This Week in Geek (14-20/05/07)

Buys

Amazon piled sale on top of sale (Mother's Day Sale, Father's Day Sale, Spring Sale, Victoria Day Sale, Just Get That Stuff Out of Our Warehouse Sale...) so of course I ordered stuff. The packages are starting to trickle in now. To date, I've received the Chevy Chase classic Fletch, The Batman Season 3, the Hong Kong classic Yakuza Graveyard, the original Manchurian Candidate (the new one SUCKED), Chronicles of Narnia, and Frank Zappa's Apostrophe/Over-Nite Sensation DVD.

My friendly neighbourhood comic book store got some of my money too. Every month, I head on over to get the two new Showcase Presents and take advantage of their 3-for-2 special on trades. That means, first of all, Showcase Presents the Flash and Showcase Presents the War That Time Forgot. The latter has taken the blogosphere by storm, thanks to panels like this one:
It leads me to think that Kanigher may just win the Crazy War against Haney.

The free book I grabbed was Bill Willingham's Fables vol.1, on the principle that if it was any good (and I heard very good things), I could get one a month (for free). See below for my reaction.

"Accomplishments"

12 new cards for the WhoCCG, including some leftover concepts from The Invasion, but a bunch of new stuff from Boom Town, which I'm working on at present. I always love doing a bit of CGI on them, and today, I had to create a Raxacoricofallapatorius card, despite the fact the planet had never been seen. One distortion of a Slitheen egg later, and I had the planet.

World of Warcraft news: My little Lyndawithay has gone from level 43 to 46, going up 3 levels despite some back pain that has kept me away from my computer for extended periods of time. Bravo, Lynda!

Thankfully, I can lie on my back and still flip the tape of stuff! First to go was the Little Miss Sunshine DVD. What a great movie. I loved it. The two commentary tracks feature the directors (by themselves and with the scriptwriter), so they could have been a bit redundant, but they manage to give different information in each.

The Batman Season 2 was next, and though I initially didn't think it was as strong as Season 1, the last few episodes ramped up the action to Justice League Unlimited levels. Commission Gordon finally appears at the very end, so I'm not sure they should have sold his appearance so hard on the back of the DVD. That and the words "Exciting features" on a release that has none isn't exactly truth in advertising.

But I wasn't done! I also flipped Fletch, which wasn't hard since it doesn't have a commentary track. Fun documentary that plays with the fact it couldn't get Chevy Chase interviewed. The film itself still makes me laugh, and I do consider it the smartest Chevy Chase movie ever made, but the music is impossibly dated. I like the little suspense theme, but the 80s pop songs are just terrible. Not a hit in the lot and they take me right out of the movie.





Finally, there's Goodfellas. I'd replaced my VHS tape with a DVD some time ago, but hadn't really checked it out. The more I watch Goodfellas, the more I admire it, and just now got the Great Train Robbery reference in it (where Pesci shoots at the camera), and I'll no doubt keep finding stuff in it. The disc has 2 commentary tracks: The Cast and Crew commentary features a series of interviews, very informative though rarely commenting on the onscreen action; the Cop and Crook commentary features the real Hank Hill and his FBI guy discussing how close to reality the film was (answer: very).

But when I say "finally", that's just the movies. I also got through two Big Finish audios featuring the 6th Doctor, Colin Baker. As I mentioned before, the audio format is really when he got good in the role, and I thought him excellent in The Holy Terror and Bloodtide. The former is clearly the better of the two though, charmingly witty satire and a chillingly-voiced villain. Bloodtide features Darwin and the Silurians, and would have those lizards play a role in human evolution. Every time aliens are shown to be responsible for the creation of Earth, humanity or human culture in Dr. Who, I tend to cringe. Maybe it's just me.

And I did read Fables vol.1 and... I really liked it! The premise: All the fairy tale characters have escaped the Adversary that has conquered their Lands and now live in contemporary New York. Think Shrek mixed with Sandman and you've got the right idea. At the price of exactly 0$ when bought with my usual 2 Showcases, the other volumes shall surely become part of my collection. In other comics news, I had a meeting with a friend from Cameroun who wants to create an anthology comic on campus next year, and I've agreed to collaborate. It's another case of "what have I gotten myself into?", but I've got ideas and it's certainly a worthy projects.

Ok, I'll shut up now.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Quite the busy week!

But I seem to remember you saying you like the new Manchurian Candidate, even if you didn't find it as good as the old one.

Great job on that cgi btw!
Siskoid said…
But I seem to remember you saying you like the new Manchurian Candidate, even if you didn't find it as good as the old one.

I totally lied.
Anonymous said…
Congrats on FZ's Apostrophe/Over Nite Sensation.

Personally on of my fave albums from FZ's discography.

Music is best.