Calling All Geeks!

Here’s a new trailer for the Clone Wars movie. I had no idea Mel Gibson made a cameo as one of the voices. Check it out:

OMG! They just revealed the official logo for the new Transformers movie and its … exactly the same as the old Transformers logo, just with “Revenge of the Fallen” stamped on underneath.

On a slightly unrelated note, check out the comments in the article I linked to. What’s with the Batman/Transformers hate? I like both. I personally prefer Batman, but I have enough geek love to spread around. And, honestly, it seems like a random rivalry. I mean, I’d understand Batman v. Superman or Transformers v. Voltron, but Batman v. Transformers is really random.

I’m happy to report that my car Clarice my be getting another shot at life. Today, while tinkering with “The Car Formally Belonging To My Brother” (AKA: Blue), my dad decided to take a look at my car and realized that the current problem with my brakes would actually be an easy fix. Actually, after he showed me what it was, I think even I could figure it out. And the part we would need to buy is relatively inexpensive. (Certainly not the $1,000+ Monroe wanted to charge us, that’s for sure.) So, it’s not 100% certain yet, but Clarice just may live to drive another day. And to make matter’s even better, my dad fixed the driver seat! (And by fixed, I mean: found the button to make the back go up that my mom and I had both overlooked for about five years.)

It’s nice to have this whole situation resolved, though it has got us thinking. My mom and I were discussing it and we agreed that it is just about time I star looking for a new car anyway. It’s just time. The only difference is that it’s not quite so urgent, anymore.

I went into a fair amount of detail the other day when I reviewed Hellboy 2. Well, I’m not going to say quite as much about the Dark Knight. I really don’t need to. All that really needs to be said is: GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

My theater got two prints of the Dark Knight, so a little while after we finished up selling to the the midnight sneak peak, the employees did get to watch a privet show. And I absolutely loved it. Kind of like how about a half hour into Hellboy I had a sudden realization that I really wasn’t enjoying it, about a half hour into DK, I thought to myself “Oh, man, I’m loving this!”

Again, I’m not going to go into too much detail because it would ultimately just be fanboy drooling, but I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention the main attraction to this film: the Joker. A lot of people say that Jack Nicholson is the definitive Joker and that no one could ever do better. Other’s say that the cartoon Joker is the best. As for me, Heath Ledger IS the Joker. His performance in this movie is nothing short of shear brilliance, stealing every scene he’s in, and I am truly saddened to know that he’ll never reprise the roll. Consider for a moment the fact that I didn’t even get home last night until around 3:30am and it was probably around 5:00 before I fell asleep. I expected to sleep all day. Instead, I woke up around 7:30am … because I had a nightmare about the Joker. I can’t remember any details. I just remember his face and waking up choking.

Speaking of getting home around 3:30, though, I will say: Go to a theater with comfortable chares. My theater just might have the least comfortable chares in town and my back was hurting by the end, detracting from the experience ever so slightly. And that brings me to the scared side of the lucky two-headed silver dollar. If I was forced to say anything negative about this film, I might say that the two and a half hour run time was a bit long. Then again, a lot of stuff was going on to fill up that time, maybe too much stuff. But I attribute both of those points to my uncomfortable situation. I’m sure that in more comfortable settings, those points would become positives.

I’m really fighting the urge to just geek out here, so I’ll end it just by repeating my main point: GO SEE THIS MOVIE! I think its safe to say it’s the best movie of the summer and it just might be the best superhero movie made so far.

PS: It occurs to me that I completely forgot to mention Two-Face. The Joker is so big and bold; it may be easy to overlook the film’s other villain, even though Aaron Eckhart’s performance is equally brilliant. He invokes both sympathy and terror with ease and, unlike the lame Tommy Lee Jones version; he brings a real humanity to the character and makes you believe in what he’s doing. And don’t even get me started on the superiority of the scar make-up. I was a little worried before I saw the movie that putting two of Batman’s biggest villains in the same movie might be a mistake. I hoped that Two-Face would only come into play at the very end, setting up a sequel, but that wasn’t the case. Failing that, I was afraid he’d end up like Venom in Spider-man 3, not getting the roll he deserved. I’m very happy to say that this wasn’t the case either. Two-Face does the impossible and actually carves a decent, interesting piece out of what could have been Joker’s movie. Again, when you put him next to the Joker, it might be easy to overlook Two-Face, but that would be a big mistake.

PSS: On a side note that doesn’t really have anything to do with Batman, I have to mention one trailer that I saw. Up until now, in regards to the Watchmen movie, I felt like I could take it or leave it. I didn’t really dig the comic the first time I read it (Though I wouldn’t mind giving it a second chance) so the movie was really no big deal to me. But, man, that trailer was freaking awesome. I actually can’t wait to see to see that movie now.

Good news for any Fight Club fans! Another Chuck Palahniuk book is coming to the big screens. Coming soon to a theater near you: Choke. I still haven’t gotten around to reading that one but I’m told it’s one of his best. The trailer certainly looks good. Can’t wait to see the movie.

Believe it or not, I’ve never actually read a Hellboy comic book. Not that I wasn’t aware of it or wasn’t interested. It’s full of interesting characters and stories and I really love all of the artwork I’ve ever seen. It just somehow never made it to my pull list. So, like many people, the only Hellboy I really know is the one from the movies. I really dug the first Hellboy movie. It wasn’t without its flaws. The resurrection hound monster got a little repetitive and there might have been a few moments where it dragged a little. But for the most part, it was an entertaining story with some great action sequences with a great balance of dark humor.

So, when I heard that they were making a sequel, I was excited for it. And when I started to see trailers, I got very excited. More monsters, sleek visuals, and good ‘ol Hellboy. And when I found out that my theater wasn’t getting it, I decided right away that it was worth paying for. I meant to see it right away, but my recent drama has kept me busy. Well, tonight I decided to unwind a little bit and finally see Hellboy 2.

And boy howdy was I disappointed.

This movie started taking some bizarre turns almost right away. The movie starts off in 1955 where we see a young Hellboy. Apparently, he was a bit of a spaz in his early years. Seriously, it’s like they got every annoying 8-10 year old you’ve ever met to play him. And really, buck teeth? Anyway, it’s the night before Christmas and Professor Broom, Hellboy’s “father” who died in the first movie, decides to read Hellboy a story to help him fall asleep. Conveniently enough, he tells the story of the ancient war between the human race and the mythical creatures, sparing no bloody detail along the way. Hmm. I don’t know about everyone else, but my family usually likes to read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve, but to each his own I guess. Anyway, the ye olde race war ultimately came to an end with the creation of the Golden Army by the Elves. The army gave them the advantage in battle, but so massive was the slaughter (Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree…) that their leader quickly formed a treaty with the humans in the name of peace. The crown that controls the Golden Army is divided into three pieces, two for the elves, and one for the humans.

Flash forward to present times and, sure enough, the evil prince of the elves wants to destroy the humans, so he kills his father to obtain one of the pieces of the crown. The second piece held by the elves belongs to his good sister, who runs off to protect it. Oh, and we find out that whenever one of them is hurt, both are affected. (SPOILER: Yeah, this is the point where I guessed the ending, too. SPOILER ENDS.) So, Prince Albino Marilyn Manson goes after the piece held by the humans, which you’ve more or less already seen in the trailers and commercials. This attracts the attention of Hellboy and the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. Apparently in the couple of years that passed between the two movies, the badass secret agency in charge of investigating dark magic and the occult has turned into Dawson’s Creak. Hellboy and Liz are dating, but they fight over things like “personal space” and “not understanding” and all that other stuff you expect to hear about in your average superhero action movies.

So, the BPRD investigates the scene of the crime and they get attacked by a bunch of – I shit you not – tooth fairies. Crazy, psycho tooth fairies, but … yeah. It’s also at this point I should point out that, unless you’re some kind of crazy monster or you have some kind of superpower, don’t join the BPRD. I swear, the regular agents must be wearing Star Trek red shirts under their suits. During the battle/slaughter of no name characters, we find out that Liz is pregnant and Hellboy “accidentally” (on purpose) revels his existence to the world at large. For some reason, he’s actually shocked when people react poorly to the 7-foot tall demon with a giant gun. (Seriously, dude, Christians are afraid of Harry Potter books. How did you think they were going to react to a real-life demon?)

In response to their “outing”, the BPRD assigns Hellboy a new handler, a German gas/ghost dude that’s voiced by Seth “Remember the time we got a shitty voice actor to be in our movie? >Insert clip of said shitty voice actor in a movie here< ” MacFarlane from Family Guy. Well, it was like that time when I was watching a movie and every time that guy spoke it totally took me out of the moment because it actually sounded like a Family Guy character. And it was like that time when his character was derivative of every “stuck up at first but learns what it means to be a part of a team” character you’ve ever seen.

And it just sort of goes from there. They find the princess, Abe falls in love with her, the prince kidnaps her and wants to exchange her for the final piece of the crown. Bla, bla, bla.

I just don’t know what happened with this movie. It really should have been great. It was almost as if they spent all their time with the awesome look of the film, but forgot to fine tune the plot at all. It lacked that dark edge that the first one had and the humor this time around was weak and awkwardly placed. And it not only went against parts of the original, it actually undid some of the development we saw in the first. Jeffrey Tambor’s character is a perfect example. In the first one, he was a sniveling bureaucrat who hated Hellboy but went on to redeem himself and even formed a bond with him. (The scene where he teaches Hellboy the proper way to light a cigar always stuck out to me.) In this movie, though, he’s right back to being king of the ass holes without even a hint of the other side of the coin. Also, Hellboy 2 almost reached Spider-man 3 territory when they threw in a scene with Hellboy and Abe singing.

I know I hit this movie pretty hard, but it’s not all bad. The last half of the movie is somewhat better then the first. And, again, the look of the movie was great. But in the end, Hellboy 2 just doesn’t live up to its predecessor, which really is a shame.

Alas, it seems that after five good years of faithful service, my car, Clarice, may be setting out for that long road trip in the sky. The other day, on my way home from buying my ticket to see Weird Al this Sunday, my brakes started acting really funny. I really had to push down on them hard to get them to react even just a little bit. For the most part, I had to almost coast to a stop. (This almost led to a scary situation in the Kroger parking lot, but I saved it just in time.) So, on Monday, my mom and I took the car into our usual place and, if you read my last post/rant, you’ll know that it didn’t go so well. They’re talking over a thousand dollars to get everything fixed. Well, we got to thinking about it and realized that we’ve gotten decent used cars in the past for not much more then that. So it’s starting to look like I may be moving onto my next car very soon.

In the meantime, I may be hijacking my brother’s old car. See, he stopped driving it when the water pump got messed up (That’s what they tell me, anyway. Look, I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing about cars.) and, at the time, he couldn’t afford to have it fixed because it was before he got his new job. (I could get into why he doesn’t do it now, but that’s a whole other rant.) So, as of right now, we’re talking about using the good parts in my car to fix up his car, I’d pay for the labor and such, and it would essentially become mine. That’ll tide us over until I can afford a new used car (because with four drivers, we really need a fourth car and if anyone’s getting a new one, it’s me.) and then Jared could basically buy his car back off of me by repaying what I paid to get it fixed.

Confused yet? Well, welcome to the club. lol

There are a few other factors that complicate things even further. The number one thing I’m worried about is my Sirius radio. Whatever car I end up in, I’m going to need to switch out the radios and I really don’t want to have to do it twice. I may just go without (possibly suspending or temporarily canceling it) while I’m in Jared’s car and then just put it into whatever car I finally end up in. Also, I can’t help but laugh at the fact that I just got my door handle fixed. That is sooo my luck lately. It’s not that it was expensive or anything, but … I just had it fixed, man. That’s kind of fucked up.

On the bright side, I’m kind of looking forward to taking over Jared’s car. For one, the driver seat isn’t broken. That’ll be really nice. And he has crank windows, so no more having my window getting stuck after going through the drive through after work in January. And, finally, and this really proves that I’m a geek, Jared’s car is blue. Light blue, but blue nonetheless. Heh, lets just say that I’ve already put forward the idea of asking my dad to make me a couple magnets to put on the doors…

I’m getting really fucking sick and tired of being fucked over by the impenetrable cycle of society and life. I’m trying to find a new job right now and everything I see requires experience. I can’t get a job without experience and I can’t get experience without a job. And the other day my car’s breaks started acting really weird. I take it in and am told that it’ll be $1,000+ to get it fixed. They offer a credit program, but I’m rejected for it because I have no credit. I can’t get credit because I have no credit.

What the fuck, Universe? What do you fucking want from me? What the hell have I done? Why are things so hard for me when all the idiots seem to be constantly rolling up hill? I mean, my boss has run three or four theaters into the ground, but he somehow has better credit then I do.

Last night, I put the pieces together and I now have the frame of a Dalek skirt. Like the gun and plunger arm, it was another one of those moments where it all starts to feel very “real”. I mean, even without the side panels, it’s already looking like a Dalek. Here are some pics, including a concept of how it should look with the panels:

I just had one of those uber-geeky moments and I just had to comment on it. When I was writing about the size of Daleks, this little voice popped up in my head and pointed something out. Daleks are only about a 1.5 – 2 feel tall, I’d guess. The Mark III Travel Machine is 5 feet tall.

See, I’m not really making a Dalek. Technically, I’m building a Mark III Travel Machine. A Dalek is actually the little squid creature that lives inside.

Heh, yeah. I’m a dork.