Gan did it again. Somehow she ended up with a couple of free passes to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. So last night, my girl took me to the movies and this was truly an act of love. I mean, how else could you explain my love sitting in line for two hours to watch the sixth film of a series that she was almost completely unfamiliar with. I have only one word for that and that word is love.

Which I feel is a perfect lead into my review of Harry Potter and the HBP.

(It's almost silly to say, but this review has spoilers - you have been warned.)

Which is scarier: These fantastic impersonations of Christopher Walken or ... you know... the real Christopher Walken.


Asian People Doing Christopher Walken Impressions - Watch more Funny Videos

As a fan of Evard Grief and using the word "FAEN" for... well... everything, I highly endorse this educational film by Lasse Gjertsen.

I understand the world mourning Michael Jackson and that nice man with the beard that sold stuff on television. Really, I do.

However, I was shocked to the core to learn that Pina Bausch had died on Monday.

Without a doubt, Bausch was an true original - a choreographer and a dancer who married moments of frantic fluidity and acts of focused, unwavering passion. As an artist, she was completely exposed and fearless and while her peers attempted to capture her smooth desperation of movement, she was unmatched.

Here's a video clip which can't capture the power of seeing her live. She used the whole stage and often layered her dancers' performances like symphonies of movement. Cameras too often tried to focus in on the action of her work, often missing the importance of the relationships between the people on the stage.

Inspirational.

Unique.

Completely peerless.

And one of my biggest heroes.



Rest in Peace, Ms. Bausch.

If one city could be made of complete, concentrated awesome that city would be Halifax, Nova Scotia.

This is brilliant.

I didn't even see the Wolverine movie and this is brilliant.

It's missing at least one butt shot, but the rest is dead on.

And surprisingly spoiler free.

Poor Alf. Man... we've all been there.

Annnnnnd here comes Mister Meatloaf.

You've got to watch.

At least until "I'm James Brown trapped in James Van Der Beek."

Yet another dead-on parody by The Onion.

Simply brilliant.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

BWAHAHAHAHAH....

This is so freakin' funny.

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging here, but I used to study a lot of martial arts.

Well, okay, maybe not THAT much. But I did take Akido for a while and one time my dad let me destroy an old chicken coop by karate chopping all the boards until it fell over. That was pretty cool.

But I have watched a lot of martial arts movies and consider myself a die hard student of the golden age of Honk Kong Cinema in the early 1990s.

Having said all that I have never seen a fight like this one in Andy Sandberg's parody for the MTV music awards. It's for the film KNUCKLE UP and it's absolutely brutal. And, dare I say, the most realistic fight scene I've ever watched in all my years.

I'm completely serious here folks. Watch this. It will give you chills.

I love the fact that Denny's is finally embracing its place as the eatery of choice for stoners in America.

(Right after Chipotle, White Castle, Sonics, Taylor Bros Hot Dog Stand, and that place that makes those fancy cupcakes with the dancing sprinkles. Oh god, I could totally go for a baker's dozen of those right now. And a grilled cheese sandwich. With french fries. Oh - and ranch dressing.)

Okay, I've waited long enough.

Time for me to talk about some of my REAL thoughts about the new Star Trek fim.

HOWEVER, to do this, I will need to go over some spoilers.

And for you non-nerds, this means - don't click this link if you haven't seen the movie. Srsly.

And because everyone is doing it.....

1. What author do you own the most books by?

David Goodis

2. What book do you own the most copies of?

Tiger Tiger also known as The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.

3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?

Did they?

4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?

Iris from Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire.

5. What book have you read the most times in your life?

The Snarkout Boys and The Avocado of Death by Daniel J. Pinkwater

6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

I don't know if I was even reading books back then. It probably had Clifford the Big Red Dog in it. I was a late bloomer when it came to reading.

7. What is the worst book you've read in the past year?

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

8. What is the best book you've read in the past year?

Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

9. If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?

Force? Who wrote this meme? Hitler's brother?

10. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?

Haruki Murakami

11. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

Wait. Why write a book if what you really want to do is make a movie? Was Lord of the Ring a better book because someone made a fine movie out of it? Wanna read a good book find a good book. Wanna watch a good movie, leave a good book alone.

12. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

Tiger Tiger by Alfred Bester.

13. What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?

I Was a Teenybopper for the CIA by Ted Mark.

14. What is the most difficult book you've ever read?

Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan. I wasn't in the right place to read that book when I did.

15. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?

Timon of Athens.

16. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?

French.

17. Roth or Updike?

I think Roth would totally kick Updike's ass in a fist fight.

18. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

Sedaris. Eggers is a hack.

19. Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?

What in god's name made you pick those three? It's like comparing apples and a 1966 cherry red Mustangs. Okay. Let's flesh this one out a little bit. I'd pick Shaespeare over Marlow. Browning over Milton. And Chaucer over Gower.

20. Austen or Eliot?

Austen. No contest.

21. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?

Longest time in between books or gap in a specific category? I know very little about Spain's last civil war. And I didn't read as many books as I would have liked in 1994.

22. What is your favorite novel?

A man can never step in the same river. The second time, it's not the same river and he is not the same man. Ask me my favorite novel today and tomorrow it will be something different. This isn't Highlander. There isn't one book for all time. (and this goes with the following questions...)

23. Play?

Three Penny Opera by Brecht.

24. Poem?

It's still Black Marigolds by Bilhana Kavi.

25. Essay?

"The Case of the Colorblind Painter" by Oliver Sacks.

26. Short Story?

The Hell Screen by Rynosake Akutagawa

27. Work of non-fiction?

Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson

28. Graphic novel?

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. *shrugs* What can I say? It's a classic for a reason.

29. Who is your favorite writer?

Hawthorne. Easily. But if we are talking contemporary then Mark Salzman or Rynosake Akutagawa or Daniel Pinkwater. It's kinda a three way tie. But Hawthorne beats them all.

30. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?

Salman Rushdie. (just my humble opinion)

31. What is your desert island book?

Lord of the Flies? Wait. I don't think I understand the question.

32. And ... what are you reading right now?

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan. (don't judge me)

Don't know anything about art but want to? It's simple really. All you have to do is look at 1,000 paintings. Somewhere around 1001, and who knows, you might be brilliant so you might pick it up quicker, but after 1001 "masterpieces", you'll start to notice things - similarities, elements of style and talent, and common cheats. Hell, after that many paintings, you'll even have the confidence to admit what you like and not care what other people say about your opinion.

The same holds with all things to include classical music, vintage cars, R&B artists, and European christmas cookies. And comic books too.

There are tons of cliches in comics and for good reason - writing comics is tough. Okay, maybe not writing one comic. Writing a single original, funny, exciting, creative comic isn't too tough - it just takes a little time, creativity and hard work. HOWEVER, writing a original, funny, exciting, creative comic every month for four or five years is more difficult than people realize.

Sometimes... well sometimes you really can't avoid the cliches. Take the classic comic book cliche villain.



The classic comic book villain is the hero in a black hat. Or with a bigger gun. Or has the exact same power but is just a bit stronger. And lately, this has gotten kinda out of control. Spiderman versus Venom. Hulk versus The Abomination. Iron Man versus Iron Monger.

So when I heard that the new movie, WOLVERINE, was going to be more Wolverine versus Sabertooth, I lost most of my interest. For me, what always made Wolverine interesting was how he stood out when next to the rest of the X-Men. He was dirty when they were clean. While the X-Men tried to be good boys and girls, Wolverine drank beer and called Nightcrawler a fuzzy elf.

But the new WOLVERINE movie (with the extremely unfortunate title) looks a lot like more of the hero versus comic book cliche villain.

*yawn*

Well whatever. The sad fact is that I'll still probably go and see it. Although I might wait for DVD if Gan doesn't want to go and see it in the theatre.

** no spoilers **

Last night, Gan took me to a top secret screening of the new Star Trek movie. The audience was filled with fans and noobs and homosexuals - all of them ready to get their respective geek on. While I feel the movie will probably tweak the nose of a lot of dire hard fans - overall - I think the film will be very well received by the public and hence, will do very well at teh box office. It's one of those "alternate universe" stories so everyone gets to have their cannon and eat it too.

Me? I liked it. I thought they made some bold choices and I didn't really mind the rewriting of history. I mean, you can't really claim to like MIRROR MIRROR in the original Star Trek and not entertain the possibility of alternate Treks. Of course, if somehow they had given young spock a big ol' handle bar mustache, I would have truly been in heaven.

My problems with the movie mostly came from it being an "origin" movie and having a large cast where everyone needs to have a back story and something to do. This was always one of my problems with the Next Generation movies - all those, "we really need to have something for LeVar to do in the story - can't we have a moment where something needs to be looked at on the Infrared Spectrum?" I wanted less origin and more story.

At the end of the film though, I was ready for the next one - now that the foundation had been set up - and I wanted more time with the characters. This will probably be the major complaint of many fans. (i.e. Need less Sulu and Chekov - more Bones and Scotty.) I found myself surprising eager to spend more time with these new characters who wore such familiar names.

Perhaps just as fun as the film was befriending new geeks at the after-film-mixer and chatting up everything from sequel possibilities, speculation on Mayor McCheese's Terminator franchise, and even a nice philosophical debate on the human soul as it relates to nature versus nurture. *big grin* There is just something so wonderful about chatting up geeks.

One of my favorite moments of the night came when we were discussing time travel and how in the original Terminator movie only human flesh could travel back in time. (This is why everyone travels naked through time. *WOO HOO*) This led to the comical speculation as to why nobody simply wrapped a future gun in human tissue (!) to bring it back in time and even further speculation that the metal melting Terminator in T2: JUDGMENT DAY was probably wrapped in delicious bacon when he/she/it came back in time since it wasn't covered in human tissue like the first Ah-nold.

All in all, it was an amazing night and I'm wearing a huge smile as I rub my eyes sleepily. *yaaaawwwwnnn* Totally worth staying up late on a school night.

So I was reading a bunch of nerd blogs this morning when I discovered an article about being gay and Star Wars.

http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=26250

It seems the developers of the next Star Wars/World of Warcraft rip off "Star Wars: The Old Republic" are pretty firm in the belief that there are no gays in the Star Wars Universe.

That statement alone makes anyone who has owned a protocol droid howl in hysterics.

Sitting on the edge of my seat for this film.

Scene opens with Annie scrubbing floors at The Hard Knocks Orphanage For Girls.

As a father, it didn't take long for me to realize that kids are sponges.

And not just sponges, but impressionable sponges.

For example, if you teach your two year old to shoot homeless people and you jump up and down screaming about how she's a good baby while she's killing toothless bums, well, by the time that child is seven, you'll have a stone cold killer on your hands. And a pretty damn safe neighborhood too. Well, safe from everything but your daughter's wrath that is.

This is why, after all these years, the Klan is still around.

So... I recently saw this clip with a father who is wasting no time in teaching his son that there's a way to get things done.



Is this kid having a fun time? I mean, I don't think the kid even knows what the hell is going on in his shorts much less why the two cartoon guys on the t.v. are fighting. I mean, you can train cats, puppies, monkeys and rats to do the same thing by shouting "HIT THE BUTTONS! HIT THE BUTTONS!" if you jump up and down enough and have a pocket full of bacon.

ALL THIS BEING SAID... maybe this dad is onto something. I mean, our boy spent a good part of the weekend pretending he was a Pikachu, saying "pika pika" to all the kids, and riding his Razor around the block. And all the other neighborhood kids looked at him like our eight year old was on frosted covered crack flakes.

Maybe I should be teaching Cal Street Fighter moves and celebrating every time he punches one of the neighborhood kids? Isn't that what good fathers are suppose to do? Isn't it a dad's responsibility to turn his son into "a man"?

Hmmm... :( Cute? Or sad? Hmmmm....

HIT THE BUTTONS! HIT THE BUTTONS! Come on Cal!