Reading the news that Bret Ratner is taking over filming X3 (X-men 3), I did a double take when I saw:
The original returning stars have been signed, and the cast is bolstered by Kelsey Grammer, Vinnie Jones and Maggie Grace (“Lost”), who just came aboard as new mutant characters. (As reported by VARIETY)
Kelsey Grammer? Really? I have to assume he’s the villain – his over the top acting might work in that role.
Wait and see, I guess.
Click here to read the easter eggs of Episode III.
I caught a few, but nowhere near the entire list. The list is timely as I think I’m going to go see it again today.
A bunch of good stuff this week:
Books:
Music:
Movies:
I got home from Seattle Sunday around 3, played with the kids for a few hours, and headed out after dinner to watch Episode III.
It was easily the best of the prequels (which wasn’t hard to do), and I need to watch it a few more times, but my gut says it will come in at #3 out of the six in my list of favorites.
(Empire, New Hope (nothing beats the rush of the first one, though it’s a bit rough at times), Sith, Clones, Jedi, Phantom).
The lightsaber battles were fantasic, the pacing was well done, Anakin’s conversion and fall were well handled, and even Obi-Wan defeating Anakin was nicely done. I was disappointed with the de-emphasis of Padme, especially as she was such a strong character in the first two, the love scenes and dialogue was rough as usual, and it seemed to break continuity with two minor points. Other than that, it was excellent all around.
I highly recommend it, Lucas brought it to a fantastic finish.
And in other news, Lucas doesn’t like hands.
I watched the travesty that is Blade III last night. Oh, how the mighty has fallen.
Blade I & II we’re good comic book adaptions of an interesting character. Not great movies per se, but good action, decent one lines, and interesting plots. All three were written by David Goyer, but with Guillermo del Toro, who directed the second one, moving on to Hellboy (and it’s sequel) they gave the director’s chair to Mr. Goyer. We’ll blame him for this horrible piece of work.
What did Blade III want to be? A horror film? Because the last half tried to do that. A hard-boiled mystery of what the vampires were up to? An action flick?
The only saving grace was Ryan Reynolds – his humor and lines were the one spark that kept the movie interesting. The only other things I appreciated were the nods to Blade II through the anatomy of “Dracula” and the vampire dogs, and some nods to past movies.
Other than that, the cinematography was horrible – the scene where Blade is on the roof chasing the baddie, and the camera pans (and later, they did a similar pan around Blade) was bad, the pacing of the movie, especially after the attack on the compound, and the dialogue was terrible. Early in the movie when Blade & Whistler are talking before the FBI storms in, it’s as if Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson aren’t even trying – their acting is wooden and all the chemistry is gone.
And what happened to Parker Posey that she would sign up to do this? The indie flick queen of the 90’s is in this? What a waste of her talent.
If you appreciated Blade I & II for what they were – mindless action movies with an interesting take on vampires, stay away from Blade III. Worse than the Matrix Trilogy, it will leave you with such a bad taste in your mouth you won’t want to watch the first two ever again either.
This week’s purchases:
In Good Company
Music:
Darth Vader Has a Blog! And it’s hilarious, here’s a snippet:
20050418
Haste Makes Waste
Bloody interrogation. Imperial audience. More leg woes.
Did you ever have one of those days?
It can be challenging to maintain your dignity as a dark tyrannical overlord when the circuitry in your left leg constantly misfires, threatening to send you off on a mad pirouette without notice. It requires a serious effort of will to maintain my poise, the tendrils of my connection to the Force reaching deep into space to feel out my distant quarry and at the same time wrapped around the mechanisms of my own body to keep them working.
I am stretched too thin.
The traiterous dog Krelcon was captured early this morning and brought around to the Imperial palace after breakfast. I had poached eggs with ham, buttered crumpets and a glass of wetfruit juice.
During my interview with Krelcon he admitted to me that he had been involved in smuggling the stolen data tapes of the Death Star’s technical readout to the Rebel Alliance. In order to produce similarly fruitful results I used the Force to crush all of the small bones in his hands. Krelcon became most chatty then, and we discussed likely locations of the hidden rebel base.
Things went badly after that point, however. I confess that Krelcon took me off guard when he mentioned the prophecy. Eyes burning in a masque of pulp and blood he screamed, “The son of the suns is nigh, knight-bastard! He is on your very threshold!”
I had meant to backhand him but my passions were aroused and my concentration faltered, and so instead I released control of my errant left leg and instantly found myself doing a frenzied, lop-sided jig that turned me in place.
Krelcon found the strength to laugh. Thus, with one powerful thrust of the Force I burst his skull.
Which was probably premature. But que sera, sera.
I had never seen this before:
Han Solo in Carbonite – made out of Legos!
And some people think I have too much time on my hands.
Slyck.com Interviews Jon Lech Johansen, famous (or infamous if you work for Big Media) of DeCSS fame, and *Musique fame. Interesting follow-up to last week’s post about Digital Music on Linux.
Miguel de Icaza, of Gnome & Mono fame, recently reached out to Jon to create a pyMusique port to GTK# resulting in SharpeMusique.
It’s on my t0do list to download and try out. I’d give Apple’s iTMS a shot if it works. I’m hoping it shows up soon in the Ubuntu universe (I haven’t checked yet). I have Mono running, with a few apps (I love Muine) and I miss Tomboy (Tomboy isn’t working in Hoary for me, no idea why, it was fine in Warty).
The age old question: Does rarity or scarcity make something better or more valuable?
Put in context, an amusing look at the question from the view of Brodie in Mallrats, one of my favorite Kevin Smith movies. Should he play Sega NHL hockey or have breakfast with his girlfriend and his mom? (“But Hartford beats Vancouver only once or twice in a lifetime! Yet Rene has never met Brodie’s mom.