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MEET THE CLUB KID OF THE SPIDER WORLD: The Cuddly Cute Peacock Spider

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Look, I get how some people can lose their shit when gazing into the soulless eyes of an arachnid, but there's one spider out in the world that doesn't necessarily want to inject your face with poison, it just wants to dance, dance, dance.

And that eight-legged creature is the Australian Peacock Spider.


No stranger to throwing on a few pairs of fur pants, grabbing some glow sticks and heading out to the local log to woo a partner or two with some sweet-ass dance moves, this peppy insect is willing to change the heart of every spider-hater out there.

So, sit back, let the video play for 1:15 (it's boring up to that moment) and become one with Spidey Dance Pants (his club name).

You'll be glad that you did.


Source: io9



DVD/Blu-Ray News: KEY & PEELE: SEASON ONE Arrives September 25th

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Key & Peele: Season One
The Complete First Season of the Hit Sketch Series Arrives September 25th on Blu-ray & DVD

Want to meet Luther, President Obama’s anger translator? Or hang by the punch bowl with bar mitzvah sensations Dr. Dreidel and Gefilte Fresh? Whether it’s satirizing the president, spoofing Nazis, or ordering up some soul food, Key & Peele aren’t afraid to take on taboo subjects for the sake of comedy. Not that you need another reason, but if you don’t buy this Blu-ray or DVD, you’re racist.

Bonus features include:
  •  More from Luther, Obama’s Anger Translator
  • Outtakes
  • Poolside Interview
  • Live at South Beach Comedy Festival
  • Audio Commentaries


Contest! Win STRIPPERS Vs, WEREWOLVES Blu-Rays!

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The Silvadollaz strip club usually rocks at night, but tonight, a private dance gets a customer hot and bothered…then sprouting fangs and claws!  Exotic dancer Justice defends herself with a silver fountain pen to the brute’s eye – and rekindles a blood feud that pits STRIPPERS VS WEREWOLVES.
Club owner Janet believes murdering customers is bad for business, and orders the bouncer to dispose of the body. When the corpse turns up, pack leader Jack swears revenge by the moon and sets his bloodthirsty boys on the scent.  Unfortunately, his second-in-command, Scott, is engaged to sweet Justice, which throws a serious wrench into the wedding plans. Add to the chaos a sexy interlude between the two, ending in a love bite which may end up turning her into a werewolf, as well.  Strippers toting shotguns. Werewolves with low self-esteem. Bright lights, skimpy outfits, buckets of blood, and Robert Englund as a patriarch hound with a taste for the ladies. STRIPPERS VS WEREWOLVES is a sexy, raunchy, hairy good time.
And we're giving away three copies on Blu-ray!

To enter, please send an email with the subject header "STRIPPERS VS. WEREWOLVES" to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following question:

Strippers Vs. Werewolves features actor Robert Englund who is best known as this movie monster?

Please include your name and address (U.S. Residents only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on October 7th, 2012.


TOAST THE UPCOMING SEASON OF 'ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT' With These Etched Pint Glasses

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Nothing has me more pumped up about TV then knowing that Arrested Development has been allowed to deliver snark and dysfunction to a viewing audience once again.

(sigh)

And what better way to raise a toast to the Television Gods for allowing this to happen than by filling up a pint glass full of beautiful booze decorated with an etched version of everyone's favorite Analrapist.

Thanks to the folks from etsy store Geek Glassware, you can get yourself a couple of sets of unlicensed drinkware for $32.00 each and celebrate the wonders of Steve Holt, Chicken Dancing and, of course, the monster that is Buster.


Bottoms Up!

Source: I Watch Stuff


BOSTON CineGeeks, Win Passes To See DREDD 3D!

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The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One – a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets.  The only force of order lies with the urban cops called “Judges” who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner.  Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge – a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of “Slo-Mo” experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed.

During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation.  A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture – a 200 story vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) and her ruthless clan.  When they capture one of the clan’s inner circle, Ma-Ma overtakes the compound’s control center and wages a dirty, vicious war against the Judges that proves she will stop at nothing to protect her empire.  With the body count climbing and no way out, Dredd and Anderson must confront the odds and engage in the relentless battle for their survival.

The endlessly inventive mind of screenwriter Alex Garland and director Pete Travis bring DREDD to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film.  Filmed in 3D with stunning slow motion photography sequences, the film returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's revered comic strip.  Lionsgate and Reliance Entertainment present in association with IM Global a DNA Films production.
And we're giving away five pairs of passes to see DREDD 3D at a local National Amusements cinema.


DREDD 3D opens September 21st and passes are good from September 24th through the end of it's engagement.

To enter, please send an email with the subject header "DREDD" to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following question:



The character of Judge Dredd first appeared in this British science fiction anthology where it remains it's longest running strip?

Please include your name and address (U.S. Residents only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on September 21st, 2012.


MAKE A FASHION STATEMENT In A Feather Bow-Tie

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Bow-ties are becoming the "It" accessory this season and because I care about your hipness, I just want to let you know HOW ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT it is that you start loading up on neckware that was once reserved for jaunty weathermen and Southern gentlemen.

But don't get suckered in with fancy patterns or fabric decorated with Daleks (everyone is going to be wearing one of those, trust me) instead, swaddle your Adam's apple in the luxurious tail feathers of pheasants and turkeys from Brackish Bow-ties.

And yes, I did say feathers.


Take the above bow-tie for instance.

This one is called "Jive Turkey" which, I am assuming, is inspired by the movie Airplane and the scene where Mrs. Cleaver speaks 70s Ebonics to a fellow air traveler. Now, wouldn't you want to have a tie that speaks to a generation of people who once enjoyed the slapstick humor of an Abrahams/Zucker film instead of being the asshole wearing a bow-tie made from the procured fabric of Star Wars bedsheets circa 2000?

I know I would.

So for the love of weird fashion, buy a tie that not only stands out from the crowd, it will probably upset your family at Thanksgiving.

And that's a win/win situation right there folks.

Source: Uncrate


Smallville: Random, Awesome and WTF?! - S7E19: Quest

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The mysteries of Veritas and the Traveler converge in Canada of all places as Lex comes under attack by someone intent on keeping things secret and Clark uncovers more about the prophecies.

What’s that all aboot, eh?


The Random:
1. Is it common practice to leave a patient in a hospital bed with like 100 stitches in his chest just lying there by himself with absolutely no dressings on the wounds?  I’m pretty sure it’s not.

2. All right, Jimmy, here’s a little thing about women.  You know women, right?  The hot fairer sex that is inexplicably smitten with you?  Well, when they’re all over you and smoking hotter than a summer in India, stop talking about work and pay attention.  Seriously, dude.

3. Wow, that is one impossibly ornate grandfather clock, now isn’t it, and you have to wonder how many people, including other priests and nuns, ever came into the church and wondered, “OK, I get the stained glass windows of Christ, and there’s Mary, but what the hell is up with all these alien hieroglyphics?  Did I miss a book in the Bible?”

This is totally why I stopped going to church…

The Awesome:
1. It’s such a movie cliché from the Indiana Jones flicks to The DaVinci Code, but I do so love it when there’s a secret out there that’s just so important everyone needs to go insane killing anyone in their path for the truth.

2. Guess who’s not dead after all?  Why, it’s Edward Teague and he’s more than just a little batty as he chastises Clark for not being the savior Veritas believed he would be because he wouldn’t kill Lex despite knowing how evil he is.  It really does raise a lot of moral questions, not to mention philosophical and religious ones as well.

3. Lex may be the bad guy here, but at least you can buy most of his motivation, having been pushed to the side by his father while Lionel obsessed over the Traveler all those years.  When villains are more than moustache twirling morons, the sure do get a hell of a lot more interesting.  And the fact that this whole convoluted plot is actually starting to coalesce and come full circle with the Luthor Mansion being instrumental in the saga is pointing towards a killer season finale next time out.

And just wait until you see his “discovery” scene.
The finale’s gonna be a doozy now that Lex has the key.

The WTF?!:
1. It sure is a good thing that Lex ordered a security detail to follow an old man considering security in his place is just as tight as ever as an assailant manages to sneak in, stab him, and then carve symbols into his chest.

2. All right, so why don’t these ultra secret cabals ever just keep their crap secret instead of leaving elaborate pictograms and riddles all over the world that someone will inevitably be able to figure out?  It’s like their just tempting the fates time and time again.  Give it an oral tradition at most, stop writing everything down and trying to be cute with international scavenger hunts and maybe you wouldn’t have these problems.

3. So Jimmy suddenly cracked the mystery of the Kawachi Caves after how many hours of study and work Swan, Clark, Chloe, Lex, Lionel, and 900 Native Americans did over the years?  He’s like a walking deus ex machina, this kid.

“Hey, boss, security is on the j…oh.  Damn.
My bad, man.  This one’s on me.  I get a band-aid.”


FILE THIS UNDER "THINGS THAT OUGHT NOT TO HAVE BEEN MERGED INTO ONE": Introducing the Breville Radio Toaster

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Remember back in the day when some brainiac created the shower radio? Oh friends, let me tell you, that was truly a day of astonishment.

Not only could I deep clean all my nooks and crannies, I could listen to my favorite morning radio show and laugh at all their shenanigans mid soaping. It was truly glorious.

Now fast forward something like twenty-five years and the offspring of that radio shower inventor creates a bastard love-child hybrid: The Breville AM/FM radio toaster.

A couple of questions:

1. Do people still listen to AM/FM radio?

And

2. Would they do it while burning toast?

All I can say is Wow! With the endless possible combinations of today's available technology someone said, "Let's just put a radio in a toaster and sell it to those stupid bastards".

It takes real balls to give the world something so obviously wrong and I salute you.

Source: Red Ferret



A Boom Tube Back Into DC Comics

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Dear DC Comics: It's been fun, this whole New 52 thing.

We're now a year in, and I've got some things to say.

Remember when you said it wasn't a reboot, and then it turned out to be a reboot for pretty much everyone but Batman and Green Lantern?

Yeah, that was pretty sweet.

But overall, it's worked. Out all the many, many things you've done in my time as a fan, you got me back.

I've been a DC fan for about 20 years now.

So I came of age in the '90s. Yes, the bubble era! That hubristic, speculator-driven, everything's-a-collectible era. I owned the Robin III miniseries with the motion-slide covers, right alongside everyone else.



I saw Batman get his back broken. Superman die and be reborn. Green Lantern turn evil, die, and be reborn. Wonder Woman get rebooted another five times, including dying and – yes! – being reborn. And lame-o villains pumped up (Underworld Unleashed, anyone?), useless “reimaginings” (Tangent), glow-in-the-dark covers, and Jim Balent drawing the ultra-athletic and lithe Catwoman with ginormous juggs. Batman even merged with Wolverine.

But I also saw you present the future of comics, picking up where Watchmen left off and kicking comics into novelistic territory and cinematic splash.

Neil Gaiman's mythic Sandman operating alongside Sandman Mystery Theatre. James Robinson's Starman merged new ideas with old grudges to paint a vivid portrait of a man discovering his inside hero amid a classic father-and-son tale.

Warren Ellis sneered at our burgeoning digital omnimedia world and corporate-political corruption in Transmetropolitan. Grant Morrison restored the Justice League. Mark Waid and Alex Ross' will was done in Kingdom Come, forever making me like The Spectre. And Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale used The Long Halloween and Dark Victory to fill in the spaces Frank Miller hadn't hit in his modern Batman.

And then there's Garth Ennis. Hitman took the lamest of the DC crossovers – Bloodlines, featuring parasitic aliens – and gave us a Tarantino-tinged tale that was by turns ghastly, funny and sad. And Preacher added apocalyptic hilarity to the self-serious Vertigo world.

But let's get back to those superheroes.


You had the tough duty of reinvigorating your characters after years and years of constant crossovers in the 2000s that left readers like me out in the cold with burdensome continuity. You had the challenge of making your comics cool in a time when superheroes are all we talk about in pop culture.

And most importantly, you had to take cool points away from Marvel. Nearly impossible in a world with 15 comic book movies a year, and nearly all the good ones are Marvel. Iron Man now is cooler than Green Lantern, because his movies were better.

So Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee cowboyed up and said let's rebuild this our way.


And so far, it's worked. Sales are up, by a lot. And you got me buying your stuff more than I have in more than a decade. Spending more than this 30-something probably should. But I had to see how it would turn out.

You struck gold with deep fans who slide into being casual readers. Folks like me.

A year in, I'm paring down what I'm reading, but I like a lot of what I have. And I'll tell you why.

This version of Wonder Woman works. Not the one that gallivants around Justice League and makes out with Superman. Johns' characterization of Diana doesn't work for me the way she does in her own title, written by Brian Azaarello. I also prefer how she's drawn by Cliff Chiang: beautiful, athletic, strong, solid, graceful and tough as all hell. She looks like a volleyball player or pole vaulter, as opposed to Jim Lee's ultra-voluptuous fashion model.



Your better books are horror comics. I love Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, Animal Man and Batwoman. And mostly because they surprised me by being straight-up horror or having tons of horror elements. (Justice League Dark and I, Vampire do, too, but there's more magic in those.)

I never thought I'd say Swamp Thing and Animal Man are my favorite comic books, and that I look forward to them more than those 47-odd Batman titles. These characters feel more grounded in the real world, even though they are dealing with zombie-animals and plant-gods.


But I love how sick these two books are. Each issue has something hideous, nauseating and frightening. Undead men with backwards-turned heads, rotted cattle and a cockroach queen. Swamp Thing growing armor of bark and leafy wings in a title that depicts the plant world as a green-painted abattoir of survival.

It's a testament to the art, which never would fly with a normal superhero book. Buddy Baker's family-driven desperation sweats off the page in Animal Man. In Swamp Thing, Alec Holland's regret and despair do the same.


Your attempts at diversity are solid. Now keep going. You already built a foundation in the 2000s with Blue Beetle, Vixen, Firestorm, Renee Montoya/The Question, and others. But overall, DC, your main hero lineups are almost exclusively heterosexual white men.

It was good to see Static Shock and Mister Terrific, along with stuff such as Voodoo and Blackhawks. Too bad they weren't what I and other readers were looking for.

I was so ready to support comics with black male main characters, but I didn't like them too much. The books just felt too generic. I sincerely wanted Static to become DC's version of Spider-Man as a cool teenage hero. And I like a good science-hero in the vein of 1960s Flash. But this wasn't it. Felt like a retread.

Mister Terrific, I thought, was going to be a little more out there, but it appeared to cram half-baked, dated racial issues into the storylines, and I didn't want to bother.

I think it's a by-product of how much mainstream superhero comics – DC especially – don't tackle race.

DC probably is still years away from a racially salient yet irreverent book such as Reginald Hudlin's run on Black Panther.

I don't like that you gave Amanda Waller the Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition treatment. But the return of Etta Candy as a black woman is pretty cool even if it amounts to 3-4 lines in a few Justice League issues.

Now I want some more Milestone characters in this DCU. A little Hardware? And would Icon and Rocket work in Earth-2, at least?

Batwing, on the other hand, has played its protagonist's ethnic background as a strength, with David Zavimbe's personal history, as a child soldier, tied to sociopolitical issues in Central Africa. It's not the amazing Vertigo version of Unknown Soldier that jumped deep into decades of Ugandan conflict, but it didn't have to be. Now please, please, armor Batwing's head?


Crazy-sexy-cool works in the DCU. You could say the coolest character in the New 52 DCU is Aquaman. After all the reboots to make him serious, this one works. Geoff Johns did what the other reboots didn't: He tackled the Aquaman jokes head-on. Then he gave Arthur a mysterious past, made him angry, haunted and conflicted, had him fight monsters and kill stuff.


How can you not respect this dude? He's super-strong, beats the daylights out of his enemies, had his own superteam, and he can summon great white sharks with his mind. Finally! Someone gets it!

And having Ivan Reis on your book is money. Dude draws the sexiest superheroes, female and male, in the business. Gorgeous pages full of figures that leap off the page.

My other top winner in the crazy-sexy-cool category is Batwoman. It's not really New 52, but her long-awaited continuous series has all the Gothic weirdness of early Detective Comics, with the Religion of Crime. Kate Kane is so pale, so messed up. And she's dating the cop tasked with hunting her down? Even better.

All-Star Western is kicking butt as well. Though the Western part of the book hasn't really shown up, we're seeing Jonah Hex put to continued great use by Jimmy Palmiotti. Transporting the Guy Ritchie-Sherlock Holmes formula of adrenaline-fueled steampunk pizzazz to comics makes for top-notch reading.

Batman has history. Well, Batman already has tons of history. But with the New 52, now Gotham City has history. The Court of Owls storyline allowed for DC to create a new history for Gotham. Combined with All-Star Western's 1880s Gotham, we see that Batman is part of a long line of special weirdness as first set forth in Grant Morrison's Return of Bruce Wayne storyline.


And anything that has Batman fighting an army of ninjas is great. But Batman fighting an army of undead, self-regenerating ninjas? Make this storyline the post-Dark Knight Trilogy reboot, please.

So, DC Comics, what next? You've done well so far. Most of these books I can't put down. At least, not yet. But I'm interested to see where all this is going, and how long you can sustain it.

There's so much wacky stuff in the DC continuity, and I want a lot of it back some day. Comics need that bit of hokey stuff, because they're supposed to be fun, right?

At the very least, bring back Power Girl's old costume? It can't be any worse than Catwoman and Starfire slutting it up, right?!? Throw this fanboy a bone!

I don't need any other female character in the DCU to show any skin while fighting. Just PG. She's a 6-foot-tall blonde, has Superman's powers, is all shredded up and has giant boobs. Who wouldn't show off, just to freak people out? I know I would. Besides, it's not the boob window that's the problem, it's how you draw it.


Oh well. A fanboy can dream, right?


BEFORE LEGOS BECAME COOL, All They Had Going For Them Was Zack, Zack, the Lego Maniac

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Once a pon a time Legos were not the art medium of choice, nor did they have cool Harry Potter or Star Wars sets available to build and enjoy like sculptures.

Instead the colorful bricks were kept on the floor where they would get trampled on by bare feet and/or shoved into various toddler's orifices.

In fact, by the mid-to-late eighties Legos were hated by all children (I might be making that up) but then came Zack-Zack the Lego Maniac and Legos kinda got popular for like five minutes before being relegated back into a shoebox and forgotten.

So perhaps we should honor Zack for giving it the old college try but failing to ignite the passion-stick for Legos that is currently going on today thanks to whatever marketing genius they hired back in 2007 or so.

Here's to you Zack, may your commercial bring back fond memories for those who changed  the channel whenever you came on.


Reviews of Films I Have Never Seen: RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION – Alice Tackles ‘Green Zombie’ Menace

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After battling the deadly Umbrella Corporation in four films, Milla Jovovich returns as competent killing machine Alice, teeing it up for another round against flesh-eating undead and malevolent corporate executives.

But the dastardly Umbrella Corporation has wised up and is finally employing muscle in ways guaranteed to crush Alice and her allies.

No more cool helicopters or ex-military assassins.

This time Umbrella has hired a lobbyist.

In his third film based on a popular video game, director/writer/producer/key grip Paul W.S. Anderson depicts creepy Umbrella executives meeting with Bayard Leek (James Cromwell) a representative of Maple Lamprey, LLC a top Washington D.C. energy lobbying firm.

Following Leek’s advice, Umbrella throws a party for a prominent senator running for reelection.

The senator’s campaign later files reports stating they received 71 donations totaling $39,400 from Umbrella Corporation executives and their wives.


Not long afterwards, under the senator’s urging, the Department of Energy awards the Umbrella Corporation a $459,000,000 grant to develop more environmentally conscious citizens.

Umbrella uses the loan to pay executive bonuses and then funnels the remaining three million dollars into research that mutates the dreaded T-virus

Umbrella agents then transport this new virus around the country and taint the water supplies of New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

The result is the creation of ‘green zombies.’

This new breed of undead demonstrates a crude form of environmental awareness, picking up soda cans and Styrofoam containers as they shamble about in search of living flesh to eat.

Alice and her pals quickly discover these new zombies cannot be dispatched with semi-auto shots to the head. They are protected by the Department of Energy. No one may harm them without a waiver from a federal judge. 

Hanging up her guns, Alice grabs a briefcase, partnering with a former 60s radical (Howard Hessman), who now works as a public interest attorney. Together they struggle to win in court the right to pot zombies, foil the Umbrella Corporation, and pay back the oily Bayard Leek.

Sadly, the courtroom sequences fell flat, though Hessman shone brightly in a scene where he attempts to cross-examine a green zombie without getting bitten.

Original music by tomandandy, a Siamese twin who refused to let two heads on a single body stand in the way of a composing career.

Three stars for letting Milla Jovovich wear her slinky outfits in court.


HOW TO BE ONE Cool Cat

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Sometimes being a human is hard work. You gotta get a job, pay bills, deal with horrible people on a daily basis, get yelled at by your significant other for leaving the carton on milk out all night and live your life in a constant state of irritability.

But maybe we should take a lesson on the art of being chill from the cat below (which, incidentally, has taken the concept of chill and blown it wide open into the realm of uber cool) and simply spend some time enjoying the beauty of a setting sun, a pick-up game of basket ball, and some jazzy tunes.

I mean, if a cat can do, why can't we?


Source: Obvious Winner


Symbolism and Biology of Witches in Puella Magi Madoka Magica

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In a prior article, I mentioned how spoiler-ridden any discussion of that show’s ‘monsters’ would be. 

This continues that trend.  Though each Witch is unique, they all share some key features which allows a tenuous classification together to justify it being done as one article rather than a series of articles on each individual Witch. 

And there will be spoilers.  Oh so many spoilers.

As mentioned in the previous article, the Witches of Madoka were once themselves Magical Girls. 


The words simply flow into each other, as Kyubey says.  It’s more obvious in Japanese, where Magical Girl is “Mahou Shojo” (魔法少女) and Witch is simply “Maho” (魔女).  A slight change in Kanji, to produce a different meaning. 

Japan loves its puns. 


Symbolism
The Witches of this series embody despair and ‘curses’ against the world.  Used up and thrown aside by the Incubataors, they resign themselves to futile self-indulgence.  Each one tailored to the tiniest happiness they still had in their prior lives, but each one works towards that end in futility.  Feasting on the despair and death of humans to fuel their selfish, futile quests.

As an example, the infamous witch Charlotte.  Officially, she is known as the Dessert Witch, though I see her more as an embodiment of Gluttony.  Biting off the head of the mentor character of the series sorta earns you that epithet.

“Did I mention spoilers would be in this article?”

Aside from her standard witch abilities, which I’ll describe below, she has the power to generate any desert she likes.   Except for cheese, which she loves.  Her minions go out and search for it, but they are extremely incompetent.  There she is, able to create a paradise for herself, but with the best part of it out of her reach. 

Another example would be Elly, the Box Witch.  This appears to represent a person who became a recluse (the Japanese term Hikikomori (ひきこもり) would apply), but her reclusive nature and minions who exist to move things around her personal space is hampered by the fact that the space generates screens which display both her thoughts and the thoughts of those who enter, forcing her to acknowledge them. 





A final example to cement the point, Izabel, the Artist Witch.  She tries continually to create art in the form of her familiars, but they all take form of well-known work by other artists.  She is an artist robbed of her originality.  

Just fills you with joy, doesn’t it?


Biology

Witches form from magical girls who give into despair.  In truth they are not bodies, but souls with enough cohesion to act as a solid—as least, using Ghostbusters physics (which we sorta have to default to again—such a great movie).   Individually, they are unique, but they do have a method of reproduction.  What they do is analogous to the budding process plants and certain animals like corals undergo as they age. 

One of the things a Witch does is create familiars – creatures designed only to serve it as best they can (which isn’t very well). 

They are simple, stupid and prone to getting lost.  This is where they bud.  Left to their own devices, they will still feed in a similar manner to a full witch.  After ‘consuming’ half a dozen humans or so, they have enough energy to become full-fledged witches on their own, becoming an exact copy of the witch they spawned from.  This ensures that there is a steady supply of witches for the Magical Girls to hunt. 

A full blown witch will leave behind a “Grief Seed”, effectively their semi-solid core.  This can absorb the despair and darkness generated by a magical girl’s soul (which is crystalized into a “Soul Gem”).  Once full, the Incubator can take it back to their masters.   For them, it’s an efficient way of gathering energy.

The feeding habits of a witch are also worth talking about.  As souls, witches don’t eat normally.  Instead, they feed on the souls of others, particularly, those in despair.  Their hunting method relies n them hiding, by and large.  Though they are normally invisible to humans, there are those with magic (especially magical girls) who can see them.  Magical girls, in fact, can use their soul gem to home in on them to varying degrees.  So they hide in places known as “Witch Space,” which they control.  Usually making it a labyrinth with their familiars guarding it as a last ditch defense before they must act. 

Given the intelligence off their minions, they get lost more than the unlucky human who wanders in.


Witch Space works a lot an alternate dimension, though it does have some relation to real world space and covers the same area, just not on the same dimensional coordinates. 

The reach out of these places and leave a mark on a targeted humans and leave a mark on them called a “Witch’s Kiss”.  This wears on the consciousness of the person, controlling their actions and leading them to despair and suicide.  Once the human dies, then the witch can feed freely on the soul released. 

Isn’t that just lovely?


Contest! Win THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW: CAROL'S FAVORITES DVD!

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The Carol Burnett Show debuted on CBS in 1967 and ran for 11 years, receiving 25 Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes, making it one of the most honored shows in television history, and Time Magazine named The Carol Burnett Show one of the “100 Best Television Shows of all Time”.

And to commemorate one of televisions’ all-time-great comedy shows, we're giving away three copies of The Carol Burnett Show: Carol's Favorites, a 6-DVD set boasting 17 complete, unedited episodes featuring the most popular and hilarious sketches and characters from the long-running series. Included: Starlet O’Hara in “Went with the Wind”, The Family, Tudball & Wiggins, The Oldest Man and additional movie parodies. Also featured in this jam-packed set are guest appearances by Carl Reiner, Steve Martin, Betty White, George Carlin, Shirley MacLaine, The Jackson 5, and many more.


To enter, please send an email with the subject header "CAROL BURNETT SHOW" to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following question:


In addition to Carol herself, who is the only other cast member to appear on the program throughout its entire run?

Please include your name and address (U.S. Residents only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on October 7th, 2012.


HAPPY HOLIDAY WEEKEND TO My Fellow Jews, May Your Family Only Annoy You Slightly

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L' chaim!


This weekend starts the beginning to the Jewish high holy days (hello Rosh Hashanah) and if you Gentiles are confused about what that all entails, let me explain it to you this way:

Jewish New Year's begins this Sunday which basically involves a bunch of Jews eating food, yelling at one another and occasionally blowing into a horn that your grandmother has for some reason called the shofar (the horn has a religious significance but usually it just sits on an end table until someone uses it to play When the Saints Go Marching In while drunk).

This lasts until Tuesday and then the next big holiday is upon us: Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement -Sept 25th-26th (or, as I like to call it, the Get Out of Work Free holiday).

This day is marked by fasting then, irritable with hunger, you hang out with your family, screaming at one another and/or lying on the floor in the fetal position from the hunger pains, staring at the clock until sundown when you have to fight your blood kin to the death for a stale bagel.

This is followed by a bunch of other little holidays where, if you play your cards right and are employed by non-Jews, you can call out for, leading us to 8 days of presents.

So there you have it. Several months of non-stop eating, starving and gifts.

I know that it can get a bit confusing to understand why this time of year is a favorite for Jews (days off), so perhaps I can illustrate it better with a video.

It has a slow beginning (Rosh Hashanah) but then starts picking up (Yom Kippur) and finally ends with a huge tribute to awesome (Hanukkah).


Shana Tova everyone.

(video from Coilhouse)



ATTENTION! ZOMBIE NEWS UPDATE! Naked (and Bloody) Pennsylvania Man Gnaws On Woman's Head Before Getting Stun Gunned and Punching Out An Emergency Worker

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A Scranton man went bat-shit insane last Friday after spending the evening in a zombie-induced rage.

Richard Cimino Jr. began his night by stripping off all his clothes and breaking into a house only to be confronted by the homeowners. After arguing with Cimino about the merits of such a thing HE JUMPED OUT THEIR SECOND FLOOR WINDOW cutting himself to shreds.

Then the lunatic, bloody and naked, saw two women walking down the street and proceeded to jump them and GNAW ON ONE OF THEIR HEADS.

After escaping from the Zombie (by what I am assuming was by the use of a crowbar and/or bat with nails in it), the women were able to call the police and alert them to the possible outbreak.

The police located Cimino lying in the street seemingly dead (first mistake) when Zombie-boy lunged after a police office only to be stun gunned by him. Cimino, not fazed by the stunning, then PUNCHED AN EMERGENCY WORKER before being loaded into the ambulance a transported to the local hospital.

The police aren't saying whether or not Cimino was on drugs.

Hahahahahahaha!

Whatever, I'm going to be in my basement until the end of 2012.

Source: The Times-tribune


DVD News: MST3K: XXV To Feature Four Previously Unreleased Episodes!

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Available December 4, 2012 from Shout! Factory

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: XXV

Four DVD Box Set Features Previously Unreleased Episodes
Robot Holocaust, Kitten with a Whip, Operation Kid Brother and Revenge of the Creature


Join the crew of the Satellite of Love as they spread holiday cheer with the newest release in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 line: Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXV. Available on DVD December 4th from Shout! Factory, this 4-DVD set is a must-have for fans of cult television shows and B-movies alike and features four episodes previously unreleased on DVD: Robot Holocaust, Operation Kid Brother, Kitten With A Whip and Revenge Of The Creature. Also included are all new bonus features, including introductions by Mike Nelson and Joel Hodgson, Life After MST3K: J. Elvis Weinstein, Jack Arnold at Universal, Life After MST3K: Bill Corbett and four exclusive Mini-Posters by artist Steve Vance.

MST-ies who order this collection from ShoutFactory.com will receive bonus good-tidings in the form of a DVD featuring all nine installments of the MST-riffed, season one serial Radar Men From The Moon, presented together for the first time, including the previously unreleased chapter “Hills Of Death.” Also includes a new introduction by season one’s Tom Servo, J. Elvis Weinstein. Fans can pre-order their copy by visiting https://www.shoutfactory.com/?q=node/216213.

Since the dawn of recorded history, sacred texts have inspired intellectuals to enlighten the rest of us through their commentaries. To a certain, special kind of person – and if you’re buying this 25th collection of MST3K, pal, you’re one of them – cheesy movies are sacred texts. And who better to help us navigate the occult meanings of B-movies’ holiest scriptures than space captives Joel, Mike and their robot companions Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot? Their running commentaries allow us to laugh at inscrutable plots, painful performances and felonious filmmaking.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: XXV brings us Robot Holocaust, the tale of the young drifter, Neo, who leads a ragtag band of rebels against a robot army and its evil overlord, the Dark One; Kitten With A Whip, wherein Ann-Margret embodies youth gone bad in this story of a juvenile delinquent whose violent escape from reform school leads her to the house of a senatorial candidate; Operation Kid Brother, a knock-off spy film also known by another title, features Neil Connery (brother of Sean) as a plastic surgeon with hypnotic powers and a talent for lip reading who is recruited by a secret organization to take on a crime syndicate bent on destroying all steel-based power in the world; and Revenge Of The Creature, the less than classic sequel to Universal’s classic monster movie The Creature From The Black Lagoon has the luckless monster in captivity at a South Florida aquarium. He falls for a beautiful scientist and, clearly aware that his looks pose a challenge, foregoes the usual courtship rituals and kidnaps her.

Get ready for the funniest study session you’ll ever have as these four movies, unearthed from the ancient caves of Hollywood, are interpreted by the long-suffering scholars aboard the Satellite of Love.

Shout! Factory, LLC is a diversified multi-platform entertainment company devoted to producing, uncovering, preserving and revitalizing the very best of pop culture. Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos have spent their entire careers sharing their music, television and film favorites with discerning consumers the world over. Shout! Factory’s DVD and Blu-Ray™ offerings serve up feature films, classic and contemporary TV series, animation, live music and comedy specials in lavish packages crammed with extras. Shout’s audio division boasts GRAMMY®-nominated box sets, new releases from storied artists, lovingly assembled album reissues and indispensable “best of” compilations. In addition, Shout! Factory maintains a vast digital distribution network which delivers video and audio content to all the leading digital service providers in North America. Shout! Factory also owns and operates Timeless Media Group, Biograph Records, Majordomo Records, HighTone Records and Video Time Machine. These riches are the result of a creative acquisition mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention. Shout! Factory is based in Santa Monica, California. For more on Shout! Factory, visit shoutfactory.com


Smallville: Random, Awesome and WTF?! - S7E20: Arctic

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Good news is the artifact that can control the Traveler (we call him Clark, just for kicks) has been found.  Bad news is it’s been found by Lex.  It’s showdown time at the Fortress of Solitude with Clark and a Lex who now knows everything facing off and only one will walk away in the seventh season finale.

Go ahead.  Guess who?  The show’s got three more seasons to go.

The Random:
1. Kara sure does have a thing against airplanes because this is the second one she’s jacked up in just a few episodes.  If planes are becoming the new automobiles of Smallville, we’re gonna need to shift from shots to funnels.

2. Lex’s security guard has a lot to learn about talking sass to him.  He’ll take off on what’s likely a suicide mission to an uncharted region of the world to visit an extraterrestrial fortress to face off against the most powerful being in the known galaxy whenever he damn well pleases.  Now, start the damn plane.

3. Kara’s stuck in the Phantom Zone, spinning through space in a piece of glass.  It must a family thing.

You’re not really of the House of El until you’ve
done some hard time in the Zone.

The Awesome:
1. Kara and Lex have a nice little heart to heart in his “impregnable” study and Kara tries to convince Lex that he needs to destroy the Traveler.  Why would she do something like that?  Remember that ambiguous final battle between Kara and Brainiac?  Yeah.  Kara didn’t exactly win that one.

2. Oh, Chloe, it was a good plan to try and trick Kara into a Kryptonite trap even though it’s not really Kara, but even better is that you apparently have some sort of anti-Brainiac failsafe that kicked him in the cybernetic balls.  Sure, it put you in a glassy eyed coma, but that’s why we keep you around.  Plus, Clark’s gonna finish the job for you so just sit tight.  Good thing Clark’s rule about killing doesn’t extend to alien androids.

3. Oh, Smallville season finales, you always make me feel all tingly.  Lana’s finally gone, Chloe is under arrest by the DDS before she can answer Jimmy’s marriage proposal, and best of all, Lex vs. Clark in the Fortress, all secrets out in the open and Clark incapacitated as the place literally comes down around them.  This is Lex’s final episode and he’s going out in style.

Bocce ball tournaments settled most feuds on Krypton.


The WTF?!:
1. Jimmy, did you really believe Lex all this time that his call to DDS to keep Chloe out of federal prison was truly without strings?  A minute ago you were ready to want to have this guy arrested for every crime in the past ten years.  Use your head, man.  But how can you not love Lex’s reaction to Jimmy complaining about how hard it is to lie: “It’s never too late to learn a new skill.”

2. It’s really hard to buy that Jor El had a weapon devised that only humans could use to kill his son in case he went rogue considering how condescending he was towards them every chance he got.  That’d be like Hitler giving the codes that the Nazis were using to some prisoner in the camps for safe keeping.

3. After Clark sat by your side while you were a drooling vegetable and put up with all your crap, really, Lana, you leave him a Dear John video like you did for Whitney?  Wow, you gutless bitch.  He should have pulled a Cuckoo’s Nest on you and Chief Bromdened your whiny ass when he had the chance.  Oh well, Lois is there to pick up the pieces.

Pictured: Footage from the Blair Bitch Project



Finally the Hero! David Selby voices Commissioner James Gordon for BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS: PART 1

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Having made his mark as a villain for many of his 45 years in the entertainment industry, David Selby is only too happy to provide the heroic voice of Commissioner James Gordon for Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1.

Selby is best known for his long-running roles as Quentin Collins, the werewolf brother to vampire Barnabus Collins on the original series Dark Shadows, and as the ruthless, vengeful Richard Channing on the 1980s primetime soap opera Falcon Crest. Between those two series alone, Selby logged more than 500 episodes as an antagonist.

Finally, Selby gets a beloved protagonist turn as the everyman hero James Gordon, a straight-shooting, intelligent lawman bent on doing what’s right … with the help of his old pal, Bruce Wayne (and his alter ego, Batman).

Selby will be in attendance on both coasts for the World and West Coast Premieres of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1. Selby is the lone actor on the September 20 post-screening panel at the Paley Center in New York, and he’ll be joined by co-stars Peter Weller and Ariel Winter for the panel discussion on Monday, September 24, at the Paley Center in Los Angeles.

After making his professional acting debut on Dark Shadows in 1968, Selby found fame on the large and small screens as well as Broadway. His film career runs the gamut from early starring roles opposite Barbara Streisand in Up The Sandbox and alongside Ron Liebman in The Super Cops to a memorable role as one of the key lawyers in The Social Network. On television, surrounding his 209 episodes of Falcon Crest, Selby has been seen on everything from The Waltons, Police Woman and Kojak to Ally McBeal, Cold Case, Mad Men, and HBO’s Tell Me You Love Me.

Selby is also one of the more learned actors around the industry, having earned a Master’s Degree from West Virginia University, and a Ph.D. in Theatre from Southern Illinois University. Beyond the stage and screen, Selby has written two volumes of poetry.

The affable Selby was happy to discuss his role as James Gordon following his initial recording session for the two halves of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Here’s what he had to say …


Having spent several hours in his mind, how do you see Police Commissioner James Gordon in this film?

Because Bruce Wayne is Batman, and even though we all want to be heroes, Gordon is willing to take a quieter, more backseat role. I think he’s persistent, he’s calm. He’s a very practical man, like certain presidents. Lincoln was a very pragmatic guy, and I think Gordon is a very pragmatic commissioner.

Gordon is the type of guy that would think, “If I’ve gotta do it, and it’s going to make it right, and I look out and I know that my wife is going to be fine, and the children are going to be fine, then if a certain kind of justice is required to do this, I can live with it.” That’s my kind of Gordon. A very strong, practical guy.

In this film, James Gordon is 70 years old and about to retire. David Selby is now 70 years old. Usually it doesn’t matter in voice acting, but does that age similarity help increase the bond between actor and character?

What are you saying? (laughs) That I’ve been playing this game for 50 years? (laughs harder) Well, I guess that’s true. You know the frustrations, the thinking of “Okay, I’ve got a few years to go, and there’s still one thing I want to do.” Maybe I want to play Macbeth. I don’t know. There’s definitely some parallels. Really, though, it’s the whole life experience – that’s the thing that ties me to Gordon. Having been around and seen what we’ve seen. I understand his frustrations. My God, all you have to do is pick up a bloody newspaper. It’s hard to not get frustrated. Sometimes the best thing to do is to avoid the paper in the morning.


Was there a centering emotion you used in James Gordon to help you focus on his motivations?

For Gordon, what he wants to do more than anything in the world is that he wants to leave the world a little better place than when he came into it. And he thinks of how awful it would be to live your life and not be able to do that.

I like Gordon. Sometimes you have to draw the line in the sand, the morality line, and each of us has to decide how far you’re willing to go for success. Now if you’re battling the Mutants, you can go a long way. You can step over that line, as long as you know why you’re doing it. That’s my little take on that.


You had more than 300 episodes to get to know Quentin Collins for Dark Shadows. You spent 209 episodes creating Richard Channing for Falcon Crest. Today you had about four hours to become James Gordon. How do you develop a character that quickly?

You don’t. You just sort of depend upon Andrea (Romano) and Bruce (Timm), because they know this territory far better than you. I did do a little research, though. I asked my son, who is a great aficionado of Frank Miller and all of these things. That was my first call. He gave me a great rundown, so there was a little preparation. So mostly you put yourself in the hands of those that know the character, and learn from their experience.

So your son is a Frank Miller fan. Do you have newfound street cred in the family?

You can’t imagine. My son-in-law is a big fan, too. I’m in like flint now. I couldn’t have done better than to be able to make that call. “Do you know Dark Knight?” “What do you mean, do I know Dark Knight? Who do you think you’re talking to?” “Well, I’m playing the Commissioner.” “You’re playing James Gordon? You’re playing Gordon?!? Commissioner Gordon?!?!?” I never mentioned the Gordon’s name. (laughs) I just said the Commissioner. Oh my God. How special is that? I like that.

Did you read comics when you were a kid?

We lived in a little community called Woodburn, where I grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. There was a store down the street from where I grew up – a confectionary, you know, “beer on tap” – and they had a comic rack. Tom and Ann Torch owned the place – Tom would sit in the corner by the Coke machine and play checkers. And then guys would come in and order … Dewey would order egg in his beer, and all the regulars who lived in the neighborhood would be around. We could look in the comics, and they never once said “Put the comics down.” Now, once we graduated from comic books and went on to Sexology and Golden Nugget girls, then Ann and her sister Hortense got concerned. But as long as we stuck to the comics, it was okay, so I read all the comics. I’d also go two houses down to my friend Wally’s house – he had a lot of comics. But at the Richwood Confectionary, that was terrific place to grow up. Sit in there, drink a Nehi Orange for a nickel, and read your comics.

What was going on in 1966 that made it right for both Dark Shadows and Batman to premiere and explode in popularity?

That was a special time in the 60s, and for whatever reasons these shows captivated the public’s imagination. Maybe we just needed it in the 60s. They were shows that allowed you to escape … shows that made life a little easier to cope. I think about New York City at that time and all the things that were going on. The corruption, the racial conflicts, the unrest at Columbia University. There were protests everywhere. Then there was Chicago, and the election in 1968. The assassination of Martin Luther King, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Vietnam was raging. And then you had these shows. I’m sure some sociologist is examining all of this and working it out. But I think those two shows, Batman and Dark Shadows, they fit that expression, “Whatever gets you through the night.” It is interesting that they both came out of that period. But maybe not. Maybe the times were right.

You’ve obviously had the experience. But do you like playing the villain?

I’m not complaining – a lot of times the villain is the most interesting character. But
I’ve played some awful people. I played a character who got rid of his own sister. In doing these characters, I like them, and you have to get your audience on your side somehow. They have to understand where you’ve come from. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll hang in there with you.



Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, the next entry in the popular, ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies, is produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. The all-new, PG-13 rated film arrives September 25, 2012 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray™Combo Pack and DVD, On Demand and for Download. The Blu-ray™ Combo Pack will include UltraViolet™.


MY TOP 5: FILMS FROM TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL (2001-2007)

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This is totally going to sound like a "woe-is-me" article, but I'm going to do it anyway.

For seven years, I was a volunteer at the Telluride Film Festival. I fell in love with a tiny mountain town and worked with a lot of great people. It's the most "high-brow" festival I've ever been to, but I loved every minute of it.

Unfortunately, 2007 was the last year that I got to go. The 39th festival just ended last weekend and it got me thinking about all of the great films that I saw in that little box canyon in the San Juan Mountains. Hopefully, I'll get to go to the 40th (and expanded by one day) festival next year.

I've tried to keep to the lesser known films.

Everybody knows that Lost In Translation and Amelie were great.

But how many of these have you heard of? You should've heard of all of 'em.

NOBODY KNOWS (2004)
Written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda

Based on a true story, Nobody Knows is about a 12 year old boy (the amazing Yuya Yagira who won numerous awards in 2004) who has to take care of his three younger siblings when his shiftless young mother leaves them on their own. (All of them have different fathers, by the way.) She does it all the time, but usually leaves them enough money and food to get by. This time, though, she doesn't really seem to be coming back.

Did she finally meet a man that she could be with? Does he not like kids? Where is she?

This is a heartbreaking film and one that keeps coming back to me even eight years later. How can a mother do this to her children? Koreeda's film doesn't even pretend to have the answer. It only shows us what can happen when she can.



TOUCHING THE VOID (2003)
Directed by Kevin Macdonald
Based on book by Joe Simpson

I really had no intention of seeing Touching The Void. It's a documentary about mountain climbing. What does that have for me besides some potentially pretty scenery?

At one point during the festival, though, this movie filled a void. (ah-HA!!) There was nothing else that I had ANY interest in seeing, so I went to see this one. It ended up being one of the best films I've seen at Telluride.

It's a doc with lots of reenactments that could have been cheesy. Instead, they're as harsh and gripping as any narrative film could have been.

The story is of two friends who decide to climb a particularly perilous mountain. Just the two of them with a third guy watching base camp. They make it up, but one of them breaks his leg on the way down. Never one to leave a man behind, the healthy man lowers his friend to safety, climbing down to him at every ledge. Unfortunately, the broken man falls down one ledge and has no way back up. His friend has to make a decision: kill himself getting his probably dead friend back or cut the rope and make it down himself.

Breathtaking and (I hate this phrase, but here it is) edge-of-your-seat thrilling, Touching The Void can only be seen to be believed.



THE CUCKOO (KUKUSHKA) (2002)
Written and directed by Aleksandr Rogozhkin

Best of lists don't often have comedies on them, but I try to be a little different. WWII films don't tend to be comedies, but other countries tend to be a little different from the US.

The Cuckoo is about two soldiers from different sides of the fight: one Finnish and one Soviet.

They both escape from their captors only to meet in Lappland, the nearly deserted backwaters of northern Finland. They also meet Anni, a Lapp woman who doesn't know them as enemies. They are just two guys who don't seem to be able to get along. Not only that, but none of these three people speak the same language. They just talk/yell at each other with no idea what the other is saying.

It could be a heavy-handed comment on war and the futility of communication during said war.

Fortunately, though, Rogozhkin keeps a light touch throughout the film and doesn't pull things in directions that it doesn't need to go to make its point. This is a funny film with great performances by all three actors, especially Anni-Kristiina Juuso, who has basically disappeared from acting after making her debut here.



LONESOME (1928) (screened in 2006)
Directed by Pal Fejos
Written by Mann Page/Edward T Lowe, Jr/Tom Reed

This is the only retrospective film that I'm putting on the list. Why would I choose an old movie when I saw so many great new films at the festival? Because this one was just that amazing and I think more people should see it.

In 1928, Hollywood was reeling from the advent of sound, but they hadn't quite learned how to incorporate it into all of their films. Lonesome is a hybrid film and, to be perfectly honest, the sound segments are the ones that fall flat. The film should have been completely silent.

Be that as it may, Lonesome is an amazing film. It's about two lonely people who accidentally meet at Coney Island one Saturday. They lose each other in the crowd, not knowing if they will ever see each other again…but really sincerely hope that they will.

What's so striking about this movie isn't the comedy (although, it is very funny) or the early use of sound, but the absolute realism. We've all done the silly stuff that Jim and Mary do and we still feel just as lost in a big city as they do before they find each other.

This movie was very hard to see for a long time, but it has since been released by the fine folks at Criterion. See it soon. See it often.



THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2007)
Directed by Julian Schnabel
Written by Ronald Harwood
Based on book by Jean-Dominique Bauby

This is the most well-known of the films on my list, but it holds a special place in my heart since it's the last film that I saw at Telluride. It's also another one of those films that I wasn't all that interested in to begin with.

After all, it's just another movie about a person who overcomes a disability, right?

Well, kind of, BUT, this disability is pretty insurmountable and the performances are absolutely pitch-perfect.

Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, possibly better known as "the bad guy from Quantum Of Solace) was the playboy European editor of the fashion magazine Elle. His life was nearly destroyed after a massive stroke that took the power of all movement away from him.

The only part of his body that wasn't paralyzed was his left eye. Of course, he wanted to die. Of course, his speech therapist convinces him to live on, helping him communicate with only his eye. Between the two of them, they write his life story, the book that this film is based on. She reads the alphabet to him and he blinks when she gets to the letter that he wants to use.

It's exhausting. It's harrowing. It's amazing. It's…horror of horrors…life-affirming.

Amalric was nominated for (and won) plenty of awards, but none of that prepares you for the power of this film. If you haven't seen it yet, see it now. It's better than you think it should be.


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