Fancy some scumble?

One of the things making it to my inbox this morning is an interview with Terry Pratchett, where he talks about his childhood, winning the OBE, and inventing the integrated circuit.

My parents got me a telescope. I think it was special kind of telescope—produced by the Kind of Telescope Your Parents Get You Without Reading the Book About Telescopes Telescope Company. So everything you could see had a halo round it. You could just about see the moons of Jupiter, and that's that. But you got to stay outside. I got to be really expert on the moon. And then a few years ago I bought myself a Meade LX2000, and then we had an observatory built—a purpose-built one. Because our house is a thousand years old there's all kinds of planning things involved in that. In fact, we nearly had a thatched observatory at one point!

Curiously enough, the science fiction came from astronomy. I wasn't really an astronomer, because astronomers have to take it seriously and do mathematics. I just thought it was really cool 'cause you could stay up all night.

I'm reminded that I still haven't picked up Thud. I used to be quite the collector of the British editions, as the American copies don't have the Josh Kirby art. Kirby has passed on, of course, but I am a big fan of his interpretation of the Discworld. His Death looks like Death, to me. The American covers are mostly pretty lame, unfortunately.

Hey, it's been a fairly interesting week. Firefox and Thunderbird have new versions today, too. Plus a new Web site!

What's new so far:

• Sweet disk icon on OS X
• Movable tabs (with icons, too)
• Better security
• Self-patching capability
• Seats!

(OK, so that last one is an in-joke that maybe one person will get. Sorry.)

I'm surprised they didn't get Corman to direct...

Via MetaFilter, the long and fucked-up saga of Superman V.

Crazy beyond belief. For example, here's a bit about Tim Burton's vision for Superman...

So what was Burton’s vision? Not much different from Peters’, in fact. Burton hated the flying FX in the 1978 film, too, so he didn’t want Superman to fly. Instead, he put Superman in a Supermobile. (Seven years later, AICN revealed that Burton and Peters had also planned on having Superman teleport from place to place in lieu of flying.) He also hated the classic costume, too, hence the oddball designs he proffered in its place, all of which would have featured silver-relief versions of the ElectroSupes S-shield and armored, treaded boots similar in design to what Michael Keaton wore as Batman:

1. A partially translucent suit that would allow full view of Superman’s internal organs, as reported by Cinescape in late 1997 as Burton’s plans for the film kicked into high gear. (Although word from within the Burton camp confirmed that Burton was indeed hoping to do this, the design was apparently never committed to paper—leaving some people following the project wondering if Burton was really going to use the translucent suit or if it was just a hoax. Nevertheless, Burton’s diehard fans adored the idea, praising it as total genius and the height of coolness. Superman fans, on the other hand, were left scratching their heads over it.)
2. An all-black, alien-looking suit that would have resembled a "cool cross" between Edward Scissorhands, the WB movie Batman, and a Borg. (At one point, this was what Burton’s Superman would have started the film off in.)
3. A metallic silver healing suit/body armor with details that would have made Superman’s body look robotic. (An action figure prototype of Nic Cage as Superman wearing body armor was made, but it looked nothing like the design as described and featured the usual red/blue/gold Superman color scheme.)
4. An all-dark blue suit with a "blood-red" cape. (This would have been the standard Superman suit used in subsequent films.)

There are Matrix rip-offs, Batman rip-offs, pretty much a ripoff of everybody, but most notably the studios, as they're $30-50 million in the hole at this point without a single usable script, set, prop, costume, actor, or idea.

Even if it's the worst thing since Catwoman, Superman Returns is already better than it could have been.

Back to the grindstone

First off, let me welcome any CIFA readers. Tax dollars at work.

(Read more about CIFA if you dare. I hope they're interested in my blathering about comics, TV, movies, and video games. Maybe I should get a tax rebate for entertaining them.)

Back to work today after a couple days off. Finally got caught up on the latest Top 10. Hey, now as I'm looking for a link, I find that Jess Nevins has started annotating the issues. I have yet to really sit down and go through his annotations for the second series of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

It's cold today here in the Pacific Northwest, and I find that I have acclimated to the local climate. The 40s are now actually cold to me, when before they were quite balmy, bracing even.

Buying nothing

Spending the weekend watching movies and doing laundry instead of braving the stores on the busiest shopping days of the year. And hey, as Digby says, the news about long lines are nothing more than hype. Last year I did go out and snag a really cheap hard drive for a friend from Office Depot, but not doing much of that this year. I did get some groceries, as nothing fuels watching TV and reading comics like some soda and peanut M&Ms.

TiVo has watched a lot of stuff for us, but we've been going through it pretty fast. One show I've really become hooked on is Da Vinci's Inquest, a police procedural about the Vancouver coroner and cops. Set in the city of Vancouver (instead of standing in for some other place, like when Vancouver became New York for Rumble in the Bronx, for example), the show has some great dialogue and really intruiging stories.

At dinner on Thursday, somebody mentioned they didn't like it because it was "too realistic", whatever that means. It's certainly not as formulaic as CSI or Law and Order, but I think that's a good thing. I never have figured out why people watch any of the CSI shows, not even CarusoBot.

Doing your part

As the holiday season approaches, wish lists are at the ready.

There's the wishlists of the past. I'm sure you've seen this before—A Sears wishbook from 1979—but it's nostalgia for some in easy-to-download form.

The Guardian has some game-buying suggestions that I wholeheartedly agree with. There are so many games coming out in the next few months that many good ones will fall by the wayside. It might be good to stay away from the X-Box 360 for a bit. Ars Technica reports on the component costs and rash of crashes from early adopters. You'd think this is the kind of thing that QA would have caught...

Also, note to self: consider working for Underwriters Laboratories at some point. They have the best job ever—testing turkey fryers, for example. This is the best footage online since George Goble started lighting charcoal grills with liquid oxygen.

I was in the store the other day, and the in-house music cut to a commercial about buying iTunes gift cards for the holidays. I was a bit confused about this, but it makes sense. The iTunes music store outsold Tower Records and Borders during the last three months. No wonder the music industry is going crazy suing everyone in sight.

It's Thanksgiving here in the US, which means consuming mass quantities of food and football. There's been a lot of really screwed-up driving on the roads this week, so I'll mostly be glad when it's over. I have a lot of sitting around playing video games and reading comics plans, myself.

There may be some maudlin "What I'm thankful for" postings later in the day, once I've had some port or something.

Now showing at no cinema near you

Taking a break from analyzing the insanity of the GOP and knowing far too much about cooking, Steve Gilliard has a bit about movies you haven't seen.

This got me to thinking: what films have had a huge influence on me that might not be well known. Or maybe they are and I'm just a victim of Wedge Syndrome.^*

12) The Last Starfighter

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.

(And no, I didn't need to look that up at all.) It's no Green Lantern oath, but for my generation, it did OK. Made with Cray-2 supercomputers, which was pretty freaking sweet at the time, but nowadays you could probably render this whole film in about a week on any machine you find off the shelf. Still, lovely performances by the much-missed Robert Preston, and the hard-working Dan O'Herlihy.

11) Cold Fever
Quite probably the only Japanese-Icelandic joint venture ever. A Japanese man cuts his trip short to perform rituals in Iceland where his parents were killed. Haunting in places, beautiful in others, marred only slightly by the fucked-up trip through Tarantino-land with Fisher Stevens (sock puppets and yelling are involved). And that still makes me laugh.

10) Top Secret
Val Kilmer's in the new Shane Black vehicle Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, so I am hoping he's in a bit of a comeback. That being said, this is my favorite film of his from the 80s, where Kilmer's channeling Elvis fighting the evil East Germans. Plus, Omar Sharif in a comedic role. (!)

9) His Girl Friday
The Front Page has been remade several times, but this is the best version. (The Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau version in the 70s should be freaking awesome, but it's boring as hell. Go figure.) Cary Grant and Rosalind Russel in a rapid-fire duel of wits that gets me laughing every time. There are two DVDs of this of this: get the newer one as the print is better.

8) King of Comedy
Stephen Chow as a shoddy actor trying to make it any way he can. Look for a great cameo by Jackie Chan, and the outtakes at the end where everybody attempts what may be the best acting audition scene ever. You can't really go wrong with his later stuff (rumor has it that they're making Kung Fu Hustle 2!), but I really dig this one.

7) A Midwinter's Tale
Kenneth Branagh directs this tale of a group of actors trying to put on Hamlet in a church in the middle of nowhere over Christmas. Well worth seeing if you can find it but it's out of print and I've been looking for it for years. Movie Madness has it, but not everybody lives near Movie Madness.

6) Returner
OK, take The Matrix, combine it with The Terminator, and The
Transformers, with robots in disguise. Then add in a hunky dude saving the universe? Nuff said.

5) After Life
Thought-provoking film about the afterlife, where you get to make one movie about a particular scene in your life before going on to whatever's next. Folks who have passed on before you are there to help you with the staging, writing, and directing. Simply marvelous.

4) Whisper of the Heart
One of Studio Ghibli's lesser-known movies, the sequel (The Cat Returns) has already been released under the Disney deal but this one remains in the archives. Boy meets girl. Boy wants to impress girl. Girl meets cat. Cat rides subway. Girl visits magical realm. Girl meets boy. Audience sobs at the end.

3) God of Gamblers | Once A Thief (tie)
On paper, God of Gamblers sounds really stupid, and it should suck, but then there is the awesome power of Chow Yun-Fat. Sure, he looks cooler than any human being ever, shooting folks with two handguns while sliding down a bannister in Hard Boiled, or wielding the Green Dragon in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but if you want acting, serious acting, watch his range in this. Spawned a ton of sequels and imitators, and for a while it had the worst DVD pressing ever. But if you can find a copy of the new release, do yourself a favor and watch him kick ass.

Also take a look at the under-appreciated gem that is Once a Thief. Double-crosses, flaming basketballs of doom, defeating security systems with the power of wine. I've heard that John Woo calls this one of his favorite movies that he's done. Watch it and see why.

2) LA Story
Remember when Steve Martin made great films? OK, so this is probably somewhat well known, starring a ton of people, but I don't think it did very well at the box office. I find myself quoting this film constantly, even now. The New Cruelty can be blamed for a great many things.

1) The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk
This was the first HK film I ever saw and it changed my life. There's a battle on top of a crowd, where whoever can beat Tiger Li's wife gets the hand of his daughter in marriage. I'm not even sure why they bother making movies anymore—film's crowning achievement was made when this was released.

Also, if you're into the new Doctor Who, and I know I am, you may be interested in this: Plot summary for the Doctor Who Christmas Invasion

^*--Wedge Syndrome is what makes geeks list "Wedge Antilles" as their favorite character in Star Wars. Sure, he's the only character in the entire trilogy to survive both attacks on the Death Stars (other than Luke, Han, Chewbacca, and the Millennium Falcon). But even knowing who he is marks you as the kind of l33t person who can quote huge chunks of dialogue with no prompting, and not such a base fan as to actually prefer Boba Fett or some other character.

I suppose the Star Trek equivalent would be liking Chief O'Brien before he went to Deep Space Nine. Wait, maybe there isn't one.

Rise to Honor

My hobbies run in phases. For a time, it will be all about reading old comics, then it moves to video games, then movies. Right now movies/TV is waning, and video games appear to be ascendant.

Playing Jet Li: Rise to Honor, which is an interesting take on the brawler/beat-'em-up genre, starring, unsurprisingly, Jet Li. The game's first act is set in Hong Kong, and I really liked the fact that they went Cantonese with subtitles for the audio.

Control is interesting in that there's not a lot of button-mashing. Instead, it's control-stick mashing, where you move the two control sticks to attack enemies. A lot of Jet Li's moves are in the game—he's here to eat dim sum and kick ass, and they're all out of dim sum. It's as much a Jet Li simulator as it is a video game, giving just the briefest hint of what it must be like to have trained at wu shu since you were eight.¹ There's a bit of meta-gaming in that you're playing a character in a movie, of sorts, but based on a real person. Maybe not as meta as the virtual internet in Front Mission 3, which people either loved or hated.

The shooting levels are less interesting, trying a little too hard to be Max Payne. Besides, I've always been a bigger fan of his period pieces like The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk or New Legend of Shaolin or, of course, Hero. OK, so Black Mask was awesome, where he's a librarian OF DEATH with a secret past. I also see from his Web site that he's looking into doing a Green Hornet movie. Could be good, could be... not so good.

I'm not sure I need to own the game, but it's well worth looking into. It follows Hong Kong Action Theater rules, where the more important you are to the plot, the harder you are to hit. Jet Li's character can battle tons of cannon fodder guys with little problem, but the boss levels are actually challenging, requiring timing and skill to win.

¹ - Fun fact: Jet Li was one of the Chinese martial arts team that visited the Nixon White House back in the day to demonstrate wu shu.

This never stops being funny

Via Atrios: NO EXIT STRATEGY!

Gunbuster wouldn't have had this problem.

So a while back, the Japanese space program launched a probe with the idea of reaching an asteroid, landing on it briefy, snagging a sample, and then returning to earth. They've had a few issues with it, and my new pet theory is that the probe they sent cannot transform into any kind of giant robot.

The new All-Star Superman is a thing of beauty. I've reread it a couple of times now, and it seems to be Morrison channeling Otto Binder. I think I remember reading an interview with Grant Morrison and he talked about the "Superman's New Power" story, which may be why I'm thinking that. (You can find it in the DC Showcase Presents Superman, or in Superman Annual #7.

Off to go see Pride and Prejudice today. I've seen more movies in the theater in the last two months than in the past two years combined. I blame Cinetopia to some extent.

A shining light to show the way

Superman Returns has a trailer up, which looks... promising. Not a lot to go on at the moment, but its heart appears to be in the right place.

Been in training on a software package for a couple of days, which put the nail in the coffin of my NaNo endeavors for the year. It's probably a bad sign when you've only written your quota of 1,667 words 1/10th of the time. Makes it hard to catch up when you're 20,000 words in the hole. Oh well, maybe next year.

I have seen the future of movies and it is Cinetopia. This beats even the Bagdad and the Kennedy School into a cocked hat. First-run movies in extraordinarly comfortable chairs, with tapas brought to you if you want. The only problem is that it's in Vancouver, which is a bit of a haul as there are only two bridges across the Columbia River.

Still annoyed about Arrested Development. I suppose it is possible that Fox might change their minds if sales for the DVDs go well, but then again... There is some good news—Battlestar Galactica has been renewed for season 3. Maybe they'll find a way to redo "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero." Watched that the other day and... it wasn't quite as good as I remember.

Cornballer Recall

Jeffrey Rowland asks the question we're all thinking. I'm not sure why I'm surprised by this. Fox cancelled Futurama, The Tick, Firefly, pretty much every show they've ever had that I've liked. So killing Arrested Development is kinda par for the course for them.

Penny Arcade has a long-overdue revamp of their Web site this weekend. There was something comforting about seeing the old one every day, but the new color scheme and layout is nice.

Novel update: still very very far behind, been totally out of sorts this year and busy with work. I am not out of the running yet, but it's close. I'm not totally thrilled with what I've been writing, but I'm also loathe to be a quitter. I've done this twice before—why is this so hard right now?

The Final Countdown

Fox has done it. They've cancelled Arrested Development. I guess that the awful American Dad or whacking the dead equine that is The Simpsons was more important. I suppose HBO could pick up the show, but that didn't work for Firefly, either.

It did work for Family Guy, which got cancelled, picked up by another network, and sold shitloads of DVDs, but that's kind of a special case. Airing nightly on Adult Swim helped that out a lot—I'm trying to think of an equivalent network that might air Arrested Development in a block to boost ratings. All I can think of is Comedy Central, but they've not got a good track record on shows, either. They got rid of Mystery Science Theater 3000, after all. (Which did get picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel, who promptly told them to "cut out all the talking," proving that there is no limit to people who don't get the joke.)

Sooner or later I guess I should just accept that crap wins out in the end. For every Perdido Street Station, there are a thousand Da Vinci Codes.

Maybe if they'd had Paris Hilton visit the Bluth family, that might have grabbed viewers. Or if they'd dared people to eat cockroaches or something. You know, more bread and circus-y things.

A bit fuzzy around the edges

halloween katamari
Originally uploaded by sumei.

Still enjoying the hell out of We Love Katamari. I was a little sad to learn this news, though (from the BBC):

He cannot see a long-term future in making games. Instead the creator of the bizarre, surreal Katamari Damacy game wants to design playgrounds.

"In 10 years time, I am not going to be making games any more," Keita Takahashi told the BBC News website.

I can understand wanting to get out. Katamari Damacy was lightning in a bottle, the kind of game we don't see much from American studios: an original idea that's not a sequel, not some lame retread of a movie, nor an "extreme" version of anything.

Once upon a time, you could build a game with a knowledge of binary, machine language, a circuit board, and a soldering iron. Now it requires focus testing, major licenses, studio backing, hundreds of people, and a couple jillion dollars. I keep hearing rumors of Sony wanting games with budgets of $20 million. Microsoft is probably thinking the same, though the Nintendo Revolution may be a lot cheaper as a platform.

Ten years is a lot of time for Takahashi-san. Japan's gaming industry is certainly more diverse than Americas has been recently. (How many other countries would invent both hentai dating sims, Hello Kitty RPGs, and masterworks like KD or Ico? Also, if you haven't played Ico, go. Play it. I'll be here making snarky comments about Lost.)

The ducks are too depressing

Been on a Da Vinci's Inquest kick as of late. Though the last couple of episodes have been kinda... dark.

I wish I could tell you that I've been just going crazy go nuts on the NaNo novel. But that would be a lie.

Work has been crazy and then there's been other stuff.

Like Bride and Prejudice. A Bollywood adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. It's a lot of fun, with some good music and a then mostly unknown Naveen Andrews. Who you may remember from a show called Lost. I gather that tonight's episode has some big deal going on, haven't watched it yet. TiVo's got my TV back.

Katamari on the swing

Our kickball season is over. We finished one game out of .500, which is way better than the summer season. We almost won a playoff game, too, leading through most of five innings before giving up three runs on a couple of errors.

I didn't really mind not advancing in the playoffs, as this weekend was abysmal weather-wise. So perhaps it's good that we were done early, as that meant we didn't have to sit out in the rain and get pneumonia or bird flu or whatever.

Spent a lot of time alternating between writing my NaNo novel and playing We Love Katamari. The novel... I'm a bit behind where I want to be, but a couple of productive days and I'll be totally caught up. It's going well, mostly. When I actually get out of the way and let the writing happen, there's no problem. It's the getting out of the way part that's the trouble.

Katamari Damacy was a bolt out of the blue. The sequel is a bit more of the same, but they manage to add a lot to keep you interested. There's one level that involves driving around a racetrack with a katamari, rolling up everything in sight. I've probably played this level a dozen times so far— it's just that much fun.

You got monkey chatter?

It's hard to believe that it's already three days into November. I've been discombobulated all week long—when I was in the comic shop yesterday, I was confused as to why there were so damn many people buying comics. I thought it was Thursday. Or Tuesday.

Today being Thursday, I've been thinking that it's been Wednesday all day.

Of course, it doesn't help that work is about as calm and relaxed as juggling chainsaws while riding a unicycle and humming "Bohemian Rhapsody."

My shop appears to have expanded their selection of trades, both DC Showcase and Marvel Essentials. Then there's the regular selection of stuff and back issues and... well, it was hard not to walk out of the store with an armload.

So what else is new? Saw Serenity again at Cinetopia. I may never go to another theater again, even though this is a bit of a haul. Two words: butter bar. They have a bunch of melted butter varieties for your popcorn, not to mention tapas in some of the theaters.

Footage from Blizzcon is showing a much-improved StarCraft: Ghost. This game has been in development for... three years now? Four? I remember it being announced, then shown, then it dropped out of sight for a while. The team responsible for it now, Swinging Ape Studios, made the very underrated Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. So I've gone from being very skeptical of the game (such as it was, mostly vaporware) to actually being interested in it again.

Current word count on the as-yet-untitled-novel: 1500 or so, which is WAY behind schedule. Hopefully I can catch up tomorrow or the weekend. Today was pretty productive, at least once I had some moments to myself. My lunch today was a couple of cookies.