Archive for August, 2010

New TV Show

Posted in Braak on August 18, 2010 by braak

Not altogether dissimilar from Holland’s “Smartest Man in the Room” competition, I give you:

The League of Weird Guys Who Solve Mysteries, coming this fall on ABC!

I am basically envisioning it like this:  Richard Castle gets uses all of his money to hire Gregory House, Patrick Jane, Adrian Monk, and Det. Robert Goren.  They all live in a big house together with their weird personality quirks, and solve otherwise insolvable mysteries.

I imagine that they also have a big van that they drive around in, and that House torments Monk incessantly.

It is “character-driven.”

Hey internet: Why you so nutso over the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ remake?

Posted in Threat Quality with tags , , , , on August 17, 2010 by braak

Why’s everyone so intense about the casting of the Lizbeth Salander character in David Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake?

Seriously, to put it into perspective, people don’t care as much about who’s in the new X-Men movie. That is how much passion Dragon Tattoo fans are bringing to this.  Read more »

Thoughts on Henry V

Posted in Braak on August 16, 2010 by braak

Posted at the SOE blog:

I saw the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater’s production of Henry V, recently and it was…interesting. The direction was great, the performances were all generally really strong. The set was richly detailed. The concept was where I got hung up; the idea was that the whole play was recast as a history teacher teaching English history to his students, and so it became a kind of “play within a play,” with the Chorus taking the part of the teacher, and the major plot of Henry V acted out by prep school kids.

Read More>>

‘Scott Pilgrim’ Review-o-Scope

Posted in Action Movies, Jeff Holland, reviews, Threat Quality with tags , , , on August 13, 2010 by braak

Most Dickishly Ill-Informed Comment:
“Scott Pilgrim — O’Malley flatters himself by borrowing the last name of Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ hero — is played by Michael Cera…”
Actually, O’Malley homaged Canadian indy rock by borrowing the whole name from an entirely different source, but fuck research, right, Hollywood Reporter?

Most Minor Thing to Get Wrong That Still Annoys the Crap Out of Me:
“Scott plays bass in a Toronto emocore-type band called the Sex Bob-ombs…”
No, Salon.com, he actually plays in a band called “Sex Bob-Omb,” as evidenced by Kim Pine screaming “WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB!” before they play a song.
PAY ATTENTION!
(This is everybody referring to the superheroes as “The Watchmen” in Watchmen, all over again!)

Roger Ebert Achievement Award For Old-Guy Condescension At Something He Doesn’t Understand:
Oddly enough, this one doesn’t go to Ebert, who sadly has not posted a review (nor for The Expendables, which actually kind of surprises me).
Instead, Salon walks away with a two-fer, for Matt Zoller Seitz’s supplemental article “Scott Pilgrim: The End of the Nerd Ass We Know Him,” which seems to be under the impression that geeks, nerds, fanboys, whatever-you-wanna-call-them, only became a marketing demo over the last couple of years – and his mind is totally BLOWN to learn nerds  aren’t portrayed as the kind of hapless social maladroits you’d find in such recent fair as Revenge of the Nerds.

Nicest Review So Far (Non-Comic-Con Category):
“Its speedy, funny, happy-sad spirit is so infectious that the movie makes you feel at home in its world even if the landscape is, at first glance, unfamiliar…”A.O. Scott, New York Times

I’ll let you know what I think, since I’m actually catching a matinee at noon. Braak may have already caught last night’s midnight show, so…you’ll hear about it, is what I’m saying.

Canada vs. the Martians and the best ad copy in the world: A day at the Geppi Museum

Posted in Jeff Holland, Threat Quality with tags , , , , , , , on August 12, 2010 by braak

A few months ago I found myself in Baltimore for a conference, staring out at the inner harbor and wondering how many blocks I’d have to walk before I hit Hamsterdam.

On my second day there, because it was raining and generally shitty out, I decided to pop into a non-descript, second-story museum above the  (I’m assuming) much more popular sports memorabilia  site.

It was the Geppi Entertainment Museum, which has the loosest conceit to base an entire museum around – basically, “Shit Steve Geppi has accumulated over the years.” Movie posters? Sure. Comics? Why not. Hello Kitty toys? Welcome to the gift shop.

It was also quite a bit of fun, because on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I was all alone, save for the nice young woman handing out tickets and maps to NOBODY else.

So it was just me and Steve Geppi’s collection of random crap, which I now pass on to you:  Read more »

Today, In Idiots: Andy Schlafly vs. Relativity

Posted in Braak, crotchety ranting with tags , , , , on August 11, 2010 by braak

It’s almost — almost — not fair to call Andy Schlafly a “conservative,” on the grounds that he should really be understood as just a crazy idiot who’s found a means to collect the crazy, idiotic idea of other crazy idiots together so they can all build on each other in a huge, hilarious circle jerk of crazy idiocy.

But he self-identifies as a conservative, he runs the “Conservapedia“, which the Republican establishment seems to like, and he’s not editing all of those articles himself. So, sorry Conservatives. You need to refudiate that fucker.

This, by the way, is also the cat working on the Open-Source Bible which…I mean, I’m no Biblical fundamentalist, but if you’ve presumably got the literal Word of God in your hands, isn’t that the opposite of the sort of thing you want to open-source?

Read more »

Enjoying the Future

Posted in Jeff Holland, Teh Goofy, Threat Quality with tags , , on August 10, 2010 by braak

How do you cook your meat? In a skillet?

An old-fashioned charcoal grill?

Perhaps some kind of nice propane grill?

PUT DOWN YOUR BUGGY-WHIP OLD MAN!

You are not utilizing ultra-modern meat-cooking technology until you are cooking on…

…A GRILL THAT IS ALSO AN MP3 PLAYER.  Read more »

The Aesthetics of Knocking a Sucker Out

Posted in Threat Quality on August 9, 2010 by braak

Holland’s post about Kick-Ass got me thinking about this; I’m not really going to talk about Kick-Ass, because I haven’t seen it (and probably am not going to; it’s not anathema, or anything, it’s just there’s a lot of stuff I could be doing instead, you know?).  But in trying to articulate my problem with the idea of Chloe Moretz as an eleven-year-old gangster-mauling badass, I think I’ve stumbled onto my problem with fantasy or non-realistic fights in general.

Read more »

Friday Reviews, Part 2: ‘Sherlock’

Posted in Threat Quality with tags , , , on August 6, 2010 by braak

And now, another review:

‘Sherlock’

I don’t know if/when this comes to BBC America, but I’m hoping it’s soon, because I’d like people to watch it without using illegal means. Because…well. It’s pretty great. Great, with some reservations (that might not even be reservations, really – just observations).

This is the modern-day Sherlock Holmes series, starring Martin Freeman (Tim from the BBC “The Office” and Arthur from the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” movie) as Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch (a name I can’t stop laughing at, sorry) as Holmes.

Read more »

Friday Reviews Part 1: ‘Kick-Ass’

Posted in comic books, Jeff Holland, reviews, Threat Quality with tags , , on August 6, 2010 by braak

Let’s just dig right in here, shall we?

Kick-Ass

Umm. Hm. Uh…well. It is certainly better than the comic, I’ll say that. Better, and then, as a result, worse.

See, the problem – and I say “problem” as weirdly as I can, because make no mistake, this is a weird complaint to have – is it removed all the horrible, wildly insulting parts from the book. Apparently, they were kind of important.

(SPOILERS a-coming)  Read more »

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