Well, Marvel Comics is now in the full throes of their "Phase II" when it comes to their films. To recap, the time table looks like this:
Iron Man 3 - Next week! May 3, to be specific
Thor: The Dark World - November 2013
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - April 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy - August 2014
The Avengers 2 - May 2015
I kind of liked Thor when it came out in 2011. Being a DC guy at heart, I walked out of the theatre going, "C'mon, Warner Brothers! How hard would it be to make a Wonder Woman movie like that?" I mean, in both of their respective pantheons, both Wonder Woman and Thor find their roots in mythology. Wonder Woman from the Greek, and Thor from the Norse. In fact, Stan Lee even said when he created Thor, he chose Norse mythology because Greek had become too well-known in pop culture.
If I had one complaint about Thor, though, that would be it had a lack of superheroics. The middle section kind of dragged as Thor was back on Earth, learning humility and gaining his powers back. But other than that, enjoyable.
And hopefully, things will turn around in its sequel, Thor: The Dark World, due out this November. In this one, we find Thor gathering his Earthbound love Jane Foster and heading through the Nine Realms when it looks like all the realms are threatened by a great evil.
Of course, Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor, Tom Hiddleston is back as Loki, and Natalie Portman is back as Jane Foster. For a new villain this time out, we have the Ninth Doctor himself, Christopher Eccleston as Malekith the Accursed, leader of the Dark Elves.
Let's take a look at the trailer, shall we?
My thoughts on this trailer? It looks pretty good...we're definitely expanding this universe a little more and we're going to be seeing more of Thor's world. Which is nice. I mean, post-Avengers, how do you make each film different now? How do you have these solo adventures without calling in others for help? So moving off-Earth is a good way to do that.
Thor: The Dark World hits theatres on November 8, 2013.
I'm just so happy that I have my car back. I have freedom. I can go places. I've been so reluctant to stray too far from home the past few months because my car has been in such rough shape.
For those just joining us. It took about a month for my place in Westlock to open up. So for most of the month of February, I was commuting back and forth from Westlock to Athabasca. And, because this northern Alberta region is full of wildlife, and I was driving home to Athabasca when they were on the move, when I was driving home one night, I hit a deer. The bumper was knocked out of place. The panel about the front driver's side tire was beat all to hell. The driver's side headlight just disintegrated. That's what pained me the most...it was like my baby had this huge scar in her face.
But, after several months of patiently waiting for the insurance company and the body shop to hash things out, I was finally able to get her in and get her all fixed. I got her back on Friday, and she was just like new. You can hardly see where the deer hit her.
So, of course, a Sunday drive was in order.
I was off to Edmonton because there were a few things in the city I needed to pick up. I needed some new filters for my bagless vacuum cleaner. My parents were awesome to come and help me move from Athabasca to Westlock, and Mom cleaned my old place like crazy. But, she did warn me, that she wound up using all the filters for my vacuum cleaner. Now that I could move again, I got those hard-to-find vacuum filters and I'm ready to clean rugs again.
And, I was also in for a sad surprise. I also needed ink cartridges for my printer. So, I swung by Staples, who proudly boast that they carry every ink cartridge known to man, and they told me that they don't carry my ink cartridges anymore. I shouldn't be surprised. My printer is over 10 years old now. Got it second-hand from my parents. The printing has been spotty for a couple years now, and I've been thinking that I would like to get a new one. Ideally, I'd like to get one of those "all-in-one" units that are both a printer and a scanner, cuz then I can scan stuff. They're a good price, too, as you can get them between $100 - $150.
I've been putting off getting a new one for so long though because, seriously, how often do you use a printer anymore? I use mine about once a month, when I send a letter to the bank to accompany my student loan payment. The letter reads, "Here's my student loan payment. This is my account number. Have a nice day!" But, needless to say, now that the ink cartridges are no more, getting a new printer has gone from the "want" pile into the "need" pile.
So, admitting that I should start thinking about getting a new printer, it was time to have a little fun. I can't believe I haven't been to the theatre to see a movie since my Christmas vacation! I tend to go batty if I go too long without seeing a film. And I had this Cineplex Gift Card I got for Christmas that I hadn't fully used up yet. And for a few weeks now, I've been wanting to indulge my childhood nostalgia. I went to see G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
My thoughts on G.I Joe 2...meh. I loved the first film because my childhood nostalgia for the property was overwhelming, and I loved how it reveled in the sci-fi/high adventure aspects of G.I. Joe. This second one was a little more grounded and a little more realistic but you know, it really didn't offer anything new in this cinematic G.I. Joe universe. Same problem I had with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. My childhood nostalgia was no longer enough to blind me to the flaws. But, whereas Transformers 2 turned out to be a very bad movie, G.I. Joe 2 was just...meh. Short on action. Short on thrills. It just was there.
And Jinx! They totally under-utilized Jinx! She was one of my favourite G.I. Joes when I was a kid, I was thrilled when I heard they were having her in this film, but she only gets like 6 lines and two action sequences.
And Bruce Willis as General Joseph Colton, the founder of G.I. Joe. Willis is in pure "I'm just doing this for the paycheck" mode, as he seems half asleep for all 10 minutes of his scenes.
So, yeah. G.I Joe: Retaliation. Meh.
After that, I toured the mall a little bit. I try to avoid West Edmonton Mall on Sundays. It's just a little more crowded and I find there's a few more crazy people. Stopped in at HMV. As I've already blogged, I seem to be upgrading all my James Bond movies to Blu-Ray right now because, thanks to the Skyfall hype, they seem to be dirt cheap right now. Not content with just my favourite Bond movies, I've now moved on to my second favourites. And, to complete things, I needed GoldenEye for the Pierce Brosnan era, and License to Kill for the Timothy Dalton era. And guess what was sitting in HMV's 2 for $20 bin?
And yeah, did my usual rounds in West Edmonton Mall. Went through the Apple Store, and held back the tears because I really want an iPad but can't afford one. Went by the former Zellers to see if it's a Target yet. (It's not.) And then stopped in at the Disney Store because, you know, Disney. Because Disney owns LucasFilm now, I keep waiting for it turn into a Star Wars Store, but not yet. I was a little taken aback as I left the Disney Store, because the clerk told me to "have a magical day!"
Got to say, between the mild disappointment that was G.I. Joe: Retaliation and finding out I need to get a new printer, I wasn't feeling very magical. But then I got back behind the wheel of my nice, shiny, fixed-up automobile, and I was feeling magical again. I can now go anywhere, and do anything, thanks to my shiny silver car.
Well, this has been a great week for final trailers! We got the final trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness, the final trailer for Man of Steel, and back on Wednesday, Disney rolled out the final trailer for The Lone Ranger.
I'm kind of looking forward to this one, too. As I've previously blogged, some of my earliest conscious memories of television are of watching reruns of The Lone Ranger. As such, I've always had a soft spot for the character. There's such a great history of western heroes, too. It's nice to see them get some manner of big screen respect.
I'm assuming Disney is hoping to launch another franchise out of this, especially how they're playing up that this is from most of the same creative team that gave us the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. They've got to be careful, though. Last time they hoped to launch a new franchise courtesy of the makers of PotC it turned out to be Prince of Persia. Haven't seen it yet, but still, they say it was not so good.
I haven't been a big fan of some of the other trailers we've gotten so far. They're making it look so dark and gritty. I don't want a dark and gritty Lone Ranger. I want a good guy in a white hat, out busting the outlaws wearing black hats. Something nice and simple. But this trailer...this is looking, well, still not like the traditional Lone Ranger, but I'm more on board now.
Besides, I love trains, and I enjoyed the heck out of all that train chase action in this trailer. Still not so sure about Johnny Depp as Tonto, though. I mean, one of the most prominent Native American characters in pop culture, and you don't get a Native American to play him? I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more outrage.
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly look at one of the many DVDs or Blu-Rays, or VHS tapes that I've acquired over the years. Today, we're tackling one of the surprise hits of the summer of 1995, the historical dramaApollo 13. This entry is dated in my notes as having originally been written on August 26, 2012.
So here I was, so busy geeking out about the new Star Trek Into Darkness trailer yesterday, that I almost didn't notice Warner Brothers going and slipping the final trailer for their Superman reboot, Man of Steel, online!
Like a lot of members of the DC Nation, I can't help but hope that DC/Warner Brothers will finally get their shit together like Marvel/Disney did and pump out a ton of movies based on their pantheon. Don't get me wrong, I love Batman. But where's Wonder Woman? Where's the Flash? They tried Green Lantern, but man, that movie just didn't click.
So here's hoping that Man of Steel is where things start turning around. I've blogged it before and I'll blog it again: despite its flaws, I kinda like Superman Returns. I feel it's a movie that needed to be made. Since the Richard Donner Superman was one of the films that birthed the event picture and is so beloved in the public consciousness, it had to be acknowledged somehow. It had to be gotten out of our collective system before a reboot could be done. So reboot away!
I was kind of scratching my head at the last two trailers. I couldn't quite figure out where they were going with this reboot. They were playing too much with the iconography of Superman, and not really giving us a taste of what would be happening in this adventure. But with this trailer, we finally get more a sense of what's going on.
I'm getting goosebumps watching this! We get an army of evil Kryptonians! And finally, a Krypton and a Fortress of Solitude that looks different from the crystal structures of the original films! And he flies around and punches stuff. That's one of my big complaints about the original films. Superman doesn't do much...super. He (quite literally) did nothing but heavy lifting. I think his is going to be good.
Just one more month to go until the next Star Trek film, Into Darkness, hits theatres. As I blogged four years ago, as the first film in this JJ Abrams reboot franchise neared released, I had reached a point in my life where I was burnt out on Star Trek. The final two movies, Insurrection and Nemesis, were just so lackluster, and Star Trek: Enterprise was just going through the motions. I was incredibly bored with the whole thing.
But JJ Abrams came along and invigorated the whole thing. The peeks and glimpses I got were getting me excited again. And then, when I was there on opening day, with that beautiful pre-titles sequence where we witness the birth of Captain Kirk, and we saw that bigger-then-life Starfleet emblem accompanying the titles, and that amazing Michael Giacchino score kicks in...I got goosebumps. Star Trek was truly a Star Trek epic. I'd never seen it rendered on such a large scale.
See, the Star Trek films had always been done by television people. Harve Bennett, the producers of the majority of the original crew films, had a television background. The Next Generation films were all done by the TV crews, and as such, they just never shook this 2-hour episode of Voyager feeling. But JJ Abrams...that was a movie.
Of course, there are detractors. Some die-hard Trekkies still condescendingly call it STINO (Star Trek in name only), arguing that it was just another big, dumb action film, and not the cerebral science-fiction that Gene Roddenberry envisioned. Less explosions, more philosophical debate about the human condition! That's what Star Trek is! To which I say, "So?" There have been countless Star Trek episodes that took a break from the philosophizing to give us some kick-ass space battles. What's wrong with the movies doing that?
Needless to say, as the countdown continues to Star Trek Into Darkness, my excitement is building. I'm eager to see how things play out in this altered timeline. I'm ready to see where we go next. And everything I've seen so far, I've liked.
Let's take a look at the final trailer released today, shall we?
Again, I'm just loving everything I'm seeing in this film. It really does look like more of the same...a continuation to build on what came before. And the villain's starship! It totally looks like the Excelsior! And those huge guns, and Kirk's simple, "I'm sorry," to his crew. You want your cerebral sci-fi? That "I'm sorry" is a very Tenth Doctor moment.
Still unclear as to who the villain is. They keep telling us that it's John Harrison. Fan speculation is still that it's really Khan. I hope it's not Khan. It's probably Khan, because thanks to the popularity of The Wrath of Khan, he is one of the best-known Star Trek villains. I'll guess we'll know for sure when the movie comes out!
Let's throw in the poster of Benedict Cumberbatch as the villainous John Harrison in a shameless ploy to drive up hits. Something about that skinny Brit just makes the fangirls go "squee!"
Well, I still don't think this is going to be a regular segment, but here we are again. There's stuff that's accumulated on my PVR, and I feel compelled to blog about it. So tempting to dissect the new episodes of Doctor Who and start speculating as to what the deal is with Clara Oswald, but since the Internet is already flush with that, let's blog about something that's rarely blogged about...Star Trek.
Yup, I frequently finding myself recording reruns of the original series on Space in the middle of the afternoon. Space is showing the remastered episodes, and there are some episodes where I never got to see the new special effects.
Quick history lesson for the norms: for Star Trek's 40th anniversary back in 2006, Paramount figured it was time to digitally remaster the original series for high definition. But, in the process, they discovered that the classic special effects just did not hold up in high definition at all. So, they decided to create new special effects with modern computer animation that would be HD-ready. Don't worry, if you're a purist who still wants the original episodes with the original special effects, it's all been released on Blu-Ray.
Anyway, I saw that The Trouble With Tribbleswas coming up, so I had to give that one a watch. I won't go into it too much, because I actually own it on VHS and I've got a Fishing in the Discount Bin coming up dedicated to it. Again, mainly I was watching it for the new special effects. Trouble with Tribbles isn't a special effects extravaganza, just showing the Enterprise in orbit around a space station. For new additions, there's a Klingon battle cruiser, too. Originally, the battle cruiser was off screen for the whole episode, but for the remastering, they slipped it into a couple of shots. I was actually a little disappointed with this one. The effects in this episode just seemed a too CGI. A little too slick and polished, and as such, a little out of place.
And then, later in the week, it was time for A Piece of the Action, aka "the gangster planet episode." This is another much beloved lighter episode of Star Trek. The Enterprise travels to the planet Iotia, which was last visited by the starship Horizon a century before. Since the Horizon visited before the Prime Directive was in place, Kirk, Spock and crew are curious to see what kind of cultural contamination there's been. They beam down to the planet...and land smack dab in the middle of a rerun of The Untouchables. Upon investigating, they discover that a Horizon crewman left behind a history text entitled Chicago Mobs of the Twenties, and those highly imitative Iotians based their whole society around it. Knowing that mob rule is no way to run a planet, Kirk, Spock and Bones set out to stop a gang war and start steering the society towards a more responsible government.
Again, this episode is just funny, as the Enterprise crew gets caught up in the culture shock of landing in a planet straight out of the past. As the episode ends, Kirk even gets lost in the part and starts speaking in a bad Al Capone impersonation.
It's also notable in that there was long talk of doing some kind of sequel. See, the episode ends with Bones sheepishly admitting that he left his communicator behind. Of course, since the communicator contains the fundamentals of Starfleet technology, our heroes wonder what might happen if those highly intelligent and imitative Iotians reverse-engineer it. So people really wanted to see a sequel in the Next Generation era. They wanted to do it on The Next Generation, but Gene Roddenberry vetoed the idea. Roddenberry wanted to minimize references to the original series on The Next Generation, so TNG would be its own thing. They were painfully close to doing it on Deep Space Nine as their 30th anniversary tribute episode, but they ultimately decided to do their crossover with The Trouble With Tribblesinstead.
The premise would have been simple. The Enterprise-D or the Defiant visits Iotia. They discover that, thanks to McCoy leaving behind his communicator, the Iotians have now based their society around 23rd Century Starfleet (i.e. the original series), and the entire planet is now one never-ending Star Trek convention. They tell us it would have been a "loving homage/gentle poke at the fandom."
I kinda hoped they'd do a prequel on Star Trek: Enterprise where the Enterprise NX-01 encounters the Horizon and meets a forgetful historian who's always leaving things behind.
But there's more on my PVR than Star Trek. Thank you, TeleToon Retro, for allowing me to get all nostalgic for my youth and showing all those cartoons from the 1980s. Like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Another much beloved episode was on recently, Teela's Quest.
This one has become quite famous for the new developments it brought to Masters of the Universe continuity. Teela begins to wonder about her biological parents, and goes off on a quest to the Oracle of the Crystal Sea to find answers. Skeletor's henchman Mer-Man sees this, and asks Skeletor if he can pursue Teela, as Mer-Man has sworn a vendetta against Man-At-Arms, and seeks to gain vengeance through Man-At-Arms' adopted daughter.
He-Man finds out where Teela's gone, and since the Crystal Sea is too dangerous for one to go alone, He-Man decides to go after Teela. But, Teela's looking after herself just fine, and as the Oracle begins giving Teela her answers, Mer-Man shows up and ambushes her. Every 20 years, a demon rises from the bottom of the Crystal Sea, and if you give it a sacrifice, you can tame it and get it to do your bidding. Man-At-Amrs interrupted the ceremony 20 years ago, and now, Mer-Man seeks to do the ceremony again, and get his revenge on Man-At-Arms by using his own daughter as the sacrifice.
He-Man finally shows up, and the Oracle fills He-Man in on what's going on. He-Man shows up, rescues Teela, defeats Mer-Man, and kicks demon ass. With that done, they go back to the Oracle. The Oracle continues his story, of how 20 years ago, Mer-Man was going to sacrifice a beautiful falcon to the demon. But Man-At-Arms fought off Mer-Man and saved the falcon. The falcon then leads Man-At-Arms to her nest, and in it is a baby...the infant Teela. In the Oracle's vision, Teela immediatly recognizes the falcon as Zoar, the falcon form of the Sorceress of Greyskull. Teela begins to put it together. "But then that would mean...."
The Sorceress emerges from the shadows. "Yes, Teela. I am your mother." The Sorceress then explains that Teela is destined to become the next Sorceress of Greyskull. And that's why Teela must have no knowledge of her parentage. If anyone knew of Teela's connection to the Sorceress, or Teela's destiny, evildoers might attempt to get the Power of Greyskull through Teela. So, with tears in her eyes, the Sorceress erases this knowledge from Teela's memory, replacing it with the simple knowledge that Teela's mother is alive and loves her daughter very much.
Such a beautiful episode, and provides some very interesting back story for the familiar characters. And it was written by Paul Dini! Dini, of course, a long time writer who's become best known in recent years for his Batman work. He worked on The Animated Series, is the co-creator of Harley Quinn, and wrote the mega-blockbuster video game Arkham City. Working on He-Man back in the day was one of his first professional gigs. He doesn't look back on it with much fondness, as Filmation, the studio that made He-Man, was a very cheap outfit, and most of his colleagues seemed to be very bitter old TV writers just killing time before retirement.
That, and I've recently become enraptured with reruns of The Mighty Hercules. It's on TeleToon Retro every night. It was one of those cartoons that was just always on when I was a kid. Watching it now is a little bit shocking. Apparently, the outfit that owns The Mighty Hercules had all the episodes painstakingly digitally remastered a few years ago, so I've never seen it looking this crisp and sharp.
Not too long ago, an artistic friend of mine asked me if I'd be interested in writing a comic book. I'd write it, he'd draw it, and we'd self-publish it digitally. The thing was he didn't want it to be superheroes. I was intrigued, but idea wise, I had nothing. About the most I got was some form of high adventure tale set in a fantasy world. The Mighty Hercules would definitely be the model to follow, though. Just a simple tale of high adventure in a fantasy setting.
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly look at one of the many things I own in a home video format. Today, we get to a big screen version of a classic cartoon, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. This is dated in my notes at August 18, 2012.
As I'm sure you've heard by now, renowned film critic Roger Ebert passed away two days ago. I was at work when the news broke, and I was surprised at how torn up I was about it. Roger Ebert really was my gateway into being the movie geek I was today.
Most of my family are churchgoers, but I was never really into it. So, when my teen years came, and I was old enough to be left home on my own, I'd stay home on Sunday mornings and watch Siskel and Ebert. And I tell you, Siskel and Ebert was an eye-opening show. When all you've got for movies is the 2-dozen or so blockbusters down at the local convenience store, Siskel and Ebert was there to show me that there is so much more out there in the world for movies.
And this was in the early 1990s, too, which was a golden era to be getting into movies. We had the rise of the independents in that era, with folks like Quentin Tarintino, Robert Rodreiguiz, and Kevin Smith launching their careers. And that in general started bringing more attention to art house fare, and giving more attention to foreign films.
Siskel and Ebert was where I was first exposed to the works of Kevin Smith. On the show, they used to end it with the "Video Pick of the Week," where they'd highlight a really good movie that had just been released on video. But, with Laserdisc being the format of choice for cinephiles at the time, they also started doing a "Laserdisc Pick of the Month." One Sunday morning, their Laserdisc Pick of the Month was the special edition Laserdisc of Clerks. And, from the Laserdisc, they showed the original ending of Clerks, and then Siskel and Ebert had a quick debate as to whether Smith was right to cut it or not.
It was also where I was first exposed to the films of Hayao Miyazaki. My Neighbor Totoro was dubbed and released by legendary film studio Troma Studios in 1992, and I remember seeing it reviewed on Siskel and Ebert, and Ebert gave an incredibly positive review to it. I'm pretty sure he put it on his "10 Best" list for 1992. I remember watching that episode, and they showed the clip of Totoro and Satsuki hanging out at the bus stop, and then the Catbus pulls up, and I thought to myself, "This film looks freaky as fuck." And now, Miyazaki is one of my favourite filmmakers.
And also, Quentin Tarantino. I remember, when Tarantino only had four films to his name (Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs, and the Tarantino-scripted-only True Romance and Natural Born Killers), they already did a retrospective on Tarintino's career and how Tarintino was going to revolutionize filmmaking. I remember Ebert expressing in amazement that there were already websites dedictated to Tarintino. This would have been early 1995.
And that leads into another bit of Ebert's legacy. As many in the online film crticism community are pointing out, Ebert was an early adopter of the Internet, and was quick to embrace online film critics as his brethren and not wannabes. I remember, in 1997 or so, I saw Ebert on a talk show, and he was asked if he had any advice for anyone who wanted to be a film critic. And Ebert said, "My advice to anyone who wants to be a film critic is the same advice to anyone who wants to be a writer: never stop writing. And with the Internet now, it's become so easy to publish your work and have it reach a wide audience." I took those words to heart, and I started writing movie reviews on my website not longer after. Probably why I still find the time to sit and jot down a few thoughts whenever I come back from the city, because watching a movie is still the main reason why I venture into Edmonton.
The Internet is where Ebert flourished in his later years. He'd been battling cancer, and it literally robbed him of his voice about 10 years ago. So he started blogging more. I loved his blog. He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, and his blog was always such a treat to read. Which is why his death was so heartbreaking. The day before he died, he wrote his final blog entry, in which he announced that his cancer had come back, and he would be taking a "leave of presence" to battle it. He wasn't going to give up, just slow down a bit. Write less reviews, but still blogging, and he made mention of turning to Kickstarter to fund his TV show and get it back on the air, which really caught my eye.
And that's the most inspiring thing about Roger Ebert. Up until the end, he never gave up, he never quit. He had his passions, like movies and writing, and nothing stood in between himself and his passions. He just kept going.
So thank you, Roger Ebert. My love of movies, my love of writing, all inspired by you. Thank you.
So, a quick recap on the current history of Pixar.
Around 2006, the deal between Pixar and Disney was coming to a close, and things between Pixar and Disney got a little heated in the re-negotiations. During those re-negotiations, Disney invoked a clause in their original deal with Pixar that granted them the sequel rights to any and all Pixar films. So, as a big "screw you" to Pixar, Disney announced the creation of a new animation studio called Circle Seven Studios, and the sole purpose of this new studio would be to make Pixar sequels. Disney quickly announced that they would be making Toy Story 3, Monsters, Inc. 2, and Finding Nemo 2 under the Circle Seven label.
The re-negotiations finally ended with Disney remembering they have more money than God and just buying Pixar. In the buyout, a lot of Pixar's senior management became senior management at Disney, and the first thing they did was pull the plug on Circle Seven Studios. However, seeing the little bit of work that Circle Seven did did get Pixar's creative juices flowing, and so Pixar decided to go ahead with Toy Story 3, which came out in 2010 and was spectacular, and Monsters, Inc. 2, a prequel now titled Monsters University, which comes out this summer.
So, I guess then, I shouldn't be too surprised when Disney and Pixar made the official announcement back on Tuesday that Finding Nemo 2 is officially in the works, to be titled Finding Dory.
Along with the announcement of the film came the announcement that Ellen DeGeneres is coming back to voice Dory. That was expected...DeGeneres (and many Hollywood watchers) have long credited her voice work in Finding Nemo to have jumpstarted her career about 10 years ago. And, when she made the announcement on her talk show on Tuesday, she said she'd been bugging Pixar pretty hard about it for the past few years.
Also coming back to direct is veteran Pixar director Andrew Stanton, who gave us the original Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Now, Stanton made his live-action debut a year ago with John Carter, which went on to become one of the biggest bombs of all time. So when rumors of Finding Nemo 2 started circulating last summer and that Stanton would be coming back to direct, Stanton initially denied the rumors. I did dig up an interview he did in the fall where he addressed the rumors. He said that he always had an idea for a Finding Nemo 2, but, since John Carter was hoped to launch a major franchise, he honestly expected he'd be neck-deep in making John Carter 2 right now. So he was readjusting his schedule and moving certain projects up on his personal timeline. Looks like Finding Dory got moved to the front of the line.
The official plot description sent out by Disney says it'll take place one year after Finding Nemo, and be set primarily along the California coastline. Marlin and the Tank Gang will be returning from the first film, and we'll also get a new slate of beloved, toyetic characters.
Finding Dory will be hitting theatres November 25, 2015.
I'm still a fan of Tim Burton's, even though I have yet to bring myself to watchDark Shadows. That being said, though, upon re-watching Frankenweenie when it came out on DVD a few months ago, I thought that film was...well, something special. That film had real heart to it, something that a lot of Tim Burton films have been lacking lately as he pumps out the latest product for a major studio starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter. So I was intrigued earlier this week with the announcement of his next film, the biography Big Eyes.
Big Eyes tells the story of painter Margaret Keane and her ex-husband Walter Keane. Back in the 1950s and 60s, the Keanes became famous for creating those paintings of children with really big eyes. With Walter's marketing savvy, the paintings soon became a pop culture phenomenon. Margaret, being the shy, introverted type, just spent her days at home painting the paintings. But, the success started going to Walter's head, and soon he started taking credit for the paintings and going on talk shows and the like to talk about them. Margaret finally found her voice and start calling out her husband. Needless to say, it put a strain on their marriage, and the true authorship of the paintings was something that became a very crucial part of their divorce proceedings.
Burton is apparently a fan of Margaret Keane's work (she was eventually ruled the true painter), and Burton commissioned Keene to do a painting of Lisa Marie, the Guess jeans supermodel who was Burton's-girlfriend-that-he-stuck-in-every-movie back in the 1990s. Burton has been trying to get this project going for a few years, and finally got around to it.
To make the film, Burton is re-teaming with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. They originally worked together on Ed Wood, and following that, Alexander and Karaszewski made a name of themselves in the 1990s, writing screenplays about offbeat individuals, including The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon.
And to play Walter and Margaret Keene, Burton is NOT going with his obvious choices of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter. Walter will be played by Christoph Waltz, who won two Oscars working with Quentin Tarantino on Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained. And Margaret will be played by fellow Oscar winner Amy Adams.
Time once again for that weekly look at one of the many movies in my home video library, Fishing in the Discount Bin. Yet my latest attempt to do an entire TV series on Fishing in the Discount Bin, and this time out, we're doing a show I loved in my youth,Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This one is dated in my notes at August 12, 2012.
And with those auspicious words, on this day 10 years ago, April 2, 2003, I launched this blog.
I don’t think I expected this to go on for 10 years. Back in the day, it was just meant to be a quick and easy replacement...something to maintain my online presence, as such things were important to me back then. There I was, on my post-college adventure, teaching English as a second language in Japan. My laptop crapped out on, leaving me with no way to update my website. I wanted some way to keep posting messages online, and let my family back home hear my stories of my Japanese adventures. I wanted something that would be quick and easy to update at the Internet cafes. A lot of my friends were hopping on the Blogger service, because that was the blogging host of choice back in the day. So, on one moonlit night, at the Manga Hiroba Internet cafe, I signed up for a blogger account, and Midnight Ramblings was born.
While this is the 10th anniversary of this particular facet of my online presence, it’s not the 10th anniversary of me blogging. That would be 14 years of that. And even then, it goes back further. Nope, for my first ventures into having an online presence, we have to go back all the way to a wintry November night in 1997, when I was still a carefree college student at Augustana University College. The dot-com bubble hadn’t popped yet, and the Internet was rapidly expanding. As I spent many an evening in college, I was hanging out in the offices of the school newspaper, where my best friend was the editor, and we were having one of our typical conversations about life, the universe, and cartoons of the 1980s. And the topic soon changed to the growing Internet and how it was starting to take hold in pop culture. “Man, I would sure love to have a website,” I said.
“Well, let’s get you one,” he said. And within 10 minutes, he directed to me to a free webhosting outfit called Angelfire, and I had a website. With the “how to use HTML” tutorials I found online, and my best friend’s help, I soon had a half-descent website to promote my college radio show. In the drive for more content, I started posting my opinion columns from the college paper. Since my radio show was Chaos in a Box and my opinion column was Chaos in Print, I decided to christen the website Chaos on the Net.
But then, along came the summer of Episode I, 1999, and with it, graduation. Upon my college graduation, like with most college grads, I suddenly found myself at a loss. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, or what was to come next. And even worse, now that I no longer had my radio show or my opinion column in the school paper, I had no creative outlet where I could put my words out there and help sort things out.
While I was going through some of the photos on my digital camera, I came across a bunch of pictures of some of my favourite action figures in my collection. I took them when I was home at Christmas, which is where the bulk of my collection is still in storage. I had planned on writing a bunch of blog entries about these characters and why I bought them so many times, but it kind of got put on the back burner. But, since I was gifted with a day off from work, and I found the pictures on my camera, I figured I should sit down and write the one entry I always planned on doing. And that's my many purchases of the G.I. Joe ninja commando, Snake Eyes.
Snake Eyes, hands down, was everyone's favourite G.I. Joe growing up. Larry Hama, who wrote the original G.I. Joe comic books and wrote the backstories for pretty much every character, always attributed this to the fact that, because he's completely masked and has a mysterious past, pretty much anybody could project their own self onto him. That being said, though, Snake Eyes did have a rich history in the comics.
Snake Eyes was the all American boy, who grew up to serve his country by joining the Army. While on patrol in Vietnam, his helicopter was shot down, and rather than run to safety, he stayed behind to rescue his team-mate Scarlett. Though Scarlett was safe, the cost was high to Snake Eyes, as the helicopter crash would up horribly burning his face, and damaging his vocal cords, rendering him mute. This is why he is always masked, and why he never speaks.
The tragedy continued, though. Upon returning to the States, he was informed that his parents and beloved twin sister were killed by a drunk driver. With no family, and very despondent, Snake Eyes' best friend Tommy Arashikage invited Snake Eyes to come home with him in Japan, and offered him a place in the Arashikage family business. Of course, the family business turned out to be a ninja clan. Snake Eyes quickly took to the ninja training and excelled in all his studies, but the ninja master's perceived favourtism of Snake Eyes quickly made Tommy jealous. In an act of jealousy, Tommy killed their ninja master and escaped into the wilderness. Despondent over the loss of his new family, Snake Eyes returned to the States, and lived in seclusion Sierra mountains, until General Hawk recruited him for a new military unit that was being put together...G.I. Joe. And as for Tommy, he fell into a life of crime, became a mercenary, and was eventually hired by Cobra, where he took the name Storm Shadow.
(But not really. As was eventually revealed, the drunk driver that killed Snake Eyes' parents and sister was Cobra Commander's brother, so in typically twisted comic book villain logic, Cobra Commander blamed Snake Eyes for his brother's death. Cobra Commander hired Zartan to kill Snake Eyes, but Zartan missed and killed the ninja master instead, framing Storm Shadow in the process. Storm Shadow infiltrated Cobra to try and find the master's true killer. Once all this came to light, Storm Shadow defected and fought along side his friend Snake Eyes once gain. But I digress.)
As awesome as he was, I never had Snake Eyes when I was a kid. My brother and I found him in Zellers one night, and we pooled our money to get him, but since my brother was the bigger G.I. Joe fan, Snake Eyes was always mixed in with his G.I. Joes, and I rarely got to play with him. So, when I started collecting action figures, and G.I. Joe started making a big resurgence about 10 years ago, getting Snake Eyes was high on my list.
So here I am, chillin' out with my pants off, because I have curtains in my apartment now so I can do that, when I get a Facebook message from my cousin. "Hey, I may have missed it," says he, "but what did you think of the trailer for The Wolverine?" And it occurred to me that I hadn't blogged about it yet, so I should, because that's kind of my thing.
The latest in the long and storied X-Men franchise comes out this summer, The Wolverine, following the solo adventures of everyone's favourite Canadian mutant, once again played by Australian Hugh Jackman. I was thinking about this the other day...Wolverine has essentially become Jackman's James Bond. I can't think of any other franchise that's kept the same actor for the same iconic character for so long. And not bad for a guy who kind of stumbled into it. As has been well documented now, Bryan Singer's first choice to play Wolverine in X-Men all those years ago was Russell Crowe, but Crowe passed. Then, Singer hired Dougray Scott, but he was playing the bad guy in Mission: Impossible II, and when filming on that one went long, Scott had to pull out. So it was down to #3 choice, Hugh Jackman, who was still primarily known in Australia as a song-and-dance man. Jackman accepted the role, it turned him into a global superstar, and the rest is history.
In a way, this particular film has been a pet project of Jackman's. Ever since he accepted the role of Wolverine and began researching the character, he's been dying to tell the tale told in the epic 1982 Frank Miller mini-series about Wolverine settling down in Japan, adopting the code of the samurai, and finally finding inner peace. But, of course, Wolverine always seems to run into trouble and he gets caught in the middle of ninja battles and yakuza wars. And before you know it, Wolverine is once again proving that he's the best there is and what he does, and what he does isn't very nice.
Getting this particular Wolverine adventure to the big screen took some doing. The always knew they wanted to do it as a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but when the reaction to that film was kind of "meh," there was some doubt about continuing with Wolverine's solo franchise. But people still love the character, so they went ahead and started developing the sequel. Jackman brought in his old buddy Christopher McQuarrie to write the script. McQuarrie, of course, is Bryan Singer's longtime writing partner, who scripted The Usual Suspects and Valkyre. And for a director, Jackman asked another one of his buddies...Darren Aronofsky, who directed The Wrestler and Black Swan and, where Jackman met him, The Fountain.
But, that kind of fell apart. They wanted to film it on location in Japan. Makes perfect sense. But, filming on location in Japan would have taken Aronofsky away from his young family for about a year, and he didn't want to do that. So Aronofsky pulled out. And then the tsunami hit Japan a couple years ago, and that kind of frightened the producers away from filming in Japan. So the search was on for another for a new director and a new location. Much like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they finally settled on filming in Jackman's homeland of Australia, and for a new director, they got James Mangold, who directed the Oscar winners Girl, Interrupted (the film that made Angelina Jolie a star) and Walk the Line (the Johnny Cash biopic).
So, the film itself. In the official plot description we've been given, they tell us it takes place after X-Men: The Last Stand. After the events of that film, he's been walking the Earth, finding himself, when an old figure from his past invites him to Japan. Where's the line that the studio handed out that's incredibly cheezy: "Vulnerable for the first time, and pushed to his physical and emotional
limits, he confronts not only lethal samurai steel, but also his inner
struggle against his own immortality, emerging more powerful than ever
before."
Jackman, of course, is back as Wolverine. Japanese model Tao Okamoto plays Mariko, the beloved that Wolverine settles down with. Will Yun Lee plays Wolverine's Japanese enemy, the Silver Samurai. And, the trailers have confirmed it, Famke Jansen puts in a cameo as Jean Grey.
I know people were kind of worried about this, because, well, the film comes out this July, and we're only getting a trailer at the end of March. The fact that they were holding off for so long really started making people think that the film is going to be crappy. Well, let's take a look at and see.
Well, let's get back to my cousin's original question, shall we? What did I think of it? My reaction is somewhat...well, I'm underwhelmed. I'm looking at this trailer and going, "Meh." I'm just getting a real, "Been there, done that" vibe from this trailer. It's not getting me fired up. Looks like, for the plot, we're getting the whole "Hero loses his powers, and finds that he's still a hero without them" trope that we saw in Spider-Man 2 and Superman 2, and most other superhero sequels.
So, yeah. I'm just not feeling it with this one. But I'll still probably check it out, because I'm a sucker for all things superhero.
Well, here I am now, all settled down in Westlock and beginning the latest chapter in my life. And right now, that latest chapter includes exploring my new cable company and all the brand new channels they offer! When the cable guy came to hook me up a week ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see he dropped off a PVR. I didn't know I ordered a PVR. Needless to say, with this brand-new technology, I wanted to break it in by recording tons and tons of random crap.
I was thinking about starting a new series of entries where I'd sit down, clean out my PVR and reminisce about what I'd recorded. But, as the week went on, I figured that probably wouldn't be such a good idea. I mean, I really don't think the world needs to see me geek out about the latest DC Comics B-lister that popped up on Arrow, or that I like 2 Broke Girls, or that I have a fascination with the Disney sitcom Shake It Up, which I'm sure, in some parallel universe, could be seen as the prequel to 2 Broke Girls.
In short, why blog about TV when you can watch TV?
But still, there's a few things I recorded and watched this past week, and with nothing better to do on this Sunday morning, I thought I'd sit down and write my thoughts anyway.
G.I. Joe: Spell of the Siren - For some reason, I have very vivid memories of watching this episode of the G.I. Joe cartoon when I was a kid, so I when I saw it was coming up on TeleToon Retro, I had to indulge my childhood nostalgia and see it again. The Baroness manages to get her hand on the mystical "Conch of the Sirens." When she blows on this enchanted conch shell, it's song is able to hypnotize any man into becoming her obedient servant. So, with this new power, she promptly overthrows Cobra Commander, takes over Cobra, and hypnotizes G.I. Joe into following her orders. Since this power has no effect on women, it's up to G.I. Joe's token women -- Scarlett, Cover Girl, and Lady Jaye -- to save the day. Oh, and there's also two or three Joes who help them out because they were off-base when Baroness attacked, and that's good, because Scarlett, Cover Girl, and Lady Jaye need someone to make the coffee. There's a couple of interesting things about this episode, like seeing the Baroness and Destro's love for each other. The episode opens with Destro being captured by G.I. Joe, as the Joes raid the expedition to recover the Conch of the Sirens. And Baroness's original impetus for taking over Cobra is when Cobra Commander refuses to expend the resources to rescue Destro. Later in the episode, the Baroness threatens to use the Conch on Destro to turn him into her mindless servant, but Destro talks her out of it, citing that ruling the world is no fun unless you have someone to share it with. And they start making out. I just find it fascinating when villains truly are capable of love. I still don't know why I have such vivid memories of this episode. Probably the sight of the climactic battle, in which Scarlett, Cover Girl, and Lady Jaye grapple with an army of female Cobra officers in their tight blue uniforms is when I first started feeling funny down there.
Star Trek: Amok Time - Generally acknowledged as one of the greatest episodes of the original Star Trek, if not the greatest, I knew I had to record it as it had been ages since I'd seen it. It was a big deal for Trekkies back in the day because it gave us our first glimpse of the planet Vulcan and the Vulcan culture. It all opens on the Starship Enterprise, where Spock has begun behaving very emotionally and erratically...highly unusual behaviour for Spock. Spock implores Kirk that he be allowed to return to his home planet of Vulcan. Spock eventually confides to Kirk that it's because he's undergoing the Ponn Farr, the time in every Vulcan's life where he's overcome with the overwhelming urge to return home and mate. Spock has an arranged marriage waiting for him on Vulcan, so he has to get married and mate or else the hormones overwhelming his body will kill him. So, they head to Vulcan, where the meet Spock's arranged bride, T'Pring, and the marriage will be officiated by T'Pau, a high Vulcan priestess and the closest thing Vulcan has to royalty. But, before the wedding starts, T'Pring invokes an ancient custom where her betrothed has to fight for her hand in marriage in a ritualistic battle to the death. And for her champion, T'Pring chooses Kirk. So Spock and Kirk have to fight to the death. Kirk is having a tough time in the battle, thanks to Vulcan's hotter and thinner atmosphere, so McCoy injects Kirk with a drug to make him breathe easier. The battle resumes, and Spock kills Kirk. With Spock's hormonal lust now subsiding, he's thinking logically again, and questions T'Pring as to why she demanded the combat. T'Pring reveals that it's because she'd fallen in love with another. T'Pring logically deduced that, if Kirk won the combat, Kirk would reject her as a bride and she'd be able to marry her true love. If Spock won, he'd be so overcome with grief that he'd reject her as a bride and she could marry her true love. Or, if Spock went through with tradition and married her, why, he'd be off-planet so much commanding the Enterprise that she'd be able to continually bang her true love on the side. With all this information, Spock frees T'Pring from tradition, enabling her to marry her true love. Spock returns to the Enterprise to meet justice for killing Captain Kirk, but Kirk is actually alive. That drug that McCoy injected him with was actually a sedative to fake Kirk's death. With Spock back to normal, everyone resumes their duty stations and the adventure continues. This is a great episode. It's nothing but character development for Spock and Kirk. And it introduced so many Star Trek tropes, such as the ponn farr, and that trademark Star Trek fight music, which plays when Spock and Kirk do battle.
I watched it on Space, and Space is currently airing the "special editions" that they whipped up a few years ago. I missed them quite a bit when they first aired. For special edition touches to this episode, all they really did was add some new establishing shots of Vulcan, to make it look more like the Vulcan we've come to know and love from the movies and the Next Generation era.
Star Trek: Mirror, Mirror - See, my PVR would probably just be full of Star Trek reruns from Space. Another much-beloved episode of the original series, introducing one of the most beloved concepts in Star Trek, the Mirror Universe...the parallel universe populated by our evil twins. While returning from an away mission in the middle of a magnetic storm, a transporter accident causes Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura to switch places with their evil counterparts in the Mirror Universe. In the Mirror Universe, there is no United Federation of Planets. Instead, we have the Terran Empire, seeking to dominate and conquer the universe. On a Starship Enterprise where people are promoted through assassination, and the people command with fear, our four intrepid heroes have to find a way to get back to their own universe, while evil Spock can't help but feel that there's something different about the four when they came back from the planet. Thank you, evil Spock, for giving us the trope of evil twins having a goatee. Again, just a very solid episode with some very interesting concepts introduced. I remember watching this many, many years ago. CBC Edmonton occasionally showed reruns of the original series, and this was filler after Hockey Night in Canada one Saturday night. I taped it...maybe I still have it on VHS somewhere.
And that's pretty much it. And Robot Chicken. So much Robot Chicken. I love that show. I think I'll end with the most vile joke I ever heard on Robot Chicken.
SpongeBob SquarePants>> But Sandy! How can you be pregnant? You said you had a sponge in you! (awkward pause) Oh...you meant me. (trademark SpongeBob laugh)
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, where I take a peek at one of the many, many movies in my collection. Once again, I attempt to tackle a TV series, Wonderfalls. This is originally dated August 5, 2013.
Just taking a minute to catch up on the various pop-culture tidbits that came across my desk last week. I was kind of busy enjoying cable TV! In a new town, got my cable hooked up, and experimenting with my new PVR and such. Actually, it's kind of neat. Because I now get my Internet from my cable company, and my cable modem is now part of my entertainment centre, I'm now able to plug my Blu-Ray player straight into the modem. It's an older model, though, so it doesn't have any apps for streaming video services, and sadly, it looks like most studios are starting to abandon BD-Live.
For those who don't care, BD-Live was one of the big selling points of Blu-Ray when it first hit the market about 6 or 7 years ago. You plug your Blu-Ray player into the Internet, and then with your BD-Live enabled disc, you're able to download and/or stream new bonus features. About the only studio that still does BD-Live content is Universal, and they've got the right idea. So you're not seeing trailers for movies from 5 years ago, what most Universal BD-Live discs do is stream new trailers from the Internet when you fire up your disc.
Nope, the current trend when it comes to Blu-Ray bonus features is second screen apps. You load the app on your tablet, it syncs to the disc through your wireless home network, and the bonus features stream to your tablet while you watch the movie. So I guess it's time to get a tablet.
It looks like Kickstarter is giving new life to short-lived TV series.
Last week, Rob Thomas, creator of the cult classic TV series Veronica Mars, took to Kickstarter, and revealed that he'd made a deal with Warner Brothers...the studio that owns Veronica Mars. If Thomas could raise $2 million on Kickstarter for a Veronica Mars movie, Warner Brothers would greenlight it.
Thomas got his $2 million in 10 hours...Kickstarter has branded it their most successful campaign ever.
This got some folks thinking, and they asked the creators of some other "brilliant-but-canceled" TV series about using Kickstarter to back a movie version.
Bryan Fuller, creator of two cult-classic TV shows, Wonderdfallsand Pushing Daisies, was asked about using Kickstarter to fund movie versions of his two shows. Fuller said he'd love to, but because of how visual-effects-intensive Pushing Daisies was, he'd probably need to raise at least $10 million.
And, Joss Whedon was asked about using Kickstarter to resurrect the king of all short-lived cult classic TV series, Firefly. Whedon said he'd love to, but between him being busy with The Avengers 2 and Nathan Fillion being busy with Castle, it won't happen any time soon.
The first trailer forKick-Ass 2 went online last week.
I once asked a friend of mine when we might get our true cinematic version of Watchmen. When Watchmen came along in the 1980s, it was critically praised for deconstructing the superhero genre. So my question was when the same might happen for all the superhero movies we've been getting lately.
One that had a good shot was Kick-Ass. Based on the creator-owned comic by Mark Millar, it was a minor hit in 2010, and attempted a deconstruction as it pondered what superheroes might be like in the real world. While I did love the film, I felt that, as the end drew near, it did kind of fall back into the typical superhero movie mold. Director Matthew Vaughn had to make the first one independently, because most studios thought the film had too much objectionable content -- specifically the character of Hit Girl, a 12-year old girl vigilante who gleefully disembowels evildoers and curses like a sailor. That being said, though, when the first film was a big hit, Universal Studios promptly swooped in and picked up the movie rights for any and all sequels.
Hence, Kick-Ass 2, coming this summer. Based on Millar's two sequel comics, Kick-Ass 2 and the Hit Girl mini-series. We find Mindy/Hit Girl is having a tough time in junior high, as the average street punk is no match for the typical junior high mean girl. Dave has hung up his Kick-Ass mask, and gone back to being a normal teenager. But, when Chris D'Amico, Red Mist in the first film and the son of the drug dealer who was slain at the end of the first film, swears vengeance, he decides to become the Mother Fucker, the world's first super-villain. Also, the work of Kick-Ass has inspired a new batch of self-made superheroes, and a super-team known as Justice Forever now patrols the streets. Before long, Kick-Ass and Hit Girl are lured out of retirement, and join Justice Forever to take down the Mother Fucker!
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is back as Dave/Kick-Ass, Chole Grace Moretz returns as Mindy/Hit Girl, and Christopher "McLovin'" Mintz-Plasse is back as Chris/Mother Fucker. And joining them this time out is Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars n Stripes, the leader of Justice Forever.
It hits theatres this August.
And just because I'll need a thumbnail when I post this to the various social networks, I have the heavily-hyped Star Trek Into Darkness app on my iPhone, as I count down to the new Star Trek movie this summer. Here's what the app gifted me with on St. Patrick's Day.
It's time again for Fishing in the Discount Bin, that magical time of the week where I take a look at one of the many, many DVDs in my home library. Today, we dip back into the James Bond canon with a peak at the Sean Connery Bond, Goldfinger. This entry is originally dated August 3, 2012.
Well, here I am, all settled in in Westlock. It's kind of nice to be back at a radio station the broadcasts the Oilers games. See, whenever a radio station broadcasts a live event, there has to be some poor guy stuck back at the station pushing the buttons, manning the controls, and making sure the event is broadcast live to the world. That person is the operator. And at a station that broadcasts Oilers games, I frequently have to operate the Oilers games. And I don't mind doing it one bit, because it's about the only part of my job where I get paid overtime. In days gone by, when the Oilers were on in Athabasca, I'd pass the time by writing long, rambling blog entries. So it looks to be time for that tradition to continue!
While the overtime is nice, such evenings usually result in me spending that overtime pay, because I eventually find myself browsing online shops and buying things I don't need. Well, I've already started, actually. Just got the latest e-mail that my latest shipment from Amazon.ca has shipped. I'm kind of disappointed. A few years ago, during the postal strike, Amazon.ca switched from Canada Post to Puralator as their courier of choice. So, when I placed this order a few days ago, here I was making all the necessary preperations for the package to be delivered to a place where I can sign for it and all that. And now, as I read the fine print on the notice that my order has shipped, I see they've gone back to using Canada Post.
Maybe all this is a sign that I should sign up for Amazon Prime. It was with some hype back in January that Amazon announced they were finally introducing this program to Amazon.ca. Essentially, for the flat rate of $79 per year, you get unlimited 2-day shipping. It's just one of those things where I wonder if I'd get my money's worth for that $79 per year.
Anyway, what did I buy in this particular shipment? Well, I bought Disney's latest animated epic Wreck-It Ralph. As I said in my original review when I went to see it in theatres back in November, I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. I went in expecting Video Game Nostalgia: The Movie, but instead got a very sweet tale about a guy trying to rediscover his spark for what he does. And I also got the James Bond movie From Russia With Love, still considered by many to be the greatest Bond film ever made. I don't know if you've noticed, but with the release and hype of Skyfall, James Bond Blu-Rays are dirt cheap right now.
And speaking of browsing online shops, I was starting to fret that I may not have a chance to buy these. As you know, I collect Star Wars action figures. And, a few years ago, they created some exclusive Star Wars action figures of the Star Tourscharacters, and you could only get them at Disneyland. I had a cousin go to Disneyland, and humbly requested that he bring me back a couple for my collection...and here they are!
Well, a couple years ago, Disney decided it was time to update Star Tours, and along with that came new characters for Star Tours. And, about a month ago, Disney announced that there's a new batch of Disneyland exclusive Star Tours figures, starting to show up at Disneyland and Walt Disney World gift shops right now. I was wondering if it would be cheaper to buy them on eBay, or go to Disneyland and buy them in person. (My mother was all for me going to Disneyland...until I decided to hit up my folks for the money for such a trip.)
But then, I was perusing one of my Star Wars action figure databases, and they revealed that they are now available at the online Disney Store! I was all eager to see this, but after I went there, and calculated the shipping, and converted it to Canadian money, it came up to $75. That's the kind of price that always makes me think twice. When I started this hobby of collecting action figures all those years ago, I swore I would never spend more than $20 on a figure. But, you know, this is a 5-pack of figures, and $75 / 5 = $15. That's within my principles....
But let's take a break from online shopping, shall we? It's been almost a week, and I haven't sat down to blog about the newIron Man 3trailer yet.
They keep assuring us that it's not, but this sequel sure looks darker and grittier than the first two. After very subtly referencing him in the first two films, we finally get a look at Iron Man's arch-enemy, the Mandarin, as played by Ben Kingsley. And right now, I'm totally digging that final shot in the trailer of all the different Iron Man armors. Dude...is that a Hulkbuster? I swear I saw a Hulkbuster. All I know is I will be there on opening day, May 3.
And it appears that I'm about all rambled out on this Tuesday night. It's back to the game, and the Oilers are currently leading 2-0. Go Oil.
Welcome once again to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly monument to how I don't have much of a social life as I watch one of the many movies in my video collection and blog about it. This time out, we're doing the #4 movie of 1977, Smokey and the Bandit. This entry is originally dated July 29, 2012.
One of the first things they told us in broadcast school about developing an on-air persona was to find someone you liked, and copy them. Not going to lie...one of the folks in radio I try to emulate is Mike McGuire. He became famous for his very generous spirit on the air, and I can tell you, that generosity continues over into real life. He was a year ahead of me at NAIT, where I got to know him. During my Great Year of Unemployment...that year between finishing NAIT and pounding the pavement looking for my first radio gig...he was incredibly supportive, always offering advice and encouraging words. Plus, you know, he's the one who introduced me to "Weird Al" Yankovic, and is thus pretty much responsible for the greatest day of my life.
For those who may not have heard, I've been transferred to the radio station in Westlock, but my new place isn't going to be open for me to move into for another week. So, for the past few weeks, I've been commuting from Athabasca to Westlock everyday. Tonight, while on the drive home, I plugged my MP3 player into my car stereo and fired up the latest episode of Mike's podcast. One of Mike's newer passions in life is running, and in this episode, he was chatting with one of his running coaches. So, as I was driving off into the sunset, listing to Mike and his coach talk about running, my mind started to wander and it wasn't long before I was reflecting on my experiences with the sport of running. And, like most of my experiences in sports, it mostly takes place in junior high gym class.
I once talked to some of my friends to see if they had to go through the monthly ritual of the 12-minute run. The name explains it all: once a month, we'd have to run laps in the gym for 12 minutes straight. Usually, to warm up to it, we'd also do as many push-ups as we could in a minute, and as many sit-ups as we could do in a minute. But the centerpiece was that 12 minute run. One time I looked it up online to see if the 12-minute run had an actual purpose, or if it was just something the gym teachers made us do when dodgeball was going to require too much effort. Turns out it actually does serve a purpose...it's one of the few fitness tests that teachers can give to gauge a child's improvement. So it was just what you do in gym for an exam.
But still, it was that one thing once a month that I loathed. Being an nonathletic person for, well, ever, gym class was never my best class. And it was that one day a month where things seemed to get the most competitive. There was a big board on the gym wall that charted our progress and our personal bests, you see, so it quickly became a competition to see who could do the most laps. While the die hard jocks would always get numbers up in the 50s, I was usually languishing down there in the 20s. I'd run a bit, but walk for most of it. When the jocks lapped me they'd always take a moment to glance and smirk. The girls who had, *ahem*, female troubles, and were excused from the exercise, would usually commandeer the gym's sound system and crank up whatever cassettes they had in their Walkmans. So it all played out to the bubblegum pop of the late-80s/early-90s.
But as the school year went on, something strange started happening every month, as I looked at that board and charted my progress. I was getting better. I was able to do more laps. I was able to run longer without taking a break by walking. I'll never forget the first time I hit 30 laps. My teacher made a big deal about 30 laps, because that was equal to 1 mile. Even more momentous was the first time I was able to run for the whole 12 minutes without walking. I was enthralled. I even remember which late-80s pop gem was playing on the gym's loudspeakers when the buzzer went off and 12 minutes was up.
Suddenly, the sideways smirks of the jocks didn't sting so much. I did it. I finally went for 12 minutes. I went the distance, literally and figuratively. For pretty much the only time in gym class, I felt like I accomplished something.
Don't get me wrong, though. I still hated the 12-minute run with a passion. My vision of Hell is still doing laps in the gym for infinity while New Kids on the Block plays on an endless loop and the Devil is a young, 20-something woman fresh out of teacher college who's just a little too perky and encouraging. Still, though, if you can go through hell and manage to accomplish something...you feel good.
Well, I'm settling into middle age quite nicely, and now that I'm a grown up and don't have to do anything that I don't want to do, I've fully embraced my nonathletic ways. But I do love to walk. I'd spend my afternoons just roaming around Athabasca. Saturday mornings, I'd even make a weekly trek from Canadian Tire to Athabasca University and back. And for the past couple of years, I'd start thinking, "Ya know, if I did this a little faster, I'd be running."
Trying to do it a little faster might be key as I get ready to move to Westlock. One of the great things about Athabasca is all the hills. A brisk walk is enough to get you to work up a sweat. But Westlock...it's very flat. More effort is going to be needed to get the heart rate up. But I've already read a few warnings online. Running is not something you can start overnight. You can't just jump off the couch and say, "I'm going to run 10K today!" You won't make it and you'll feel crappy and you'll quit. So, you have to ease yourself into it. Much like the 12 minute run of old. Just do as much as you can, and then start walking. And then run again. Just keep doing that on a regular basis, and before you know it, you're going for the whole 12-minutes.
At least, I think that's how it works. I don't think I'll go as hardcore as Mike and get me a coach and start training for marathons and such, but just go a little faster. When you put it like that, it doesn't seem to hard.
Welcome back to Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly ramble about one of the movies in my DVD library. Today, we get to the extended edition of Peter Jackson's King Kong. This entry is originally dated July 14, 2012.
