Chadzilla

The announcement that the Lizard would be the villain made my interest go from zero to "shit, I have to see this at midnight on opening day." Yeah, I can be bought that cheap.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Season One.

True. Quite true. There are very solid reasons for fidelity to the sourcer material ("It isn't broke, don't fix it" being a good one) and there are some excellent reasons for non-fidelity to the source material (JAWS being a fine example, the casting of Ledger - which had a lot people goung "THEY CASE WHO!?! WTF!!!" a few years back - as the Joker being another). Well, truth can be a very cold and very heavy burden. But the blunt truth is that there is, currently, a financial ceiling to "Black Cinema." Tyler Perry, the "Steven Spielberg" (in terms of box office success) of African-American film makers, has a gross cap in the 60 to 80 million dollar range. Solid box office, but still low enough for investors to give pause if Perry up and decides to make a 100 million dollar movie instead of his usual 20 to 30 million dollar movie. (Although his budgers were considerably lower back in the day. While it isn't overt, the money issue can certainly lead to concerns over "soft racism." How often has the "race really doesn't matter" arguement been used to gloss over the white washing of characters? The most recent dust-up was over the Anglofication of the live action characters in The Last Airbender. But there have been long and storied moments where a "minority" character was played by a decidedly non-minority performer. Joel Grey and Roddy McDowall playing Chiun in The Destroyer movie and TV pilot (respectively) and Jonathan Pryce playing a Vietnamese character in the Broadway production of (I believe) Miss Saigon. Although this practice was parodied to some good effect in Tropic Thunder, it still remains a disquieting practice, nonetheless.

Evidently, it did There are some interesting points in the editorial, to be sure. One thing is for certain, though. Tony Todd MUST play Uncle Ben.

Okay. Casa de Zilla has made it up to The Vampires of Venice* and I have to say that, so far, I have enjoyed every episode. Some are clunkier than others (Venice had some wince inducing moments and was the first ep that had the lady love spewing snarky talk back to the screen) but, on the whole, I would rate this current season as "above average." I like to think that the "off" feeling is more rooted in my foolish "Oh, this is going to be the scariest Dr. Who season in the history of ever, because the GREAT GOD MOFFAT is in charge!" expectations. My hopes for something akin to the Philip Hinchcliffe era remain, though. As uneven and rushed as some of the episodes feel, there is certainly a far darker undertone to the show than in the Russell T. Davies era. This Doctor, as others have noted, is far from perfect, makes promises that he cannot keep, and even makes mistakes that can get someone killed. I like. And so does the lady love! Her only comment to date about the Doctor was that the classic series was "lame" and that David Tennant was far too over-the-top and goofy. (Although she LOVED Blink) She much prefers the "Foppish" (her description) turn of Matt Smith, and I have to admit...he has really won me over. They made a good choice with him. While there has yet to be a "classic" for this season (but season is not over yet, though) I am confident that there will be some truly great stories and arcs forth coming from this creative team. The series is in good hands. EDIT: *The bit with the First Doctor library card was a chuckle inducing moment of sweet fan service. (Just as long as Moffat and Co. do not go overboard on the classic series callbacks. Nonetheless, they were nice to see in both The Eleventh Hour and The Vampires of Venice.)

Just finished the interview with Vincenzo Natali (someone my fuzzy brain insisted was VINCENT Natali for a few years) and it was AWESOME. Excellent work Des. Natali comes across as a really smart and down-to-earth (as well as HONEST) artist.

Caught up with it last night and found it to be bland and lifeless, but it didn't bore me. Haley was very good as Krueger and the movie had one classic line ("Why are you screaming? I haven't cut you yet.") in it. All in all the remake was about as good as either Freddy's Dead or The Dream Child were.

CHUD has posted the first "official" image from the film. Their synopsis (courtesy of Magnet, which picked up the film for distribution) reads: I would pay to see this on the big screen.

Source Nononononononono! She QUIT! She said so! See!?! [Cosby]Rrrrrriiiiiight[/Cosby]

I went on Sideshow binge awhile back (expensive one, too) and nabbed almost every single one of their Friday the 13th series 12 inch dolls/action figures. I have Mrs. Voorhees and the Jasons from Friday the 13th Parts 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X (only that one is the traditional Jason and not the badass cyborg variant from later in the movie...they haven't done that one yet, WTF!?!) The only one that I missed out on was the Freddy Vs. Jason Jason. I also am holding out hope that they will complete the set and do the bogus Jason from Part 5 and the soggy Jason from Part 8. Some day, maybe. I also have an adorable Sam figure from Sideshow, as well as a Gorn, a Coutn Dooku, some Movie Maniacs figures (Michael Myers, The Thing, Pumpkinhead) and some Puppet Master figures. I also got a Harley Quinn for Christmas from the Lady Love (finding a geeky gal to share my life was and is pure bliss.)

A set of wheels truly worthy of blasting Highway to Hell from. When my ship comes in, I am totally getting a Lincoln Mark III and having George Barris customize it...just becausse I could.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Damn episodes are like potato chips.

You can always take his pic from the Birdemic thread and Avatarize it...literally. Just use that "make me a Navi" program.

I think that was intentional. For most of the film Teddy is man uncertain of himself, he is wounded and not at peace. At the end he is at peace. It is during that one moment on the steps that we (the audience) truly see the man that he really was/is.

Same goes for Dick Van Dyke, Peter O' Toole, Joe Spinell and William Holden. EDIT: D'oh!!! RICHARD BURTON

...AND!?!

I caught a sneak peek of Greg Lamberson's Johnny Gruesome (the long-form music video promo trailer) at a convention that Lamberson was a guest at way back in 2007. I haven't read the book yet, but I did buy the tie-in album based on the video. 2007??? Damn, the time just flies by.

A legit DVD release of The Boogens would be nice. Oh, and a week where I could do nothing but lounge around the house and read. That would be nice.

Enjoyed it almost as much as the first one. My son and I were STOKED by the after credits bit.

I'll be seeing it in about 2 or 3 hours. Just sharing that because I know y'all are insterested...

Nice to know Joe Dante cares enough to try and get another movie out there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF79PYsVP04 With the current 3D craze hot I can only hope a studio takes a chance on this, as I would really like to see it on the big screen and in 3D.

He had a meeting with his doctor yesterday and I just decided it wasn't worth it. He cannot handle mainstream school and, even worse, he is evidently in the crosshairs of some little attention loving vixen that adores stirring shit up (the emotions from which are difficult even for an average kid to understand, much less cope with). So I talked with the district and my son is going into "Home and hospital" care for the remainder of the school year. That means he gets to stay home and the teachers come to him to tutor him. That takes some of the stress off, as we (lady love and I) don't walk around with the cloud of a potential incident at school hanging over us.

Tales from the Darkside season three arrived last week and I was able to give the first disc a spin. Ah, that show was cheap, shoddy and uneven, but it was fun nonetheless.