Dare… to Believe You Can Tonight
raininva bought the Director’s Cut of Daredevil the other day, and I realized one of the things that dissatisfied me about the theatrical release. The story arc is almost completely pointless – there is little character growth and almost no resolution to anything. The minor character Joe “Pants” plays gets more growth than anybody, as he considers whether there are things out there more important than his next story.
Rulebooks and Reviews
I have another gaming credit now, from a different company, no less. The rulebook for WizKids’ “MechWarrior: Age of Destruction” has been posted in PDF format, and Rain and I sit comfortably on page 47 as playtesters.
Rain and I watched “The Thomas Crown Affair” and “All The Queen’s Men” this weekend. ATQM was only worth watching for Eddie Izzard’s lines – it didn’t seem to know whether it was a comedy, a romance, or an espionage caper, so it failed at all three. And while I wouldn’t suggest that years of experience playing Shadowrun qualifies Rain and me as intelligence agents, that experience did reveal several big plot issues to us long before the trained secret agents noticed them. “Thomas Crown” opened and closed with better capers – the ending had us going, “Ohhhhhh…” – but the hour in the middle was tedious and irritating.
We’ve noticed in movies like “Ocean’s Eleven”, “National Treasure”, and these two that we’re often a little ahead of the film’s twist; this adds to the fun if the movie’s good anyway, and makes a weak movie weaker.
In the spirit of the breakdancing Soundwave, here’s another transforming mech that wants to boogie While I’m linking, southernsinger should find the premise behind this comic strip strangely familiar.
Happy belated birthday to jazzfish 🙂
Yub Nub!
Y’know, the fan commentary on the release of DVD Star Wars is just further proof to me that I’m abnormal: I have never found the Ewoks annoying. I always thought their victory was a metaphor for the fact that the Empire’s arrogance and brutality were in fact its biggest weakness. Or, in the Princess’ words, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
Jar-Jar, on the other hand, I’ll give you.
Ooops, almost forgot my towel
Back a few years ago, there was a a BBC Radio program called “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” broadcast in two Phases of 6 episodes each. This program spawned two novels (with a slightly altered plot), a computer game (with a further altered plot), a TV series (with a even more altered plot), a towel (with no plot to speak of), and an upcoming Hollywood film (three guesses).
There were three more “Hitchhiker’s” novels which have not been adapted into any other form and thus needed no plot alterations… until now. BBC Radio has posted streaming audio of Phase Three, Epsiode One on their “Listen Again” website. Episode Two will be streamed live tomorrow, and posted to “Listen Again” sometime Thursday.
If you have a little trouble following the plot at the beginning of the first episode, worry not. We all are (see above).
Cat with Phonesaber
KayLee is spending less time under my bed, and more time perched on the living room windowsill, or sitting at the sliding glass backyard door looking out. She still prefers to be curled tight against me when she can manage it. In fact, she loves it when I’m lying on my bed with my knees up, typing on my work laptop; she then slides under my raised knees and goes to sleep, effectively immobilizing me.
I have a working phone now. This is a major load off my mind, and a great savings to my cell phone bill.
I hear that they finally did fix Ben and Vader’s lightsaber blades in the hangar bay fight of A New Hope. I’m going to end up doing what raininva wants to do with Dune: import all the versions into Final Cut Pro, and recut the thing myself. In an unrelated note, I hear that BitTorrent files of the old Original Edition laserdiscs are very hot right now for some reason.
Ben and Vader’s: sounds like a light-side / dark-side ice cream.
Yeah, think I better have some lunch before my blood sugar drops any farther.
Cargo Transfer
Moved more boxes last night – woke up quite sore! I cannot wait until electric power is back on at the new place and I can turn on the air-conditioning! It’s 90-100 degrees in that house, even after sunset. Naturally, I’ll be finishing the move from my single room before I get power back – so all my toting must be done in the heat, and preferably before dark. On the other hand, at least any folk who help us on the big move from the Salem apartment will have air-conditioning to enjoy.
It’s been weird enough living in a rented room with 2-3 roommates I rarely see. For a couple weeks, I’ll be living completely alone in a 3-bedroom house. I expect I’ll be playing lots of music to add some life to the place. Actually, for the second of those two weeks I’ll have the kitty with me – that will help.
Tonight I hope to catch up with Tom. I need to burn a CD of MPEGs for him.
Review: Starship Exeter
If you don’t have any interest in the original TV Star Trek, or low-budget film-making, you can skip this. A couple months ago, I was reading a back issue of Star Trek Communicator and I found a link to a Trek fan film called Starship Exeter. rattrap posted a similar link not long afterward, and this weekend I got around to downloading and watching this 2002 production.
Let’s start with what they did wrong. The script has a few “well why didn’t the characters do X?” moments. The aliens are a bit oddly acted in places, and the production crew admits to regretting a certain monster model.
That’s all. Everything else is freaking perfect. The costumes are right. The sets are right. The props are right, the sound effects are right, the characters are right out of 2270’s Starfleet. They even made their gorgeous CGI Constitution-class starship wobble at the same place the Enterprise used to wobble in certain shots. I was completely transported (no pun intended) back to a time when a determined humanity was making its mark in the Trek universe, whether alien races liked it or not.
This brings me to another point. Say all you want about certain cheesy aspects of classic Trek, it was one of the most high-budget TV shows of the 60’s – nobody did anything with better production values back then. Starship Exeter is so well-done that if it was showing on cable right now, it could fool you for a moment into thinking that you were watching another Roddenberry spin-off pilot. Low-budget film-making is catching up to Hollywood faster and faster – one reviewer stated that he’d rather watch Exeter than Nemesis.
This was a joy to watch, not just for the nostalgia overload, but as the herald of what’s to come for those of us with DV cameras and a few thousand bucks. I highly recommend it.
Cruel, cruel cable masters
The Sci-Fi Channel Loves Me! They are showing an original Bruce Campbell movie next year. Who cares if it sucks like most SFC movies; Campbell is a man who can make nearly anything watchable. If he’d been in Battlefield: Earth, I might not have wanted to projectile vomit while in the theater.
The Sci-Fi Channel Hates Me! (same article) They plan to do a miniseries next year of Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Excuse me while I curl up in a ball and whimper.
Movies! Music! Games! Parties!
For the first time since moving here, my weekend return to Salem was marred by traffic delays in both directions, both at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Neither time did I see an evidence of an accident – it was instead as if a claustrophobe had realized too late, “oh, I’m going through a tunnel!” and slowed to 15 mph, causing everyone for 6 miles back to have to slam on their brakes.
However, the Game Day / raininva‘s Party / Con Meeting / .Hack Session was lots of fun. Rain proved once again why she’s nearly indispensable to Rising Star, I demoed MegaMan, and Nick P. showed me a .Hack//Enemy deck which is no fun to play against :p I also got to say hi to a bunch of Blacksburgites who I don’t see as often as I did before the move – I might not be in B-burg again before Rising Star.
Despite reviewers’ best efforts, I have figured out the plot twist in The Village from reading reviews, just as I did in The Sixth Sense. The difference is that the deduction made me more interested in watching Willis and Osment, but I know I’m going to give this new movie a pass. Instead, rattrap nearly talked me into seeing Thunderbirds after all – at the very least, I can sit back and enjoy the CGI rescue vehicles.
Moving to Virginia Beach has certainly improved my concert situation. I saw a Chicago / Earth, Wind, & Fire doubleheader last month, and this month Blondie is playing a show less than 2 blocks from where I work. Yes, I am still all about the 80’s – if I can catch Duran Duran on their 2004 tour, I can check off two more bands that I always wanted to see.
Time to go fix another laptop…
Return of the Editor
Hard to say whether this is a forgery or not, but this web page claimes to have a revised clip of the last scene in Return of the Jedi. Yes, Sebastian Shaw’s face has been replaced with Hayden Christiansen’s.
*sigh*
