Hail, Caesar!: Wait for Netflix or rent

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Steve

hailcaesar

I’ll start off with a disclosure statement or confession…I am not nor have I ever been enamored of the Coen Brothers. I think they’re hacks who are twice as crappy as Tarantino. Makes sense, there’s two of them. I hate The Big Lebowski and Fargo. I did like The Hudsucker Proxy but much of the credit there goes to Sam Raimi who provided the frenetic action sequences and more importantly, he made sure their movie had a narrative. I was hoping they’d change my mind on Caesar. Seriously. I had no plans on spending the money I did at Alamo Drafthouse to reconfirm my dislike.

As for the actual movie, I personally found it to be a deception via the trailer. Online Caesar appears to be a caper film. Clooney’s character is kidnapped by a mysterious group. Brolin’s character has to rescue Clooney while juggling a studio. Nope. It’s focused on Brolin as the studio’s fixer keeping everything running: Clooney’s kidnapping; juggling two gossip columnists who are identical twins (Tilda Swinton playing both); pacifying Fiennes the director who lacks the patience to tutor a cowboy actor on his diction; Johannsen’s personal problems holding up a musical/swimming flick; etc. In short, there’s no real story. Caesar is a day-in-the-life of Brolin’s protagonist circa 1951, a few years before TV devastated the motion picture industry’s finances. Yes, I know TV as we’re familiar with it rolled out in 1939, the saturation of enough markets didn’t happen until the latter half of the Fifties.

Is it a horrible movie? No. It’s more like a long audition reel demonstrating the Coen Brothers can imitate more famous movies: On the Town, Esther Williams stuff, pre-TV Westerns, parlor dramas and the Biblical/Historical flicks. Many of these were made with special theaters in mind, namely cinemascope, thus seeing the Coens cut-and-paste work in a modern venue is better served on your TV. Your wallet will thank you.

Alamo Extras: To show where the Coens “borrowed” their inspiration: the trailers for Quo Vadis, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and Ben Hur; scenes from Million Dollar Mermaid, Anchors Aweigh and On the Town; Bugs Bunny v. Yosemite Sam as a Roman centurion; a Hollywood puff piece on what happens on the backlot around the Forties.

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Happy Ash Wednesday!

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Steve

ashwed

Groovy! Remember to carry your boomstick! It’s also mandatory in Texas thanks to the genius of my state’s legislature/governor thinking this will lower crime.

In all seriousness though, it’s the kick of to lent which then puts Easter 40 days away. For secular Americans like myself, it means McDonald’s now offers the double fish sandwich and shamrock shakes can’t be far away.

As a kid, I always hated have the stupid ashes rubbed on my forehead in parochial school. It receive grief from my mother whenever I’d wash it off. To me it was silly and those brandishing it (even today) were just immodest Catholics. For non-Catholics, the ashes are the burnt palm leaves from the previous Palm Sunday that weren’t given out. Maybe some are returned by various people. My parents used to keep a set behind an angel decoration on the wall. It looked more like a hunting trophy, you know, similar to a moose head or deer.

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Hiatus continues, darned pollen…

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Steve

You’d think allergy/sinus issues would take a break during the Winter months. Not a chance in Central Texas. I guess now is when the trees decide to share their output with the bees, hornets, wasps, wind and ants to spread their stuff since it’s how plant reproduce. The lack of rain doesn’t help.

The result? Around here. A strong sense of fatigue among a large population chunk including yours truly.

I did get around to updating the header to the next incarnation Star Trek had, a Saturday morning cartoon in the early-to-mid Seventies. The show’s popularity in syndication continued to grow but there was no way to capitalize on this yet. An animated version became the solution thanks for a writers’ strike before Star Trek: the Animated Series debuted. Those who wrote for cartoons weren’t brought into the WGA until the Nineties (probably due to The Simpsons using active sitcom writers) and it was a loophole for others, hence many episodes were written by former Star Trek people. Loophole? If they worked on a cartoon, they weren’t crossing the (virtual) picket line.

The cartoon is a bit slow, uses cheap methods to avoid drawing new cels (mostly closeups) and pink was employed too often; allegedly, a major producer involved was color blind. In its defense, animation could do things that were too expensive or impossible for live action: the Caitian communication officer who filled in for Uhuru; the three-armed/legged Edoan navigator; scale issues on alien worlds; and there was one alien who could divide itself into three parts…obviously the division went along logical cel breaks. Walter Koenig/Chekov was omitted for budget reasons yet he did right an episode and Larry Niven chipped in, giving his blessing to include the Kzinti from his Ringworld novels.

I think the cartoon is canon and part of what would the Enterprise‘s fourth year of the five-year mission.

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Still on hiatus…

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Steve

I’ve been a tad under the weather so it has eaten into my energy/enthusiasm levels on posting. Much has been happening in the world around us too: David Bowie passing away, Glenn Frey and Alan Rickman too. I’m confident others I liked are gone too. The bloated values of stocks evaporating…sorry, a market correction always induces a white-knuckle ride; with it being an election year, Obama will be blamed for GOP-Libertarian malfeasance again.

Moving along. Will much be happening here? I don’t know yet. As part of a New Year’s Resolution, I have abandoned FaceBook. Twitter has replaced it for the immediate satisfaction plus my brother communicates through the service more frequently.

Stay tuned. When I don’t feel well, I withdraw from the things that give me joy (writing, reading, gaming) out of guilt. It’s a weird arrangement which I could probably blame parochial grade school for.

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Underwear inspired by the South Chicago accent

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Steve

mypikage

Southsiders as they’re called, would pronounce this “PIE-cage.” Then again, the product could be a Southerner thing because it’s misspelled. No wait, I’m going to have to go with neither due to both cultures having a great dislike of exercise. It gets in the way of their mutual love of chain smoking.

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RIP David Bowie

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Steve

What a crappy way to start the week and just when his latest album came out. Given his nature, I think he may have timed it this way.

David’s material was pretty impressive too. Namely with how readily the more homophobic/against change Classic Rock stations still embraced him while Duran Duran and others were “fags.”

I never got to see him in concert, something I’m indifferent too. I’m sure Bowie live was pretty impressive and cool, just not in a crowded stadium or poorly-designed auditorium; his last appearance in Austin was the deteriorating Backyard in around 2004.

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Why Image Comics is the new “number three”

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Steve

Lately I’ve been shifting around my comic book buying/reading habits after how much DC’s 2011 hard reboot fizzled out. One major reason is how the clueless Hollywood division is now meddling with the editorial staff on what to publish and with their recent relocation to LA after being based in NYC for 80 years, I think the future looks grim. The trailer for the upcoming Batman v. Superman smells terrible.

Another factor is how poorly DC has embraced contemporary technologies while Marvel has ensnared me. Over 90 percent of Marvel’s stuff I score (mostly the new Star Wars) comes with a code to download an electronic copy to read on a computer/tablet. Sure it makes the title cost an extra dollar but it’s a perfect arrangement.

  1. I pay for the comic book.
  2. This supports my local store (Rogues Gallery).
  3. I download the comic to re-read when enough of the title is there as a sequence.
  4. I give away the physical book to a kid who likes superheroes/Star Wars.
  5. Less clutter in my house.

Then comes the crux of the article, my shop’s podcast plugging stuff. What Nick, Dave and Randy convinced me about was how Image is no longer the long-underwear company in which the creators own the characters despite how derivative they were of the Big Two. To the general public, Image is the company responsible for The Walking Dead. No. Image has impressively succeeded in a space I think comics have traditionally been weak at, Science Fiction. It began with checking out Black Science and Sex Criminals. Now they’ve hooked me on the numerous titles below. This will be just part one though.

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Speaking of Sex Criminals, one half of that title’s creative team kicks off my story with Kaptara, an adult He-Man parody. Astronaut Keith Kanga was just minding his own business as a passenger heading to Mars when the ship is pulled through a mysterious portal and crashes on an alien planet. Against his better judgment, Keith must team up with this world’s odd heroes to stop the evil Skullthor from conquering Earth. Along the way he encounters a missing crew member living with bee people, a cantankerous wizard who gripes like most Vietnam vets and a Smurf-like village of misogynistic brohs.

The major story arc is still coming together after five issues but I recommend Kaptara for its humor.

westandonguard

We Stand on Guard is based upon a real-world premise I learned about in a book covering what’s in other countries’ history texts. The Great White North has been our friendly neighbor ever since the War of 1812’s conclusion but secretly, Canadians remain paranoid of the US invading them. It’s why they finally consolidated the former British colonies into Canada around 1863. You think I’m kidding? The MacKenzie Brothers’ skits were written by the SCTV gang to mock the Canadian content law, a law passed to slow down their cultural absorption by America.

In the comic, what we today consider an absurd idea comes true in the near future. Sometime in the 22nd Century, the White House is destroyed by a pre-emptive strike and Canada is the culprit or conveniently blamed. Fast forward about a decade where Canadian resistance fighters are giving the US forces a hard time in the Northwest Territories. The Americans have all this high tech (mechs, robots) yet they’re picked off by crafty people who just know the woods better. Behind the scenes, you get a sense that the war’s casus belli may have been fictionalized by the US in order to confiscate Canada’s natural resources, namely water.

southerncross

Southern Cross is a mystery involving possible corporate wrong-doing and/or a mystical-like power reaching across space. I’m not completely sure yet because the last issue hit a stopping point and I think the story will be shifting over to the next arc in the overall story. I do enjoy it immensely. The protagonist is a woman, something Image is better at doing than the Big Two. The style and look is akin to the Scott Ridley films too; Alien, Blade Runner.

It all begins with ex-con Alex Braith boarding the Southern Cross, a tanker bound for the Titan colony. She’s heading there to collect her estranged sister’s belongings and to find out how her sibling died. While the ship is traveling, odd things begin to happen; Alex’s cabin mate goes missing (there’s nowhere to hide) and something akin to ghosts appear before the antagonist. Adding to her difficulty, several passengers and crew members knew Alex’s sister. What their relationships were, none are very forthcoming. I like how each issue is one day of the voyage.

I want to wrap up with these three for now. There are many more Image titles my store got me hooked on. This took almost a week to write thanks to writer’s block. One title I had to put aside because I was having difficulty describing the plot without going in a circle. Fear not, it will be coming for it’s one of my favorites.

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Vampire walks into a tavern…

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Steve

rustydragon

…and tells the barkeep, “I’ll have a blood lite!”

Paizo’s new line of minis called The Rusty Dragon Inn came out over the holiday and unlike past set in which the unique, more expensive thing you can get being a scary monster, they went with the furniture. Now my D&D game can finally have the details of the most cliché location in the genre. For some dumb reason, the Fantasy Adventure of a life time always seems to kick off with complete strangers meeting in a bar. Ugh. That’s not how The Hobbit nor The Lord of the Rings kicks off nor any Conan or Elric story I’ve ever read. There’s only one case in which it did, Star Wars.

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Happy Epiphany 2016

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Steve

threewiseguys

Bearing gifts of Gold (really Chuck E Cheese tokens), Frankenstein and Myrrh! This will be as good as it gets in Texas. To modify an old mean ethnic joke I remembered as a kid from the Eighties…

How do we know Jesus wasn’t born in Texas? Good luck finding a virgin or three wise men here. Given the demagogic morons in the Governor and Lt. Governor chairs, it rings rather true but falls apart thanks to all the Spanish speakers. Of course Jesus was born here…to Mexican parents and with all the construction, odds are pretty good his father is a carpenter working on all the strip malls we don’t need.

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Better late than never I guess

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Steve

betterlatethannever

Taken on January 2. Not sure if the Christmas card I sent to Sonia in Switzerland necessarily beat this to my in-laws and nephews. In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered much, they spent the holiday stretch in Denmark. I was amused to receive the message and photo from Anje about the arrival.

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RIP Robert Stigwood

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Steve

Not a household name but Robert was the man synonymous with the late Seventies due to all the music he helped promote, produce and proliferate. The most famous act he managed was the Bee Gees yet he was also involved with Cream, David Bowie and Eric Clapton. Practically every kid I knew then had a copy of the soundtracks to Saturday Night Fever and/or Grease which was on his record label RSO. No surprise he was a producer for both films.

I couldn’t find any mention of his brief control over the Beatles’ catalog because Stigwood’s empire began to crumble after the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band flopped in theaters. How else would he pull of using that music? I watched it in the last several years. It’s not terrible, I think audiences found the style puzzling and jarring in 1978. Few were accustomed to nor ready to sit through an extended music video which is how I interpreted it. The Bee Gees performing wasn’t a completely dumb move because Barry Gibb was friends with John Lennon. Peter Frampton? He was the flavor-of-the-month then.

It’s nice to know Australia produced one media mogul who wasn’t an absolute piece of crap. Thanks for making the Seventies what they are today.

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Dana Gould for 2016!

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Steve

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Not a political endorsement but given the choices, why not an Emmy®-winning comedian with a pretty impressive resume! At least he’s a good generation younger than the two old farts running on my side.

Dana returned to Austin to ring in the new year with a string of shows at our A-list venue. Well, if you’ve heard other comedians discuss it on podcasts when they’re “talking inside baseball” (aka, the business of comedy), my home’s club location is considered odd compared to competing cities. They often make strip-mall jokes over it.

There was a great mix of new stuff, modifications to existing jokes and his go-to bits. He made a callback to a joke I remembered in the Nineties when I saw him on The A List, the first TV show in which I could then always recall his name! Good turn out too. Must be the holiday element.

We spoke for a bit again. I got Dana to add his autograph to the Simpson’s chucks alongside the other four people. Nice to know he’s friends with David Silverman. He was glad to receive the way overdue DVD my late friend Ben composed of the Star Trek tribute he was in. Dana said he appreciated the video tape but hadn’t any luck in converting it; I did have the darn thing, I just misplaced it under a Gary Numan CD when Moontower rolled around last Spring.

The best news is, Dana remains open to doing my birthday celebration at Alamo Drafthouse. The plan is to have a private screening of Planet of the Apes, the original, good 1968 version. All I’ve asked of him is 10 minutes before the movie. He can do whatever he wants. I figure Dana will give a quick FYI about the film, work in some jokes and afterwards, we all enjoy the movie. As for you readers, especially if you live in the Austin area and are my friend, set aside the last weekend of July to attend! My birthday this year is on a Friday so you have little, little excuse. Oh wait, it might be a tricky day. Hmmm. Maybe a Saturday afternoon will be more cost effective. Let me see what quotes I receive from the general manager.

Other stuff. I asked what he will get to be doing in the new MST3K. Some writing, probably some punching up of jokes and at least one appearance as an unnamed character. Pretty cool. Dana also let me know some trivial things regarding comedians/writers I like. Nothing like gossip or dirt, more on how the world is a smaller place than we think on who is friends with whom. Lastly, I did pitch a podcast episode idea to him on doing spotlight of Austin with these little factoids he found intriguing.

  • The world premiere of Batman: The Movie was here. Fox chose Austin as a thank-you gift to the company that built the Batboat you see during key scenes.
  • Charles Whitman’s infamous UT Tower shooting was the impetus for Daryl Gates’ push to create SWAT teams within metropolitan police departments.

I’m not trying to break into show business. Ugh! I don’t hate my enough to go into an even more soul-crushing profession. I thought it would be a time and money saver for him. Overall, my pitch would be how Austin is the Bryan Cranston of US cities.

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Laziest NPC generator…ever

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Steve

npcdice

But even I sometimes need to put an NPC together in a dire emergency.

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X-Wing dress rehearsal

Posted on January 3, 2016 by Steve
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Red Squadron (below) has dropped out of Hyperspace to attack an Imperial transport carrying four TIE fighters.

Next weekend I’m attending my first Gamers’ Weekend. Despite it being a bittersweet reunion with a couple people I used to play D&D with, the focus will be on non-RPGs like Pandemic, Cards Against Humanity and probably Munchkin. I’m really guessing but I’m confident the last one is guaranteed since it reflects the style of D&D I’m not compatible with. I also make no apologies for the statement.

I do look forward to it. Getting away from the bullshit for a couple days, aka snivilization as Mark Twain called it.

My contribution will be X-Wing and maybe Supremacy. If I figure out the rules adequately, I might bring Mars Attacks! the minis game. I will be refereeing all three to keep them moving; gamers often over think the situation.

Yesterday my frequent opponent/buddy Matt shook off the rust and threw in a new variable we’ve never tried, a huge ship in the battle. We’ve duked it out with the Falcon and Slave I yet those vessels operate in the same manner as fighters. A huge ship can’t turn on a dime, barrel roll but they have other great advantages: they can repair their shields, they have a 360-degree firing arc and multiple crew members to carry out multiple actions like repairs, jamming, etc. Plus I threw in a K-Wing which I think is now an Expanded Universe/Legends vessel alongside the stupid E-Wing I hate.

The battle went pretty well for my Rebel friends. My strategy actually worked too. I had the more skilled pilots (Hobbie, Wes and Porkins, yeah the dude who got taken out by the Death Star’s turbo lasers) drew the Imperial cruiser’s TIEs and attention while my lesser pilots (Biggs, Tarn and generic Red Squadron guy) escorted the K-Wing to fire proton torpedoes into the rear. Matt had all celebrity pilots too. For some weird reason, the Imperial pilots often have nicknames like Wampa or Chaser. There are personalities too: Juno Eclipse, Darth Vader and the Inquisitor, they’re just less common.

We did make a couple errors with the rules, namely on how the cruiser worked. Turns out all small and large ships move first regardless of skill. Then the cruiser goes and fires according to when its turn is based upon the skill number, two. The only ships which could ever fire last in the game are recent Imperial Academy graduates. Our skirmish was mostly a learning exercise though. We don’t even bother with the bullshit of points to “balance” things out. Personally, I have never seen much difference via points when I did play at Dragon’s Lair.

The biggest surprise was the K-Wing. I thought it was going to be a punching bag. The bomber has a one evasion rating, maximum speed of three and the sharpest turn it can make are 45 degrees (trust me, 90-degree turns or 180 flips are critical in a fight).

As for Gamers’ Weekend. I think things will flow faster if each player just has one fighter. I don’t have much more experience and a common problem I kept running into was my pilots bumping into each others’ space…nice move Biggs.

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Happy New Year 2016 from the new Wild West

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Steve

I took a rather long, large break because I had a relapse with illness and the malaise again. Sometimes I wonder if getting a flu shot is worth it since I get sick with something regardless.

I tried to take it easy. Worked Christmas Eve and Day to make the extra money supporting only specific instances, otherwise we were closed. It’s pretty amazing how some people still call. Either they forget what day it is or they think the world revolves around them. To celebrate Eve for me (Somara stayed late), I took in my second screening of The Force Awakens. Christmas Day we both enjoyed a nice, special dinner at the local McCormick & Schmicks. She thought they wouldn’t be open and expressed doubt in getting reservations; which I set up two days in advance online! Thanks to my weight hovering around 250, I went with all the seafood choices.

After Christmas dinner, we went our own ways again. Somara had work the following morning and I wanted wrap up the current housesitting run, plus I had set the DVR to catch one cycle of A Christmas Story on TBS. I continue to laugh at how this movie was put together by the same guy behind Porky’s.

Boxing Day was when the needle went head-first into suck. While tidying up, I banged my right foot really hard on a piece of furniture. The good news? I certainly don’t have diabetes based upon the how much it smarted! The bad news? The shades of purple it resulted in after a couple hours, it looked like I had diabetes if you remember the horrifying revelation from Nothing in Common, a lesser Tom Hanks and Garry Marshall movie. The toe and related area are much better. Pain remains but nothing on par with the initial injury. After all matters were ready for my friends’ return, I felt a bit tired and went home figuring I’d watch some TV, squeeze in a power nap.

HA!

Firstly, I forgot about the tuner dying the previous weekend. We do have a replacement I bought within hours, we just haven’t installed it. I went with lying down on the bed, watching the new F is For Family on a tablet. Zoned out, slept and was sick. This resulted in being pretty bed-ridden and ill for four more days. I hate such events especially when I have high hopes to enjoy a slow, profitable week.

I’ve recovered enough to start implementing the updates on the site unless I’m shot in the back by an anxious open-carry Ammosexual fearing I’m a terrorist due to my beard and Italian surname many mistake for Arabic/South Asian. The insanity of Texas continues. I try to take comfort in remembering how time is not on the side of the angry old whiteys who pass these egregious laws. Yet I fear I may never live to see the day when they’re finally driven out of power. They’ve been around for two centuries, what’s a few more decades to their collective sickness? My plan? Find and make a collective list of places to support who have banned the Ammosexuals’ so-called right to play cowboy.

Moving along. I have decided to dedicate all of 2016’s headers to Star Trek which turns 50 this year. It’s a bummer Leonard Nimoy, DeForrest Kelley, James Doohan, Mark Lenard and the Roddenberrys didn’t live long enough to see this. I’ll throw in other minor characters/actors too, they contributed key parts to the legend with their performances, namely Ricardo Montalban. The show was a big part of my life too. Reruns were always on somewhere when the Seventies kicked in. Hard to believe PBS aired the show for a while; the University of Illinois affiliate did when I lived in Champaign-Urbana around 1977-79. People mock the original show over something. I too don’t think it was perfect. It was more a product of its day. Even when an episode had a legitimate Sci-Fi writer involved, the guidelines to contemporary TV had to be followed. Hence, the Western-style action and/or lazy Shakespeare/WWII plot muddled in with the warnings about nuclear war, overpopulation, racism and tampering. To save money, there “planets” were inhabited by Paramount’s backlot (sadly, studios no longer have them in their tax-dodging schemes). You couldn’t do a serious show today if the residents emulated the Nazis, Ancient Romans or Chicago Gangsters of the Roaring Twenties. You’d get eye-rolling and/or conclude it’s Doctor Who. Sadly, its delayed success which led to four more shows based upon the setting and numerous descendants (Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and the dismal SyFy network)…didn’t result in TV writing breaking beyond lazy procedurals, bullshit drama and sitcoms. Trust me, too many times Next Generation could be just Mattlock in Space. B5 was a frequent exception but the show was more wrapped around political intrigue than wonder.

You have a good, three-day weekend. I’m going to take it easy some more, enjoy the comedy of Dana Gould tonight and definitely celebrate ditching FaceBook. So if you’ve made the effort to reading this, thanks very much. I don’t plan to return often in order to line Zuckerberg’s and his ilk’s pockets.

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