Okay...I'm confuzzled...

Why on earth are there upside-down tigers on this DSL ad banner?

All My Yesterdays 3

I know...really I do.

I know that we'll never be a 'couple.'

I've accepted the fact that it looks like we won't even be friends.

Somewhere inside I've known that she's got someone else. But to hear it confirmed...and to find out who it is and to know that he's a total jerkwad loser that is nowhere near as good as she deserves.

It hurts. Makes me angry. Makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with the world when this idiot can end up with her.

I just don't get it.

I don't.

I mean, how on earth can Sandra Bullock be married to Jesse James?

"Fantastic Four" fun

We went to see "Fantastic Four" today. Plenty of the reviews have been...well...not that great for the film. Ordinarily, this would be reccomendation enough for me, but since it's a 'comic book movie' I was pretty much gonna see it anyway.

I'm not a big FF fan (or of teams in general) so I had the advantage of not being horrified by any changes to the characters for the film. I understand the reasons to get Dr. Doom involved in the Four's origin so as to save some time. No biggie to me. Never cared much for him, either.

That said, since I didn't have any 'baggage' about what I thought the film should be, I was able to go in with a pretty open mind and managed to really enjoy it. It's a nice change from the attempts and deep, angsty superhero movies crowding the screens these days. The audience seemed into, too, laughing in the right places and everything.

The FF have a different dynamic than other heroes - they're practically a family (since the Human Torch and Invisible Girl are siblings and eventually Invisible Girl and Mr. Fantastic get married) and as such those relationships affect how they react to what's going on around them. The Four give us the range of reactions to having powers - from Johnny "Human Torch" Storm's sheer joy in his newfound abilities to Ben "The Thing" Grimm's depression over the changes that have occured which caused him to lose his wife.

In between them, there's Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards's sense of responsibility for what's happened to all of them (especially his friend Ben) and Sue "Invisible Girl" Storm's role as the 'mother' of the group - particularly in dealing with the good-natured pranks Johnny is always playing on Ben.

Overall...it was a lot of fun. A good popcorn adventure movie.

ArcLight's Photoshop entries

Hey...this is cool. A page that keeps track of entries in Fark Photoshop contests.

Here's the page showing my entries and how badly they placed in each contest. Too bad the originals aren't shown for comparison.

Entries by date: ArcLight

"Land of the Dead" and tiny tigers too

Last weekend, I hooked up with Kitten and Starburst and we headed off to George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead."

For those of you who don't know, George Romero is pretty much the father of the modern zombie movie.

From the early, black & white, filmed on something less than a shoestring "Night of the Living Dead" (which I saw in algebra class - thanks Mr. Hart!!) through "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead," Romero is simply The Man. Sure, there's been other zombie things - Lucio Fulci's classic "Zombie" (or "Zombi 2" or whatever else it's been called), the recent 'Dawn' remake (a fun movie but it lacked one super-important feature - I'll get to that later), "Return of the Living Dead" (zombies that ran before the 'Dawn' remake - they also carried on conversations and ordered out for dinner) and the excellent "Shaun of the Dead." All of which owe their existence to Romero and his movies.

And now there's a fourth one - "Land of the Dead." Zombies have pretty much taken over the world. There's small pockets of civilization walled up in some cities, but the countryside is filled with the walking dead. 'Land' focuses on members of a team of folks who stage raids into the outside world to get supplies for the city.

There's some of Romero's observations about the state of society - Dennis Hopper is refreshingly restrained as the leader of "Fiddler's Green," a shining tower in the city inhabited by only the "upper crust" while the folks who actually do the work live in squalor in the streets below.

But more importantly for someone like me - there's BLOOD. Sorry, but high-minded ideals and pointed political satire is fine, but if you're doing a zombie movie there had better be loops of intestines spilling out somewhere. This where we get to what was missing from the 'Dawn' remake - zombies actually eating people. Sure, in the 'Dawn' remake there was the random bite, but that was it. The zombies here do what zombies do best - pull the insides out and munch away. Very refreshing.

This time around, the zombies are gaining some sense of self-awareness. Here they're learning to organize and use weapons. Since they already outnumber the survivors about a billion to one, once they start actually thinking a bit about what they're doing....well, let's just say that's bad for the live ones.

I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Beforehand, we hit the mall for a bit, which was still reeling from the 4th of July celebrations. On hand was one of those groups that cart exotic animals around to malls and such, raising money by charging money for pictures and such. We didn't have cash on hand for pictures, but we did have enough to get the three of us into a cage (which, by itself could be plenty interesting) with three tiger cubs.

Loving animals as I do (not in a freaky illegal way) and cats in particular, this was way cool. And Kitten loved it even more. They were so...neat. One kept yowling for the first few minutes like a baby that just woke up and wanted it's bottle. It ended up being content with turning Kitten's sandal into a chew toy. She got it back at the end and got to walk around with tiger slobber on her foot for the rest of the day.

A very cool day all around.

"War of the Worlds"

Okay...I seem to be putting movie comments in here a lot so I'll say a few words about the new "War of the Worlds" from Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise (like you didn't know that already).

Not surprisingly, it was very well done. Say what you want about Spielberg, he's a master craftsman when it comes to film and here is no exception. From the effects (which range from excellent to amazing) to the acting (this movie reminds you that Tom Cruise actually can act more than anything else he's done lately) to the use of sound (and, more importantly here, silence) everything is pretty much spot on.

It's hard not to view it in light of the terrorists attacks of 9/11. Crowds of dirty, shell-shocked people milling about fill the screen much like they filled the TV screens in those September days and for good or ill, that adds to the effect the movie has on the viewer. This isn't your typical, simple-minded, feel-good, blow 'em up summer blockbuster along the lines of "Independence Day." This is a bleak, often chilling account of one family running for their lives when there's nowhere left to run. And easily one of the best movies to come out this year.

Go see it.

(side note: the "King Kong" preview linked to previously was shown beforehand and got the most enthusiastic reaction I've seen a preview get in years.)