This Week in Geek (8-14/12/08)

Buys

The Dark Knight DVD. Of course. You saw it coming. I know you did.

And I finally picked up Band of Brothers for myself, having thoroughly enjoyed a former roommate's copy all those years ago. To me, it was always the "other" HBO mini-series, after From the Earth to the Moon, and perhaps it's why I neglected it for so long.

"Accomplishments"

Books: Well, read that Ghost Ship TNG novel I reviewed this morning!

DVDs: Flipped Iron Man, last summer's joy ride. The movie's as good as I remember, though my tv's size hardly does it justice. I'm particularly enthusiastic about the special features, which include a pretty in-depth "making of" that showcases Favreau's process very well. Stan Lee gets a chance to re-invent his motivations for creating Iron Man ;-) in a relatively good feature about the comics (too much Ellis revamp, not enough 80s alcoholism). The screentests are more mesmerizing than the acting that wound up in the film. And there's an incredibly funny bit from the Onion. No commentary track though.


I also flipped Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, a veritable trip back to the movie theaters of my youth. I wouldn't call it a perfect film - the episodic nature of Kevin's encounters is structurally weak, for example - but there are tons of details to rediscover and take delight in. The child's point of view is well represented and there are many links to be made between his real life and his fantasy life. The DVD extras include a nice conversation with writers Gilliam and Palin, and a good retrospective on Gilliam's career up through Fear and Loathing.




RPGs: I've got a couple players taking their time coming up with their characters for that GURPS Torg project I'm working on, but one player did start his today, a verbose merchant from the Arabian Nights setting who has a rather tight business relationship with one of the evil High Lords' lieutenants. So we'll be playing up the secret identity/mole angle pretty heavily when it comes to this guy.

New Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG cards: 4 from non-canon sources, including an 8th Doctor, the John Smith from Human Nature - the novel, and art picked up off Fasa's Doctor Who RPG.

Someone Else's Post of the Week
Hal Jordan, Earth's Greatest Green Lantern, and Hal 2000 of 2001: The Space Odyssey - a lot more alike than you might think? Read all about it at the Hoosier Journal of Inanity and become a believer!

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