MA!!!!

In other capsule news:

• Stop the George Lucas, I want to get off.
• Ultimate Extreme Steve 3 running late. Because he's ultimate.
• Mamoversary show - and it's a doozy - should be posted today. Mamo Facebook page in effect: please join.
• I have a love ninja button on my pants.

Posted by tederick at 9:52 AM in galaxy far & podcastery & tv
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True Blood poster!

Ironically enough it premieres seven days after the long-awaited glory of Matt permanently ending his relationship with Rogers. Oh man howdy, am I looking forward to that phone call. Cancelling the cable, the internet, the phone, the everything, and when asked why, responding "because of how awful each and every one of you has been to me over the past five years. Even your fucking phone-answering robot. That's why." It'll be the victorious conclusion of my 14-month tangle with Fido all over again...

Posted by tederick at 9:28 AM in tv
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I don't want to rain on the Whedonites' weekend, because lord knows those poor miserable people have been through enough. (They cancelled Firefly! In 2002!!) But I'm just not on board with Dr. Horrible. Did no one else find it... kinda humdrum? There's a self-congratulatory air about the proceedings with this one, which I hope does not extend to Dollhouse, but probably could. Yes, the whole project is sorta adorable and there are songs and Doogie Howser has a death ray. But if this were made by a college kid - aside from the fact that we'd all be gawping at the fact that he somehow found fifty billion dollars for his budget - would we really be calling it all the great things it's been called this week? The story is flat, the genre innovations are a no-show, and the technical craft is bottom-drawer. There isn't a single note here that wasn't done better in any of the other superhero inversions of the past five years, and there's no ending. Honestly, I've come to expect more. Captain Napalm: strike!

Anyhoo. Rough weekend. I ate several grilled cheese sandwiches. Well, to be fair, one cannot really call what I grew up with as "grilled cheese" truly "grilled cheese," as there is no grilling involved whatsoever. It's more like "broiled cheese sandwiches." To whit:

1. Toast two pieces of white bread
2. Butter one side of each piece with the yellowest margarine you can find
3. Pre-heat oven on broil
4. Place both pieces of toast on a baking sheet, one with butttered side up, one with buttered side down. On the one with buttered side down, place two pieces of thin Kraft cheese singles, the ones that are not made out of actual cheese.
5. Put in the oven and heat until cheese is gooey and other piece of toast is notably browning
6. Take out of oven, put un-cheesed toast on the cheesed toast, flip the whole sandiwch, and re-broil until other side is as brown as the first side was
7. Serve and enjoy.

Comfort food is lovely, but I may panic soon and need to watch the entirety of The Lord of the Rings. It's a scale of escalation.

So, I am likely not going to be living in my dream home at College and Yonge come September first. This means I am shortly to join Toronto's homeless population. As predicted on this blog 18 months ago, my homeless personality shall be Captain Jack Sparrow - me and that Jedi guy outside the Scotiamount are gonna have a fight. Look for me - my hair is nearly long enough for dreadlocks already. Shiesh! How do people stand having hair in the summer?

Happy Potteaster! On this day in 2007, Harry Potter died for our sins and was reborn a complete franchise. Praise Potteresus.

Posted by tederick at 9:40 AM in foodin' & h-pot & joss
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The Dark Knight - which arrives at a level of craft and dedication that will be a high-water mark for 2008 - is not just the film that Batman Begins inspired in all of our minds with its critical final words ("escalation," "taste of the theatrical," "calling card"). It is significantly more: the most dextrous, complicated, and absorbing "comic book movie" ever made.

Click here to read my review, with a heavy spoiler warning.

This review was murderously hard to write. Actually, I guess it isn't even a "review" at all, more of a film analysis than anything about pros/cons of a new Batman flick. Oddly enough I glimpsed at my review for Begins just now, and was struck by how oddly and unintentionally parallel the two reviews are in construction. Which I suppose bodes well for my theory on Nolan and the films, if they could spontaneously generate such similar responses without any purposeful re-examination of my previous writing. That guy is doing some fucking incredibly solid work, man, and with each successive entry I become more and more fascinated.

Posted by tederick at 3:49 PM in batman! & movies & reviews
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Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman Batman!

Posted by tederick at 7:17 AM in batman!
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Me and my boss just tried the thing where you pop popcorn with your cell phones and it does not work. Those videos are fake. I feel fractionally better about my place in the world.

Posted by tederick at 9:46 AM in j-o-b
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Yes.

I know, I know, infections and/or tetanus and/or scurvy and/or death. Shut up mom.

Posted by tederick at 6:06 PM in pirates
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Well, and officially, it's summer and everything sucks. Any intimation of having to do anything at all is met by me with a massive IDONWANNA IDONWANNA IDONWANNA IDONWANNA IDONWANNA!! And I am not alone. This entire jive-ass turkey town is staring out the window (wistfully). If I were Ferris Bueller, I would take the Day Off. I am petulant, emasculated, dyspeptic, and blasé. It's something's-gotta-give mode at Tederick Central Command. (TCC: kicking the TTC's butt!)

If I were a fruit fly, I would be bumping lazily against the fruit, accomplishing nothing.

Ugh. To be on a beach, naked, with a bottle of rum...

Posted by tederick at 11:02 AM in j-o-b & miscellaneous crap & the rum diaries
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Oh no now I'm in trouble NOW I HAVE TO DRAW THE NEXT ONE

Posted by tederick at 12:14 AM in extreme steve
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Aside from slight disappointment that they didn't name all the tracks after species of bats like last time 'round, I can tell ya simply: James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer have done it again. Oh lordy lordy, I thought his laugh freaked me out...

Posted by tederick at 5:58 PM in batman!
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Look what I bought on the street!!!:

and

and this one I've wanted for a while

yes!! awesome.

Posted by tederick at 10:05 PM in awesomeness & books
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Spider-Man 1. It was Spider-Man 1. And now Danny Elfman will now be a selly-outy sucky wanghole for ever and ever amen.

Yesterday my soccer team won! Which is frickin' unheard of! And I (me personally) had an actual good play! Which is also fairly rare! So tonight's the night for betting on horse lotteries, folks. If it weren't for the TCSSC shipping us further and further into the hinterlands of Ontario on fields that can absolutely not be qualified as "Toronto" or "Central" (or even "Social" or "Club," so I guess really the league should just be called "Sport!" with an exclammation point), I'd say this soccer season is shaping up fine.

Meanwhile, the city of Toronto stole my blue boxes. All four of them. They were there, they were beautiful, they were mine, and now they're gone. We are reduced to pitching empties out the kitchen window at the upright bin in the driveway. Who do you call to charge the city of Toronto with theft? 3QF is going to make it to the end of our tenancy on fucking fumes. By August 31 the only things left in the house will be a broken kitchen faucet, the noise the fridge makes, and six floorboards.

Posted by tederick at 12:36 PM in 3QF & movies & sockey
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Last night the 3QF cinematheque hosted perhaps its final double feature of the season, Krull vs. The Machine Girl. In an odd bit of unintended synergy, both films featured the same five-bladed starfish weapon. The latter, though, also featured a schoolgirl with a machine gun arm. It's tremendous what they're doing with movies these days.

Food on hand for screening: Crullers and sushi.

Coincidentally, around the same time we were doing all that, Warner yanked Where the Wild Things Are from its release schedule altogether, after having previously shoved the release to late '09. The bulljive is in full swing in the press release, and lord knows I'm no great Spike Jonze fan anyway, but I wonder if we're now ever going to see what he conceived as the proper approach to this unmakeable film - an approach which, regardless of how it turns out, is inherently way more interesting to me than anything that "delivers for a broad-based audience." It's a feature-length adaptation of a 15-page children's story, and if the rumour mill it to be believed, it's gonna have giant walking puppets. Honestly, I don't care if it sucks; I just want to see it. There just aren't enough amazing things in the world any more.

Admonitions like that, however, lead to Hellboy II. And it is, unfortunately, time to report that I don't want any more things to lead to stuff like Hellboy II. I am declaring a moratorium on underwhelm: let's get back to kicking some ass, shall we? Review snippet follows thus:

For all his prodigous gifts with the look n' feel, Del Toro has always suffered from recurring skill gaps in his writing: an over-reliance on form; a lack of substance in his English-language dialogue; a tendency to see hererosocial relations from only the male point of view; and what's with all the clocks? Pan's seemed to herald the completion of a successful leap upward from the young director of able adventure stories like Blade II and even the first Hellboy. With Hellboy II, sadly, all of Del Toro's weaknesses as a writer have come roaring back, and have brought some friends. The thing looks fantastic, but goddamn, this is some piss-poor storytelling.

And full review is here. I can't help but notice that I'm writing a lot more bad reviews these days than good ones. I do hope this isn't because I've become an asshole, which I admit is becoming more and more possible with every film I see. I suppose it's unlikely that every single goddamn thing sucks. HB2 has many admirable qualities and means well, if "meaning well" means to plumb whatever street cred Del Toro has amassed in order to make a nice chunk of summer-movie coin. (I don't even begrudge that. Who wouldn't want to make coin? Coin buys condominiums.) I just want a flick to have appreciable achievement in all areas of filmcraft, not just one or two, y'know? Or at least, transport me so spectacularly into its own idea that I come out unable to help admitting that yeah, that thing was a movie, a thing of the world worth making and bestowing upon others. (Like Wall-E, and in a completely opposite series of ways, like The Machine Girl.) I'd like to stop rounding up.

Posted by tederick at 11:42 AM in 3QF & movies & reviews
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