Saturday May 03, 2008 
Saturday May 03, 2008 C took me to see IRON MAN Friday (very nice of her).
It's good to see the first effort from Marvel Studios is no dud. This was nothing like the fiasco of the third X-men and Spider-man films. The casting made sense; Millionaire alcoholic playboy actor as a billionaire alcoholic playboy industrialist. How could Robert Downey Jr. not pull that off? He indeed pulls it off quite spectacularly. Nor was the nature of what Tony Stark is; A rich, brilliant, righteous, drunk, Military-Industrial-Complex player with attention whore issues that can't keep his dick in his pants is not dumbed down to save the children. In this day and age, hopefully some children see this and see what's going on there.
The film failed a little bit with a predictable origin plot, but remained well written with believable dialog and character interaction. C knew little of IRON MAN and was widely entertained by not knowing what was going to happen next.
The CGI and sets were polished and life-like. The many areal shots of Tony Stark's concrete and swirling California home brought back many fond memories of reading IRON MAN and The Avengers as a kid.
Well done, I'm looking forward to Ed Norton's "Incredible Hulk".
Posted by dig4fire ( May 03 2008, 02:52:39 PM CDT ) Permalink
Friday July 13, 2007
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Despite being the longest and most expensive Toy and General Motors commercials ever produced, having Michael Bay at its helm and being based on a cartoon that hasn't held up well over time...it did not suck.
The wife and I skipped fireworks on the 4th of July and saw it that evening. We didn't expect much really, it is summer movie season after all. The story was pretty well paced, the CGI work was done well, there were lots and lots of real explosions and stunts (not common these days), the chick was hot, the cars were OK for GM's, the plot holes were forgivable. Some of the notable voices from the 80's came in to reprise their roles as new CGI transformers. Megatron wasn't a handgun, but oh fucking well. The inevitable ambiguous, sequel spawning ending is to be expected these days. If they can make a part II that was as fun as this one, go for it. |
Posted by dig4fire ( Jul 13 2007, 04:53:24 PM CDT ) Permalink
Tuesday June 12, 2007 What time is it Mr. President?
Mr. Bush was in Albania this week; greeted by the last remaining assembled group of people that would show adoration towards him outside of military folks who are given no choice. Even more ridiculously they're foreigners that are pleasantly greeting him. This is the super rare double win of low poll ratings photo opps. The only thing that could make it better would be a thunderstorm of babies and bunny rabbits raining down from heaven.
Right around the one minute mark in this video, someone in this adoring crowd lifts The President's wrist watch. You can see the the Secret Service scurry around trying to retrieve it.
Today though, the White House proclaims that the Prez merley pocketed his own watch.
Is there ANYTHING this White House won't lie about? Are they trying to imply that he didn't have any trust in the last remaining group of non US military people in the would that wouldn't kick the crap out of him if given the chance?
Well, they did steal his watch, maybe he was right not to trust them.
Posted by dig4fire ( Jun 12 2007, 06:47:00 PM CDT ) Permalink
Monday May 07, 2007 This turd, combined with last year's X-Men III really signify the end of the Comic Book movie golden age.
The last 10 or so years had finally brought decades of comic book material to life with modern special effects in what had traditionally been a very difficult genre to film realistically. The 60's, 70's 80's and much of the 90's were full of poorly adapted comic books on the big screen and TV. Some, like the 1960s Batman gained a pop culture/cult following over the years, but not for it's quality and attention to detail of the Dark Knight mythology.
We've been treated to some great film adaptations in recent memory, Spider Man, X-Men, A really good attempt at making Batman not suck anymore. The first 2 Spidey and X-men films were pretty entertaining, didn't change the mythology enough to harm the story and were believable on screen. Batman Begins finally got dark Batman right, even Tim Burton couldn't accomplish that.
Spider Man and X-Men have 40+ years of material to draw from, Batman 70+. There shouldn't ever be a bad film from any of these franchises (don't get me started on Fantastic Four or the Hulk). There's almost endless source material to draw from and many legendary story arcs from years past.
It's for that reason that it was so disappointing to see X-men III and realize; now they're entirely doing it for the money. Plot, attention to detail, characterization, mythology all thrown out the window to cram as many characters and over the top scenarios of doom as they can into one 2 hour film.
Spider Man 3 suffers from all the same problems as X-Men III in addition to spreading a single hero's focus very thin. Spidey always works best when he has one real protagonist instead of several poorly built up semi-villains. None of us were quite sure what happened to the guy who became Sandman, he fell in some sand and there was some electric, but it's not terribly clear. He is the new suspect wanted for killing Ben Parker in Spider Man 1, another plot twist that seemed unnecessary and contrite. The Suit, Venom, Symbiont just fell out of the sky and got into Parker's stuff. I wasn't expecting the Secret Wars explanation, but there was no explanation whatsoever. Harry is the new Green Goblin, ok....
That's 3 semi-villains. Sandman doesn't deserve to be here, Venom should have been a whole film on it's own and the Harry as the Goblin thing, who cares? Everyone got their repdemtion/forgiveness on in this one, oh so feel good. The most evil we got to see the suit be on Parker was Peter being a player with the ladies and kicking a little extra ass against the average NYC thug. By the time he pushed Mary Jane down in anger, we were all somewhat rooting that he'd kill her. Gwen Stacy???? Why is she here? They could have had her be the Golbin's hostage girl in Spider Man 1, and then killed her, leading to his own death soon after =)
I've written enough about this pile of doo. I'm not going to review it further.
Rumor has it this film cost $250 million to produce, don‘t give them your hard earned cash for this one. When Hollywood stops profiting off a formula, they eventually change to a new one.
Saturday April 21, 2007
Death to Best Buy
Heyzeus H Christmas on a Popsicle stick. Purchasing a new dishwasher, stove-oven and microwave should be a fairly simple task. Shouldn't it?
Saturday, 4/14: the Dishwasher pump fails, flooding the kitchen. At the time, i thought it was actually a good thing since the dishwasher that came with the house was old and increasingly less reliable as the years go by. I cheer its demise, grab the wife and go out appliance shopping.
This seemed like a perfect opportunity to get a new oven and microwave, as they were of the same shitty, ancient quality that the dishwasher was.
we settle on some stuff at Best Buy. $1800.00 later we're on way, looking forward to having our new appliances installed on Tuesday.
Tuesday, 4/16: they show up to the house with the appliances while I'm at work. C is home to deal with it though. Everything should be ok.
These douche bags refuse to install the appliances, argue with my wife, leave the boxes blocking the entire kitchen. C recently had pretty major surgery and cannot move even light objects right now. Aside from the fact that they argued with her and got her worked up and angry, they leave her trapped at one end of the house unable to navigate the kitchen. I have to leave work to come home and move the boxes. We go up to best buy, talk to the store manager. We're ASSURED this will be fixed Thursday.
Thursday, 4/19: They send one guy out to do the job of two. All he's able to do is install the dishwasher. The nice thing about this is, it's leaning backwards about an inch and entirely un-level. He tells C it HAS to be this way in order for it to drain. I don't expect her to know that the dishwasher pumps the water upwards and into the garbage disposal. It's not gravity powered. I spend 2 hours at best buy that evening trying to get this resolved. I'm once again assured it will be on Saturday.
Saturday, 4/21: No one shows up, no one calls to say they're going to show up to do this work. I finally give up around noon and call the sales guy again. He assures me he will get the install people out to the house pronto. Not five minutes later the installer calls me and says, you're just going to have to wait until Monday. JESUS H FUCKING CHRIST. I tell him fine, Monday you can come pick all this shit up, remove it from my house and BB can refund my money and reimburse us for our dining expenses over the course of the weekend since we have nothing to cook with. I hang up on him, call the sales guy again...Supposedly they'll be here at 2:30pm now. Not going to hold my breath...
Bob shows up...Bob, who declares: "I don't install over the range microwaves."
Well then, what the fuck do you do Bob?
I call the sales guy again...since it's his commission and he seems to be the only one with any vested concern or interest in this mess. We're getting a full refund for the install fees at this point...he suggests we put the ceramic top range into place ourselves. I ask him if he really thinks it's a good a idea to have these incompetent people installing a microwave over my brand new ceramic range? He agrees, it's a very bad idea and concedes that they're going to compensate us for our meals for the weekend...
The deal is now, they will be done and out of the house by noon Monday. Anyone want to take a bet on that?
Monday, 4/23: Finally...they got it right. We also got a $310.00 refund for various installation fees and having to eat out all weekend. The whole thing was very stupid, generally way more annoying than it needed to be and really makes you wonder how such asshats remain employed. Thanks to the sales guy for making this right. I still don't like Best Buy, but he did a good job to smooth it over.
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Posted by dig4fire ( Apr 21 2007, 02:12:21 PM CDT ) Permalink
Monday March 26, 2007 Oh My God! They Un-Killed Starbuck!!!
You Un-Bastards
Wednesday March 14, 2007 We found out March 5th C needed surgery to remove her thymus gland. Almost a year of throwing darts at what could be wrong with her, the medical speaking folks seem to think this will fix her ongoing and mysterious health problems. Deja vu all over again: I started a new contract on 3/5. My previous job was accepted on the day I originally admitted C to the E.R. for these problems.
Surgery went down without a hitch on March 8th. She spent a couple of painful days in ICU hooked up to a generous supply of morphine. We were all surprised to find out the benign growth on her thymus was as big as a medium sized orange. This discovery certainly explains a lot in hind site. She is up and moving around quite well for a girl who just had her chest broken open and things messed with around her heart and lungs...five days ago. Her spirits are great: she's had lots of visitors and love and for the first time ages her smile is real and symmetrical.
Hopefully, going forward, my wife's health is back to normal again. It's so wonderful to be able to hold her hand without the constant shake her body has produced the past year. I know, more than anything, she'll be glad to have regained her independence. I'll return to work on the 19th, essentially starting all over at a new job for the second time in 2 weeks, but with a new and much more positive outlook for a change.
I'm starting to look forward to the rest of 2007. Some of the major failings and struggles that caused 2006 to be so difficult now seem to be turning around. It would be naive at this point to think of it as a trend, but cautious optimism reigns right now =)
Posted by dig4fire ( Mar 14 2007, 02:36:46 AM CDT ) Permalink
Tuesday February 13, 2007
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Seriously! global warming? what the fck? Perhaps it's time to start calling this what it is: Pissed off Planet . |
Saturday February 03, 2007 Rationality surrenders to a "post 9/11 world"
This week the city of Boston was shutdown over a cartoon advertising campaign. Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a silly cartoon about a milkshake, fries and a meatball, airs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The terrorists responsible for this overreaction were placing battery powered advertising signs all over the city, they'd been doing it for three weeks in major cities across the country. Why the rest of the country didn't freak out like children that just saw shoot-me-up-Elmo gunned down in a Cookie Monster drive by shooting, we can only speculate. Perhaps they hate America?
Now the city of Boston wants to be reimbursed for the overreaction. They want Turner Broadcasting to pay them $2,000,000.00 to compensate for them getting their panties all in a bunch. I'm no expert on how city government pays it's responders (police, fireman, swat teams, etc), but I'm pretty sure these guys would have been paid whether they were sitting on their asses doing nothing or responding to a gigantic overreaction to a cartoon show advertising campaign. These are not pay-for-performance based jobs, unless of course it relates to how many speeding tickets a cop can dish out in a 30 day period.
Maybe the city of Boston could have better represented itself by trying to be positive, rather than bitching and moaning about the whole thing, arresting the guys involved on trumped up charges and demanding compensation? Certainly some public relations monkey could cut a statement to the effect that the city is very happy the incident was not a true terror event, but look how well the response was carried out. System works, everyone wins? No that would be too easy. It has to be someone else's fault, it always has to be.
How the hell did we get here? It would seem any one of us, citizen or not, could just leave random shit around on the streets of the cities we live in; sit back, pour yourself a preferred beverage and watch the chaos ensue live on TV. This could totally replace scavenger hunting and paint ball as weekend warrior type activities. Hell, it's so easy you could do it Monday through Friday and not miss work (if you don't get arrested for someone else's overreaction of course).
I'm starting to get the impression that anyone that uses the term "in a post 9/11 world" in reference to their own overreaction to something pretty much validates that the terrorists already won.
Posted by dig4fire ( Feb 03 2007, 09:32:31 AM CST ) Permalink
