And oh, yeah - Fuck Arizona!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010 Machete - Cinco de Mayo Trailer
Ain't It Cool News has an exclusive trailer of Robert Rodriguez's upcoming opus, Machete. It's definitely in the same campy vein as Grindhouse and it looks awesome (as does Michelle Rodriguez, yesiree). I won't spoil all the casting surprises as you really need to check out the trailer yourself. Get it while it lasts!
And oh, yeah - Fuck Arizona!
And oh, yeah - Fuck Arizona!
Beware the Tortillas!
From yesterday's Ultimate Clear Lake, a subsidiary of the Houston Chronicle:
Woman gets threatening message - via tortillas
May 4, 2010 8:30am
League City police are investigating a threat written in Spanish on two corn tortillas that a woman found underneath her car over the weekend.
The tortillas were discovered in the 1800 block of Wren Drive at about 5:45 a.m. Sunday after the 24-year-old woman moved her red Toyota Corolla, League City Police Sgt. David Hausam said.
Hausam said the message translated to, “Do you like my tortillas? Death.”
The message's writing was divided between the two tortillas.
The woman is unsure who left the tortillas, but suspects that it may have been her ex-husband, Hausam said.
“People do some crazy stuff,” Hausam said, “but no one before had left tortillas with messages on them that I can think of.”
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Electron Boy Saves Seattle
From April 29th's Seattle Times:
Local boy with cancer turns into a superhero for a day
By Katherine Long
Seattle Times Eastside reporter
Thursday was shaping up to be just another school day for 13-year-old Erik Martin, but then something extraordinary happened: Spider-Man called.
Spider-Man happens to be one of the few people who knows that Erik, too, has a secret identity — he's Electron Boy, a superhero who fights the powers of evil with light.
And Spider-Man needed Erik's help.
Erik, who is living with liver cancer, has always wanted to be a superhero. On Thursday, the regional chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation granted him that wish with an elaborate event that involved hundreds of volunteers in Bellevue and Seattle.
The local chapter, which serves four states, grants more than 300 wishes every year to children with life-threatening medical conditions, but only a few of them involve so many participants.
Pulling off a wish like this one required a big story, and a lot of heart. And so, with a note of panic in his voice, Spider-Man explained the dilemma: "Dr. Dark" and "Blackout Boy" had imprisoned the Seattle Sounders in a locker room at Qwest Field. Only Electron Boy could free them.
Erik got into his red-and-blue superhero costume, and called on the powers of Moonshine Maid, who owns a DeLorean sports car. For good measure, more than 20 motorcycle officers from the Bellevue Police Department and King County and Snohomish sheriff's offices escorted Electron Boy to Seattle.
"They shut down 405 — they shut down I-90," marveled Moonshine Maid, aka Misty Peterson. "I thought it would just be me, in the car."
At Qwest Field, Electron Boy was directed by frantic fans to the Sounders locker room, where the entire team was shouting for help behind jammed doors. With a little help from Lightning Lad, the alter ego of local actor Rob Burgess, Erik opened the door with his lightning rod. The Sounders cheered.
----------
Everyone was startled when, overhead, the Jumbotron crackled to life.
"Electron Boy, I am Dr. Dark and this is Blackout Boy," sneered an evil voice, as the villain — Edgar Hansen, and his sidekick Jake Anderson, both of Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" — taunted the young superhero. "We are here to take over Seattle and make it dark!"
On the Jumbotron, a video showed a Puget Sound Electric employee Jim Hutchinson trapped in the top of his bucket truck in front of PSE's Bellevue headquarters. Only Electron Boy could save him.
----------
More than 250 PSE employees gathered outside the company's headquarters and cheered as Electron Boy freed the trapped worker. "It was so loud, people in office buildings were looking out the window," said Make-A-Wish communications director Jeannette Tarcha.
But Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy were still at large. Electron Boy got a tip that the evil duo were at the Space Needle, where they had disabled the elevator and trapped people on the observation deck. Racing back to Seattle, Electron Boy stepped out of the DeLorean to a cheering crowd of dozens of admirers, and confronted his nemesis.
"How did you find us, Electron Boy?" Dr. Dark demanded.
Erik wordlessly leapt at Dr. Dark with his lightning rod, freezing the villain. Then he unlocked the elevator and freed the people trapped upstairs.
Bellevue police Officer Curtis McIvor snapped handcuffs on Dr. Dark and Blackout Boy, who couldn't resist some last words: "How can we thank you for saving our souls?"
A tiny smile played around Electron Boy's mouth. Just for good measure, he held his lightning sword to Blackout Boy's throat again. The crowd went wild. "Hip-hip, hooray!"
----------
Watching her son run across the plaza in front of the Space Needle, mom Judy Martin said Erik goes to school when he's able, but is often too tired. "He hasn't had this much energy in a long time," she said. "They called it the power of the wish, and they're right."
Like any good superhero, Electron Boy kept his innermost thoughts to himself. But he did have one important thing to say:
"This is the best day of my life."
The full story, with lots of pictures, can be found via the link above.
Electron Boys joins some hallowed company, including Pittsburgh's Beetle Boy and Boise's Star (whose favorite hero was the Adam West Batman!).
Warning - don't surf the Make-A-Wish site while you sit in your cube at work after everyone else has gone home unless you want the cleaning woman to catch you sniveling like a big damn baby. Wuss.
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends
The story's popping up all over, but this report is from today's Register:
Spider-Man and Jedi Knights bust X-Men comic thief
'A real team effort'
By Lester Haines
Posted in Bootnotes, 4th May 2010 08:14 GMT
The combined forces of Spider-Man and the Jedi Knights took time off from battling Green Goblin and The Empire on Saturday to bust an Adelaide comic store thief.
The unnamed perp attempted to lift a copy of X-Men Omnibus, worth A$160 (£97), from the Adelaide Comics Centre during an event to mark International Free Comic day.
This turned out to be a bad move, since owner Michael Baulderstone had donned a Spider-Man costume for the occasion, which evidently enhanced his crimebusting instincts. Amid fans posing as Catwoman, Kick-Ass and Wolverine, he eyeballed a man "suspiciously dressed in regular clothing".
He told the Times: “My Spider-sense was tingling. I didn’t want to scare him off so I followed him around the store and eventually said, ‘Are you right there, mate?’”
He continued: “I’m 169cm tall and only 57kg, so I’m a tiny bloke but I just grabbed his bag and looked in it and there was the book."
The CCTV image above captures the moment of the bust, at which point Spider-Man called in back-up. He explained: “I had 50 people in the store so I just shouted for someone to guard the front door and it just happened that the Jedi Knights were there and they had their lightsabers out so they held the door until the police arrived.
“My colleague, who was dressed as The Flash, kept running the shop and stayed calm. It really was a team effort.”
Law enforcement operatives dressed as Adelaide police officers then attended the scene and took the man into custody. Cops later confirmed they were investigating the matter.
Stealing an X-Men omnibus, huh? I always knew those mutie-lovers couldn't be trusted.
Sunday, April 25, 2010 Zombies in Chicago
While out and about yesterday, I spotted a young couple in grey face paint who were obviously intended to be zombies. Luckily for them, their half-hearted attempt at make-up wasn't particularly effective and I was not compelled to pull the car over and club them with a tire iron.
I figured they had to be part of a local zombie walk or summtin, and sure enough a little poking around uncovered this bit from the Sun-Times:
Zombie Pub Crawl returns from the deadDespite my love of Halloween, I am not one for dressing up in costume (outside of that holy season, of course). I particularly don't go for zombie walks or pub crawls or the like. I have a lingering suspicion that the day I hang out with a crowd of revelers in zombie get-up will be the exact moment when the dead actually rise. It would be the only time the bastards could possibly take me by surprise. Forest for the trees and all that.
April 13, 2010 11:49 AM
Get excited, sots...it's pub crawl season!
Now that the weather's warming up, the progressive parties are coming out in full force, beginning with last weekend's second annual Snuggie Pub Crawl. If you're looking for something a little less, um, fuzzy, how 'bout the Zombie Pub Crawl, which returns from the dead on Saturday, April 24?
For $20, you'll enjoy drinks specials at bars throughout Andersonville, including Simon's, Mary's Attic, @mosphere, In Fine Spirits and more from 2:30-8 p.m., all while dressed as an extra from "Thriller." Folks got pretty into it last year, so don't skimp on the makeup.
However, you might be into that sort of thing, you fool, in which case you would be well served to check out Chicago Zombie. It's a blog covering zombie marches and similar events throughout the Windy City. Glancing at the front page, there's two different necrotic dance events being held the week of May 17th (you'll have to find something else to do with Mom on the 9th). And it looks like there's going to be a second attempt to premiere [REC] 2 at the Portage Theater that Friday (I downloaded a DVD rip after they canceled the first screening, so nertz to them).
Most interesting to those of us who are fond of both lounge aesthetic and carnivorous ghouls is the Retro Zombie Night being held at a tiki bar in Des Plaines on May 30th. A group called Zombie Pin-Ups are involved and they'll be running a beauty pageant later in the evening. Tiki drinks, hula girls, scantily-dressed hipster chicks - that's a combo that may actually convince me to mingle with sweaty horror fans covered in latex and stage blood.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 Things I Found Looking For Something Else #9
Han Solo in Carbonite Soap
Sadly backordered at the time of this posting.
You'll have to stay a scruffy nerfherder a while longer.
Monday, April 19, 2010 Bad Movie Report, Part 2
"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." - Hans GruberLuckily for us bad movie fans, there are always going to be new worlds to conquer. Especially as advances in technology make it easier and easier for budding auteurs to create and distribute their masterpieces. And thus we come to a little slice of cinemagic known as Birdemic: Shock and Terror! Let's watch the trailer!
That weird sensation you're feeling is your neurons misfiring.
Birdemic is the brainchild of James Nguyen, a computer software salesman who made this rip-off homage to The Birds on a budget of $10,000. When the film was turned down by the Sundance Film Festival (quelle surprise), Nguyen decided to promote his film by driving around the fest in a minivan decorated with stuffed birds, fake blood, and homemade signs. The stunt must have worked, for word of mouth on the film started to build. Eventually, Severin Films picked up the DVD and distribution rights to Nguyen's epic, and the usual arthouse screenings in LA and Austin followed.
Birdemic's James Nguyen has a lot in common with The Room's Tommy Wiseau. Both men self-financed movies that they wrote, produced, and directed themselves (though Nguyen has opted to stay behind the camera). Each created a film that is surprisingly personal; the hero of Birdemic is a computer software salesman, and it's obvious that The Room is based on an incident in Tommy Wiseau's own life*. Both men remained completely oblivious to their films' faults until after they were embraced by the cult movie crowd. And finally, like Tommy Wiseau, Nguyen apparently doesn't care that his movie has become a laughing-stock as long as it brings him some degree of money and fame.
However, there are some very important differences between the two directors. Wiseau paid his cast and crew on time; there are allegations that Nguyen didn't pay most of his people at all. And as creepy as Wiseau may be, I haven't heard any rumors of pending sexual harassment suits coming his way.
Still, I'm all for separating the art from the artist in this case. Birdemic looks too good to spurn on moral grounds. I mean, just take a gander (ha!) at the second trailer floating around the intrawebs. It appears to have been put together by Severin Films and has a distinct "wacky" edge to it. Despite that it still manages to give us a bigger, better taste of Birdemic's awesomeness.
Birdemic: Shock and Awe is scheduled for June 18th and 19th at the Music Box Theater. I am so there. To see if Birdemic will be playing near you, my imaginary reader, consult the list of screenings found here.
If this were a Syfy movie, it would totally be called "Birdemic: Shock and Caw"
*The "they'll be sorry when I'm dead" ending is a giveaway. And you know those odd little plot points that are introduced and never referred to again? The breast cancer, the drug deals, the problems at the office? I'm convinced Wiseau included them because similar events occurred during the time that his "Lisa" was cheating on him. The Room is Wiseau's attempt to chronicle, and perhaps exorcise, a traumatic event from his own life. This would also explain why there's two fumbling altercations between Johnny and Mark at the party - the throwdown actually happened that way. Get back, Jojo.
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