One Reason of Many

One of the many reason's I love my gal.

She's been under the weather this week. This is a photo of her nightstand:


Stuff to make her feel better.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Death and Cancer?

Looking at the New York Times today, I stumbled across this article on Archie Comics.

I was like, "Sweet, comics news. Archie is always good for a smile."

This is an except:

"In issue No. 6 of “Life With Archie,” which will go on sale Dec. 29, Archie Andrews, the famous redhead from Riverdale, will deal with a death in the extended family. Geraldine Grundy, one of the gang’s high school teachers, will lose her battle with cancer."

Yeah.

They killed Miss Grundy. With Cancer.

Yay fun Archie.

If you want to read about the sad and painful death of a beloved high school teacher, "Life with Archie #6" is on sale now.

Casting rumours: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Access Hollywood has published an article where Glee's Heather Morris says she's being considered for the role of Buffy Summers.


Here's an excerpt:

“They’re considering me! I found out and I almost peed my pants ‘cause I was so excited!”

“If they make [‘Buffy’] when [‘Glee’] is on hiatus, I don’t even care what I do,” Heather laughed. “I can just run through the shot and do nothing – even if I’m not Buffy!”

I'm not a huge fan of Glee, but from the few episodes I've seen, Morris is easily my favorite part of it. She's odd, and her comic timing is really sharp. He character is dim, so I'll be interested to see if she can get Buffy's Spider-Man-esque witty banter down, but I'd be okay with her as the Slayer.

Honestly, I'm more concerned about the casting of the rest of the Scooby gang than anything else.

Bacon in the Helfire Club

Quoted from the Philadelphia Style :

In X-Men: First Class, slated to open in early June, Bacon plays mutant villain Sebastian Shaw. Although it’s his first major action role (the only thing that comes close, he says, is 2000’s Hollow Man), it’s not a particularly demanding part physically. “I’ll let the younger actors do that,” he laughs. “I’m more one of those sit-in-my-chair-and-destroy-the-world type of guys.”

Kevin Bacon is Sebastian Shaw.

That is...weird.

I really don't have more to say than that. It just seems so very odd.

Marvel: Fear

Marvel has been releasing teasers about their next event. A couple of images, and a short video clip. Other than that, no other details are out yet.

Cyclops in Magneto's uniform is pretty awesome, though.



I guess event comics have been paying off for Marvel. I think it makes them a little harder to follow, because every story is so massive, it can be a little daunting to dive into.

Hellboy and Pets

Found this online.

I debated about posting it. I thought it was funny, but worth sharing?

But I looked at it a few more times. And I laughed. Every time.

I'm not sure what it means or where it's from, but Mike Mignola won so hard with this piece.

Movies: Jonah Hex

Rented Jonah Hex with Marisa this weekend.

I kind of wanted to see it, as the Jonah Hex comics from the 80's (drawn by Keith Giffen) were oddly memorable to me as a 10 year old. They were strange, sci-fi, and violent. Different that some of the other stuff I had read. I know now that this was a bizarre plot where DC Comics took a grizzled western hero and dropped him into a post-apocalyptic future to have zany adventures, but back then? It was a non-stop "what the hell?" ride.

In any case, it has been a pretty weak month at the video store for new releases, and that sort of left us with not much we could agree on, so a flashy western-comic adaptation won out.

I'll say a few things to get started: I like westerns. John Malkovich is usually pretty awesome, and he plays the bad guy in this movie. Megan Fox is a scourge on movie-making and I would rather not see her in films again.

All that being said, Jonah Hex was not a terrible movie. A little awkward at times, but Josh Brolin was decent as the lead. The script needed a few more rewrites in order to even it out a little, but the action scenes were fun enough.

A quick scan of his wiki article confirms that the movie makers decided to give him some odd supernatural powers that he never had in the comics, namely the ability to talk to the dead. Strange decision, but it works well enough, or at least better than the idea to include a science-fiction doomsday weapon that the bad guys try to steal. This is where Jonah Hex, the movie, gets dangerously close to "Wild Wild West".

At least there was no giant spider-robot.

I don't know if I can recommend this movie. I liked parts of it, but it had no flow and I think that it was mostly my fanboy side that helped to overlook the flaws this movie has. Josh Brolin did what he could, but the movie itself was working against him.

Wikipedia says that the public was less forgiving:.

• Jonah Hex severely underperformed, opening at #7 during its debut weekend with only $5,379,365 in 2,825 theaters, averaging $1,904 per theater. In its second weekend the film only managed to gross $1,627,442, falling to #10. The film ended its theatrical run on August 12, 2010, grossing only $10,547,117 in total on a $47 million budget, making it a box office bomb. Due to the film's poor domestic take, it was not widely released internationally, grossing less than $500,000 outside the United States.

Guess there won't be a sequel.

Thor: Poster

Marvel.com has released the first look at the new Thor movie poster.

Here it is:

Not too shabby.

I like Thor, but I've always preferred his adventures in Asgard over his time on Earth. I hope it's more "Iron Man" and less "X-Men Origins: Wolverine".

Casting: Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy

When they cast Emma Stone (from Superbad and Easy A) in the new Spider-Man movie, I thought, like the rest of the internauts, "Ah, she'll be a fun Mary-Jane."

Then it was announced that she will play Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's first serious girlfriend.

Whaaa?!?

Emma Stone stated she is a natural blonde, and now, after some work from her stylist, I think she at least looks the part.

FreakAngels

Talking about Warren Ellis's "Red" made me think about how much I like his work. He's done all sorts of stuff for Marvel, DC and a lot of independent stuff. I could spend all day breaking it down for you, but I wanted to tell you to go check out "FreakAngels". With artist Paul Duffield, Ellis has been putting out a free web comic now for years.

It's awesome, it's easy to access, and it's free. Go. Read it from the beginning.

Movies: Red

I saw "Red" a few weeks ago.

Heh, that's a great opening line.

But yeah, I went to see it in theaters with Risa. We were in the mood for some light action fare, and it was pretty sparse pickings once we looked at what was playing. The trailers made it look fun enough, so we figured it was worth a shot.

I'm sort of here and there about Bruce Willis. "Die Hard" usually makes up for most failings of his. But it was also a long time ago now. "Surrogates" was pretty weak, his bit roles in "Planet Terror" was nothing special. He's usually pretty busy, but the last thing I remember liking him in was "Sin City", and that was 2005.

But he was not really the scene-stealer of the movie.

That title went to Dame Helen Mirren, who kicked butt all movie long. After playing Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen" a few years ago, she showed that she could also stand her own as a Hollywood action star. Seriously, I could watch her reprise this role all the time. I want to see her versus the Predators now.

The rest of the cast is hit or miss. John Malkovich was quirky and fun, but Morgan Freeman felt like he just mailed it in. Brian Cox was a fun surprise (he's not in any trailers), and Karl Urban was a good foil for the "Red" crew. Mary-Louise Parker was all over the place, but I think that might be because she had Willis to play off of in most of her scenes, and they had no chemistry at all.

The action scenes were fun, the plot was okay, and the laughs were genuine. Red was a good watch, but not a flawless movie. It's based on the comic by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer, which I haven't read yet, but I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point.