The Fanboy Express: making stops at Gotham, Eternia, Hogwarts, and the Seven Kingdoms

After the air was let out of the Spidey 3* bag, I've been more than a little reserved about upcoming fanboy-oriented projects like Indy 4 and the Fantastic Four sequel aka Stormclouds of Cosmic Destruction (Do you hear Johnny shouting FLAME-OUT yet?). So to keep it simple and sweet here's a cheery list of things I'm looking forward to in the somewhat near future.

The Dark Knight Surprise, surprise. Wow, this movie just keeps on getting better and better. I read an article in USA Today yesterday about how Nolan is filming four select action scenes with IMAX cameras, including the Joker's big introduction. Can you believe I've never seen a commercial feature on of the big screens? How much are IMAX tickets? Everything from the Joker viral campaign to these evil clown stills has me looking into cryogenic chambers for the next year.
Psychometer reading: 5 out of 5 batarangs

A Dance with Dragons George R. R. Martin needs to finish this book already. I read today that he is doing a virtual reading at a virtual bookstore (?) on Second Life. How can you give a reading of a book that isn't published yet, let alone completed? And couldn't that time be better spent writing? So says the kid who shirks his own projects to write nerdy blogs. I guess an author with his success and following does deserve a little leeway fans, but I'm very anxious to find out whose asses Jon and Arya are going to kick in Vol. #5.
Psychometer reading: 4 out of 5 direwolves

Darren Aronofsky I finally saw The Fountain when I broke down and bought it last week. Ummmm......fucking phenomenal are two words that spring to mind. Brad Pitt and I should be ashamed for doubting. Critics are morons; one moment they are bemoaning the sad state of American cinema and wondering where all the intelligent, thought-provoking filmmakers are, and the next they are lambasting a quality picture with depth and emotional resonance as sci-fi taking itself too seriously. Smart play guys. I'm an idiot as well. I mentioned to someone how I thought Aronofsky would be one of those bright stars who makes a handful of films that no one truly appreciates for decades and then disappears. How wrong was I. Last I checked he was scheduled to direct Damon and Wahlberg in a true life Boston Irish boxing movie and he's writing a rad-sounding picture about a post-Ark Noah laden with alcoholism and survivor's guilt.
Psychometer reading: 4 out of 5 magic trees

The Clone Wars Hey hey my my, Star Wars will never die. I'm always up for some new Clone War stories and this show looks outstanding. If it is anywhere close to the level of quality that the Genndy Tartakovsky cartoon was it should be good.

That lightsaber fight between Anakin and Asajj Ventress in the rain is one of my favorite duels -- even more so than many of the ones found in the actual movies. The shot in this trailer of Anakin leaping from STAP to STAP in mid-air looks to be one of my favorite Star Wars/Anakin moments as well.
Psychometer reading: 5 out of 5 astromech droids

Harry Potter and the Quest for Dollars All satire aside, this summer marks the first time that I have been über-excited about the release of a Harry Potter book/movie. Ironically enough both types of media are close to release and I'm chomping at the bit for both of them. The movies have always seemed a little blah for me but the previews for this one look good. And while I've always been anxious but not crazy to grab the next volume of Harry's adventures, I can tell you that I will be in line on a summer July night for the midnight release of the final book. I'm eager to see how Rowling finishes her saga and to complete a series of fanboy midnight line releases. I've sat in line for Star Wars, LOTR, DVDs, comic books, video cassettes, and numerous other things, but never for a book or for a Harry Potter-related property. Here goes...
Psychometer reading: 4 out of 5 horcruxes

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Of all of the '80s cartoon movies that are coming out soon (Transformers) or in development (Smurfs, Thundercats, G.I. Joe) I am most looking forward to the He-Man movie. And by that I mean it is the only one I am looking forward to. I was crazy for He-Man and his adventures as a kid and had every action figure/playset offered in the United States, including the undeniably badass Moss Man (who was really furry and smelled like soap -- God, toys were so much cooler back then). I am safely assuming Orko will be involved and Dolph Lundgren won't. Until then: By the power of Greyskull!
Psychometer reading: 3 out of 5 Battlecats

Hulk/Iron Man The Incredible Hulk is a character written for toddlers (HULK ANGRY!!!...HULK SMASH!!!) and Tony Stark is a ripoff of Bruce Wayne. I couldn't care less about these upcoming projects other than the fact that Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. are behind Iron Man and that Louis Leterrier (Luc Besson's protege!) and Ed Norton are responsible for the big green monster. And for that both deserve a modicum of my respect.
Psychometer reading: 2 out of 5 power suits

The Dark Tower comics #5 comes out in a few days and let me tell you...that was a long month of May. These books have continued to blow away my expectations month-by-month. The entire crew of Jae Lee, Rich Isanove, Peter David, and Robin Furth have done a thrilling job of serializing young Roland's adventures in Mejis. You know it's a good series when I'm just as excited about the stories I already know as I am the ones I don't.
Psychometer reading: 5 out of 5 sandalwood revolvers and roses

The Golden Compass Have you seen the latest trailer for The Golden Compass!? New Line is playing up the LOTR connection a little much, but this movie looks phenomenal. It has enough to blow any age group away with Pan and the daemons, the action and effects, and the adult and religious themes. All I can say is WOW. Lada and I have a movie date to see this in December. Can't wait.
Psychometer reading: 5 out of 5 alethiometers

Terminator 4? Let's get one thing straight: the Terminator franchise is one that shouldn't have continued after the second movie. For me, those first two movies represent the best of Jim Cameron's work and the best of American sci-fi cinema. T2 is one of my favorite movies of all time. And the great thing about the movies is that the story was wrapped up in two movies. They didn't need a trilogy; they didn't need a saga. It was a two-movie story and the sequel was arguably the best of the two. Then they had to absolutely ruin the story with a third movie, which introduced a retarded new terminator and killed any themes that the previous two had introduced/trumpeted. I won't go into detail because I could rant for days about the disruption 3 caused to my life and my way of thinking. And here we go again because some dickheads bought out Mario Kassar and Co. for the creative rights of the Terminator franchise. We now have a fourth non-Arnold (not that Arnold was good for the 3rd movie; how does a cybernetic organism age like 12 years between appearances?...I'm sorry, I digress) movie and a terrible network show about Sarah Connor and young John. Weak.
Psychometer reading: 0 out of 5 neural net processors

*worst movie ever. The anecdote about this is that several films recieve this title. You know how the Olympic coordinator guy always claims it it the best Olympics ever? Well this is a similar train of thought. Those Olympics weren't that good and neither are these movies. Previous "worst movie(s) ever" were the Tomb Raider movie and Jurassic Park 3. Spidey 3 may not be the worst movie of all time but it sure is the latest to capture that title. Thanks a lot Sam Raimi. Worst movie ever.

Salutation to the gull

Today after watching my baseball game I decided to take in the gorgeous day and go for a walk. It was the best sort of day one could hope for a Memorial Day; tempered by the threat of thunder and rain, but in the end showing its true face of clear sky, bright sunshine and cool breeze. There is something about the Damocles' Sword of forecast thunderstorms that makes the perfect day somehow more beautiful in its perfection.

My steps led me up the Salem Neck and over to the beach at Winter Island. I had not planned to visit the beach but was glad to find it my improvised destination. Before long I had stripped to my shorts and was scrambling over the rocks, bare feet finding their grip on pitted volcanic rock covered with barnacles and strewn-about black seaweed. Finally I set my station upon a singular boulder and sat and watched for the better part of two hours, absorbing the sun, the sights, the smells, and the sounds. I watched a group of men fishing on a nearby outpost of rocks. I watched the sea move and sway, so blue-green it was almost turquoise in some spots. I watched sailing ships and yachts of all forms come in and out of Salem Harbor, venturing out to dance between the waves. And I watched the gulls.

God, if you are listening and if reincarnation is an option I want to come back as a seagull. Is there a happier existence in all of Creation than that of a gull, circling and pinwheeling in the air, the sea wind tearing through your wings and holding you aloft? For all the years of my life I have looked down at gulls as filthy, annoying, base creatures and today for the first time I found myself wondering if I was simply jealous.

Oh, to live the life of a gull, sacrificing avian beauty for a raucous charm and vulgar grace. The gull forsakes the need to stand out in a crowd. He knows he is an independent and unique creature, but has no desire to be noticed or to be picked out as special from the rest of the flock. How he must pity the self-conscious peacock and swan who depend solely on their preening, shining feathers and serpentine necks. The gull shits where he sleeps, eats every kind of carrion and refuse, and looks every bit the ruffian he is, but he never shows that he is anything but content with who and what he is.

He is an oppurtunist, a showman, a rogue, a thief, and an adventurer. He is a skilled hunter, a clever scavenger, and an eager beggar. He is savvy and adaptable, equally at home in the bustle and noise of the city and the lonely seashore. He is both selfish and courageous, able to beat out all contention for a scrap of meat or work towards a common goal. I have watched gulls bully pipers and shorebirds only to turn around and divebomb a hawk to help a stricken brother.

And so I say to the gull, Brother of the Sea and Sky, I envy you and your life of free-spirited contentment. You have my respect to the end and never again shall an insult directed to you fall from my lips. I look forward to the day when I might join you, breathing in the salt air, seeking my sustenance from the sea, testing my feathered frame against the might of the sky and filling the world with noisy kee-aws.

I believe in Christopher Nolan

Allright, so I lied. I previously said that I wasn't going to look at any spoilers for the next Batman movie, but I just have not been able to hold out. Although, I think it has worked out in my favor; earlier I was hoping for the best but expecting the worse and now I couldn't be happier or more confident in the direction the film is going in. And what got me so incredibly jazzed about The Dark Knight was this campaign image for Harvey Dent.

"I believe in Harvey Dent". That line is ripped right from the pages of one of the best Batman graphic novels ever written, The Long Halloween. I believe in Aaron Eckhart; he is going to make a great Harvey Dent. I hate to rip on Billy Dee, but he clearly was never right for the role -- and the character that Tommy Lee gave us was an outright abomination. This picture now resides as my desktop image at work and has officially started the Psych-a-thon that won't end until summer of 2008.

And if that wasn't enough on its own, the Warner Bros. marketing department landed a genius stroke a week ago after the original campaign website had been up for about a week. They set up another site with the url http://ibelieveinharveydenttoo.com/ that appeared to be hacked by the Joker. Harvey's face was colored over and given cartoonish red lips and black eye circles. And over the course of the next couple of days -- with cooperation from eager fanboys -- the image disentegrated pixel by pixel to reveal the first official picture of the Joker as played by Heath Ledger. The Joker's look was exactly what I was expecting/not expecting and simply going off that one picture it's clear to see that Nolan wants his film to earn every bit of its Dark Knight title. Keyword being dark. The Joker image has since been taken down and replaced with bunch of hahahas, but he promises to return in December (!) All in all very cool viral marketing, and they didn't even have to induce citywide panic in a major metropolitan area.

I believe in Christian Bale. I believe in Aaron Eckhart. I believe in Heath Ledger. I believe in Christopher Nolan. I believe in The Dark Knight.

Diamond woes

Well, the Reds just lost again to the terrible Washington Nationals. Of course with that loss we are now only mere percentage points ahead of the Nats for the worst record in the league, so I guess we are terrible as well. However, I still don't think we are as bad as we have played; I know we are better than this, but the team is seemingly trying to prove me wrong. We are losing in increasingly creative ways and we can not seem to pull everything together at once to put together any sort of winning streak or set of good games.

The main culprit is obviously the bullpen. As Marty said a few weeks ago after yet another 8th inning collapse against Houston, "this bullpen is awful." They are so bad that they could not give up another run for the rest of the season and people would still be talking about how bad they are. Todd Coffey should be sprinting away from the ballpark instead of to the mound when his name gets called and Mike Stanton is clearly just out there trying to break a major league record for games appeared in and leads blown. David Weathers, the closer by default, has actually been pretty solid in save situations but when you give up 41 runs in the eighth inning (worst in the Majors) the guy never has a chance to see the ball. Krivsky needs to blow up this mess and send some of these guys packing.

I never thought I'd be saying this, but Kyle Lohse is making me hope for a speedy recovery for Eric Milton. Between April and May he has been like two different pitchers. Tonight's seven run atrocity marks his 6th straight loss and third straight completely abysmal outing. He is clueless and totally ineffective out there. He could throw the ball underhanded and get more guys out than what he's doing currently. Since his first bad game against the Cards about a month ago he has been flying down an oil-covered Everest slope on jet-powered skis. I can't believe I actually rostered him on my fantasy team at one point.

Bottom line is that we need to start winning games quick before we are out of this thing and the Dunn trade rumors start circulating. Not to mention that Junior and Brandon have been red-hot and we are just wasting it. One way or another we are surely bound to see Homer make his debut sooner than later.

In other baseball news, how pathetic are the people who actually bother to show up to Braves games? Leave it to these people, some of the worst fans in baseball, to boo Tom Glavine. The guy is only a Hall of Famer and one of the marquee players who contributed to your 14 consecutive division titles and put your franchise on the map. Fucking morons.

GIMME A 3-WAY PARLAY ON THE FALCONS, THE REDSKINS, AND VICK'S PIT OVER PORTIS' ROTTWEILER
After years of rooting for Vick to lead Atlanta to a Super Bowl, now I'm rooting for him to go to jail. When the prosecution comes out and indicts Vick for connection to this dogfighting mess (which it looks like is a near certainty), I hope the Virginia State Attorney and Roger Goodell tag-team and come down hard on him. It's great that the Commissioner is taking a stand against the thugs and criminals that get the privilege to masquerade as role models and millionaires, but Chris Henry and Adam (don't know no Pacman, just a kid named Adam) Jones are small potatoes compared to Vick. What a chilling message to send to any future pro athletes/soldiers out there: it doesn't matter if you have the fattest contract or that you are one of the league's most marketable stars; if you fuck up majorly, you are out of here. I hope if/when that time comes that Vick doesn't get away with this and Goodell sticks to his guns.

"Hey Ma, check out my cape!"

I've always had an overactive subconscious resulting in some pretty radical and vivid dreams, but my latest rash of nighttime adventures have been particulary impressive. For the last month or so I have been having some extremely wicked superhero dreams. Even before I saw Spider-Man 3 I was web-slinging around urban cityscapes and not too long ago I had a totally sweet experience as Batman, escaping a Mob ambush in an abandoned warehouse with my trusty grappling gun. The latter was an especially intriguing dream; rather than simply watching a "dream-movie" I was directly interacting in an environment with definable dimensions. Add to those two with a great ride on the Silver Surfer's board and a turn as Green Lantern, flying and utilizing my power ring to good extent.

So with all these slumbering superhero experiences I have been wondering lately (certainly for not the first time) about what powers I would give myself if I was a caped and masked protector of truth, justice, and the American way. And rather than just appoint myself the second coming of Batman or Spidey I decided to pick and choose powers from a variety of comics greats. So please bear witness to the birth of the superhuman "Dunce Cap Marvel"!

My heroic attributes would include:

• Bruce Wayne's brooding intellect and mental fortitude. What criminal's machinations or diabolical plot could escape my grim notice? I would have the sharpest detective mind in the world and an unwavering will to achieve any goal I set for myself.
• Wolverine's heightened senses and healing factor. With my animal-like skills I could alert myself to any approaching threat or ferret out any previously-undiscovered clues. And who wouldn't want to slow the aging process and reverse major bodily harm?
• Nightcrawler's superior agility and ability to teleport himself (minus the blue skin and freaky appearance). Plusses that are very fitting for me are his German heritage and devout Roman Catholicism. BAMF!
• The Spirit's quick wit and levity in the face of danger and almost certain death. It takes incredible balls to be able to crack jokes and let loose with the insults when you're kicking ass and dodging bullets.
• The Green Lantern's backup: what could be worse than being a superhero who has painted himself into a corner, trapped by your arch-nemesis and facing certain doom? Good thing you can put out an emergency call to the Green Lantern Corps. It certainly can't hurt to have 7,200 of your closest friends armed with the most powerful weapon in the universe having your back and ready to tag in.
• The Incredible Hulk's origin story. I can't imagine a worse comic book character but you do have to give props to a guy who took a huge dose of gamma radiation full on and survived and thrived when 99.9% of the population would have simply gotten cancer and died.
• Last but certainly not least I would take two things from Spider-Man. Whenever that radioactive spider bit him it must have imbued Peter Parker with some sort of insane skill-set that prevented vertigo and acrophobia and allowed him to pull crazy Gs while swinging through the Big Apple. I have got to have that. Secondly, I would take his girlfriends. Honestly how does a dork like Parker pull ass from the likes of Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, Betty Brant, and Black Cat!? It might not be a superpower per se, but I will take that ability any day of the week and before any of the others I've listed here; especially when Betty is embodied by none other than the amazingly hot Elizabeth Banks.

"Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men? The Dunce Cap Marvel knows!" BAMF!