I liked these idiots in "Superbad" so I picked up "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" on DVD late last night. :)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Gospel According To Teens
A couple of weeks back, I conducted a teacher-training session. Immediately after that, an experienced teacher-cum-novelist met up with me for a chat. We talked about the possibilities of working together - either as teachers or amateur-writers. She told me about the popularity of chic-lit and I confessed my own love for the genre. I'm a closet-fan of chic-lit. In other words, I usually don't tell people openly that I read teensy-girly books on crushes, heartaches, dresses and back-biting bitchiness but the truth of it is that I do. I really do. And I enjoy them a lot more than most other things (aside from the spandex-clad heroes that populate my four-colour fantasies). Some recommendations:
"Does My Head Look Big In This?" by Randa Abdel-Fattah.
"Ten Things I Hate About Me" also by Randa Abdel-Fattah.
The best chic-lit novels are about self-acceptance and accepting others. Like the above examples, the stories are about the identity-crisis and peer-pressure faced by adolescent Muslim girls in an all-white (read: secular Christian) school. Truth is, I don't think I like chic-lit per se. I think I'm really a fan of teen/young reads. There's a difference. Fact is, I don't think I'll ever pick up a volume of the "Gossip Girl" series but I'm a huge fan of "The Gospel According To Larry" series (by Janet Tashjian). Being young, being stupid, being too intelligent for the adult community, being reckless, being a teen (or even a tween). Gosh, I think I identify with that level of people a lot more these days. It's probably got to do with the fact that I'm surrounded by people that age all the time. Heck, my daughter is taking her first steps into being a teenager already! As for me, I not sure that I've outgrown my adolescence yet! I used to read theology and philosophy when I was old. It's liberating to finally not be a grown-up again...
"The Gospel According To Larry" by Janet Tashjian
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Whose World Is This? (Part III)
Fareed Zakaria - the face of a stooge and Brotherhood-trained repeater.You still believe the "official line"?
This guy is laughing at you.
Whose World Is This? (Part II)
"Is it time to finally attack China and Russia"? - Sarkozy"Give it until this fall at least! Now smile for the adoring public." - Obama
Whose World Is This? (Part I)
Read about the making of a Messianic/Saviour-Presidential Candidate.
Read about the history of money and financial institutions.
Wake up and smell the coffee. You've been had! ;-)
Monday, July 28, 2008
All Things Zombie!
Insomnia struck again. Nothing better to do than to stay up for a long, drawn-out Romero Zombie movie. I slipped "Land of the Dead" into the DVD player, sat back and enjoyed every single frame of the film. The best zombie films work as parables on humanity - usually showing the non-rotting ones as far more bestial than the "stenchers". Just as "Dawn of the Dead" is a satire on commercialism, "Land of the Dead" is Romero's take on corporate-controlled cities. Lovely zombie film to watch and re-watch again and again. Highly recommended.
After that, you can check out this awesome zombie site called: All Things Zombie for more references.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Marion Raven: Heads Will Roll
There's a taste in my mouth that I never had before
To be a cheater, defeater, are things I won't ignore
Like a rat in a trap you're head got in the way
Nothing left of you, but a memory of a bad lay
Heads gonna roll (Heads gonna roll)
I'm back in control (back in control)
It's a jungle out there it's gonna eat you up
And strip you bare
I'll swallow you whole (swallow you whole)
Then spit out your soul (spit out your soul)
I wanna make this clear, my dear that heads will roll
There's a look in your eyes, am I the one you dread?
You make me wonder what's going on inside your head
(Inside your head)
You lie and you slither like a cold-blooded snake
I'll make you pay for your big mistake
Heads gonna roll (Heads gonna roll)
I'm back in control (back in control)
It's a jungle out there it's gonna eat you up
And strip you bare
I'll swallow you whole (swallow you whole)
Then spit out your soul (spit out your soul)
I wanna make this clear, my dear that heads will roll
When I think of you, I think of this
And then it turns to Bitterness
I'm praying for amnesia, I beg for anesthesia
Forget the lies, and numb the pain
If this don't stop I'll go insane
The more I hurt, the more I'll curse your name
Heads gonna roll (Heads gonna roll)
I'm back in control (back in control)
It's a jungle out there it's gonna eat you up
And strip you bare
I'll swallow you whole (swallow you whole)
Then spit out your soul (spit out your soul)
I wanna make this clear, my dear that heads will roll
Heads gonna roll (Heads gonna roll)
I'm back in control (back in control)
It's a jungle out there it's gonna eat you up and strip you bare
I'll swallow you whole.......
Meat Loaf & Marion Raven
I didn't think that I'd like Meat Loaf as well. Blame it all on this video. Couldn't sleep after the charity concert. Stayed up and saw this video on TV. Got me hooked on Meat Loaf after that.
Kirkmania Strikes Again
Arms and legs hurting like hell. Terrible exhaustion after the biggest charity concert in the world. My boss called and said that we should do a musical next. Haha! In a strange way, I'm actually looking forward to that. Anyway, I took my wife and kids out yesterday. Picked up some CDs (a compilation album and I got Meat Loaf for free). Also got "JSA: The Next Age" and "JSA: Thy Kingdom Come Vol. One". Read them both back-to-back for that Geoff Johns magic. It's still there but it's kinda different from his original run on the title (with David Goyer).
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Biggest Charity Concert In The World
Was in Kompleks 3K at about 2:00pm yesterday. Started decorating the place and getting everything ready for the biggest charity concert in the world. Was half-dead by 5:00pm with the endless shouting, screaming and rehearsals. The concert performances start at 8:00pm (with food served at 7:00pm for guests).
Performances began at 8:00pm. Three of my students helped out on emcee-duties. A group of breakdancers came over to perform (courtesy of a church-friend from a local college). Our teams put up 20+ performances despite the faulty sound-system. Very large crowd. Many were sitting on the floor and cheering us on. The concert went later than planned. In fact, it went on for close to four hours! We were supposed to end at 10:00pm but many of them stayed with us all the way up to 11:30pm! The performances by the charity homes were especially moving. Orphans and disabled people came up on stage with renditions of "God Is Good" and "You Raise Me Up". Many people were visibly moved and some were sobbing openly. It was like mini-Woodstock! Forget the World Youth Day in Australia. This was the real thing. Most of our performances were terribly amateurish and some were downright awful! But we had some laughs and lots of cheers. The Bollywood Dreamz Team and the Form 2 Singers & Dancers took home the awards for the night. It was a crazy, crazy night. Months of preparation and endless rehearsals. Lots of laughs, stress, frustration, work, etc. Now it's finally done and strangely, I wished we could do it again.... Don't know why. It was a wonderful experience for everyone... :)
[Sitting in MyDin, USJ wearing a T-Shirt that says "I Can Sleep All Day" but ironically, I could not sleep well at all. Too much excitement. Limbs are aching. Throat is sore. But I just can't sleep...]
MOEBIUS: FLIGHTS IN DARKNESS
10 days since my last morphine delirium,
the dark has set in on my biomechanicks.
Like a pre-cyber day stop animation
i am crawling instead of blue screen soaring
my man of steel, a dead weight
my dark knight, afraid of shadows
my hell's kitchen avenger, deaf
my armour, rust coated
10 days since my last morphine delirium,
reality is an unbearable vacuum
Outside my window, a topical mynah hops from branch to branch.
The trees a network of connective bridges for food, rest and procreation.
I wonder if the birds would exchange flight for a human lifetime?
The mynah saw me and offered a chirp.
Man has dreamt of flight from time immemorial
from the fool who strap on mechanical wings
to the other who flew in a ball of fire
Who would give up flight for a weighted existence filled with
the burden of birth
the burden of youth
the burden of ideals
the burden of anti ideals
the burden of love
the burden of hate
the burden of union
the burden of separation
the burden of education
the burden of ignorance
the burden of middle age
the burden of having
the burden of wanting
the burden of dreaming
the burden of waking
the burden of life
the burden of death
the burden of release
Man, born to move
finds himself in a world
that does it utmost to hinder movement.
MOEBIUS:
Man in flight
Friday, July 25, 2008
Infinite Crisis
The biggest charity concert in the world is tonight. It's a little something that my team and I cooked up together and tonight's the payoff. Months of planning and preparation went into it. Months of laughs, tears, stress, frustrations and joys. I don't know what to say. Final rehearsals in a while before the big thing. I finally read "Infinite Crisis" by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez and a gazillion other creators this morning. I think I read it to see the collaborative process going into an enormous project just so I get a sense of perspective before the huge charity concert event tonight. Anyway, it's probably the best superhero-epic ever written/drawn... until "Final Crisis" by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones, that is! Haha... :)Thursday, July 24, 2008
Confessions Of A Superhero
Another long day at work. Busy with charity concert preparations, classes to teach, trial lessons and placement tests. Head is swimming by day’s end. Watched “Confessions Of A Superhero” late in the night. Very touching documentary about real people. Shows you the dichotomy between the heroes and stars that we idolized and the normal people who have to make a living while struggling to hold on to their dreams. The documentary centered on four people who make a living dressing up as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Hulk on Hollywood Boulevard. The Superman bloke looked creepily like a skinny Christopher Reeve, the Batman guy is a George-Clooney lookalike with anger-management problems, Wonder Woman is an aspiring actress who ran away from her Southern Baptist home and the Hulk is a black-guy with bad teeth. The entire documentary presents these people as real people and you love them despite their eccentricities and “loser”-ness. You’ll also end up seeing the superficiality of the celluloid film-stars and four-colour superheroes that they idolized. Real people with real problems who struggle to pay the rent by dressing up in stupid costumes. Of the four, the Superman guy is perhaps the purest because of his genuine passion for the Man of Steel. You see him weep at Christopher Reeve’s passing, attending the memorial for Reeve at Metropolis, Illinois and finally proposing to his girlfriend. He also lives in a cheap flat filled with Superman memorabilia. A total space-case. A geek. A loser who tries hard to live up to the ideals set by a fictional Kryptonian. But you can’t help loving him for his, I don’t know, purity. I can think of far worst ways to live one’s life, I guess.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Scared Stiff Confessions II - The Sequel
Stupid fat tuition teacher in Puchong after the demonic attack!
Scared Stiff Confessions
Spent the whole evening scared stiff because of all the demons sent by Pltypus (the true one - be afraid, be very afraid) to torment some stupid fat tuition teacher in Puchong. Fortunately, I'm no longer giving tuition in Puchong so the demons probably got the wrong guy! Haha! But another teacher was out-of-duty yesterday so I had to take over five of her classes. Dead tired by the end of the work-night and my boss got me Nandos Chicken for dinner. 
Went home and celebrated Superman's 70th Birthday by re-watching Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" on DVD. Saw the pics of people celebrating in the streets in Illinois. Lots of fat people (like me) dressed up as Supes. Kinda like a whole town acting like the blokes in "Confessions of a Superhero". Anyway, I did it my own way and watched the Bryan Singer movie instead. Never liked it before but appreciated it a little better late last night. Even cried a little when Supes took Lois flying again (with the instrumental "Can You Read My Mind" playing in the background). But I still couldn't finish the whole movie. Stopped watching at the point where Richard White, Lois Lane and the kid fell into the sea. The movie kinda lost its momentum by that point so I decided to go upstairs to sleep instead.
La Tey is in the Land of Smiles again. I'm having the second best thing. A cup of Vienna in Black Canyon Coffee brought in straight from Thailand. Lots of work to catch up on later today. This is my down-time and I'm making the most of it.
MARKED BY FISK
IT'S BEEN A WHILESINCE I ARRANGE A HIT.
MURDOCK IS HISTORY,
I MEAN HOW MANY TIMES
CAN A MAN BE DRIVEN INSANE.
ENOUGH WITH HIS FOGGY FATSO LAWYER FRIEND.
THAT DAMN GIRLFRIEND ASSASSIN?
HOW MANY DEATH BEFORE ONE SAY, ENOUGH?
NO.
ENOUGH.
TODAY,
I WANT THAT TUITION TEACHER.
NO.
I WON'T SENT THAT FARELL BULL.
NOT SO EASY.
NO.
I WANT THAT PORKY BARREL OF LARD TO BE ROASTED
OVER SLOW FIRE.
I WANT HIM TORN
I WANT HIM RACKED
I WANT HIM PULLED APART
WITH A THOUSAND STEED
FROM VALHALLA
BROKEN
LIKE THAT NORSE DEITY
I WILL TEACH HIM
NOT TO UNDERVALUE FISK'S INVESTMENT
I WILL DEMAND HIS SUBMISSION
WITH A THOUSAND TORTURE...
(Wilson Fisk is not available nor will he entertained any interviews.)
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Sienkiewicz Experience
Time was, buying a Sienkiewicz book (preferebly plotted/scripted by Miller) was like getting your hands on that rare rock album with the killer album cover. That was before trade-reprints and hardcover-omnibuses. My first encounter with Sienkiewicz was seeing some of his panels reproduced in magazines and books. I never had any complete book showcasing his artwork. Then one day I was in Pltypus' place in SIN. He showed me "Daredevil: Love And War". The EPIC original (he's fuckin' smug that he still owns this masterpiece). The visuals blew me away. Kingpin drawn not as a human juggernaut (ala Romita) but as a huge mass of something that blends into the rest of the room, swallowing up everything. The feeling was like this was Kingpin's world and we're just living in it. He did not just eat up the scenery. He was the scenery. Daredevil floated over buildings carrying a girl in his arms. You could almost feel the wind in your eyes. Bill's art wasn't about realism (Neal Adams), cartoony (John Byrne) or mere psychedelia (Jim Steranko). Bill's art was all his own. A cornucopia of madness, genius and well, whatever he could get his hands on (many panels looked like he built it from spiderwebs and strings, rather than drawn with pencils!) Pltypus took me to Tower Records and introduced me to the Jimi Hendrix Biography by Bill Sienkiewicz. I picked up the book not long after, along with "Daredevil: In Love And War" (that reprints both "Love And War" and "Elektra: Assassin"). Like I said, it wasn't the usual comix experience. It was like getting a ticket into the coolest rock-festival in the universe. It was like owning a piece of poplorica. It was, for lack of a better word, cool... [read an interview with Bill Sienkiewicz]
Archie Met Elektra In 1986
Archie is dead. Archie lives forever.Archie was the best editor that anyone could dream of.
Archie had a vision in the 1980s.
He called it "Epic".
One day, Frank and Bill showed up in the office.
They had something in their hands.
Archie asked what it was.
"Elektra: Assassin".
Archie took a step back.
It's great being an editor when you didn't even have to do your job.
There was nothing to edit.
The work was bigger than he was and he knew it.
He took one look at the work and that was enough.
It was the first (and arguably the last) work that lived up to Archie's vision.
"Epic".
Brainless fanboys are lining up for "The Dark Knight" making it the biggest movie of 2008.We were there first.
This is the real thing.
Archie knew it and said "Yes".
I look back now and say "Amen".
"Epic!". This was it.
The Marriage Of Frank And Bill
Frank and Bill was a marriage made in (comix) heaven.Perhaps even more than Frank and Lynn or Frank and Klaus.
Bill without Frank was a Neal-Adams-knock-off.
Bill without Frank was famous for a black demon bear.
Bill without Frank was famous for Jimi Hendrix and countless inking chores.
Bill made magic with Frank.
Almost alchemical.
Frank gave Bill a plot.
Political machinations and liberal Anti-Christ.
Wrapped around the love-lust affair of Greek assassin and a toaster.
(I was told that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s LMD's are no more complex than toasters!)
Together they fought The Beast of the Apocalypse and its evil Hand.
Together they snatched "the box" and ruled the world.
Together they fucked up the world from the inside out.
That was the plot Frank gave Bill.
But processed to the insane creative juices of Bill, the whole thing came out different.
Frank huffed, puffed and panted to keep up.
Frank nearly gave up.
Bill's visions made Frank's head explode.
"Where's the fuckin' plot?", Frank screamed.
"What fuckin' plot? Just script the damned thing!" Bill countered.
Frank did his best and nearly died in the process.
The result was a work that nobody understood.
It was not meant to be read.
[Some would argue that it was never meant to be "adapted" into a movie too!]
It was not meant to be analyzed.
It was meant to be *experienced*.
It was a mind-fuck, psychedelic ride into the madness of the world in 1987 with our guides, Frank and Bill.
It was a meditation on evil and a poke into the eye of the Beast.
It was a celebration of the insanity of Reaganomics and a fear of "robot"-liberals ruling the world (literally).
Bill threw in sex and religion while he was at it.
Frank threw in humour and absurdity while trying to keep up with Bill's visions.
Very few people talk about this work today.
Oh yes, they buy it and shelve it religiously.
Some even attempted to review it.
Most people simply revere it.
But very few really dared to talk about it because few understood it.
They simply said two words: "Elektra: Assassin".
Perhaps that was all they had to say.
To those who'd read it, they knew everything contained within those two words.
To those who will read it, I wish you all the best.
To those who will never read it, what do I care?
"Elektra: Assassin"
A once-off, never to be repeated performance from two maestros.
One day, when the Beast is finally revealed, he'll wonder why I knew him all along.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
FRANK MILLER: READ, DON'T WATCH
Klaus Janson, Lynn Varley, Frank Miller.
Masters of the shadow. The glorious B&W.
Long before tradepaperback. The single issues.
The cover art. the glorious B&W. the inks.
Long before 300 and the masturbating horde of delirious acolytes!
Long before Rodriguez's Sin City.
Long before purist tantrums and ultimatums!
The man, Miller.
The movie is to be played in the mind.
The schema is straightforward:
Let the shadows reveal the stories.
Let the dirt show the truth.
Let the darkness open the portal
to the world that was:
The stories of hell's kitchen
where 300 warriors stood and fell
where one knight dispensed, justice
where the darkness reveals law
where one man defy his humanity
where one man stood for his honor
where one man send up the system
in the only way he knows:
by tearng down the edifice of lies, lies mocking truth,
truth that had died in his hands.
where one man deny death to settle one last score
where one man unleashed the big fat kill
by standing where the 300 stood.
sometimes you can beat the odds...
with a careful choice of where to fight.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
FOR KLAUS DINGER: FOREVER NEU
OK, the previous post was bad but necessary. That's the state of man/machine today. Time was, as this post shows in glorious B&W, the great Klaus Dinger that eventually form Neu was dumming for Kraftwerk. Then, they faught to be human. Then it was really fun. Just flute, drums and noise. The last post was a sent up for the "fun, fun, fun" generation that Kraftwerk saw coming. This one shows what they stood for early on.
See the faces in the crowd and fast forward today. Today. Is this really the world we have created? The prison of our own making. We have put our salvation in the hands of fools. Our inheritance is sold. The future is now. You want in? Then do as you you are told. Listen when you are told to. Follow. Like begets like. Struggle is vain. Conform or be left out. Read only what is popular. Watch only when its sold out. Follow. Be a face in the crowd. Be in. Today.
Time was, 1970. Name: Klaus Dinger. Lived: 1946-2008. He did not conform. Neither should you. One more time, the motorik beat. Protest. Stay alive.
GERMAN BEAT: CODA
Don't get it? Watch again.
*Read Blake, De Nerval, Russell, Camus, Sontag, Miller and toast Damo Suzuki, he could've been Staphanus Daedalus. Protest. Stay alive.
GERMAN BEAT 3: ANTIDOTE FOR A NUMB GENERATON
After a while we all grow numb. Comfortably numb.
The motoric beat of Neu, Can, Kraftwerk, et. al. demonstrate the numbing effect of repetitive cognitive manipulation. If their protest against the plastic society that swallowed them in the machine has been lost to history, today with hindsight we recognize the scorn that was demonstrated. The world be damned for all i care. Let the la-la happy folks advertise their numbing book lists, let the la-la gog-a-magog punish the dying for hoping to live, let the la-la lancelot recreate in his own image every dark knight they can manipulate, let the la-la happy generation march their piper tune to bliss even if that be their end. The world be damned for all i care. This is what the german understood. This is their protest. This is numb music. This is thier protest againsts the numb generation. Don't get it? Watch again. Protest. Stay alive.
After while we all grow numb. Comfortably numb.
GERMAN BEAT 2
If you survived the 4mins+ of CAN rocking out 'SPOON' then the world is not as insane as it makes itself out to be. This is Part 2 of the autobeat that Klaus Dinger of Neu perfected in HalloGallo. This time Jaki Liebezeit (they had names in the 70's!) drive the machine with his metronome perfect timekeeping. The guy in red jerking all over? That's the original mutant from Japan -Damo Suzuki. Must've been the fine beer in Germany that makes him leave the land of sake to join the protest against the machine. The collage below with the studio version. Don't get it? watch again. Protest. Stay alive.
DIE GERMAN BEAT
It was the 70's. Rock is dead. So is god.
While the whole world embraced the promise of utopia and the la-la land of consumer bliss, some freaked out germans were taking their stand. Much like the hairy germans before them who stood their own path away from the consumer beliefs of god-happy amerika, These thick side-burns germans were turning upside down the formula of la-la pop groups mushrooming across the oceans. I believe the sauerkraut and superior beer have something to do with the repetitive beat and slithering cords. The message was straightforward: welcome to the machine. The revolt was not subtle: This is plastic musick. Their stand was immediate: We are human still. This is the autobeat of Klaus Dinger and the mad landscape of Michael Rother. Time was, protest music gave birth to life. Time now, who give a shit. Don't get it? Watch again.
That was 1970. (it could be 2008 for all i care) Rock is dead. So is god.
Protest.
Stay alive.
Neu did.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Tim Burton Is Crap!
Listen to Kevin Smith making fun of Tim Burton...
... then watch this Tim Burton interview and know why I hate that guy! Haha! :)
Fanboy Confessions
Now, I'm an unrepentant comic-book fanboy. I'm also a HUGE fan of movies based on comic-books. I must've seen the X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman movies dozens of times already. The best movie that I've seen in recent weeks is "Hellboy 2". Loved every frame of that movie. But there are some stuff that I will NEVER, EVER watch. And here are my reasons:
Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's "300" graphic novel was so successful that he got a chance to adapt Alan Moore's "Watchmen". I absolutely hate the "300" movie so much from the first glimpse of the trailer onwards that I swore NEVER to see the movie. Melvin even got free tickets for me but I absolutely will NEVER see this movie. I think one of the reasons had to do with the fact that I absolutely HATE Gerald Butler. He sucked in "Tomb Raider 2" and sucked even more in "Phantom of the Opera". In the "300" trailer, I saw him screaming "Tonight We Dine In Hell". That was it for me. Not interested. I did watch "Epic Movie" with my kids though and we loved that one! :)
That brings me to the upcoming "Watchmen" movie by Zack Snyder also. Now, I know the reputation of the original Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel. Even La Tey, a non-junkie, occasional-comic-reader had read "Watchmen" already. Couple of months back, some of my favourite writers (Ed Brubaker, Brian Vaughn, etc.) got together in a cafe somewhere to discuss this work (they even brought the "Absolute" edition of the book into the discussion). Me? I swore earlier on that I will NEVER read "Watchmen". It's just one of the things I do. I'm a superhero-junkie. "Watchmen" is kinda like the "wake-up call" that I refuse to heed. It's the book that first painted superheroes as fascistic fucks. I don't know. Lots of people liked that stuff and call it "sophisticated". Me? I like my fantasies and simply that - fantasies, fun, humour, etc. Hence, there is absolutely no reason for me to ever want to watch the "Watchmen" movie! (Not a biggie there since I know even Alan Moore himself swore never to watch the movie...)
Speaking of Alan Moore, he too swore off another adaptation of his work, the Wachowski Brother's adaptation of "V For Vendetta". Now, "V For Vendetta" is arguably the first non-spandex indie graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd that captured the attention of the alternative fans. This, of course, led to many other works (e.g. "From Hell", etc.). For the life of me, that was also when comics started getting pretentious. People started walking around telling other people that they're NOT comic-fans, that they read "graphic novels"! What the fuck is a "graphic novel"? I hate that term. I know I use it sometimes as well but I hate it. Comics are comics are comics! My colleagues make fun of my comics obsession at times but that's because they know nothing about them. I don't have to justify my reading to them! Or try to legitimize this stuff by adding an air of sophistication - calling them "graphic novels"! They are comics. And they're done by some of the best storytellers and creators that this world has ever known. I'm proud to be a fanboy and that's that! No, I did not read "V For Vendetta" and neither will I ever watch the movie adaptation of it.
Finally, the biggest thing making its rounds in your local cineplexes - "The Dark Knight". I hated this from the first glimpse of the teaser trailer/poster. Let me explain why. A lot of people think that Tim Burton made the best Batman movies in the late 80s/early 90s. I disagreed because his "Batman" (like all his other movies) was another exercise in ego-masturbation. He wasn't interested in the original material. He was only interested in displaying his flair for freakish-costumes and a neo-gothic setting. (FYI, I avoided "Big Fish", "Planet of the Apes" and "Sweeney Todd" like the plague as well!) The Batman movies that made me a lifelong fan of the caped-crusader were the universally-hated ones by Joel Schumacher! Mark Millar agrees with me on this. The Schumacher movies had a sense of "fun" to them that the Burton ones did not have. People slammed the movies for being "campy". But that's them. "Campy fun" is my cup of tea. "Campy fun" (from the Adam West series and movies) was what the Batman stories were all about to me. Colourful psychos and a hero in a Bat-suit running around with a kid in a green underwear, falling in love with a tree-hugging-femme fatale. That's MY Batman! I even liked George Clooney's head-bobbing Bruce Wayne! Chris Nolan and David Goyer brought us a new Batman for the new millennium with their "Batman Begins". I watched that and thought that it was a good movie but not really a "Batman" movie. It just felt wrong to me. Maybe because everyone was so gloomy all the time. Maybe because there wasn't any Danny Elfman score and in place was a terribly irritating and claustrophobia-inducing score. Maybe because the whole film had this tint of brown/grey/black throughout. I don't know. It's just not MY Batman anymore. With "The Dark Knight", things got worst! I wasn't a fan of Jack Nicholson's Joker but I didn't hate it. Having said that, I absolutely HATE Heath Ledger's Joker (even from the few scenes that I unfortunately caught in the trailer). If Chris Nolan wrote this, I can understand. He's not really a comic-book guy so he'd want to go for a dark-portrayal of this villain. [Note: I'm actually a Chris Nolan fan. "The Prestige" is one of my favourite films ever! I just don't think that he makes good comic-based movies is all.] But David Goyer? I cannot forgive him for this (even though I loved his "JSA"). Goyer is a comic-book guy who should know better! The Joker is not like that at all. The Joker is genuinely funny. Check out the old TV series. Check out Paul Dini's "Batman: The Animated Series". Apart from the Joker, this sequel brings back everything that I disliked in "Batman Begins". The grey/brown/black hues. The irritating music. The overall claustrophobia. I hate everything about this film. Local reviewers are calling it the best superhero movie ever made (even better than "Iron Man" and "Hellboy II", they said). Bullshit. Predictably, they again slammed Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" (1997). More bullshit. Superhero movies are things that I watch with my kids all the time. We laugh at the hysterics and the campy fun together. Weekend matinee show with milk and cookies. That kind of thing. The Chris Nolan movies? My kids don't even like them. As far as I'm concerned, kids are the real judges when it comes to comic-based movies. If they disliked them, then the film-makers failed.
Where is the "comic" in movies like "The Dark Knight"? Last I checked, they are still called "comic-books", not "nihilistic-tragic-books"!
Wrestlecrap: Ultimate Warrior Versus Phil Collins!
I hated Phil Collins in the 80s. (Truth is, I hate him as much today!) It was great seeing him get beaten up by the Ultimate Warrior in the video above! :)
Wrestlemania: Hulk Hogan Versus Andre The Giant
Watch this to get an idea how exciting wrestling used to be!
WWF Superstars From The 1980s
Long before The Rock, Batista, Triple-H, The Undertaker, Kane and company hit it big in the WWE, there was the original 80s generation of Classic WWF. Even the logo looked way cooler then. This entry is a tribute to all those colourful characters who entertained us with their endless soap operas, humour and suplexes.
We even have the original 80s announcer with us here - "Mean" Gene Okerlund to introduce the classic WWF Superstars. "Approaching the ring..."
Capt. Lou Albano
Andre the Giant
The Big Boss-Man
Bobby "The Brain" Heenan
Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake
Mr. Fuji
Hulk Hogan
The Honky-Tonk Man
Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka
Junkyard Dog
Randy "Macho Man" Savage
The Million-Dollar Man
Mr. Perfect
"Ravishing" Rick Rude
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper
Sgt. Slaughter
Iron Sheikh
Tito Santana
Ultimate Warrior
Nikolai Volkoff
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