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Been reading more and more about DC's insistence that not only did everything prior to 2011 not happen in their continuity, but that the '90s were a good thing and should be revived. It's like saying everything was horrible about the Renaissance except the plague: that was a keeper. They've been giving books to Rob Liefeld -- bit like handing your car keys to Gary Busey1 -- and seem surprised that they've been getting zero-star reviews. And zero issues are a thing again, which might serve some purpose as post-Flashpoint your characters have literally a dozen (at best) issues of definite continuity to them. And they're at the point they get to every ten to 12 years where they try to launch Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld again, and in this climate, there's no way that book lasts 12 issues -- I'm betting eight. Not sure who to give ultimate credit to, Bob Harras or Dan Didio: who is more foolish, the fool or the fool who edits him? Guh.
Oh, and Green Lantern is gay now. No, not Ryan Reynolds. Or any of them from the movie. Or the animated series. Or the other one from the animated series. Not even Crab-Faced Guy. It's Alan Scott, your great-grandpa's Green Lantern who isn't even on what they call Earth-1 anymore (he briefly called himself "Sentinel," but nobody cared). For a longtime fan, it's not...even a blip on the radar. (And, as Andrew Wheeler noted, this retroactively removes Alan Scott's gay son Obsidian from continuity, so the GLBT net is actually zero: conservation of gayness in action. Though we missed the Heathers reference possibility: "I love my gay retconned son!") It's a big deal because it's still a big deal; Marvel's approaching inclusiveness with a GLBT cast that can't be encapsulated in 140 characters with room for emoticons and hyperlinks. DC has Alan Scott, Batwoman (remember the media flurry surrounding that little revelation? Neither does anyone else; pity, as she's an excellent character), and, of course, Apollo and the Midnighter, who've had their marriage and relationship retconned into oblivion -- but some things are just inevitable. And there's Voodoo, but she's too boring to even hyperlink.
It's just amusing to me -- this is one of those social issues I don't really have a horse in, but God, but I reserve the right to be pissed off about lazy narratives and abysmal storytelling. It's not even really my fandom anymore -- haven't bought a proper DC book since All-Star Superman (still worth every penny), and don't see myself moving to change that under the current regime. I did watch Justice League: Doom, though, and I love how they managed to keep just enough of Tower of Babel to keep it recognizable, they did suck out plenty of character moments and the entire language-bit in lieu of explosions and punching. Voice cast was great. Otherwise tedious. Read the Tower of Babel Wikipedia entry for a better narrative experience.
In other news, downloaded the entirety of Red Dead Redemption and Mortal Kombat -- the former because I'd heard it was pretty nifty and the latter because, some days, I just need to beat something up and see bones break in slow-motion x-ray vision (Sniper Elite V2 has spoiled me). Red Dead is quite fun -- pretty much the first thing that happened to me when I got into the sandbox part of the world was to get bit by a rattlesnake. Double-fun: one of my cousins (the twin brother of one of my two favorites, in fact) was named Marston -- same as Red Dead's protagonist -- with the same first initial, "J." He also got bit by a rattlesnake. But then, that's almost a rite of passage around here.
And I finally got around to finishing Batman: Arkham Asylum (the game). Until I get to Arkham City, Asylum must simply be content the best Batman game ever, and it actually succeeded in freaking me out at one point. In short, I have too many games to play and there's not enough weekend to play them. ...Hrm. Surely this would qualify for sick leave, right?
Also, apropos of nothing: I would totally have thisturtle tortoise's "yeah" as a ringtone.
1I swear to GOD that that was "Lindsay Lohan" before I changed it, deciding, "No, she hasn't been in any trouble lately, so we'll ease off her for now." Weird.
Oh, and Green Lantern is gay now. No, not Ryan Reynolds. Or any of them from the movie. Or the animated series. Or the other one from the animated series. Not even Crab-Faced Guy. It's Alan Scott, your great-grandpa's Green Lantern who isn't even on what they call Earth-1 anymore (he briefly called himself "Sentinel," but nobody cared). For a longtime fan, it's not...even a blip on the radar. (And, as Andrew Wheeler noted, this retroactively removes Alan Scott's gay son Obsidian from continuity, so the GLBT net is actually zero: conservation of gayness in action. Though we missed the Heathers reference possibility: "I love my gay retconned son!") It's a big deal because it's still a big deal; Marvel's approaching inclusiveness with a GLBT cast that can't be encapsulated in 140 characters with room for emoticons and hyperlinks. DC has Alan Scott, Batwoman (remember the media flurry surrounding that little revelation? Neither does anyone else; pity, as she's an excellent character), and, of course, Apollo and the Midnighter, who've had their marriage and relationship retconned into oblivion -- but some things are just inevitable. And there's Voodoo, but she's too boring to even hyperlink.
It's just amusing to me -- this is one of those social issues I don't really have a horse in, but God, but I reserve the right to be pissed off about lazy narratives and abysmal storytelling. It's not even really my fandom anymore -- haven't bought a proper DC book since All-Star Superman (still worth every penny), and don't see myself moving to change that under the current regime. I did watch Justice League: Doom, though, and I love how they managed to keep just enough of Tower of Babel to keep it recognizable, they did suck out plenty of character moments and the entire language-bit in lieu of explosions and punching. Voice cast was great. Otherwise tedious. Read the Tower of Babel Wikipedia entry for a better narrative experience.
In other news, downloaded the entirety of Red Dead Redemption and Mortal Kombat -- the former because I'd heard it was pretty nifty and the latter because, some days, I just need to beat something up and see bones break in slow-motion x-ray vision (Sniper Elite V2 has spoiled me). Red Dead is quite fun -- pretty much the first thing that happened to me when I got into the sandbox part of the world was to get bit by a rattlesnake. Double-fun: one of my cousins (the twin brother of one of my two favorites, in fact) was named Marston -- same as Red Dead's protagonist -- with the same first initial, "J." He also got bit by a rattlesnake. But then, that's almost a rite of passage around here.
And I finally got around to finishing Batman: Arkham Asylum (the game). Until I get to Arkham City, Asylum must simply be content the best Batman game ever, and it actually succeeded in freaking me out at one point. In short, I have too many games to play and there's not enough weekend to play them. ...Hrm. Surely this would qualify for sick leave, right?
Also, apropos of nothing: I would totally have this
1I swear to GOD that that was "Lindsay Lohan" before I changed it, deciding, "No, she hasn't been in any trouble lately, so we'll ease off her for now." Weird.
On the eve of trivia night in Capital City, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
beagle1971 sends along a thread from a show I've never seen -- IFC's Portlandia -- detailing a typical first reaction to watching Battlestar Galactica.
beagle1971 sends along a thread from a show I've never seen -- IFC's Portlandia -- detailing a typical first reaction to watching Battlestar Galactica.Tags:
Sing along with the theme!
If you run into a pic you don't understand, it's probably a Skyrim reference. Just nod and keep on moving. ( 81 pics below.... )
If you run into a pic you don't understand, it's probably a Skyrim reference. Just nod and keep on moving. ( 81 pics below.... )
On a lighter note -- he's an isolated frigid vulpine cop playing by his own rules.
She's a by-the-book airborne equine investigator in the wintry realm of Skyrim.
They fight crime!
She's a by-the-book airborne equine investigator in the wintry realm of Skyrim.
They fight crime!
So one of my favorite recent comic book runs was Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's turn on Astonishing X-Men. It was quite the trip. You're not going to find many artists with the level of detail and depth Cassaday brings to the table, and Whedon's got a compelling passion for and awareness of the series and its legacy. They each have a downside or two -- some find Whedon's characters sound too similar, have disdain for a few particular plot twists he seems compelled to bring to every series he works on, and some of us could put our kids through college between Cassaday completing issues. But now that it's over and we're not clawing down the door to our LCS for the next issue, I think we can appreciate it all more.
Before Joss's 25 Astonishing issues, Grant Morrison (the delightful Scottish madman who gave us We3 and The Invisibles) took over New X-Men for a lengthy run, and while he saved most of his typical wide-eyed ideas for the last arc (set 150 years in the future), the duration of his run breathed new life into characters we'd given up on (Scott, Jean, even Emma Frost gets a new level of complexity and empathy) and added quite a few new wrinkles to the series mythology (Cassandra Nova, the Stepford Cuckoos, and the then-unthinkable Scott/Emma pairing) while subtly foreshadowing one hell of a revelation we all should've seen coming. Whedon doesn't quite serve so many screwballs with the established characters (except maybe Lockheed), and his few good fake-outs just aren't quite on the same level as Morrison's -- but they're not bad (except for maybe the identity of the second arc's antagonist, which is a conceit I still have trouble with), and he gives us Abigail Brand, for which I'll always be thankful.
The only reason I'm blathering about Whedon's Astonishing instead of Morrison's New X-Men is because the former has received the motion comic treatment. It's been tried before with other series (most notably Watchmen) and is not without virtue -- from what I could tell of watching the adaptation of Whedon's first arc, "Gifted," it seems verbatim (and panel-for-panel) from the comics, which is only occasionally jarring when referencing outside the history of this particular series (the state of Manhattan, Jean, the particular X-Man who appears suddenly in the fourth chapter). Otherwise understand that it's Joss Whedon dialogue, and if you're into that sort of thing, you should be quite happy. The first chapter's...uhm, not quite "animation," really, but its "movement," I guess, is pretty choppy (with no mouth movement whatsoever) -- later chapters have lip-synch and some interesting breathing-like effects on torsos that make it a bit more kinetic. The voice acting is...serviceable -- Emma's accent (or lack thereof) grates, but otherwise it's still better than Australian Wolverine or, for that matter, Halle Berry. And while "Gifted" is the first and only arc up at the moment, word is the three subsequent Whedon/Cassaday arcs, "Dangerous," "Torn," and "Unstoppable" are also getting the motion comic treatment, and I'm...curious as to how they'll turn out.
If you're just coming over from the movie timeline, well...things are a bit convoluted. Forget X-Men: The Last Stand (please). Scott and Jean married, but Scott drifted into having a psychic affair with Emma Frost (who is their contemporary and not a '60s-era character and trying to reform) -- before he could choose between Jean and Emma, Magneto turned Manhattan upside-down and killed Jean, only to be beheaded (yes, really) by Logan. Colossus (Kitty's boyfriend) died to stop a mutant-only virus from killing them all off. The Professor battled his genocidal long-lost twin sister (!) who he thought he strangled in the womb (!!) and has apparently absconded for parts unknown, leaving the school in the hands of Scott and Emma, who're now in a relationship. That's about all you need to know to delve into the motion comics, and really, as far as X-Men continuity goes, that's probably the best jumping-in point there will ever be. Yeesh.
Before Joss's 25 Astonishing issues, Grant Morrison (the delightful Scottish madman who gave us We3 and The Invisibles) took over New X-Men for a lengthy run, and while he saved most of his typical wide-eyed ideas for the last arc (set 150 years in the future), the duration of his run breathed new life into characters we'd given up on (Scott, Jean, even Emma Frost gets a new level of complexity and empathy) and added quite a few new wrinkles to the series mythology (Cassandra Nova, the Stepford Cuckoos, and the then-unthinkable Scott/Emma pairing) while subtly foreshadowing one hell of a revelation we all should've seen coming. Whedon doesn't quite serve so many screwballs with the established characters (except maybe Lockheed), and his few good fake-outs just aren't quite on the same level as Morrison's -- but they're not bad (except for maybe the identity of the second arc's antagonist, which is a conceit I still have trouble with), and he gives us Abigail Brand, for which I'll always be thankful.
The only reason I'm blathering about Whedon's Astonishing instead of Morrison's New X-Men is because the former has received the motion comic treatment. It's been tried before with other series (most notably Watchmen) and is not without virtue -- from what I could tell of watching the adaptation of Whedon's first arc, "Gifted," it seems verbatim (and panel-for-panel) from the comics, which is only occasionally jarring when referencing outside the history of this particular series (the state of Manhattan, Jean, the particular X-Man who appears suddenly in the fourth chapter). Otherwise understand that it's Joss Whedon dialogue, and if you're into that sort of thing, you should be quite happy. The first chapter's...uhm, not quite "animation," really, but its "movement," I guess, is pretty choppy (with no mouth movement whatsoever) -- later chapters have lip-synch and some interesting breathing-like effects on torsos that make it a bit more kinetic. The voice acting is...serviceable -- Emma's accent (or lack thereof) grates, but otherwise it's still better than Australian Wolverine or, for that matter, Halle Berry. And while "Gifted" is the first and only arc up at the moment, word is the three subsequent Whedon/Cassaday arcs, "Dangerous," "Torn," and "Unstoppable" are also getting the motion comic treatment, and I'm...curious as to how they'll turn out.
If you're just coming over from the movie timeline, well...things are a bit convoluted. Forget X-Men: The Last Stand (please). Scott and Jean married, but Scott drifted into having a psychic affair with Emma Frost (who is their contemporary and not a '60s-era character and trying to reform) -- before he could choose between Jean and Emma, Magneto turned Manhattan upside-down and killed Jean, only to be beheaded (yes, really) by Logan. Colossus (Kitty's boyfriend) died to stop a mutant-only virus from killing them all off. The Professor battled his genocidal long-lost twin sister (!) who he thought he strangled in the womb (!!) and has apparently absconded for parts unknown, leaving the school in the hands of Scott and Emma, who're now in a relationship. That's about all you need to know to delve into the motion comics, and really, as far as X-Men continuity goes, that's probably the best jumping-in point there will ever be. Yeesh.
Looks like the viral marketing for Cloverfield 2 is in full swing; I expect it to be released sometime around Thanksgiving, and this might be our first look at the long-rumored terrifying creature from the depths of the mind of JJ Abrams.
Oh, God, BadLipReading has a TVTropes page. I have injured myself stifling giggles.
(If I had any spare time or a ton more talent, I would totally make a video for "Dirty Spaceman" using footage from the recently-concluded season of Doctor Who.)
I, personally, would like to hear more about Michael Bublé's porcupine, Zazoom, and why he's always around so many graves. Thank God I'm not alone.
(If I had any spare time or a ton more talent, I would totally make a video for "Dirty Spaceman" using footage from the recently-concluded season of Doctor Who.)
I, personally, would like to hear more about Michael Bublé's porcupine, Zazoom, and why he's always around so many graves. Thank God I'm not alone.
As promised to
kansel01, the greatest interpretation of Rebecca Black's "Friday" possible. BadLipReading is my favorite new YouTube channel. Either the clips are perfectly Dada, the music in the videos is a profound improvement over the original, or both.A link I checked out this morning: 10 Things That Originally Had Ridiculous Names. What're the odds that one of them ("Brad's Drink") would turn up during trivia today?
As an added bonus, a best-of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Rifftrax:
Edit: Chamber of Secrets is on the local ABC affiliate without dialog. Music, sound effects are all there, just no dialog. It's...bizarre. And apparently just on our affiliate, otherwise there'd be hell to pay on Twitter, you'd think.
As an added bonus, a best-of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Rifftrax:
Edit: Chamber of Secrets is on the local ABC affiliate without dialog. Music, sound effects are all there, just no dialog. It's...bizarre. And apparently just on our affiliate, otherwise there'd be hell to pay on Twitter, you'd think.
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Hrm, so that was interesting. More on that later. Right now it's only 93 degrees and I can actually function, so just to break up the predictable sea of Cyrillic spam, here's actual content. Brace yourselves.
I've been digging through Rifftrax lately (short definition: commentary tracks of pure mockery), and I have to say, it's made (some) unwatchable movies watchable (I really can't recommend seeing the Twilight movies any other way) and introduced me to some particularly hideous cinematic misadventures -- two so bad that they appear on Wikipedia's list of films considered the worst. And rightly so.
First there's The Room, an incompetently-implemented vanity vehicle for its (sigh) writer, director and star of indeterminate accent and negligible talent. Allegedly cost $6 million to make, absolutely none of which shows on-screen, and everyone emotes and enunciates as if they'd just taken gulps from a punchbowl of quaaludes. It's a romantic drama without drama or romance or...redeeming qualities, really.
For the love of God, keep annotations enabled while you watch this.
And yet there's still Birdemic: Shock and Horror. Ever wonder if there's a quality of film that even SyFy won't show, or a level of special effect too embarrassing for basic cable? Here's a film with much loftier ambitions than The Room and even less watchability -- awful editing, acting, narrative and, without a doubt, the worst special effects I've ever seen. Period. If your four-year-old shot this on a Handycam you'd sit them down and gently encourage them to try again or, perhaps, take up piano instead.
I'm sure the director is quite enthusiastic, but enthusiasm does not necessarily translate to coherence or quality. Referred to by its director as a "romantic thriller," the veracity of which I will leave to you.
There, now Green Lantern doesn't look so bad, does it?
I've been digging through Rifftrax lately (short definition: commentary tracks of pure mockery), and I have to say, it's made (some) unwatchable movies watchable (I really can't recommend seeing the Twilight movies any other way) and introduced me to some particularly hideous cinematic misadventures -- two so bad that they appear on Wikipedia's list of films considered the worst. And rightly so.
First there's The Room, an incompetently-implemented vanity vehicle for its (sigh) writer, director and star of indeterminate accent and negligible talent. Allegedly cost $6 million to make, absolutely none of which shows on-screen, and everyone emotes and enunciates as if they'd just taken gulps from a punchbowl of quaaludes. It's a romantic drama without drama or romance or...redeeming qualities, really.
For the love of God, keep annotations enabled while you watch this.
And yet there's still Birdemic: Shock and Horror. Ever wonder if there's a quality of film that even SyFy won't show, or a level of special effect too embarrassing for basic cable? Here's a film with much loftier ambitions than The Room and even less watchability -- awful editing, acting, narrative and, without a doubt, the worst special effects I've ever seen. Period. If your four-year-old shot this on a Handycam you'd sit them down and gently encourage them to try again or, perhaps, take up piano instead.
I'm sure the director is quite enthusiastic, but enthusiasm does not necessarily translate to coherence or quality. Referred to by its director as a "romantic thriller," the veracity of which I will leave to you.
There, now Green Lantern doesn't look so bad, does it?
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I dunno. It was something to do while waiting for my new shipment to arrive.
Speaking of, it came today, so the next few days will be interesting.
Note: just done with whatever audio files I could find on my hard drive. Mostly from two sources.
Because you demanded it did not actually try to stop me from doing it:
( No, seriously, what the hell is goin' on here? )
( No, seriously, what the hell is goin' on here? )
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