Seriously, it found too many mentions of “death”, “dead” and “zombies” to get a G rating. Sorry kids.
[ via Dave ]
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I’ll take my comic book movies a little less angsty, please.
This is more like it. A summertime comic book movie that knows that it’s a summertime comic book movie. No, Silver Surfer is not high art, but it’s entertaining. I liked it way better than the first one, and (dare I say it) I liked it better than Spider-Man 3 (which, the further I get from it, sucks more and more).
They did the Surfer right. They did the team and powers right. They got the Johnny/Thing bickering right. Just about everything is right except for their annoyingly small treatment of Doctor Doom. And I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Galactus appears…just not as the goofy 100-foot-tall alien from the comics.
Next up, a quick visit with our old friend McClane before the main event–Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!
Posted in The Big Screen
3 Comments
Never look a gift horse in the mouth
So, yesterday, I had a business meeting scheduled in Nashville. It was to be a “fly up and fly back” kinda thing. No big deal.
Well, when this trip was being planned last week, I was up to my ears in kids (vactaion bible school…only sans sailor hat and monkey this year). So, the person that booked my flight thought he’d be nice and set me up with a flight that left Orlando a little later than the direct one to Nashville (which was very thoughtful). It just meant I’d have to spend an hour in Atlanta…
I arrived in Atlanta at 10am for my 11am connection. Unfortunately, the puddle jumper that was to go from Atlanta to Nashville was sick. So, I waited around until it was too late to make my meeting (they finally got a different plane and announced it would leave 3 hours late), and those I were to meet told me just to turn back and go home. The airline put me on the next available swamp buggy to Orlando…which was already posted as delayed 2 hours due to the crew not getting enough sleep (seriously).
Finally, we got a caffeinated crew and got ready to leave at around 5pm…except that storms had closed Orlando, so we couldn’t board… Around 6pm, we finally headed south.
The good news? I’m over half way through a book on my “I shoulda read that already” list–American Gods.
Posted in Life, the Universe and Everything
1 Comment
The Future is moist
Bummer. Apparently, the buried Belvedere needed gills.
Posted in Wouldya Lookit That!
3 Comments
Welcome to…THE FUTURE!
On June 15, 1957, a new gold and white 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe was buried in a time capsule in downtown Tulsa, OK. The time capsule was part of Golden Jubilee Week: Tulsa’s celebration of Oklahoma’s semi-centennial.
As part of the “Tulsarama!” festivities, citizens of Tulsa were asked to guess what the population of Tulsa would be in the year 2007. The guesses were then recorded on microfilm and sealed in a steel container buried with the car. When the car and artifacts are excavated, the person whose guess is closest to Tulsa’s 2007 population is to be awarded the Belvedere. – Tulsarama!
They even put in a case of Schlitz! How thoughtful is that??
I love stories like this. It’s funny how we don’t seem to make a big deal about time capsules and how neat it would be for some citizen of The Future™ (way off in the 21st Century!) to uncover a box of our junk.
I think it’s partly due to our seeming lack of optimism about the future (Where’s my flying car, dammit!)…or maybe we just don’t trust ourselves in this age of instant gratification to be able to wait 50 or 100 years to open them. Still, there is an International Time Capsule Society, and there are lots of these boxes of carefully placed trinkets buried everywhere (if only we could find half of them). And how cool would it be to have a “new” 1957 Plymouth?
I just hope it turns out better for the winner than this time capsule did…
[ via Kat ]
Posted in Strangeness
2 Comments
Hit by a Death Ray
Call me a sucker for glossy packaging, but I just got back from the book store where I spent over 2 hours pouring through the pages of the new Death Ray magazine. First of all, how could you not love a rag that got its name in part from a 1969 issue of The Avengers comic (#64 for those keeping score) where the villain, Egghead, threatens the world with the rhyme: “…up above the world so high, like a death ray in the sky…”?
I usually grab 4 or 5 magazines and maybe a book to browse through while I sip my vanilla latte, expecting to skim through the mags, reading 1 or 2 articles, then a chapter or two of the book. Instead, I spent my entire time at the “library” reading this one magazine almost cover-to-cover.
Like most magazines of their ilk (SciFi Now, SFX, etc.), it’s got a glitzy, “look at me put the articles sideways and in odd pieces” style that’s supposed to make it all fresh and happenin’ but which usually just gives me a headache. However, this is the first such magazine that made me put down the Excedrin and keep reading. They fill the articles with actual information! And they don’t assume that a non-scifi geek would bother picking up a magazine called “Death Ray,” so they don’t bother pretending it’s for the masses. Thus, instead of an article about the Silver Surfer that focuses on all the cool special effects for the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, we get a 2-page spread on the history of Stan Lee’s “Jesus crossed with Hamlet” and the nuances between Jack Kirby’s original and the Lee/Buscema makeover.
This is truly a magazine for geeks.
It’s a little off in timing, as it’s a British publication. So, we’re just getting Issue 1 a month later, but that doesn’t hurt it too badly (other than reviews for Heroes episodes that only go up through “Company Man” from February). Besides that, it’s chock full of scifi/fantasy goodness.
Posted in Wouldya Lookit That!
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London Calling
Got a phone call from “The Daughter” this morning at 6:30. Her Girl Scout troop has arrived in the UK for their whirlwind European Tour: England, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and The Netherlands.
I know what you’re thinking: “Didn’t she already go to Europe? And how come you’re not jealous?”
Well, yes, she did, you observant reader. She scampered around the place taking pictures of stuff 4 years ago as part of People-to-People. And jealousy is for lesser folk. I prefer to think of it as sending her on a scouting mission to tell me where the best places to find wienerschnitzel might be when I eventually win the Lotto.
This time, she provided most of the funds herself through tremendous cookie salespersonship. There’s only 3 left in a group of girls that started when she was a pre-K Daisy Scout, and between them they have sold over 12,000 boxes of cookies the past few years. So, they get to live their dream of “bridging” (it’s a Girl Scout graduation ritual) on the Tower of London (London Bridge being moved to Arizona they say).
Posted in Life, the Universe and Everything
6 Comments
Yarp
Shrek = Predictable. Still funny. Not enough Puss. Merlin rocks.
Pirates = Fun. Long. And, um, long.
Hot Fuzz is still the best movie I’ve seen all year, and I can’t believe that everyone I mention it to goes, “Huh? What’s that?”
Even sadder is that when I say it’s by the Shaun of the Dead guys, I still get blank looks.
Heathens.
Posted in The Big Screen
13 Comments
Barry me not
I know it’s like complaining that there’s going to be snow in Maine (well duh), but how bad is it that we already have the second named tropical storm on the first day of hurricane season? At least we’re finally getting some rain to put out all those fires.
I’m getting bored with Florida. Not bored enough to go back and endure 9 months of winter and 3 months of bad skiing, but still…
Posted in Life, the Universe and Everything
7 Comments
MLB: We don’t cotton to that there internet thang…
Quick! Think of another organization more prone to stupid decisions and shooting itself in the foot than Major League Baseball.
Can’t do it, can ya?
It’s getting such that every word out of their official mouths sounds like it came from the mind of Jethro Bodine.
The latest one (or at least the latest I’ve heard) is that they are telling Slingbox owners that their device is illegal. Now, I don’t own one of these nifty devices that let you view your TV from anywhere you have an internet connection, but give me a break. MLB says that just because you now have the ability to watch cable that you paid for on your own television set remotely, you’re violating the team’s right to its content. Not quite as stupid as telling people they own the rights to baseball statistics, but pretty close.
If I were still the road warrior I once was, I would definitely be inclined to get one of these doohickeys. How can MLB look at some truck driver a thousand miles from home and tell him he can’t watch his home team broadcast on the cable TV he paid for using his mobile phone that he paid for via internet access that he paid for? (“Nein! You must vatch zee game in your own lazy boys! Remote access ist verboten!”)
Posted in Baseball, Rants 'n' Whines
4 Comments