HAMMER TIME'S OUT

MAN FOR MONDAY

I finally broke down and saw THOR.
The movie was not really a worth tribute to the god-turned-hero,
but Chris Hemsworth can hammer me any time he wants.

"Your Earth customs confuse me.
I see other men wearing clothing above the waist,
but this woman tells me that this is forbidden me."

Views as of now: 428,850

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVEGOOD

WORDS FOR WEDNESDAY

"But Luna is probably a lot scarier than Voldemort.
Girls in general are scarier than Voldemort."
— Matthew Lewis

HORIZONTAL BLIND SIDED

According to Homotography,
photographer Paul Jasmin has re-created iconic stills
from Richard Gere's AMERICAN GIGOLO
using Simon Nessman as his model.

And I am so freaking happy.

You can check out the other photos here.

Views as of now: 400,917

ULTRA VIOLET COLORED EYES

And again
we have to say "goodbye"
to someone who was just always there
when we were growing up.

Views as of now: 400,768

SCARED OF THE DARK IS RISING

So what if Alexander Ludwig starred
in the absolute travesty film version
of one of my favourite books as a kid?

He's turning into a really tasty guy.
Definitely good as a between-meal snack.

No, Mr. Photographer, I don't mind.
But why have you taken 72 photos
of only the one armpit?
The other one looks just like it.

Photo from fmforums

MARVEL US

I realize that this is ueber-nerdy,
but it bothers me when the same actor
plays two different comic books superheroes.

Especially when both heroes are in the Marvel Universe.
What happens if these two characters have to work together?

Maybe this guy should be forgiven.

But enough comic book raving. Here are some photos...

Hits as of now: 292,004

CHANDLER BING CROSBY

In Austin today it was 62 degrees
(that's 17 degrees Celsius to those of you in civilized parts of the world),
so once again the only white christmas we're gonna have is a song.

Here's the original, from the 1942 movie HOLIDAY INN.
The song was so popular that they wrote a new movie around it.
It's not in bright, shiny colour like the later movie,
but there's no Vera Ellen either, so I'm calling this a win.

Get a mug of something warm,
snuggle next to someone comforting on the couch,
and listen to Bing make it sound so easy.

...the crooner. Not the search engine.

And because I have been known
to show pics of attractive men from time to time,
here's a photo from my favourite scene in that other movie.

Rosemary is singing a killer song,
and George was a beautiful young man
before he started running with that street gang.

Hits as of now: 283282

SQUEAKY WHEEL OF TIME

Okay, so this is me asking for a favour.

Back in January, I uploaded this clip to YouTube, my first in High Def, by the way, which has nothing to do with this.

A lot of people have made video clips of imaginary film versions of the books in the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan. And this was mine. I wanted it to look like the title sequence you might see if you were to sit down and watch a mini-series of the book Crown of Swords as I imagined it.

And unlike some other people who just threw together slide shows of random pictures of people from their favourite TV shows, I spent a lot of time choosing the people (including my beloved Jensen Ackles and many other tasty young men), finding and altering the photos, and editing the music (which I'm still really proud of).

Oh, and drawing and animating the wheel and snake. A good snake is much harder to draw than you might imagine.

What I didn't expect was that a couple of Wheel of Time fans would hate this clip so much that they would send me insulting personal messages and post this on message boards so they could deride it to their online friends.

So I want some help countering these people. If you have a few minutes, please watch the clip. Then, if you like it, click over to the YouTube page for this clip and say so.

And extra brownie points if you leave a comment there.

(What the Hell are "brownie points" anyway?
And, more importantly, can they be traded for actual brownies?)

49TH PARALLELOGRAM

Views as of now: 238,637

TWILIGHT AND FLUFFY

I'm curious. Has anyone ever declared themselves for Team Charlie yet?

Over the years, Chief Swan had mentally prepared himself
for teenage daughter temper tantrums. And teenage daughter
eye rolling and sarcasm. He was even braced for teenage daughter pregnancy or teenage daughter same-sex experimentation.

But teenage daughter necrophilia had
never once been on his radar.

Views as of now: 236,694

GREEN LANTERN POST

Aaargh!

AAARGH!

So this is the Green Lantern that the suits
at Warner Brothers thought would be good
for Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming movie.

Yeah, great, let's make the costume look like
his skin was ripped off so we can see all
the individual muscle fibers. Just like that
museum exhibit of corpses with no skin.
No one was nauseated by that.

This is what comes of having men who think with their wallets in charge of entertaining teenage audiences who think with their testicles. Take something classy and trash it down to entertain the proles.

Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern was always one of the classiest superheroes. Immensely powerful but civilized enough to keep it under control. Unlike Superman, he didn't need to be from another planet to be a grown man without the emotional problems that plague most fictional characters. Unlike Batman, he wasn't a borderline criminal himself. Some people might call this boring, but I prefer to think of it as dignified.

And a dignified grown man wouldn't wear this suit.

BITE MARKS THE SPOT

It's bloody typical, you know! The producers of the inexplicably popular Twilight movies finally make a vampire out of a guy I like to look at and they kill him off.

Australian-born Xavier Samuel reportedly beat out both
Channing Tatum and Tom Felton (Hmmm. Draco Malfoy as a Vampire)
for the part of the leader of the army of baby vampires in Twilight: Eclipse,
which I saw on Monday when our office was closed, evidently in honor of
Venezuela's Independence Day.

There's not much of him in the movie, though. Mostly it's Edward and Bella
pausing awkwardly as they say their lines, but Xavier does look good when
he does show up. He has a great smile, which never shows up in Eclipse, but
at least he avoids previous experiences with really bad hair.

And he looks good dripping wet, which happens twice, though I don't know why
that should appeal to me the way it does. And it turns out that he was also
in a film about homosexuality and Australian surfers.
He probably got wet in that one, too.

CLASH OF THE TITANIUM WHITE

Okay, so I finally saw Clash of the Titans today.

The new one, I mean, not that Harry Hamlin/Burgess Meredith thing where — once again — Sir Larry proved that he was such a good actor that you'd actually believe he liked girls.

And having heard it panned pretty severely, I went in expecting very little.

As a result, it was better than I expected. So I've discovered the secret to enjoying a movie: expect it to totally suck, then you won't be surprised if it does and you might be entertained if it doesn't. Call it the Benjamin Franklin approach to film criticism.

Mom, I'm home! And I brought some laundry!

This one did not suck. One thing did bother me a bit though, and that was being repeatedly distracted by the actors cast.

Sam Worthington wasn't a problem, because I'd never seen him before (yes, I'm the one who hasn't seen Avatar yet.), but every other time I saw a familiar face I'd remember in what movie I'd seen them before and what part they were playing.

So here's how Clash of the Titans came across to me: The infant Perseus is found floating in the Aegean by Kaiser Soze's assistant Mr. Kobayashi. The baby was tossed into the sea with his mother because she had allowed herself to be impregnated by Aslan, who had disguised himself as her husband, Dr. Henry Jekyll.

Kobayashi and his wife — played by the wonderful Elizabeth McGovern who is wasted here and whom I wish had played Queen Casiopeia instead — adopt the baby, and it grows up to become Sam Worthington, and gets caught in a war between the city of Argos and the gods, who are led by Aslan. Aslan's brother Voldemort offers to put the put the humans in their place by releasing the Krakken. He also tracks down Dr. Jekyll, who's been cursed by Aslan and is now more like Mr. Hyde.

Sam Worthington sets out to stop the Krakken and save Argos, but he instead of going it alone like Harry Hamlin, he has a group of allies to help him, including James Bond villian Le Chiffre, James Bond ally Strawberry Fields, King Arthur's incestuous son Mordred, and some very pretty boy that I kind of recognized without knowing why.

It all ends pretty much like you'd expect it to, and Sam Worthington at the very end gives Aslan this really great "c'mon, Dad" look after Aslan restores Strawberry Fields so that Sam Worthington can have some kind of sex life on his lonely island without resorting to unnatural acts with his flying horse.

But, unlike most remakes, I'm glad this Clash of the Titans was made. The original is way too 70s, though it came out in 1981, and seems so campy now that I was glad to see it remade with some great special effects.

Even though I do regret seeing Sir Larry and Professor McGonagall portraying the Greek gods. So much more dignity and gravitas than their counterparts in this movie.

Views as of now: 224,007

VAMPIRES SUCK

This may annoy die-hard TWILIGHT fans, but if — like me — you watched these movies for the eye candy, then you may appreciate this.

HUM BUG COLLECTION

PORTERHOUSE STEAK THROUGH THE HEART

Kellan Lutz is seriously getting into playing the
vampire. He's got the pale skin, the black clothes,
the dark sunglasses, the dangerous but sexy attitude.
But if he's gonna pull this off, he's gotta learn to
avoid the sunlight.

And putting your own body into the shape
of a cross is probably not a good idea either.

Photo from
Beauty and the Bum

KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOUR ALL

I DREAM OF A DAY WHEN THE NATIONS OF
THE WORLD WILL COMPETE BY WEARING
LITTLE SHORTS AND KICKING A WHITE BALL.
THIS DAMNED ARMOUR IS HEAVY, COLD
AND HIDES HOW GORGEOUS I AM!

King-sized Bedouin

For the last time, I wear whatever I want
and you and your Labour Day be damned!

Views as of now: 140,895

SHARK BOY WONDER

So have you checked out Taylor Lautner in the trailer for NEW MOON yet? The boy was always cute and moved with an athletic grace, but now he's becoming nicely upholstered.

My math skills tell me that Taylor's just seventeen, so I think I may have my new ponyboy posterchild. Sorry, Brent.

I'm not proud of being so entertained by the piece of sentimental drivel this was TWILIGHT, but getting to see Taylor almost makes up for them trying to convince me that Robert Pattinson is beautiful. In interviews, he seems smart, funny, and charming, but not beautiful.

Views as of now: 109,978

IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN LANTERN

This is completely fake, but it's a really, really good fake.

I'm so jealous right now. This makes my trailer for a fake Justice League movie look like a lump of fudgy dog turd.