And Your New SUPERMAN Is...

...Henry Cavill, late of "The Tudors." So sez Deadline. A strapping, square-jawed Caucasian brunette? Who'd a' thunk? Anyway, this marks Cavill's first major franchise "get" after having previously been an also ran for the same part in "Superman Returns," along with Batman and James Bond. Google's got headshots galore kids, so... LET THE PHOTOSHOPPING BEGIN!!!

For those keeping track, the planned feature is a seperate entity from the Richard Donner/Bryan Singer/etc continuity; with a top-secret story by David Goyer, "overseen" by Christopher Nolan ("hey Chris, can the Superman guys borrow some of your fan-rage-proof armor?") and directed by Zack Snyder. Of all of them, it's Snyder's involvement I'm most excited for - the guy jumps in with both feet, doesn't know the meaning of "unfilmmable" and lacks the phobia of compositional-beauty that afflicts so many of his contemporaries. Plus, if it's even 1/10th as good as "Watchmen" was... damn.

Trivia: This makes "Avengers" the only 2012 American superhero movie (out of 4) without a British actor feigning an American accent in the lead - Cavill, Christian Bale and Andrew Garfield are all Brits.

demographics

So... how does Tom Hooper, formerly the director of the superlative "John Adams" miniseries, currently director of "The Kings Speech" - possibly the blandest, safest, most staid (increasingly-prospective) Oscar Juggernaut since... I dunno, "Out of Africa?" - pull a "surprise" upset at the DGAs  for said overblown A&E special over the heavily-favored David Fincher?

Search me, but it's a pretty unpleasant turn of events - yes, even for Hooper to some extent, who's actually pretty talented (see: "John Adams") and now gets to have a 21st Century "WTF" equivalent to "Driving Miss Daisy" hung on him. If I had to take a stab at it, the probable answer is that MOST of the Directors Guild is comprised of paycheck-to-paycheck "journeyman" TV guys, which is precisely what Hooper has been up to this point, so there's a hometown-boy-makes-good angle.

The takeaway, of course, is that given this, the similar Producers Guild win and the fact that it's a big-cast "actor's film" you can pretty-much pencil-in "Speech" as this year's Best Picture Oscar winner which is... simultaneously meaningless and blood-boiling, so... whatever.

Monumental

A few decades back, when the British Museum System started to give in to international outcry to begin returning historical artifacts initially "discovered" and transported under less-than-legitimate legality to their countries of origin, one of the principal arguments against said returns was that various nations in - for example - Asia, Africa and the Middle-East were too unstable to "trust" with the safekeeping of priceless treasures of human history.

This argument was largely dismissed as self-justifying hyperbole couched in racism and cultural-bigotry; and honestly that was probably the correct response. "I'm better than the person I stole from, so I DESERVE the stolen goods more" is a pretty bad defense in any circumstance, and folks who'd make it pretty-much self-identify as total bastards by doing so.

So... how much does it SUCK that, now that the unfolding clusterfuck in Egypt has predictably led to the desecration of priceless antiquities... those aforementioned bigoted bastards would probably have more than a little cause to say "told ya so?"

Yeah, I'm "that guy" who doesn't really get "torn up" over stuff like this until Museums and cultural-treasures start getting destroyed. Y'know that "heroic" scene in "Volcano" where the guy is chastising the rescue team for trying to save "a buncha paintings and stuff" instead of "the people?" Out of the whole ridiculous movie, that's the part that makes me roll my eyes the most. In the comments section, someone will make the (very sincere) argument that worth of historical art-treasures is nothing compared to "the fight against oppression" or "a poverty-stricken people"... yeah, I know that's how I'm "supposed" to see the world - but I don't. Not really.

Obviously, in the abstract, I'm for "the little guy" and against dictatorships and autocrats... but in all honesty, like the thoroughly-detached, media-placated Ugly American that I am I'm unable to summon much more than a that's-too-bad about the plight of the protesting Egyptian citizenry - whoever the good guys are, I hope they win and I don't want to see any (more) people die needlessly, that's about what I can muster. On the other hand... the idea of Mubarak falling, a Muslim Brotherhood-backed theocracy filling the vacuum a'la the Taliban and the Pyramids, Sphinx etc winding up like The Bamiyan Buddhas? THAT makes me literally shake with indignation. "Things" can win out over "people" with me, on a case by case basis. That's who I am, and I accept it.

Anyway... it got me thinking about one of my favorite "why don't more people know about this?" pieces of 20th Century history; and how much we could use a version of it today. How many of you have heard of "The Monument Men?"

Basically, during WWII the Allies were assissted by a U.S. Government-initiated group of art and history experts culled from the upper-echelons of the University and Museum community (y'know, those terrible "elites" you hear so much about) in the preservation of Europe's art treasures during and after the war effort. They're best known for helping to identify, secure and reclaim the stolen artwork caches of the Nazis, but they had active-combat functions as well. My favorite: When the Allies bombed Nazi-occupied Florence, they built tactics partially around detailed maps and coordinates provided by Monument Men to avoid damaging the city's priceless landmarks. This was very much an of-it's-time phenomenon - it existed because concerned art historians made the case for such an undertaking to the government, and men like FDR and Eisenhower agreed - it's the first time in modern (or pretty much ANY) record that an Army had been instructed to include the preservation of art and cultural treasues as part of their standing orders.

Two thoughts always occur to me about this, in order. First: Why the HELL was this never the plot of an "Indiana Jones" sequel?? Second: Can you IMAGINE the outcry if anyone proposed such a thing today? The wailing and gnashing of teeth from both the reflexively art-hating, "no spending!!!" Right and the "you're spending it on paintings... what about the PEOPLE!!!???" Left?

Escape to the Movies: "The Rite"

Intermission: Oscar Noms.

Oscar Nominations

So, "the narrative" of this year's Oscar race - because there always is one - is Young vs. Old or, rather, Analog vs. Digital: "The King's Speech," a solid but utterly unremarkable film you could none the less sell, unedited, as the ultimate parody of formula Oscar Bait vs. "The Social Network," a film whose subject matter, editing/directing style and even principal-cast may as well have just stepped out of a flying-saucer as far as much of The Academy is concerned.



That's not to say that it's ONLY between those two films, at least not yet, but that's The Narrative. See also: Christopher Nolan snubbed for Best Director (EASILY the biggest outrage of the year - "Inception" DEFINES "director's movie" the same way "Speech" does "actor's movie") and Daft Punk being shut out of a Best Score nod for "Tron: Legacy" - thus denying TV audiences worldwide the fun of seeing two guys in Power Rangers helmets sitting among the swells in crowd-shots... although it's not entirely surprising, can you imagine The Academy's half-mummified voter-base listening to the tracks, futzing with their player and wondering where all that electronic-distortion is coming from and where the "music" is? Honestly, "Tron" being shut-out of the art and FX categories in general is pretty glaring no matter what you think of the overall film.

Also snubbed: Edgar Wright, Mila Kunis, and probably some more I'll think of later.

Big Picture: Fair Game

Michael Bay TMNT Reboot Will Not Be as Good as This Short

How to get gobs of attention as short-filmmaker:

STEP 1: Adapt popular comic/game/toy/etc property from 1980s or early-90s.

STEP 2: Do really good job.


hat-tip: io9

Brand New Day

Ladies and gentlemen, the 3rd and final appearance - as host, anyway - of The Game AntiThinker...



...but The Quest of The OverThinker has only just begun!

"I was an insect who dreamed of being a jogger... but now the dream is over"

Y'know what sucks about having over-developed foresight? The fact that it only seems to work in regards to the fate of ill-concieved movie projects. I can't call the Lottery or win a card game to save my life, but are you wondering who or what to short on the Hollywood Stock Exchange? Cuz if so, I'm your man.

The GOOD thing about it? I'm typically through with the stages of fanboy-outrage and into "acceptance" (or, rather, "whatever") pretty quick. Case in point: I find myself unable to summon the energy to give a damn about, say, J.J. Jameson being left out of The SpideReboot - yeah, kinda dissapointing in theory; but I kinda used up all my surplus-irritation for this mess back when they announced it, so every new detail just hits me with a middling sense of "lousy-sounding movie sounds slightly lousier, we'll find out next year."

Case in point: This weekend's meh-inducing panic-button were the above-pictured spy-snaps of Andrew Garfield's stuntman wearing a "stunt version" of the new Spidey-Suit, giving us a (sort-of) first look at the full design and the new mask. (The metal "spats" on the feet are probably to help the stunt-guy run, instead of a "real" part of the costume.)

It's not substantially more "revealing" than the first official shot from last week, nor is there any significant newness worth writing home about. They've gone with much smaller eyes, mainly, and you can more clearly see the how much more "busy" the design is: The blue parts are "broken up" into segments by lines, the strips of red up the arms is super-thin to the point of looking like racing-stripes and there are "matching" ones going down the back of the legs. You can also see that the interior of the gloves has blue fingers. Still immediately recognizable, but like I said... "busier." I'll be honest: I think all the extra detailing is kinda ugly-looking. Devin over at BAD thinks it looks like Ben Reilly's version from the books, which it sorta does and which is perversely appropriate.

What I DO hope this view of a harshly-lit, non-"battle-damaged" version of it does it put to rest this bullshit meme that this version looks more "home-made" than the one from the earlier films. No, it doesn't. It's same style with the same fabric-pattern and even the same raised-webs. Neither of them look anything like something a teenager can make in his house, neither has any live-action Spider-Man suit ever filmmed except the wrestling-costumed from the first one, maybe. And for that matter... why would anyone want it to? In a movie where a guy becomes a superhero - as opposed to a cancer patient - from a radioactive spider-bite, is the sewing skill really where you hinge the suspension of disbelief?

BREAKING: David E Kelley Announces Plan to Brutally Mangle 70 Year-Old Woman, NBC Agrees to Broacast Footage of Event

My impetus for doing that "Big Picture" episode about Wonder Woman was the then-recent "WTF?" news about wacky-lawyer afficionado David E. Kelley pitching a TV show "reimagining" of her; and I wound up having the benefit (in terms of newsworthiness) of the piece actually airing right in the midst of said pitch apparently being turned down by... well, everyone. Myself, I took that as a lucky break - partly for the bit of extra attention (re: google results) it probably garnered my show but MOSTLY because it sounded like we'd dodged the bullet of what smelled like a pretty bad idea.

Well, not so fast.

Sez Deadline, NBC is picking up the project - seemingly based on the positive reception of Kelley's new Kathy Bates vehicle, "Harry's Law." This will come as great news for fans who've been wondering where their fix of awful television tangentially based on DC Comics properties was going to come from once "Smallville" ends.

Y'know... these days, reporting on the development of "geek properties" into movies produces no feeling so strongly as temporal-whiplash: One moment it's like your living in some kind of movie-nerd wish-dream utopia where Rot Lop Fan is turning up in a "Green Lantern" movie or there's a five-film inter-continuity buildup for a live-action "Avengers" epic... and then the next moment your zapped into some kind of living-parody of the worst excesses of "Catwoman"-level bastardizations where you hear stuff like this:

"The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman -- aka Diana Prince -- is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."

So... Kelley wanted to do a version of his well-worn basic schtick but with a currently-trendy superhero twist ("Ally McBatman," essentially) and seized on the most "everybody knows" female hero for a name, is the impression I'm getting from this. That, or he's doing the best meta-parody of adaptations that rip everything remotely unique or interesting out of their source-material. Delightful.

Likely trajectory: Makes it to the air, widely-panned, brief period of grasping-at-straws by fandom at minor slices of DC-fanservice shoved into later episodes, canceled after one season if that (like "Smallville" would've been were it airing on a real network,) DVD boxset for the discount bin, eternal life as a punchline for fans and comic-writers, go-to "better than" barometer for whoever finally bites the bullet and makes a proper movie out of the character.

Big Day Monday?

Strange doings over on The Other Blog...

Escape to the Movies: "No Strings Attached"

It's alright.

"Intermission" is about Batman. Because.

Batman Villians Cast

OBLIGATORY BATMAN DISCLAIMER: I am aware of the Internet Law declaring that Christopher Nolan can do no wrong in any way, ever. I am aware that "Dark Knight Rises" is thus awesome until proven guilty, so there's no reason to get in a huff and bury me in infuriated rebukes if I happen to say anything that sounds like even the slightest hesitation at jumping into the circle-jerk. Thank you ;)

As most of you are certainly already aware, Warner Bros. has announced the identities and casting of the villians (or maybe not in at least one case?) in the next Batman movie. Anne Hathaway is CATWOMAN, while Tom Hardy is... BANE.

Okay. Those are both pretty suprising.


Catwoman less so, since she's really the only enemy other than Joker that's always on the must-do list; but I'm rather impressed that they were willing to risk reminding everyone of Halle Berry's career-suicide only a few years ago.

Seeing how she's realized will be FASCINATING, for two reasons: Firstly, "hot chick who dresses like a cat... because" is bit over the edge from Nolan's thus-far insistent hyper-realistic grounding for these things; so you have to wonder how they plan to make it "work" without just ripping the bandaid off the whole "it's Gotham City, it's the DC Universe, when you start a criminal career here you get a nickname and a costume" bit. In Frank Miller's "Year One," which they've been using as a reference for the series, she got an updated origin as - what else? - a prostitute (because... well, because Frank Miller, pretty much) and some subsequent interpretations have had the "costume" be repurposed S&M gear, neither of which you'd expect WB to let slide in a PG13 tentpole. I think a lot the audience will "forgive" minor logic-leaps if the trade-off is Anne Hathaway in a rubber/leather/whatever catsuit... but I doubt Nolan would, for good or ill. I actually would not be the least bit surprised to learn that the character will just be Selena Kyle: Attractive Burglar - no costume, no nickname, maybe she has a pet cat so everybody gets the reference.

But even setting aside "fanboy" concerns... film fans who've kept an eye on Nolan's career HAVE to wonder how he approaches a character like this. Catwoman, traditionall, is "about" only two things: Sexuality and femininity - neither of which he's ever shown much (cinematic) interest in. In fact, it's been persuasively argued that one of the BIG recurring themes in his films is the idea of no-nonsense masculine professionalism being "undone" (if not wholly corrupted) by an unwelcome feminine influence - hell, that's actually a good PLOT SUMMARY of, say, "Inception." So what does "Catwoman" look/act like, and what function does she serve, in the vision of the most sexless major filmmaker working today? Color me intrigued.

And then there's "Bane." I... egh. This is the part where the "trust in Nolan" thing is REALLY taxing. Bane sucks. Bane is basically useless. Basically a super-smart bruiser in a mask who turns into a Latin-American Incredible Hulk with super-steroids, he's the Batman equivalent of Venom - a deeply uninteresting character mainly popular in the 90s whose perplexing shelf-life is solely based on participating in a memorable story-arc. Unlike Venom, Bane's story - which involves Batman getting crippled and replaced by a reformed religious-nut baddie who regresses and becomes an armored "evil" Batman - is probably not going to be told in the movie. There's potential in the idea... but if not for the "Nolan pass" this would NOT be very encouraging news.

What I'm interested in is how they plan to even "do" this guy: Again, the thus-far strict no-fantasy/no-scifi/real-world theme of these films doesn't really seem to have room for a guy who turns into an invincible muscle-freak by juicing himself with chemicals... so what is he?

Of secondary but interesting concern: Will it be an "issue" that they've cast a white British actor to play a character who's typically supposed to be of Latin or at least South-American descent? I mean, this is just as much of an "OUTRAGE" as Idris Elba in Thor, yes? No?

The X-Men look like The X-Men (UPDATE!)

Yes, this will do nicely. (via MSN)

UPDATE: MTV says that Fox has "indicated" that is "not an authorized image" from the film. "Not an authorized image" is a stupendously weasley-sounding use of language - especially when "fake" is so much simpler and easier to say. So, you can probably take to mean that it's NOT a "fake" so much as it's not a "final" piece of official production art - which is fairly clear from the photoshop used to get everyone into the image. Likely scenario: It's a piece of "mockup" key-art that someone leaked - in other words, these ARE the actual costumes/makeups, but not "official" images thereof.

That, OR it's an especially good con and Fox is just being needlessly coy about it. I doubt that, but I hope it's not the case: I'm very fond of most of this, and it'd be a real shame if the "real thing" ended up not looking as good.

This is, apparently, the first of what may or may not be a big forthcoming "dump" of character-reveals from "X-Men: First Class." Unless it's an excellent fake, this is our first glimpse of what most of the new/younger characters will look like.

Let's get the obvious question out of the way first: Yes, I think the outfits overall look much better - purely from a design standpoint - than they did in the previous films. Sure, partially because the yellow/blue scheme that (most) of them are wearing is more "classic" but it's also just more aesthetically pleasing: They're more immediately evocative of "uniforms" than the custom-molded-gimp-suit look used previously.

But let's be real here: The most attention is going to be given to January Jones as Emma Frost/White Queen - who, even setting aside the more obvious appeal, literally looks like she just jumped right off the comics page. Holy Shit. I feel like I should send the producers a thank you note in advance for making Halloween 2011 that much better (to say nothing of the cosplay circuit the rest of the year...)

Obviously, there's plenty of reason to be wary given that it's a Fox production; but I trust Matthew Vaughn and this is a good indicator as to why.

The Big Picture: "Conspiracy Weary"

Spider-Man has web-shooters

Now more-or-less confirmed via MTV, the new Spider-Man will have mechanical webshooters as opposed to biological webbing.

It's an incredibly minor detail, the definition of fan-only concern (see also: Captain America's wings, Hulk's purple pants) - theoretically important to the storytelling and characterization i.e. increased-tension and Peter Parker: Science Whiz concept but not exactly make-or-break stuff.

Still, make a note of it: This is the first thing the reboot has - potentially - done "better" than the originals. So, that's something of a landmark.

Escape to the Movies: "Green Hornet"

Intermission: "Video Games vs The Movies."

Off to the Con

Quick note to Boston-area and Boston-area-visiting fans; I'll be out and about at the Arisia convention for much of the weekend. Not as a panelist or guest or whatever - I'll just be hanging out and seeing what's up - but if any of y'all are going to be around maybe I'll see you around :)

Captain America and New Spider-Man: REVEALED! (Update!)

Seen here, via ComingSoon: A Superhero costume-redesign done right.

Chris Evans, in full mask and gear as Captain America. It works. It just effin' WORKS. The mask/helmet works. The "repainted combat gear" works. The shield really works. Even the wings work.

I'd call it a near-perfect "compromise" between the classic look, the Ultimate look and real life; though I wouldn't be surprised if they give him something close to the "modern Ultimates" look in "Avengers." But THIS is going to look fantastic onscreen, versus all the Hydra gear and the (supposedly) note-perfect Red Skull look.

We've got four major "question-mark" comic movies this year, and THIS is easily the one that's looking like the surest-thing at this point - with the awesomeness of this uniform being the biggest assurance of that (to me, anyway) yet. After the jump: How NOT to do one of these...

...Okay, maybe a little hyperbole there, but the overall impact is pretty "meh" at best. Underwhelming, certainly, but not disasterous.

Andrew Garfield, unmasked but otherwise offering our first look at the "new" Spider-Man outfit. They've kept the "textured" look from the Raimi films, but with lots of reworked "angularity" on the web-pattern and the insignia. I'd be amused to know if anyone at the design phase mentioned that losing the "belt" of red around the midsection now essentially leaves Spidey wearing either a giant red arrow pointing to his Spider-Junk or a custom version of Borat's bathing suit.

Of course, he probably won't dance at all in this one automatically making it The Best Spider-Man Movie EVER!!!! Right? Yes?

UPDATE: Commenters here and elsewhere are taking note of a curious-looking bulge on the interior of the gloves, hugely-suggestive of this new Spider-Man having traditional mechanical webshooters as opposed to the "biological" ones from the previous films.

If so, AWESOME. I'll say that without any qualification: That would be awesome. I'm actually getting pretty sick of the "you want to hate this!" nonsense that gets thrown around every time I cover this project, to the point that I've begun to greet each new item with hope that there'll be something that excites me about this other than Denis Leary being in it just to alleviate some of that.

FWIW, the biological-shooters thing goes back a long way: It was a surprise-twist in the James Cameron script, and in the script Raimi initially signed on for he had mechanical devices to "control" his built-in webs.

ScrewAttack Royal Rumble

The boys at ScrewAttack use the character-creation engine of the WWE games to stage a Royal Rumble for site personalities, and yours truly get's in on the action:

Glenn Beck: Negative "Spider-Man" Broadway Reviews Are A Liberal Conspiracy!

Below, renowned theater critic, professional crazy-person and rare-metals spokesperson Glenn Beck offers his review of "Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark." His verdict: A RAVE! The finest show he's ever seen! What's more, Glenn has cracked the code of why the film is being so poorly recieved: The Liberal Media hates Spider-Man's "conservative message!" (summary of evidence for said message: The bad guys are scientists, and Spidey is hated by the press.) No, really...



In other news, Frank Miller was today distraught after having been informed he is no longer the world's most obnoxious re-interpreter of comic-book superheroes.

Big Picture: "All The World Is Waiting"

Want to help a good cause?

The Brattle Theater here in Boston, one of the most renowned independent movie theaters in the region and the initial launchpad for what would become the legendary Janus Films, was savagely vandalized last week.

The Brattle Film Foundation, which operates it, is a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to preserving neglected films and giving exposure to new cutting-edge works, so they are always in need of support to continue their work to begin with and costly damages like this only make it worse. If such things are of any interest to you, and you would like to help out this very worthy cause in some way, the information on how to do so can be found HERE.

I also want to extend personal thanks to Devin Faraci, who had this story up on his Badass Digest site earlier today.

Evil Squared

Superherohype has some POSSIBLE SPOILER scans from the UK version of SFX Magazine, purportedly showing Hugo Weaving holding what looks like a Certain Ridiculous Silver-Age Marvel Item in a still from "Captain America." This has been pretty heavily hinted at, but for those who'd consider it a POSSIBLE SPOILER the details are after the jump:

Hugo Weaving as pre-monsterface Red Skull, holding what would seem to be The Cosmic Cube. For those sans-context for that: What you're looking at is a Nazi holding up a Magic Wishing Rock. Yes, really.

It still trips me out that the various "Avengers" lead-ups are actually dipping this far into the stranger side of their universe right out of the gate - typically, stuff like this is the first thing a movie adaptation decides to drop. Awesome.

Escape to the Movies: "MovieBob Awards"

Because nothing came out this week.

"Intermission" is depressing this week.

I have no strong opinion about this image

One of my New Year's resolutions is to try being less unkind to the ill-advised "Spider-Man" reboot - for example, I resolve not to revive the "Spiderlight" nickname until there's solid proof that it's still going that route. With that in mind, here are some snaps from JustJared of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in (civilian) costume as the new Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy...

...and I have no real issue with what I'm seeing. I don't care that he's not wearing glasses or other outward "Puny Parker" signifiers - modern update, fashion shifts, etc. I find nothing especially elevating or depressing about this image - it's a nonentity, and says nothing out of context other than that Garfield is simply not passing for a highschooler here and, let's face it, neither did Tobey Maguire.

In fact, I only bring it up because according to The Internet I'm supposed to be INFURIATED at his fingerless gloves as a sign that they've made him into a "hipster" - at this point the most meaningless "insult" in the popular culture.

So... yeah. HEADLINE: MovieBob has no issue with Spider-Man's choice in gloves, I guess...

kickass. literally.

via io9

Something you should know about me: I am totally lacking any ability to be objective at the prospect of things that should only exist in fiction happening in otherwise-miserable reality. If someone cloned a T-Rex tommorow and it went on a violent rampage somewhere tomorrow, providing it didn't hurt anyone/anything I directly care about I would probably be watching every scrap of footage of the event with the world's biggest smile plastered across my face on a near-constant loop for at least a MONTH before it ever occured to me that this was actually a tragic, terrible event. Y'know those military-grade armed-robot videos that scare the piss out of everyone? I get giddy over that shit, because it means I'm one step closer to a Terminator. Or Johnny Five, either one works.

With that in mind...



I am aware that this is incredibly dangerous, and that this guy (and the many, many others like him) is probably mentally ill and that eventually one of them is going to do get seriously injured/killed (or seriously injure/kill someone else) and it's not going to be "fun" anymore...

...I just find it hard to care when I'm watching this as an actual news-report on CNN. Awesome. The "lair" in the back of the comic-book store completes it.

$#%&@!!!

Egh. In all honesty, I have no words for how annoyed I am at this.

So... Heat Vision says that they've chosen a director for the new "Godzilla" remake... and it's Gareth Edwards, late of "Monsters." Makes perfect sense, right? Clearly, the only possible qualified candidate to helm the rebirth of the greatest of all movie monsters is the director of a laughably-pretentious sub-Syfy waste of time featuring two of the most awful lead characters in the history of the genre.

My burning need for a GOOD new Godzilla movie has my brain overclocking trying to find some sliver of worth in this... and it ain't working. "Monsters" (which was the subject of "Escape's" Halloween Show) wasn't technically impressive in any way that a hundred other semi-pro-with-an-FX-background projects aren't also, the actual directing is tremendously-uninspired and Edwards' own script was punishingly terrible... so, of course, he's helping to retool the script for "Godzilla" as well as directing it. FUCK.

If I didn't have a night of work to do, I would literally be pouring a stiff-as-hell drink and zoning out with "Donkey Kong Country" to wash this out of my brain. Thanks a bunch, Legendary Pictures...

The Big Picture: "Nerd Gods"

To Rule Them All

Today is JRR Tolkien's birthday.

At this point, what else can anyone really say? The sheer magnitude of modern popular culture that would simply not exist without his influence is awe-inspiring.

AntiThinker arrives

Happy New Year!

So, here's what's happening over on the other blog: