Hello? Is anybody out there?

I was watching that classic episode of Corner Gas last night where people get sick and tired of hearing Hank's ramblings, so they tell Hank to start writing them down in a blog. But then of course, no one reads Hank's blog, so Hank gets all upset. And then Brent, the only one who actually reads Hank's blog, starts writing up "Hank's blog cheat sheets" for everyone, so people can pretend they're reading Hank's blog and not upset Hank. Then, because he gets sick of everyone asking him for the cheat sheets, Brent starts posting the cheat sheets online, thus inspiring him to start his own blog. But then, no one reads Brent's blog, so Hank and Brent just start talking to each other.

Anyway, that led me to believe that the millions of people who don't read this blog are probably not wondering where I went.

Nothing spectacular, I'm still off on Christmas vacation. I'm trying to spend as much of it off the grid as possible...no blogging, no Facebook, and most importantly, no checking company e-mail and fretting about how the office is surviving without me.

But still, I'm getting bored as hell, so it's time to check in on things.

Over here, we have the latest "final nail in the coffin" for VHS. Back on Boxing Day, the last remaining distributor of video tapes in the USA closed its doors. That means no more new videos will be popping up in discount bins all across the USA.

Other "final nails" include the last video tape being put out by a major Hollywood studio (that was A History of Violence, back in '06) and JVC, the electronics company that first started selling VCR's, announcing that they are discontinuing the manufacture of VCR's.

And, if that weren't enough, the experts are saying that DVD will have gone the way of VHS inside of four years, to be replaced by Blu-Ray.

In other news, I managed to hit the city and see The Spirit. Yeah...um...well, it is a movie.

As we all know, it was the first effort from comic book legend Frank Miller, and he's still figuring out things like "editing." Some things really feel disjointed, some scenes run on too long and its, well, really something else.

At the theatre where I saw it, around halfway through the film, a young man screamed out "THIS MOVIE'S FUCKIN' GAY!" and stormed out of the theatre.

While I would not describe the movie as "FUCKIN' GAY!", it definitly is not quite up to par.

Miller has already announced that his next film will be an adaptation of the classic pulp fiction hero Buck Rogers, so lets hope he learns from his mistakes.

A Few More Trailers

Don't you hate it when you have trouble sleeping and eventually you think, "Screw it, I'll just get up early?" I'm having one of those mornings. Since I am up early, I'm wasting some time watching some movie trailers online and just catching up on what's going on in the world of animated movies.

First up, we've got the new trailer for Dreamworks' latest animated opus, Monsters vs. Aliens. The title pretty much describes it all. When aliens invade the earth, the government decides to unleash an army of monsters to battle the aliens.

The monsters are led by Susan Murphy, aka Ginormica, who's hit by a meteorite on her wedding day, causing her to grow to 49.75 feet tall. (There's a joke in there as to why she's no 50 feet tall, but I've forgotten it.) She's voiced by Reese Witherspoon. The other monsters are the Missing Link, voice by Will Arnet (GOB on Arrested Development). Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D., a mad scientist with the head of a cockraoch. He's voice by Hugh Laurie, House on House. And B.O.B., a blue gelatinous blob voiced by Seth Rogan.

Other characters include the general who collected the monsters, W.R. Monger, voiced by Keifer Sutherland, and the President of the USA, voiced by Stephen Colbert.

Now, I'm usually pretty cynical towards Dreamworks films, as they popularized the "talking animals making fart jokes" formula that is currently dominating animated films. However, I'll root for anything that's not "talking animals making fart jokes," so this one may be worth a look.





Speaking of rooting for anything that's not "talking animals making fart jokes," next up is 9. Based on the Acadamey Award nominated short film of the same name, 9 is about sentient rag dolls in a post-apocolyptic world trying to redeem humanity. Think of this as WALL-E's Goth brother.

Written and directed by Shane Acker, who wrote and directed the original short film, and produced by Tim Burton, 9 features the voices of Eijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Riley, Martin Landau, and Christopher Plummer.





Oh, and here's the original film on YouTube, in case you want a greater taste of what you're in for.

Latest Targ's Up!

Another Sunday, means another episode of The Targ!

This week, we've got Episode 2.15: An Adult Christmas, in which I lament what Christmas now means to me, seeing as to how I'm a responsible adult and all that. We also talk about which of Time Magazine's buzzwords of 2008 started in Canada, and Sunshine Girls! Yay, Sunshine Girls!

So please, head on over to the main site and give it a listen!



Or, you can click on that button above and go subscribe to the Targ in iTunes.

I should also mention that The Targ is going to be gone for the next couple of weeks...going away on Christmas vacation, and will be far away from all my recording dohickeys.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I see it's -40 in Athabasca this morning, so it's time to play another exciting game of "Will my car start?" Even with my car plugged in, she just refuses to start on one morning in the winter when we hit -40. Is today the morning? We'll see....

My Christmas Scrapbook

Ladies and gentlemen, Christmas can mean only one thing...Christmas movies!

So here's my latest YouTube endeavour. My Christmas Scrapbook follows me as I go around to a couple of Athabasca Christmastime events, and chronicle my adventures.





Not gonna lie...I'm a little disappointed with this one. Because I tried to smoosh the two events into one film, the whole project just never really gelled. As Lucas tells us, films aren't released, they escape. And this one got away on me.

Damn it! I never finished that thought in the intro...one of the many reasons why I'm not pleased. Oh, well. That's why Lucas invented special editions.

Good News/Bad News

First, the good news.

It was announced today that Tim Robbins has joined the cast of Iron Man 2!

Robbins will be playing Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark, in flashbacks. Director Jon Favreau says that Howard Stark plays a very integral role in the plot, and in setting up the forthcoming Avengers film, which is why he wanted a really, really good actor.

---

And now, the bad news.

Majel Barrett passed away today.

I blogged about her just last week. The widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Barrett had numerous roles in all of Star Trek. She was the nameless first office Number One in the original pilot The Cage...she was Dr. McCoy's head nurse Christine Chapel on The Original Series...and she played Deanna Troi's mother Lwaxana on The Next Generation. She also voice the Enterprise computer in every series.

Barrett had been battling leukemia for the past few years. She was 76.

Last week, it was announced that Barrett would be reprising her role as the voice of the Enterprise computer in the new Star Trek movie due out in May. It has been learned that, yes, she did finish voicing the computer.

Wolverine Trailer!

So, if you listened to this week's podcast, then you probably heard my rant about prequels...which leads into this latest trailer.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a friend of mine told me that the popular fanboy musings for adapting X-Men to the silver screen would be to start off with a Wolverine solo film, which would end with Wolverine joining the X-Men. And then, you make X-Men.

Well, in this day and age, the popular way is to do things backwards, which meant the Wolverine film would be saved for a prequel.

And it's here!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine hits theatres on May 1, and it tells the tale of Wolverine...his childhood in Alberta...his time serving in the wars...his fateful recruitment into the Weapon X project. Hugh Jackman has gone on record as reminding us that, when we first meet Wolverine in the first X-Men film, he's cage-fighting in a bar in northern Alberta. Says Jackman, the end of this prequel, you'll be able to believe that Wolverine walked out of the wilderness and into that bar.

In addition to Jackman back as Wolverine one more time, Liev Schreiber takes over as Wolverine's arch-enemy Sabertooth, Danny Houston is the young General William Stryker, Lynn Collins is Wolverine's one-time love Silver Fox, Ryan Reynolds is his Weapon X teammate Deadpool, and Taylor Kitsch plays the one X-Man that people have been clamouring to see, Gambit.

Gavin Hood, still best known for the South African drama Tsotsi directs.

May 1 is when it hits theatres.

Howard finally comes to DVD

I have fantastic news for all you Marvel zombies and George Lucas apologists!

Howard the Duck is finally coming to DVD!

For those who have blocked it from your mind, Howard the Duck was based on the Marvel comic of the same name, about a walking, talking duck who is stranded on Earth. The movie turned it into a sci-fi epic, with Howard battling giant, stop-motion animated scorpions set to invade the Earth. Jeffery Jones played the evil scientists possessed by the boss scorpion, Lea Thompson was his hot, human girlfriend, and Tim Robbins was the nerdy scientist who helped them out.

It was written and directed by Willard Huyck, a longtime George Lucas collaberator who wrote American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was produced by George Lucas's Lucasfilm.

Howard the Duck was a gigantic bomb, reviled by critics, and is often regarded as the worst thing that George Lucas had his name attached to. Yes, even worse than the prequels.

But it's finally coming to DVD on March 10!

Bonus features include a half-a-dozen featurettes about the making of the film. And yes, they got the involvement of George Lucas and Willard Huyck and Stan Lee.

Suggested retail price is $14.98, meaning it's going straight to discount bins.

Latest Targ's Up!

Wow. What is it about me? 5:30AM on Sunday morning, and here I am, up before the Sun.

The plus thing is, you get a new episode of The Targ way, way early!

Today, it's Episode 2.14: Antecedent Action, wherein I talk about prequels, Anne of Green Gables, and Wayne and Shuster. Yup, I'm hitting my CanCon with this one!

So head on over to the Targ and download this week's episode!

And don't forget to subscribe in iTunes!

It's the little things....

So, there was an announcement today on the new Star Trek movie that made the trekkies go, "Hey...I never thought of that! But JJ Abrams did, and it was a smart move!" And that decision is....

Majel Barrett will be reprising her role as the voice of the Enterprise's computer!

Barrett, of course, has done the voice of the ship's computer in every incarnation of Star Trek...except Enterprise, which took place before they had talking computers. But thanks to time-travel wackiness, she got to voice the computer in a couple of episodes.

In addition, she played the nameless first officer Number One in the original pilot, "The Cage." She played Dr. McCoy's head nurse, Christine Chapel, on the original series, and she played Lwaxana Troi, Councillor Troi's mother, on The Next Generation and a couple episodes of Deep Space Nine.

Another interesting fact...she did the voices of darn near every female guest star on the animated Star Trek series!

Plus, she was the wife of Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry.

Terminator: Salvation Trailer

Ah, this is a great time of year to be a movie geek. Not only are the theatres filled with all kinds of holiday blockbusters and Oscar bait, but those magical, wonderful trailers showing us the first glimpses of next summer's blockbusters start popping up.

The latest one is for Terminator: Salvation. Thanks to the time travel wackiness of the Terminator franchise, this serves as both a prequel and a sequel, as we finally get our first film about the Future War against the machines.





This is actually one where my interest is very, very slim. The Terminator franchise is one that can be put to rest in my books. The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day form a very nice 2-part story. While I found Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines to be fairly entertaining, it was wholly unnecessary. And I haven't even tuned in to the new TV show yet, The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Anyway, it'll probably satisfy my thirst for giant robot mayhem until Transformers 2 comes out in July. We should be getting our first trailer for that in February.

For the vital stats: Christian Bale takes over as humanity's savior, John Connor. Bryce Dallas Howard is his wife and second-in-command Kate Connor. Anton Yelchin, soon to be seen as young Chekov in Star Trek, is the young Kyle Reese. Sam Worthington is Marcus Wright, a man with a shadowy past who just might be the newest Terminator to hunt down John Connor. Helena Bonham Carter is Serena, the lead villian. And Austrian bodybuilder/Arnold Schwarznegger lookalike Roland Kickinger takes over as the T-800.

The director is McG, who gave us the Charlie's Angels films.

May 2009.

Latest Targ's Up!

It's Sunday! New podcast day! This week's episode of U62: The Targ is....

Episode 2.13: Ramble Ramble, where I finally offer up my thoughts on the Star Trek trailer, discuss European condom sizes, and share my Christmas plans!

Go give it a listen!

And here I am on iTunes!

Quantum of Solace Review Up!

I saw it over a week ago, but I finally put up my review of the James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace!

Go read it!

Latest Targ's Up!

It's time for another fantabulous episode of U62: The Targ!

This week's podcast provides a very unique experience. When I did this one, I was suffering from the worst headache I'd had in ages. I had taken close to the allowable limit of Tylenol. And, I figured I still had to put on a show.

The end result? Episode 2.12: Work Through the Pain

Go give it a listen!

And subscribe in iTunes!

A Reason to Vote

So, today, the Conservative government unveiled a "fiscal update" to try to address concerns with the upcoming economic downturn.

What's getting a lot of press right now is that the Conservative propose to do away with one of the federal subsidies to political parties. I've blogged about this in the past...if a political party gets more than 2% of the popular vote, then they get $1.75 for each ballot cast for them.

Well, the Conservative want to scrap that. The Tories say that the political parties should set a good example, "pay their own bills" and that "the free ride for political parties" has to stop.

The opposition parties are pissed, of course. They're calling it an attack on democracy. They're accusing the Tories of trying to cripple the opposition parties financially. According to this article at the CBC, the subsidy accounts for 65% of the Green Party's revenues, 86% of the Bloc Quebcois', and 63% of the Liberals.

As we all know, the Tories boycott the Ottawa Press Corp, claiming that the Ottawa Press Corp has the Liberal bias. So, this evening, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was doing the rounds via satallite on local news casts, selling this to Canadians.

I saw Flaherty getting interviewed by Daryl McIntyre on CTV Edmonton. The issue of the subsidy came up, and McIntyre asked, "But there are those who argue this subsidy combats voter apathy...that people will still get out and vote for their party, knowing that even if their candidate won't win, they'll still have done some good by giving some money to their party. Do you really want to get rid of this weapon in the war on voter apathy?"

Flaherty burst out laughing and said, "I've run in 6 elections, and I've never heard of anyone voting for that reason."

Well, Mr. Flahery, I know you probably don't read my blog, but this subsidy is the reason why I've voted in the past three elections. I don't agree with you and a lot of your party's policies, but I do know that this is Alberta, and no matter how many times I vote against you, you're going to get in.

The only reason I vote is to make sure that someone else gets another $1.75 to try to bring you down.

If you get rid of this subsidy, I'm going to start staying home on election days.

Star Trek Trailer: Special Edition

So, Paramount just release a new "special edition" of the Star Trek trailer. What did they add?

Leonard Nimoy as Spock!





As cool as this is, I just can't help but think that Paramount did this just to appease the fans. Trolling the Star Trek message boards, the trekkies who were screaming, "THIS IS A TRAVESTY TO ALL OF STAR TREK! GENE RODDENBERRY IS TURNING IN HIS GRAVE!" are now saying, "Leonard Nimoy brought a tear to my eye. I'm now cautiously optimistic."

Review: Futurama: Bender's Game

You know I don't consider straight-to-DVD movies worthy enough to be given full-blown movie reviews at my regular site, so they get stuck getting reviewed over here in the blog. I picked up my latest straight-to-DVD epic this weekend, so let's get reviewing!

Futurama: Bender's Game

Directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill

Starring the voices of Billy West, Katy Segal, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Phil LaMarr, Lauren Tom, David Herman, Kath Soucie and the man, the legend, Frank Welker.

Backstory: All right, the third of the four Futurama straight-to-DVD movies has been unleashed upon us! The first one was awesome, the second one was good but not great, what will number 3 hold?

Plot: It's life as normal for the Planet Express crew. The rising price of dark matter (the substance that fuels spaceships in the Futurama-verse) is getting ridiculously high. This leads Professor Farnsworth to reveal the truth: dark matter was once a useless, inert substance until his experiments turned it into fuel. The Professor still has a crystal that could convert dark matter back into a useless substance. The crew then goes on a perilous quest to Mom's dark matter mine to destroy the dark matter and thus ruin Mom's monopoly on starship fuel. Meanwhile, Bender starts playing Dungeons and Dragons with Cubert and his friends, and his imagination goes into overdrive, making Bender believe that he actually exists in a magical realm called Cornwood. These two plotlines collide when a massive surge of energy from the dark matter turns our universe into Cornwood. Now stuck in a magical realm, Farnsworth's crystal has become a magical artifact of "One Ring"-type power, and its up to the crew to quest through this land and destroy the crystal. Can they do it? In various other subplots, the Planet Express ship gets trashed in a demolition derby, Leela gets outfitted with a shock collar that zaps her whenever her thoughts turn to violence, and we learn the shocking truth about Mom's son Igner.

What I Liked: There's a stronger plot in this one...it doesn't feel as episodic as The Beast with a Billion Backs. And there's something truly magical about George Takei screaming, "You ruined the franchise, Bakula!"

What I Didn't Like: The whole "Futurama" resurrection novelty is starting to wear off, and it feels like the creators aren't trying anymore. Let's hope they put their best foot forward for the fourth and final straight-to-video film.

Final Assesment: A good, solid Futurama outing.

3 Nibs

DVD Bonus Material:

• Running commentary with the voice cast and crew
• Animatics
• Futurama Genetics Lab: Play "If They Mated" with the Futurama characters!
• Dungeons & Dragons & Futurama: Featurette about making the film
• How to Draw Futurama in 83 Simple Steps
• 3D Models with Animator's Commentary
• Deleted Scene
• Blooperama 2: See the voice cast blowing their lines in the recording booth!
• Bender's Anti-Piracy Warning
• Trailer for the fourth and final film, Into the Wild Green Yonder, due out in the spring.
  

Newest Targ's Up!

Sunday morning. The promise of a new day. The promise of a new week. The promise of pancakes for breakfast. The promise of...a new episode of U62: The Targ!

This week, it's Episode 2.11: One Sad Panda. This panda is sad because Pushing Daisies got the boot. But, there's good stuff, too! I debate whether I should apply to be an Olympic torchbearer, and the epic crossover I've been waiting for since I was 8 years old has finally come to pass: MASK and G.I. Joe!

Click here to listen to it!

Click here to fine the Targ on iTunes!

Two Animated Films

My new favourite website is Trailer Addict. it's like YouTube, but it's all movie trailers, and they're all hi-res and in their proper aspect ratios. it's cool. And a couple of trailers just went up for two animated films coming out in 2009. They're not going to be the biggest animated films, but they're definitely the ones I'm most curious about.

First up, Coraline. Based on the children's novel by Neil Gaiman...brought to stop-motion animated life by Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and Giant Peach. Selick has been working on this for a long time...Selick himself bought the movie rights back in 2003...a year before Coraline was published! Gaiman was also involved in the script stage...not deeply involved, but always offering Selick his notes and input.

About the only thing that I don't like about this is when I read the history of the animation studio that made it, Laika Animation House. If you didn't buy Nike before, this'll really turn you off. Laika Animation House was originally Will Vinton Studios, the home of Will Vinton, who's patented Claymation process was quite famous in the late 1980s. But then, Phil Knight, founder of Nike, wanted to get into the animation biz. Knight bought Will Vinton Studios in a hostile takeover and fired Vinton. Vinton then sued Knight to get his name taken off the studio. I think Vinton's feelings can be summed up in the name of his new animation studio: Will Vinton's Free Will Entertainment.

Knight then hired Selick to be the new resident genius, and Coraline got to be their first project.

Dakota Fanning voices Coraline, Teri Hatcher voices the succubus-like Other Mother, and Keith David is the Cat.





Next up...one of the world's most beloved anime and manga franchise comes to computer animated life...Astro Boy. This is the second film to be put out by Imagi Studios. Imagi's first film was the computer animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Astro Boy looks to be in a similar mold...while the animation isn't mindblowing from a technical standpoint, it'll be quite faithful to the source material.

The creative genius behind this one is David Bowers. Bowers started as an animator in the UK, working on such cult-classic toons as Danger Mouse and Count Dukula. He then became a storyboard artist for Dreamworks, where he worked on Prince of Egypt, the Road to El Dorado and Shark Tale. He then went home to the UK and to work for Aardman Studios, where he was a storyboard artist on Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and making his directorial debut with Aardman's first CGI film, Flushed Away.

The celebrity voice cast includes Freddie Highmore as Astro, Nicholas Cage as Dr. Tenma (the scientist who built Astro), Bill Nighy (Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean films) as Dr. Elefun (the professor who raises Astro after Tenma's death), and, in roles that haven't been revealed yet, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Donald Sutherland, and Eugene Levy.

The NAAW Discovery Zone

It's been a while since there's been something in Athabasca cool enough for me to film, but it finally happened a few days ago.

For those who don't have an AADAC in their community, this has been National Addictions Awareness Week. To celebrate, our local chapter of AADAC did this thing called the Discovery Zone, where all the facilities of the Athabasca Regional Multiplex were open for folks to try out.

So, here I am, goofing around at the NAAW Discovery Zone!

"Pushing Daisies" is Pushing Daisies

Well, I just had my heart broken.

It was just announced that Pushing Daisies has been canceled.

I've blogged a few times and mentioned in my podcast how friggin' AWESOME I thought this show was. But, I guess like most shows I love that are quirky and different and distinct, it wasn't meant to be....

If I may borrow the show's catchphrase, "The facts are these...."

Pushing Daisies was actually quickly climbing in the ratings when it first premiered a year ago, and was on its way to being a hit. But then, tragedy. The Writer's Strike. The ninth episode of its first season -- which aired almost a year ago -- wound up being the season finale.

And that seemed to have killed the momentum the show had. When it had its season premiere this year, it just wasn't catching on like it did last year.

Around two weeks ago, they finished filming the 13 episodes that were ordered for this season, and we all began waiting to see if it would get the full season pick-up. But, with the declining ratings, it didn't look good. And today, the word came...the show was done.

About the only people who are celebrating this are fans of Heroes. Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller was writing for Heroes in its first season, but then left when Pushing Daisies got picked up. Many Heroes fans say the show started declining in quality when Fuller left. And, Fuller said two weeks ago when they finished filming #13, that he'd gladly return to Heroes if the show wound up getting canceled.

But, all is not lost. Fuller has already said that he'd like to wrap up the show's loose ends -- and maybe even continue the story -- in graphic novel form, so there's always that.

And a soundtrack album is due out on December 16, so you know I'll be picking that up.

The only question now is when do I buy it on DVD? The complete first season came out back in September. Should I buy it now and wait for season 2 to be released? Or wait until season 2 comes out, and then buy the whole series in one fell swoop?

And I still say "Olive Snook" was one of the best names for a TV character ever.