Knowing that you're as much of a discusser of film time-travel problems as I am, I point you to the holy grail mother-load of film-based time-travel discussions: http://www.mjyoung.net/time/index.htm

You will not be disappointed.

As your lawyer, I recommend that you DON'T watch the trailer for <i>My Name is Bruce</i>, the Bruce Campbell movie I've had two years to imagine in my mind.  The one in my head is AMAZING but the real life one looks really awful.  I'm really disappointed; I just hope I can save you the same fate.

We saw a few movies over the holiday:

I Am Legend was actually pretty darn good, despite all-but abandoning the very core -- dare I say 'point' -- of the story. In its place they wedged a peculiar new type of 'Legend:' namely the Bob Marley album of the same name. Perplexing and stupid. Still it was pretty awesome despite this and the many MANY things I found to complain about. (Seriously, why would he hunt from a Mustang GT? How would he haul the carcass home?) Lots of funny little "future" tidbits like the Batman vs. Superman movie billboard in Times Square. Bottom line: even taking into account the major deviations from the much-loved source, I really liked it.

Sweeney Todd: I need to preface my review with this: as a rule, I dislike Broadway musicals on principle; that goes double for Hollywoodified Broadway musicals. That said, I couldn't have loved Sweeney Todd any more than I did. Simply put: the story is great, the film is visually great, Depp, Rickmann, and Bonham-Carter are great, many of the songs are great -- and, most awesomely, the quantities of blood are VERY great. I don't have much knowledge of the source material, so I can't vouch for its faithfulness (all I knew about the musical I learned from Jersey Girl) but I can say that it was very engaging, and very enjoyable. This is my surprise hit of the year. Oh: this time around Depp apparently decided to pick David Bowie for his character inspiration. What's his deal with rock stars? My biggest complaint with the film? The titular character is a barber who is very handy with a straight-razor, but throughout the film he bangs and scrapes his various razors on the ground and objects, throws them around, etc. As one who actually shaves with a straight-razor, I know that they're very sensitive, fragile things, and that a true master shaver would NEVER treat his instruments even remotely as badly as Todd does.

Alien vs Predator: Colonated Title: The first AvP was so ludicrously bad, both in performance and in critical/internet review, that the mere emergence of a sequel suggested to me that someone had come up with a brilliant-enough concept to sell the fickle studio heads on it and get it green-lit. I was wrong. From the look of things they got 5 different writers to come up with ingenious-yet-different concepts, then smooshed all 5 together into one script. And then removed the ingenious altogether. What was left was a mish-mash of potential heroes, all with hinted-at complicated back-stories and demons for each to overcome. None of these ever goes anywhere. This movie sucked all manner of ass, but not in an even remotely good way.

Juno: I really, really, liked this movie. It has been touted as "this year's Little Miss Sunshine," and I have to say the comparison is somewhat apt. If I had to describe it, I'd say it's like Knocked Up with all of the Superbad sucked out of it. You know, in a good way. With characters out of a funnier, makes-sensier version of Garden State. A really refreshing and interesting look at teenage pregnancy and how it sometimes can go "right."

A coworker asked me the other day if the film I've been calling "Will Smiff Is Legend" is based on something else.  I explained that it was a book, which then spawned two different movie adaptations:  "The Last Man on Earth" and "The Omega Man."  This new version has an interesting pedigree, in that it was once going to be an Arnold Schwarzeneggar remake of "The Omega Man" until that fell through, and ALSO once an "I Am Legend" until THAT fell through as well.  Then they got some of the people involved with both to kind of work together on this final version incorporating the good bits from each. 

I'm not quite sure what to make of "Will Smiff Is Legend."  On the one hand, all the shots I've seen of it look fantastic and I know Will is a great actor who -- provided the script calls for it -- will be able to pull off the 'grizzled, lonely, and angry' that encompasses the story.  On the other hand, though, I keep picturing him with a sideways gun saying "aww HELL no" while bustin' caps into zompires from his motorcycle in slow motion.  Call me equal parts excited and reluctant.  (Also, is it even going to HAVE zompires?  Remember in Jonathan Coulton's fantastic song RE: Your Brains, how the guy's zombified coworkers try to plead with him to come out because all they want to do is eat him?  That's straight out of "I Am Legend," except the zombies in question were kind of a halfway-point between zombie and vampire;  they rise from the grave and eat brains, but can be staked through the heart to kill them.  Plus they're smart.)

On the subject of prior film adaptations, I highly, HIGHLY recommend the 1964 Vincent Price version entitled "The Last Man on Earth."  It's a truly great film that I think does a good job of capturing the mood of the book while adding a few new things as well.  The new ending they came up with is probably one of my favorite endings of all time, which leads me to believe "Will Smiff Is Legend" will not use it ;)  On the plus side, the film is now in the Public Domain, meaning you can download it off the internet with impunity.  If instantaneous blocky streaming flash video is your thing it can be found here on Google Video. If nicer quality -- and therefore a longer, more complicated download process -- is more your thing, it can be found here on The Pirate Bay without any fear of legal repercussions because this film was allowed to fall out of copyright like copyright law intended.  Yay for properly functioning copyright law.

Blogged with Flock

Atheists Outraged by Film Trailer

As one who loved Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, the noise Bill Donohue and the like were making over the film adaptation of "The Golden Compass" (far before they could ever have actually SEEN the film) really irritated me.  This is a nice bit of satire, "turning the other cheek" -- if you will.  I've not seen the film version of "Golden Compass" because I think it's not really a story well-suited to being a film, and that the liberties that'd have to be taken with the story could do nothing more than sadden me.  Based on the film's terrible performance this weekend, I'd have to hazard a guess that I'm not the only one that felt that way.  Or that Bill Donohue is more powerful than I'd prefer to give him credit for.

I can't vouch for the film, but Pullman's trilogy is really fantastic.  Slightly "challenging," I suppose, if the idea of religion perpertrating evil offends thee, but I'm of the ilk that anything that causes one to think about what they believe is a good thing.  I think the books are beautiful, and the hand-full of Christians that I know who've read them didn't seem to have any kind of problem with them.  Despite how terrible the film looks, I urge anyone with even a passing interest in Young Adult Fiction to take a look at the novels.

Last night, longtime reader aerospace conducted some research into my complaint against the unbelievability involved with how the Terminatrix controlled vehicles in "Terminator 3".  As it turns out, I just wasn't paying close enough attention.

The Terminatrix's ability was "forming complex machines," not necessarily just controlling machines.  In order to drive a car remotely, all she'd need to do is send some of her nanobots into the car where they could form the machinery required to move the steering wheel, manipulate the throttle, etc.  I'm still not convinced that she'd make machinery to pull the gas pedal down rather than just adjusting the throttle from the engine compartment -- not to mention that she could never have enough leverage from within the steering column to pull the transmission lever down -- but at this point I'm just nitpicking.  I know better than most that "nobody likes a nitpick," so I'm declaring that my complaint with the movie is completely invalid, and apologize profusely to the film's creators for my mistake.

That said, in her comment explaining this, aerospace brought to my attention another complaint I once had, about which I had completely forgotten.  In the "Terminator" universe, the abilities of the Terminators get better and better as technology in the future progresses.  But they inexplicably send the new upgraded Terminators back in time to a point AFTER the failed previous attempts.  The logical thing to do would be to keep going after Sarah Connor EARLIER in time, would it not?  Why keep trying forward in the time line when you know she's going to be expecting it?

I just realized that "Maximum Overdrive" and Zack Snyder's version of "Dawn of the Dead" have essentially the same ending.  I like to imagine that the guys from "Dawn" pull up on the island to find an aging Emilio Estevez asking them if the trucks have stopped killing people yet.

"The good news is that the trucks are no longer killing people.  The bad news is that all the dead people ARE."

Speaking of Stephen King adaptations:  know how I like to gush about Frank Darabont being a genius?  Well I just learned that he once wrote "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors."  That movie pushed the "quick, let's all go to sleep and end up in the same dream" plot gimmick to the limit, included Freddy Kruger with a Nintendo PowerGlove, and included the phrase "put on your 3-D glasses now."

Frank Darabont has made three pretty dang good Stephen King movies, but he's still got some atonement to do for Freddy 3.

Remember how in "Terminator 3" the Terminatrix could control electronics, enabling her to use them as an extension of herself?  Remember how when it came to vehicles they'd do the David Fincher zoom-through down to the circuit level, showing that she's taking control of it only to zoom back out and show the shift knob move by itself, the gas pedal depress to the floor and the steering wheel turn by itself?  That bugged the crap out of me.  For me it was exactly like in "The Never-ending Story" when Sebastian got to the part in the book where Sebastian got to the part in the book.  ("That's IMPOSSIBLE!"  Both his response and mine.  Luckily he was all alone in his school's attic; I was in a crowded theater and got simultaneously 'shhhhh'd and snickered at.)

Compare with the film "Maximum Overdrive."  Shift knobs move by themselves, steering wheels turn without assistance, and gas pedals depress to the floor, seemingly without any cause.  This was perfectly acceptable.  AWESOME, in fact.  I'm not entirely sure what the difference between these two examples is, but I suspect it to be the explanation of how it is working.  In "Maximum Overdrive," there really is no explanation.  For all we know, there are invisible beings sitting at the wheels of the vehicles.  We know that an alien race is using Earth's machinery to "sweep out all the roaches," (those roaches are us) but there's absolutely no attempt to explain it.  In "Terminator 3," on the other hand, they go out of their way to explain it, even using flashy graphics of electrons following circuitry.  The problem, though, is that electronics don't work that way.  I could buy the steering wheel, since most modern cars have "power steering," but the shift knob?  There's no machinery for the electronics to activate to get them to move.  To me that was just plain stupid and it spoiled the whole movie.

Do these types of things bother other people, or is it just me?  None of the other unrealistic things  in the film -- time-travel, cybernetic organisms, Claire Danes  --  bothered me in the slightest, while such an inconsequential thing completely ruined it?  Is that a normal human response?

VERY much enjoyed Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist."  That story has been my favorite of King's since I first read it at like 12y/o or so, and I always longed for it to be a movie -- but not a crappy movie like they always make out of Stephen King stories.  I was mightily worried that I was going to be disappointed, but needn't have been, for it was AWESOME. Everything looked just like it did in my 12y/o old brain, and I felt almost exactly the same as I did upon first reading it.  Frank Darabont for the win! 

I think that story really nails what society is all about, and I fear that it perhaps warped my fragile little mind upon my first reading.  People really do form little power hierarchies, willfully giving up power to others when it's too scary not to. At the first hint of crazy, people are willing to overlook a WHOLE LOT of crazy in the people to whom they decide to give power, and don't even seem to realize it.  Sure, stuff in the titular mist IS scary, but the really frightening things in the story are the ones the people do. Because their leader tells them to. Scary because it's TRUE.

Film gets bonus points for Dark Tower inclusion, a nice reference to John Carpenter's "The Thing," some thought-evoking Jesus symbolism, leaving out the only thing that really made me feel skeevy in the story, and lastly: for including something new that skeeved me the crap right out, yet played right into the underlying theme of humanity's fatal flaws.  Best non-Shawshank Stephen King movie ever.  I have a lot more to say on the subject of this film, but I'm going to wait for a while so as not to spoil anything for anyone who wants to see it.

VERY much disappointed by the wonderfully titled "Flight of the Living Dead."  The only thing good about it is the title.  I'd much appreciate it if things would stop happening "on a Plane" now.  Thanks.

Blogged with Flock

If, like me, you were somewhat disheartened a couple years back at what might have been re: Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, it may please you to know that it will be given a new life in paper form: FREDDY VS JASON VS ASH Hitting Comics Soon. (Warning, contains minor spoilers for this comic, but also a major one for the comic [and presumably the film] Watchmen.) Short spoiler-free summary: It was ALMOST a movie, but now that it's not, they've decided to make it into a comic miniseries. Exactly like the movie would have been. Except with more paper cuts.

I read the treatment for the movie version a couple years back and must say that there was some clever stuff in it. Some stupid stuff as well, but nothing worse than what's already in Freddy Vs. Jason. If you want to spoil the comics for yourself (the six-issue run is supposed to be based almost verbatim on the original film treatment) you can find the treatment here.

In other news, My Name is Bruce is on track to rock all our socks off later this year. I'd describe it, but the previous link does a much better job than I could.

Lastly, (and kicking off all this Evil Dead/Bruce Campbell talk from me) Richard Crawford suggests that we force Bruce Campbell to run for president. I think if we slap an "I'm Bruce Campbell, and I approve this message" on this fine Old Spice campaign ad that it'll help get the rest of America on board. Who can argue with the platform Bruce is stumping for in that spot?

Having decided that I wanted to make a split-screen video showing a bit from Flight of the Conchords alongside the corresponding Footloose clips that inspired it, I then spent over an hour downloading the clips off YouTube, correcting their aspect ratios, trying to get the new videos to load in Cinelerra, trying to figure out how to do a split screen in Cinelerra, and ultimately learning that Cinelerra is -- dare I say -- a useless pile of crap (at least on this Ubuntu install), I decided to just let you use your imagination instead. No capable video editor means I won't be fancily editing any videos.

Watch Kevin Bacon do his thing [YouTube], then watch Bret keep up admirably [YouTube].

This whole scenario brings two things to my mind:

1) YouTube is frickin' fantastic. The fact that I can decide I want to look at the bit from Footloose where Kevin Bacon dances away his frustrations and INSTANTLY SEE IT rocks my socks off.

and

2) Why must open source software still suck so much ass so much of the time?

Just got home from Resident Evil: Extinction.

I don't have a lot to say, other than: "a bit suckier than Resident Evil, but nowhere near as sucky as Resident Evil: Apocalypse."

Bonus points for creatively using Marylin Manson's theme from the first one in a multitude of different versions throughout this one. I liked that a lot.

It's amazing to me how everyone who survives apocalypses of a global magnitude always has such perfect skin and teeth and are all hot as hell. I guess those of us with inferior genes are more susceptible to being left to die. I guess it's time to start compensating for that by stockpiling shotguns and ammunition.

Know what terrifies me? White water rafting.

I admit that I'm a little bit ascairt of the actual rafting itself, but mostly I'm concerned about the fact that most rafts carry upwards of 5 or 6 people. Considering that each random person in my raft is AT MOST only six other people away from Kevin Bacon, the odds of having to share a boat with him are staggeringly high. And if there's one thing I've learned from the considerable amount of time I spend watching movies, it's that you should never, EVER get in a raft with Kevin Bacon.

Click to embiggen.

(Please excuse the shoddy workmanship. I spent FOREVER trying to get the Transformer bits to "bulge" out of the jacket, ultimately painting it all by hand with my trackball. Robot bulgy bits are HARD. By the time I got it halfway bulgy I just didn't have the heart anymore for the boring "make it not look like ass" part. I'm pretty pleased with how I was able to "pose" Optimus, but saddened that you can't really tell after I covered him all up and painted all over him. Optimus source. Optimus re-posed.)

This was real-quick-like, not an attempt at quality.