Batman logos

There's a post on /Film highlighting a youtube video showing various incarnations of the Batman logo. The video includes logos from various comic book titles, TV series, and films. It's not exhaustive, but it's a cool presentation of a good sampling.

Robocop vs. Terminator

Topless Robot had a post a couple of days ago about a fan mashup on youtube called Robocop vs. Terminator. Mindless fun.

Burning Universal Studios

A couple of years ago I visited L.A. with friends, and we checked out Universal Studios. We took the tour, which included the cheesy-but-fun King Kong attraction.

That part of the tour was destroyed by fire this morning. The same fire damaged the town hall clocktower from the Back to the Future set, and damaged over 40,000 reels of film (fortunately, there are duplicates in another location--someone was awake during the "Make Backups" lecture at film school).

Tourist attractions have had a hard time of it lately.

lunchpails

The other day Film School Rejects (great blog, with a great podcast) has a post about a flickr set of lunchpails. Reminded me of a Hong Kong Phooey lunchpail I used to have.

another Highlander sequel

The other day I rented Highlander: the Source, and I watched it this evening. Although the original film is one of my favorites, I didn't have very high hopes for this one: all of the sequels have been disappointments (although I seem to remember thinking that the fourth film wasn't horrible).

But I got a bit of a surprise. There's more to say about this movie than I would have imagined. I was surprised because this newest installment is actually worse than Highlander II, which I did not think was humanly possible. Highlander II at least had a fun villain. This film stars Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod from the Highlander TV show, and in the film Paul is surrounded by a handful of characters who are even less interesting than he is.

So if you're in the video store and you see a copy of Highlander: the Source, keep walking, and rent something better, like Ishtar, Plan 9 From Outer Space, or Highlander II.

No Country For Old Men

I saw the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men with a friend last night. It's probably the best film I've seen in a long time. It's pretty violent, but it's well worth seeing. It's more of a character study (like Heat or A River Runs Through It) than a narrative, and it definitely doesn't have a traditional Hollywood ending (in fact, the movie ends rather abruptly). But I thought it was seven shades of awesome. Javier Bardem was a fantastic villain, and Tommy Lee Jones also gave a great performance. Guess I'll be adding Cormac McCarthy (the author of the book on which the movie is based) to my reading list.

Batman v. Alien v. Predator

When I read the descripti0n of this amateur film, I thought it would be pretty lame. But it's actually really cool. Very high production value, and very comic book-y.

AVP2

IGN has downloadable trailers for Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem. Gory, but cool. I liked the previous film--not a great movie (can't touch Alien, Aliens, or Predator), but fun. And this one looks even better. Can't wait.

Dark Side of the Rainbow

Last week Leo Laporte on the This Week in Tech podcast (episode 109) mentioned something called the Dark Side of the Rainbow, which I'd never heard of before. The idea is that if you play Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz, you'll see and hear a degree of synchronicity: moments where the music and the film seem to intersect.

I've got a copy of that CD, and last night I picked up a copy of the movie on DVD to try it out. All in all, pretty lame. Maybe it's more interesting if you're not sober.

Another worthless Internet rumor propagated by people with too much time on their hands (although it seems like I had enough time on my hands to try it myself *shrug*).

But last night I noticed something interesting about Toto: I don't know how that dog managed to keep so calm with all the histrionics going on around him/her while they were filming that movie.

Evil advertisement

Just saw something terrible on TV. They took the Ripley-in-power-loader v. alien queen fight at the end of Aliens and turned it into a DirecTV commercial.

Part of me just died. Horribly.

Cloverfield poster

I'm a pretty big J.J. Abrams fan: I really liked _Alias_ (well, the first two seasons, anyway), and I've been enjoying _Lost_. So I'm looking forward to the next Star Trek film (Abrams is directing it).

But I'm really looking forward to the "Cloverfield" film (or "Slusho", 1-18-08, or whatever). Looks like it'll be a pretty cool monster flick. The released the movie poster today, and it's awesome.

Theater e-Ushers

Saw this today and was mildly intrigued:

High-Tech Tattle-Tale Device Hits NYC Theaters

It's an article about how some NYC Regal cinemas are giving certain patrons the ability to page the management. So if you're one of these patrons and there's something wrong with the movie (sound, focus, etc.), you can page the management to send someone to the projection booth.

This can also be used to rat on unruly patrons, and this is the part that interests me. This is why I rarely go see a film in the theater anymore. It's not because theater admission prices are too high (they are), and it's not because Hollywood churns out utter crap in two-hour installments (it does). It's because I invariably end up sitting in front of some rotten bastard who thinks he's sitting in his living room, who can't keep his feet off my chair and can't keep his big mouth shut.

They just need to take this notion a bit further. If I'm watching a film and the guy behind me is talking back to the movie and kicking my seat, I want to push a button which does one of the following:

• injects a harmless but potent tranquilizer into the noisy patron
• closes a high-voltage electrical circuit connected to the noisy patron's chair
• opens a trapdoor which sends the noisy patron down a metal slide and into a StarWars-like garbage masher, complete with a dianoga

The third option could be further enhanced if the movie could be briefly suspended while live footage from the garbage masher was projected on the movie screen. This would be especially effective in an IMAX theater.

Batman on Film

Last night I rented Batman Forever (1995, 'BF' hereafter, w/ Val Kilmer as Batman) and Batman & Robin (1997, 'BnR' hereafter, w/ George Clooney as Batman). I don't think I'd seen either (not in their entirety) since each came out. I vaguely remembered that neither was a particularly good film.

Turns out that my memory was quite accurate, if somewhat understated. Ewwww.

However, each had a couple of nice surprises that I didn't remember. BF has a pair of pretty good songs by U2 and Seal, although you have to slog through to the end credits to hear them. And Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazar make for pretty sexy window dressing as Sugar and Spice in BF. BnR has fun (albeit brief) performances by Vivica A. Fox and John Glover (he's Lionel Luthor in "Smallville"). And Uma Thurman is a very provacative Poison Ivy.

Otherwise, they're both pretty grim, and they don't hold a candle to Batman Begins (2006, w/ Christian Bale as Batman). I'm really looking forward to The Dark Knight (supposedly 2008, w/ Bale again).

Recent Reading

I've recently finished reading a couple of pretty good books. I just (a few minutes ago) finished The KILL BILL Diary: The Making of a Tarantino Classic as Seen Through the Eyes of a Screen Legend by David Carradine. Carradine turns out to be a pretty good writer. If you enjoyed the movies, you'll like this book. It has some interesting observations into the making of the films (which were evidently originally intended to be released as a single film).

And a few days ago I finished Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham. The premise is that a multinational naval armada from 2021 is zapped back in time to June 1942. This disrupts the battle of Midway, and the multinational fleet's presence begins to alter history. This is the first part of a trilogy. I liked it so much that I bought the other two books even before I finished reading the first (which ends with a pretty cool cliffhanger).