I tracked down the guys who did Shining, and it turns out it was the winner of an editing contest. Here’s another one. Not quite the genius of the first, but still damn good. It’s the horrific story of zombies run amok somewhere on the West Side.
(takes a while to load, but it’s there)
San Francisco gets all the cool stuff. Or, as one bitch describes it, “an absolute fiasco.” Take your pick.
Bill Bennett’s comments about aborting black babies (scroll down a little for a link to the whole clip) was picked up by the Democratic machine last night, and they ran with it. Taking his comment out of context, as politicos do, he’s being demonized as the math whiz he is. I’m counting the minutes until someone like Pelosi compares him to Hitler.
This weekend amounts to a Sophie’s Choice of sorts for nerds. Both Joss Whedon’s Serenity and Neil Gaiman’s Mirrormask are opening at the local multiplex. I suspect Serenity is going to be the big winner, as Gaiman’s stuff is a lot less mainstream friendly, but he still has a rather zealous following. Read a nifty interview with both genre gods together in this week’s TIME magazine.
When Rock Paper Scissors just isn’t cutting the mustard, you need the extra decision making power of RPS-25. The addition of 22 new items and gestures creates a possible 300 different outcomes.
Some favoites include:
Dragon immune to Scissors
Woman cleans with Sponge
Nuke incinerates Rock
and naturally,
Cockroach survives Nuke
There’s a new “fun” application that uses Google Image Search to translate phrases you enter into pictograms. It’s called Woogle.
The phrase “The sky is falling” produces fairly coherent, if morbid, results. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” gets a little weirder. “Love is blind” goes completely off the rails.
Carl Kolchak is back. Sort of. ABC has revived the 70’s spook hunter with their new take on the character in Night Stalker (the new version drops the The, presumably because today’s audience doesn’t have the attention span for articles). If you’re not familiar with Carl, you’re probably not old enough to remember the classic newspaperman who inspired The X-Files, portrayed by the massively cool Darren McGavin. You might only know Darren as the dad from A Christmas Story. If you’re not familiar with that, please leave.
The new Night Stalker replaces the rumpled, middle-aged, straw hat wearing, sarcastic skeptic with… a young, brooding hottie, naturally. Stuart Townsend plays the new Kolchak with a terrible secret – his wife was killed by one of the oogy-boogy creatures of the night he now reports (or doesn’t report, as the case may be) on. He’s tortured. Which makes him extra-hot. He drives a new Mustang, and lives in that house in the hills with the pool and the giant glass room that looks out over the city that’s in every other Compaq commercial. If you know any actual newspaper reporters, you know that’s just a little less credible than Monica’s apartment on Friends. Then there’s the addition of a foil for Carl’s unbelievable stories of vampires and werewolves – the unbelievably hot Gabrielle Union. As his boss. At the newspaper. Again, if you know anybody who works at a newspaper…
The pilot episode featured a story about weird creatures that live in the desert, only to come out to kill attractive women, leaving strange scars on their victims’ wrists. We find out that these are the same creatures that killed Carl’s wife. And at the end of the hour, we discover Carl also has one of the odd scars. It seems that the show will follow the X-Files formula of an over-arching plot, broken up by individual stories of random spookiness (no big surprise considering head writer Frank Spotnitz also wrote for The X-Files). I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’re never going to see the end of that plot.
There was a nice little homage to the original, when we see Carl’s home office where he does the real work of tracking down the things that go bump in the night, complete with ubiquitous wall of grisly photos and clippings connected by bits of colored yarn. There’s a hat stand in the corner, and perched atop is that tacky straw hat that McGavin made look so good. And then there was the overt nod of digitally inserting McGavin into a wide shot of the newsroom. Which sadly was my favorite moment of the show.
I’ll probably keep watching, mostly out of nostalgia and the fact that there’s nothing else on against it worth changing the channel for. But do yourself a favor and Netflix the two Night Stalker TV movies that started McGavin’s series. They hold up surprisingly well, but it’s the star that makes them. Television legend has it he hated the show so much he literally begged the network to cancel it, but he still did one hell of a job.
To promote the new Star Wars themed exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston, everyone’s favorite Kashyyykian throws out the first pitch at Wednesday’s Red Sox game. First base coach says, “Let the Wookie win.”
Serenity opens Friday, and I’ll be there. I haven’t been this stoked for a movie since Episode I, and we all know how that turned out. I’m fairly confident things will be happier this time around.
If you’re still not sure what I’m talking about, the official Browncoats website shoud give you a clue.
Jack Nicholson stars in the feel good movie of the year. It will remind you what’s really important might just have been right in front of you the whole time under your nose where it’s always been already all along. Etc.
This is absolutely the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. So pitch perfect. God. I don’t know who the editor is, but he is a f-ing genius. Kubrick through the filter of Cameron Crowe and the homogenizing of today’s trailers. It’s so good it hurts. I can’t stop watching it.
There’s a very good new show this season on ABC called Invasion. If you’re a huge TV geek, you probably saw promos for it two months ago, along with all the other shows the brass were trying to get you into a froth about, including two other alien conspiracy shows, all on different networks. But the interesting thing isn’t the psychology of a new influx of alien shows (that’s easy – America is petrified of Islamic terrorists. Hence, bug eyed invaders that talk funny). What’s worth noting is that the one good one – Invasion – got very little promotion the month leading up to its premiere. Despite getting very good reviews, and the network initially having a lot of faith in it. The reason? The entire first episode revolves around what is presumably the method of the extraterrestrial threat’s establishment of a beachhead on our big blue marble: a massive, devastating hurricane that slams Florida, leveling homes, scattering families, and swallowing victims whole, only to reappear… different. The National Guard shows up, there’s a mandatory quarantine, weird lights in the water, there’s lots of background noise about how this was “worse than Andrew†etc. And William Fichtner gets to act all steely and sinewy and just plain badass. But essentially, ABC had this kick ass show that they couldn’t promote. Because of the hurricane. Frankly, considering the general pussiness of networks, I’m surprised they didn’t can it on the spot. But when Tom Shales says it’s the best new show of the season, they’ve got to do something with it.
I get the sense that they’re not going to give up on it yet. At least for another week. The numbers for the premiere came back, and it did pretty good. Not CSI good. More like CSI: New York good. Which is decent considering nobody even knew what it was or when it was on. We’ll see what happens with Wednesday’s episode. ABC is even going so far as to replay the first and second episode this Saturday back to back, to try to get a little more juice going. And now that more and more critics are picking it as their favorite new show, and the stickiness of the first episode’s “torn from the headlines†coincidence is over, they’re trying to sell it again. Promos are popping up, conveniently hurricane free. I can hear the meetings now. “Christ, maybe we can salvage this mess!â€
It’s a real shame. Series creator and writer Shaun Cassidy (yes, ladies, that Shaun Cassidy) was supposed to have a huge hit 10 years ago with his show American Gothic, a sweeping thriller/drama creepfest starring Gary Cole. It was smart, scary, beautifully shot and acted. And lasted about 5 weeks. I don’t have a lot of faith things will turn out different this time. Who knows. I could be wrong. It has happened.
Saturday. 8pm. ABC. Check it out, if you dare.
Regularly Wednesdays. 10pm.
She should have done this back when she was cute. And pre-skeletal. And a redhead.
Former Secretary of Education and current moral compass Bill Bennett concedes that if we were serious about reducing crime rates, we should abort every black baby. But then remembers that would be wrong. Because abortion is bad.
Apple admits some of the new Nanos have faulty screens that break, and is planning to repair them for free. Complaints that the tiny music player scratches too easily falls on deaf ears. Hope you didn’t buy too many of them yet, Stephen.
Sent the lovely Dobbs’ to Ann’s Snack Bar last night. I hope they found it. I hope they didn’t start screaming obscenities like Leah usually does. I hope it was everything they hoped for. Dobbs!
New study released today shows God favors societies that don’t believe in God. That’s just weird. But, He is infallible. What are you gonna do?
Courthouse gunman Brian Nichols got more than a nice face to talk to from hostage Ashley Smith. He got a taste of her massive crystal meth stash. And probably more (giggedy giggedy), but you’ll have to buy the book. Seriously. Buy the book. Out today. $24.95. She’s an ANGEL!
Just in case the whole Escape from New Orleans thing doesn’t pan out, there’s a Sci Fi Channel Movie of the Week in this story of Katrina letting a bunch of trained killer dolphins loose. More crazy background here.
Mark your calendars, because you’re not going to want to miss these seminars by Tom Cruise on mental health. He promises to explain how “Psychiatry Invented Schizophrenia,” and then he’ll cure “So-Called Clinical Depression” with something called the Hubbard Mark Super VII Quantum Electropsychometer. I’m not making this up. He is, but I’m not.
*UPDATE*
Yes, Rich is right. looks like this is a hoax. But a damned good one.
Foodie nerd Alton Brown explains why he likes explaining how to make a roux.
Liberals with nothing better to do are suing the city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, because the city crest has crosses on it. You were expecting something about Marcia Cross, weren’t you?
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone visited Charlie at his table last night for possibly the most raucous edition of the minimalist talk show ever. I have never seen Charlie laugh so hard, for so long. When Matt called Barbra Streisand a cow, I thought poor Charlie was going to pee himself. And when Trey tried to get the host to admit he was “a little gay,” everything went crazy.
Bi-racial Yankees uberstar Derek Jeter has recieved death threats calling him a “traitor to his race” for dating white women. Or black women. Actually I’m not really sure. But you better stop!
In case you missed the pilot of Chris Rock’s new show, and considering it’s on UPN, you probably did, watch it right here. Set aside 21 minutes and check it out.
So the Jedi library in the new Star Wars movies is “virtually” identical to the library at Trinity College in Dublin. Despite the uncanny resemblance, Skywalker Ranch is adamant it’s a coincidence.
“It is totally untrue that there is any connection between the scene in Attack of the Clones and Trinity College.”
There is a tremor in the force. It’s like a thousand lawsuits screaming out, and then being silenced by Lucas’ lawyers.
McDonald’s plan to pay artists to incorporate the Big Mac into rap songs has stalled, because no one seems to have wriiten a tune that lives up to Ray Kroc’s legacy. Even though they would pay the artist up to $5 every time the song is played on the radio. Prepare for 58 minutes of commercials every hour.
Went to Six Flags today to try to make the season pass purchase pay for itself. I still had to get my pass made. There’s something odd about a surly elderly man with a striking resemblance to “creepy dancing Six Flags guy” running the ID machine, especially seeing as he’s standing under a big banner of said creepy fellow. I’m only going to count the day trip as about a third of a ticket seeing as only 2 rides were ridden. The line for Batman: The Ride was over 2 hours long. Technical difficulties, combined with the fact that they were only running one train made for a miserable wait. I did get a frozen strawberry lemonade though. So it wasn’t a total loss.
Kentucky is looking to go to a permanent 4-day school week to save money for, I’m guessing teeth. I’m going with teeth. Or indoor plumbing. No, teeth.
For a $100 donation to Katrina relief, Brian Wilson will call you up and talk to you. Morning Zoo crews budget accordingly.
Thanks to Stephen for tracking down this classic clip of The Shat.