And here we have it, the first image online of the first Iron Man armour, the one Tony Stark had to build in captivity in Vietnam (original comic) / China (animated movie) / Afghanistan (upcoming movie). No one ever, ever gets captured by bad guys in, say Decatur, Illinois… why?!? I think it looks pretty good. It really does look like Iron Man and it even has what seems to be a flamethrower that was used in the comic story back in the old Tales of Suspense #39. But the eyes appear to be larger than usual. I can’t wait for him to move on to the more famous red-and-gold armour in the course of the movie (as designed by Adi Granov, no less). Or the War Machine armour even! Before we go on to the movie image, here is the picture of the grey armour, and Iron Man’s debut […]
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Tron – A Look Back at a Reindeer Flotilla
It’s been a while since I saw Tron. I never saw it on the big screen. I believe I last saw it when it using one of the most sophisticated, technological wonder of a multimedia player at the time known as the video cassette recorder. So here I am more than twenty years later, and did it stand up the test of time? And more importantly… is there a Mickey Mouse out in the cyberscape field in the background under the solar sailer in one scene? Let’s answer the second question first: Tron was one of the factors that got me into computers back in the 80s. It also sow the seeds of my interest cyberpunk too. The Story Kevin Flynn (played by Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski), a former programmer of Encom, is trying to hack into Encom’s intranet to find evidence of his former colleague Ed Dillinger’s (played by […]
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Retro Review: Vejur Returns To Look for Dad
My first foray into the world of Star Trek consisted of a single page ad on a comic (might have been a Gold Key comic) for Star Trek The Motion Picture, back in 1980. It had a picture of the new refitted Enterprise (no bloody A, B, C, or D) with a photo line-up of the characters along the bottom. My first thought was (probably) how great it was to be part of this team, exploring the unknown in the 23rd century (it said 23rd century right there on the movie ad) in such a sleek starship. I don’t remember when I learned that the movie was based on the TV show, or if I learnt it before or after I saw the movie ad. Anyway some months later, I bought the novelisation of the movie, which I believe might be my first ever movie novelisation bought. Tok & Opah […]
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Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Who watched and caught a glimpse of the Easter egg in the trailer for Zak Snyder’s new film 300? It’s been all over the internet now so if you’re online most of the time you’d probably have seen a screen capture of it in the last couple of days. Twenty years ago, plus change, Alan Moore wrote a 12 issue mini-series for DC Comics called Watchmen. It was one of the books (along with books such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman) that elevated the generally considered lightweight storytelling medium of comic books into serious literature. Twenty years ago, plus change, Alan Moore wrote and Dave Gibbons drew these panels: Last week, it was discovered that this image was slipped into the 300 trailer at 1:52 on the time stamp: Zak Snyder who directed 300 is now slated to direct Watchmen for release in 2008. The image was […]
Continue readingKneel Before Bill Cosby
So there I was watching Superman 2 (the theatrical Richard Lester version, not the brand new DVD release of Richard Donner’s version) and I just realised that when the good General said the iconic line, “Kneel before Zod!!!” he really meant kneel before Bill Cosby, which is pretty cool.[[image:zodcosby.jpg:Shenanigans in Perry’s office:center:0]]
Continue reading5 Favourite Movies – A Meme
Tagged by the Hijack Queen with her metahuman abilities to hijack any sort of forum thread – quite an impressive feat if I might add – I will attempt to oblige her with my top favourite movies of all time as of today. The “as of today” statement is a proviso, cause the movies can sort themselves differently as time goes by. If this was 20 years ago, there would probably be two hundred science fiction and fantasy movies crammed into just the five spots. Since this is the here and now I will cut it down to one movie per spot, and diversify genres somewhat. Hey, you know what? Let’s put in a mini-review for each just for the hell of it. 5. Trainspotting (Danny Boyle) – 1996 [[image:5movies03.jpg:The worst toilet in Scotland:left:0]]Trainspotting is the movie by Danny Boyle that shot himself into the mainstream and Ewan McGregor into […]
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Primed for Empire Magazine Cover
Oh my! Another Transformers entry so soon. I think I should have a “Transformers” category in this here weblog. Yes? No? Maybe? On the cover of Empire magazine…. is Optimus Prime. The image was eventually found – while I was link-hopping on the net – at Don Murphy’s message board. All I can say about it is… what an awesome image. Excuse me while I take a look at eBay for Adam Sandler’s unversal remote control so I can fast forward time to July of next year.
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Walking, Talking and Punching Bots
As of last night, the new Transformers trailer went online. This is not the fleeting 2 microsecond glimpse of a silhouette smashing the Mars Rover teaser bit which I caught in the theatre just before Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties. (Yeah, I watched Garfield. Shut up in the back there.) This one shows a whole bunch of Cybertronian aliens, in various modes and transforming. There’s even a shot of the protoform stasis pod crashing down. I am happily surprised that there are no loud rock and / or rap music in the trailer to mark the movie as “cool” to the teens. It’s just a bunch of quick cuts of… well, lots of bits that made me and Irfan very happy as we went to bed last night. It’s not an adaptation of any of the Transformers sub-universes. I’m not even going to go “But Megatron was a gun!” or […]
Continue reading28 Days Later… A Review
[[image:28dl00.jpg:Jim guesses he shouldn’t have farted that loudly:center:0]]I never fail to wince watching Danny Boyle’s movies. So far I’ve seen a couple. I winced when watching Trainspotting. I winced watching Shallow Grave. (I’ve never seen Pillow Book or A Life Less Ordinary so I can’t comment on those.) And certainly there are many wince-inducing scenes in 28 Days Later. The story begins when members of an animal liberating group attempt to release a chimpanzee from a lab. A lab technician catches them in the act, implores them not to release the animal. It’s infected, he says. With what, they ask. Rage. Despite the lab tech’s pleas, they uncage the chimp, whose first act was to bite its liberator. The person bitten starts convulsing with her pupils turning blood red and violently attacks her companions in the process throwing up a mixture of blood and vomit onto them. Then everyone starts […]
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Bumblebee Is Watching You Poop
I’ve refrained from posting any leaked Transformers live action movie bot photos… until today when I saw this image of Bumblebee from this site (who will almost certainly be a Chevrolet Camaro, instead of a classic VW Beetle) evidently, with great intent on watching you poop.
Continue readingOptimus Prime is Optimus Prime Once Again
So here’s what Moriarty from Ain’t It Cool News has to report from ComicCon: ComicCon News!! TRANSFORMERS Announcement! The Voice Of Optimus Prime Is… [[image:prime.jpg:”MEGATRONNNNN!!!!”:center:0]] … Peter Cullen. Yep. You can all relax. Paramount made it official a few moments ago during their presentation panel, and by all accounts, there was much rejoicing. The original voice of Optimus Prime will voice the live action version! It’s great to know Paramount or Michael Bay didn’t opt for another voice actor, or worse, a celebrity voice just to pull in the crowd. Mr. Cullen was also the voices of K.A.R.R. of Knight Rider, the Predator, and the Mogwais and the Gremlins. If I had those in my resume, I’d be real proud of it.
Continue readingRuminations of Superman Returns
[[image:supes00.jpg:Superman Returns:center:0]]I went in to watch Superman Returns with high expectations and I got what I deserved, I guess. It was quite a decent movie, but it isn’t as epic as i thought it would be. First the non-spoilerific thoughts: [[image:supes02.jpg:Transorbital Rescue:left:0]]The stills I saw prior to seeing this movie did not do justice to Brandon Routh. He doesn’t only make a terrific Superman, but he does a fantastic iteration of Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent. The VFX of Superman flying are perfect, and make us believe a man can fly much more than Superman the Movie. Any scene with him flying for any reason is visually satisfying. There could be a scene of him trying to pick his teeth while floating and it would look great I believe. The space shuttle and Boeing 777 simultaneous rescue is everything I wanted to see in a Superman movie. [[image:supes03.jpg:Keyser Luthor:right:0]]Lots of people […]
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Today The Light Switch…
… Tomorrow the world!!! Earlier today Irfan realised that he has a new super power: the ability to reach any high switch on the wall with his hands (albeit on tippy toes). So all morning he’s been all over the house flipping switches. Lights. Fan. Forcefields. Directed-energy weapons. Life support systems. But the best thing all week has been his newfound skill of asking to use the toilet when required. Many thanks to Irfan’s Tok & Opah for teaching their grandson while Ain & I were at work last week. The other thing Irfan did with his grandparents was watch Pixar’s Cars together. The first time they watched a movie together, but the third time Irfan’s watched Cars in the theatre. Cars appears to have become Irfan’s favourite movie. He asks to see it again almost every day. He can remember names and tell who’s who on sight. He points […]
Continue readingCyclops, Shortchanged
Last Tuesday, I finally saw X-Men The Last Stand. But I’m not going to do a full review on the movie itself. The following two paragraph will summarize what I thought about it. Despite the misgivings of having Brett Ratner directing the third X-Men movie, and reports of behind the scene shenanigans that caused Bryan Singer to leave in the first place, I really enjoyed The Last Stand. Sure there were some plot holes and unbalanced screen time for characters, but they delivered what they promised: super-powered mutants beating the crap out of each other in creative ways onscreen. And I’m sure if the writers and director were given ample time without any studio politics involved, they would have given us something much more glorious than what we got. In any case, I because of the amount of details in this movie: a totally spot on Beast with amazing acrobatic […]
Continue readingV For Verisimilitude
I saw V for Vendetta on Monday. Therefore I shall write about it here. With spoilers. You have been warned. I only read the comic for the first time last year, so I never really connected with the background of the millieux presented by Alan Moore in the book. I understand why there was a need to alter it in the movie, giving it a more up to date topical setting and tying it with current events. A Neccessary Reflection of The Here And Now [[image:v00.jpg:Vox Populi:right:0]]As as example of what I’m talking about, the movie talks about the Norsefire regime in the UK rising into power because of the release of the St. Mary’s Virus as a terrorist attack in England killing 80,000 souls. Soon after the supposed terrorists were captured, tried and executed. The conservatives played upon the fear of the people and became the ruling party, thus […]
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Aragorn of Pals For Life Guild
It’s unknown to me who made this image, but every time I look at it I have to at least stifle a laugh… because the way Aragorn rushes into combat almost without warning is nearly similar to how that fateful battle began at Blackrock Spire. Unfortunately not everyone will get the joke. Just you MMORPG jocks. Meanwhile, everyone else please read this Wikipedia page for a history of the internet meme.
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