The (hot) Dog Days of Summer

I'm finally getting pumped for The Dark Knight Rises. Of coarse I'm a Batman fan, but there hasn't been much in the trailers to really get me going. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman? Well...that gets me going, but not in a family-friendly way. Heh. I'm sure it will be great and I will be seeing it soon.

Just returned from a road trip to the Poconos to spend some time with family. That was fun. Had to buy two new tires for my Hyundai Blowabout. Not so fun. That little seating area in the Walmart auto care section is not a happy place. Everyone internally snarling at having to watch their car through a little window as it gets cranked by dudes in coveralls. One old man who was there with me had to wait for an extra hour because the mechanics dropped their screwdriver into his air filter and it landed out of their reach. Oy.

And so the summer rolls on. I recently tried a stout beer that's brewed with coffee. Little bit of whiplash with the sudden subject change? Sorry about that. It just popped into my head and I thought I'd share. That coffee brew was AMAZING! Speaking of great tastes that could have very easily gone the other way, I've got an idea for a new pizza! Sliced hot dogs under a mix of cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. And, instead of pizza sauce, Spaghetti-Os!!! I think it's either gonna knock my socks off or make me puke. I'm off to buy some crust and find out for myself.

1 Vote for Hibernation

Is summer over yet??? Seriously, I wish I could just sleep through this crap. I live in West Virginia, which means I was one of MANY in the path of those land hurricanes...Doritos or whatever they're calling them...that knocked out power for several days. Several days of 100+ degree weather. Fun times. Now that my freezer is back, I'm in the process of testing how much of my thawed / refrozen breakfast pastries and burgers are still edible. So far, so good!

Went to see Amazing Spider-Man yesterday. I wasn't on board with ANOTHER Spidey origin rehash, but this one was actually fairly awesome. Familiar, but tweaked just enough to feel fresh. Surprisingly enough, I still felt bad when Uncle Ben died. Spoiler?? Only for someone living under a rock. Heh. Also saw Prometheus. That was cool, but not as cool as I was expecting. If I hadn't been looking for some air conditioned place to sit during the blackout, I probably would have waited for the DVD release.

Still hard at work on writing, of course. Got some big plans for the next Skinners. Actually, I will start the actual writing on that one this month! I've got two Skinners projects coming along. One is the next book in the series and the next is a side project I've had in mind for a long time. More later!

Maybe it IS time for a reboot

I had plenty of gripes about Spider-Man 3. Pretty much anyone who saw the movie had 'em. Even so, I think that Sam Raimi was forced to cram too much into one movie and that he still does a great job with the franchise. From what I heard, he wanted to do 3 as mostly Sandman with the black suit added into the mix. Venom would come in the next movie. That would have been perfect. Would he still have had the cringe-inducing bad boy change coming from a hair flip or dance sequences? Maybe, but it would have been a better movie and the next one with all Venom would have kicked ass. So, 3 aside, I think the Spider-Man movies could have picked up just fine.

Seeing that the one coming out this summer is a reboot made me cringe as well. Come ON! I'm a huge Spidey fan but even I'm getting sick of the whole origin story thing. Between the movie, the cartoons, the iterations of the comic books and video games, I've seen that spider bite his hand so many times that I just want Uncle Ben to hurry up and get killed so we can GET ON WITH IT. Even with new actors, directors, and the whole bit, we could have just continued with more Spidey stories. The only reason to do a reboot is to give the whole thing a fresh look and feel. So...here's the newest trailer for this summer's Spidey offering...




I gotta admit, the teasers had me intrigued and this pretty much seals the deal. I like a good reboot. Casino Royale made James Bond f'ing cool again and Batman Begins...well come on. I don't have to mention how nerdgasmically awesome the Nolan Batman movies are. Looks like this new Spider-Man has plenty of promise. The Lizard looks great and the whole thing has that Spider-Man feel that still gets my geeky toes a'tappin'. Between this, The Avengers and Rise of the Dark Knight, it looks to be a great summer. Hell, I'm still pumped for Ghost Rider!

Boot to the Head

Day 1,479 of being without the main TV in my life.
Ok...maybe it hasn't been that long, but it sure as hell feels like it! The lamp in my cool hi-def TV burnt out, so it's been waiting for repairs. Had to go back and forth with Panasonic, get them to honor the warranty without a receipt (since I threw it away without knowing they'd EXTENDED the warranty for my model), find a repair guy, get him to take the TV away, wait for the part to be ordered and now wait for it to be brought back. Hooking up my games and crap to an older TV has been a pain in the ass for no good reason, which means I haven't even been on XBox Live for weeks. ARGH!!!! Sure, this stuff isn't essential for survival but it sucks to be without it.

No hi-def graphics on my games. No Blu Ray movies. No surround sound system. Damn near had to go back to a freaking VHS player just because I didn't want to move my living room into the guest room. It'll be ok. I just don't get out much so this stings.

Been going to Borders to try and take advantage of those Going Out Of Business sales. The cafe was all shut down and the chairs were up on the tables. That was even more of a depressing sight than the shelves which all now look like they've been randomly jumbled. I saw a trade paperback I wanted, checked to see if I already had it on Kindle. I didn't, but I also found the ebook version was $8 less than the SALE price of the book store copy. I bought the Kindle version, feeling like I was putting my foot on top of Borders's head and shoving it even further beneath the water. Strange days for the publishing industry.

Saw Captain America. Although I don' t agree with the folks who call it the "best comic book movie ever", it was pretty great. Red Skull looked perfect and the treat at the end of the credits nearly made me mess my pants with geek delight.

Bloody Summer

This has been a very patriotic few days. That's par for the course considering the holiday and all, but my last July 4th was a lot less...well...just a lot less. Back then, I spent my holiday weekend working on a manuscript, listening for the occasional pops outside my apartment, poking my nose out to see some distant flashes and then going back to work. This year, I did the whole cookout / fireworks combo and it was a lot of fun! I also indulged in my usual Independence Day movie treat which was...you guessed it...Independence Day!! That film may be flawed in some pretty serious ways, but it's still a lot of fun. Definitely one of the ultimate mindless summer blockbusters. Love it.

I also recently watched Sucker Punch. This one had me intrigued the moment I saw previews with dragons fighting biplanes and demon Samurais weilding chain guns. At the very least, it was a prime piece of eye candy (and I mean beyond the young girls dressed in every fantasy piece of clothing from schoolgirl to warrior woman). VERY cool on Blu Ray. As far as more recent flicks, I'm anxiously awaiting Captian America and Cowboys & Aliens. After that, it's hibernation time again.

Been playing Portal 2 and even dug up a game from a few years ago called Dark Void. The latter has an Indiana Jones meets Rocketeer vibe. I'm liking it, despite the noticable lack of Jennifer Connelly in that amazing white dress. Hubba hubba!! I can still remember the day young Marcus was in a movie theater and "sat up to take notice" of that scene. Too much info? Oh well. Dark Void is cool so far and definitely enjoyable. Portal 2 is simply brilliant, however. Just about every other line of dialogue has me laughing and the game simply rocks. But...no Jennifer Connelly. What the hell is wrong with games these days??

I'm working on my installment of the Dead Man series of ebooks. After that, I'll be dipping my toe further into the ebook pond by writing an original to be released independantly. That should be a fun experiment! I get to just have an idea, write it up and put it out there to see if it flies. Lots of writers are jumping on this train and for good reason. It's very appealing to be able to get something out there without jumping through all the usual hoops. Could be an amazing venture. However it turns out, it should be exciting! I'm working with a few other writers to put together a central website hub for all of our works to be displayed. Something should be coming to fruition within the next few months, so I'll keep you posted. Hopefully, you guys will like what you read!

I'm off to donate blood now. Haven't done this for some time, mainly due to all the tattoos I've been getting. I should probably eat something and have something to drink first. Either that, or I can go in empty and enjoy that delightful swirly feeling of near-unconsciousness followed by total unconsciousness. Ok...maybe I'll have a sandwich.

It ain't easy being gr...wait...green with envy? Eh, to hell with it.

Yes, I read comics although it's become an expensive habit and I've fallen way behind. (see previous blog posts). Yes, I know some stuff about Green Lantern. No, I don't know everything. For GL trivia or lore, I always go to Webmaster Steve and even then it's a tangled mess of characters, deaths, rebirths, villains, changing alliances, etc. That's pretty much the case with any long-running comic series. With all of that said, I do like GL but have always found him to be kinda hokey. Don't get me wrong, hokey isn't a bad thing. In this case, it's more of a hokeyness harkening back to what makes kids like comic books in the first place. A lot of that stuff is hokey. Superman can do anything and wears a blue and red suit. Spider-Man sticks to stuff and wears a blue and red suit. What's the deal with blue and red?? The Flash goes really fast. Red and yellow. Green Lantern creates things with his ring. No blue and red to be found. At least he's not a slave to fashion.

When GL wants to punch someone, he makes a giant boxing glove. Somebody's falling? He catches them with a big hand or makes a giant mattress or something to break their fall. Again, this is just based on the limited amount of GL I've read throughout the years. Webmaster Steve has pointed out all the coolness to the character such as the awesome science fiction elements and the many other ways the ring is creatively used. I was convinced! I wanted to get into the books, but have yet to find a good diving-in point that doesn't get me lost in all the characters / bad guys I know nothing about. Still, from offerings like Blackest Night or Green Lantern: Rebirth, the character is a lot cooler than I'd previously thought.

So I went to see the new Green Lantern movie. I've heard bad stuff and good stuff about it. Most of the bad stuff sounds like it either comes from people who knew nothing about GL and found it too hokey or those who know everything about him and were disappointed by the condensed movie version. Personally, I thought the movie was AWESOME! It had a good amount of hokeyness (GL making giant springs to lift something or hit someone with the good ol' enormous fist) to be fun and perfectly retained the shiny, sparkling, "gee whizz" feel where all the science fiction elements were concerned. It felt like a comic book and I loved it. Seeing it in 3D was amazing!! I've become a fan of GL since Steve's big push to get me on board during the Blackest Night crossovers a few summers ago. Black Lanterns creating zombies of dead DC characters? Cool! That was the same summer as Marvel's Dark Reign crossover, which made for a dark summer. Awesome, but dark. I like dark.

I also saw X-Men: First Class. Like a lot of other people, I wasn't going in with very high hopes. After X3 and the Wolverine movie, (which I didn't hate as much as most, simply because I thought it was just a fun spectacle) the X movies seemed to have been tossed aside by quality film makers for some reason. As for total accuracy to the comics, let's face it, there is no possible way for ANY movie to get X-Men stuff accurate any longer. The comic story lines are so twisted up and feeding back on themselves that it takes several crossover events to make any of them fall in like with each other. The most a movie can hope to do is show the characters being true to themselves and adventuring in their own way. Did the Wolverine movie do that? I think so, more or less. Was it a great movie? Eh, it's fun to watch.

I love seeing Magneto doing his thang in any of the movies. He's just a great character with a power that looks freaking great on screen. And going back to the whole hokey thing, there simply isn't a way to see Beast in his full blue & furry form without him looking funny at first. That's the way Beast looks, though, and I got used to it. I'm WAY behind on X-Men comics, having given them up after not buying them for a while. Jumping back in is like flipping on a soap opera after it's been rolling for decades and expecting to know exactly why each character is mad at another. Because of that, I may have missed out on why Angel wasn't only a woman in First Class but that she had insect wings instead of feathery ones. Is that a new Angel from the books or just something for the movie? Hang on...I'll Google it and see.......

OH!! She's not THE Angel. She's Angel Salvadore  aka Tempest. Told you I was behind on all my X-Men stuff. I've read plenty of the books, but was always more of a lone hero sort of fan. Spidey, Punisher, Moon Knight, Batman, that sort of thing. Where teams were concerned, it's pretty much Avengers for me. Anyway, I still thought the insect Angel was cool too. It was also great to see Banshee in something other than the cartoons.

So now that I've seen these two plus Thor (did I talk about Thor yet? Also loved it. Damn, I seem easy to please. Oh well. Better that than my normal grumpy self) that still leaves Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens to scratch my comic book movie itch. Haven't been to theaters this many times for quite a while! Looks like I'll have popcorn stuck in my teeth all summer long.

Damn My Eyes!!!

Last time I went to Best Buy, I got a chance to try out the new Nintendo 3DS. Very cool, but it was bolted down to a stand, locked up with chains and guarded by three drooling hellbeasts so I couldn't hold it the way I normally would. That resulted in me hunkering down to play some dopey little flying game on a bright pink toy. Not very manly. The 3D effects were cool, but my eyes started to hurt pretty quickly. Was that because of the angle, the 3D technology or the fact that my eyes are worse than someone who's gotten theirs yanked out and scrubbed with a brillo pad after staring at the sun? Who knows? I'm still excited about the 3DS, but that's after a downgrade from "really pumped".

Also, I'm set to watch Skyline. This is one of those movies that looked awesome on the previews, but I never got around to seeing it. So far, the reviews and word of mouth pretty much hover in the vicinity of "awesome effects / horrible plot". Since I like to riff on movies MST3K style anyway, this sounds like a fun time.

I put together a proposal and a few chapters for one of those steampunk projects I mentioned earlier. I'm VERY happy with the whole thing so now it's up to the publishers. Another one of my babies out making the rounds in the big bad world. This part sucks. Of course, as I've also mentioned earlier, I'm excited about the whole ebook thing. That means if New York doesn't want to play my reindeer games, I'll write it anyway and take my chances. Exciting times!

Blog neglect

Wow. It's been a while since my last post. Sorry about that or, depending on what you think of my rambling, you're welcome.

Part of my excuse was visiting my dad for Christmas. Sure, I could have updated in that time, but I just didn't. Oh well. We went to see Tron Legacy in a theater in 3D!! First of all, let me point out that I don't get to theaters very often at all anymore. I bring this up because I noticed some innovations other than the 3D. For example...flavored popcorn dust. For a buck fifty, you can buy cheese flavored stuff to dash onto your popcorn. It was awesome!! There was even vanilla stuff to put into your coke. Apart from the fact that they somehow came up with a way to make snacks MORE expensive than purchasing the DVD of the movie you're watching, it was very cool.

Speaking of the movie, I liked the new Tron. I liked the first Tron too, so this isn't a big surprise. I haven't heard a lot of nice things about this movie from just about anyone, but I think this is a case of Nostalgic Build-Up Syndrome. 27 years ago (THAT long???) I was a kid who loved video games, explosions and shiny stuff. Therefore, no matter how much the critics and adult movie goers panned Tron (which they did...EXTENSIVELY), I loved it. The first Tron isn't really a great movie if we take out the wide-eyed, geeky joy that we feel when we mention it. When I went to Tron Legacy, all I wanted was more lightcycles and video game stuff. Well, this time it was in 3D! Was it the best movie ever? No. Was it horrible because I was expecting a finely tuned plot? No. It had lightcycles, explosions, and shiny stuff. Me= happy. Add in the 3D, nacho cheese flavored popcorn and vanilla coke and it was freaking awesome!!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Walmart to buy a toy lightcycle for my desk.

Fa la la la....aw forget it

Should be wrapping up draft 1 of Skinners 6 today. This one's been a long haul, mostly because of rescheduling conflicts, the holidays, and various other wrenches tossed into the works. As far as first drafts go, I'm pretty happy with this one. There is a TON of editing to do, lots of which is hacking and slashing. The good part of that is that I'm just holding off on those plot lines so I can insert those pages directly into another book. The bad part is that I'll be working my butt off throughout Christmas and the New Year.

New Year has never been a big deal to me. I've always got goals/resolutions in mind and have submissions or proposals in the works to see them through. I'm not a huge drinker and am firmly of the belief that if you want to party and get trashed so badly, you shouldn't need a sanctioned excuse from Hallmark or the calendar to do so. My tradition has always been to stay home, cook up a bunch of snacks/appetizers, watch movies and have a toast at midnight. To all of you party people out there, have fun!

Still pumped about Tron Legacy. I'll be seeing this one in a theater and will actually be my second mainstream 3D movie in modern days. By that I mean it wasn't at an amusement park and the glasses won't be the red & blue numbers. Remember when they showed classic 3D movies on TV and you had to go to a 7-11 to get glasses? I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon on our Creature Feature that way. Also saw a bunch of the old goodies at a theater on retro night, but Tron in 2D should blow those away.

Editing....that's about it

Wow, it's been a while since my last post. Sorry about that. I wish I could say I've been kicking back and relaxing after OSFest and finishing a preliminary draft of Skinners 5, but that's about as far from the truth as....well...something that's really far away. I wrapped up this draft of Skinners on August 1, took a whole day off and have been editing like a madman ever since. My days are simple. I wake up, watch Price is Right, have breakfast, shower, maybe step outside for a little while, and launch into editing. I'll edit through some pages, take a break for a minute or two of watching something on my DVR that I can start and stop at will, edit, watch, edit, you get the idea. That goes for about 12 hours a day.

I'm not complaining, mind you. The book is coming along GREAT and I'm gearing up for #6. Yes, there will be a Skinners 6. Sweet! Somewhere during my rare downtime, I've been playing a few games. Went through Limbo, which is downloadable on XBox Live Arcade. What an amazing, brilliant, creepy, artistic, sometimes very WRONG game! Love it! You play as a little kid who can't swim (that's important with all the water in this game) who dodges giant spiders and spikes. You die in so many gruesome ways, it makes me giggle. There's even a part where you jump across a lake using the bodies of other little kids who died before you as platforms. Like I said, wrong but fun. It does me good to see horror representing! Plus, I unlocked a creepy little pet for my Avatar. Nice. Still chopping away at Red Dead Redemption and Fallout 3. Yes, I'm still playing Fallout 3.

In movie news, I finally got to see the new Clash of the Titans and Kick Ass. Clash was pretty cool, although not as cool as the original. The first one KNEW it was shooting for cheesy. This one is cheesy in parts, serious in others, whatever. The scorpions, Medusa and Kraken were awesome and that's what I was after. Kick Ass was just f'ing great! Since I wait for the DVD release of just about every movie anymore, it seems dumb to go into detail. It's been out for a while, most everyone else has seen it so who needs my ultra-late reviews, right?

Speaking of behind the times, I just found out that the new Black Label Society CD is coming out on Tuesday. AWESOME! For those of you piecing together a Skinners soundtrack (are there any of you out there??) play BLS's Fire it Up when reading Book 4 in October and Electric Hellfire when reading the big finale battle in Howling Legion.

That's about it for now. Gotta get to work. And I haven't forgotten about my promise to update the main website. I hope to get to it when I have more than a moment to let my brain cool off.

...but I'm not making a habit of it.

Yesterday, I woke up earlier than usual and for some reason was thinking about Iron Man. That sounds weird, I know, but there it is. I figured I could get to an early show and be back in time to start work. Well I did and it was actually good. I was expecting Iron Man 2 to be pretty good and it WAS! Took a little while to get to some real Iron Man action, but the movie was great!! What I'm surprised about was the actual theater experience. I've been spoiled with the home theater and annoyed with the "high price / loud jackasses with their phones" combo pack, which has gotten me into the habit of waiting for DVD releases.

This time was great! At first, it looked like I was going to be the only one in the theater. Eventually 5 more people wandered in but kept to themselves. No screaming during every quiet part. No yapping on their phone or texting while using the most blindingly bright screen setting possible. And no tossing beach balls around before the previews started. What the HELL is up with that??? Is that a local thing or some new and improved form of douche baggery?

Even more surprising was the fact that I was the ONLY ONE who stayed through the credits to see the last scene and most recent teaser for the next Marvel movie. Now, this is where it's very cool seeing a genre movie in a big crowd on opening day. We're all there as one big geek collective. We all know about the secret scene and applaud after watching it with baited breath. Although the home theater is great in every other way, there's no beating the experience of sitting in a theater packed full of like-minded nerds who just want to see comic books come to life.

This was a very cool movie and a fun day out. You know what brought me back to my original line of thinking? The price of my ticket and snacks was about the same as buying the DVD.

Seriously...I did do SOME work over the long weekend

Although I don't generally get to partake in long weekends (or any weekends) like everybody else since writers typically always need to work, I did get some down time over this last one. Mostly, I caught up on a bunch of housework type of stuff like cleaning the bathroom and buzzing my hair. I know it's time to shave it off when there's enough hair to get bed-head. Since I could actually feel some movement up there when the wind blew, I was getting dangerously close to "hippie phase".


Also, and much more interestingly, I caught up on some movies I've been wanting to see. First up was Land of the Lost. This one is the embodiment of why NetFlix is so great. I mainly use the Instant Queue on the XBox, so the DVDs they send me through the mail are freebies in my mind. Land of the Lost is one I wanted to see because Will Ferrel is always pretty funny but the movie had the chance to be too stupid for words. Well, it was pretty stupid, but in a great way. I laughed my ass off at some stuff. Then again, I still find the Three Stooges to be hilarious so that's that.


Next was Legion. When I think of a movie where angels come down from the heavens to kick human ass, the first one that comes to mind is The Prophecy. That movie is AWESOME. Legion, while not as good as that, was pretty cool. I liked the premise of God getting "fed up with all the bullshit" (as stated by the main character) and deciding to clean house again. Instead of a flood, He sends in a bunch of flippin' cool demon type things. Michael stands up for us, Gabriel comes in to get his hands dirty, angelic throwdown commences. Very nice! I would have liked a little more of the creepy stuff and action, but that's no surprise, right? Recommended.


Day Two started off with Dragon Wars. This is a movie that's all about expectations. Anyone who's read this blog knows about my fondness for those crappy Sci-Fi Channel (since I still cringe to call it SyFy Channel) movies. You know, like Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus? Those movies are perfect relaxation tools where you watch some over-the-top stuff and plot-wise it doesn't matter if you fall asleep anywhere along the line. Dragon Wars seemed like one of those with a much bigger budget. Well, that's actually a fair description. Are you expecting a riveting plot that makes sense all the way through with characters that behave rationally and get wounded when they're shot? This one's not for you. If you're ready to kick back and see some huge and honestly very cool giant monsters stomp and fly through modern cities? Then you'll have a fun time with this. I was fully signed on for the latter of those and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Were there laugh-out-loud dumb moments scattered throughout? Oh yeah, but that's part of the fun.



Finally, there was Daybreakers. Seems like I saved the best for last because this one was great! Very cool premise. Awesome effects. Scary vampires. Willem Dafoe!!! It starts off with the vampires having already taken over and settled in to make the world their own, complete with vamp advertising campaigns and cars that are protected against sunlight. I thought the Subwalk underground walkway was a cool touch. Humans are slapped into giant milking machines and drained of blood. I especially loved the horrific bat-vamps that came about when regular bloodsuckers were starved for too long. They mutated into these big Nosferatu dudes with wings and feet that could grab onto the ceiling Spider-Man style. Awesome?? I think so.


And today I run out to the store to buy The Wolf Man on DVD. Or should I go Blu Ray? Can't wait for this one. Please don't let the ads make this look better than it is. I want to love this movie SO MUCH!! I'll let you know.

Time to rip some stuff up!

After putting the Skinners manuscript in the mail, I decided to take a few days to clear my head. And what better way to do that than by picking up God of War 3? I knew this game would be awesome, but I'm still amazed by it. More often than not, I'm staring slack-jawed at the screen by the sheer magnificence of Kratos's ass-kickery. I'm not too far into it and don't want to give anything away, but there's a part where he kills one of the Olympians (if you didn't see that coming, you obviously haven't played any of the God of War games) by beating the fool to death with his bare hands. Not only that, but most of the scene plays out in 1st person...from the victim's point of view. You thought Kratos looked like a bad mutha before? Wait until you see him from the receiving end of his rampage. Pure, blood-soaked bliss.

I also spent some time on XBox Live catching up on movie previews. That's one thing I really miss about not going to theaters so much. I saw the previews for The A-Team (which looks like a lot of goofy summertime fun), Iron Man 2 (yes I already saw this one, but didn't mind seeing it again), and Kick Ass. I'm pumped for Kick Ass. Based on a comic series and about comics in general, this one looks really good. I may have to drag my sorry butt out to a multi-gargantu-plex this year. That is, if I save up enough money for popcorn.

Xmas fun at Echo Base

When thinking about our decision to stay home this year instead of driving out to St. Louis for Christmas, I am reminded of the words of that knight from the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "You chose...wisely."

After our rainy Wednesday, we got frozen, snowed on, dumped with more snow, frozen some more, more snow, frozen and...you get it. Winter storm. The good thing is that I work at home and don't have to go anywhere for days if necessary. No digging out the car or risking my neck. None of that. The bad part is that I work from home and don't need to dig out my car. No reason to call in or take a snow day. Oh well. Skinners 4 is rolling along nicely and I'd rather keep it that way instead of put it on hold until a thaw.

Poor Abby still needs to trek outside to do her doggy thang. The snow was well over her head a while ago, so she must feel like a little white and black dot on big field of...white. That analogy started off better in my head.

Christmas was nice. We had a ham dinner and watched some very non-Christmassy movies. First up: Inglorious Basterds. Awesome Tarantino spectacle with a lot less Nahtzi killin' than I was expecting. Did the Brad Pitt accent come through there? I was thinking it was going to be a solid war-tacular violence fest along the lines of Kill Bill meets The Dirty Dozen. Not that that's a complaint. It was a great movie and when the violence did kick in, it was indeed glorious. I especially liked voice over work from Tarantino staples Samuel L Jackson and Harvey Keitel. Second on the film fest was District 9. This was one of the last summer movies that actually made me want to pay too much for a ticket to get into a crowded and noisy theater, pay way too much for popcorn and see it when it first came out. This has got to be one of the best science fiction movies in a long time. I liked the new Star Trek a lot and this is way up there as well. The effects were supposed to be done on the cheap, but they blended in so well that they didn't even look like effects! Most of you are probably in theaters more often than I am and already saw these, but there's my take.

Back to work. We've got plenty of leftovers to eat and movies to watch. Still haven't really scratched the surface with Dragon Age: Origins or a few other games so I've got those. There's also my pile of comics to catch up on. We rent, so people come around to shovel for us. LET IT SNOW!!!!

Ohhh yeah!!!

...and stay away from downed power lines. Thanks, Roadblock!

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra was one of the few movies I wanted to see in theaters over the summer. I'm spoiled with my kinda-nice speakers and TV at home and can wait to see quality films without having to filter out the garbage that comes along with a theater audience. GI Joe just seemed like one of those goofy, explosion-riffic spectacles that should be enjoyed on a theater screen where the noisy audience actually adds to the fun. Well, I never got around to it but I finally saw it last night in the Basement-Plex. It wasn't long into it that I started thinking, "Wow. This is even goofier than I thought it would be." About five seconds later, I realized that made it a perfect GI Joe movie.

Let's face it. If it was a gritty film about elite commandos fighting a terrorist organization, this would NOT have been GI Joe. When I think of GI Joe, I think of sweet-ass laser weapons, flippin' awesome vehicles and dudes with dumb code names shooting at each other with no regard for collateral damage. If someone made a big budget movie loosely based on one of the plot lines I came up with when playing with my Joes in the backyard when I was 10, it would be pretty close to this one. Hell yes, I had plot lines! One of my fondest summer vacation memories was an ongoing battle incited by my Star Wars toys invading a GI Joe base. It was one of the most awesome crossovers my young mind could conceive.

Oh, and you can't forget the hot women in glasses. Ahhh, The Baroness. I've already talked about my youthful longing for her. So what if she was a cartoon? This was before the days when a young lad could Google "hot women with glasses" and come up with enough pics to sate any appetite. We had to use our imaginations. Plus, I was 10 or so. Hadn't graduated past cartoon chicks just yet.

Back to the movie. It was goofy as hell. Destro looked pretty cool, or as cool as a guy could look with a metal face. There was even a cameo by Dr. Mindbender. DR. MINDBENDER!! I thought that guy was a bit much even when I was a kid, but this movie went for it all. Plus, NINJAS! The director must have figured, "Hey, it's GI Joe. Bring on the lasers, one-man rocket sleds and giganto, goop-filled warheads." The grown man part of me was chuckling that I was watching this movie. The other part was secretly hoping to see parts of the Weather Dominator scattered around Cobra Commander's lab.

Paranormal night out

The Nevermore crew and I went to a midnight showing of Paranormal Activity the other night. We bought in to the whole "vote to bring it to your town" thing and it actually worked. Our votes allowed us to go and pay to see a movie! Hmmm. Doesn't seem like such a democratic triumph when I put it that way. Anyhow, it was cool to go to a horror movie with an actual audience. On the other hand, this audience was cranked up and ready to scream at anything and everything. Nirvana for a horror movie maker, but rakes on chalkboards for ears that are used to being on a couch in front of a TV.

After all the press and people in the lobby talking about how mind-alteringly terrifying it was, I was ready to be petrified. There were tons of creepy moments, just about all of the scary stuff worked, the characters were believable (including a guy who was such a tool and so insensitive to his girlfriend's trauma that he seemed all too real) and there were some truly classic creepy moments. Was it the piss-your-pants-fest I was promised? Not quite. More than likely, that's because I've already spent plenty of hours in dark rooms listening for ghost sounds with the Nevermore team. When the first stuff happened in the movie, all the girls (and plenty of guys) in the audience screamed. Angie, one of the co-founders of Nevermore, was sitting next to me. She calmly asked, "Why can't WE catch anything like that?" Perspective is a funny thing.

That being said, I firmly believe that this movie will be 10 times scarier on DVD. It plays on all of those "What was that rumbling sound from the next room?" sort of fear. When you're watching this in your own house in your own dark room and then go upstairs to your own bed, you won't have that cool-down time you got on the drive home from the theater. Very cool movie! Oh, and Katie was HOT! Just had to put that out there.

Even a man who is pure at heart...

I've been keeping my hopes up about the upcoming remake of The Wolf Man. From what I've seen, the effects look pretty good, the cast is awesome (Anthony Hopkins AND Elrond?? Sweet!) and the director knows his stuff. He helmed The Rocketeer which introduced young Marcus to the glory that was Jennifer Connelly in that low-cut ball gown, so I'll forgive him for his participation in the Young Indiana Jones fiasco. Here's the new trailer!




I really like the way they kept the feel of the old movie and didn't try to set it in modern day. It seems to have that same creepy, European fairy tale kind of setting of all the classic Universal monster movies. "Terrible things, Lawrence. You've done terrible things." Ohhh yeah.

AnOTHER American Werewolf??

It seems that gears are turning for a remake of American Werewolf in London. Now, as a fan of all things werewolf, I will freely admit that AWiL is right up there with The Wolf Man in the pantheon of movie monster legends. Later this year, a remake of Wolf Man will be coming and it looks like it has the potential to be pretty good. But messing with London?? I don't know. It's still early in the process and has plenty of time to fizzle out before they find a director or actors, but John Landis made a true classic with the first one and they'd better be damn sure before they start messing with it.

Nerdo de Mayo

I caved in to the summer movie bug again. It happened when I was on my weekly sojourn to the comic book shop (It was a very good week by the way. I needed that to make up for the slow one a few back.) when I thought about Terminator Salvation. I knew there would be some midnight showings and figured I might as well turn my day into a full-on Nerd Fest. So I bought my comics, wrote my monster hunter pages, played some Gears of War 2 co-op, and headed out to the theater for some Skynet goodness.

Turns out those wacky robots are at it again! They just never stop trying to hunt us down and kill us. Super computer becomes self-aware, robots are designed that look like freaking awesome metal skeletons, they’re sent out to face the human resistance, wackiness ensues. This time, we finally get the movie all Terminator fans have been wanting. Well, sort of. Every Terminator flick has those cool flashbacks with the real war between humans and an army of robots shooting phased plasma rifles (in a 40 Watt range) at each other. And every time, I wished they would just make THAT movie. Salvation isn’t quite there because it’s set a little before the invention of plasma rifles, but it’s still pretty flippin’ sweet.

I especially like the way it’s filmed in a gritty, down and dirty style that makes the machines seem all steely and sharp and imposing and stuff. Seriously, it makes for a less flashy version than the shiny bots and glowing gunfire from those flashbacks in earlier movies. These robots really seem like killing machines put together by other machines to kill and hunt (not necessarily in that order) and not look pretty while doing it. The action was great and the effects were solid. I’m always happy to see movies where the director tries to make as many physical effects as possible as opposed to constant CG. I’d have to say my favorite aspect of the movie was the constant tribute paid to fans. There are all kinds of little bits and moments that nod back to previous installments. As a fan, I smirked at those and thought things like, “So THAT’S why Sarah taught him how to do that.” I don’t want to ruin any of those for you, so I’ll leave it at that. Oh, and there’s one part that was especially cool if you make sure to watch that first scene from T2 (the flashback opening) before hitting the theater. Nuff said.

As with any genre movie with time travel involved (didn’t I just say this for Star Trek? Huh) a few leaps in faith / rationality are required but that’s part of the fun. One strange criticism was that I was somehow expecting more Terminators. Is that crazy? All in all, this one is great summer movie stuff. I liked it a lot, but I still liked Star Trek a little more.

Oh, and someone won American Idol. I think it was that guy with the voice and...never mind. Obviously, I was busy.