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Post by paulpogue on Nov 27, 2008 18:44:38 GMT -8
Late-breaking nerdglee moment!
In one of those "holy shit, I'm so glad i have Tivo so I can rewind and confirm that THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED", the RickRolling phenomenon is finally drawn to its logical conclusion as the Cartoon Network float at the Macy's Parade is Rickrolled ... BY RICK ASTLEY HIMSELF.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 20, 2008 15:24:15 GMT -8
Whose work was Dark Knight largely based on? (I have a feeling you're talking about Loeb, whose Batman work I've never read.)
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 19, 2008 21:05:12 GMT -8
Blue Beetle - Smart Sci-fi and good clean heroic fun Oh, yes. "Aaand -- a moron says whatzap!" "What?" ZAP! hahahahahaha There's also the awesomeness that is Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 19, 2008 20:37:15 GMT -8
NuSpidey sales haven't sunk below 65K yet, but they're getting damn close. And for The Dark Knight, pretty much any moment that Heath Ledger is on screen, but especially a) when it's made explicit that the Joker sees the past as multiple choice, as in "The Killing Joke," with his multiple and mutually contradictory accounts of how he got his smile, and b) when he calls himself "an agent of chaos." That last one has a LOT of personal resonance for me. Honorable mention goes to the "magic trick," because EVERYONE in the theater did an audible double-take of nervous laughter and "holy shit"s after that. For me, it's the languid "Ta-da!" that totally sells that bit. I think my nerdgleefulest moment has to be the penthouse fight, though, in which Christian Bale is playing Batman as a hardcore, modern-day martial arts movie character, and Ledger is playing the Joker as if he's in the Adam West TV series, with everything short of a giant "POW! BANG" appearing on screen.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 19, 2008 20:35:25 GMT -8
I think in the interests of getting all the good nerdglee we can, 2007 counts too. I think the last time we ran one of these was early '07 anyway.
By the way, can't believe I forgot this pairing:
IRON MAN: "Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD. I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."
THE INCREDIBLE HULK: "'We'? Who's 'we?'"
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 19, 2008 20:11:05 GMT -8
It’s time once again for Great Moments in Nerdglee – those all-too-rare but utterly awesome moments that make all the crap of being a nerd worth it. No wet-blanketry here; just talk about stuff that made you just want to rewind, re-read or rewatch and say “That’s fucking AWESOME!!!!” My primary focus is on 2008, though really, any modern pop culture works.
DOCTOR WHO, The TARDIS tows the Earth: For all the many, many flaws in “The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End” (and good-god-DAMN, there were a lot of them), this one moment damn near redeems the entire thing. Not necessarily the towing-the-Earth part (although c’mon, that was pretty nifty), but the logical climax of the Gathering of Companions, with six people flying the TARDIS for the first time in the entire series, in a Who moment that’s going to live forever. It’s so freaking awesome that not only do I forgive Freema Agyeman breaking character and grinning at the camera, I ADORE it.
Runner-up: The “Bad Wolf” moment, punctuated by a blaringly over-the-top rendition of the “All the Strange Strange Creatures” theme at the end of “Turn Left,” was so completely mental that it deserves a spot on this list.
SPEED RACER, Driving up a cliff: I have to admit, this was a tough one. The live-action Speed Racer movie was, to me, pretty much two hours of nonstop nerdglee, and I loved every second. But this moment, midway through the film, is the one I can watch over and over again: Speed, driving the Mach 5, gets knocked off a mountain face by his nemesis, Snake Oiler. Careening through the air to certain death, does he panic? Freak out? Even seem a little perturbed? Not if your name is SPEED FRAKKING RACER. No, our hero just activates the spike-grip tires, jump-jacks upside down and backwards to head up again, and speeds up and over and crashing back down onto Snake Oiler while the original theme screams in the background. (Giacchino used bits and pieces of the Speed Racer theme all through the film, but this was one of the few times he just went whole-hog and used it note-for-note.) In a film that was a nearly perfect live-action rendition of a perfect nerd icon, this was the most perfect moment.
THE DARK KNIGHT: I can’t actually peg any one moment of sheer awesomeness, but this movie was pretty much nerdglee all the way through.
WATCHMEN: The trailer. Admit it. NERDGLEE.
COMICS: Alarmingly, I’ve got nothin’. Even Morrison’s Final Crisis is, while entertaining, something of a letdown. Wait, there’s one: THE INCREDIBLE HERC is pretty much nonstop awesomeness, though for sheer nerdglee I have to go with the late-2007 arc which includes Hercules batting missiles out of the air with Ares as the bat, Amadeus Cho rerouting Tony Stark’s poop into his air supply, the Anti-Godzilla Helicarrier, and “You’ll always be fuckin’ Hercules to me.” Who would have thought the writer of “World War Hulk” was also the guy to make comics FUN again?
SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY: Sales drop below 65,000 per issue. Admit it, you did the happy dance too. Runner-up: Any of the many contradictory interviews where it is made perfectly clear that the writers and editors not only aren't coordinating very well, but they apparently barely even know each other exist.
TELEVISION: Kinda sad that there’s not much to go with here, but that’s what a writer’s strike gets you. I’m hoping Heroes eventually brings us awesomeness on the level of Doctor Who/The Master/Sulu all arguing again, and 30 Rock is destined for nerdy greatness.
Your thoughts?
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 19, 2008 14:20:18 GMT -8
My uncle, a 35-year veteran cop, says that Barney Miller is the most realistic police show ever made, and he made a point of telling that to every police academy incoming class he taught -- at least until the early 1990s, when they stopped knowing what he was talking about . I can believe it; comedy has a way of getting at truths in a way drama can't. I've also heard low-ranking attorneys working in the public system claim that, if you put aside stuff like the Road Runner showing up, "Night Court" was an amazingly accurate rendition of the regular day-to-day court system.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 18, 2008 13:06:17 GMT -8
Little thing that's probably indicative of bigger problems? I find it hilarious that they couldn't even come up with their own distinctive score. The music you hear in the background? That's from the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries of Children of Dune. I'll give them a tiny bit of slack on that one, though; movie trailers, even big-time franchises, rip off others all the time, since the music is one of the last elements added to a film. I'd bet any amount of money that Michael Giacchino is doing this score, and he's very well known for respecting the past to an almost obscenely nerd-baiting degree. His "Cloverfield" overture was basically the original Godzilla theme amped up a couple of notches, and his "Speed Racer" score was a damn near perfect combination of modern synthesizer, huge orchestrations, the American Speed Racer theme and the Japanese Mach-Go-Go-Go theme. (I wouldn't have bet any amount of money on being able to combine all four.) That said, they really lose points for not at least using a flicker of the classic "Space -- the final frontier" notes. I can even see the point in the middle of the trailer where they would have fit perfectly.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 8, 2008 15:50:21 GMT -8
P.S.:
My additional oddsmaking for the Series 5 Doctor:
David Tennant: 2 percent. I'm not going to absolutely rule out the possibility that this is an extremely high-stakes gamble on his part to get what he wants from the BBC -- which, according to some reports, includes higher salary, a Who film, and another interregnum in 2011. (I don't know which was the bigger deal-breaker -- the pay hike, or the interregnum. One off-year is already unheard of -- a second would be bordering on the ridiculous.) But deep down, I just have a hard time imagining that Tennant is really, honest-to-god through with the role.
And if he really is, it makes me wonder if there are people in BBC right now who are very, very angry about the '09 interregnum, which was seemingly put in place for his benefit, only to have him jump ship right after. It's probably not a bad idea in any event -- Whomania will have a very hard time topping the peak reached in the week after "The Stolen Earth", so some time off is good -- but it still probably has some people smacking their foreheads in retrospect.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 8, 2008 14:58:26 GMT -8
While everyone's thinking about the next Doctor Who, let's not forget the all-important question of the next Companion. Some opening odds:
Sally Sparrow: 15 percent. She hit it off with fandom right away, and Moffat's taking over. I don't pin her as very likely, but she's certainly within the realm of possibility.
River Song: 5 percent. I don't think she was ever intended for full-time companion status, even when they thought Tennant was going to be on the game for a few more years. Everything we saw indicated that River and the Doctor met many times, but it wasn't in relative chronological order, to the point that they had a system to figure out where in their respective timelines they were at. The odds go down even further when you consider Tennant leaving -- although do consider that nothing River Son said ever actually precluded "her" Doctor being just Ten. (The one hint is "you looked older last time I saw you," which has a lot of wiggle room there.)
Sarah Jane Smith: 25 percent. Just because she didn't make the last-reel appearance in "Journey's End" doesn't mean she might not appear later on down the road. And in fact, the old tradition of the "transitional companion" is even MORE important now -- at the rate things are going, we'll be going into Series Five with a brand-new Doctor, brand-new writer, AND a brand-new sidekick, which will probably make the BBC brass extremely nervous. And who better for Transitional Companion than the greatest of them all?
Some other Transition Companion: 9 percent. I don't think any of the current run of companions will be coming back -- Billie Piper seems disinterested in the whole thing, and Freema Agyeman has her plate pretty damn full at the moment. I have a hard time imagining one of the pre-Davies companions, save for Sarah Jane, making any kind of return. Although Ace would be fun. Now, all that said ...
Donna Noble: 1 percent. This seems very, very, very unlikely to me, but given the weirdness going on -- and the increasing likelihood that she's going to be making one last appearance for the changeover -- I wouldn't completely rule her out. Yeah, there was all that talk that she was going to do one-and-out, and some talk of tension between her and the production crew, but that could have all been cover.
Someone brand-new: 45 percent. Mostly because I can't think of anything else.
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 2, 2008 19:33:43 GMT -8
After reading that bit, I believe the words of Dave from "Code Monkeys" are most appropriate: "Wait I'msorryIwashighWHATwasthat?"
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Post by paulpogue on Nov 1, 2008 18:50:55 GMT -8
Davies has actually gone on the record saying that the great David Warner was one of his early choices for the Doctor, but he was literally afraid that the stress of the nonstop Who work environment would kill him. (Mind you, this is one of the hardest-working men in show business, and someone who survived a James Cameron shoot, so maybe Davies was exaggerating. Pity, though; Warner would make a GREAT Doctor.) He strikes me more as the Master. Possibly because he sounds faintly menacing even when he's playing a nice guy. David Warner -- the perfect voice of Ra's Al Ghul! -- could read a Shakespearian sonnet and make it sound menacing.
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Post by paulpogue on Oct 31, 2008 13:27:01 GMT -8
I want an older Doctor. I know I'm not going to get one. Davies has actually gone on the record saying that the great David Warner was one of his early choices for the Doctor, but he was literally afraid that the stress of the nonstop Who work environment would kill him. (Mind you, this is one of the hardest-working men in show business, and someone who survived a James Cameron shoot, so maybe Davies was exaggerating. Pity, though; Warner would make a GREAT Doctor.)
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Post by paulpogue on Oct 30, 2008 17:04:46 GMT -8
Check out the BBC site, where they list various contenders for the throne. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7699513.stmI haven't seen that Christmas Special they mention, but if David Morrissey already played a future Doctor, then there's really no alternative. Although I'm tickled pink by the thought of Paterson Joseph, especially in the outfit above. The Christmas Special hasn't aired yet, but there's plenty of wiggle room in what it means that Morrissey is playing a character titled "The Next Doctor." I have a feeling we won't know until mid-2009. Personally, I'm loving the early rumor that (SERIES 4 SPOILERS!) Catherine Tate and John Simm are signed on for the regen episode, when Davies hands off to Moffat, which makes me wonder if maybe some of us are onto something when we think the Master has some business going on with Donna Noble.
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Post by paulpogue on Oct 19, 2008 7:55:50 GMT -8
Think fan entitlement started with NuWho? Then as lizbee points out, you need to think again: On the one hand, this kid still sounds less scary than any number of modern fandom shippers. On the other, it's a mark of how sadly regressive we were back then, when teenage boys were actually shunning adult women for being not even a decade older than them, as opposed to now, when even many younger guys are smart enough to recognize the enduring sexuality of gals old enough, in some cases, to be their grandmothers (O HAI LIS SLADEN U IRRESISTIBLE MILF). For those that don't click on the link, please do so, because the whole thing is totally awesome, particularly the Dalek hat and totally justified cheap shots at Lawrence Miles that demonstrate he was a complete bloody lunatic who is totally Wrong about all things Who and was so long before his Beast blog.
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