Episode 59: “But I can’t relax”

Just because I can, here’s a cute video of kittens playing with a tissue box:

It makes me want to have cats again, but I’ll have to wait till I have a larger apartment. Two cats preferably; one for me and for Cristiano (he’s already decided he wants to name his cat Stark).

Quarantine
There haven’t been that many good horror movies lately, but Quarantine might turn that tide. It’s an American remake of the Spanish movie [Rec] and stars Jennifer Carpenter (Debra Morgan on Dexter ) and Jay Hernandez ( Six Degrees , Hostel ). The movie’s about a hazmat team investigating a quarantined apartment complex and find there a camera depicting why and what happened during the quarantine. [ Trailer ]

American Teen
I’ve heard a lot of good things about this little documentary; some even claiming it might be one of the best movies this year. It follows 5 high school seniors as they finish their last year: the Jock, the Geek, the Rebel, the Princess and the Heartthrob. The film shows these kids being more than just the stereotypes they’ve been labeled with. [ Trailer ]

Lakeview Terrace
I love Samuel L. Jackson , but I’m not sure even he can save this movie. In Lakeview Terrace he plays a cop harassing his new neighbors ( Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington ). Although there might be some unexpected cool plot twist, the trailer seems pretty straightforward and pretty boring. [ Trailer ]

The Children of Huang Shi
Not my type of movie, but for an indie film it does got an impressive cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers , Radha Mitchell , Chow Yun Fat , Michelle Yeoh . It’s about a British journalist and an American nurse, who rescue a group of orphans during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937. [ Trailer ]

The Wackness
I’m not sure what to think of this trailer; so far it didn’t really convince me to go see the movie. Set in the 1990s, its about Luke Shapiro ( Josh Peck ), a teenage pot dealer, trying to make the most of his summer. I’ve read good reviews though, so I’ll keep an open mind until I’ve actually seen it. [ Trailer ]

Space Chimps
This is the type of movie that gives animations a bad name. Thank God for Wall-E and even Kung Fu Panda for this summer! If you hadn’t gathered it from the title, Space Chimps is about a group of chimps going into space. The only fact about this movie that has got me a tad interested is that Andy Samberg ( SNL ) is doing one of the monkey voices. [ Trailer ]

Hamlet 2
How could there be a sequel to Hamlet if everybody dies at the end? Why, by using a time machine of course! This movie is actually about an actor-turned-high-school-drama-teacher ( Steve Coogan ) who together with his students tries to stage a politically incorrect musical sequel to Hamlet. [ Trailer ]

The Pixar Story
Don’t you just love Pixar’s movies? This documentary is a behind the scenes look of the company and it’s employees and associates. I don’t exactly know what the deal is though with the release date; it came out in America back in August 2007 and has even been there on TV. So far though I haven’t found anything about an international release. Till we do, this trailer will have to be enough. [ Trailer ]

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Still four more days till this movie hits the cinema. I liked the first movie, mainly because I had read the book and watched the very crappy TV series as a kid (compared to that everything looks good). I think Prince Caspian will continue in the same vein: a good entertaining kids movie, but nothing more. [ Trailer ]

College
It’s not the worst trailer around, but I don’t think this movie will be that much of a hit. But then what do you expect from a movie about three high school kids visiting a university and pretending to be freshman, just to get girls and get drunk? [ Trailer ]

Hancock
The previous trailer of this “Will Smith as a superhero/tramp” movie looked so horrible, I lost all faith in it. Now a bit of that faith is coming back, after having seen this extended trailer. Beware though: I think it gives too much of the plot away. [ Trailer ]

The Spirit
I love the look and feel of this trailer. I’m only scared people are going to think it’s a Sin City rip-off, which it isn’t. It is from the same comic book artist Frank Miller, so of course they’re going to look similar. In this case though, Miller is also actually directing the entire movie. [ Trailer ]

Young People Fucking
Again a movie that has had a lot of buzz and good reviews at festivals. It’s a comedy that intertwines the stories of 5 couples over the course of one sexual encounter. [ Trailer ]

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan
I actually enjoy Adam Sandler ‘s movies most of the time. True, they’re not the funniest films, but it’s not the worst out there. Here Sandler plays an Israeli agent who wants to give up his super spy life to become a hairdresser. [ Trailer ]

The Babysitters
The first thing that crossed my mind when hearing the title of the movie was: “Oh no not another Babysitters Club movie”. I couldn’t be more mistaken; these babysitters are from a very different caliber. After fooling around with one of her customers, a 16 year old teenager realizes she can make money by turning her babysitting service into a call-girl service for married man. [ Trailer ]

Episode 58: “If you like explosions. Or guns. Or cops. Or swans”

Hot Fuzz is only now being released in cinemas in Japan, after fans demanded and petitioned for an actual theatrical release. This video clip comes from Simon Pegg’s and Edgar Wright’s blog and shows them recording a promotional clip for the Japanese Hot Fuzz release. Both blogs are worth checking out; there are some great, funny stories on them.

Interesting links for May 4th through May 8th:

• Wired’s Geekster Handbook, a Field Guide to the Nerd Underground – Cubicgarden sums up my thoughts on this exactly: “But what I wonder is where is the Dj geek? Designer geek? Movie geek? Mobile phone geek? (which I would argue, isn’t the same as gadget guy). Anyway, its all stereotypes and not real. We’re all a combination and we all wear better clothes and don’t look like we just left college.
• UnderGear: No Boxers, No Briefs – Remember the padded underwear from the International Male catalogue? Well, here’s more from their latest magazine UnderGear (borderline NSFW).
• Portfolio – Jennifer Maestre – These “pencil-sculptures” from Maestre; they are just gorgeous. They don’t always represent an actual animal/object and I love that they’re open for your own interpretation.

Last Friday I went to see Iron Man on opening night at the Odeon on Leicester Square together with a big group of fellow geeks and bloggers, including Cristiano (of course), LJ , Sizemore , Whatleydude and a whole bunch of others. Suffice to say that it was a pretty great experience and this is one movie you must see in the cinema.

Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a genius playboy millionaire and CEO of the weapon developing Stark Industries. While he is the brain behind his company inventing many of the high-tech items himself, Tony is the stereotype millionaire: a hard drinking, gambling ladies man without a care in the world. That is, until he gets captured by terrorists in Afghanistan and is forced to reproduce one of his own missiles. Stark instead secretly develops a way to free himself, which puts him on his path to become Iron Man.

As a lot of people have been saying, I do think Iron Man is one of the best comic book adaptations so far. Unlike most superhero movies it stayed true to the comic books, without trying to make it more grittier and real, yet also without making it look cheesy. That being said, the visual effects in this movie are stunning. Not once did I have the feeling I was looking at CGI; everything seemed fluent and realistic. There also weren’t any unnecessary CGI scenes in it; sometimes with other movies it seems to me as if certain battles go on forever or that certain scenes are in it, pure for the sake of doing “some cool CGI”.

I don’t think this movie would have worked with anybody other than Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Tony Stark. This is one character he was born to play and, boy, does he play that character well. Downey brings a lot of his own personality to Stark, playing the millionaire-turned-superhero pitch perfectly. With Iron Man in the cinemas and Tropic Thunder coming up, I think we’ll remember 2008 as the year Robert Downey Jr. became a movie star.

While it is Downey’s movie, the performances of the other actors are also all top-notch. Gwyneth Paltrow is cute (although perhaps a bit smiley) as Stark’s assistant Pepper Pots and makes their relationship believable. One question: was it all makeup or does Paltrow really have freckles, but always covers it up? Jeff Bridges is almost unrecognizable as Stark’s mentor Obadiah Stone, even shaving his head for the role. Then there’s Terence Howard as Stark’s military friend Rhodey. While he isn’t featured that prominently in this movie, I know we’ll be seeing that character and his alter-ego War Machine in future sequels.

My only small gripe with this movie is parts of the plot. At times it was a tad predictable and to me the science sometimes seemed a bit off (although I’m sure a true Iron Man fan will be able to explain it all to me). The largest problem I had though wasn’t with the movie at all, but with it’s trailer. Seriously, how much can you give away? Besides showing a lot of the action sequences, most of the funny moments were featured in the trailers. Then they also took a bit of a scene from the final scene in the movie! Why?!

On a personal note (please don’t hurt me now), I didn’t love this movie as much as almost everybody else I’ve heard talking about it. It’s not that I don’t like Iron Man or that I don’t find it a great movie, but for me something was missing and I can’t seem to pinpoint exactly what. Typically when I love a movie, I come out of the cinema with this childlike glee and giddiness. And with Iron Man I didn’t get that feeling. Not sure why, cause it ticked off all the right boxes (maybe I’m just more of a Batgirl).

All in all, though, Iron Man is a great blockbuster movie. It’s up there as one of the best superhero movies ever. Plans have already been announced for a sequel to be released in 2010, so Tony Stark is here to stay. Try to catch it in the cinema, cause this is one movie where you’ll want the big screen experience. One more tip: stay seated until after the end credits, there’s a brilliant little extra you can’t afford to miss.

Episode 57: *click*

I’m somebody who always has to fiddle with something when listening to a lecture or when I’m in a meeting. Just need to keep my hands occupied (do you know how many pens I’ve broken because I was unconsciously messing around with them?). Anyhow this seems like the perfect toy gadget:

I so want one of these!

As a continuation on my previous post, I have a confession to make: I’m a comic book newbie . Rookie . Beginner . Call it what you want (not virgin though, cause I have read some comic books), but I’m really just starting out with comic books here. Or should I call them graphic novels? This is one geek lingo I’ve never taken the time to learn and I want to change that.

I do know my superhero lore, but most of that comes from watching the cartoons as a kid and procrastinating reading up on Wikipedia. I’ve only recently (=3 years ago) “gotten into” comic books, but most of the stuff I’m reading is movie or TV related. On the one side those are the comics based on movie/TV shows; I’ve got the Heroes, Buffy and Serenity ones and want still want to get the Battlestar Galactica spin-offs. On the other side, I’m also reading the comics which are getting movie adaptations, like V For Vendetta and Sin City.

Truth though is I don’t want to read comics purely because of some movie. I want to read comics, because of the great stories being told. Now here’s where I need your help: Where the heck do I start?!? Take Batman and X-Men, for instance, I have no freaking idea which line I’m supposed to pick up. And then there are of course a million and one comics I most probably never have even heard of, which deserve to be read too. The pool of choices is just so large and I need some people to point out the best starting points. Faithful readers, help me please?

Episode 56: “Awesometeen”

The more I hear about it, the more I can’t wait for Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. This video is a short interview Neil Patrick Harris did with EW. He not only talks about Dr Horrible, but also his role in Harold and Kumar 2 and what he thought of Jason Segal (his How I Met Your Mother costar) in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

I just found out that tomorrow today (I haven’t gone to bed yet, so for me it’s still “tomorrow”) on Saturday May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day. As the name indicates, it’s a day when participating comic books stores give away comics to anyone who comes to their stores. It depends on the store and their policy how many free comics you’re allowed to receive, but every visitor will receive at least one absolutely free comic book.

Free Comic Book Day is an annual event, held on the first Saturday of May. It started 7 years ago as a promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to help attract new readers to independent comic books stores. Typically major comic book book publishers will produce special edition comics aimed to attract non-comic book readers. For instance, past special editions included titles from Archie, Disney and Battlestar Galactica.

This year’s FCBD has 41 titles to giveaway for free, as well as 2 miniature Star Wars and Iron Man figures (again it does depend on the store). If you want to see the full list of comics offered, check out the FCBD site . There are a couple of interesting looking comics, a number of which I could easily see non-comic book readers pick up*.

So people: check if your local comic book store is participating and if so, head on down to it and get your free comic books!

*Disclaimer: I am not a real comic book reader… yet. See my next post.

Interesting links for April 30th through May 1st:

• Science Museum – Launchpad Online – Launchball – Fun little game where you have to put the the right objects on the right spot to help the ball get to it’s end point.
• ARG Stats – Cool compiled list of stats for a lot of ARGs.
• Ben Linus plays mindgames with Quint! LOST’s Michael Emerson speaks! – Great interview with Emerson who plays Ben on Lost. After last week’s episode this comes at the perfect time. No real spoilers, but it’s interesting to see his perspective on the series.