Hearts for Alana

Hearts for Alana

Sep 13

I think I’m actually caught up on all the TV I missed whilst on vacation. Can I just say: What the hell, The 4400?! You take away my TV Girlfriend, Karina Lombard, then bring her back for a few episodes, then have her fucking DISAPPEAR in the season finale! God! Fucking Maia and her predictions.

Listen to me: The 4400 is NO GOOD without Karina Lombard. Look at how pretty she is! Not to say that the other actors aren’t pretty, but Karina Lombard is so preternaturally pretty, it is kind of ridiculous.

Other than that, not a bad wrap-up, but I think this season would have been much stronger if y’all had cast a better actress as superpowered bitch-on-wheels Isabelle. Megalyn Echikunwoke’s rather whiny interpretation robbed the character of the dangerous power she was supposed to possess; she came off like a Paris Hilton/Veruca Salt hybrid when she should have been subtely conveying that she could totally FUCK YOU UP if she wanted to.

BSG Compacted!

BSG Compacted!

Sep 13

Here’s the latest BSG webisode in two seconds, for you poor souls who can’t watch it at work:

Duck and Wife of Duck: Awww, yeah, let’s make a BABY.

Chief and Tigh: We’re hiding weapons and shit!

Wife of Duck: Come to church with me!

Duck: No thanks, I like sleep!

And…SCENE.

Vimanarama

Vimanarama

Sep 12

Dave Campbell of Dave’s Long Box is, of course, a genius…as evidenced by this exceptional post on the Grant Morrison/Phillip Bond miniseries Vimanarama.

Also, I wanted to gloat that I got those three issues plus three more for a BUCK recently. Fifty cents for Morrison greatness! In your FACE.

Dear Joss,

Dear Joss,

Sep 12

Hi. How are you? I’m fine, thanks.

You probably remember me. I was the guy who pleaded with you to shave your wanky beard. Eventually, you did indeed shave it, so I can only assume that you read my column, spent some emotional time with your personal groomer, and took my advice.

I’ve got some more advice for ya, Mr. Whedon: Don’t write Runaways.

Full disclosure: I’ve only read the first collection of Runaways material. But I liked it. A lot. I plan to read the rest.

It’s good stuff, and Joss, you make good stuff too. I have little doubt that your Runaways would be good stuff, like all your other good stuff.

But come on. Buffy was “adolescence as a horror movie.” Runaways is “adolescence as a superhero team book.” I’m oversimplifying, but you get my point.

This project is right in your wheelhouse…TOO much in your wheelhouse. (By the way, where is your wheelhouse? And may I visit? I will bring chips.)

For your next Marvel project, let’s see you push those boundaries you are so famous for shattering. Hit us up with the Whedon take on Brother Voodoo. Stomp in with your Hollywood clout and wrestle control of a flagship Marvel title and give it all your magically delicious magical magic. Whedon’s Fantastic Four? Whedon’s New Avengers? Whedon’s Ultimate Spider-Man?

I just don’t want to see you repeat yourself. At all. Maybe that’s the point–maybe you need a creative break from all the big-time movie biz heavy lifting, and so you’re looking for something that’s comfortable for you, so that you can just go have your comic book fun after a long hard day of making Jessica Alba seem convincing as she battles Faye Dunaway as Cheetah.

I just want what’s best for you, Joss. And for me. But mostly for you.

Love,
Matt

P.S. Don’t you DARE grow back that beard.

Thanks, Star Trek.

Thanks, Star Trek.

Sep 11

So Friday was the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek on NBC.

At this stage in my life, Trek is something I bitch about way more than I probably should. After all, like many a nerd, Trek was a gateway drug into genre entertainment, a formative experience of my childhood and adolescence. I’ll probably always perk up when I hear the opening strains of any Trek theme.

Except Voyager. And DEFINITELY not Enterprise. That shit sucks.

See? With the bitching.

But I do owe Trek quite a lot, and so, I take a brief moment today to give a belated thanks…

Thanks for putting me in countless hotel ballrooms in cities across this fair nation to hear C-list actors talk about on-set hijinks that happened a decade before I was born.

Thanks for weekend marathons on WPWR-TV, channel 50, which were dutifully recorded on videotape and archived for posterity…or until the magnetic signal fades.

Thanks for the wicked awesome “danger” theme music from the original series. You know the one. That “Dah-da-DA-DA-DA, da-da-DA, da-da-DA” thing. Awesome.

Thanks for Jonathan Frakes once pointing to me and asking, “He’s the asshole here, right? Am I the asshole? It’s him, right?”

Thanks for the college girlfriend who could barely be bothered to sit through “The City on the Edge of Forever,” one of many reasons I dumped her ass, and thus have a wonderful wife today who doesn’t watch Star Trek either. But at least she’s not BORING.

Thanks for killing Spock. And for bringing him back to life. And for the whales. Not so much for V’Ger, and NO thanks for Lawrence Luckinbill in a bed sheet feeling my pain.

Thanks for teaching me about American history–the Great Depression, prohibition-era New York, the old west, and especially Abraham Lincoln. Charming negress, indeed.

Thanks for the time I transcribed the opening scene of “Spock’s Brain,” assigned all the dialogue to characters from TNG, and then attempted to hand the “script” to Peter David, thinking he’d just roar in appreciation for my hilarity. Instead, I think he threw it away. Smart move.

Thanks for Shatner.

Thanks for opening at least one tiny mind to infinite diversity in infinite combinations, existing far away from the zits on my teenage face and the self-disgust engraved onto my young adult brain, a final frontier of possibilities beyond the now that I’m still exploring every day.

In other words, thanks for making me a geek. A proud, happy geek.