Sci-Fi Easter Eggs 2009
Head over to Google and do an image search for sci-fi Easter eggs. Go on, I'll wait. Disappointing, isn't it? Besides some Dr. Who chocolate eggs that no longer appear to be for sale, I found one piddly egg. One. THIS WILL NOT DO. I'm bringing the sci-fi to the Internet's Easter basket this year. Click the pic to crack open the first ever batch of Sci-Fi Guys Easter Eggs. Thank you, Easter Bunny! Bawk, bawk!
The biggest pain in the ass of making Easter eggs is hard boiling them. Fill a huge pot, wait an eternity for it to boil, put in the eggs, take a complete guess as to whether or not they're done at any given time, drain them making sure to get the requisite self-inflicted Easter steam burns, wait for them to dry and cool, and only then do you realize that half the shells cracked in the pot. The whole process sucks. So you know how I hard boil eggs? I don't.
I could color raw eggs I suppose, but half the fun of easter eggs is cracking them open and eating them. I want to color edible eggs. So I bake them. Hard boiling eggs is all about getting the white the right consistency. Get it too hot and it gets rubbery. And that excess heat will also create ferrous sulfide, that greenish grey crud that forms around the yolk and gives you egg farts. We want to avoid that, so we'll be careful not to overheat these eggs.
According to people who sound like they know a lot more about eggs than I do, egg whites contain about 40 different proteins, each of which firms up at different temperatures. But, culinarily speaking, we're only interested in two of the proteins: ovotransferrin and ovalbumin. Ovotransferrin is the part of the yolk that binds iron in the cells of the growing chick before it hatches, and ovalbumin, among other things, provides it with nutrition. We want the ovotransferrin to solidify but not the ovalbumin. Ovotransferrin hardens at 142°F, and ovalbumin hardens at 184°F, so our target temperature is somewhere in between.
I tried 170°F, the lowest my oven goes, but after an hour of baking the whites were still WAY too liquid for my taste. So I bumped it up by ten degrees. They say you can bake these things right on the rack, but I found a deal on 30 medium sized eggs in an unmeltable cardboard tray, so for the sake of convenience I just left them in that. Of course cardboard is an eggcellent insulator, meaning they'll take longer to bake. But as long as the temperature stays under 184°F overcooking these things should be theoretically impossible. So fuck it; I left 'em in there for three hours. When in doubt, I take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
While the eggs cooled it was time to find a Dippin' Buddy. You never know what might happen during Easter egg coloring, and its always smart to find a spotter who will have your back. Since this site is sci-fi, and since there is one specific sci-fi character for whom eggs are not only a way of life but a way of interstellar transportation, communication and reproduction, the choice of Dippin' Buddy was clear. It had to be Mork from Ork.
Mork, being far more informed on all matters egg than myself, used the sensors in his advanced Orkan egg ship to ensure that the eggs were cool enough to work with and were properly cooked. He then arranged the eggs according to shell color, cross sectional width, ovoid symmetry and, using his hyperadvanced egg ship computer running the best spreadsheet software available in 1979, cataloged his overall evaluation of the aesthetic and intrinsic 'egginess' of each specimen. Then he talked in a goofy voice and sat on his head in a chair and pretended to drink through his finger because, of all the different dyes available for decorating eggs, his favorite color is 'pure comic gold.'
I got these kits on very deep clearance. I didn't pay more than a quarter for any of them, and one of them I very clearly remember buying for 11¢. Hands down the least expensive thing I've ever bought for this site. I've had them in a box waiting to write this article for at least two years. I kept forgetting about them then finding them again two weeks after each missed Easter. So last November when I came across them I placed them right by my bed and I've kept them there since so I couldn't forget them again. Then I piled stuff on them for the last five months until they were buried. And forgotten. My memory sucks.
Occasionally a tremor from a passing train or the Moon's tidal pull on the Earth's crust will cause just enough vibration to upset one of the dozens of little precariously balanced piles of books, dirty socks, crusty plates, action figures, DVDs and sundry refuse in my bedroom, sending comingled garbage and forgotten treasures cascading across what little bare floor space I have left. When a pile collapses like this I call it a 'crapalanche,' and it was from a very fortuitously timed crapalanche on Good Friday that the egg decorating kits and Mork and his egg ship revealed themselves. Some people would call this a miracle and praise Jesus or whomever for reminding me about the kits just in time for Easter. Those kinds of people have clearly never seen my bedroom. You can't have seen my bedroom and still believe in miracles. I'm not kidding. I sleep in something very similar to a miniature landfill. It will destroy your notions of benevolent gods. The two things just can't exist in the same belief system. My bedroom is the kind of messy that breaks faiths.
Before I get into the meat of this article I am going to out myself as a very recently deflowered Easter egg virgin. Until Saturday night I had witnessed Easter eggs being colored and painted dozens of times, but I'd never actually done it myself. Mork, being sensitive to the needs of a first timer, dressed up for the occasion in his formal Ork wear. Partly, I suspect, because I had made clear my household policy that anyone who wears rainbow suspenders in my home gets castrated, no exceptions. We put on some romantic music - an old Waylon Jennings vinyl followed up by Def Leppard's Adrenalize – then settled in for a long night of tender, heartwarming eggdippery. Three tablespoons of vinegar, one dye tablet and half a cup of water later and my Easter egg cherry was good and busted. Shazbot, na-nu!
Anyway, in case you can't tell from the pic a couple of paragraphs above, I got two Batman kits. These things are pretty damned fantastic. Not only are the Batman kits loaded with twice as much stuff as any of the others, but they come with printed heat shrink wraps for the eggs. I always considered these things kind of a cheat for people who were too lazy or prissy to mix up dye and color eggs properly, but when I said I was an Easter egg virgin I meant it; I hadn't even used the shrink wrap cheats before. If you've been using these and have not yet dipped an egg in dye, you're still a virgin. Using shrink wraps alone is like a girl trying to get away with giving her first blowjob harmonica style. It just ain't the real thing, sweetheart. However, like most virgins, I tried to ease myself into the process, and I used the shrink wraps first. Unlike harmonica style blowjobs, the results were surprisingly awesome.
Having never used these before I was startled, literally, at how fast the shrinking took place. Seriously, I jumped. When I dipped these into the hot water the shrink wraps made a loud popping, crinkling noise and shrank so fast it sucked the egg right out of my hand. It was very impressive in a very "Holy shit, is that supposed to happen?" kind of way. And I never would have imagined that the colors would be so vibrant. Other Easter egg shrink wraps I've seen were pretty much complete shit, but it turns out everything PAAS put in the Batman boxes was made out of 100% recycled win. If you're in the market for egg decorating kits and you see any of these Batman sets just go ahead and buy them. No kid in the world is not going to like these.
These next two don't even really count as colored eggs since all I used were some Sharpies. But I did cut out paper appendages and broke out the double sided tape, so I think that counts as legit egg decoration. Stop judging me, god damn you. Get your own website if you don't like it.
Way back when I first conceived of the sci-fi Easter egg project, I knew the shuttle Tydirium was a shoe in. A few fins and a black windshield and you're pretty much done. Because I am a huge geek in every sense of the word, back in February I drew up a page full of plain white eggs as a model sheet and then sketched in my ideas as I came up with them. Tydirium was the first thing I drew, followed very closely by EVE. Not too long ago Balthazar and I checked out a bootlegged copy of WALL•E and I absolutely loved it. I don't know who it was at Pixar that sold their soul to the Devil to get these great writing skills, but it was a hell of a bargain. The rest of Hollywood needs to pay close attention to what they're doing over there. Those guys consistently make great films in a way that I haven't seen since John Hughes was on his pre-Home Alone blockbuster streak. So far, Pixar can do no wrong.
I decided to draw EVE's eyes slightly angry because some of the funniest parts of the movie were WALL•E's lovestruck, terrified reactions to EVE's occasional bursts of intense violence. If I had my way I'd have gloss coated this whole egg to give EVE that shiny new plastic look from the film, but I intended to feed these eggs to people. I don't know what toxins, if any, from acrylic finish can work their way through the pores in an eggshell, but I decided it was best not to experiment on my family.
Shortly after I decided on the Tydirium, I decided to make the Death Star. I started by putting on the equatorial trench, superlaser dish and various details with a Sharpie. Then it was time for the dip. Easter egg dye manufacturers have strangely neglected to supply the world with grey dye tablets, so I was forced to improvise. I started with the standard three tablespoons of vinegar, but instead of adding a dye tablet I added the ink well of a black Bic pen that I cut into little pieces. You know what happens when you add little pieces of ink pen to vinegar? Nothing. They don't leak. The ink doesn't dissolve. They just float there. So I mashed them up with the barrel of the pen I'd just ruined. Only it turns out ink wells are made of hard plastic and don't mash so well. More to the point, they don't mash at all. They just float there, mocking me. Bastards.
So I turned to food coloring. I decided to experiment and happened upon the formula for a passable grey on my first try. Two drops of red, two drops of blue, three drops of green. The color works, but as you can see it had some sort of difficulty bonding to the shell. The green specks you see on the shell aren't a result of the dying, but of me touching the egg with green stained fingers. The big white patches, however, are a mystery. Why the dye would adhere to one part of the egg and not another is beyond me. I'm guessing that since it also removed some of the Sharpie, I mixed the vinegar solution too strong and the acidity was dissolving the egg shell. Just a guess.
Most displeased by the Death Star's apparent lack of progress, I moved on to safer sci-fi territory: aliens. I intended the above to look more like the aliens from Communion, but I got the eyes too big. But the great thing about making 30 eggs at once is that you have some freedom to screw up. Instad of chucking this guy I decided to dip him green for fans of 1950s style aliens, and draw up a different, slightly more menacing grey X-Files style alien. The grey dip, again, didn't work perfectly, but I left this one in the drink for less time and I think the results are respectable. This lends some weight to my acid theory. I really wish I'd had a better grey. I guess I could have done another dipping but it was really late and I was very tired…
What do you mean you want me to do another dipping? And why do I have to do it right now? I just spent hours on my feet dying these eggs, all for you. I do it all for you, people. You know I haven't eaten since 6:00 this morning, and all that was was a half a cream cheese bagel, and it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light cream cheese. And now you want me to run off and do another dipping? What the hell happened to you?
By the way, you may have noticed above that one of these kits has glow in the dark paint and another has glitter paint. A couple of my eggs would have really profited from the addition of glowing sparkles, but over the past two years the paints have all fosilized into bizarre, foul smelling plastic rocks. So no special effects for my eggs unfortunately. Damn you, Time, destroyer of worlds!
Below are the contents of the VehEGGles kit. The black plastic parts trees contain the components for four egg chassis, brilliant little devices that turn ordinary eggs into cars. Whoever thought of this should be in charge if the space program. These things ROCK.
As you can see, the kit also comes with labels to make a fire truck, school bus and ambulance. Most of these kits come with stickers, but slapping a cheap Superman decal on an egg is not valid Easter decorating in my book. Slapping a windshield decal on an egg with wheels, however, is too legit to quit. Considering my obsession with a certain 80s movie franchise and the fact the there are wheels and ambulance stickers in this kit, some of you may see where this is going. Shh, no spoilers. Don't ruin the magic for the other kids.
After applying the doors, bus windows, light bar, grill assembly, tail lights, and the front and rear windshields all I needed to do was get rid of those crosses. Mork explained that this would have been much easier if I'd done it before applying the labels, but he only did so after I had already struggled to cut the crosses without breaking the eggshell. Orkans give advice like they age; backwards. Fortunately I was able to get them off without breaking the egg or even scratching it much. These chickens are tough customers. They make their babies knifeproof.
After removing the last trace of Jesus from my Easter egg it was just a matter of coloring in the warning sign with a red Sharpie. Finally, a Netflix envelope made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of sci-fi Easter fun. A little license plate touch up and she was all ready. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you EGGTO-1.
I learned a few useful things constructing the EGGTO-1. First of all I learned that if you draw on an egg with a standard yellow highlighter it takes about 14 years to dry. This crap smudged and spread around so much that I considered just starting over with a new egg. But then I remembered that I'm massively lazy and I decided to wipe it off instead.
That's when I found out the second useful thing about eggs; highlighter and pencil wipe off eggshells with incredible ease if you just lick your finger first. It was kind of amazing. Then again, maybe its just me. Maybe I have mutant salivary glands that secrete the world's most potent solvent. So why didn't it dissolve the eggs? That must be my one weakness; eggshells. Or maybe bony concretions in general. Anything calcified. Calcium! That's it! Calcium is my kryptonite. Its all so clear to me now…
The third and most useful thing I learned is that if you want fine lines on an egg you MUST use a mechanical pencil. I tried every kind of pen I owned and barely got even trace of ink. But the mechanical pencil worked every time, and drew clean, dark lines even when the egg was wet or dirty. From now on when I decorate eggs a mechanical pencil will be right by my side.
These were just begging to be made. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan were fairly straightforward, although if I had it to do over again I'd use a blue marker for Manhattan's features instead of the black. I had a blue marker just sitting there waiting to be used, but I was drunk on sleeplessness, chocolate milk and Waylon Jennings and it didn't even occur to me at the time. In any case, the vibrant blue of the Superman dye was perfect for this. I'm really pleased with the way they turned out.
The Comedian's smiley button was a bitch. I threw away three or four eggs out of sheer frustration before I got it right. It is very hard to draw a convincing blood splatter with a thick red marker on an eggshell, but the real pain is drawing a convincing black eye around that blood streak. Its very easy to screw that up, and I proved that was the case by effortlessly doing so a goodly number of times. While this final attempt isn't perfect, its as close as I was likely to get. Once the blood, eyes and mouth were done I dipped it for a good long time in yellow dye to really saturate the shell. I got a lot of comments on this one at Easter. I'm fairly proud of it.
This next egg is most definitley a step up in skill level, probably not something for everyone. Then again, if you've read this far in an article about turning eggs into spaceships and superheroes, I doubt very seriously that you're in any position to judge. If you're still here then you're one of us. One of us! One of us! One of us!
This egg will require special equipment. A piping bag, to be precise. If you don't have one and aren't willing to shell out good money for a high end baking product just so you can turn eggs into action figures, then you're in good company. Let me show you how to make a perfectly serviceable piping bag for less than $2.
Start with a standard mustard squeeze bottle. Remove the cap. Then cut the bottle below the threads removing the entire part of the bottle which screws into the cap. Next, cut one corner off of a plastic sandwich bag, making sure that you have a hole approximately the size of the cap threads. Feed the bag through the hole and pull it back over the threads, then screw the cap on tightly, making sure that the plastic bag is sealed in the threads all the way around.
Booyah. A fine tipped piping bag for the price of a baggie and a bottle of mustard. Now we fill it.
We're not going to eat this frosting, its just there for looks and to hold the egg upright once its finished. I mixed maybe a quarter cup, although there's no way in hell I used even a third of it on the finished egg. But it was my first time trying this so I gave myself some wiggle room, just in case.
I was going for a dirty green color, kind of like the skin of a Gorn. It took a little while to get it right, but I finally found the perfct mix: 10 drops of green, three drops of red, three drops of blue. I ended up with the perfect ugly greyish green tone. There's no way you'd ever want to eat something this color. It was just what I was looking for. By the way, this is WAY more dye in your food than you ususally find, so be advised that it will stain your skin, clothes, and pretty much anything else it touches.
All of these egg kit boxes came with about a dozen perforated circles on the back that you punch out to make a drying tray for your eggs. The boxes advertise these circles as some sort of bonus prize. You're supposed to stick a toothpick through them and spin them like tops. They are touted as toys. That's reaching, even by the pretty lax standards of Easter egg kits. However, colored black with a marker, one of these tops will make the perfect base for my egg.
In case you haven't guessed it, we're making a xenomorph egg, straight outta Alien. Using a green marker I drew those weird little veins on the bottom, and the "mouth" for the facehugger to jump out of. And, yes, this is very green. Depending on which movie you watch, the eggs range anywhere from dark grey green to translucent brown. Well, I'm not going to dye an egg brown. That's fucking retarded. If I wanted a brown egg, I would just buy brown eggs. They're readily available. I'm sacrificing movie perfect accuracy for a little color. It's Easter after all, god dammit. We need a little color in our eggs.
After drawing on the veins and mouth I dipped it yellow, then took the Magic Crayon to it. Among the shrink wraps, dyes, bookmarks, egg stands, stickers, and other assorted awesomeness to be found in the Batman kit was the Magic Crayon, which is nothing more than an uncolored stick of wax in a wrapper. The idea is simple: you dip an egg, let it dry, draw on it with the Magic Crayon, and then dip it again. The water based dye can't stick to the wax, leaving whatever base color you gave the crayon showing through. Its very basic and absolutely awesome. Once again, the Batman kit completely dominates Easter.
I speckled the egg with little wax dots, then dipped it in green. The result was nice, but I wasn't done yet. I poured half my green dye into my grey mixture, then speckled the egg again. I outlined the "lips" with wax to allow both shades of green to show through, then dyed it in the green grey mix. My hope was to end up with yellow and green spots on a dark green egg. It worked better than I could have hoped.
After it dried it was just a matter of using the frosting for the detail work. I traced the mouth with the piping bag to give the lips a slightly parted look, then drew in more veins on the bottom. A little dab of frosting secured it to the cardboard base, and viola! I gots me a Xenomorph Easter egg. I'm really happy with this little guy.
Now that all that was done, I had just one more egg I had to get out of my system. This egg wasn't an idea I originally came up with for this little venture, but was inspired by you guys and your vocal disapproval of the new look they gave Cobra Commander. I figured if the movie guys couldn't recreate Ol' Snake Face faithfully, I would give it a shot.
I started off by drawing the basic outline on an egg and decided that I'd use aluminum foil to simulate his faceplate. I looked for the glue and discovered that I don't own any. Then I got out the rubber cement and found that it had congealed into one giant lump in the bottle. Then I remembered I had read somewhere that if you add vinegar to milk a certain protein settles out of it that can be used as a glue. Guess what? It doesn't work. Nothing settles out, and if you put the mixture on your egg yuou just get a wet, stinking egg. What I needed was something sticky enough to hold the foil to the shell that would not dissolve in water.
Ugly green frosting to the rescue! Frosting is fat based, so there was no chance of the water or vinegar doing anything to it. It took a little bit of trimming to get the foil in place, but after that it was smooth sailing. I colored in his red tie and blocked off that white stripe on his helmet with the Magic Crayon, then dipped it in the leftover Dr. Manhattan blue, but for a shorter time to give it the softer pastel hue from the cartoon series. After I gave his faceplate a quick post-dip clean up he was ready to make his big debut.
The eggs weren't a huge hit at Easter, simply because most of the old folks had no idea what the hell they were supposed to be. You'd be surprised how little my 60 year old aunts and uncles know about xenomorphs and Cobra Commander. But those in the know showed me the love, so it was all good. Then a clown showed up at the party and stole what little thunder my eggs had generated. For real. For reasons I can only dare to guess, my uncle hired a clown named Gum Drop for Easter, and she made us play games and gave us face paintings. No one knows why my uncle did this, as clowns are in no way a part of our normal family holiday traditions. It was completely out of nowhere and made for a very surreal Easter.
All of us adults were very annoyed with this clown, but in the spirit of things we decided to play along with her little clown games. You know, to humor the kids. But we drew the line at being painted on. And that line held firm for about a half an hour. I don't know which one of us was the first to cave, but eventually my entire family was walking around with paint and glitter on our heads. And even though she and her clown shenanigans stole away the last little potential scraps of attention my sci-fi eggs could have received, having Gum Drop around was worth it in the end. Because I made her give me a sci-fi face painting. Better luck next year, clown. Chris – 1, Gum Drop – 0.
Peace out, my bitches, and Happy Easter from The Sci-Fi Guys!
April 15th, 2009 at 8:24 am
sorry guys. doesn’t look good for fans of the Sarah Conner Chronicles:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/04/report-fox-terminates-sar.php
April 15th, 2009 at 8:27 am
some more movie pics for Star Trek
http://scifiwire.com/2009/04/more-star-trek-images-bea.php
April 15th, 2009 at 8:57 am
The asshole cockboxes at Fox set that show up to be canceled. They took it off the air for two months during the middle of the season, then put back on a different night, on Friday, which is historically the lowest rated night of television. I beleive they were planning on tanking this show purposefully so they could justify canceling it.
Want to know one of the shows that might take its place? Besides airing limited concept shit like Lie To Me and
Diet X-Files, Jr.Fringe, check out what else the sicks fucks who run that company plan to do with the money they save from canceling good programming.Fucking revolting. These people should be shot.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Those eggs are AWESOME!
I wasn’t aware of clowns being a part of any easter tradition. Guess it isn’t any stranger than a rabbit delivering eggs (…and candy, money, toys).
As For Fox, not only should their execs be shot, but so should anyone who actually bothers to watch it. You know what shooting is to quick and easy.
Drawn and quartered. Yes. I think that would be more appropriate. Let em suffer for all the shit they’ve done to television.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Did anyone catch “Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire”?
April 15th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Just a little of what you missed if you haven’t:
http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=224174&title=dance-of-the-300-raccoons
April 15th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones
April 17th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
HIDDEN!
Artist: Queen
Album: Flash Gordon, 1980
HIDDEN!
April 20th, 2009 at 9:25 am
EGGTO-1 is the most awesome holiday craft I’ve seen since Jesus was put on the Cross (which, you gotta admit, has been the most imitated holiday craft since).
April 20th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
this looks really weird:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/04/watch-a-new-clip-from-the.php
April 21st, 2009 at 11:18 am
Spent the morning in dubious flirtation with Facebook. I’m not digging that at all. I’m used to having a real website. Anyway, THO Girl had an excellent little questionaire I tried to fill out but could not post because it was too long. I don’t know how she posted it in the first place. But I spent a lot of time on it and I’m not letting my answers go to waste. Here it is:
1. First thing you wash in the shower?
hair
2. What color is your favorite hoodie?
black
3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?
any time
4. Do you plan outfits?
extraordinarily rarely
5. How are you feeling RIGHT now?
bored and somewhat listless with distant echoes of low-level anxiety
6. What’s the closest thing to you that’s red?
my pillowcase
7. Tell me about the last dream you remember having.
it occurred while i was sleeping. it was a perceived series of images, sounds and feelings occurring in my mind. it was accompanied by a rapid, involuntary movement of my eyes.
8. Did you meet anybody new today?
no
9. What are you craving right now?
warmth
10. Do you floss daily?
no
11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage?
egg roll
12. Are you emotional?
yes, as a human being i possess emotions.
13. Have you ever counted to 1,000?
no
14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it?
lick it. slowly, sensually, lick it.
15. Do you like your hair?
which one?
16. Do you like yourself?
yeah. have you met me? i’m pretty fucking awesome.
17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush?
if he was paying.
18. What are you listening to right now?
the episode of “friends” where ross says the wrong name at his wedding.
19. Are your parents strict?
they were strict, but usually not unreasonably so
20. Would you go sky diving?
probably
21. Do you like cottage cheese?
love it. especially with heaps of cracked black pepper.
22. Have you ever met a celebrity?
yes, quite a few of them
23. Do you rent movies often?
hell yeah. netflix, baby!
24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you’re in?
besides my beautiful sapphire eyes? do you really need anything else? i think not.
25. How many countries have you visited?
canada, england, scotland, france, greece, spain, monaco, bahamas, italy, vatican city. holy shit, i’ve been to 10 foreign countries. i am one worldly bastard.
26. Have you made a prank phone call?
yes
27. Ever been on a train?
yes
28. Brown or white eggs?
doesn’t matter as long as they’re served with the yolks runny. mmm…
29.Do you have a cell-phone?
yes
30. Do you use chap stick?
yes
31. Do you own a gun?
no
32. Can you use chop sticks?
yes
33. Who are you going to be with tonight?
no one
34. Are you too forgiving?
a ninja does not know forgiveness. he knows only revenge.
35. Ever been in love?
yes
36. What is your best friend(s) doing tomorrow?
at least two of them will be having me for company at some point in the evening.
37. Ever have cream puffs?
not that often. i mean, i see mark all the time, but usually we’re going to his house, not mine. there were four of them at my halloween party. but usually they’re the ones doing the hosting. they’re known for event planning.
38. Last time you cried?
don’t remember
39. What was the last question you asked?
“do you really need anything else?”
40. Favorite time of the year?
halloween season
41. Do you have any tattoos?
no, but i’ve been considering getting a mr. roarke.
42. Are you sarcastic?
no
43. Have you ever seen The Butterfly Effect?
no
44. Ever walked into a wall?
yeah. then it apologized and moved out of my way. chuck norris, ladies and gentlemen!
45. Favorite color?
green
46. Have you ever slapped someone?
yes. and you know this. ho betta have my money next time, or hot daddy might hafta cut a bitch.
47. Is your hair curly?
no, but some of it is kinky.
48. What was the last CD you bought?
a dollar store christmas cd. surprisingly excellent.
49. Do looks matter?
yes
50. Could you ever forgive a cheater?
sure, as long as i wasn’t the one being cheated on. in that case, see question #34.
51. Is your phone bill sky high?
yeah, it smokes way too much. i mean, it’s a young bill and it’s experimenting like we all do in our youth, but there’s a limit, you know? it would be different if i wasn’t supporting it. but every time i see it and i realize it’s high again i think “jesus, bill. why don’t you get a fucking job? and try a shower once in a while. you got the hippy stench.” if it goes on like this much longer he and i are going to have to have a talk.
52. Do you like your life right now?
not particularly
53. Do you sleep with the TV on?
yes
54. Can you handle the truth?
yes. the truth is that we live in a world that has walls. and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. who’s gonna do it? you? you, lieutenant weinberg? i have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. you weep for santiago and you curse the marines. you have that luxury. you have the luxury of not knowing what i know: that santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. you don’t want the truth. because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. you need me on that wall. we use words like honor, code, loyalty. we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. you use them as a punchline. i have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom i provide, then questions the manner in which i provide it. i’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. otherwise, i suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. either way, i don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.
55. Do you have good vision?
with my new glasses i have something akin to supervision
56. Do you hate or dislike more than 3 people?
three? only if i’m feeling lazy or drunk. usually i hate and dislike dozens of people at any given time. three? come on, give me a little credit.
57. How often do you talk on the phone?
several times daily
58. The last person you held hands with?
my cousins jerry and lori. family prayer before easter dinner.
59. What are you wearing?
t-shirt and sweats
60.What is your favorite animal?
coelacanth, baby!
61. Where was your default picture taken?
due to my ninja code of silence and the extraordinary level of professionalism and privacy my clients have come to expect, i cannot divulge that information.
62. Can you hula hoop?
i’m not even sure i can fit inside one.
63. Do you have a job?
no, and thanks for bringing it up. never get tired of having repeat that.
64. What was the most recent thing you bought?
eggs, meatloaf and gasoline. i was making soup.
65. Have you ever crawled through a window?
several times. each and every time i got hurt to some degree.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Wow. That Dragonball Z movie appears to be worse than anyone ever thought it would be. From FilmDrunk:
Do you have any idea how badly edited and poorly patched together a movie would have to be to make hardcore anime fans dislike it? I’ve seen a lot of anime. A LOT. I’ve seen plenty of the really weird shit most Americans aren’t even aware of because its just too bizarre and random to appeal to an American audience. A lot of it is only barely watchable in the first place. And yet it is the very people who love this weirdness that hate this movie. Sweet lord, I can’t imgine how much this movie must suck.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Having watched numerous Dragonball Z episodes I struggle to understand why they even made the movie in the first place (other than the fact they are whores.)
Fox used to make excellent sci-fi movies: The Abyss, Predator, Aliens. Big Trouble in Little China, etc. It’s sad to see what they’ve become.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:41 pm
AGREED!
April 21st, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I have never seen an ep of DBZ, but there are like a billion people that love it. To be honest its something I’ve been curious about, but I’d like to see it from the beginning to get a sense of what the fuss is all about.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:55 am
In my opinion you’re not missing much. Granted some of the fight scenes are pretty cool, but there is so much useless filler (at least in the Americanized versions) between them its easy to get bored and lose interest.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
This one is for Mark:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/04/new-moons-hunky-wolf-pack.php
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
In honor of Earth Day, why not sport a shirt that gives a shout out to nature and Star Wars? The Nature Troopers T-Shirt ($18) features an autumn-hued stormtrooper helmet, made up of whales, deer, manatees, bears, sea turtles, butterflies, penguins, and tons of other creatures and foliage that inhabit this little floating rock of ours.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Terrorism. Murder. Blood. Bullets. Darkness. This is the G.I. Joe cartoon you’ve been waiting 25 years for. G.I. Joe: Resolute (free) is a new animated mini-series featuring classic Joes and Cobra operatives that’s sure to make the live action movie look even more like a turd. Aimed at older viewers, and garnering standing ovations at JoeCon Comic-Con, Resolute consists of 11 episodes (ten 5-minute episodes and one 10-minute finale) totaling 60 minutes, all of which are available online for free or on Adult Swim this Saturday. We won’t tell you the plot, but let’s just say Cobra Commander goes totally apocalyptic on Moscow. In the first four minutes. Can someone please start a petition to turn this into a regular weekly series?
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
those were AWESOME! I can’t wait for the final two installments!
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
Damn, that was impressive. I hope that gets a DVD release.
On an unrelated note, you have no idea how nice it is to finally have someone that adds their own pics to comments. If only I could get other people to login in and do that with the accounts that were created for that very reason OVER THREE GODDAMN YEARS AGO.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:48 am
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Like you have anything better to do
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Damn you. I hate it when you’re right.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I even approved my own comment when it went to moderation.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
New CC…he BLOWS! That pissed me off to no end. Someone was obviously sucking their tailpipe that day in character planning. Fire them all and beat them with a cane.
As for the eggs the reason why you had issues with the DS adn alien head ones is that there was (most likely) trace amounts of egg goo anad/or fingerprints on them. I ahve run into this with mold release agents used on some plastic models. F**ks up the fun for sure. Your best bet for next year? Gently wash each egg with warm water and a green scrubby pad. Use Dawn soap to pull any grease off.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Nanook, welcome! Your mold release problem was recently put forward by another reader who wanted to remain anonymous. He suggested there was some kind of lubricant or residue from the machines that package the eggs which was causing the issue. In either case, you are both correct in suggesting that washing would be the solution, but I was specifically trying to avoid that because I am the laziest man on this planet. Boiling would normally take care of this issue, but I refuse to boil. And there’s no way I’m going to wash these. That would be more trouble than boiling. For now, I’m going to learn to accept sub par dye jobs.
What I still don’t understand is why the grey turned out so much more shitty than the other colors. You can see a little streaking on the green alien, but the grey and the Death Star are VERY badly mottled. Since the grey dye was simply a mix of red, blue, and green food coloring, I suspect that food coloring itself is partly to blame. After all, it’s obviously not formulated to color calcium, otherwise it would play hell with your teeth. Next time I’m going to try a mix of red, blue, and green egg dyes to see if I have better luck.
By the way, isn’t mold release a bitch? I used to build a good number of models and paint my occasional kitbashing project (Star Trek ships and Transformers, mostly), and for YEARS I blamed poor paint jobs on the weather. “It was too humid when I sprayed this,” or “I should’ve known it was too cold to paint outside.” That, or I thought I wasn’t maintaining proper nozzle distance (which I often wasn’t). Never once did it occur to my dumb ass to wash all that oil off the plastic first. The thing you learn when you’re an evil sci-fi genius is that evil sci-fi geniuses are pretty much as dumb as everyone else most of the time. Only our occasional bursts of insight allow us to envision schemes to take over the world. COOOBRAAAA!!
Oh, and if you haven’t watched the G.I. Joe: Resolute cartoon, do so immediately. Hands down the best incarnation of G.I. Joe since the movie was released in ‘87. Sweet lord, I hope there’s a DVD.
Click here! The final two episodes have been posted!
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Those were the last episodes?? They were great, but they seemed more like the setup for a new series. You gotta dig the sysnopsis Hasbro attached to this show:
My guess is they’ve seen the movie and it blows. They’re making a whole new series or mini-series to prevent the shitty movie from killing the franchise. Smart move. And guess what? It works. Resolute is awesome. Hasbro really knocked this one out of the park. And the toys look great, too. Even if the upcoming movie is utter photonic shit, we still got a new, fantastic incarnation of the original series out of it. Good deal. Yo Joe!
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Thanks for the welcome, Chris. I find some kits have more release agent that others (ICM being the worst IMHO). Most of teh time you can get away with just a simple wipedown but a few need the soap and water routine.
Ditto your thoughts on the food dye issue as well. One idea is to heat the egg in the microwave using Rite dye. I’ve done this with Hot Wheels in teh past to modify the casting colors…put it in a bowl with Rite dye and heat for 30 seconds. Check and reheat if a darker strain is desired. I would think it might work on egg shell. Maybe give it a try.
Thanks for the link…I’ll have to check them all out. Still have my figures, cards, instruction booklets, catalogs and so forth. Even my orifinal CC that you had to send off to get. Good luck finding one of those dudes! ALOT of early stuff too that you do not see pop up. Have most of the vehicles but had to get rid of a few of the bigger ones. To this day the VAMP is my fave. And no, my dudes are NOT missing their thumbs…I played gently with ‘em.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:57 pm
In January we wrote up a rumor from Bloody Disgusting about how Robert Rodriguez’s name was being thrown around in connection with a reboot of the Predator series. It wasn’t confirmed at the time, then Rodriguez separately announced his new sci-fi film Nerveracker, so we thought all hope had been lost. However, IESB has just heard via Rodriguez himself at a press conference in Austin, Texas that a Predator reboot is indeed on his slate, not only for him to produce, but also to eventually direct. The original pitch was as follows: “In the reboot a team of commandoes face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters.”
Rodriguez revealed his upcoming slate at a press conference: “I’m going to be able to shoot my upcoming Machete here, a sci-fi action film called Nerveracker, a reboot of the Predator series called Predators, and a couple of smaller movies called Sin City 2 and The Jetsons.” That’s some sure enough confirmation! Though I don’t know when it’ll happen, because I’m not sure when Rodriguez is going to find the time to do five different films in the next few years, especially when Nerveracker is already slated for release in 2010. Whatever the case, it’s still exciting that Rodriguez is the one who is bringing Predator back from the dead.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
yeah, RR could make that series relevant again. We’ll have to see I guess. Curious to see how SC2 winds up. The first one was not too bad…better than I thought I would like it, actually.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I can’t see RR doing a Predator remake. I like his stuff, but I can’t imagine the styles working together. It would be like Tim Burton remaking Silence Of The Lambs. Even the very pitch idea was watered down. A group of Predators? Why? One should be badass enough to wipe out any team of soldiers. They don’t need to work as a group. They’re fucking Predators.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:19 am
HIDDEN!
Artist: Those Aren’t Muskets!, 2008
HIDDEN!
April 24th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Good point, Chris. Do you recall the Dark Horse limited edition Predator comic series? That was cool…I think they tried to do a bit of that with AVP but that movie really was too slow and boring in spots.
A predator is bad ass and really only needs to just show up on the scene to get everyone’s attention.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:28 am
April 26th, 2009 at 12:32 am
April 27th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
We’ve seen numerous trailers and even a few TV spots previously for Terminator Salvation, so at first glance I wasn’t expecting to feature these new TV spots. But after watching them, I noticed that Warner Brothers is really trying to get people hyped up and they’re trying to get them to forget about the PG-13 rating. And most importantly, all of ILM’s visual effects work is finished, so it looks exactly the way they want it to look. There are some huge improvements in this footage visually over almost anything we’ve seen previously. And for that reason alone, these deserve to be seen. Check them out and look for differences.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Any semi-supernatural western is usually enough of a draw to get me to at least give it a chance. The fact that it’s Jonah Hex guarantees I’m in. But since Megan Fox is so in love with me, she insists on trying to bait me even more with these photos of her in costume on the set. Meg, honey, you didn’t need to send the pics. You had me at ‘Hex.’
April 28th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Jonah Hex…that should be cool!! Used to read it all the time as a kid. And MF…F-I-N-E!!!! Love that pic…wow.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
April 29th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Just a few days ago I said that Robert Rodriguez would officially be rebooting the Predator franchise with a new film called Predators. The pitch was simple: “In the reboot a team of commandos face down a mysterious race of vicious monsters.” Now I have found more information.
Importantly, Rodriguez explains that this is simply Fox taking an interest in treatment that he wrote 15 years ago. “With a nod toward Cameron’s Aliens I decided to call it Predators. I set it on a jungle-like Predator planet.” It wasn’t until recently that Fox found the treatment and gave him a call. Now they’ve started some early development, however it looks like they’re going to bring in a new writer and director to take over the reigns, so that Rodriguez won’t have to do it all on his own. However, the project will still be produced at Troublemaker Studios in Austin, so that he “can feel free to walk to the Predators soundstage, pick up a camera and co-shoot the coolest scenes.” As for a hint at what Rodriguez wants to do with the franchise…
“What I’d like to do with it is expand on ideas I dreamt up back in the original treatment, that had really expanded on the universe both the Predators and other species live in. We’d create new otherworldly characters while not taking away from the draw our main Predator has. I think another reason I called it Predators was to mark it as a project that should be taken seriously by a filmmaker to make a worthy follow up to a classic, much in the way Cameron made Aliens a compelling work on its own, following Ridley Scott’s Alien.”
I’m worried that Fox will take this down the wrong path, but I think with Rodriguez involved, he’ll make sure it doesn’t get screwed over. It’ll be cool to see them expand upon what we’ve seen. As long as the Predators and Aliens are not fighting against each other, I think we’ll be fine.
April 29th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Agreed, B. I do think that they can have the As and Ps fight BUT not in teh same vein as “AVP”. By all menas they would have rubbed shoulders somewhere in the universe, both races are intelligent and both travel the galaxy. So, some interaction is A-Ok by me.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:01 am
Chris, I know you dig on Lost, so I’m sure you’ll get as much of a kick out of this as I did.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:04 am
How about a new Transformers trailer?
May 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Is it just me, or does this picture appear to confirm that there's fire coming out of the engines? Because I think it does and that is NOT OKAY. THEY HAD BETTER NOT PUT THAT IN THE GOD DAMNED MOVIE.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:44 pm
This is just for the game Chris and I’ve seen a trailer and yes there is fire (or something) coming out of the engines.
Now, for somthing a little different.
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:54 am
Watched the Transformers trailer this last night. Watched the GI Joe trailer just now.
Meh.
Both movies inspire in me and overwhelming “meh.” There’s no personality or life to them, just explosions. Whoopty-shit.
Baroness no longer German?
On the accelerator suits: “What do they accelerate?” Your exit from need to act or perform stunts as we replace you entirely with a CGI model so you can dodge missiles and create huge MichaelBLAM-BayPOW-Splosions!BOOM!
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:38 am
Accelerator suits? Seriously? That isn’t even a G.I. Joe concept. This looks like a whole different movie with some random G.I. Joe stuff thrown in at the last minute to get people to come see it. LAME. Destro, with no mask on by the way, comes off as an effete Eurotrash pederast. Seriously, this movie looks bad. Not just bad because it’s totally unlike G.I. Joe, but just really, really bad. Like a longer, louder, way more expensive version of Power Rangers. This movie has Alien: Resurrection written all over it.
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
Where the fuck was Destro? Seriously, here were my four clues to the fact that this was in any way related to GI Joe:
1) Before I pressed play, it showed the title logo saying “GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra”
2) At some point in the middle a guy says the name “General Hawk”, which I faintly recall as a member of Joe.
3) There is a chick who looks like the Baroness – but only looks like her.
4) A black ninja fights a white ninja, again without any names so it reminds me of characters from the cartoon.
5) The title screen from #1 shows up at the end, so this one does count.
This trailer implies that the movie is going to be rife with the scent of unadulterated ass.
Please, God, please let GI Joe Resolute get picked up for a full season.
And yeah, fuck Transformers while I’m at it – that horse has been beat to death and its corpse is still givin’ it up.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Destro was the guy talking the whole time under the ocean. That’s Destro.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:51 am
just watched the G.I.Joe trailer above…
THAT WAS FUCKING AWFUL.
Growing up G.I.Joe was to me what Transformers was/is to Chris: The pinnacle of kick-assery. I feel like someone just took my favorite toy, smashed it to pieces, shit on it, then set it on fire.
Fuck you Hollywood. Fuck you.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:57 am
and as for the Transformers trailer….
..ummm….
what’s up with the giant fucking vacuum cleaner robot?
I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:30 am
This might be worth checking out:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/trailer-now-live-for-alie.php
May 4th, 2009 at 10:07 am
District 9 sounds a little like Alien Nation, but looks worth seeing.
In other news, Wolverine is good. Not good enough for me to write a full article about it, but definitely worth seeing. 8 out of 10. I was entertained the whole time.
I didn’t like Gambit at all. Not Cajun enough, not smart-ass enough, not funny enough, not self-serving enough, not smart enough, not clever enough, the actor playing him wasn’t good and didn’t look at all right for the part, and there was no explanation of his powers whatsoever. Gambit’s role in this flick needed a LOT of work.
Apparently many fans of the character Deadpool are none too pleased with his portrayal in this movie. Since I don’t know jack shit about Deadpool, I didn’t care one way or the other. His role in this film should have been greatly expanded to make the story gel a little more, but overall, it wasn’t horrible. I liked him.
Quentin asked me if Deadpool broke the fourth wall in this movie like he does in the comics and I told him no. Apparently, that wasn’t entirely true. DanN and I caught the movie at 11 AM on Saturday and the stinger after the credits showed Wolverine in an Asian bar drinking. It was in no way worth waiting around for. However, Mark and DanM saw it at a different theatre on Friday night, and they got a Deadpool stinger where he looks at the camera and says “Shhh…” So apparently he is possibly going to be an ongoing character in the Marvel movies who, depending on your perspective, is either aware that he is a fictional character, or is completely insane and occasionally talks to an imaginary audience, meaning that we, the audience, are all figments of his deranged mind.
I don’t know how many different stingers there are. What I do know is that DanN and I got screwed with our lame stinger. “I’m drinking to remember.” Shut up, Wolverine. You just shut your whore mouth.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I think 8 out of 10 is a little generous. I’d give it a 7 tops. Way too much CGI, which could have been forgiven had it not been sooooo obvious (and rather shitty in some spots). Gambit was hyped in the promos only to make an appearance as a convenient plot device. The same for Scott Summers. Wolverine wasn’t nearly animalistic enough, coming across more as a cub rather than an actual Wolverine. Didn’t see much of an animal unleashed when Stryker pushed him over the edge. Far too much self control.
The only performances I actually enjoyed were those of Liev Schrieber and Dominic Monaghan.
Oh, after a doing some digging, I think the two stingers Chris mentioned above are the only ones.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Worst CGI in the movie was when he was looking at his claws in the bathroom mirror. At least I assume it was CGI. They looked like cheap plastic knockoffs from the dollar store. Why’d they have to look like shit? His claws were the god damn focus of that scene. Of any scene in the movie, they should have taken extra care during that one to be sure those claws were flawless.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Coming in second if not tying was the whole helicopter chase scene. The battle on Five Mile Island looked pretty crappy too. Oh well. What’s done is done. Maybe it will look better on the small screen.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Terminator Salvation is not even out in theaters yet and McG is already talking about Terminator 5.
And what of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles third season? Fox keeps telling us to wait until the Fall schedule is released on May 18, before Salvation even opens. You would think they would wait to see how the movie does and maybe ride the success a bit if it does well.
May 4th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I was REALLY looking forward to GI Joe when I saw the firts trailer but the more I see the more I am getting disappointed. Destro NEEDS the face mask. Period. Baroness doesn’t look too bad…we’ll see if she carries the German accent in the flick. Storm Shadow’s outfit looks closer to a toga with sleeves than his actual clothing (and for some reason it looks too white…I know, that makes no sense). Don’t ask me about CC. That is eternally screwed up. I was hoping that the equipment would be closer to what the toys were (which was pretty cool stuff). So, I’ll probably go see it as it is GI Joe and there’s not much to do in our small town.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Actually, I think your “too white” coment makes perfect sense. It looks crisp and sterile, like he’s wearing it for the first time. That is not the outfit of a seasoned ninja.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Happy Cinco de Mayo, Dom DeLuise is dead.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/05/obit.deluise/index.html
(There’s a joke in there somewhere about Dom and a sink of mayonnaise, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go there.)
May 5th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Thanks, Dan…I did not know if my statement really made sense but you nailed it. Sterile is indeed a good description for it. WAY too clean and pressed for a ninja of any sort.
Quentin, that is a bummer about DD…he was a terrific comic and really was lost on newer generations.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Seriously, I thought he was already dead. Am I the only one? I could have sworn he died years ago.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
You’re thinking of his career Chris.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Here’s some news on at least two important upcoming Marvel projects – Thor and The Avengers.
A few weeks ago, Kenneth Branagh finally confirmed that they’ll be shooting Thor starting next January. Kevin Feige confirms the same and adds that they’re working on some “spectacular animatics already for our first action scene” as well as “a rewrite of the draft” to have ready fairly soon. But most importantly, what about casting. We’ve heard plenty about the production, but all we want to know is who they’ve cast. “We will probably be having cast announcements in the next month or so on Thor,” Feige says. “We’re looking to cast Loki and Odin soon, and the main female role. And we’ll also hopefully have lockdown shortly, gearing towards the beginning of production, which will be early next year. So I think there will be a lot of announcements between now and then.”
And last but not least, what’s the latest on The Avengers – the only movie in Hollywood that’s actually slated for 2012? “Zak Penn is already on board The Avengers [as writer] and he’s spending a lot of his time looking into what we’re doing with Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, seeing how we’re tying it all together. And he’s beginning to outline the script now – he’ll be doing that over the summer.” Unlike some other Marvel projects (e.g. Wolverine), they definitely aren’t rushing this, and are giving plenty of time to Zak so that he can get a feel for the other three movies that will tie in.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:15 am
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/deadpool-spinoff-of-wolve.php
May 6th, 2009 at 7:19 am
new movie posters for Chris:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/new-transformers-2-charac.php
May 6th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Looks like another Wolverine movie will be coming our way. Please let it have a bigger effects budget.
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/hugh-jackman-looks-ahead.php
May 6th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I don’t think it was the budget that was the problem. I think it was that they rushed to get this movie done.
May 6th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Ahhh…so they were stupid. How unusual.
May 7th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
May 8th, 2009 at 8:37 am
While I have yet to see it, I will definitely be checking this out:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/review-aragorns-untold-ad.php
May 8th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Gonads and Strife. Enjoy
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee
May 11th, 2009 at 8:05 am
There was a spoiler alert attached to the article linked below so consider yourself warned. For that reason I did not post it.
On a side note, it was revealed that in the original draft for this movie John Conner’s part was going to be minimal with the focus of the story on Sam Worthington’s character. LAME.
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/mcg-comes-clean-reveals-t.php
May 11th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Here’s a new trailer for Terminator: Salvation (video game) showing the ariel enemies.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Couple of useful links. The first is Texts From Last Night, one of the funniest websites I have ever seen. Pulled this from there:
Check it daily for similar drunk/high/sex/stupidity texts that highlight the pinnacle of failures and embarassment. Good stuff.
This will appeal to a more limited audience, but if you play guitar THIS is about the most handy damn thing in the world, especially at this time of year with all the temperature and humidity fluctuations. You’re welcome.
May 12th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
May 13th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Speaking of time travel here’s another blast from the past:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/tyro-writer-hired-to-pen.php
May 13th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Here is the multiplayer debut trailer for the upcoming Ghostbusters video game.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Here is a new trailer for the upcoming steampunk game Damnation, from Codemasters for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I have to say that, after seeing the recent, grittier Masters Of The Universe animated series, I can picture a big screen adaptation working. I think it would be a mistake to make Adam too grim or seasoned a warrior, since a good deal of the story revolves around his trying to make his family proud of him while playing the inept prince and avoiding revealing that he is He-Man. A grim, dark worrior wouldn’t fit that bill too well. But in the right hands this could be a decent flick.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Terminator: Salvation comes out tomorrow for game systems. Here is the official launch trailer.
May 19th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I’m surprised no one has posted a Star Trek Review. We’re not very good Sci Fi guys.
Truth be told, I tried to write one up but over a week later I’m still conflicted. This was one of those movies where the good and the bad measured out so evenly I left the theater numbly muttering….”huh”. Over the past 20 years I can think of maybe a handful of times this has happened. This year it already happened twice. If I come to any clear conclusion I’ll be sure to post it.
Anybody else?
(The other movie, in case anyone was interested is Wolverine)
May 19th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Dan… Chris keeps promising me a Star Trek review as well as a special “other” article but I’m still waiting.
I have the perfect sentence to describe ST, but sadly I stole that from Chris, so I can’t use it. I’ll wait until he posts to give you my view.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I certainly hope this is true:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/news-briefs-ghostbusters.php
News briefs: Ghostbusters III with Dushku??
Dan Aykroyd told the Los Angeles Times that a third Ghostbusters movie could begin shooting by this summer; that Sigourney Weaver is on board now, as are the original squad of Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson; and that the film could introduce a five-member “new generation” team with several female members, including possibly Alyssa Milano and Dollhouse’s Eliza Dushku.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:47 am
New clips for Transformers:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/three-new-tv-spots-for-tr.php
May 20th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I soooooo want to see this:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/new-trailer-now-live-for-1.php
May 20th, 2009 at 9:58 am
I have very few recollections of the series V. I just remember something about the aliens actually being lizard like and some one eating a mouse. I wonder what the take will be this time:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/first-look-at-clips-for-a.php
May 20th, 2009 at 10:02 am
The first Terminator Review I’ve seen:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/review-terminator-salvati-1.php
May 20th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I’ve practically lost what little faith I had for this movie after reading this:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/why-gi-joes-marlon-wayans.php
Why G.I. Joe’s Marlon Wayans isn’t kidding around this time
Marlon Wayas is Ripcord
Marlon Wayans, who plays Ripcord in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, told reporters that he’s playing a legitimate action hero this time around, no kidding. That means that he may crack wise, but he’s not clowning his way through the action.
“It’s all about being credible,” Wayans said in a group interview on Tuesday in Beverly Hills, Calif. after a press conference for Dance Flick. “For me, I would love people to be able to cross genres and do it in a way where your audience believes you and you’re appropriate.”
Wayans added: “For G.I. Joe it was all about me being appropriate and just being mature about my decisions of when to be funny and when not to be. It’s always a challenge. They may try and put you inside of a little box, but I know that, talent-wise, I look at my filmography and I’m able to do a lot. I’ve played a junkie in Requiem [for a Dream], a white woman in White Chicks. I played a little person in Little Man. I played a weedhead in Scary Movie. Now I get to finally play a hero, and I get to play a hero with some humor.”
And Wayans wasn’t just pretending to play action hero: He did many of his own stunts, which felt pretty real, he said. “Yeah, I did actually most of it, unfortunately,” he said. “It was scary as hell hanging from a 20-story building.”
Coming from smaller-budgeted comedies, Wayans found the set of Joe an eye-opener. “Oh, it’s a $200 million movie, 190 or something crazy like that,” he said. “For me it was like, ‘Wow.’ Just checking out what kind of craft service they had was something special. The makeup trailer was as big as my house. It was a whole ‘nother different production. But I’ve got to say that most of it, and the value, is on the screen. When you see the stuff from the movie, every piece of material I saw on it blows me away. I’m just going, ‘Wow, I’m in that.’”
Still, Wayans promises he gives the same quality performance as he did in the $19 million-budgeted Scary Movie. “No, it doesn’t change the work,” he said. “It makes you work harder, because you know you have this huge budget on your head, and it makes everybody more on point and nobody slacks, but you get really cool costumes, you get incredible gadgets, and you get stuff that you ain’t gonna get for $19 million. I can’t see them making the kind of aircraft that they made for G.I. Joe for $19 million.”
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra opens Aug. 7.
May 20th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Check out the first screenshots from the upcoming Aliens vs Predator game at the link below.
http://www.joystiq.com/photos/aliens-vs-predator/2024992/full/
May 20th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
And to go along with the screenshots, here is the teaser trailer for Aliens vs Predator from Sega.
May 20th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
From Activision, this is the Deadpool trailer for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2.
May 20th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Well sadly, it is official. It was announced on Monday that Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles has been cancelled and will get no new season.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
So, I went and saw Terminator: Salvation last night with a friend I shall refer to as Blitz. What were my impressions?
*** SIGH ***
That about sums it up. After the movie was over and the credits were rolling, I related a funny story to my friend about someone at work and we both had a laugh. Then I summed up the movie with this quote to him, “That story I just told you just now… better than the movie.”
As a generic action movie, I’m sure it stands just fine on its own, but as part of the Terminator ‘verse, I felt really let down. And perhaps my deflated feeling was compounded by the fact that Fox had just cancelled the Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles series, because the last episode of the second season — by its self — was far superior to this film.
It had its good parts, but some things just went a little too far and the terminators themselves were not threatening at all. Probably the most intimidating piece of Skynet in the flick was the Harvester. And what a complete waste of H/Ks… these are badass machines that they totally did not take advantage of at all. I could give some spoilers out here… oh wait, no I couldn’t, because the movie trailers they have been showing for months now are the spoiler. How retarded is that?!
Thanks for the McGarbage, McG.
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:29 am
Balthazar made an excellent point about finances when he posed this question to me: how many episodes of a great TV series could they have made with the money it took to make this one mediocre movie?
Like most excellent questions, I had to know the answer. So here are my findings: the budget for Terminator Salvation was reported as $200 million. The only numbers I can find for Sarah Connor Chronicles, which are very inconsistent because Fox kept cutting their funding, are in the $2-3 million per episode range. So let’s say $3 million per ep at its most expensive. That’s roughly 66 episodes. THREE MORE SEASONS. THREE MORE MOTHERFUCKING SEASONS.
A mediocre movie will sell because it has the word ‘Terminator’ in the title. That’s a given. However, will the profits of a mediocre movie exceed the profits of three years of an excellent television show on a major broadcast network? Think about DVD sales alone. One DVD for a movie, maybe an additional special edition with a much more limited audience in much smaller numbers. Or three DVD season boxed sets of a popular television show with well known actors and an incredible writing staff. The box sets would probably sell in smaller numbers, but with higher profits and, most importantly, the DVDs would be supported by an ongoing television series which would do nothing but gain ground and support more sales as time went on. Look at the numbers for Lost DVD sales to see how well an emotionally taut sci-fi television series can sell once it takes off.
Which would you rather have the profits from, one mediocre feature film DVD or three seasons of excellent TV on DVD? I’ll take the box sets every time. It’s smaller, more consistent, much more sustainable money. Warner Bros. or Fox or whomever it is that holds the money reigns for the Terminator franchise went for the big, short term payoff rather than the bigger, but slower, long term payoff. That’s the same kind of retarded financial decision that got our country in the position it’s in now. It’s even more retarded when you consider that both Fox and WB have their own television networks, so there would be no need to shop the series around looking for a buyer. They can broadcast their own shows. But only if they STOP FUCKING CANCELING GOOD PROGRAMMING.
May 26th, 2009 at 9:26 am
I personally think Fox is merely the product of a spoiled, selfish society that demands instant gratification and maximum results with the absolute miminal investment.
May 26th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
COMING SOON!
May 27th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Or not coming at all, it now appears. Thank god I spent all that time putting together a banner we now won’t be using, and trying to organize article contributors for what turned out to have been no reason at all. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
May 27th, 2009 at 7:32 am
What are you talking about?
May 27th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Transforminators:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/faux-trailer-mashes-up-tr.php
May 29th, 2009 at 7:14 am
i didn’t think it could get any worse
http://www.hollywood.com/news/Buffy_Heading_Back_to_the_Big_Screen/5643185
June 1st, 2009 at 7:57 am
All kinds of goodies today:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/alien-reboot-a-prequel-is.php
Alien reboot, a prequel, is confirmed!
Producer Tony Scott confirmed to Collider.com that he and brother Ridley Scott are developing a prequel film to Ridley’s original Alien movie, with Carl Rinsch directing.
The news confirms the rumor first reported by Bloody-Disgusting that an Alien remake was in the works for 20th Century Fox.
“Carl Rinsch is going to do the prequel to Alien,” Scott told Collider while promoting The Taking of Pelham 123. “He’s one of our directors at our company.”
Tony Scott added: “I’m excited because Ridley created the original, and Carl Rinsch is one of the family.”
Scott said that he hopes to get the movie before cameras “”hopefully [by] the end of the year” for a summer 2011 release.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:01 am
I don’t know much about Deadpool, but I like Ryan Reynolds work so I’m in:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/ryan-reynolds-says-deadpo.php
Ryan Reynolds says Deadpool is moving ahead, and he’s involved
Ryan Reynolds, who played Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, told reporters Sunday that a spinoff movie is in the works, that he’s actively involved and that he’s eager to match up with other Marvel heroes.
“Look, I’m into any role in which I get to kick Captain America in the nuts,” Reynolds said in a press conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he was promoting the romantic comedy The Proposal.
Any such specific encounters are still up in the air, though, as the Deadpool script is far from finished. “Yeah, it’s in the works,” he said. “That’s about all I can really say. They’re actively hashing [it] out.”
Reynolds added that he has been involved in the creative process. “I’m meeting with them all the time,” he said. “We’re in constant contact, and it’s just a matter of breaking the spine of the story and figuring out what it is and who’s the villain.”
The movie would focus on Reynolds’ Wolverine character, who started out as a motor-mouthed expert swordsman and morphs into a multi-powered supervillain.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:04 am
Trailer for the new Twilight movie:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/trailer-for-twilight-new.php
June 1st, 2009 at 8:11 am
hmmm…..
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/a-new-clip-from-gi-joe-th.php
June 1st, 2009 at 8:14 am
doesn’t show much but:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/new-harry-potter-6-clip-f.php
June 1st, 2009 at 8:25 am
http://scifiwire.com/2009/05/watch-the-teaser-trailer.php
Speaking of Pixar, I saw the new film Up. I’m not sure what all the hype was about. It is a decent movie but clearly not their best. I’ll forgo any spoilers at this time, but lets just say there were some glaring inconsistencies not to mention a ridiculous moment or two. I know it’s supposed to be a fun family movie but given the caliber of previous work…
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:51 am
Sweet!
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/review-warp-11.php
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:53 am
even more sweetness!
http://www.ghostbusters.com/?hs308=email
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:19 am
New Transformer TV spots:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/5-new-tv-spots-for-transf.php
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:24 am
Mark Hamill as the Joker? HELL YEAH!!!
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/e3-batman-arkham-asylum-s.php
June 3rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Balthazar downloaded the trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum on Xbox Live to show me, and I was floored. I had him play it again to confirm I was hearing the voices I thought I heard. Not only is Mark Hamill there, but Kevin Conroy is back as Bruce Wayne/Batman. He sounds incredible; he still has the same great voice he gave the character almost 20 years ago. It was a noninteractive movie, so I didn’t get any sense of how the game played, but visually it was right on target.
June 5th, 2009 at 7:25 am
More Ghostbuster news:
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/director-ivan-reitman-on.php
Director Ivan Reitman on why the time is finally right for Ghostbusters 3
Ivan Reitman, who directed Ghostbusters, told a Los Angeles audience that the time finally feels right to seriously develop the long-awaited, often-rumored Ghostbusters 3. Reitman introduced an anniversary screening of the original film in support of the upcoming Blu-ray release.
“We’re going to get a screenplay in a short time,” Reitman said Wednesday night. “We’re going to see how it is. There’s something in the zeitgeist of the world right now that it feels appropriate. There are some very talented people writing the screenplay. All of our fingers are crossed.”
Before his introductory remarks, Reitman spoke to a group of reporters about the Blu-ray, the Ghostbusters video game and the new sequel. The following Q&A features edited excerpts of that interview. Ghostbusters arrives on Blu-ray June 16.
What finally made a Ghostbusters 3 a real possibility?
Reitman: I actually think the combination of both the Blu-ray release and the new game sort of awakened the thirst of at least the creators of the movie to start to rethink it more seriously, the possibility of a sequel. It’s something that’s been sort of dormant in our minds, really, for the last 10 years or so, and there have been two things that sort of told us, “Wow, people still seem to be really interested in this story, and the characters in this story.” More importantly, it sort of reawakened the joy of working on this film in both iterations.
Did the new sequels to Indiana Jones, Rocky, Rambo and Die Hard more legitimize the idea of revisiting Ghostbusters?
Reitman: No, for me, that actually makes me much more wary, frankly, but it’s never been about the other movies. There have been a ton of sequels almost to all these sort of historical big movies over the years. We’ve never really done it. Now it’s been 25 years since the first one. It’s not like we’d be taking advantage of the power of the movie.
Would the new story be about passing the torch to a younger generation of comedians?
Reitman: Yeah, I think that is part of the story that we’re working on right now. We’ll see how it turns out. One of the reasons there’s not Ghostbusters 18 right now is that we’re basically this family that all have an equal voice in something. The studio is one of five equal voices. The studio would have liked to have made a bunch of them, and we’ve been really quite selective. Frankly, any of us can kill it.
And Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg now have a voice with the new script?
Reitman: Except for an outline, I have yet to read anything, so I think they’re going to hand something in in the next month or two.
What are your hopes and fears for a new Ghostbusters?
Reitman: The most important thing [is] we don’t want it to be certainly a disappointment to the people who have sort of taken this very much to their hearts. I feel the responsibility as the producer and director of the original in a very legitimate and real way. It was hard enough to do that sequel, but I think the time is kind of right. I just sort of felt it lately and said that to Columbia, so we’ve started this journey. The most important thing is that the script is good. I think we can find actors who can join the original group of actors to make something special of it.
June 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Hey, wanna hear me whine about the shittiest 18 hours I’ve experienced in the last few years? Want to know why I’m probably not posting my latest article today even though I intended to, and it’s been about 15 years since my last post? Keep reading.
Since Cincinnati Bell keeps altering rates and decreasing the quality of their service to the point where they are bordering on utter uselessness, I’ve gotten rid of my home phone to save some cash. I like saving cash, and I thought I’d never miss having a land line. I’ve only been without it for a few days. I didn’t think it would be a big deal.
About 6 PM yesterday I headed out to hang with Mark and catch up on some Food Network and whatever ridiculously homosexual fashion based competition show he was going to be watching that night. On the way I drove to the phone company to pay my cell phone bill. In person. You know, so there would be no fuckups. I’d forgotten to bring my cell phone with me, but I just assumed that everything was kosher once the receipt was in my hand.
Nope.
After a few relaxing hours at Mark’s learning what to cook and what not to wear, I had him call my cell to confirm everything was fine. And he got a message confirming that everything was, in fact, not at all fine, and my service had been fucking suspended.
When I got home, about 12:40 AM, I found a note on my door from my parents saying they could not reach me and I needed to call my cousin who had a job lead for an “immediate interview.” Of course, having only a cell phone which has been suspended, I could not call them to let them know that this was information I already had.
Upon picking up my cell phone to call the customer service line, I found out that not only was the customer service line closed for the day, but also that although my account had been suspended, it was still receiving texts for some reason (I couldn’t send them, only receive). My cousin had sent me three texts saying that my parents had not only called her looking for me, but called her parents as well. This psychotic overreactionism is nothing new on their part, but this was a little much. I checked my email only to find that they’d called Frog Boy too, and he was joining in on the “your phone doesn’t work and you have an interview” circus which was becoming more and more an irritant to me.
Then, around 1:15, my car alarm goes off. Actually, I don’t have a car alarm and it’s not my car, so excepting the timestamp that whole sentence was a lie. Let me start again: the panic alarm on the van I borrowed from my parents goes off. That’s only supposed to happen when you press a panic button on a keyfob, as I understand it. I didn’t press that because I don’t have one of those. I just have a key. No keyfob. No keyfob means you have no way to trigger the panic alarm.
It also means you have no way to shut it off.
I ran out to the van and turned it on, and as I suspcted the ignition fortunately killed the panic alarm. Chalking it up to a freak intercepted signal, I ignored the hate-drenched glares of my neighbors and headed back upstairs, only to have the same thing happen two minutes later. And two minutes after each time I shut it off. I was getting plenty of exercise, and plenty pissed as well. The owner’s manual gives no info on disabling the panic alarm. I know because I sat there reading the goddamned thing by the dome light, idling the engine so the horn wouldn’t wake up my neighbors. Again.
No help in the owner’s manual, and my phone was shut off so I couldn’t call my parents to see if this is a known issue for them. Desperate, I went inside and got my hex drivers thinking I’d just disconnect the battery. When I popped the hood I found that the terminal clamps were secured to the battery with very long headless bolts, rendering my hex drivers useless. I tried to loosen them by hand and got nowhere but filthy.
Then the engine died.
I don’t know why or how, but the engine just fucking quit. And I couldn’t restart it. With the engine off, I knew it was only a matter of time before the alarm reactivated itself, and it turned out that matter of time was about 1.5 seconds. If you think a car horn is loud when you’re standing in front of a car, try hearing it at 1:30 in the morning when you’re under the hood, 16 inches from the source of the sound that you know you are utterly powerless to stop. That’s a kind of acoustic hell they don’t have a good name for.
I hopped in and turned the key on and off, hoping to stave off the alarm any way I could. It was triggering itself more and more quickly by that point, and would go off roughly every 20-40 seconds. As I sat there toggling the key back and forth, I knew the thing I needed to disconnect the clamp from that terminal was a 1/4″ or 5/16″ crescent wrench. Which I do not own. I considered just driving the thing to a Wal-Mart to buy a wrench, but I was afraid it would get towed from the parking lot while I was inside. So I decided on a race against time.
I mentally organized the last known location of my pliers and my flashlight and plotted the fastest route I could take to get them. Turning the key one last time, I took off like a shot. Or as near as a shot as can be achieved by an obese 33 year old sci-fi nerd at 1:30 in the morning. I ran into the house, got my pliers, and looked around frantically for my flashlight, which – and this should come as no surprise at this point – was not at all where I thought it was. Going room to room I finally found it, still in the package. With no batteries in it.
CAR ALARM.
With that honking motherfucking shitbox outside rapidly turning me into the neighborhood pariah, I popped open the end of the flashlight, only to remember that this was one of those new LED flashlights that can use AAA, AA, or C cell batteries. There was this weird little sliding device which I soon figured out was supposed to go between the batteries, so I popped in the two C cells that came with the flashlight. Guess what? They don’t fucking fit.
Well, actually they do. It’s just that there is a spring up inside the flashlight, which you can’t see, that compresses the differently sized batteries to the leads. It took me about ten seconds to figure that out, which at 1:30 in the morning is equal to about 111 bajillion panic alarm honks.
I bolted out the door to find that everyone, EVERYONE, on my block was looking at me. Even the crackhead white trash losers across the street who never sleep anyway were looking down on me at this point. I turned the key to shut off the alarm one last time, then, utilizing hitherto unknown and still inexplicable automotive mechanic skills, I disconnected the clamp from the terminal in about seven nanoseconds. I didn’t know I could move that fast. I’m not even sure I used the flashlight. I was operating on a bloodstream full of shame and adrenaline rage, and if it had occurred to me I probably could have just chewed the fucking thing off at that point.
Mercifully silent and dark, I locked up the van and went to bed. It was about 2:30 before I calmed back down enough to even feel tired, and as soon as I did, BAM!, massive nosebleed. My sinuses, like the sinuses of most men in my family, are completely fucked up, so nosebleeds are no big deal for me. But this one came on like I had been shot. By the time I made the short jaunt to the bathroom my cupped hand was running over with blood. After stuffing my nose with toilet paper, letting it become completely saturated, then swapping it out for a new wad, it was a good half an hour before it stopped. My bathroom looked like a crime scene out of Dexter. All said, after the nosebleed, cleanup, and second post-excitement comedown, it was about 4 AM before I got to sleep.
Less than four hours of weak sleep later, I was awakened by a horrendous crash against my window. I don’t know what the fuck it was, but it scared the living shit out of me and woke me up with another flood of adrenaline. Then it happened again. Then I heard a frantic pounding and even more shit hitting the side of my house. I immediately jumped out of bed and threw on my sweats. I didn’t know what was happening, but someone was beating the shit out of my house like it was on fire. I just got my shirt over my head, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted by dad’s car across the street. Mother. Fucker.
FURY. That is the only way to describe my state of mind. Instant, blinding, searing, white hot fury. They had called at least five people to stalk me, they left a note at my house, and now, because all of that was apparently not enough, they came by at a quarter to eight in the morning and woke me up out of a much needed sleep by throwing shit at my house, beating on my door, and basically scaring the hell out of me. I’ve seen Godzilla fireblast Tokyo with less passion than I was feeling. I was LIVID.
My dad started pounding on the front door again, and I yelled something. I honestly can’t tell you what I said, although I believe it was two words. At least I think it was words. I remember as they came out, and I’m not joking here in the slightest, I did not recognize my own voice. It was like the voice of a stranger. A psychotic, berzerk lunatic stranger. I opened the door and just started yelling. Again, I couldn’t tell you what I was yelling, but I think it was in English. English is what I was aiming for. It may have been Viking roars and caveman snarls for all I know. I remember ending the “conversation” by yelling “I got it!” at the top of my lungs, but at this point I have no idea what it was I got. Whatever it was, I apparently had got it loudly.
I tried to get back to sleep after slamming the door, but it was pointless. I decided that it would be a real shame to waste all this built up rage, so I vented it in a direction that would do me the most good: at my cell phone company. I think I actually bared my teeth and grinned like Jack Nicholson in Wolf when I realized their lines were open. Again, I really don’t remember everything I said during the conversation, but I can tell you that my cell phone service was restored five minutes after I got on the phone, and there are two underpaid service reps in India who apologized to me more times in those five minutes than everyone else in my entire life has ever apologized to me combined.
So I’m fucked up on less than four hours sleep. I’m still a little residually angry. And I still have to figure out what in the hell is wrong with that panic alarm. So I won’t be writing any articles today. I actually may not be fit to be around other human beings today. Normally I love interacting with the other Sci-Fi Guys and all of our great readers out there, but, seriously, for today, contact me at your own risk. I’m not quite human right now.
June 9th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Wow, I’m really out of touch these days.
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/review-batman-and-robin-1.php
June 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HWEXUzzmDY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Etime%2Ecom%2Ftime%2Farts%2Farticle%2F0%2C8599%2C1902420%2C00%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded
June 11th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Did anyone else know about this? This was the first I heard about a new Predator movie.
http://scifiwire.com/2009/06/rumor-control-predators-r.php
Rumor control: Predators’ Robert Rodriguez denies reaching out to Arnold
Robert Rodriguez, who is developing a Predators movie, denied to Ain’t It Cool News rumors that he has reached out to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger about reprising the role of Dutch.
“But, no, we’re still writing a new script, and although I know Arnold personally and he’s the coolest person on the planet, I have not contacted him about this at all at this time,” Rodriguez wrote the site. “As promised, I’ll keep you posted on such developments since Predator is such a fan favorite. But then again, he could very well have told someone he’d be into it. Who knows? Personally, I haven’t heard anything. But it’s still early in the day.”
June 11th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Dan, I’ve posted here int he comments previously about the new PRedator flick.
So we all know those GI Joe previews looked horrible, right? Maybe this is why.
—
This sounds like the kind of story we’d usually hear coming from Fox, but this time it’s Paramount. A user on the Don Murphy Message Boards (via Latino Review) has posted an unverified story detailing a behind-the-scenes fiasco regarding the upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie. You can read their full write-up below, but in essence they’re claiming that director Stephen Sommers was fired and locked out of the editing room mid-way through post-production by a Paramount exec named Brad Weston. And that’s just the start, as he goes on to explain everything that has transpired since Sommers was supposedly fired.
There’s so much to this, that it’s best to just read through it as it was written originally. So I’ve included the full post from the message boards below. Take a look below and see if it sounds too good to be true or not.
After a test screening wherein the film tested the lowest score ever from an audience in the history of Paramount, the executive who pushed for the movie Brad Weston had Stephen Sommers, the super hack director of the film fired. Removed. Locked out of the editing room.
Stuart Baird, a renowned “fixer” editor was brought it to try to see if it could be made releasable. Meanwhile producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura whose turkey IMAGINE THAT explodes this weekend as the new bomb in theatres (also championed by Weston) was told his services were no longer needed on the film either.
Sommers was then forced by his William Morris agents to pretend that he was working on Tarzan over at Warner Brothers doing design work, even though that film doesn’t even have a good script yet. When word of the firing started to be whispered about in Hollywood, Sommers was summoned back to the editing room – but only to save appearances, Baird is still editing the movie with studio input.
Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who turned down other offers from the property to go with the script that was rushed in 8 weeks by Stuart Beattie because of the writer’s strike, is frantic that this will destroy the brand and is distancing himself from the pending catastrophe.
NONE of this needed to happen, except someone who did not know the mythology, Lorenzo was in charge of the film and never contradicted Sommers on anything. Lorenzo, so you know, was Chairman of Warners and had GI JOE under option there (not as a producer) for SEVEN years and he refused to greenlight the film, stating that because he grew up in Italy he had no knowledge of it. If you Google enough, at one point you will see he wanted the film to be about an action hero named MANN (Action Man, get it) and he clearly had no clue what the GI Joe world really was.
And the hapless hack Sommers? Where did he come from? The confused Jon Fogelman at William Morris, who signed Hasbro away from CAA, had to find a director in a hurry for his new clients and gave him the only guy who he repped who would do it. A sad end to what COULD have been a great franchise. Acceleration suits indeed.
Almost all of this checks out, except that according to IMDb, Sommers is now repped by Rob Carlson at William Morris, not Jon Fogelman. But that bit about Action Man is legit and so are all the other names.
If you thought that trailer looked terrible, now you know why. Or now we at least know what’s going on. Who knows if Baird will be able to salvage this. Who knows if this story is even true at all. Unfortunately, I think those stupid accelerator suits can be edited out by any “fixer.” It’s sad that this happens in Hollywood, but that’s just how cutthroat crazy it is here. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard a story like this – I remember the fiasco surrounding Live Free or Die Hard a few years ago. But it’s unfortunate to see a studio like Paramount, who has had a great reputation the last few years, get hit with these kinds of problems.
I’m actually not surprised to hear that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra scored so poorly at a test screening. Everything I’ve seen has looked awful – I haven’t enjoyed a single second of any of the footage I’ve watched (remember this?). I fear that this is going to be a huge embarrassment for Paramount in the end, which is quite a shame, because they don’t deserve this. But as George Roush says, “that’s what happens when you put people on a project they know nothing about.” He says he’s heard that most of this is true, which is, again, not surprising. Let’s just say I don’t expect August 7th to be a very memorable day for Paramount.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
HAH! So you did. I must be losing it. This thread is so long I just scroll down to the bottom anymore.
June 13th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Yo blow!
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/06/11/rumor-stephen-sommers-fired-from-gi-joe/
June 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am
this is pretty damn good for being spliced together by a fan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hTiRnqnvDs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fscifiwire%2Ecom%2F2009%2F06%2Fthe%2Dbest%2Dtrailer%2Dfor%2Da%2Dgr%2Ephp&feature=player_embedded
June 29th, 2009 at 11:55 am
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31569042/ns/technology_and_science-science/
Scientists study foes’ ways at Creation Museum
Not surprisingly, the visitors object to depictions of evolution
By Jeffrey McMurray
The Associated Press
updated 6:24 p.m. ET, Fri., June 26, 2009
PETERSBURG, Kentucky – In one of the largest gatherings of critics since the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky opened two years ago, six dozen paleontologists in the area for a conference this week took a field trip to get a glimpse of the marketing tactics used by the other side of the evolution debate.
Paleontologists spend their careers studying evolution, and here they were visiting a place where nearly every room is dedicated to disproving it through Creationism, a fundamentalist Christian belief based on a literal interpretation of the Bible that contends God created the universe just a few thousand years ago.
“The real purpose of the museum visit is to give some of my colleagues an opportunity to sense how they’re being portrayed,” said Arnold Miller, a professor of paleontology at the University of Cincinnati, which is hosting the conference. “They’re being demonized, I feel, in this museum as people who are responsible for all the ills of society.”
Miller and other paleontologists object to numerous other aspects of the museum they say imply science is doing more harm than good.
For example, multiple rooms are devoted to the great flood, which a strict biblical interpretation might explain was a rebuke for questioning God. The implication, some of the paleontologists say, is that their studies concluding Earth is millions of years old — not thousands as creationists claim — must pose a similar threat to mankind.
Scientists also disagree with the depiction of Noah’s ark itself. Inside a miniature ark is a compartment holding two small dinosaurs, living alongside the monkeys, cows and other animals.
“It’s like a theme park, but the problem is it masquerades as truth,” said Derek Briggs, a Yale University paleontologist.
The scientists Miller brought with him got a group discount but otherwise had minimal interaction with museum staff. A line of other visitors led outside into the full parking lot for much of the day.
David Menton, a cell biology professor and researcher with Answers In Genesis, which founded the museum, made no apologies for the fact that the museum’s teachings are rooted in the Old Testament. He insists they rely on largely the same facts scientists use, just with a starting point millions of years later. Anything before that can’t really be proven by science anyway, he says.
“I’ve spent enough of my professional life in science that I know science being compatible with religion is not the sort of thing that keeps scientists up at night,” Menton said. “There’s a lot of scientists out there that rather applaud that idea.”
He defended the displays that argue people and dinosaurs are contemporaries, including one at the museum entrance that show two young girls playing in a field near a dinosaur.
“I’m not saying dinosaurs and man frequently hobnobbed,” Menton said. “I live on Earth at the same time as grizzly bears, but if I could stay as far away from grizzly bears, that suits me fine.”
The critique of scientists even extends to the gift shop, where among the DVDs for sale is one entitled, “The Cure for a Culture in Crisis: It doesn’t take a Ph.D.”
It all had Wednesday’s visitors shaking their heads.
“Faith is one thing,” said Mark Terry, a high school science teacher from Seattle, “but when it comes to their science statements, they’re completely off the wall.”
June 29th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbs4P4goiU&NR=1
January 17th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Fans will be disappointed unless they’re so desperate that they’ll like anything that says it’s a G.I. JOE movie.
February 24th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Ryan made the absolute worst feature film ever made. read http://moviebake.com/movies/buried-starring-ryan-reynolds-worst-movie-of-all-time/
February 25th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Kudos from one braniac to another.