So as most of you guys know there was an earthquake in the area the other day. My Xbox 360 was a casualty. It fell off the top of my TV and was working fine at first but then I got the dreaded three flashing rings. Thankfully Microsoft extended the warranty coverage for any 360 suffering from the RROD so they will repair it for free. There is a pre-paid shipping box headed my way and all I have to do is put my 360 in it and send it off. I was very impressed with how easy it was to submit a repair request on the Microsoft website. It took a whole 5 minutes, if that. Thankfully I still have the Gamecube to keep me occupied, not to mention I'll be out of town for most of next week. So long 360, you will be missed.

Spike After the Fall #1 (4 Issue Series) by Brian Lynch

Wondermark: Beards of our Forefathers by David Malki

Looks pretty darn sweet.

Give Up

The DC speculators are convinced the Tim Kaine will be Obama's VP. Civil rights lawyer, law professor, new to high office (not a beltway insider). Sounds like a good fit. He's also pro-life, a Catholic and spent a year as a Christian missionary. That might help the ticket in some demographics. He was only elected governor in 2005, so that doesn't add a lot of experience to the ticket. My favorites are probably still Sebelius, Edwards and especially Richardson, but I think Kaine would be great.

After many attempts, I finally met Wil Wheaton at Comic-Con. He's one of the reasons this blog exists, a talented actor, and an amazing writer. If you haven't checked out The Happiest Days of Our Lives yet, I highly recommend it. I read the whole thing in two sittings. I also got a copy of his limited edition chapbook, Sunken Treasure, which I'm also almost done with. Thanks again, Wil, for being so nice and chatting it up with me. When I told him who I was he said, "You look exactly like I thought you would!" which made Phil and I chuckle. Even though I didn't get to meet Paul Reubens, meeting Wil certainly made up for that and then some. You can check out the rest of my Comic-Con pics here.

As is pretty well-known, I was mostly interested in seeing The Dark Knight because everyone else was talking about it. I did go back and re-watch Batman Begins this weekend, to remind myself of why I only liked it a little and not a lot. The good news is that I liked it slightly more this time around, although it already feels a little dated and there are still many clumsy aspects to it. To me, it feels like Nolan used the first movie to find his footing, and the second is the full realization of what a his type of Batman movie can be. I thought that all the talk of The Dark Knight would turn out to by hype, but to my surprise, it was much more of a movie than I ever would have expected.

Now that the obligatory origins story has been told and Batman has established double way of life, the movie can get straight to work with the challenges of one villain and the rise of another. I don't want to re-hash everything that I've already been reading online, because then I'll just be stealing ideas from everyone else. But what I liked about this movie was the way it felt so complete. There are villains, but they aren't just there to be antagonists to Batman (although one could argue that one is), they are also there to pose many ethical questions and force Batman and Gotham to answer them. While some may argue that Batman isn't given enough screen time, I didn't even notice, because the prominence of the other characters in the movie is what propels him to grow as a person and become more of a hero than he imagined he could be. He transitions from trying to save Gotham through force to saving Gotham through submissiveness as a scapegoat. I felt like the movie offered so much to ponder that I'll definitely see it again.

I love that the casting just keeps getting better and better. I was a huge fan of Gary Oldman and Christian Bale back in the day, so it was so exciting the first time around to see them in these roles. But to add Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart was a very smart choice. Both were growing favorites of mine, although neither were particularly prominent in the general audience's eyes. Both performers prove why they were chosen, especially Ledger, who definitely steals the show. It's a shame that we'll never get to see more from him. He was hardly ever given a decent script to work with, but always shone despite that. Thankfully, he went out with an iconic performance that will last in the minds of moviegoers for years to come. The only casting choice I didn't care for was Maggie Gyllenhaal. While she's a strong actress, her look doesn't seem to fit with the classic features of the other actors in the movie. It didn't help that she has a joker smile of her own (or is that somehow intentional?). She did a capable job, but I just wasn't sold on her.

The big question on my mind now is how Nolan will handle other villains in the Batman franchise, especially the more flamboyant ones (after all, the first few villains we have seen are relatively normal - a man, a painted man, and a facially disfigured man). Will he take the outrageous and dial them down to fit his more realism-rooted take on the world of Gotham, or will he try to find the more physically normal-looking villains who don't wear freakish costumes? I haven't read the comics, so I don't have much say in the matter, but from the animated series, Clayface was always the one who stood out to me. The depiction of him in that series was so.. gooey at first that I'm not sure I could see something like that fitting into the world that Nolan has created. We'll see.

Now, do I back down from my stance that WALL-E is the "movie of the summer"? No, but maybe there can be two movies of the summer. Each is so effective in its own way that I don't think I can choose one over the other. So that means everyone needs to spend at least $20 at the theater this summer. Okay?

Nickelodeon Puts Backcatalog on iTunes - AppScout

Nickelodeon today announced plans to sell a slew of new shows through Apple's iTunes video store. The children's network is making available a number of Nick Rewind "classics," including Rocko's Modern Life, Rugrats, As Told By Ginger, Hey Dude, Rocket Power, Clarissa Explains It All, and a handful of others.

No Pete and Pete, Salute Your Shorts, or You Can't Do That On Television, but this is definitely a start. I'm happy to see Rocko's Modern Life and Doug on the list as they were my favorite NickToons and of course I'm excited for Hey Dude. Since they only released one season of Clarissa on DVD I'm hoping we'll get more through iTunes. Maybe if they do well they'll even consider re-launching the DVD line and finally releasing the last Pete and Pete season.

Just a couple of weeks ago at our office birthday lunch, we were talking about earthquakes and how we haven't had one in a while. There are several people in our office who have never experienced one. Well now they know what it's like!

I guess I'm probably representative of native Californians. My first earthquake was the Whittier quake in 1986. I was so well trained for it because of school drills that I wasn't afraid, even at age seven. I don't remember anything about the Northridge quake. I do remember that one time, I was asleep and woke up because my bed was shaking a bit, and I thought, "Hmm, this one's not all that bad," and went back to sleep.

My office is on the middle floor of the administrative building, and I'm not near any walls or columns, so my floor shakes frequently. It feels like little earthquakes all the time. But today, the little quakes kept going and increased in strength. My 5-year plaque fell and must have flown a little bit (although I didn't notice), since I found it on the opposite side of my office with several scratch marks on it. My little Luigi fell and lost an arm temporarily. A picture frame fell. I didn't notice any of that. I stood up and thought, "What were we just talking about at the lunch? What did we decide is the best place to be in an earthquake?" Good thing it was a small one, because my brain didn't tell me to find shelter.

My co-worker and I both came out of the office with that "Hey, that was an earthquake!" look on our faces when it was over. All of us filed out to the lawn outside until security told us we could go back in. I think everyone is okay, but the first-timers were plenty scared. I hope they'll be able to see how it's really not such a big deal as nature's other methods of disaster, the tornado and the hurricane (which are much more frequent and often way more destructive).

Anyway, I hope everyone else is okay. We're thankfully all safe, and so is Ric!

Hulu - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

If you missed the first release window of Joss Whedon's amazing Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog you can now catch it in its entirety on Hulu. They also have individual episodes available. They announced a fourth episode at Comic-Con and a DVD release is on the way.

The success of Dr. Horrible is also significant because Joss made it in response to the writer's strike. This is a great way to show the networks that they aren't as all powerful as they think. Even if you're not a fan of Joss or of musicals, you have to give Joss props for that.

I only had two bites when I advertised on the university email system, but thankfully, one of them was reaaaallly interested in Stray Dog. She didn't care that he is older and has a few issues. I'm really glad that we were able to help this poor, friendly dog. I'll kind of miss him.

Obviously I loved The Dark Knight. I knew I would: everything I saw leading up to the release promised that it would be even better than Batman Begins. So while it's no surprise that I and just about everybody else in America loved it, I would still like to spend a little time elaborating on my specific reasons for loving it so much.

(By the way, I should mention that this blog post is going to be filled with spoilers throughout. If you haven't seen the movie, I suggest you go see it now. I'll still be here when you come back.)

I could go on about the improved bat-suit (I've always hated the cumbersome body armor--the new model is at least a step in the right direction), the excellent story (I started to wonder where the different threads were leading, but then the final two minutes of the film brought it all together perfectly), and of course Heath Ledger's amazing performance (what else needs to be said?).

As great as these things are, I'm not going to talk any more about them. What I really want to discuss are what I see as the major themes the film addresses. Batman has been around for nearly 70 years, and has seen many new interpretations in the comics. Comic books are like any other medium in that most of the output is crap, but there have been a few ideas about Batman in 70 years that are truly inspired. What Christopher Nolan has done in his films is take the best ideas and make them work together.

My favorite thing about Batman Begins was the emphasis on Batman/Bruce Wayne's dual nature. This is something I realized from watching The Animated Series: Billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne is just an act, and Batman is his true personality. It's a revelation the first time you realize this about Batman, and Nolan nailed it. The Dark Knight adds to it no fewer than three of my favorite concepts from the comics.

The film opens with the idea that Batman's very presence inspires a different class of criminal. I'm not sure where I read this first, but I know it's in some of Frank Miller's comics. It's an answer to the question of why Superman's villains go to prison but all of Batman's go to an insane asylum. I love how in The Dark Knight Batman's success in fighting conventional crime leaves the field open for the Joker to exist as a direct reaction to the newly imposed order. What follows is a brilliant interpretation of the Joker as an agent of pure anarchy which, while maybe always existed beneath the surface, has never been as overt as it is in The Dark Knight.

As the Joker becomes a force of pure anarchy, Batman becomes pure authoritarianism, which is the second revolutionary comic-book-derived theme presented in the film. The idea can be traced directly to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which, along with Watchmen, is credited as beginning the deconstruction of the superhero. Before 1986 superhero comics uniformly depicted their protagonists as superior beings who deserved to deal out their own justice by virtue of their special powers and their moral superiority. It was an unrealistically optimistic view. The Dark Knight Returns challenges this basic assumption by depicting a Batman who is very violent, sometimes cruel, and completely outside of the law. For the first time, a Batman comic book raised questions about what moral right a man has to appoint himself a crimefighter. Some of Frank Miller's written and spoken statements since then suggest that his personal opinions about the Batman are more positive than has often been assumed, The Dark Knight Returns can still be read as subverting the superhero archetype. Frank Miller revealed how authoritarian Batman really is, and the reader can judge the morality of it.

This idea is all over the new Dark Knight film, most significantly in the moment that Batman reveals a device that lets him spy on virtually every citizen in Gotham. It's also evident when he asserts that he alone, and nobody else, has the right to be going around in a costume fighting crime. This doesn't mean he's not heroic. Just as with The Dark Knight Returns comic, it's possible to cheer for Batman every step of the way and get thrills from watching him trounce the bad guys, but still recognize the basic moral contradiction behind his actions.

The third thing I was glad to see Nolan incorporate into the new film is not so much a theme as it is a story element or concept. Like I mentioned above, I was wondering for a while how the Joker and Two-Face story threads were going. I thought it was great that the struggle for Harvey Dent's soul also turned into Batman's ultimate fight against Joker's anarchy. The idea that the Joker intentionally took the most good and pure public figure in Gotham and drove him to insanity is lifted directly from The Killing Joke by Alan Moore. It's a pretty simple idea, but greatly executed in both cases. The philosophical struggle between Batman and Joker is far more intriguing than any physical battle could ever be.

So there you have it. These are the ideas that make The Dark Knight not just the best Batman movie, but probably the best superhero film ever made. And I emphasize film, because while people are talking about how this elevates the whole superhero genre, I must point out that all of the moral complexity and philosophical questions it contains were first introduced in the Batman comic books over twenty years ago. In other words, the greatest superhero film of all time has merely caught up to where comics were in 1986.

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a good weekend. We definitely did!

It started off with an unlikely movie offering - Son of Rambow at the cheap theater! I almost took a long drive and paid regular rates to see this movie. Now I'm glad I didn't, because you just can't beat having a limited release movie showing less than a mile away from work for only $1.50. I napped during the rest of the afternoon. The back needed rest. That evening, I drove over to Gron's for girls' night. Dan and Jenine were visiting from Boston, for the first time in a few years. The guys had their poker night while the girls went out on the town. We had a progressive dinner type of night. We started by walking a mile or so to Cafe Veronese, where we shared a fruit and cheese platter out in the garden. From there we went to Frati for some gelato, and we ate out on the patio, where we could hear a little bit of the music from Steamers. We kept on walking, to Stubrik's, for a little bit of nostalgia, some squaw bread, and a few drinks. We walked back to the apartment after that, and while a couple girls went home, I stuck around with Grace and Jenine. I played some piano pieces for them and we chatted. I was just about to leave when Ric told me the poker was almost over, so I waited and drove him home around 3am. It was just like the old days.

Saturday, I slept in, did a bit around the house (I'm trying to be more consistent with cleaning and chores - we'll see how long it lasts!) and then Ric and I captured the cat to take him to the vet. Pip is so funny. We never know what he's going to be like at a vet. He was good until the rectal thermometer was inserted, and then he started hissing. When the nurse went to remove it, Pip scooted forward so he could get it out as quickly as possible. Haha! We warned them that he can be testy, and they took it lightly. But when he took a good swipe at the vet, they started listening! We spent a lot of time waiting in the examination room and Pip spent most of that cowering with his head hidden under the nook of my arm. When the nurse came to take him away for a few vaccinations, she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and his eyes were the widest I had ever seen. We laughed pretty hard about that. When the nurse came back, she had the vet assisting her, and they had thrown a towel over Pip's head. They were laughing a lot, so my guess is that he wasn't very friendly. We now have a goal to help him lose a little weight (he's around 15 pounds) and we also have to give him eye ointment for a small infection three times a day. During checkout from the vet (which is in a PetSmart), some crazy dude kept meowing and poking at the cat carrier. We were a step away from telling him off, but I think it was a real mental issue, so I let it go.

In the evening, we drove out to the home of Wes and Liz, in Yorba Linda. It's a beautiful home, and it was fun to see their son Christian running around. He's very talkative and mellow at the same time. Loki the dog is crazy for attention as ever. Gron and Danine rounded out the group, and we all brought our own meats to barbecue. We talked the night away on the patio. As I was telling David earlier today, I think I had forgotten what it was like when we all got together - the conversation never lulls, the variety of topics is always interesting, and my friends are freakin' smart! I love listening to them. Ric and I drove home around one in the morning.

Sunday I was the only one who had the energy for church. Ric is still a bit tired out from his accident last week, plus all the social stuff wears him out as well. I hung out with the Andersons for a bit and then went home. We weren't sure whether or not everyone was getting together again, so we stayed around the house just in case. Ric got to work on the bathroom with a second coat of paint and installation of the light (which is actually in a nickel color, but you get the idea). I watched Batman Begins and napped. Lazy me. I was in a funk yesterday. In the evening, we went to Target, got some food, played some Xbox (yay for Paperboy downloads!), and watched an episode of Sledgehammer.

Up this week: nothing planned.. yet! *Update* Movie night on Wednesday, duh! And loads of fun in grocery land tonight!

Comic-Con 2008 was pretty epic. While I didn't get to go to as many panels as I had wanted to, I had a ton of fun and I got to meet a bunch of cool folks. If you missed it, the play by play is on my Twitter feed. I'll most likely upload pics tonight but I'll leave you with some highlights:

• The Zack and Miri Make a Porno panel was even better than I thought it would be. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks were both hilarious. The clip they showed had everyone rolling.
• Kevin's "Scream Like a Girl" panel with Pia Guerra, Lucy Lawless, Jaime King, and Gale Ann Hurd was really great too. Kevin and Lawless going back and forth was priceless, especially when he begged her to tell him who the final Cylon was.
• In what I think was a karma thing for Paul Reubens canceling, which, to be completely honest, was the person I was looking forward to meeting the most, I got to have a five minute conversation with Joss Whedon at the Hyatt on Saturday night. It was unreal.
• Frank Miller was sloshed pretty much all day Friday. His speech at the Eisners was rather amusing but also good.
• Archie from Watchmen looked just as cool up close as it does in the trailer.
• Meeting Wil Wheaton. Finally.
• Meeting and getting my books signed by David Malki, the creator of one of my favorite webcomics.
• Hanging out with Brian Lynch at the Eisners and on Saturday night. The guy is just plain awesome.
• Hanging out with the one and only Eric Wright on Saturday night.

It was a great time. I'm never not going for the full con again.

Here's a picture of Steph from yesterday evening. Her shirt says, "I can grow people."

Monday is supposed to be the day.... We'll let you know!

Mongol is the story of the formative years of Genghis Khan. Temudjin is his name as a child, and this movie begins by showing us Temudjin at age nine, when he needs to choose a wife. It continues all the way until he starts to become powerful. The movie is in Mongolian and shot in Kazakhstan.

From the advertisements, my assumption was that this movie was more like the entire life story of Genghis Khan. I thought I'd be watching a lot of battles. But instead, this movie shows what his background was and the road that led him to his rise to power. My assumptions made me a little bit impatient while watching Mongol, which definitely moves at its own pace as the years and events pass by. It could probably have used a little bit of editing, but I guess I didn't mind because the movie was great to look at.

The movie has a couple of main story focuses. One is the love between Temudjin and his chosen wife, Borte, which begins at age nine but is a love that has to endure many absences from each other. Their dedication to one another as they both take turns getting captured and trying to save each other throughout the entire movie. They would do anything for the other, and both understand that it doesn't matter how that is accomplished, as long as they have each other. I liked the scene where Borte shows up to break Temudjin out of prison, and she has a child that was conceived and born while he was locked away (she slept with a man to get transportation across some drastic plains). He asks the girl's name inconsequentially, and then Borte tells her daughter that this is her new father and that she should forget about her old one.

The other focus of the movie is Temudjin's struggle to become Khan. It was his rightful title when his father, the previous Khan, died, but the villagers refused to recognize him as an authority figure. He has many encounters with other villages and their leaders, and his biggest encounter is actually between him and his blood-brother, Jamukha. The two form an early friendship (filled with some funny moments as well), but as the dynamics of being individual leaders escalate, they are forced apart. I liked that they still admire each other, even as they go into battle against one another.

I think my exposure to Mongolia has been limited to Ewan McGregor's The Long Way Round, so watching a few hours of the Mongolian environment was a pleasure. Director Sergei Bodrov features the landscape in wide, airy shots, and I don't think there was ever a moment where a screen shot looked vertically-minded. One could always feel the vastness of Temudjin's surroundings, and the isolated and unprotected nature of all of the villages.

Overall, Mongol is a new experience, but not perfect. It could use a few edits to bring it down in length, and some of the action sequences could be better filmed. But it's a movie that captures a culture, and unlike the usual focus of movie-making, it tells a relatively unfamiliar story about a famous person in history. It's wonderful to look at, and, while flawed, is an interesting and enjoyable experience.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Iron monger

Originally uploaded by brendoman

At marvel booth
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

My Friday plans are pretty simple. I'm going to get up pretty early, pack up my bags since we're switching hotels that day, take the shuttle to the convention center, check my bags, and camp out in the Hall H line. I'll then spend the rest of my day there.

I've done the Hall H campout once before, back in 2005, and I did it solo. It was no easy task. Thankfully the latest Harry Potter book had just come out so that kept me entertained. This time around I've got a bunch of books, my iPod, my EEE, and my DS. I think I'll be covered. I also have some companions along for the ride. The first panel of the day in Hall H is the Watchmen panel and later in the day Kevin has his two panels. The first one is him with Frank Miller, Zach Snyder, and Judd Apatow while the second is his solo panel about Zack and Miri with "special guests." In recent years the rule of thumb for Hall H is that once you leave, the odds are good that you aren't making it back in. So since Watchmen is the first panel and Kevin's is the last, I'm going to be there all day. Good times.

If anyone wants to hang out or play some DS or something, hit me up here (I'll have the laptop), via e-mail (I'll have my blackberry) or via Twitter, which is also where I'll be posting live updates throughout the Con. I'm coming in to work in the morning tomorrow but I'm off at lunch to catch the train down. Hopefully everything will go smoothly and I'll make it with plenty of time to check in to the hotel before Preview Night starts. Hope you guys all have a fun week here. Don't be afraid to post in my absence.

We saw Hellboy II last weekend. I wanted to see it, but had my doubts about it because the trailer seemed to show that the movie was more about visuals than it was about substance. In a way, I think my assessment was right, although the movie was better than I thought it would be.

This story isn't directly connected with that of the first Hellboy movie, which told the origins of its main character. Here, Hellboy and his team secretly fight evil creatures, but the big red guy wants to be able to go public with his personality. When he does, the public isn't so fond of him. Then, a prince from the other world decides to attack the people world (I'm using official terms, of course) because people have not kept their bargain from a treaty made long ago between humans and other creatures.

For the most part, I enjoyed this movie. It has a lot of great colors, great looking creatures, and some really awesome action sequences. My favorite scenes involve fighting the Golden Army and fighting the giant forest god (which was a scene that had more significance than any other to me).

I don't have anything against Doug Jones, but I do think that David Hyde Pierce's voice is very distinct, and was one of the things I loved the most in the first Hellboy movie. I did miss the presence of his voice, although it was nice to see Doug Jones take more ownership of Abe Sapien's character.

There are a few odd visual and musical choices in the movie. The opening scenes, with a flashback to Hellboy as a child, were good for the storytelling aspect, but Hellboy as a child was incredibly annoying, especially the fact that his mouth couldn't sync with what he was saying. As for musical choices, there were a few pieces used that didn't really fit in with the editing of the film very well. My sister and I love Travis, so when we heard the first notes of "All I Wanna Do is Rock" we got excited, only to find that the song was cut off before there was ever a chance for the music to make a connection with the story being told.

I also wish that this movie had done a little bit more with the character of Hellboy than it did. There were a few attempts to pose ethical conflicts, but when compared with the rest of the comic movies I've seen this summer, they didn't seem very significant. The baby angle seemed a little contrived to me, but I don't know if that's going to be a significant plot point in the next Hellboy installation, so I guess I can't complain too much yet.

Basically, the wonders of Del Toro's mind are beautiful to look at, and Hellboy II was a feast for the eyes, but not so much for the soul. It was a fun action movie, and I'm sure I'll watch it again one day, but it certainly isn't as good as the other big name movies coming out this summer.

So, I feel like I've been up to everything and nothing over the past few days!

On my short Friday, I picked up some cash and food and met up with my sister, and we drove out to the Westpark 8 again, to see Mongol. That's right. Everybody's going crazy over Batman, and I wanna go see a movie about Genghis Khan's origins. Review to come.

That evening, Ric and I got a chance to hang out with Kristen for the first time in over two years. We had dinner at Islands and drinks at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. It was a great time of catching up with each other.

Saturday, I slept in, and puttered around the house a lot, either cleaning, working out, or keeping up with blogs and emails. In the evening, I met up with Ric and Todd, and we drove out to Brea to get in line for The Dark Knight. We ate Flame Broiler while we waited, and then Jenny joined us for the movie. Review to come for that as well.

Sunday, we went to church with the Andersons and chatted for a while, then to Del Taco for lunch, Game Stop for Ric to buy an XBox, and then spent several hours at home, relaxing. I got a good portion of Atlas Shrugged done, and now I'm almost at the halfway point. I'm not sure I've ever read anything like this, and I am really enjoying it. In the evening, we ran errands at Target, my parents' house, and Ric's parents' house. I'm pretty sure we watched a couple episodes of Sledgehammer, too.

Monday was a crazy day. Although it was Ruth's birthday, the day took a bad turn for Ric pretty early on, when he was rear-ended at a stoplight by a Dodge Ram traveling at 40-45 miles an hour. I spent half the day picking him up from the dealer, taking him to the doctor, and helping him get a rental car. He is doing remarkably well, I think, and is mostly just sore. I'm very thankful that he's doing well, and that it's a company car that we don't have to pay for. In the evening, Ric and I started watching Goonies together, until Ric fell asleep. I watched a Ginger Rogers movie called Tight Spot, which I will review soon, although I'm not going to recommend that you watch it.

Today I've got a dinner at Roman Cucina to celebrate Ruth's birthday! I'm looking forward to it. Dan and Jenine will be in town this weekend, which I am soooo excited about!

Thanks to Danny's help, I added Gravatar support to the comments. All you have to do to have your own avatar show up is sign up at Gravatar's site and make sure you use whatever email you used to sign up there to comment here.

It appears that The Dark Knight has taken over the world, having pulled in $158 million for the opening weekend. Dang. In honor of this I made a new poll asking what you think is the best live action Batman movie.

As far as The Dark Knight goes, what is there to say that hasn't been said? I thought it was amazing. For me, it somehow even managed to exceed the insane amount of hype it's been (justly) receiving the past several months. The performances were great. The Joker was absolutely insane. Unlike a lot of people, it seems, I didn't have a problem with Bale's "Batman voice." If you saw the film on a regular screen, do yourself a favor and check it out on IMAX. It's incredible.

For those who are curious, I was pleased to see that the majority of voters enjoyed Indy 4. I'm still surprised at the dogpile that the film has received, especially on the internet. I honestly don't know what people were expecting. Perhaps some things are best left in the past, but I'm still happy we got to see Doctor Jones put on the fedora one more time.

I'm leaving for Comic Con in a day and half. Oh man, I'm pumped.

edit: Per Kyle's suggestion I've added Mask of the Phantasm.

I bought Beck's latest album last week and have been listening to it repeatedly, trying to develop a firm opinion of it. I don't have much time, but I wanted to at least write a few words about what I think.

It's really pretty good. I love the production style that Danger Mouse brought to the record, especially on Chemtrails and Walls. There's enough going on to keep things interesting, but not so much that it's overproduced, leaving a rough, edgy quality to it that I love. A few of the songs on the album are a little forgettable, but the two tracks I mentioned are amazing, and the rest of the album is generally solid as well.

Right now I think I place Modern Guilt at about the same level as Sea Change, which didn't wow me at first, but grew on me over time.

Here, then, is my ranking of Beck's albums in order from greatest to least:

Mellow Gold
One Foot In The Grave
Odelay
Mutations
Midnite Vultures
Sea Change
Modern Guilt
The Information
Guero
Stereopathetic Soulmanure
A Western Harvest Field By Moonlight
Golden Feelings

So, it seems the first big storm of the season is heading towards the Gulf of Mexico. At the moment, it is called Tropical Storm Dolly, but they are saying there's a chance it could be Hurricane Dolly by tomorrow. The path seems to be taking it to southeast Texas, so Houston doesn't seem to be in the main line, but apparently we are still in the "forecast cone," meaning we will likely see heavy rain and/or winds Tuesday and mostly Wednesday. Although we are hoping we don't have the heavy winds, we could really use the rain. Last summer it rained nearly every day for about a month. This summer, our grass is dying because it is so dry. So, we'll see what happens tomorrow!

I just added support for Gravatars in the comments of this site. What that means is that you can go to gravatar.com, sign up for a free account, upload your picture, and then the picture will appear next to your comments on this site and any others that support it. It's keyed off your email, so make sure that you enter the same email address when you comment here that you used to set up your Gravatar account.

I took the idea from Henry and Brendon explained it to me. If you use b2evolution and want to add this feature to your site, email me and I'll tell you how I did it. It's very simple. Too simple to even bother with a plugin. You just edit your skin and add a few lines of code.

I have a few more thoughts on Watchmen, and then I promise I'm going to quite blogging about it for a while.

After watching the trailer a couple more times I've decided I'm not ready to discount the movie yet. I do think the tone of the trailer is completely wrong for the story, but I realize that a lot of movie marketing is designed to pander to the audience rather than faithfully represent the complete film. It's very possible that the movie itself is not nearly as melodramatic as the trailer makes it appear.

What the trailer does give us a strong feel for is the look of the film, which in this case is very glossy and overproduced--but then again, the trailer mostly shows special effects shots. Could the rest of the film have a more toned-down, realistic look to it? Let's hope so.

Even if I suspend judgment on these things, I still have a big problem with the CG Dr. Manhattan. Every filmmaker in Hollywood should have figured out by now that aesthetically speaking, creating CG humans is a bad idea. Computer animation works great for monsters and other imaginary creatures, but when it comes to making something look like a real person, there's no substitute for...a real person. There's also no reason to use anything else, because Dr. Manhattan does not do anything in Watchmen that cannot be done with conventional special effects. Flying, teleporting, being in three places at once, growing to 50 feet tall--all of these things have been done with human actors in movies for decades. The only additional bonus of creating a CG Manhattan is that the audience will look at it and say, "Wow. That's a very CG-looking blue guy."

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Entertainment Weekly has a Q & A with Mr. Moore. It's a pretty fluffy piece with stuff Moore has said elsewhere, but it's nice to see they're including his dissenting opinion in the midst of their Watchmen movie promotion.

I laughed when I read this:

About two years ago, Warner Bros. announced that 300 director Zack Snyder would be adapting that gold standard of comics, Watchmen, into a feature film. The response was nothing short of orgiastic — from just about everyone except Watchmen's own scribe, Alan Moore, who remains ambivalent about all the hoopla.

I would describe his attitude as anything but ambivalent.

I'm actually a little impressed with the interviewer, though, who shows a pretty thorough knowledge of and respect for Moore's career and takes the time to ask him about League Vol. III and his upcoming prose novel, Jerusalem.

And then there are the really hard-hitting questions that other people are afraid to ask, like whether or not he'll ever shave his beard. At least Moore seemed to be a good sport about it:

Should I need to disappear, then, if you see a sort of bald guy with a really bad shaving rash going around somewhere, then that will probably be me.

Can't wait to see this trailer on the IMAX screen tomorrow night.

edit: In the time between when I watched the teaser and when I posted the video, it got taken down. If anyone finds a good link, post it in the comments. It will be in front of The Dark Knight though.

edit 2: Film School Rejects has a copy up. Go! Go! Go!

edit 3: Found new version to embed.

Being a fan of Night Watch (not to be confused with this terrible movie) and Day Watch, once I found out that director Timur Bekmambetov was in charge of Wanted, I was sold. And, perhaps, Scotsman James McAvoy had a teeny bit to do with my wanting to see the movie.

I barely knew anything about Wanted when I walked into the theater, except that it's about a guy who is suddenly thrust from a boring life into a world of professional assassins. And, that basically is the premise. Wesley works in a cubicle and is living the Office Space life with a witch of a boss. He has a girlfriend, who cheats on him with his work buddy, and he has almost no money. One day at the store, a beautiful woman approaches him to let him know his father, an assassin, was just killed, and that the man who killed his father is now after him. The man in question arrives and a shootout and car chase ensues, and soon Wesley is told that he has inherited everything from his father and can join the assassination crew, who (get this) receive the lists of whom they are to kill by reading flaws--which translate to binary-- in a fabric that is pieced together by a giant loom. No joke.

When the movie first started, it felt a little bit hokey. The first big scene where the audience was exposed to the special assassin tactics (they are actually born with the ability to sort of experience the world in slow motion by adapting the speed of their own bodies) made the audience laugh. There's a lot of time spent in exposition at Wesley's work, which seemed like it could be edited down a bit. And McAvoy's American accent sounds a little bit odd as well.

But, when the story gets moving, all the hokey feels like a friendly hokeyness, like you might experience while watching a humorous Asian action film. It's kind of like Fight Club meets Kung Fu Hustle.. or maybe Rumble in the Bronx would be a better comparison.

Anyway, the idea of weavers (Josh, when the movie started, I thought they were using "weavers" in the Robert Jordan sense, but they were actually talking about guys who weave fabric!) and the loom of fate, as I like to call it, are ridiculous. But the movie has a fun sense of humor and some great action sequences. One certainly laughs at some of the ridiculousness, but once I saw a certain sequence with rats in it, I was sure that the filmmakers wanted (hey, that's the name of the movie!) us to laugh.

By the end, we all walked out thoroughly entertained, even despite the fact that the movie's big secret was revealed while the sound went out in our theater. If I were you, I'd probably wait to see it at the cheap theater, but obviously, only for those of you who like weird, funny, sometimes tasteless, and sometimes bloody action flicks.

Here it is (sigh).

The more I see of this film the more disappointed I prepare myself to be. From the looks of this footage, Zack Snyder has turned the most complex and sophisticated superhero story in the history of comic books into a glitzy CGI-fest.

I don't mean any personal disrespect to Snyder. I think he did well with 300, a comic book that is itself all style and little substance. But for a movie to capture the subtlety of Watchmen it must have a director who is willing to resist the temptation for big special effects shots and create a realistic world populated with authentic human beings, and I just don't see that here.

What I do see are lots of special effects and flashy CGI shots.

I understand that this is just a trailer, and it may be playing up the action to get people interested, so I'll reserve final judgment for when the film comes out. I have to say, though, that I'm not expecting much. It may turn out to be a fine summer action blockbuster, but I doubt it will come anywhere near the subtle complexity of the source material.

mental_floss Blog » The Quick 10: 10 Random Facts About Disneyland

"The Happiest Place on Earth" is 53 today. I'm sure it's no where near as crowded as it was during my first week of working there on the 50th anniversary. As much as I sometimes dislike the place, I love it even more. It's one of the places that I will always have fond memories of, that while it's changed quite a bit in the last 53 years, it still has an element of timelessness to it. There's something special about going there and being able to stand in the same spot in front of the castle that I stood when I was three years old, holding my father's hand and looking in wonder. Maybe I'm just a big sap, but if you've been there more than once, you probably know what I'm talking about.

There's going to be a panel at Comic-Con with Dan Akroyd and Ernie Hudson. It's during another panel I really want to go to, but I might just skip that.

Wow, I thought I'd be up to almost nothing this week, but actually, I've only been home long enough to sleep and watch the premiere of Project Runway.

Monday at work, we all went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant to celebrate some birthdays. That night I went grocery shopping and figured I'd rest, but Ric was up for a movie, so we went to see Semi-Pro. Review to come, as always! The list gets longer and longer.

Tuesday, we had an office party at work for the birthdays. That afternoon, I got an IM from Tina, an old friend from high school, who said that Gina, another one of my friends from high school, was in town and they wanted to have dinner together. I have missed almost every time they have invited me to hang out because I'm either out of town or already have something I have to go to. So, they finally caught me on a day when I had no plans, and we all caught up with each other at the Yard House in Irvine. After the restaurant, we asked the Merry-Go-Round attendant to take our photo, and she actually let us ride for free before the photo shoot. That was nice of her. It was good to catch up with old friends, although also a little bit weird to realize how much time has passed and how many things have gone on in our lives that we missed out on.

Here we are, 5 years after the last time we saw each other (my wedding) and 10 years after the last time we hung out together. I think I'm the only one who looks almost exactly the same. I don't like change:

Wednesday we didn't have any parties at work, but we went to a financial advising appointment and then had movie night with Ryan and Amy. My dad called last-minute to say that Stray Dog needed some food, so we make a quick stop before movie night to pick up some food from the store and drop it by my parents' house. My dad had taken the dog to get groomed. He's a cutie. Anyone want to adopt a friendly abandoned dog?:

On top of all that, we're meeting up with Kristen tomorrow evening. I'm hoping that I'll have time enough tonight to actually see the upstairs of my condo and do some dishes too.

Seinfeld - Season 6

The Annotated Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I had a dream last night that Eric wrestled a pudgy, older Ultimate Warrior. Seriously, I have no idea where that came from.

Last night I saw Hellboy 2 with Curtis. It was all kinds of awesome. If you haven't seen it yet, go. Guillermo Del Toro is my hero.

The Bible Unearthed is a 90-minute documentary that aired on the History Channel. The sound gets a little out of sync on this YouTube video, but I haven't been able to find a better version. If you can't stand it, check your TV listings or just read the book that it's based on. The video discusses the Old Testament stories in relationship with what we can determine through history and archaeology.

The picture that emerges is very different from the story that the Bible tells. During the seventh to fifth centuries BC the nations of Israel and Judah were coalescing. Religion and history were both crafted to set the nations apart from the surrounding people. Their mythologies were eventually combined and revised into what we call the Old Testament. I guess that's why there are two versions of several stories in the Bible (e.g., creation and 10 the commandments). It's also possible that monotheism is not as old at the Bible suggests. The fledgling Jewish nations may have selected a god from the pantheon and declared that he was the only true god, not unlike what Muhammad did with Allah. There is certainly evidence that El, a very early name for the Jewish god, was part of the pantheons of several of the surrounding cultures.

I would love to hear what you think of the video. I just requested the book from the library.

I wasn't all that interested in WALL-E based on the trailers I saw, but I knew one thing: the movie was being made by Pixar. That alone is enough to get me to the theater, although I admit it's taken me a while to learn that lesson. I think the only mistake Pixar has ever made was the vocal casting in Finding Nemo (but I know I'm a minority on that one). So, Ric and I ran out to see the movie in its opening weekend.

Now, I have almost no anticipation for the rest of the summer, because I'm pretty sure I just saw the best movie that the summer has to offer. Am I exaggerating? I don't think so. WALL-E is full of creativity, made me feel more than I've felt at any movie this year, and was the simplest and most complex movie I've seen this summer. It could melt the coldest of hearts and is enjoyable for all ages. What else could you ask for?

Shoot. I've got to get to an appointment. Here's the quick lowdown. The movie is funny, sad, romantic, adventurous, and many other emotions rolled into one. It's a timely piece that criticizes our current generation. It looks wonderful and the textures are better than ever by Pixar. Even the credits look amazing.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and sing its praises to everyone. And now, the generic entertainment magazine quote, which is entirely appropriate here: if you see one movie this summer, see WALL-E.

Gotta run!

Plain View #89 - June 89, 2008

end of summer school

upcoming trip

treadmill

ipod

bourne flicks

no country for old men

crash

silly summer shows

will - church & the devil

Tumblr

subscribe
to this podcast!

I just realized how freaking busy I'm going to be the next few months.

7/23-27: Comic-Con
8/6-10: Road trip to Tomfest with Phil
8/15-17: Catalina (maybe)
8/22: Crazy 4 Cult 2
9/20: Beck, MGMT, & Spoon at Hollywood Bowl
9/26-27: 10 Year Reunion #1

Am I forgetting anything? I hope not.

I've said it before and now I can re-affirm it: I'll buy a Wii whenever Animal Crossing is released. According to this it will be released at the end of this year. I was hopelessly addicted to the DS version of Animal Crossing and now I'm plunging into the Gamecube version, which is fantastic.

I'm convinced that Animal Crossing is the perfect game for OCD types like myself. It's the ultimate collecting game and also has some God game features to boot. I'm definitely looking forward to the Wii version. Hopefully it will have some great online features.