Capone's Interview with BILL NIGHY!!!

Clicky!

UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS is a prequel to the first two UNDERWORLD offerings, and we get to see the 12th century version of his character Viktor, the leader of the Death Dealers (vampires); and let's face it, Nighy is a fabulous vampire. The film puts Viktor and his Lycan (werewolf) counterpart, Lucian (Michael Sheen), in the forefront of this story about a woman named Sonja (Rhona Mitra), who comes between them. Any film with Nighy at the forefront has got my attention. He's not only a consummate actor, but he's a truly nice man with a dry, wicked sense of humor. This time around, I knew exactly how much time we had together--10 minutes (which I managed to stretch out to 11; yay me!). Enjoy…

Death of Comics (Newsarama)

SDCC '08 - Are Monthly Comics Dying?
By JK Parkin

It’s a question that publishers, creators, retailers and fans have been speculating about for years now – are “comic pamphlets,” i.e. the monthly comic format, in a death spiral? While the answer varies depending on who you ask, there’s a growing consensus that the trade paperback and the graphic novel are on the rise while the monthly comic is on the decline. But don’t start the death march for “floppies” just yet.


--- Really interesting read on what's happened to the comic industry.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army


Rating:★★★★★
Category:Movies
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy



 Originally posted at slangards.multiply.com on Aug 18, '08

Don't get me wrong, I loved Nolan's The Dark Knight as much as any four-eyed fat geek, but Hellboy II: The Dark Army kicks Homo Chiroptera ass!

While TDK was quite possibly the most plausibly realistic interpretation of a comic book world that anyone has ever seen, del Toro's vision in Hellboy II portrays a world filled with wonderful nightmares, a delirium of fantastical imagery that evokes something entirely different from Nolan's gothic paradise. Watching it, you can't help but have a visceral reaction to the creatures and characters that he and his team at Cafe FX and DDT have created; a shiver of disgust at the bridge troll, awe at the rise of a forest god, and admiration of the deadly grace of the night elves.

If you've watched del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, you'll find alot of similarities between the two films. The aforementioned creature designs, the perpetual motion of his camera, the fairy tale feel of the story, and characters that keep a veiwer invested. If I had to compare this to something, it'd be Jackson's Lord of the Rings.

Though the Dark Knight's actors are still heads above the acting here, there is something more lovable about Hellboy and his crew. In TDK, everyone was out of their gourd. In a way the cast here is bigger than life because they're so human. Big Red and Liz just wants to fit in, Fishsticks just wants to find someone like himself, Jeffrey Tambor's character want to relax, and Nuada just wants everything back the way it was. There is something so extraordinary about actors that can convey the emotion that many of these guys do through the all that makeup.

Granted, I've never read the Hellboy comics (on my list of things-to-do-eventually), and I can't give you the perspective of a fan of Mignola's series. As a fan of Mignola's Marvel work however, I can say that he and del Toro are perfect creative partners. Sort of like Burton and Depp, or the Watchoskis... or Gumby and Pokey. Mignola's work has always had a dark twist to it, but maintains a clean, linear look to it. Guillermo's storytelling is surprisingly similar; sinister, but enchanting.

Adding to the fact that this is a kick-ass movie, the fact that they have got these great Mezco Toys that are already sold out in the states (and cost about 1.3k a pop here in PI) and you have the makings of a geek classic.

Battlestar Galactica Miniseries & Season 1

 
Originally posted at slangards.multiply.com on  Aug 15, '08

This is really the best sci-fi series ever made, and this two part pilot is one hell of a kicker.

If you're not familiar with the world of Battlestar Galactica the short version is that humanity has colonized the stars and is occupying 12 planetary systems named after the Zodiac signs. The civilization creates artificial intelligence and gives birth to a race of robots called the Cylons, who eventually turn on their masters. After several years, there is an uneasy truce.

The series opens with the Cylons opening offensive; a salvo that takes out everyone except a ragtag fleet of survivors numbering around 50,000. You experience the horror of the the fleet, led by Adama and the crew of Galactica, as they hear about the destruction of their civilization over the radio.

The docu style really does work for this series (not like the other fraking series where it's used so extensively; ie. 24, Prison Break, Lost, etc, etc, etc). You're living on this ship as they struggle to survive the loss of their friends and family, of economy, of culture, of basically everything they've ever know.

It's a deliciously dark and depressing movie and the perfect lead off to a series that only gets darker as it goes along. The episodes 33, Kobol's Last Gleaming, and Act of Contrition are just masterpieces. I won't spoil if for you. Just go out and buy the set.

I can't wait to find a complete collection of the other seasons so I can finally fraking see what happens in "Resurrection Ship".

X-Files: I Want to Believe

Rating:★★
Category:Movies
Genre: Mystery & Suspense
I wanted to believe, too, but they're really making it hard for me.

This movie is like an extra long episode. It's got no real tie to any of the plot strings in the series and is really more like a stand alone story with the X-files characters pasted in.

It doesn't focus on the alien conspiracy. I would have said that's a good thing before, since most of the good episodes were focused on the unsolved mysteries and ghost stories, but this one doesn't really work, especially for a big ticket movie.

Sigh.

Quantum Physics is so KEWL!


http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2008/viterbi-algorithm-goes.htm

Finding a textmate in a galaxy far, far away just got that much easier!

'"Such [entangled] photons," in the words of the recent New Scientist story, "obey the strange principles of quantum physics, whereby disturbing the state of one will instantly disturb the other, no matter how much distance there is in between them."'

"Alice would like to transmit a stream of quantum information to Bob. She shares entanglement in the form of ebits before quantum communication begins. Red qubits belong to Alice and blue qubits belong to Bob. She repeatedly performs a series of encoding operations and transmits her qubits as soon as they are encoded. The noisy quantum communication channel corrupts her transmitted qubits. Bob receives her qubits and combines them with his half of the ebits. He performs measurements and Viterbi processing of the measurement results to diagnose the channel errors and performs recovery operations based on the results of the Viterbi algorithm. He then performs a decoding circuit and finally possesses the qubits that Alice first sent."

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor


Rating:
Category:Movies
Genre: Action & Adventure



Originally posted at slangards.multiply.com on August 4, '08


This sucked hard.

Take the 1st and 2nd one, take away Rachel Weisz, Oded Fehr, and Arnold Vosloo, add the director of Fast and the Furious and a rehashed script (with Kung Fu!) and what you get is... not worth it.

All Marvel Geeks Must Read This


Originally at slangards.multiply.com on Aug 1, '08


Go here.

Arc !hz14sz5IlM says:
"Should the gloves prove insufficient to hand the eye beam's damaging nature, an adamantium reinforced glider could be fabricated. The goggles would be controlled by means of handgrips hardwired to the glider. An improved avionics package is also a plus in this configuration."

Anonymous replies:
"OH GOD MAKE THIS CANON"

Whoever drew these illustrations, I love you!

FLYCLOPS IS GO!


http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=3277788&x=cyclops+can+fly
Flyclops.

"...an adamantium reinforced glider could be fabricated..."

"...even just a admantium umbrella..."

"...Okay, so they build a new visor that loops around the back of his head, that has an opening in the front and the back, he can open them one at a time or the same time. Add a back pack that opens to wings for stabilizaton, or tiny wing things on the under arms of his costume. FLYCLOPS IS GO!"

"...TO THE SKIES, I SHALL FIGHT EVIL AND BE THE BEST X-MAN LEADER EVER! WHEEEE!..."

This is either the stupidest discussion I've ever seen or it's the most awesome gathering of minds I've ever witnessed.

I can't decide.

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