"iM TRiPPiN RiTE N0W! WH0O0O!"
- The Variants, the web-only short comedy film series set at a comic shop, has a new installment up, and I suggest you give it a peek. …It’s funny, because it’s true.
- Some cable channel or ‘nother apparently decided that it had too many viewers, and thus is running the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film multiple times this week. And having caught it once or twice during those showings, I sort of realized something: I don’t completely hate this film.
Don’t get me wrong — it is a bad movie. But it’s kind of fun, if you take it on its own entirely brainless, illogical, anachronistic terms. And if you can manage to forget, for a little while, that it was based on a comic that, at its worst, was still a million times better than any of this film’s high points. Still, though, the Jekyll/Hyde business was nicely done, Dorian Gray made an interesting addition, and Captain Nemo looked good and imposing, if very shiny and blue.
And yes, there are tons of problems with this movie and with dumbing-down of character concepts (Mina is a vampire woman? Oy.) and the fact the film both made Sean Connery retire and Alan Moore decide (I’m pretty sure) to no longer have a damned thing to do with any movies based on his work.
But hell, I wasn’t doing anything else, I’ll watch it for free.
- Employee Aaron has pointed me in the direction of Swamp Thing shoes, custom-painted in tribute to our favorite muck-encrusted mockery of a man. I think they’re pretty neat looking, and if you don’t believe me, try this reader testimonial from that site’s comment section:
“MAN diZS iSHH iZS 2 H0T f0R TV! iM TRiPPiN RiTE N0W! WH0O0O!”
Well said!
- So I was e-mailing some pals and for some reason Star Wars came up, as it tends to do every few weeks or so, and I happened to mention “hey, remember that aborted book series that would have tied Star Wars to Earth?” My pals said “er, no” so I showed them this Wookieepedia entry. I’m pretty sure I’ve discussed this before here on the site, where the idea was space colonists escape from Earth in the 25th century, get caught in a space/time riptide or some damned thing and end up a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Anyway, further Wookieepedia investigation revealed another attempt at connecting the Star Wars Universe to Earth, in this entry about the Star Wars galaxy, under “Behind the Scenes.” I’ll let you read it, but basically it involves E.T. The Extraterrestrial and just how far, far away said galaxy may actually be from our own.
Eventually, I ended up on the R2-D2 page, where there’s a mention of, well, not explicitly an Earth connection, but definitely a beloved bit of our world culture:
“…There is a humorous scene in the Star Wars: Droids episode ‘Tail of the Roon Comets’ in which R2-D2 turns on a jukebox and begins to breakdance. This was likely intended by the writers as humor. However, some fans question the possibility of the moves R2-D2 performs in the episode. Nevertheless, the breakdance scene is assumed canonical until an official source confirms it is non-canon.”
There’s an accompanying illustration of Artoo busting his droid moves here, but you haven’t seen anything ’til you’ve seen the video. He moonwalks. MOONWALKING ASTROMECH IS GO.
(Thanks to Adam Knave for telling me of the video’s existence. …That’s who to blame, folks!)
