A long time ago...

Today, Star Wars is 35 years old. Without it, I'd be a far different person. And we'd be living in a far different world.

Celebrate accordingly,


Happy Geek Pride Day.

In the Navy

Hey! We've got the movie rights to a board game!

Which one?

Battleship!

Okay, want to make a Battleship movie?

Yeah! And let's put aliens in it!

....what?

Vampires, Soap Opera & the 70s

I meant to get this out a day or two ago but have been busy IRL. Sorry for the wait.

Dark Shadows began life as an ABC soap opera in 1966. It concerned the sordid lives of the Collins family, an old-money New England family living in a decaying mansion in Maine. The show started off pretty much like every other soap opera albeit with a bit more Gothic tone but started introducing more overt supernatural elements 200 episodes in with the introduction of Barnabas Collins. Barnabas was one of the original Ensemble Darkhorses, the family's patriarch from back in the day who was also an immortal vampire. Dark Shadows was kind of melodramatic and silly, but there was a charm to it that garnered a cult audience. Two of those fans? Tim Burton and Johnny Depp.

And so...

Top 10 Tim Burton Movies

Tim Burton is a divisive filmmaker. People seem to either really like his work or completely despise it. There isn't much middle ground. This hasn't gotten easier in the last few years as most of his output has ranged from mediocre to terrible, coming across more as ads for Hot Topic merchandise and artistic masturbation on his part. Thankfully, this trend looks like it'll reverse this year with the silly supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows (which I'll have a review of in a few days) and Burton's return to stop-motion animation with Frankenweenie. 


So in honor of Dark Shadows release this weekend, I present

The Top 10 Tim Burton Movies

Long Live the King

So I saw The Avengers the other day. Needless to say, it was awesome. Great action, great character moments, great witty dialogue. It was all around pretty great. And I was going to write a post about the characters, you know backstories, details from the comics, etc. But a friend of mine gave me a better idea.

My friend and I had both just seen The Avengers. He isn't much of a comic book fan like myself, so he was asking me about how faithful the movie was to the comic. I got into all the minutiae and esoterica and brought up Jack Kirby. My friend had no idea who he was. And I figured not many of you who saw The Avengers this past weekend know who he is either. Allow me to rectify that if you would, dear reader. Let's talk about the King of Comics.

I've been a bad nerd

I was so excited about seeing The Avengers tonight I totally forgot it was Star Wars Day.

If you don't know, Star Wars Day is a celebration of Star Wars every May 4th. Because May 4th sounds like "May the Fourth be with you". Yeah I know it's a bad pun, but I didn't come up with it.

As some penance, here's a funny video

Some "Dark Knight Rises" Speculation

So there's a new Batman movie coming out. Is anybody excited about it?

Well yes, it is a Batman movie so of course people are looking forward to it. But is anybody waiting with baited breath? I don't know, it just seems like the hype for The Dark Knight Rises isn't there. I think it has to do with The Avengers. Marvel has spent the last few years building up this huge universe-building movie and it's kind of left Christopher Nolan's swan song out in the cold.

At any rate, I'm sure the movie will be good if the previous two are any indication. And there's a new trailer out for The Dark Knight Rises and it has prompted some speculation on my part...

(This is just my hypothesis but it could still be a SPOILER, so it's after the jump)