links for 2006-05-31

• Jar Barf- via YouTube

No bloggery. I’m takin’ the night off. Expect a link dump on Wednesday at the normal time.

links for 2006-05-30

• Sean Connery > Lex Luthor- via YTMND.com
  I find this funny. I do not know why.
• World War II Poster Collection- viaNorthwestern University Library
  “The Government and Geographic Information and Data Services Department at Northwestern University Library has a comprehensive collection of over 300 posters issued by U.S. Federal agencies from the onset of war through 1945.”
• GovTrack
  A monitoring service that allows you to track individual congressmen, bills, and just about everything else that goes on in the congress. I’m not sure if my psyche could take this, though.
• Ex-Portsmouth sheriff out of office but still under scrutiny- viaThe Virginian-Pilot
  You mean you can’t take inmates off of public jobs and have them do your chores? Tell that to a friend of mine who used to work as a deputy of a county sheriffs dept. I don’t think he ever mowed his softball field the whole time he had that job.

At the gym we go to there are a line of television sets directly in front of the treadmills, and each one plays a different program. Most gyms I’ve worked out at have the same set up: rows of treadmills, stair-steppers, stationary bikes, and elliptical machines all facing a row of muted, close-captioned televisions. You know, to keep your mind off the fact that you’re actually exercising.

Anyway, most days I try to run on the machines closest to the T.V. tuned to CNN, because I’m addicted to news and if I’m gonna be running in place for thirty minutes or so I don’t want to stare at FOXNews the whole time. That’d just throw my heart rate all off kilter.

Today I got stuck on the machine closest to the T.V. playing the Jerry Springer show. I haven’t actually watched the Jerry Springer show for several years, but not out of some elitist mind-set or anything. I just didn’t think it aired anymore. That show’s great isn’t it? It’s the television equivalent of going to a county fair: no matter how bad your life sucks, at least you know you’ll see a group of people with problems that make yours look quaint. Kinda like going to Wal-Mart after midnight.

After watching the entire episode it occurred to me that I’d like to get some friends together and send in an application to appear on the show. We could concoct an outlandish story full of adultery and incest, and before we appear we could choreograph some fight moves so that we’d be good and prepared come show-time.

The way I figure it, we could conceivable pull off a couple of body slams or a few spinning kicks before the indomitable Steve interfered. And if we choreographed the whole thing properly we’d only need a few seconds to do something really impressive. If you think about it, the typical guest on that show rarely does anything truly awesome. They may tackle each other or begin slapping each other wind-mill style, but I’ve never seen anyone do something really, really cool.

The women are the worst. They talk a big game, but come go-time they usually just pull hair and claw at one another. How cliché. What we need are two females who know how to fight, and we could come up with something really cool for them to do.

Just imagine: Two girls sitting up on that dais, and one says “Bitch, the next time I come home from havin’ an abortion and find out you been sleepin’ with my boyfriend it’s yo ass!” The other replies, “You know what ho? He’s actually yo brutha, and I’ll damn well sleep with’em whenever I wanna!” Then they jump up and run at each other, and right before they meet in the middle of the stage one of them launches into a tornado kick, but because we’ve rehearsed the fight the defender knows it’s coming, so she ducks out of it and sets up for a hip-throw. She throws her attacker, who immediately rolls out of the throw, and then they square off in preparation for the amazed, but impressed, security guards to restrain them.

Wouldn’t that be fun? We’d be the coolest Jerry Springer guests ever…although that’s not saying a whole lot.

links for 2006-05-29

• Ceiling Cat
• Anyone looking for a Christmas gift for me?
  “I was standing on my toilet hanging a clock, the porcelain was wet, I slipped, hit my head on the sink and when I came to I had a revelation…A vision…A picture in my head. Of this:”
• Superhero/Renaissance Art mashup photoshop contest- via Worth1000
• Greg Giraldo Vs. Denis Leary on Tough Crowd- via YouTube
  I watched this episode when it originally aired and it became very uncomfortable. You’re seeing just a bit of the back and forth between Giraldo and Leary here. The segment ends when Colin “Marblemouth” Quinn steps in and goes to commercial.
• The music video for Green Jelly’s “Three Little Pigs.”-via YouTube

I know that I post this just about every Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, but everything I try to write about either holiday sounds trite and false. For a days like Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, you really need to hear from a voice of experience; someone who actually knows what it feels like to live in a constant state of fear for their life, and to watch in terror as friends die for a cause greater than themselves.

Unfortunately for you, I am not that man.

The poem below is by Yusef Komunyakaa. He published it in 1988, and while the subject matter of the poem deals with the feelings of a Vietnam veteran many of our current service men and women will no doubt experience similar emotions later in life…peace be with them.

links for 2006-05-28

• The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time- via PCWorld.com
  AOL’s number one! Yay for AOL. That’s in your FACE Prodigy and Compuserve.
• William Shatner blows $20K for a contestant- via YouTube
  Shatner screws up on $25,000 Pyramid and then proceeds to go ballastic.
• A Walk Around the Giza Pyramids
  “A three hour, on-foot journey around the Giza pyramids, time-compressed into less than thirty seconds.”
• A tip for the hurricane season: Try to have some kind of a clue by Dave Barry- via Miami Herald.
  “The 2006 hurricane season is here, and if you’re a resident of Florida, you know what that means: It means you have the IQ of bean dip. If you had any working brain cells, by now you’d have moved to some less risky place, such as Iraq.”
• How to bake bread, the Subway way - a photoset on Flickr

In my review of X-men I stated that I thought the movie suffered under Brett Ratner’s direction. I claimed that Ratner either doesn’t care about character driven movies or he lacks the skill to properly direct one.

Of course, the ticket sales for the movie pretty much indicate that audiences don’t really give a damn about that sort of thing, especially considering that almost every other critic out there pretty much agrees with my assessment.

I just read a little post about the movie over at Comics Continuum, and when asked about the possibility for a sequel this is what Ratner had to say, “As far as the X-Men and where all these characters are, it seems like (the end) to me…How much more bigger budget can they make a movie?”

First off, this movie left more questions unanswered than Tony Snow at a press conference. Second, contrary to what the typical thirteen-year-old and Brett Ratner thinks, special effects and budgets do not determine a films quality or effectiveness.

That stupid comment by Ratner illustrates everything wrong with the new film. It’s like Ratner thinks that big explosions, huge fights, and the illogical destruction of national monuments automatically translates into a kick-ass movie. Sorry Brett, that’s just not the case. Just ask Vin Diesel, Stallone, Roland Emmerich, Michael Bay, and John Travolta.

Stick to the Jackie Chan movies Ratner. That way you know you don’t have to fool with pesky dialogue and character development.

Okay, I’m done bitching about the X-Men movie. How can I remain depressed when movies like “Nacho Libre” and “Snakes on a Plane” loom just over the horizon?

links for 2006-05-27

• Robot Chicken’s “Ode to the nutshot”- via YouTube
  Not much to say about that one.
• Stewart/Colbert in ‘08!
  Get your shirts now.
• Seth Roberts’ Shangri-La Diet in Detail.
  I’ve read several articles on this, and it is simultaneously the most crazy and logical thing I’ve heard regarding weight loss. I’m not gonna try it, but I hope someone I know does. I mean, I don’t want to get sick but I wanna see if it works.
• Jesus Pan - The Orginal JesusPan Seen and Heard Everywhere
  Perfect for making delicious flapjacks to either serve your family for breakfast, or sell to gullible zealots on ebay as a “miracle.”

Short review:

Meh. The fighting was kinda cool.

Long review:

One of the aspects that made the first two X-Men movies work so well derived from Bryan Singer’s meticulous attention toward character driven storylines. As neat as the CGI segments and fighting looked the characters were what actually mattered in the first two movies. Even with a large ensemble cast Singer found ways to explore the relationships and complexities of his characters. He did the same thing with his film “The Usual Suspects,” and I’m certain the critical and artistic success of that film had a lot to do with Singer landing the first two films.

If that’s what you liked about the first films then you’re gonna be mighty disappointed with the third one. Brett Ratner either cares very little for character driven stories or he lacks the directorial chops to pull one off. Of course, I’ve only seen four of his films aside from this one (Rush Hour I & II, Money Talks, Red Dragon), so perhaps this is just an aberration.

Regardless, the sections of the film in-between the massive fight scenes drag unbearably, and I found myself cringing at more than quite a few lines of dialogue. As the film opens Scott Summers and Logan are still mourning the death of Jean Grey, but Ratner’s trying so hard to cram so much stuff into the first act that we never get the opportunity to feel any sympathy for either of them.

Predictably, the most impassioned exchanges of dialogue occur between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, but sadly we only get two short scenes where these two thespians interact. The rest of the time we spend bouncing from character to character, never spending enough time with any one of them to care an ounce about what they’ve got going on. And that’s a major problem, because since we haven’t formed any real attachments the “emotional” moments of the film fall completely flat.

And I may get flamed for this, but Halle Berry is a dreadful actress in this franchise. For the past two movies she complained that she didn’t have enough to do in the films. She claimed she had terrible dialogue (she did) and that her character didn’t fight very well or quite enough (ditto for that one). After seeing more of her in this movie I understand why Singer limited her screen-time.

The fight scenes are quite good, though. We finally see large groups of mutants slugging it out, which is a real treat. Hugh Jackman continues to impress the hell out of me as Wolverine. We even get a glimpse of the militaristic side of the old canucklehead when Jackman calls for the good mutants to “Hold This Line!” Vinne Jones, who plays Juggernaut, also does an outstanding job, as does Eric Dane who portrays Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox. And to answer your question, yes, Kelsey Grammar does an outstanding job as Hank McCoy, and yes, he does utter the line “Oh my stars and garters” and even manages to make it sound cool.

But again, we don’t get enough time with these characters, and that’s a real shame, because just their small moments onscreen delighted this fanboy.

So, go see it if you want, but just know that you’re getting a lesser quality X-film than you did with the previous two. Oh, and stay until after the credits.

Now I’m gonna talk about some nit-picky, extremely nerdy, aspects of the film that really pissed me off, but I’m going to write them in white lettering because they contain massive spoilers. And I’m not kidding about that: MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD! So if you want to read them, highlight the “blank” portion below.

In no particular order:

1. When Logan argues with Charles he should call him “Chuck.” Enough with the “professor” already.

2. Cyclops dies twenty minutes into the film? Wha? Are they punishing Mardsen for appearing in Singer’s “Superman?”

3. When Colossus fights he should always transform into his steel amour and remain transformed for the duration of the fight. Why the hell is he running around in the midst of battle in his human form? That makes no damn sense.

3 While we’re on Colossus, he’s Russian, dammit. He speaks English with a heavy accent, not with some non-regional slightly slackerish accent. He sounded like Ted Theodore Logan, for God’s sake.

4. Warren Worthington’s more boring on film than in the comics? How’s that possible? And he saves his dad at the end by swooping down and catching him? Awww. Ain’t that cute. Where’s Apocalypse when you need him?

5. Charles is a powerful psychic, but even he couldn’t reconstitute himself after someone atomizes him. Com’on!

6. Why does Wolvie not look for Scott at Alkaline Lake? He found his Ruby Quartz glasses floating in the air but he never thought to look for him? And why the hell doesn’t Wolvie use his nose to track for people in the film? He’s an amazing tracker who can sense people for miles around, yet the fog gives him a problem. And Storm hadda be told to disperse that fog with her silly weather powers? And now she’s the leader of the X-Men? Great…that’s just great.

7 Speaking of little Miss Ororo, we know what her powers are. Every time she uses them we don’t need the dramatic music to start playing, or her eyes to cloud over slower than Charles maneuvers up stairs, or the goofy camera-pull-back. We get it. She controls weather. Get on with the movie.

8. I’m fine with Wolvie losing to Juggernaut, but he should have at least cut him up a little. Juggy’s powerful and nearly unstoppable once he gets moving, but he’s not that all that quick.

I’ll probably think of more later but unless you ask I’ll keep’em to myself.