Posts Tagged ‘nerd’
4 items.
May31
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is coming out this Friday, and as much as I’m not looking forward to trying to remember how to spell “Azkaban” each time I write in this space (A word I will continue to mispronounce until the day I die), I AM looking forward to the movie. SO much, in fact that all of this week’s buzzComix incentive sketches have a Harry Potter theme. Click here for the very first one – Tom as Hagrid!
Sorry for the lateness of today’s comic, but Memorial Day festivities got in the way. I’m sure you understand. At any rate, a comic Monday afternoon is better than no comic at all!
I feel that I’ve accurately depicted the social order of Potter-mania in the Brazelton household. Cami is a much bigger fan than I am. She’s read all of the books. Even that last one that weighed a metric ton. I’ve only seen the movies. I enjoy the franchise, I’m not just as obsessive as some people are about it.
Don’t get me wrong. I think what J.K. Rowling has done for children’s literature is phenomenal success. But I can’t get wrapped up in books who’s entire core has been forged out of nonsensical slang words like “Hufflepuff”, “remembral” “McGonagall” and “Dumbledore” – all of which cause the spellchecker in my copy of Microsoft Word to freak out and sternly say “No. Just…no.” Incidentally, it’s the same reason I could never get into A Clockwork Orange. Just couldn’t work my way around the lexicon. Oh, those Brits and their funny words! Think I’m kidding? One word: Teletubbies.
# THE REST OF THIS BLOG WAS LOST WHEN THEATER HOPPER MOVED TO WORDPRESS IN JANUARY 2009 #
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I like to think I learn from my mistakes, so here’s Friday’s comic – on time!
I don’t know if you want to bother voting for Theater Hopper at buzzComix today. I was totally bankrupt for ideas when it came to penciling today’s incentive sketch, so I tried to draw a picture of Darth Vader from memory. It’s kinda close, but that’s a generous assessment. It’s like saying Joan Rivers looks kinda like a human being.
I thought we were at a safe enough distance away from the Charlie storyline to bring back our title character in a more casual context. In some respects I felt like a lot was sacrificed to bring this new voice to the comic and then felt guilty for not utilizing her in the last month. So here she is. Don’t worry. We’re not embarking on some giant storyline again. This is just a casual insert of a regular cast member no different than Jared or Jimmy.
HOWEVER I will point out that today’s comic tells you a lot about Charlie. Probably more in a few panels then I was able to achieve in 6 comics during the storyline. That’s right. Charlie’s a nerd.
For those of you with active imaginations, let me say right now that Tom and Charlie will not hook up. That’s not the kind of show we run here. If you want quasi-angsty relationship humor, there are plenty of other comics that fill that niche. I just thought it would be a fun bit of contrast to take this kind of vapid, looks-obsessed character and make her a nerd at heart. Nothing more, nothing less.
Anyway, I don’t have a lot to talk about at the moment that’s movie related. But I think you can forgive me for being less pre-occupied with that and more interested in the fact that Cami and I are celebrating our 5 year wedding anniversary today!
At the risk of sounding overtly sentimental, I look forward to our anniversary probably more than my birthday, Christmas or even Halloween. If there was ever an event to set time aside for to recognize, I think wedding anniversaries should be at the top of the list.
I talked about this in the THorum, but if you’re celebrating a birthday, that’s a singular achievement. Basically, people congratulate you for not dying that year. A wedding anniversary, on the other hand, is a celebration of the effort TWO people make to keep a union strong. It’s not a given. It’s not this arbitrary route-marker on the road of life. Every year is a milestone and worthy of your attention.
I’m not a real religious guy so I don’t have the threat of God looming over my shoulder on this one. So don’t think I’m expounding on the sanctity of marriage from a secular perspective.
No, I’ve always been enamored by couples who are able to make it work. I look in the paper for anniversary announcements and see people who have been together 50 or 60 years. Optimistically, I think they’re the lucky ones.
So happy 5th wedding anniversary, Cami! I love you!
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I wish I could say that I noticed that the acronym for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen could also mean “Rolling On The Floor (laughing),” but it didn’t dawn on me until I read Howard Taylor’s review of the movie over at Schlock Mercenary.
Then again, Howard is completely awesome and I’m just a part-timer. So, there you go. Credit where credit is due.
I was going to write a review for Transformers: ROTF, but I can’t quite muster the venom for it that I was expressing a few days ago after seeing it in IMAX.
Let me just say this; Basically all the negative reviews you’ve been reading are true. The movie is crass, overlong and impossible to make sense of. Remember when people said that the robots were the best part of the first movie? Well, in the sequel, I didn’t even like the robots.
Much has been written about the racist caricature of African Americans with the inclusion of “The Twins,” Skids and Mudflap. I was peripherally aware of the controversy going in and didn’t think much of it at first. I was willing to give Michael Bay the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I’ve known dopey white guys in college who used Ebonic slang, so maybe he was making fun of that.
But the buck teeth and the gold tooth is hard to ignore. I was particularly amazed when one of the robots said they didn’t read.
In an interview with CHUD, Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have distanced themselves from the characters saying their look and vocal affectations were not their idea, but were the result of a decision made by director Michael Bay.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Bay doesn’t exactly denounce the idea that Skids and Mudflap are racial stereotypes and also does a little bit of passing the buck himself.
“…These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it.”
Bay said the parts “were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters.”
Ultimately, Bay says “I purely did it for kids. Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them.”
So basically what Bay is saying is that Skids and Mudflap are the Jar Jar Binks of the Transformers universe…
Here’s the thing: I can’t remember which review I read that says this, but I have to agree with the sentiment – Bay is simply too egotistical to pitch this movie to it’s intended audience. He’s too bloated with self-esteem to realize this is a movie that SHOULD be for kids.
I was sitting next to a kid watching this movie. Wanna know what he thought every time Skids and Mudflap came on screen? “Every time those robots talk, they use bad words, Mommy.”
Bingo.
I mean, this is the guy that put a pair of testicles on Devastator, for crying out loud. Then again, how else are you going to top Bumblebee “peeing” on John Turturro from the first movie?
Something I find particularly egrigious about this movie is Bay flexing his connections in the Department of Defense. There is so much military hardware in this movie, so lovingly shot and beautifully lit, I can only imagine Bay looking over the footage and rubbing his nipples like Simon Cowell at the thought of it.
When I finished watching this movie on Wednesday, I sent the following update to Twitter: “Transformers 2: Never has a movie so loud been so boring.” The scenes shot in IMAX with Devastator at the pyramids was impressive, but the rest of the film was a twitching bore.
Has anyone else seen the film since it came out on Wednesday or are you waiting for the weekend to check it out? If you saw it, what did you think? If you haven’t seen it, have the bad reviews dissuaded you?
Leave your comments below!
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Where I live, we only have one IMAX theater. I say that like there should be an IMAX theater on every corner. But I guess I feel the need to qualify that statement because sometimes it felt like Iowa was the last place on Earth to even get an IMAX. So when we got one, it was a pretty big deal.
Our IMAX is affiliated with our local science center. So I don’t normally keep informed about what movies are playing there unless there is a theatrical release in house. You might remember that we took Henry to his first movie at our IMAX theater when we took him to see The Polar Express.
The problem with that is that it never seems like they get a properly formatted IMAX reel. I always get the sensation that they’re taking a standard movie reel and blowing it up on that concave dome. The image is always stretched out and it’s not a very enjoyable experience.
I’ve seen a few movies this way. Superman Returns, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Polar Express. Only Transformers had a legitimately scoped scene in IMAX (when Devastator is attacking the pyramids) and it was cool. But, otherwise, I find the IMAX feature film experience to be exhausting. Watching Brandon Routh zoom from one side of the screen to the other in Superman Returns gave me a crimp in my neck. Right now, they have Avatar as their featured release. Avatar gave me eye-strain on a NORMAL sized screen. I’d hate to imagine what kind of experience I would have watching it on an IMAX screen.
Anyway, long story short, I don’t normally keep up to date on proper IMAX films unless I happen to go to the science center our IMAX theater is affiliated with. After looking at the exhibits, I might say to myself “Oh, what’s playing on the IMAX?” and then check it out. I don’t usually make a point of seeing an IMAX film just for the sake of it.
But that changed this weekend when Cami and I went to see Hubble IMAX.
I was peripherally aware of Hubble IMAX after reading a few advance notices over at Hollywood Elsewhere, but I didn’t give much thought to seeing it until Cami mentioned it to me early last week. I’m not sure how she caught wind of it, but I took it as a sign that we should probably go. Obscure IMAX movie that neither one of us should have any knowledge of? A sign from the Movie Gods.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that both of us are huge nerds who enjoy things like science, history and space. Hence, the punchline to today’s comic.
But I digress…
Let me say this: If your town has an IMAX theater and they’re showing Hubble IMAX, you NEED to see it. In fact, I command you to see this movie. It is AMAZING – and I can’t stress that enough. I caught myself with my mouth wide open several times. It’s simply astonishing.
From a narrative standpoint, there’s not much to tell. The film tells the story of the Hubbel telescope and recounts a few of the repair missions before actually putting you over the shoulder of the most recent and most important repair that happened in April 2009.
To say the repair was high-stakes is putting it lightly. Basically, it was a last ditch effort to repair the ailing piece of equipment or face scrapping a multi-BILLION dollar project entirely.
Once the repairs sequence is complete, the movie treats you to a series of mind-bending and immersive images captured by Hubble to try and explain the sheer enormity of the universe. When the film uses Hubble’s images to dive into the center of a nebula 900 billion miles wide, it basically crumples up your brain and tosses it into a waste basket.
I mean, I always knew that Earth is a planet in our solar system which is made up of several other solar systems that in turn make up the Milky Way.
But when Hubble expands it’s view to include our nearest neighboring galaxy – Andromeda – before gazing further to view the cluster of roughly 36 other galaxies that make up the celestial “village” we inhabit that you start to get an idea of the impact Hubble has on our understanding of the universe.
Gazing further to reveal a “metropolis” of over 2,000 galaxies, the point is hammered home.
By the end of the movie, Hubble goes so far as to literally show you THE END OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE as it zooms in on malformed galaxies so far away, the light they are emitting left their tiny corner of space over 10 billion years ago.
Now, considering that scientists think there are 200 to 400 BILLION stars in the Milky Way ALONE… stop and think about our neighboring galaxy. Then the galaxies in our “village.” Then the 2,000 galaxies in the nearest “metropolis” and finally the dying galaxies on the edge of the universe.
Boy, if you didn’t feel small after watching Hubble IMAX, then your ego is ALL out of whack.
Watching this movie and the irrefutable science really puts a lot of things in perspective. I won’t enter into any kind of religious debate… but when you consider the prospect of extra-terrestrial life… Man, how can there NOT be something else going on out there? Surly we can’t be the only life in the universe. And if we are – WOW, what a waste!
I mean, that is unless they have webcomics somewhere in Omega Centauri? Who knows?
I wish I could get most specific about Hubble IMAX but I’m still kind of processing it and it has left me at a loss for words.
Jeffery Wells from Hollywood Elsewhere made an interesting point when he was talking about the profound disconnect from three-time box office champ Alice in Wonderland.
Basically, he was talking about the 3D fantasy environment Alice promotes and how it never really sinks in because we’re aware of the conceit of 3D and CGI as artistic tools. This, in comparison to what Hubble IMAX gives us – which, in Wells words, “provides a feeling of awe that is 100% real.”
I can’t deny feeling nervous for the astronauts who put their lives at risk to fix this piece of equipment. I felt profound sadness that their contribution to the understanding of our role in the universe isn’t acknowledged more than it is.
I think if you ask people about space exploration, the general consensus is that not much has been accomplished since we put a man on the moon in 1969. But putting a man on the moon feels like a publicity stunt in comparison to the raw value and perspective Hubble has given us.
Watching Hubble IMAX, you get the sense that this knowledge will not be fully appreciated or even actualized until several generations later and that’s a shame. Because the tens of thousands of people that have worked on Hubble are true heroes. Hubble IMAX gave me this new perspective and has me thinking twice about the validity of our space program.
If you haven’t seen the movie, see it. If you HAVE seen the movie or are curious about it, please leave your comments below..
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