http://weblogs.variety.com/bfdealmemo/2009/07/ryan-reynolds-is-the-green-lantern.html

According to the buzz around the Internet, Ryan Reynolds has been selected to portray Hal Jordan in the live-action Green Lantern movie due out in a year or two.

At first, I was a little unsure of the news. I think maybe it's just that I picture Hal Jordan to be a little more square-jawed. But the more I thought about it, the more I like the idea. Jordan is a cocky test pilot and probably a little too sure of himself, which I can see Reynolds playing just fine.

And I like Ryan Reynolds, too. I liked his performance in the Wolverine movie...in fact, I would've liked to see more of Deadpool. Just not what happens to him at the end of the movie. I don't know much about Deadpool himself, but playing him in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is fun. ("I'm the best there is at whatever it is Wolverine does!")

But no matter who they picked, hooray for live-action Green Lantern movie! It's about damn time. My only problem is that this is going to be like the third time we've gone over Hal Jordan's origin story in a movie. The first two being Justice League: The New Frontier and Green Lantern: First Flight (due later this month...squeee!). Granted, they're animated movies, but still. You might even argue for an amalgamated version of the story from Superman: The Animated Series, where Abin Sur gave his ring to Kyle Rayner, who had to fight an already-evil Sinestro. Hopefully, the new GL movies will prove successful, and then they can make sequel after sequel with exotic aliens and awesome special effects.

Labels: Green Lantern, movies

posted by Tim at 4:45 PM

I watched an episode of South Park last night. It was the one where Cartman and Butters take over a PF Chang's because Cartman's afraid of the Chinese taking over the world. But in that same episode is some of the other South Park youngsters being traumatized over George Lucas and Steven Spielburg's handling of the Indiana Jones franchise with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Now, I haven't seen the movie. I was never that big a fan of Indiana Jones. And I've read some stuff online on how many people were disappointed about how certain elements of the movie turned out.

*** Spoilers ahead, in the off chance you haven't seen any Indiana Jones movies ***

But I had a realization this morning. How is it that people complained up and down that Indiana Jones dealt with aliens at the end of the movie, but no one batted an eye when he drank from the freakin' Holy Grail?

I'm not necessarily argueing for the inclusion of extraterrestrials into Indiana Jones folklore, but Dr. Jones has been through some equally fantastic (if not more so) things in his career already. I'm just saying.

Labels: Indiana Jones, South Park

posted by Tim at 3:01 PM

According to today's Sinfest, one of the devil girls' names is Fuchsia. And it's spelled correctly! This made me squeee.

So now I wonder what the other one's name is. Cyan? Aquamarine?

I like the introduction of these devil girls. Not just for the fact that they're there to be sex, make out with one another and corrupt innocent souls. But there's a good bit of characterization going on, as in the recent Expand My World and Why Did You Make Me Like This story arcs...well, really the whole Fuchsia story arc. Ishida usually has these one-off or week-long gags, and there's not a whole lot of continuity, aside from the major personality traits of all of the characters. But here, there's something a little more going on, and I think that's kind of neat.

Labels: Sinfest, webcomics

posted by Tim at 4:50 PM

Okay, so I'm taking a little time to update my Blogger profile, and at the end there's a section to fill in: Random Question. And they must be random, because they're the stupidest questions I've heard. It's one thing to ask about random topics, but these make no sense.

"If you never cut your fingernails, how tall would you be?" Um, fingernail length has nothing to do with how tall you are.

"Why do pennies in your mouth remind you of losing a tooth?" That's not really a philosophical "why" question; I'm sure there's a perfectly valid scientific explanation.

"The squish of mud between your toes; how would you live your life as a frog?" I supposed that's a valid random question. It's still stupid, though.

"What reason do you have to believe the earth is flat?" I don't have a reason, it's been proven that the Earth is round. What Dark Ages are these people living in?

"You can punch a hole in an apple using a straw. How do you think that makes your milkshake feel?" what

Okay, one more...I could probably do this all day.

"What spells can you cast with magic markers?" Another possible valid question, if one were imaginative enough. Although the cynic in me is screaming "Magic markers are for writing!"

Labels: blogging

posted by Tim at 1:58 PM

Last Friday I went with a small group to see Video Games Live at the Wang Theater in Boston. Essentially, it's a symphony orchestra playing the soundtracks to classic and modern videogames, in a kind of celebration of videogames as an art form. The whole thing was organized by Tommy Tallarico, who's apparently a world-renowned videogame composer, but I only know him from his co-hosting gig on a review show on G4 TV. (I fail at video game industry knowledge.)

The show is about what you would expect. It was a small orchestra, with a video screen where they showed clips of the games they were playing. It was a much more casual atmostphere than the typical symphony or theater performance, and there were a lot of 20-somethings in the audience. We were encouraged to cheer and applaud and whatever else when we felt like it. This was both a blessing and a curse - on the one hand, it was great that these familiar games were cheered, but then the cheering got in the way of the music. That would be one notch against it, in my opinion...Tallarico would do prolonged introductions between songs, when the transitions worked anyway...we get what the games were, they're on the video.

My only other problem was the lighting in the theater. For one, the room must have been filled with a bit of smoke or something, because it's that situation where the intensely-bright spotlight and all the other stage lights can be seen, and when that gets in front of the video screen it makes it harder to see. Plus, some of the lights were pointed into the audience for effect, but then you just get an annoying light in your eyes.

Plus, we sat in the nosebleed section/back of the balcony, and since it's an old theather there's not as much legroom, but hey, with discounted tickets I can overlook those things.

Another neat thing was they brought Ralph Baer on stage (the father of the video game console), reunited with his partner (whose name I forget, sorry!) that helped him create the Magnovox Odyssey, and he actually brought a system and they hooked it up to the video screen. They invited some 12-year-old kid up on stage and he played Pong live on stage. Now there's a story to tell your grandkids.

So yeah...the last two times I've been to the theater, it's been to see Video Games Live and Spamalot. Viva geek culture!

Labels: concert, Video Games Live

posted by Tim at 9:20 PM

Earlier today, I participated in the first annual Met@Morph convention, a newly formed convention about comics and webcomics, especially from an academic viewpoint. It took place in Second Life, which I know people who have heard of it have mixed feelings about.

Firstly, this was very nice since it was a virtual convention, so all I really needed was an Internet connection. As opposed to spending time and money to drive to a convention hall, pay for parking, registration, a hotel room, etc. etc. Plus, I was invited to be on a panel (of sorts), which is cool since I'd likely never be invited to be on a panel at any real convention.

I arrived about 11:00 am SLT (Pacific), at it seemed the group there was just finishing up some kind of roundtable discussion. Then, in a foreshadowing event, the sim/server reset for maintenance. When the group reconvened, we met on a glass-bottom auditorium over the ocean, where 3 people gave talks. There were some technical problems, but I guess that's to be expected when dealing with Internet-type things, and a bunch of people who probably haven't used Second Life very much. One fairly interesting talk was a discussion of Alan Moore, about how he was a cartoonist before he got into comics proper and an analysis of his style and how it developed toward what would become Watchmen or LXG.

We then moved to an art gallery for the "Creator's Commons". When I first heard I was going to be on this panel, I panicked a little, because I was confusing it with the Creative Commons license, which I don't use, and I thought I made a poor choice for this panel since I couldn't speak with any authority about it. Really, it was just a way for some of us to show off our online projects. One was a new webcomic that took place (and I think has a gallery) in Second Life, and the other was a guy who had done some work in Machinima. Then there was me. I totally didn't prepare (since I didn't really know what to expect), and I winged it, with plenty of um's and awkward pauses. If I had known what I was doing, I might've prepared a little better, with at least something to show off, but as I explained to the audience, I'm really just using them as a promotional tool...which much to my relief, they took in stride. (Not that I think they'd admonish me for it).

All in all, it was a neat experience. With all the work I've been doing in IMGD, it's very neat to participate in something that's taking advantage of the general shift toward/work in virtual worlds. We had many participants from all over the world. It's also nice to be a part of something using Second Life the way it was intended, instead of probably what most people experience, which is just sex and gambling.

I wouldn't mind being a part of it again next year, and maybe I can come up with a more significant contribution, instead of just kinda blurting out "um, read my comic!" as a kind of afterthought at the end of the conference.

Labels: comics, convention, Met-at-Morph, Second Life

posted by Tim at 12:35 AM

A quick thought about the Olympics.

Concerning the equestrian events. Now, I don't usually follow the Olympics that closely, but before this I didn't realize the Olympics had equestrian events. And to me, it seems kind of unfair. The Olympics are supposed to be about human athletes, and with this equestrian stuff, the horses are doing most of the work. Now, I've never ridden a horse before, so maybe it does take a superb athlete to ride one. But it looks like the horse is just following instinct (in the races jumping hurdles), or training (like that weird dancing competition). I don't know how much the human is doing in those cases.

Come to think of it, one might say the same thing about the bobsled, but at least there there's a bit more direct control (I would think).

Also, do the equestrians bring their own horses with them, even with all the headaches about importing fauna across international borders? Or are these rented Chinese horses?

Labels: equestrian, Olympics

posted by Tim at 1:03 AM

2008 Summer movie reviews, part 2

The Dark Knight

The movie, like everyone said, was great. Although I think I'd need to see it at least a second time before I could say I really enjoyed it. I spent a lot of time on edge, because I didn't know what was going to happen...especially with Heath Ledger's Joker and the creepy suspenseful horror-movie music they played a lot during his scenes. You would've thought that I might have already gone and seen it a second time, especially considering I paid to see Iron Man twice. So maybe that says something.
Heath Ledger was admirably creepy, but really, I wanted to see more of Eckhart (Two-Face). I was just completely fascinated by the special effects they used with him. More so of a super-villain that just "a crazy guy in makeup". It was also great that the movie just kept going after his transformation; by the time it got to that point, it felt like the movie ought to be over and save Two-Face for the sequel, but as you all probably know, the movies 2 and a half hours long, so there was plenty more to go.
It's a shame Two-Face won't be back, so of course the speculations are on for the villains of the next Batman film. My hope is, now that the Joker has been capture and likely taking residence at Arkham Asylum, that they could introduce Harley Quinn.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

I questioned the release of this film, especially when there was already an animated series depicting the Clone Wars on Cartoon Network a while back. But apparently this is kind of a tie-in to lead to a new season/series for the fall. And that's just what this movie feels like: more of a extra-long pilot to a TV series rather than a canonical Star Wars film. That is to say, not as epic as any of the original saga movies. Still, it's an enjoyable movie. I just wish there was a bit...more...from a theatrical release.
Which of course begs the question, why a theatrical release? I suppose there's money to be made!


I also wanted to review the latest Mummy movie, but I haven't gotten a chance to see it yet. Maybe I will before the end of the summer, but otherwise it'll have to be a rental or something.

Labels: movies, Star Wars the Clone Wars, The Dark Knight

posted by Tim at 12:49 AM