It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a CD.
Apr 19The Superman cash-in begins…. NOW!
I Hope You're Happy Now
Apr 18I only hesitated once.
I was packing the plastic bag full of dog shit, bits of the stuff trapped deep under my fingernails, and I wondered: was it really worth it? Did she really deserve this? More importantly, would she really stop calling and e-mailing and stopping by unexpectedly if I tossed a steaming bag of dog shit at her front door?
It’s worth a shot, I figured as I hurtled the bag. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try.
Something to read, something to listen to, something to watch.
Apr 18After a full nine parts, Kevin Smith has wrapped up his epic account of the trials and tribulations of Jason Mewes. While all’s well that ends well, Mewes dodged a bullet. The last installment includes a lot of pictures of a very healthy, sober Mewes, but Kevin has posted a video clip Mewes made him, nine months into going clean and it shows a repentant, toothless Mewes laying it all out for his pal.
For a year now I’ve been listening to a podcast, Claybourne. In short, New Zealand public radio produced a 96 part radio series about an American company man sent to check out a facility in remote NZ – it’s a bit of a drama, a bit of a Lovecraftian tale of nameless horror – there’s even a frickin’ self-aware AI in it, and while I know it all sounds wierd, it’s good stuff. The Podcast Network has posted 85 of the parts, so nows a good time to jump in.
And Working Title Films has posted their fourth Hot Fuzz on-set video blog, starring Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.
The first 27 minutes of A Scanner Darkly rocks…
Apr 18I spent the weekend attending a bi-mon-sci-fi-con sort of dealy, NorWesCon. I have friends who write sci-fi, and NorWesCon is where they give out the Philip K Dick award, so there are a lot of writers in attendance, lots of book dealers, lots of publisher parties to scam into, cool people to hang out with and have conversations that don’t involve Star Trek, that sort of thing. Overall, a fun way to spend a few days.
The highlight this year (besides watching two elderly nerds nearly come to blows over a political debate) was that Warner provided the first 27 minutes of A Scanner Darkly. I have two points to make:
Firstly, I’m very disappointed in the nerds in attendance. The segment was to run at the end of an hour and a half of movie trailers. These are trailers that are online. They’ve seen them before. And yet they booed the guy running the show when he announced they were short on time and would skip the X3 trailer. And when he announced to stick around for A Scanner Darkly, about half didn’t. They just weren’t interested. Some nerds they were.
Secondly, the first 27 minutes was just awesome. Having made a point of reading the book before the movie hit theaters, I can tell you it’s pretty damn close to the book. The only real alteration is that it’s not set in the 70s, it’s “7 years from now”. Every other change I noticed were omissions – little things that aren’t needed in the movie (and for all I know may appear later in the film.)
