Archive for June, 2008
Writer + Director + Sorcerer Supreme
This is possibly the best news since del Toro announced he was directing the classic ‘Hobbit’ film. Personally, I am disgusted at myself for not thinking of this marvelous trio before I found about it on the IMDb page. Yes, my friends, they are planning on releasing the Doctor Strange (Sorcerer Supreme) movie in 2010.
But that is not even the best part of it. Besides direction by del Toro, the screenplay is being written by the illustrious Neil Gaiman; screenwriter of films Stardust and (upcoming) Coraline, as well as Beowulf. But that is not even the tip of his talent. he wrote the novels (graphic and non) of the former two movies mentioned. He has also written, and received many awards, on his novels (besides Coraline and Stardust) The Anansi Boys, American Gods and The Sandman and Marvel: 1602 graphic novels - and a lot more. He also wrote the English adaptation of the amazing Miyazaki film Princess Mononoke. Besides noting his myriad of credentials, as a rabid fan of this man, one of the major reasons he is more than just a great choice, and actually a perfect choice is this: Neil Gaiman just loves mythology. There is too much to write about, a prime example would be the introduction to Marvel: 1602 (written by Peter Sanderson) and this list here on Wikipedia. I do not claim to be a master in the story of Stephen Strange, but what I do know is how cemented in mythological lore the Sorcerer Supreme’s powers are. Just look at this role in the Marvel: Civil War; he withheld his powers (which could have easily ended the entire war) on request of the beings that powered Strange, oftentimes, the Vishanti. He is an amazing character, and most definitely high in the ranks of Marvel warriors (he was one of the founding members of the Illuminati, after all), but he is still under the ‘management’ of said beings.
Neil Gaiman is but only one third of this Triforce of Supreme talent. 
You see what I did there? Heck yes you did. If keeping with the Triforce image, Gaiman would be holding onto the right Triforce of Courage, and our next would carry the one on top, the Triforce of Power. The joke cant be that hard to get, as Guillermo del Toro was mentioned only two paragraph above this one. As Gaiman was the perfect writer for this script, del Toro is the perfect director. He has brought humanity to characters that are everything but. I loved Hellboy. I love Hellboy. The reason for this is how human he is. Superhero’s are exaggerated archetypes, they are the modern Greek god, and sometimes worshipped just as much. That being said, I must admit that I have a personal affection towards the red-horned hero, and the movie was not as critically acclaimed as I did on my own. It was not until Pan’s Labyrinth that he really shone. As aforementioned, del Toro has been signed, perfectly as well, to direct The Hobbit. Why? del Toro is fantastic at directing fantasy, he is unbelievable at making the unbelievable believable, he… er… is un real at things th at are not… really, real. He is the best there is. With the amazing success of his LOTR trilogy, Toro was the first director Peter Jackson summoned for this prelude. I believe it was because PJ knew the book to be an entirely different type of story, as close connected they are. The Hobbit is a much more character based and personal story, and del Toro rocks at that more ravenously than a Uruk-hai and a Hobbit at a kegger.
This fact makes me cry myself to sleep every night. As well written and inked, penciled and lettered a comic book character is, they are not real. While replacing Zelda as sole recipient of the Triforce of Wisdom, Steve Ditko actually helped create Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Surpreme with the one and only Stan Lee. It is a shame that Ditko has not recieved the amazing credit Lee has, as he helped co-create some of the fan favorites (Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Kraven the Hunter and The Lizard). And thusly, the Sorcerer Supreme is aptly added to my hilarious blog title, as the brain and soul (if not, at least half) is helping Gaiman write the script.
The movie will be smack full of more canon fodder than Henry IV, Part 1. Punny!
Wolverine: Origins (#25-26)
I got into this series after the Origin TPB. The last few issues, with Deadpool and Wolverine battling emptily have been boring me lately, But I really do like these too comics this month.
#25 is the end to the Deadpool vs. Wolverine battle that has been going on for a few issues. It is is where Draken finally finds Logan but has a favor settled between Buckeye and Logan… in the back of the head. Logan’s WWII days were first looked at in this series in issue 17, and during that story arc, Logan and Buckeye build a semi-relationship. Anything referenced in this series, until now, is answered in those last few pages.
#26 was amazing. Stephen Segovia replaces the artist Steve Dillon is a horrible Wolverine artist, I haven’t read anything else of his so I cant really critique any further.
Segovia did the Witchblade series (and some other stuff) and this issue starts off with Logan taking Draken to a super-secret-hideout where he worked for a company on some experiments (he was the watch dog). It ends with those experiments finding him.
I am now excited for these books again, and not just buying for the sake of collection
Just not ‘Happening’
Including the credits, in 13:00 the entire plot of M. Night Shyamalan’s horribly rated movie, ‘The Happening’ is laid out in full. In order, between 9:06 and 9:32, we have it all said to us by a teacher;
- An airborne chemical toxin
- Warning signs:
- Confused speech
- Physical disorientation
- Suicide
It takes not long after then that we learn that it isn’t even a terrorist plot. Most movies follow the 3 Act Structure, popularized by Shakespeare, as shown below;
In an attempt, it would seem, to act less pretentious, and just start to make more sense, he threw the three portions of this structure into a hat, shook it up and tossed it onto a piss-stained motel bed in a sleazy part of the sleazy part of the ‘burbs.
There is no Act I, there is no beginning, the entire apparent setup exists between the first of many agonizing minutes, and the 13th one. Did I mention that includes credits? In order to not shorten the movie by a third (the first third that is missing) they stretched Act II to compensate for lost time. I am going to be honest, I am not a paid movie reviewer so I had no reason to make me sit through that much pointless babble. I did watch the ending, though, nothing really happened. People walked to a house, and then faded into black.
Elliot Moore: You know that everyone gives off energy, right? It’s scientifically proven. They got these cameras that can record what color you are when you’re feeling different things. People that are angry give off a different color than people that are sad. See this ring? This ring can supposedly tell you what you’re feeling. Let’s see what you’re feeling right now.
[places mood ring on Jess' finger]
Elliot Moore: Oh yellow! Well that’s cool. That means you’re about to laugh
I have never felt such a strong conviction to stop watching a movie in my entire life. I have seen movies that bored me to sleep, and this is not necessarily boring, the acting was so horrible that I almost wanted to see what they would ruin next.
And yes, that up there was actual dialogue. The praised writer, the writer who will save the world (in his own words), actually wrote that dribble, and actually paid people to say that.
I kid you not, kids, I kid you not.
And screw you, it is an awesome cliche title.
iCatalyst
You know what is more annoying than those Apple commercials? Neither do I. I know what they are doing, and I know that they are doing it well, but I still am hell-annoyed by them. They talk more about how superior the Mac is to the PC, and the plethora of problems the PC has and completely leave out any information regarding the product of which they are advertising. But then again, they do not even need to. The culture of the Apple iPod is unsupported superiority. I am serious here, the link was right there in the last sentence.
The Mac is in a very powerful situation. Every aspect of North American culture these days leans towards how something looks, as opposed to how it performs. I am not bashing the Mac here, what I mean to say is that part of the reason kids are buying Mac’s these days is just because it looks cool and is trendy. Yes, they do have some performance benefits over the Windows OS, but they are not bothering to find even that. They have a permanent grasp on the trend-whore-teenagers right now. 
Microsoft and Apple are two very different companies, and they are competing for the same market. Apple is, more than anything, a hardware company. Any bit of hardware attached to their OSX is attached specifically for it. This is why OSX has such great compatibility, compared to the issues with Windows (especially Vista). As a Linux/ Windows user, I know a few dozen plethora’s of things no user on the Mac has even thought of doing. Most of these are pointless, but that is not the point. A majority of the hardware for the Mac is made by the same company who make PC parts - they have no reason to advertise against either side. Microsoft cannot really advertise against it because Windows’ success depends a lot on the hardware, that they have no say over.
So why the title? Thing is, the major demographic for any technology are the teenagers. Teenagers and their parents that buy this stuff. The Apple logo has become so big that is inspires/ forces companies to follow suit, the timeline goes a little something… like… this…
010 Steve Jobs gives a Macworld Keynote, shows off new iPod/ Apple computer
020 the select percentage of Apple fanboys buy the new device, no matter how minimal the change
030 increase in demand for the feature
040 companies start to mimic feature, end up doing it better than Apple
GOTO 010
… but it’s like that, and that’s the way it is…
You may not think this to be something positive. But is is, even if you are not a fan of Apple or its iPod or it’s Macintosh computer. Apple to computers is what Starbucks is to coffee, it may not be the best, but it made it more popular. That popularity gave other, smaller businesses, more customers. You may hate Apple, but it would be terribly ignorant to think that it had nothing to do with the evolution of the MP3 player.
Apple is in the middle of a giant, touch screen snowball. Their marketing team knows this and Steve Jobs most definitely knows this as well. Will this snowball end? Possibly. Will it turn into a bloody giant snow man and take over the world? Yes, in negative 400 days. And even still, Apple is seen as the sweet little brother to Windows. But secretly, Windows is sleeping with Apple’s older, less attractive but more experienced older sister, UNIX…
Spore = Creationism ^ Down Syndrome
Critics claim that the release of the Spore Creature Creator is nothing more than an easy cash-grab. After a few hours playing as the most retarded god since Black & White, I have come a conclusion: even if the full version of Spore were released, only % 0.002 of the entire gaming population would have gotten any further. It is just retardededly fun. You will laugh so much from the fun you are having, people will actually assume you have a mental handicap. They released this part of the game merely to let the massive influx of YouTube videos and models of sexually inspired creatures in an effort to spread out the tension on our precious internetz — and yes, I said YouTube.
Initially I followed Spore as intently as Michael Jackson did the t-shirt:skin ratio of Dakota Fanning. But dudes, it debuted in E3 2006, and it has been a long, long while since then. 
Some people thought Spore might have lost some steam when its release was bumped last summer (I believe that was when). Judging, however, by the ~900,000 custom creatures made since release (June 17, 2008), this is not the case. So at least to me, the implementation of YouTube was a total, awesome and surprising surprise. The community aspect of Spore insisted on this type of feature, after all.
The Creature Creator, which is only one portion of the final game, has three parts to its window. The “building” section, the “testing” section and the “skinning” section. The middle one, the testing ground actually has YouTube implemented into it. The testing ground is used to test out your creature, see how he reacts to certain commands, how he walks around and how funny his (or her) babies look like. Right in the bottom left are two buttons, one for taking photos and the other for video taping. You can then take videos of your creature dancing around and YouTube it, showing off your creative prowess to the lesser beings on the internetz. The bottom of the screen is where you name, describe and tag your creature — and then where you upload to the Sporepedia, allowing other players to bring them into their worlds. Given the chance that someone extincts your creature, you are messaged thusly, giving you the option to insult them in the forums with mad caps-lock-stylez.
There is some strategy to the creating, as each item you use adds a certain amount of points to various parts of a creature, be it the ability to actually see, how powerful their charge attacks are and how fast they are. But Maxis seems to have taken into account the fact that no one will pay much heed to that aspect of the building, and lets us throw on whatever we want. The only problem with this game is convincing your little sister that your creature does not need three mouths inside one, even if you secretly agree.
If you do not mind the cartoon look to the game — buy it.
If you do mind — buy it.
If you do not buy it regardless – get off my internetz.
