Tom BITD

Stace...you can add me to the people who hated John Simms' version of the Master with such a vengeance that it made me stop watching the new series...he was even more over-the-top than the Anthony Ainley 'Gay Pirate' version, and made it impossible for me to believe that anyone could accept him as a credible candidate for chimney sweep, let alone Prime Minister. When done well--under Delgado, and the first few stories of Ainley--no one should suspect The Master until it's too. fucking. late. He's all about subterfuge and guile and long-term planning, not about singing Scissor Sister songs and prancing about like a maniac. And this version of The Master--which only shows Russell T. Davies' actual lack of understanding of Who (as was his constant contention that no companion could ever want to travel with the Doctor except for sexual/romantic reasons)--was doubly insulting for two reasons: 1) It was a waste of John Simms as an actor, who has the chops to create a very disturbing, frightening character (and apparently wanted to do so, except that Davies kept insisting he play it 'like David, only moreso'); and 2) we saw a truly frightening and effective Master in the five or so minutes when Derek Jacobi realized who he was. That brief performance, when he realizes what he is and starts reveling in it, was what I wanted in The Master, not the faux-fag David Tennant manque we got.

I was a contestant on the final season of Remote Control, the one that featured the generic blonde chickie who followed Alicia Coppola, who followed Kari....I was, shall we say, so nervous I overcompensated and came off like a lunatic. But Colin Quinn got to tape arm me, and I had an interesting conversation with Adam Sandler a few years before he made his mark on film playing a ragaholic man-child... And for me, the true RC hottie wasn't Kari, but Marisol, the ultra-cute pint-sized Latina who appeared on the first season.

We may actually cover this film on BITD, as Richard Kelly is one of the people we've got on our short list to appear before Director's Court.

You know, I've said some harsh things about his later work...but the man was still integral in the history of the comics.

I have yet to listen to this episode--but I find it telling that the banner you've chosen is Vickie screaming for her life....

I knew there was a reason I liked you, Des! Ray Harryhausen, along with the Toho monster movies, represent the things that first opened my mind to the Fun of The Fantastic. His stuff had weight, it had space, it was looked unlike anything we have ever seen before or since...and the CGI monsters they'll unleash on us in the remake will never match what that man achieved in his garage with lumps of foam latex and metal skeletons.

Derrick and I actually address this rumor, along with many others about Tarantino, in Episode 66, out on Sunday, October 11th, as part of the first edition of Director's Court.

I only watched the pilot episode of Big Bang Theory before giving it up in disgust. There's a definite 'look at the freaks' aspect to the geek characters that really bothered me. Every one of the nerdy characters are written with a kind of contempt and bemused condescension that is really distasteful. And because it tightly hews to the 'unconventional romance' sitcom, it will be on forever and ever...but hey, at least the Barenaked Ladies get a residual check every week out of it. Compare that to Chuck, another geeky show where there's a much more varied view of geekdom, with geek characters that range from the more-or-less well-adjusted to the truly creepy. And unlike The Big Bang Theory, where the show stops dead while geek culture is discussed so the average viewer can laugh and point and go, 'look at how stupid these smart guys are,' the geek culture references in Chuck tend to be subtle and more integrated into the show. Granted, it took a season and a half before it convinced me it was a show to follow--and I can pinpoint the exact episode where it was no longer on my 'inertia' list, namely the one where Chuck and Sarah go undercover in a suburban community unofficially headed by Andy Richter--and its insistent that the disturbingly five-headed Yvonne Strahvoski is The Hottest Girl EVER can be obtrusive, but it has slowly ramped up its game until the last act of season two, featuring amazing turns by Scott Bakula as Chuck's father and especially Chevy Chase as the villian, a sort of Bill Gates gone horribly, horribly evil. So even though I'll be watching House live, I'll be taping Chuck (yes, I am one of those sad old bastards who haven't purchased a DVR yet). Of course, since Chuck came close to be cancelled last year and, much like my beloved Veronica Mars, will most likely be gone this year, well..I better enjoy it while I can.

You saying this, my friend, is why I couldn't sit through the carnage scenes of this movie without hearing 'DaDaDa DaDaDaDaDaDum' in the background... I think the FD films, like the Star Trek fantasy, skip every other flick in being good--the odd ones are entertaining, but the even ones are really, really bad. Of course, the odd ones were the ones managed by Glen Morgan and James Wong, so make of that what you will... Oh, and I felt this one was pretty bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as the second.

I've always liked this character (I first became familiar with him thanks to the glorious Howard Chaykin adaptations in Marvel Comics), so I'm optimistic about this.

The script. The directing. The acting. The Special effects. Hell, pretty much the whole movie. I'm not a fan, and in my opinion remaking films that didn't work for one reason or another is okay. it's when they remake films that just don't need to be remade (*cough* Straw Dogs *cough* Nightmare on Elm Street) that I have problems with.

Obviously I go for Davison to Baker, not only because it's an emotionally charged scene (we will never see this level of passion from Bryant again, alas), but because it allows Baker, in three sentences to define what makes his Doctor different while also making the viewer very, very nervous. And granted, I'm a little bias given my Colin Baker love, and my hatred of Rose....

Well, there is a chance 3D may be here to stay now that the renticulated method of Disney Digital/Real3D has been perfected. There's a whoooole lot of films in that style coming down the pike in the next year or so.

To be fair, the first issue of Blackest Night: Titans is arguably the best Teen Titans story I've read since Johns left. There are some missteps, like the new Hawk constantly reminding us 'I'm an avatar of WAR, DAMNIT!' and the fact that Donna's son Robert seems to have seriously de-aged, but writer JT Krul (Yes, that is the man's name; it does sound like a Hanna-Barbera baddie, doesn't it?) does have a better handle on some of the Titans than previous writers Bennett and McKeever and manages to create some nice quiet touches that have been sorely missing. Of course, given that the new writer seems to have come and gone before a bunch of fill-ins take over the book and the sales have been plummenting for a year, I'm still of the opinion that Titans fans like myself are quietly holding a death watch, waiting for the moment when Dan DiDio finally puts us out of our two years of misery.

Yes, he does, Des...the fact he hasn't been killed is proof of that. Pity the recent Titans run (and this is from a Titans fan) is, well, pretty stinky....

I was not a fan--and Static's role in the mini is very, very small.

This costume led to my favorite moment during Norm MacDonald's run as anchor on Weekend Update: after telling a joke about DC changing Supes' costume because the old one wasn't 'gay enough,' he looked at the graphic of Superman 2: Electric Boogaloo and said, in confusion "What the Hell is that?"

I think this may be my ultimate one....how can someone think going from this.... to this.... was a good idea? I mean, we've got one of the guys wearing a blue jumpsuit covered with pink ears. With Pink Ears! Is it any wonder that this version of the series was cancelled less than a year later? (Incidentally, the funniest thing about this? The makers of Justice League Unlimited depicted the Listener costume as one of the displays in The Blackhawk Island Museum in the episode "I Am Legion.")

I had the chance to ask D.G. Chicchester about 'Motocross Daredevil,' and he was basically told he HAD to do it... And the funniest part of this costume? The way Chichester and his editor would insist that it wasn't armor; it was 'biomimetic material.' Thankfully, the 'Motocross era' crashed and burned almost immediately upon its inception, ending with Chichester taking his name off of the last storyline, resulting in WAGES OF SIN being attributed to 'Alan Smithee'

Y'know...I'm going to listen to this later tonight...but I'm can't wait to hear Mike's reaction as STATIC SHOCK gets more and more mired in tie-ins to Hip-Hop culture. Y'know, like the team of basketball playing super-heroes....

I am not a fan of Anne Rice. I actually feel that Rice (not necessarily her fault, incidentally) began the general decimation of vampirism, turning what was a horrific metaphor for disease and/or the fear of sexuality into a parade of boyfriends with funky dentition.

I'd rather Bryan Singer go out and do something original rather than service a brand name that's only just been serviced a year or so ago. I'd rather see the man who gave us the unique-at-its-time The Usual Suspects go back and give us a vision that's potentially new rather than a new reworking of something we just saw reworked. That goes for almost every director that's working on a remake or a reimagining of a television show or a movie based on a toy...but you'll hear more about my thoughts about the sheer lack of originality in Hollywood in the first Earth-2 Better In The Dark on August 31st Brands need time to breathe between incarnations--one of the reasons I suspect Star Trek worked so well is because there wasn't any iteration of the series on the screen for a long, long time. No new 'Trek in the theaters or on television made people open for a new vision. To have a new iteration almost immediately after the last iteration ended (and two, three years is still 'almost immediately' in move terms) is ludicrious. It will most likely end up killing the brand as people expecting an expansion of the previous iteration get let down. This is an incredibly bad idea. It helps create the idea of a movie industry eating itself constantly with nothing new or original coming down the pike.

No, no, a thousand times no...the thought of the remake/reboot cycle collapsing to less than a year is just bone-chilling....

I dunno...I never quite got Daimon, even with Steve Gerber writing him during part of the way. And I really thought the DeMatties DEFENDERS version turned him into a fawning wimp... However, I will admit to finding Warren Ellis' version of Hellstrom Ultra-wicked....

The thing most people forget is that Mister Sinister was, in his original conception, meant to look like a twelve-year-old's bad concept of what a super villianous costume is supposed to look like. It's not until later, when the whole 'I'm a doctor looking to guide the evolution of mutantkind' concept comes in out of left field that the whole 'I'm an evil Tim Curry bondage clown' visual makes no sense. I'll accept a silly costume--even one as ridiculous as Sinister's--if it makes sense in the concept... And don't knock the Nighthawk. My favorite Defender ever....