously considered getting a tattoo. Were I going to, the only symbol that’s ever meant enough to me to even consider getting emblazoned on my body forevermore is Superman’s S-shield. Well, I can’t do that, and you know why? Because Jon Bon Jovi has that same symbol on his right deltoid. Talk about lame why would I possibly want to be ink brothers with this man, this handsome, internationally famous, multi-gazillionaire likely future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who’s gotten to simulate sex with Cindy Crawford? I’m sure I could find better role models than that.)
My questions about the toys’ origins aside, my other big question is this: who’s actually going to buy these things? I mean, of course, besides people named Bon Jovi or Sambora. There can’t be that many people still that rabidly passionate about these guys, right? I mean, of course, outside of New Jersey…?
And then I remembered that yes, there are still quite a number of Bon Jovi-philes out there, as is made obvious in this documentary video (now several years old, but still pertinent, I feel):
Posted by Allen on April 10, 2007 under Links, Web |
- Congratulations to my buddy Jeff Newberry on the birth of his new son, Ben. Ben entered this world on April 9 and immediately rolled off an impassioned version of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s cover of “Little Wing” on the miniature Stratocaster Jeff paid dearly to have the doctors insert into his wife’s womb. I hear tell she was not happy about that procedure, and less happy to have to birth the guitar as well as her son, but obviously all worked out well in the end. Congrats, Jeff and Heather, and welcome to the world, Ben!
- Superhappy 38th to Tim “Timmy B.” Bishop, who carries in his head the entirety of the info what can be found at allmusic.com and then some. Only 731 more days until we get into whatever debauchery you decide is appropriate for your 40th, homes. You’d best get to plannin’.
- Want some help reading your way through the interwebs more quickly? Check out Spreeder, a handy little tool which scrolls chunks of text by your eyes at whatever size and speed feels comfortable to you. They’ve also got a handy bookmarklet so you can select a hunk of text, click the link and go straight to reading said hunk at speeds heretofore undreamed of by man. Or at, like, 500 words per minute, anyway.
- Next time I need a lawyer, I know exactly who I’m hiring to represent me: Lawyerbear. Let’s just see the judge try to haul me off for contempt of court next time! Ha! Not with Lawyerbear on my side!
- I’m not sure I have much to add to the Kathy Sierra conversation that hasn’t been said to death already, but there’s one big question that’s been bugging me: why her? What about Kathy’s site — one which existed only to help its readers, to inspire them and help them create products that would work better for their users — could inspire the hatred and death threats that ended up directed toward her? She doesn’t seem to be a particularly controversial figure and didn’t put forth the kinds of vitriolic political screeds which engender flame wars, even modest ones — especially not when compared with so many other prominent bloggers toward whom these hateful people could have targeted their bile. I haven’t read enough on the topic yet, and I’ll admit that I don’t know all sides of the story (though the pro-death-threat side would have to work awfully hard to convince me of their rightness), so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here. But from what I know of the situation, the answer seems to be: these people essentially destroyed a meaningful chunk of Kathy Sierra’s life because she’s a woman, and because they could. That sickens me. (I’m feeling a larger First Amendment post brewing. Stay tuned.)
- On a directly related note: The Blogger’s Code of Conduct? Yeah, good luck with that. Getting more than a couple of bloggers to agree on anything is like counting grains of sand in the Sahara — practically impossible and ultimately futile.
- Also, this seems like a great time to link to one of the most insightful and profound Penny Arcade strips ever.
Posted by Allen on April 5, 2007 under Comic Books, TV |
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #2
“The Long Way Home, Part II”
Joss Whedon, writer; Georges Jeanty, penciller
See, now, this is what I’m talking about. While I really liked the first issue of Joss Whedon’s continuation of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, it didn’t absolutely thrill me. I feel like I’m praising it with faint damnation when I say that, and I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about my take on #1. It was very well done it had some typically entertaining Whedonesque banter and solid artwork but it felt just a little bit, I dunno, slight to me. That was to be expected, I suppose, since that first issue was almost entirely setup. We only got to catch up with a handful of old characters and were dropped headlong into an entirely new status quo, so yeah, it wasn’t superb — but then again, the seven season premieres of the TV show weren’t necessarily barnburners, either. (The season finales, though? Oh, man.)
So in the end, the first issue of BtVS:S8 was really good if not spectacular.
The second issue, though… the second issue is pure Buffy.
Now we’re starting to get more of our familiar characters back we have Giles now, we have Andrew! and it’s almost like they’ve never been away. Ah, but that’s not quite true: they have been away, and they’ve been growing during their absence (some a bit more literally than others). The action in the second half of this issue, for instance, demonstrates just how capable the formerly useless Xander Harris has become at leading an international squad of Slayers. (Strangely enough, the character who seems to have grown the least during the gap since the end of Season 7 is the eponymous heroine herself, though I’m sure we’ll be treated to plenty of growth opportunities for her later.)
The one aspect of this issue which grabbed me most — and I can’t imagine this should come as much of a surprise — is the dialogue. The wonderful thing about Whedon writing these characters he created and worked with for so long is that he knows how they should speak better than any other writer, so it’s almost useless saying that Buffy, Xander and the rest sound the way they’re supposed to. It might be nearly useless, but I’m saying it anyway: the words Whedon puts into their mouths strike notes so perfect that I can hear the actors reading the lines in my head. I realize that for many of you, that distinction might not be particularly profound, but normally when I read (comics, novels, whatever), all of the characters’ voices sound, well, like mine. Jeanty’s art helps — the likenesses might not be photorealistic, but they’re suggestive enough of the actors that it makes hearing their voices that much easier.
We’re only two issues in, but there’s already questions aplenty to be answered: Who’s the floaty guy stalking Buffy (and her dreams)? Who is — or was — Amy’s gross, mysterious and so far unseen survivor of the collapse of Sunnydale? (Dollars to donuts both characters have Buffyverse histories, though I honestly have no idea who either is supposed to be just yet.) And one of the biggest questions I’ve got, one that hasn’t even been directly addressed as a mystery yet: where in the hell did Buffy and company get all the money to finance this massive operation? How are they affording all of this technology, room and board for several hundred teenage girls, and at least two separate compounds (since Giles clearly is somewhere other than Buffy’s Scottish headquarters)? When I watched the original series via Netflix, I usually didn’t have more than a couple of days to wait for new episodes. Knowing it’s going to be thirty days before even getting any more hints is going to prove painful.
If you’re a fan at all of the Buffy TV series, you need to be reading this comic (or at least need to pick up the collections once they come out). So far the series feels very, very similar in tone to the show, though now they’ve got the unlimited budget only comics can provide (just imagine the last page of this issue being done anywhere near as effectively on the small screen). As my boy Timmy B., a recent Whedon convert, said today: “I can’t believe that shmuck was wasting his time in TV.”
