Latest Targ's Up!

Guess what? The new episode of The Targ is up!

"Holy cow!" you're saying. "But it always goes up on Sunday! I thought it was Thursday! I must be living...IN THE FUTURE!"

Sorry. Still Thursday.

See, here's the story. This weekend, I'm heading down to Red Deer. My dear sister is done graduating, and I'm going down to partake in the celebrations. And, since I already did the "I'm taking off for the weekend. No Targ this week." thing 2 weeks ago, I thought I'd get the new episode up early.

So, a full three days early, you can enjoy Episode 51: Dinosaur Postcards. I get all nostalgic for the 1990s, rip on Subway for thinking about giving us pizza, start musing about what to do for summer vacation, and try to solve one of the greatest puzzles in Alberta.

Listen up!

Could Never Get the Hang of Thursdays

Wow. I've had the ol' blog a little bit quiet for the past few days...this is because I've been focusing most of my online efforts on Facebook right now.

Had this exchange with a co-worker the other day, after I added a Facebook application called Audio so you can hear songs on my Facebook page.

"I'm starting to not like Facebook. It's turning too much into MySpace."

I looked at him and said, "You're only figuring that out now? I had it nailed from the get-go."

But yeah. I'm pretty sure Facebook is a fad. This time last year, it was MySpace. This year, it's Facebook. This time next year, it'll probably be "Crazy Wackadoos.com."

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Also taking some time to ruminate on the James Bond films. When I first got my DVD player all those years ago, I said that I'd pick up my favourite James Bond films from each actor's pantheon. So far, I've got Goldfinger for the Sean Connery years and The Spy Who Loved Me for the Roger Moore era. I've also got Casino Royale. Don't know yet if it'll be my favourite for the Daniel Craig years...got it more because I'm one of those guys who's got to get the newest and the best DVDs.

Anyway, while wandering around the streets of Athabasca the other day, I was taken by a window display at Rexall and walked out with my favourite of the Timothy Dalton films, The Living Daylights.

Now, I know in the James Bond pantheon, Timothy Dalton is considered a lesser Bond. But I will always have a soft spot for Dalton's Bond, for Dalton's films were my gateway Bond films. They were the first James Bond films I watched. Hell, I'm fairly certain that The Living Daylights is the first James Bond film I ever saw. Which is why I went for it instead of the other Dalton Bond, License to Kill which many consider the better of Dalton's 2.

So, yeah. History will vindicate Timothy Dalton as the underrated Bond.

Let's take advantage of this to take a look at the next James Bond movie, the Casino Royale sequel, currently going under the working title Bond 22. I remember reading an interview with the writers, saying that, because of what they've done in Casino Royale, they just can't go and leap back into the Bond formula right away. They've got to ease into it.... They figure it's be OK to re-introduce Moneypenny, but it's doubtful that Qwill be back yet.

They're shooting for a release in November of 2008.

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And speaking of movies, Warner Brothers and DC Comics have announced today that they're starting to develop a live-action movie version of Teen Titans. Akiva Goldsman is producing, and the script is being written by Mark Verheiden, a writer for Smallville and the new Battlestar: Galactica.

Don't get your hopes up...DC and WB have made lots of announcements like this, but still no movies to show for them.

Monday Morning Movie Mews (sorry, the should be "news)

The big news was the big announcement of the season premiere of Family Guy that'll be on this fall.

The season premiere will be a 1-hour special in which the Griffin family re-creates...Star Wars. Episode IV: A New Hope to be specific.

Character breakdown goes like this:

- Peter Griffin will be Han Solo
- Lois Griffin will be Princess Leia
- Stewie will be Darth Vader
- Brain will be Chewbacca
- Cleavland and Quagmire will be C-3P0 and R2-D2
- Chris Griffin will be Luke Skywalker
- and that creepy old pedophile who keeps hitting on Chris will be Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Just like the forthcoming Robot Chicken Star Wars special, this is being done in complete co-operation with Lucasfilm. Apparently, Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane personally led the year-long negotiaitons with Lucasfilm.

That'll be on this September

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And the big movie rumour this weekend...apparently, the entire creative team behind the Pirates of the Carribean trilogy are going to be re-teaming to brng us a new movie version of....

The Lone Ranger.

I'd pay my $10 to see that.

Latest Targ's Up

Got this week's episode of The Targ up!

for this week's podcasting pleasure, I've got Episode 50: the Big Blue Water Bottle. I ramble about the "pop culture reference as joke," rip on Shrek 3 some more, marvel at one of the best technological innovations of the decade, and wish Star Wars a happy 30th.

Give 'er a listen!

Michael Moore's latest

Well, here it is, the trailer for Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko. This time, he turns his eye on to the American health care system.





I don't know...I"m not as much a fan of Michael Moore's as I used to be. He's getting a little too "raving loony" for my tastes. He still makes entertaining films, though.

Sicko hits on June 29.

(And once again, apologies to all those in Facebook, cuz Facebook doesn't import YouTube videos along with blog entries.)

More Proof that I'm a Nerd (although, you probably don't need proof....)

Well, it was rumored last week, and today it was officially confirmed. We're getting our new, live-action version of Masters of the Universe.

The movie rights have been snapped up by Joel Silver, the uber-producer who oversaw such classic films as Die Hard, Predator and a little trilogy known as The Matrix.

It's being written by a guy names Justin Marks, who's also currently working on live-action movie version of Green Arrow, Voltron, and Street Fighter, leading one of my movie gossip sites to dub him "the most gainfully employed professional fanboy on the face of the Earth."

Sound good, right? But then I read that Marks' take on the film is...

"300 for kids."

NO.

NO.

NO.

When I plot down my $10 to see a live-action He-Man movie, I want to see:

He-Man riding atop Battle Cat

A Snake Mountain that looks like freakin' Mordor.

Roboto rendered via the glory of motion capture.

I DO NOT want to see a rich, detailed universe shoehorned into a kids version of a popular film.

And damn it! Give us G.I. Joe already!

Wow. On Facebook, I found my best friend from when I was 10 years old. I can just imagine him reading this and going, "Ye gods! Mark hasn't changed...at all!"

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And in other news, I noticed that Wikipedia doesn't have an entry on the Burger Family. Looks like I got me a weekend project.

Tuesday Ruminations

I love my fast food. And I'm completely fascinated with the concept of breakfast at a fast food place. What can I say? I rarely go for breakfast at fast food places, and when I go, that usual McDonald's has completely changed.... The menus are all flipped around, showing Egg McMuffins instead of Big Macs. It's like the Bizarro McDonald's.

Gotta watch it here. Last time I waxed poetice about fast food breakfasts, I raised the ire of my best friend. But that was because he was on an anti-corporate/anti-McDonald's bent at the time, and that rant was dedicated almost exclusivly to Egg McMuffins. But not this time! There's a whole world of fast food breakfasts out there.

But, it all started with the Egg McMuffin. Introduced in 1972. When it was first presented to McDonald's president Ray Krok, he looked at it and new that McDonald's could finally break into the breakfast market. And the whole trend of fast food breakfasts was born.

Yeah, this started because when I went home for the weekend, I decided to have breakfast on the road, and that meant the McDonald's in Westlock. Something I almost instantly regretted...I had a McGriddle, and those are officially the un-healthiest things on the McDonald's menu.

But yeah. There's a whole wide world of fast food options for those who are up before 11 AM. If you're ever in Subway, try out one of their steak and egg subs. Those are quite good. Stay away from A&W and their Bacon 'n Eggers. A bit too greasy.

Someday, I'll be close enough to a Burger King to try their breakfast stuff. And I see that Tim Hortons is getting in on the game now with their breakfast biscuts.

but I"m sure we can agree on one thing: the fast food hash brown has to be one of the tastiest things ever!

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Over the weekend, I learned that one of the best-known technological innovations of the past 10 years turned 10.

The camera cellphone!

It was in 1997, one young computer engineer was expecting the birth of his first child, and then he got a brainstorm as to how to get pictures of his new child out as quick as possible. He sent his assistant out to Radio Shack to get the neccessary parts, wired his digital camera to his cellphone, and wrote the necessary software on his laptop. this was all in the waiting room while his wife was in labour, by the way.

And now, it's pretty much standard equipment. I'll never forget getting my first camera phone. It was in Japan in 2002. They weren't over here yet, so when I first heard about them, I was all like, "That's pointless. Why the heck would you want a camera in your cellphone?" But then I got a lot of use of it. Just about every day, I was taking some picture of some shrine and e-mailing it home and going, "Check this out! This is where I am today!"

Crazy. I still say I've got to get one where I can make movies. And then take advantage of its blurry, low-resolution pictures to fake some Bigfoot footage.

No Targ This Week

Sorry, folks, but I've got no episode of The Targ this week. Why? Because I went home to Entwistle for the long weekend and didn't make a new one. But I'll be back next week for sure.

In the meantime, help yourself to a rerun.

Bob & Doug & Bizarro & He-Man

First and foremost, I've got to get the word out on this.

Sunday night, the CBC finally shows their long-anticipated Bob & Doug's 2-4 Anniversary Special. See, 2007 marks the 24th anniversary of Strange Brew, better known as the Bob & Doug McKenzie movies.

Then, to follow it up, the CBC is premiering their new documentary Bob & Doug's 2-4 Anniversary. This talks to celebrities from all over the world and analyzes the impact of Bob and Doug. But, what makes this really notable, is that when I first heard about this back in the fall, Dave Thomas revealed that this would be the last time ever that he and Rick Moranis would be reprising the roles of Bob & Doug McKenzie.

It's all on the CBC on Sunday night. Strange Brew is on at 7, Bob & Doug's 2-4 Anniversary is on at 9.

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You'll have to excuse me. I'm still nerding out over last night's season finale of Smallville. I can't believe they introduced the Smallville take on Bizarro.

What can I say? I love that show, but I hardly watch it anymore. It wasn't until March that I finally discovered a channel that carries it, and I always forget when it's on.

But, as they've started introducing more and more aspects of the Superman mythos, it's been getting nerd-tastic.

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And speaking of nerd-tastic, we still get the occasional rumor of a new, live-action movie version of Masters of the Universe. As some have pointed out, if Transformers is a big enough hit, look for toys of the '80s to be Hollywood's new hot property.

But, the news is that Joel Silver is currently ushering He-Man to the big screen. Silver, of course, was the producers who helped the Wachowskis bring The Matrix to the big screen.

No doubt, I think the technology finally exists to do He-Man justice on the big screen. Remember how cool Minas Tirith looked in Return of the King?

Now give that kind of treatment to Snake Mountain.

Yeah. Nerd-tastic.

300 on DVD

Well, the biggest movie of the spring, 300 is coming to DVD on July 31! It's going to be available in 4 different formats: single disc DVD, 2-disc special edition DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray. Here's what we got for bonus stuff:

- a running commentary with director Zack Snyder, writer Kurt Johnstad, and director of photography Larry Fong.

- a whole slew of deleted scenes, each one introduced by Snyder. (I hope it includes the much-publicized one, featuring midget archers riding giants.)

- the documentary 300 Spartans: Fact or Fiction?, which tells a more historically accurate version of the Battle of Thermopole.

- the documentary Who Were the Spartans?, which is all about the Spartan culture.

- the documentary The Frank Miller Tapes, which is all about Frank Miller's original graphic novel.

- the webisodes

- photo gallery

- and more!

I should point out that all these bonus features are only on the 2-disc special edition and the hi-def formats. On the single disc DVD, all you get is the running commentary.

And I had to explain this to a friend of mine at work, so I may as well explain it to you, too.

Q: What is a webisode?

A: Webisodes are a popular thing for film promotion these days. These are those short videos that they film on the set and then post to the official website, giving you a glimpse of the production of the film. The more common name is "production diary." The earliest ones I know of were "Lynn's Diaries" for Star Wars: Episode I. (So named because they were the brainchild of a publicisit named Lynn.) But, the ones that really popularized the concept were "Peter Jackson's Production Diaries," in which we got one a week for the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. Not only have they become a great promotional tool, but they also make great DVD bonus fodder.

WEIRD AL IS COMING TO EDMONTON!!!!

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

"WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC IS COMING TO EDMONTON!!!

HE'LL BE IN THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS ON JULY 25!!

He's playing ED Fest, the music festival that ties in with Capital EX, formerly Klondike Days.

I'm going to work tomorrow and book that day off.

Latest Targ's Up!

Got this week's episode of The Targ up! This week, it's Episode 49: The Glass Tulip. I talk about the whole Facebook thing, get in some early complaining on Shrek 3, and clean my toilet. That's some exciting podcasting right there!

Give it a listen!

Various Movie Bits

Got a few tidbits of movie news that have been trickling out over that past few days:

Hulk 2 - Tim Roth has just signed on to play Emil Blonsky, better known as the super-powered beast The Abomination.

Sicko - Michael Moore's new documentary is set to come out June 29. The man who gave us Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 now turns his eye on the American health care system.

In interview for Shrek 3, Mike Myers has let slip that yes, he is writing Austin Powers 4.

And Robert Rodriguez, the man who gave us Sin City and the first film in Grindhouse, in in negotiations to do the long-awaited, eagerly anticipated, live-action movie version of...The Jetsons.

You can find anything on YouTube!

Holy moley, I finally found this on YouTube!

One of my greatest movie-going experiences in Japan was seeing Pokemon 5. Not the movie so much, just the fact that I was seeing a Pokemon movie in a Japanese theatre surrounded by Japanese people...it was a little overwhelming.

Anywho, when I got home and bought Pokemon 5 on DVD, I was really pissed off. For the American translation, they cut the opening sequence...this very beautiful sequence, starkly animated, which detailed the origins of the legendary pokemon Latios and Latias, and how their origin relates to their location, an island city called Alto Mare. It was probably deleted for the North American release because it involves mass destruction and dead children and the whole thing.

And I finally found that cut scene on YouTube! With subtitles, no less, so I finally know what the narrator is saying!





And, just because, here's the original end credits sequence. Man, when Pokemon 5 was in theatres, I was hearing this song no matter where I turned.





Wow, and for those who picked this up in Facebook page, I'm going to have to ask you to go back to my blog in order to see these videos. Apparently, when it imports the blog, it doesn't import pictures or YouTube videos.

Latest Targ and Spider-Man 3

First and foremost, let me say "hi" to everyone on Facebook. I noticed that Facebook has this little feature that imports your blog, so I set that up right away. Hi, all 11 friends!

Now then, what I do every Sunday morning, I have the latest episode of my podcast, U62: The Targ up. This week, it's Episode 48: From the Mall. I give you my first episode live on location from West Edmonton Mall, enjoy Free Comic Book Day, and give you my review of Spider-Man 3 live from the theatre during the end credits!

Listen here.

And, of course, I also have a full blown movie review of Spider-Man 3 up over at my main website.

And that would be right here.

Peace out.

SPIDER-MAN 3

Let's just all take a deep breath and remember how this all began:







Yes, the very first teaser for the very first film...pulled from theatres and erased from public conciousness after 9/11.

When that teaser first hit in June of 2001, it was instantly branded one of the coolest teasers of all time. I occasionally ask myself, have the Spider-Man films lived up to all the potential that the world got from that one little teaser?

Reading some of the review online from the major Edmonton papers...the Edmonton Journal's review is laregly favourable, the Edmonton Sun's is largely negative.

The hardcore geeks at sites like Ain't It Cool News are being rather negative...the main complaint is that they try to cram in just way too much, resulting in all the characters we love getting screwed over. There were similar complaints last year with X-Men: The Last Stand.

And I just got an e-mail from my friend in Vancouver (the one responsible for the finally finished and very sensational Monkey Comic), who went to one of the midnight screenings last night. He gives it a thumbs-up, saying that Sandman "looked sweet."

I've got my advanced tickets purchased. I'm seeing it in 28 hours. My review will more than likely be up on Sunday, and this week's Targ will pretty much be dedicated to it.

But the question is already being asked, "Will there be a Spider-Man 4? Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, and director Sam Raimi were all signed on for three films. David Koepp, who wrote the first film, has already been hired to write a fourth film. In interviews, when asked, Raimi says that he's told just about all the Spider-Man stories he's had to tell...that he admits that Spider-Man has been handled by a long list of artists in the past, and that he knows he'll have to pass the torch some day. And in the same breath, he says it's a torch that'll be tought to let go.

Hey, and it's cool that I'm seeing it tomorrow. Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day! Free Comic Book Day was started back in 2002, primarily on the success of the first Spider-Man movie. Comic book stores all across the world will be giving away free comic books, to lure more people into comic book stores and get more people reading comics.

I'm seeing Spider-Man 3 in West Edmonton Mall. And look! West Edmonton Mall's comic book store, Comic King, is a participating store! I just might have to stop in and get my free comic before the film.

My Best Friend is Cool

I've been wanting to say this for a few days now, and darn it, I'm going to say it.

My best friend is cool. He's an artist, so that kinda instantly makes him cool in that way that all artists are, but he's cooler than most. Sequential art...comic books and the like...is his art of choice.

Now see, as I've learned, there are two kinds of artists. There are the kind who become completely obsessed with their work, lock themselves in their studios, and then emerge a month or so later, with a month's worth of growth on whatever part of their body that they shave, in dire need of a shower, and cryptically say, "It's finished."

And then there's the kind like my best friend. They work on it for a bit, then go back out in the real world and resume their life, then come back to it, then go outside and play, and so on and such forth. There ain't nothing wrong with being an artist like that. It's just that if they show you a work in progress or something half-finished and you get hooked, you might have to wait a frustratingly long time for them to finish it.

After seven years, my best friend finally finished one of his projects.

This project never really had a name. It's a comic that stars a monkey, so we always just referred to it as The Monkey Comic. A few years back, after some careful thought, he tried to give it the title MNKY, but it never really took. It's still just humbly referred to as The Monkey Comic.

He started it back in Y2K. He posted the work-in-progess at his website. He'd occasionally go back and a few more panels every couple of years. I'd check up on it around once a month, and invariably send him the e-mail, "Are you ever going to finish it?"

And back on Sunday, he finally, cryptically said, "It's finished."

I think it's really cool. But then, I'm biased. he's my best friend. I think that everything he does is cool.

so judge for yourself.

Go read the Monkey Comic!!!

New Fantastic Four Trailer

Hey, I keep forgetting that there's a second Marvel comics film coming out this summer. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer comes out June 15. Here's the new trailer, which'll be in theatres this Friday in front of Spider-Man 3:





Gotta admit, that's a sharp looking trailer, but there's just no way that this'll be as cool as Spider-Man 3. I'm just not getting the same passion for the material.