Looking for Johnny Favorite

It looks like Lionsgate will be releasing Angel Heart (imdb) on blu-ray at some point:

Lionsgate has included a new promotional insert with this month's Blu-ray debut of 'Rambo,' previewing a quartet of upcoming titles, including the first confirmation of still-unscheduled next-gen releases of 'Universal Solider' and 'Angel Heart.'

Source: highdefdigest.com

I always felt this movie was underrated, perhaps due to the presence of Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet) in her first film role (I think).  At any rate, I've always liked it but haven't owned it since I long ago retired a scratchy VHS tape of the film.  Whenever it comes out, I'll probably pick it up.  I refuse to even notice Universal Soldier (imdb).

Where's My Friendly Neighborhood Creperie?

crepes
Originally uploaded by ycon801

I want a crepe. I do not want a ham and cheese crepe, a seafood crepe, or any other of the so-called savory crepes that pepper the menus of the local bistros around the 'hood. What I want is quite simple: a nice crepe au sucre or, if I'm perhaps feeling a bit more decadent, a crepe avec nutella. In short, I want a simple sweet crepe, maybe with a cup of coffee or cappuccino. Unfortunately, I can't find a single solitary spot anywhere in the brownstone vastness that is Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. It's not much to ask, is it? If anyone knows anything let me know. I am growing desperate.

In an Indiana State of Mind

LEGO Indiana Jones (photo)
Originally uploaded by Dunechaser

Yesterday, I bought my ticket to see Indy IV tomorrow at the Regal E Walk Stadium 13. I would have loved to see the movie tonight but it's just easier to see it tomorrow, Friday, leaning into the long Memorial Day weekend. I don't know anyone who went to the midnight show last night so, thankfully, I will not have to dodge spoilers. I'll certainly need to be careful not to get spoiled via the interwebs but that's a bit easier of a road to hoe.

Does anybody remember the Robert Townsend movie, Hollywood Shuffle(imdb)? Before his career descended to the likes of The Meteor Man (imdb), Townsend was a very funny man. Very funny. How does this connect to Indiana Jones? In Shuffle, a inner-city version of Ebert & Roeper review several films, including a parody of Indy, Chicago Jones. If you haven't seen this, you haven't lived. This is pure comedy gold. It's Sneaking in the Movies:

Mr. Jones and Me

Still Rocking
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I just bought my ticket to paradise. Okay, not to paradise, not exactly. But I did get my ticket to see the fourth Indiana Jones installment this Friday. I haven't read any previews, reviews, or spoilers for the flick which is unusual for me but I really want to go into the movie as blind as possible. That there is a crystal skull, one or more Nazis, and good ol' Indiana is all I need to know.

Between now and Friday, I will drown out any hype with a continuous loop of Eddie Money singles. As the Money-Man said, get a move on:

Poli-Tikka

Chicken Tikka Masala
Originally uploaded by Crashworks

Right about now, I am tired, dead tired. It's been awhile since I've gone out two nights in a row early in the week. This morning, I'm paying the price. Ian, a friend of mine, is visiting. He came for his sister's wedding and used the occasion to come down into the city. Monday night, we just hung out at Rope on Myrtle. Last night, we went to meet up with his friend Baba and a few others at the Indian Cafe. The food was excellent but the talk was even better.

I usually avoid getting into geo-political discussions with people because it tends to get emotional in all the wrong ways. Baba has no such qualms and jumps into that murky pool full-bore, yelling "Cannonball!" as he goes. Ian, having past experience, tried his best to stay on the sidelines but, worn down by gin and tonics, he finally couldn't help himself. My own views were closer to Baba's than to Ian's which made things a bit more interesting at the end when, as the restaurant closed around us, the heat went up a few notches.

The battleground was a rocky wasteland of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and the moral prerogative of nations. It was interesting, fun stuff to discuss that I don't get to do much. I loved it.

A wrinkle was provided from a Columbia U. history professor who happened to be at the bar and became a second front of battle: the professor, being British, and Baba, being Indian, made for an interesting back-and-forth. I enjoyed just listening to them fence with each other.

In the end, a good time was had by all. Not counting the chickens and other animals that died to make our feasting possible, the only casualties were our own (mis)conceptions. That, and my sleep, my precious, precious sleep. I need some coffee.

Who Directed Tombstone?

Tombstone
Originally uploaded by kenny42952

As is my wont during a slow work day, I take to the labyrinthine tubes of the internet in search of nothing in particular. Today that search took me to an interview with Kurt Russell from the October 2006 issue of True West magazine.

The interesting thing about the interview is that in it, Russell says the he actually directed Tombstone. From the interview:

...I backed the director; the director got fired, so we brought in a guy to be a ghost director. They wanted me to take over the movie. I said, “I’ll do it, but I don’t want to put my name on it. I don’t want to be the guy.”
I said to George [Cosmatos], “I’m going to give you a shot list every night, and that’s what’s going to be.” I’d go to George’s room, give him the shot list for the next day, that was the deal. “George I don’t want any arguments. This is what it is. This is what the job is.”
“Yeah, absolutely.”
I got him from Sly Stallone—called up Sly, said I need a guy. Sly did the same thing with Rambo 2 with George. And I said to George, “While you’re alive George, I won’t say a goddamn thing.” [Cosmatos died April 19, 2005.]
And it was the hardest work of my life. Tombstone was so painful. Tombstone was so tough, you know what I mean? It was just so painful; it was hard physically to do—I got four hours sleep every night. And I’m so happy that we got it made.
I didn’t get a chance to edit the movie, which I thought was unfortunate because it could have been one of the greatest Westerns ever, ever, ever made. And it’s pretty damn good. We had a great cast. A phenomenal script.

To me, this was a huge revelation but I don't remember hearing anything about it anywhere. I know True West is a niche magazine but I would have thought someone would have picked up on this. I put Tombstone at or near the top of my list of modern westerns. It's a classic. That Russell directed it from behind the scenes is no small feat. Did I just miss this completely or does nobody care? IMDB still lists Cosmatos as the director. Hmm. That reminds me: I need a good high def version of the film. Who will be my huckleberry?

Going Postal

Old Mailbox
Originally uploaded by Tru Image Photo

I find Uwe Boll highly amusing. Let me repeat: highly amusing. But it has nothing to do with his (de)merits as a filmmaker as much as it has to do with the permanent circus that revolves around him - he is like a clown singularity, pulling media in towards him as he spins dervishly in place, waving his hands, fighting journalists (physically and verbally), and generally carrying on.

His latest oeuvre, an adaptation of the mega-unpolitically-correct videogame Postal is due to debut on Friday but, to no one's surprise except for (maybe) Mr. Boll's, he's having a hard time finding theaters willing to show the film.

According to the MTV Multiplayer blog, he's got twelve theaters in hand. Nationally. 12. This is not a typo.

(Un)luckily for me and any fellow Brooklynites, one of these special theaters is in this neck of the woods: the Cobble Hill Cinemas. I really, really have no desire to see this film but given the desert-like rarity of screenings, I may actually go see it just to see it, to say, I was there. It will be like Saint Crispin's Day... or something.

Blu Monday

I woke up this morning to find a shiny new Borders coupon in my inbox: 40% off of DVDs today and tomorrow. Looking over the coupon, it's clear that the store is getting cagey. The coupon only applies to single or double-disc DVDs or blu-rays, no more boxsets. It's a damned sneaky move that cuts me to the quick. I used to use these coupons to specifically buy boxsets. Oh well. Still, 40% off is 40% off. If you didn't get the coupon, grab it here.

A Bloody Good Time

Pepper Bloody Mary
Originally uploaded by kevincrumbs

I had brunch at Maggie Brown today and ran into a guy named Matt. It turns out Matt is organizing a Bloody Mary (the drink, not the queen of England) contest that will take place at Rope on June 14th. According to Matt, the contest will pit his skills against those of other Clinton Hill / Fort Greene area restaurants. There will be grub to go with the ruby libations. Other than the date and place, this is all I know: there will be blood*.

---

* Added bonus: More blog posts with the word "blood" in them - yay!

Subway Social Commentary

Posters adorn every subway stop in the city, hawking upcoming movies, television shows, products, or whatever. Every time I go down to my local subway stop (the Clinton-Washington G), it seems like there's a new poster glued to the wall. Also, within a day, someone has usually marked up the poster with a sharpie or other marker. Sometimes the result is offensive but mostly, this commentary is either funny, socially relevant, or both. As a consequence, I started taking photographs of the marked up posters.

I've decided to collect them together. I think they form an interesting look into the mind of my fellow Clinton Hill dwellers, or at least those lovable (maybe) rogues who wander the subway stations, marker in hand, meting out justice (or miscarriages thereof) on the commercial powers that be. The sharpie is mightier than the sword?

Arr, 'Tis The Married Life for Me!

I've finished going through all my pirate wedding pictures. I've sifted out the best of the lot and posted them to flickr. I'm still digesting the experience. I'm sure I'll have lots to say about it a bit later. For now, here are the photos:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Back from the Isle of Wife

I'm in recovery from yesterday's pirate wedding. It was a long day. I was up at five in the morning and didn't get home until almost midnight. It was a fun but tiring. I took a bunch of pictures which I am still laboriously sifting through, uploading, and describing. I'll post them later. Until then, I offer you this:

Lobster Quadrille

As was long ago foretold, tomorrow later today I shall be in the Westbrook, Connecticut, Elk Lodge for a pirate wedding. For the occasion, I bought myself a shiny new tricorn hat and an eye patch. I also purchased a plethora of cupcakes to take with me for the potluck portion of the nuptial feast.

I have no idea what to expect tomorrow but, armed with my camera and an itchy trigger finger, I will attempt to record every aspect of this buccaneer banquet. Whatever else happens, I will get my pirate groove on. I shall attack the food table as if it were the Spanish main. I've got my letter of mark, I've got my orange Crush.

Bloodshed

First Blood
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I've got a few notes from my viewing of First Blood last night that I thought I'd share because... because I can.

Before the movie started, there was an interview with Sly himself. I didn't catch the entire interview but it was clear that it was produced for the latest Rambo movie. Sly's face looked like it had been frozen in carbonite. It didn't help that there were many, many closeups. He had some interesting things to say, mostly about Rambo and Burma but he did talk about the original ending to First Blood which saw Rambo die. This alternate ending was shown at the end of the film.

The film itself was good. The print looked good: I didn't notice much dirt, speckles, or associated wear and tear. It was overly dark. In some scenes in the woods, the actors's faces were obscured by the dark. I don't recall it looking that dark in the past. It really felt too dark. Other than that, the film looked in good shape.

The sound of the film has certainly suffered, not that, in itself, it's bad, but because movie sound has come so far since the film was made. The explosions have no power, the M60 sounds like a pea shooter, and the other guns sound even worse. It's no fault of the film, time has just left it behind in that regard. Maybe the sound can be remastered when the film gets remastered for hi-def.

It was hilarious to see a young David Caruso as a whiny deputy and Switek from Miami Vice (Michael Talbott) as another deputy.

The crowd (~ 50 people) was really into it which was fun. There was a great pop for Colonel Troutman's entrance. Troutman's got some great lines and they all got a good response, as did Rambo's rare bits of dialog.

Something I had forgotten: the song at the end of the film is one of the worst bits of audio tripe ever. It completely destroys the atmosphere of the film. It is brutally bad. It's worse than that. It is beyond words.

The alternate ending was just poorly done. It could have been very powerful but it's just not conceived properly. Rambo is trapped in the police station. Troutman is there. Rambo takes Troutman's gun and tells Troutman to kill him. He can't live like this. Troutman doesn't seem keen to do it so Rambo forces the issue and the gun goes off, down goes Rambo, end of story. It's weak.

What I would have done is have Troutman comfort Rambo, ease his pain, then put a bullet into the unsuspecting soldier's brain. To my mind, this is much stronger ending. Of course, for sheer b-movie bravado, Troutman could just walk up to Rambo, put a bullet in his brain, then lean down and whisper, "I'm still the best, John. I'm the best!" However,if I have to choose between the two actually filmed endings, the original non-dying ending is by far better, except for that hideous song.

A good time was had by all. As Troutman tells Rambo, "this mission is over."

LOST: There's No Place Like Home, Part 1

LOST is in a strange position going into tonight's episode, the first of a three-part season finale: we already know the future. We don't know what happens to all the characters but most of the main ones' fates are already set: Sayid, Jack, Kate, Hurley, Ben - we already know where they end up, just not how they got there. This puts tonight's episode in a strange position: it's hard to build up tension in a scene if the ultimate outcome is not only not in doubt but is, in fact, known.

Knowing this, why did the show bother to keep pointing out Jack's leaky appendix wound? We all know he's one of the six "survivors"- if we didn't know, or had forgotten, they reinforce this within the first few minutes of the show. This completely undermines any tension we might feel since we know he'll survive: whatever happens with his injuries, ultimately it isn't a factor. Yet the writers waste time and dialog on it. I don't know why.

It's the characters whose fates we don't know that should have gotten the lion's share of the time but don't: Sawyer, Locke, Jin, and Desmond (I'd say Claire but she seems to have gone over to the dark side). Locke spends the episode standing behind Ben chewing his lip and looking confused while Sawyer plays baby taxi and Jack escort. Jin? He does a good job standing behind Sun doing exactly nothing. Great.

I think I've labeled just about every episode I've written about thus far as a "setup" episode. This must be the ultimate setup episode but nothing happens. And I mean nothing. I could summarize the "action" as a travelogue of movement around the island. It was all about moving people around to put them in place for next week. That's it. And they didn't exactly do much to make those moves exciting to watch. It was a five minute bit of exposition stretched out into an hour. I hope it's worth it because, otherwise, this was a total throwaway. Next week better make up for it.

"Michael" Pimps Roca Wear

Michael Pimps Roca Wear
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I saw this while walking to the Virgin Megastore on Broadway by Times Square. As an avid watcher of "The Wire", I immediately recognized Michael (Tristan Wilds) pimping the Roca Wear on the giant billboard.

While, I'm happy that the guys from the show are breaking out since the show is over, there is also something disconcerting about seeing the actor outside the Michael persona. It's not quite as awkward as seeing Bodie Broadus (J. D. Williams) delivering pizza for Domino's (or was it Pizza Hut?) a few years ago but still, it's odd.

Zohan Criticism Goes Too Far

Zohan Movie Poster with Graffiti
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I was on my way into Manhattan to see First Blood, when I saw this movie poster for You Don't Mess With Zohan at the Clinton-Washington G train stop.

While I generally find Adam Sandler unfunny and this movie particularly unfunny (judging by the trailer), it in know way deserves (nothing does) the marker drawn swastika plastered over Sandler's face. It's just plain wrong. I don't know what offends me more, the image itself or the fact that someone thought it was clever. I know one thing: there's at least one idiot in Brooklyn who I can say, with absolute certainty, is less funny than Adam Sandler. Way to go, jackass.

World Turning

I was lucky enough to get out of work a bit early today. I walked out of the office and noticed a small film crew working cross the street. It turns out they were filming a segment for As The World Turns. I snapped a couple of pictures:

I don't anything about the soaps other than Victor Newman, Susan Lucci, and a few random characters from Days of Our Lives (my grandmother's husband watches it religiously). Unfortunately, none of them were there.

Bloodletting

First Blood
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

Rambo is the iconic expression of American uber-patriotism and bravado. He goes in alone, kicks ass, grunts a few well-timed quips, and slips away, leaving a blood-slick trail of body parts and explosions behind him. A pile of films have built up this image into self-parody and beyond. What has been destroyed in the process is the troubled, shell-shocked Vietnam veteran that was the Rambo of First Blood (imdb 1982), the movie that spawned the series.

Tonight, First Blood will be on the big screen once more. I'll be going with some friends to check it out. I've seen the film several times but always on TV, never in its OAR, and never uncut. I've always found this film to be very underrated. Thematically, it concerns veterans of an unwanted war who are, themselves, unwanted, and wounded in ways that go deeper than muscle and skin. This is the original John Rambo, a war victim, thrown away, unwanted, and hurt.

Of course, there is plenty of bad-assery on display. However, there is something unsettling, something disturbing about it: Rambo is like a weapon that, once triggered, is almost beyond the ability to stop - he is a prisoner of his own experiences, forced to obey triggers of violence embedded into his being like DNA. There is nothing glorious about it.

This subtext has been completed eradicated in the subsequent films but it is preserved, like a fly in amber, in First Blood. Not yet a super-soldier in fatigues, here Rambo is still human, fighting for America, not against some stereotypical foreign enemy but against America itself. Given the current political environment, the original Rambo is much more timely and significant than any of the Rambo figures that have come since, including last year's sequel. For one night, those larger-than-life images get swept aside to show the troubled figure beneath. I look forward to making his re-acquaintance.

Is That a Bird in Your Pocket?

Tweet of Dweams
Originally uploaded by born1945

I just recently started using twitter. I enjoy using it to chat with my friends (cheaper than text messages) or just send random bits of nonsense into the depths of the internets. Originally, I was using twitter's mobile web interface on my iPhone but it lacks a few features that, particularly on the iPhone, would make it really shine. I recently stumbled upon Pocket Tweets. It's got a really sharp, iPhone formatted UI and it has all the features I was looking for. Unfortunately, after trying it out for a week or so, I've gone back to the vanilla twitter setup.

What happened? The problem I have with Pocket Tweets is that the page is too heavy. I takes too long to load. Even when I'm on a Wi-Fi network it loads very slowly. On EDGE, it's glacial. Worse than that, the page will hang as it's loading up the twitters. I find myself having to refresh the page multiple times to get it to go.

I was hoping that the page, once loaded, would have some handy-dandy AJAX kung-fu to auto-refresh the twitters so I can see messages as they come in. Unfortunately, it doesn't. I have to refresh the page and it's back to the long wait. The same problem happens when I post a message - the page says the message was posted but it doesn't show it on the screen. I have to refresh the page to confirm the message went live. Refresh, refresh, refresh.

Ultimately, the slim profile of the twitter mobile page outweighed the better feature set but extremely sluggish performance of the Pocket Tweets page. Hopefully, they'll be able to work their web mojo and improve things a bit. If they do, I'll definitely give it another shot. Until then, I'll just keep posting random ramblings through the twitter mobile page.

The Jedi Have Truly Fallen

Nonsense
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

The founder of a jedi church has been attacked by a man dressed up as Darth Vader. Read the above line again. Let it sink in. Now, let's sprinkle in a few choice details, such as the Darth Vader costume consisted of a black trash bag and that the Sith assailant, rather than using a light saber, used a metal crutch.

Don't believe me? Here it is, straight from the BBC:

A man posing as Darth Vader attacked a Star Wars fan who had founded a Jedi Church, a court has heard.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, from Holyhead, Anglesey, admitted assaulting Barney Jones and cousin Michael with a metal crutch. They suffered minor injuries.

Hughes, who was drunk and dressed in a black bin bag, shouted "Darth Vader!"

The question is: where was Emperor Palpatine when all this went down? I pray someone alerted the police, nay Scotland Yard, that another Sith must be on the loose. After all, there are always two. Has the Queen been informed?

---

Thanks to my friend Paul for hipping me to the story.

Have You Seen Billy Jack Lately?

Have you seen him? You really should. He loves you. And He can kill a man with his feet. Really.

Oh Billy Jack, where has your brand of '70s carefree barefoot justice gone? We need it now, more than ever.

Winds of Change

LostWinds.jpg
Originally uploaded by ShengWD

I put a little time into LostWinds this evening. I haven't gotten particularly far yet but I've gotten to play enough of it to know that if WiiWare can establish games like this in its library, its future will be very bright.

The game is a side-scrolling platformer. The look is simple yet very well realized and pleasantly stylized. It's one of those games that's figured the Wii out: created graphics that play to the Wii's strengths and a look and feel that transcends the graphical limits of the platform. The game looks great.

The gameplay hook is in using the wiimote to create gusts of wind which the main character, Toku, can use to platform through the levels and complete puzzles. The wind is integrated into the environment so that brushing the cursor across trees, plants, and grasses will cause them to shake and wave. It's a small touch but the first time I did it, by accident, I grinned from ear to ear.

As I said, I haven't played too far into the game but, right now, the concept has really hooked me and the execution- smooth wiimote controls thankfully- make LostWinds a game I will definitely come back to. It's easily worth the ten dollars I spent on it. It's better already than games charging triple the price. I pray this will translate into strong sales. Games like these deserve all the success they get. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Afternoon Delight

The weather was so nice today that, when I emerged from the bowels of work early, I decided to walk a bit in lieu of rushing headlong to the subway. Ere long, that idea morphed into a plan: I'd walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then pick up the subway on the other side.

As I got across the bridge, I realized that it had taken less time than I anticipated. I decided to press my luck and go all the way home. It was a perfect day for a walk and I made it home in about an hour.

I took some photos on the bridge:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Sophie Makes a Mean Sandwich

Sophie's Cuban Cuisine
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I went to lunch at Sophie's on Chambers Street with an ex-coworker. He had introduced the place to me last month. That outing, I had a good fish stew. Today I had a steak sandwich and I was blown away. It was awesome. I almost ordered a second one to take home with me. On top of that, it's a seriously cheap eats. I think my sandwich, soda, tax and tip came to nine dollars. What-a-bargain. That is a bargain for me.

Medieval Prophecy Revealed

Painstaking work as a restorer cleans the floor of Westminster Abbey's centuries-old Cosmati Pavement mosaic (BBC)
Originally uploaded by johnhanscom

I ran across this at Mysterious Universe:

For the past 150 years, an intricate, allegorical mosaic containing an apocalyptic prophecy has been hidden beneath a carpet...

The mosaic in question is in Westminster Abbey and has just been restored. Originally, lettering spelled out a number of prophetic inscriptions. While the letters are now lost to us, the words were recorded and preserved, some of them calculations of the age of the world, according to the cosmology of the day. How long before this rediscovered marvel works its way into the Templar/Mason/Illuminati literature? Coming soon:
The Da Vinci Code 2: Mosaic of Doom

MGOver

Metal Gear Online screenshot
Originally uploaded by gamesweasel

I called in every marker and favor I could lay fingers to in order to get in on the Metal Gear Online beta. Having finally gotten the beta, I played it exactly once. And now it's over.

Allow me a moment to weep for my lost opportunity. I hereby place all blame on GTA IV and Boom Blox. Damn you, Liberty City, damn you!

William Shatner, Superstar

My sister spent the weekend in Paris and is now in Cannes for the film festival. I might have been envious yesterday, maybe even today. But not now. For now, I have just returned from an interview and book-signing by William Shatner. Cannes, I pine for you no more.

I am not a trekkie*. As I write this, I actually own no Star Trek movies (though I do want movies I through 4) nor do I own any seasons of any of the TV series (though I want the original series). I'm apathetic towards the Next Generation (though I do like Patrick Stewart) and did not care for the series that came after. All this aside, I have always been a fan of Shatner, whether on Trek, the Twilight Zone, T.J. Hooker, or whatever he happens to be in. In short (too late!), I'm a fan of the man, not of a particular role.

Actually, that's not quite true. The particular role I am an unequivocal fan of is Shatner as himself, a role he has honed over the years Whether this persona is real or public face, he does it so well that it hardly matters. I will never know the man himself. This is enough. Tonight, Shatner put on a virtuoso performance of himself.

Shatner has a wonderful sense of humor. Clearly, the man appreciates himself but he never lets it get in the way of his self-effacing comedy. He's a great story-teller. I was, as the entire audience seemed to be, drawn into his narrative. He really seems to be talking to us not at us. It sounds easy but it isn't. Many of these interviews come off as lectures. This one did not.

The interview was a solid 90 minutes and I was enthralled by all of it. I could have listened for another 90 minutes easily. I like his easy speaking style so much I might buy the audio version of his book just to hear him tell it rather than read it. I liked listening to him that much.

After the interview, there was a book signing. I bought two copies of the book (one for me, one for a friend) and he signed both. I told him I enjoyed his talk and appreciated his work. He thanked me. I left the auditorium a happy, happy man.

I only found out about this thing at the last minute. Being a work night, I had a tough internal debate over going. What finally swung me round was this: Shatner is 77 years old. While he has been an amazing workhorse in recent years, you never know when he'll call it a day. If I didn't go to this signing, would I get another chance? If I didn't go and no other chance came, would I always be kicking myself for not going? It was a no-brainer: I had to go.

The interview took place at the 92nd Street YMCA. In the auditorium, they did not allow photographs and, at the signing, it was tough to get an open look at the man. I did manage one shot and a snap of my signed book. For your viewing pleasure:

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* In a strange twist of fate, I have now seen two captains of the starship Enterprise within three days. What a wonderful, weird world we live in.

WiiWare Comes Aliive

Defend your Castle
Originally uploaded by MonkeyYu

The Wii has long ago awarded every investor of the letter i. The virtual console enabled old-schooler gamers like me to re-buy and replay games from our youth. Until now, however, there were no original downloadable games such as can be found on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, or the Playstation Network. Now, in the form of WiiWare, has arrived.

There are a handful of titles at launch, two of which I downloaded: Defend Your Castle and LostWinds. I've only had a chance to play Defend Your Castle so far.

My first impression is... it's okay, pretty good if you were to press me. I love the look - a sort of junior high school hand-drawn on a sheet of notepaper with popsicle sticks and bottle caps. As the title suggests, the sole object of the game is to defend your castle from an onslaught of stick figures and stick monsters.

The problem I see is the repetition of the game. It really is the same, exact thing every "stage". There are incidentals: you can buy additions to the castle that you can use to capture and retrain attackers as archers, masons (to repair the castle) and magicians. But with all that, each stage is the same background (changing weather withstanding) and the same action, namely picking up enemy soldiers and hurling them in the air. The castle may get upgrades but, so far, the player doesn't get any changes. I've played up to the 15th stage.

I'd say I'll give LostWinds tonight but I won't, since I'm going to go see William Shatner. It will have to wait until tomorrow.

Shatner Speaks!

extinct_shatner
Originally uploaded by nicelyroastedbeans

Why is it that I'm always the last to know? I'm scrolling through my Google Reader feeds this afternoon when my I lay my eyes on this piece of win: William Shatner giving an interview and book signing. Tonight. I have to go. I have no choice.

Thankfully, I wasn't, ultimately, the last to know since I was able to get a seat. I am not a trekkie but I've always appreciated Shatner's work, from the original Twilight Zone forward. Hopefully, tonight I'll be able to walk out of the auditorium with a song in my heart and an autographed autobiography under my arm.

Three Stooges Stave Off Shark

Great White Shark in Mexico
Originally uploaded by Da Sauce

A slow day at work leads to scanning random news feeds leads inevitably to this find:

An Australian swimmer survived a great white shark attack by poking the creature in the eyes as it dragged him through the water after badly savaging his left leg.

There is no evidence he yelled whoopwhoopwhoop! Curly-style as he swam back to shore.

I don't want to make too light of this, given that the man's life was in the balance but he did survive (thankfully) to give a good hearty nyuk nyuk nyuk from the safety of the shore....Okay, I admit, that wasn't a great joke but, they, they can't all be gems and it's a slow, slow, glacier-ly slow Monday.

Not Your Ordinary Reshoot

I, along with about a million of my closest friends, were milling around Times Square last night. I was on my way back from seeing MacBeth. Who knows what the other 999,999 people were doing- wait, I know what some of them were doing: either watching or taking part in reshoots of the Will Smith vehicle, Hancock. From FirstShowing.net:

Apparently Hancock was doing very late reshoots in New York City yesterday, most likely as a result of the ratings troubles they've encountered...

I had seen the trucks and equipments for the reshoots earlier, as I arrived at the theater, but I had assumed that it was for background work, 2nd unit type stuff. It was only when I saw a crowd gathered around a trailer that I thought Smith might be there.

As I left the theater after the show and walked down Broadway, however, I was surprised to see Smith, dressed in his black leather Hancock unitard, jog passed me, waving to the crowd. I didn't get any pictures of the Scientologist star (I wasn't ready) but I did take a few shots of the shoot related stuff earlier in the evening:

I can't say I had much enthusiasm for this film. However, I can't see how doing such late reshoots (the film opens in July) can be spun into a positive. If the film is trying to chase the coveted PG-13 rating this late in the game, how much of their original vision have they already compromised and how much more will they to get there? That the principals may say otherwise means exactly nothing. What are they supposed to say? They have to promote the film. Now is not the moment to get an honest answer. And it doesn't matter. No matter what they say, they're running around doing reshoots a month before the film comes out. Does that sound like a good thing to you? Didn't think so.

Big Mac

The set design for Rupert Goold's MacBeth is very spare. The white tiled walls, smooth black floor, and bare metal appliances envision a bunker, a prison, or an asylum- all fitting for this play of blood, madness, and war. The stage is left visible before the curtain, perhaps so that we can contemplate it's clean but cruel sterility before chaos comes to call it home.

My excitement and anticipation for the show had been rising ever since finally getting tickets for the play during the week. From what I could see, the show was completely sold out but I luckily managed to get what I consider to be a good seat: first row of the mezzanine, near the center. I'm not too far away and I get a good, clear view of the entire stage. When the play began with a thunderous bang (literally), I was ready to go.

I came to see Patrick Stewart as the titular thane and I wasn't disappointed. MacBeth is a man who succumbs to raw ambition and is consumed by it, from the inside out, even as he must reap its bitter harvest. Stewart easily navigated MacBeth's fluctuating states of being: strong and powerful, weak and fearful, crazed, calm and contemplative.

Stewart was matched with Kate Fleetwood as Lady MacBeth who provides the prod to push MacBeth to action and then becomes proxy for his madness. She was excellent also. I have no complaints about any of the cast*. They each do what the roles required. I must, however, give special praise to Christopher Patrick Nolan as Seyton and to the three witches, here transformed into nurses, whose physical but silent presences on the stage in key moments gave palpable life to the dark fates they had foretold.

While the play concerns itself with the power politics of medieval Scotland, the setting and costumes reflect a Stalin-era communist state. It's an interesting choice that works very well. It took me a few minutes of the first scene for me to reconcile the Shakespearian English to the much more modern look on stage but, once done, I was very comfortable with the fusion in styles.

By using a modern era, the play was able to use sound effects, such as artillery bombardments, medical instruments, and gunfire to accent the action, signal changes, or provide subtle ambiance. Images were also projected onto the back wall of the stage that heightened the drama. In particular, the video of blood flowing into water as Banquo's ghost arrived to confront MacBeth was an excellent use of the technique.

This was a great show and I'm glad I finally made time to see it. Playbill's Ruth Leon calls Stewart "the greatest MacBeth of my lifetime." While I don't have the points of reference to make that claim (this is the first MacBeth I've seen on stage), there is no doubt that Stewart puts on a riveting performance. His work, coupled with the rest of the cast, great stage, costume, and sound design, makes this a must-see play. I'm just happy I finally got to see it.

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* A cast-related note: in one scene, Lady McDuff (Rachel Ticotin) was speaking and I thought to myself, I swear that woman looks like Melina from Total Recall. Sure enough, when I checked IMDB this morning, there she was. The Playbill doesn't mention it, or any films at all. Do the actors create those bios or does someone connected to Playbill or the theater do it?

Half Point

Redbelt (2008) Poster
Originally uploaded by divxplanet

I love David Mamet dialog (doesn't everyone?). I also love martial arts. I had never dreamed that one day the two might come together in a single film but they did: in Redbelt (imdb). The universe is an unpredictable place. Unfortunately, Redbelt is not.

One problem may be less the film's than mine. When I walk into a Mamet film I expect grift, I expect scamming, I expect double-crosses. Normally, even given these expectations, Mamet can still produce surprises, twists, and turns that are both unexpected and effective. This is assuming, however, that he has a full running time to commit to it. In Redbelt, half the film is grift, the other half is martial arts. Each half, therefore must be abbreviated. In the case of the grift, it is rendered both obvious and mostly devoid of the turns that usually make such things so much fun to watch. That I know it is coming makes it even less likely to surprise me. In this case, it was impossible.

The other half of the film is the martial arts which, once you peel away the grift, is just standard kung-fu fare. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mike Terry is the noble hero: a Jiu Jitsu instructor who is struggling to make his honorable way in a world that seems to have forgotten honor. His wife would prefer financial stability to his morality. His chief student is a troubled policeman and the stern portrait of his old master stares down from its perch on the wall. When it's revealed that a couple of promoters are putting together an MMA tournament, is there really any doubt that some way, somehow, Terry will become involved?

Making the grift dovetail with the martial arts is a problem that Mamet cannot adequately solve. The lengths taken to perform the grift do not, in any way, justify the pay-off. By the same token, the very presence of the grift retards the character development and neuters any emotional strength the martial arts finale might have had.

The final insult is the tournament itself. In a classic martial arts film, we can count on seeing an orgy of melee duels leading up to the climactic fight. Mamet, for whatever reason, does not go with the formula. And not in a good way.

Despite these faults in the film's design, Mamet's strength is still his strength: the dialog glitters. The fight choreography is also excellent, I just wish there was more of it. Many of Mamet's usual suspects appear, including Joe Mantegna and Rebecca Pidgeon, but they are little used. Ejiofor plays the warrior-philosopher well but the character feels ill-suited to the back-alleys of double-crosses, scams, and counter-scams, in which Mamet does his best work.

In the end, while I had a fairly good time with the film, its fusion of grift and martial arts meant that while I got some of each, I didn't get enough of either to ultimately satisfy.

LOST: Cabin Fever

For an episode all about setting up the season finale, Cabin Fever had some meat to it. The beneficiary of this content was my favorite character, Mr. John Locke, whose early years now revealed beg as many questions as they answer.

We also finally (finally!) not only get into "Jacob's Cabin", we also learn the identity of the man inside. Claire is somehow transformed from a moving, talking piece of scenery into something halfway interesting- this is a tremendous feat in itself. Some (read: I) might call it a miracle. Her look at the end of the episode was somehow knowing, smug, and... evil. Yes, evil. And I liked it.

While we didn't get an all Locke episode, the other segments were more than watchable. The beach got little more than a sidelong glance and the boat segments had both purpose and blood-letting. This show can always use more blood-letting.

Things are shaping up nicely for the big finale. I wasn't all that keen on last week's episode but this week brings the excitement back up nicely. There's no better character to ride into the finale than Locke and tonight we got a full dose of the island mystic. I also like Ben in his role as Locke's reluctant sidekick. It fits in nice contrast to Ben as power politician supreme.

The finale should bring us to the "rescue" and the unveiling of the "Oceanic Six". This plot aspect I find the least interesting of all the threads outstanding. Since this episode got a big dose of Locke, I hope that doesn't reflect on a Locke-free finally. Every episode needs some Locke. Tonight we got a double dose. It was a banner night.

Secret Garden

When I moved into my apartment last month, one of the things I was looking forward to was having a bit of the garden in the back for some grilling or just lounging around. The caveat was that, due to construction next door it's not going to be ready until later in the summer.

Work has been done, however, and they've finally built up some walls and put down some cement. They also left me enough dirt in one corridor to put in some plantings. Some pictures:









It's actually a bigger area than I had expected. Besides a grill, I could actually put in a couple of chairs, maybe even an umbrella if I felt particularly decadent.

Turkey Delight

My evening was swiftly descending into the sort of hell reserved for mid-level managers and ambulance-chasing attorneys. I got an "invitation" to attend a work conference call because of things I shan't discuss at this time (it will only make me angry- you won't like me when I'm angry).

I had to cancel the beatdown I was scheduled to receive in MLB '08 and scramble around to find something to eat prior to the call. I was going to go to the supermarket but now I didn't have time. All I could do was wander down Myrtle looking for somewhere, anywhere, I could get something fast.

Luckily, there are plenty of choices on Myrtle. I ended up at The Jive Turkey. I hadn't tried there before (but it was on my list) and I walked out with a turkey BLT and a side of mashed potatoes. I gotta say: the turkey was impressive. It was moist and had a nice flavor to it - there were some nice cajun spices working in there. The potatoes were choice too. It was definitely just what I needd and got me through the phone call. Needless to say, I'll definitely be back.

Blu Movies

The Third Man
Originally uploaded by andy z

Criterion is finally coming to blu-ray this fall. They had always said that they would wait for the hd-wars to end before they committed to a format and now it's finally happened. I hope they'll be able to dip into their older releases and give them a blu debut but, rights and licensing being what they are, who knows if its possible or feasible.

As a fan of film noir, it's nice to see The Third Man on this initial list. I had been holding out, for some reason, on buying this on DVD but now my reticence has born fruit. Give me blu versions of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Naked Lunch and I'll be a happy, happy man.

Blox Party

BOOM BLOX_Character Art 1
Originally uploaded by gonintendo_flickr

I didn't get to put as much time into Boom Blox last night as I wanted but I did get enough into the game to get a good taste of what it has to offer.

In, essence, this is a puzzle game. Items are suspended above the ground on structures built of blocks. The aim is to knock the all the items to the ground.

A simple scenario might be a single tower with a gem block at the top. You could try to simply throw the ball at the gem and knock it off or you could target the tower and topple it. As scenarios progress, the structures become more and more complex.

There are different types of blocks. Some will explode when hit with the ball, others will vanish. There may be others I haven't encountered yet. Many of the puzzles revolve around recognizing and properly using these special blocks.

Thanks to a good physics engine (havok, I think), the blocks topple, explode, teeter and totter, and generally react with a great sense of weight, inertia, and momentum. Since the game depends upon the interaction of the blocks, this is vital to the game and it works brilliantly.

There are a couple of different modes: a story mode, a puzzle mode, multiplayer, and a level editor/creator. So far, I've only played through some of scenarios in the puzzle mode and a bit of story mode. In both modes, the puzzles range from placid pools of reflection to more frantic, timing based attacks. The game has done a good job (so far) of mixing in both to keep the pace fresh.

While the game's aesthetic is ultra-cutesy, it isn't annoying and who doesn't like lobbing bombs and bear-shaped blocks (or block-shaped bears?) and launch them toppling end over end across the screen?

So far, Boom Blox has lived up to the expectations I had of it and I haven't even touched the multiplayer or user creation parts of the game. This might be the one game to get me away from GTA IV. Who would have thunk it?

Saturday is MacBeth-turday

London 2007
Originally uploaded by TecWiz

Somehow, someway I had totally missed that Macbeth, with Patrick Stewart, was playing at the Lyceum. I had totally missed the stint at BAM and I would have probably missed this as well (it closes at the end of the month) if I hadn't been up around midtown several times the past couple weeks and walked by the theater.

Every time I walked past the theater I swore I would get a ticket "as soon as I got home" but every time I got home, I promptly forgot, and time started to slip away. No longer! I have finally made my stand at bought a ticket to the Saturday 8 PM show.

The reviews I've scanned through (I don't want to know too much) have been sparkling. I've enjoyed Patrick Stewart pre-Trek ("Camelyard! Camelyard!") so I am practically grinning from ear to ear in anticipation. This is quite feat, considering I'm sitting in my office cubicle and I'm not even halfway through the work day.

Blox Go Boom

BOOM BLOX_Screenshot 6
Originally uploaded by gonintendo_flickr

Since I moved to Brooklyn last month, I have unpacked, put away, and plugged in all my gear except for one: my Wii. My Wii has been sitting cold, lonely, and unloved. That will change today when i go out and buy Boom Blox. It will do what Mario Kart Wii failed to do: get me to plug in my console.

The buzz on this game has been building for the past couple of months. Every gaming podcast I listen to has, at one point or another, helped build that buzz by heaping on large dollups of praise. I don't really know what this game is about, except that it gets explained as a sort of exploding version of Jenga. Throw in level editing and sharing tools and you've got a premise I can sink my teeth into. Seeing the trailer (and other gameplay snippets) on YouTube didn't hurt either.

There's something primal about building up great ziggurats of stuff and then destroying them. Boom Blox seems to strike directly into that genetic vein. I'm looking forward to giving this a go and finally bringing my poor Wii out of the darkness and into the light.

Passion Play

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Originally uploaded by catonahot...

There was a stretch during the second act of tonight's performance of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in which James Earl Jones nearly completely cracked up Terrence Howard. Jones's Big Daddy was explaining, through words and various gesticulations, his continued sexual virility and appetite on this, his 65th birthday, to Howard's Brick, his son. Something in Jones's emoting broke through Howard's resolve and his face cracked, against its will, and broke into smiles and swallowed giggles. Jones, encouraged, pushed harder and might have, under other circumstances, succeeded in breaking Howard completely. Howard was saved only by his character's relative lack of dialog.

The audience loved it. I loved it. It was part of the show, the experience implicitly promised by a marquee filled with big names. But the show can overshadow the performance and, tonight, it did. The middle of the second act turned abruptly from drama to unintentional comedy. How do you rescue it? It's almost impossible. Howard was able to recover in time to finish the act strong but that stretch of laughter undermined what was supposed to be a more serious confrontation between father and son.

Anika Noni Rose is an amazing Maggie the Cat. She's sultry and seductive and a force of nature. James Earl Jones was good as the patriarch of the clan but he felt too jovial, too jolly. His barbs didn't read as meanly as I think they were meant to. You can't help thinking him a nice old man, even though you're not supposed to. Phylicia Rashad played Big Momma well. If there is a problem with the casting, it's Terence Howard as Brick.

Brick is like the singularity at the center of a black hole: everyone is drawn to him, pulled into his gravity like planets spinning in orbit. To be effective, he has to have a presence, an attractive power that can convey some inkling into why all these characters are striving for his love, affection, and well-being while he essentially does nothing. Howard just doesn't have this presence. We want him to- after all he's a rising star in Hollywood. Because of that, we're drawn to him, we want him to fill up the stage even though he's on the periphery. Unfortunately, at least on this night, he couldn't.

The result is that the other actors, particularly Jones and Rashad, have to overcompensate to make up for this void that can't be filled. It also undermines Maggie's passion and devotion: it's hard to see even a shadow of what she sees, or once saw, in this man.

Despite these flaws, I enjoyed the play. Seeing James Earl Jones on stage easily made it a winning proposition for me. While he may have made Big Daddy too sympathetic, he was still a force on stage and everything I had imagined him to be. So the acting choices and execution may have been a bit off, so the action may have been blunted by some unlooked for comic relief, they put on one hell of a show.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Originally uploaded by catonahot...

Thankfully, mercifully, the work day is almost done. Tonight, I'll be at the Broadhurst Theater taking in Tennessee Williams's classic play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Despite the NY Times's lukewarm review, I'm looking forward to the show, particularly James Earl Jones. I'm also keen to see Terrence Howard's stage work.

Oh, Those Tangled Webs

Marie Antionette
Originally uploaded by metermaid138

Saturday, I went with my sister to see Laura Linney in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. While our seats were less than optimal and a few staging directions puzzled me, I very much enjoyed the production.

We had bad seats. This was clear immediately. No matter how glamorous being seated in an orchestra box sounds, it's not. It's even more not when seated in the last row in the box and even more not given some of the staging decisions that were made. In the best case scenario, the view is skewed from being at one extreme end of the stage. In the worst case, the view is skewed and obstructed. We got a nice helping of the worse case.

I am no theater expert. I've gone to a fair number of plays over the years and more this past year since I've moved back to the city. What I know, mostly, comes from my friend Jennifer who had studied the theater. I do know that it's usually a bad idea to have all the actors sitting down at once for long stretches and that the actors shouldn't turn their backs to the audience. On Saturday, I saw both.

Part of the issue was, again, our seating. Being at one end of the stage, there was more opportunity to see things from bad, odd angles and, for whatever reason, the action was weighted to our side of the stage, making it worse.

That being said, there was one extended moment when Laura Linney literally had her back to the stage- there was no other action apart from her- that seemed a strange choice, at least from my view.

As for the sitting, there was quite a bit of it. It didn't so much bother me except that I was aware of it as a construct so it pulled me out of the play a bit. Most of the times, the sitting was not necessary to the action as I saw it. It was just a decision that didn't quite work for me.

Those issues aside, I really enjoyed the play. I won't go into the plot which is a massive tangle and, being a classic, needs no introduction or review. I will say that, being so dialog driven, it does require agile performances to avoid bogging down. Luckily, the actors deliver.

The whole cast was excellent. The two leads (Linney and Ben Daniels) provided the dramatic and dynamic energy to keep everything in motion. Linney, in particular was tremendous as the icy queen of romantic real politic. She was, after all, the reason I had come and she was worth the price of admission.

The production went for a very minimalistic stage design, making excellent use of minimal props that, while few in number, were enough to evoke the atmosphere and period of the action. I'm fascinated by stage design and this one did much with little. I really appreciated that.

Despite my few problems, I think Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a great play definitely worth seeing, just do yourself a favor: stay away from the box seats. You've been warned.

Dog Pee: The Silent Killer

Pee Kills Trees
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

It's a beautiful afternoon in Manhattan today so I decided to talk a walk and grab some lunch. On my way back, I saw this sign posted in the tiny park at Lispenard and West Broadway.

Let me begin by saying that I can appreciate "Manfred's" position. Nobody likes urine, canine or otherwise, and that it is toxic is so obvious as to not be worthy of debate. However (and this is a large however), how precisely does he expect the average dog owner to control where his or her dog pees?

I am not a dog owner. Maybe this sort of canine pee control is not only possible, intellectually, but practical. Maybe. But if it is, I've never seen it. If a dog wants to pee, it sniffs out what it considers to be a good spot, and it pees: whether against a tree, a fire hydrant, the steps of a stoop, or an unlucky pant leg. It seems, for all intents and purposes, beyond our control.

Let us presume for a moment, though, that it is within our control. As much as I feel for the plight of our arborial cousins, I'd much rather dog owners prevent their dogs from spraying waste in places where people, particularly children, sit, play, smell, and eat. I'd like to propose that dog owners master that art before they try to fight millions of years of genetic habit and ween their dogs off of trees.

If they can do all that, what a wonderful pee-free world it could be. Just, please, for goodness sake, leave them the fire hydrants. A dog needs at least one place to pee in peace.

Fun-For-All

I finally was able to connect online in GTA IV this afternoon. A friend of mine sent me an invite and we played in a free-for-all game, just the two of us. While there was certainly fun in the chaos we created, it was missing some interaction from the city, either through a gang or the police, to challenge us and provide an opposing force as we impressed our will upon the city.

The session started innocently enough. We gathered weapons from around the safehouse spawn area and got in the chopper. After a bit of scenic flying around the city, we landed outside Central- I mean Middle Park. We terrorized the citizenry who could do nothing to defend themselves besides running away, willy-nilly like, screaming, and generally panicking.

Betrayal came soon enough and, I must admit, I was the betrayer. As my friend and I were both emptying our clips into a car and we accidentally maneuvered ourselves into a crossfire. He died. I laughed.

Our unity shattered, vengeance became the order of the day as I tried to withstand his attacks (I got the better of him several times before he got me back) and then, in turn, give him chase. We did all of this without ever once seeing the police, or anyone else, try to intervene.

I could not help but to contrast this with the similar multiplayer experience in Crackdown. In that game, it's possible to become embroiled in massive shootouts with gangs and police- so huge that they reverberate from one end of the city to another. In contrast, our titanic struggles in Liberty City were empty outside ourselves. The city was merely a backdrop, filled with cardboard shooting decoys.

Truth be told, I had a blast online. I just couldn't help but see an omission that could have taken the experience to another level. Picture the two of us in Central Park, both with six star warrants, fending off wave after wave of S.W.A.T., uniformed cops, and helicopters. It would have been epic. That wasn't what we had. What we had was the two of us trading rockets in an empty park in a city that paid us no mind. It was fun. It just wasn't epic.

Porta-Party

I picked up a Nintendo DS Friday night while I was waiting to check out Iron Man. I had been going back and forth for weeks over whether to get the Nintendo or Sony portable but, as I was wandering around midtown Friday afternoon, my thoughts coalesced and, suddenly, the choice was simple.

As a PS3 owner, I've been impressed with the connectivity potential between the PS3 and the PSP. It is a very attractive package. Looking at the PSP's graphical output, it really is like having a Playstation miniturized in the palm of your hand. What I realized that night was that I didn't want a mini-Playstation. I wanted something different.

The media capabilities were still a draw but I found that my iPhone filled that bill nicely. I can watch videos, read news feeds, and basically take care of that part of the bargain. It can't turn on my PS3 or stream media from my PS3 but it's not something that I was dying to do anyway.

What it came down to was this: the DS represented a different gaming experience from every other console that I owned and, as I factored everything in, that was most important.

Having fooled around with a few games this weekend (Planet Puzzle League, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer), I'm more than happy about the choice I made.

Postscript: My sister came to town yesterday to go see Dangerous Liaisons and she picked up a DS as well. She's going to be doing a lot of travelling this summer so she'll need the entertainment.

Iron Man, Iron Man, Does Whatever Iron Man Does

I went to see Iron Man (imdb) last night with some friends from LCVG. I had been impressed by the trailer and excited by the positive buzz generated by the film. Superhero films that last few years have ranged from the excellent (Batman Begins) to the awful (The Punisher). Thankfully, Iron Man falls in the "excellent" end of the spectrum.

I won't spoil the plot but, let's face it, superhero origin films, like their origin stories, are basically all the same: tragedy befalls the hero, he blames himself, he discovers or creates his powers, he decides to fight the powers that wronged him, he fights them and, in so doing, he finds purpose in his life. That, in a nutshell, generally describes every superhero film. The difference between a good film and a bad one is going to come in the details and in the execution. Iron Man handles both very well.

Robert Downey, Jr., is brilliant in the lead as Tony Stark. He has the charisma to pull off Stark's powerful playboy persona and the quick tongue to put a voice to Stark's dry wit. As with most superhero movies, the hero must be compelling for the film to work. Downey, Jr. provides that focus and centers the film. The rest of the cast, including Gwenyth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges, are good as well, but Downey, Jr. is the movie.

It is a testament to the acting and direction (courtesy of Jon Favreau) that the film works so well despite a villain that is less than compelling (the reveal being brutally obvious) and a final showdown that fails to be very exciting or memorable.

Luckily, it isn't those shortcomings that I remembered coming out of the theater, it was Downey, Jr., his quips, as powerful as his suit's repulsor beams, embodying perfectly the being of Tony Stark. You can't have an Iron Man without the man in it. And the man delivered.

LOST: Something Nice at Home

This felt like a filler episode. What I learned was that the Jack and Kate of the future are the same as the Jack and Kate of the present (and past), Juliet is handy with a scalpel, and Claire has disappeared. That's it and it's nothing that the writers couldn't have condensed into about five minutes, if it even deserved that much time.

I am sure that Kate's "failure" at the operating table will be meaningful in some way but I just don't care. And Juliet's admission to Kate is a revelation only to Kate and I have my doubts that even she didn't know. This episode was a sleeper and, by that, I mean it threatened to put me to sleep.

Next week looks much better, back to the Ben and Locke Express and all the awesomeness they bring with them. After this week, LOST needs all the Ben and Locke it can get.

Twix Means LOST?

LOST Film Shoot?
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I heard that film teams are shooting footage for the LOST finale here in New York and in L.A. I also heard that, to keep things on the down-low, they're using cover names. It has been suggested, therefore, that the "Twix" film shoots (see here and here) were actually LOST shoots in disguise.

I have no facts, none at all, but I choose to believe it's true. Why would someone, anyone, shoot a candy bar ad at midnight? It makes no sense. Actually, I'm sure there are perfectly logical reasons but I don't see them. Even if I did see them, I would ignore them. What sounds better, shooting a LOST finale or a candy bar commercial? It's no brainer. It's a Locke.

Sorry for that last bit. I'll be quiet and wait over here for the Dharma police to arrive. (Sorry again.)

Giving Rap a Bad Wrap

WrapStar Flyer
Originally uploaded by Critical Todd

I felt pity on the poor sap handing out fliers outside the subway stop this morning so I took his offering on my way into work. I am only now, as the first hunger pangs of lunch arrive, looking at it. It is awesome. It is not awesome in an "ooh, I want to try this place" sort of way but more in an "I can't believe somebody did this" kind of awesome.

First of all, the place is called 'WrapStar". I am, oddly enough, a fan of the pun, in general. However, this pun is truly awful. In case the name didn't strike enough fear into our hearts, the logo design is a cartoon (stereotypes for the win!) rapper (wrapper?) talking into a wrap. A juicy wrap by the looks of it as it is spitting squeezings out in every direction. I don't usually talk to my food. Sane people usually don't. I think it's clear that the restaurant is insane.

It's insanity was confirmed* by the presence of a 5% "package charge" that will be levied on each purchase. Packaging, really? How much packaging are they doing? Will they wrap the wrap (ha ha!) in bubble wrap (too late!)? The food better come in a styrofoam ark of the fast food covenant. Or, I could skip the whole deal and just get some street food.

The only choice, the sane choice, is street food. Plus, I don't want some madman talking into my lunch.

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* I refuse to even acknowledge "Fresh Food Fizast".