Skulls in the Stars

Me & the fiancée just got back from seeing Iron Man, and I gotta say: cool! A few observations:

1. The director, Jon Favreau, is to Hollywood films what a closer is to a baseball team. At least, that’s what he’s starting to look like to me: the guy who can take what seems like a losing situation and turn it around. He made Elf a genuinely funny film, and he took what I would have considered one of the most difficult Marvel characters to translate to film and made what is one of the best comic-to-film translations yet.
2. Robert Downey Jr. also does a masterful job of making Tony Stark simultaneously rather reprehensible and incredibly likable.
3. Cheers to Jeff Bridges as well. I own all the original “Iron Monger” series of Iron Man comics and loved them, and I had my doubts that he could carry the character, but he did so excellently. Now I’ve got this urge to head back to my childhood home and read them all again…
4. There are a number of excellent in-jokes for those fans of Marvel comics in general and Iron Man in particular, and not just the obligatory Stan Lee appearance.
5. Speaking of in-jokes, make sure you stay ’till the end of the credits for one of the coolest end ’stingers’ ever!
6. Recently a poll was done on ScienceBlogs about the best ‘pro-science’ movies.  I’d like to think Iron Man has a place on the list!

For the first April in a while, I’m really sorry I’m not back in Chicago (usually the weather’s still too crappy to contemplate). On the 26th, there will be a zombie pub crawl in the city!

The best part is this: even if you don’t stumble effectively like a zombie at the beginning of the night, you’ll have it mastered by the end!

(Via Shakesville; “There; pretty as a picture!”)

Via Pharyngula, I see that the Expelled Exposed website, which points out the flaws and lies in the new Ben Stein creationist claptrap Expelled, has ‘gone live’ and added lots of new content, including a depressing film about the ouster of Texas science director Chris Comer for criticizing ‘intelligent design’ (aka ‘creationism’).

For the first time last night, I saw a commercial on television for Expelled during The Daily Show on Comedy Central. It’s amazing how much B.S. they can fit into a 30-second spot. A frizzy-haired stereotypical professor is discussing evolution when Ben Stein raises his hand and asks, “But how did life start?” The question throws the fake professor into an apoplectic fit, and he sends Stein to the principal’s office. The problem with this is: evolution does not address the question of abiogenesis at all, and any real professor of biology would be happy to tell you that. Evolution is a theory of how existing species change as a result of mutation and natural selection. Abiogenesis, the origin of life itself, is an open scientific question.

Criticizing evolution for not explaining abiogenesis is about as sensible as criticizing the theory of gravity for failing to explain the existence of pirates.

So Expelled manages to fit at least two misrepresentations (evolution and academic response) into a 30-second spot. If that trend holds for the 90-minute movie, we’re looking at at least 360 misrepresentations for the whole film. Way to go, Ben.

I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention that today is the birthday of one of the great horror/scifi actors, Ron Perlman!  He’s been involved with so many cool projects it’s hard to do them all justice: He’s probably most well-known these days for his portrayal of Hellboy (and his upcoming portrayal in the sequel, Hellboy II : The Golden Army).  The earliest role I had seen him play was the sinister hunchback Salvatore in the excellent murder mystery The Name of the Rose.  One of his longest-running roles was as ‘The Beast’ in the 1980s Beauty and the Beast television series.  He’s played a vampire mercenary in Blade II and a demonic sheriff in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Desperation.  His deep, authoritative voice has earned him many voice-over roles playing, amongst others, Hellboy, Conan, Clayface (a Batman villain), Jax-Ur (a phantom zone criminal), and The Incredible Hulk.

The future looks pretty bright for Perlman, as well: besides his starring role in the next Hellboy film, he is slated to voice-over Conan in the excellent animated version of Red Nails, which promises to be one of the truest adaptations ever made of the barbarian.  The most intriguing bit of news is that he is rumored to have a part in an upcoming adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness!  Normally, I would be horrified to see anyone trying to adapt this story to the screen, but the director is Guillermo del Toro, and if anyone can adapt it properly, he can.

In any case, happy birthday to Ron Perlman, and best of luck for his future endeavors!

I hadn’t seen this before, but it cracks me up: a petition to stop Uwe Boll from making any more horrible movies.  If you don’t know who he is, look him up on the IMDB:

To:  Dr. Uwe Boll

We, the undersigned, respectfully ask that Uwe Boll give proper weight to the wishes of the video game community, the horror community, and the film going community in general and stop directing, producing, or taking any part in the creation of feature films. His distasteful handling of the subject matter and lack of acknowledgement of his failures simply cannot be abided any longer.

Mr. Boll has repeatedly shown a complete lack of comprehension regarding the videogames he has dragged, kicking and screaming, to the silver screen and his ham-fisted approach to horror has soiled future possibilities for anyone else who may attempt to bring videogames to film.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Number of signatures so far?  163,000 as of this posting.  There’s also a pro- Uwe Boll petition, though it isn’t too polite to Uwe, either.  Number of signatures?  1800.

One can hardly let March 31st go by without wishing iconic actor Christopher Walken a happy birthday! This quirky actor has played a number of offbeat roles, including a seemingly-insane drill sergeant in Biloxi Blues, a Bond villain in A View to a Kill, a dark angel in The Prophecy, an eccentric tyrant of a South American town in The Rundown and of course a head-chopper in Sleepy Hollow. He has also demonstrated a great talent for more serious parts, such as his academy-award winning role in The Deer Hunter, and an Oscar-nominated role in Catch Me If You Can. When needed, though, he can also be uproariously funny, as he demonstrated in Pulp Fiction and Wayne’s World 2 (indeed, he might have been the only funny thing in the latter film).

When I think of Christopher Walken, though, I will always think first and foremost of the role presented in video form below the fold:

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The girlfriend and I spent the weekend in Atlanta to catch Jonathan Coulton in concert.  The internet sensation responsible for Code Monkey and Re: Your Brains put on an excellent show, and even though the auditorium wasn’t filled, the audience was wild and enthusiastic.  My favorite part was Coulton using the audience to provide a ‘zombie chorus’ for Re: Your Brains, and I joined in as best (or, more accurately, worst) I could.

One of the most pleasant surprises of the show was the opening act: Paul and Storm.  This comedic musical duo warmed up the crowd with a collection of silly and very funny short tunes.  They also seemed completely undaunted that most of the audience had never heard of them before!  (Hopefully that will change.)

Coulton joined Paul and Storm for a song, and P & S joined Coulton for quite a few.

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Through watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann, I’ve learned that today is Patrick McGoohan’s birthday!  If you don’t know McGoohan, you should: he was the star and one of the driving forces behind The Prisoner television series, arguably the best and most challenging television series in history.  The Prisoner is a series about a retired secret agent (”Number 6″) struggling to maintain his identity after being abducted to a mysterious prison for spies called “The Village.”  Before The Prisoner, McGoohan played agent John Drake in the Bond-esque spy thriller Danger Man aka Secret Agent Man (I can play and sing a pretty darn good Secret Agent Man theme).  He has also appeared in countless other movies, notably (to me, at least) as the warden in Escape From Alcatraz, sinister art dealer Roger Devereau in the Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor comedy Silver Streak, and King Edward I in Braveheart.

Happy birthday to Patrick McGoohan!  Be seeing you!

Still some light posting this weekend, as I’m in the house-buying mode. Something I came across recently, which is a little old but entertaining: an enterprising Norwegian teenager has been recreating, with stop-motion animation and Legos, the entire first Half-Life video game! He’s up to seven parts so far, and they get increasingly entertaining. The video of part 1 is linked below the fold:

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I don’t want to get carried away with entertainment birthday posts, but I can’t miss the opportunity to give birthday wishes to a man who has cemented his reputation in action, comedy and horror… simultaneously in only two films!  Happy birthday to Simon Pegg!

Pegg has been acting for years but his true international breakout role was in Shaun of the Dead, the magnificent zombie comedy that he starred in and co-wrote.   This role is beloved among horror fans and has earned cameos for Pegg in Grindhouse and George Romero’s Land of the Dead, as well as Romero’s upcoming film Diary of the Dead.

One could hardly imagine anything better than ‘Shaun’, but then Pegg’s next acting/writing achievement is a parody of action and horror films, Hot Fuzz, which may even be better than ‘Shaun’!  (Any film which brings together Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, and Edward Woodward is pretty much by definition great.)

Look for Pegg in the upcoming Star Trek film as a young Scotty, as well!  So happy birthday to Simon Pegg!

On a completely unrelated note, if you haven’t seen it yet, the trailer for the new Indiana Jones film has been released on YouTube, and it looks pretty darn entertaining.  I embed the clip below the fold…

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