Lots of spoilers ahead for this commentary on the third episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., now available to watch on the ABC website. Continue reading “Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “The Asset″ (spoilers!)”
Care for a spoilery place to talk about the second episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., now available to watch on the ABC website? Click on through! Continue reading “Around the Water Cooler: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – “0-8-4” (spoilers!)”
Even though it’s been a long time since I went to an anime convention, I remember how exciting and how much fun they are to attend. I also remember how much drama can surround an anime convention, especially when it comes to cosplayers and the people who like to take pictures of them. The topic of today’s podcast surrounds the dealer’s room at the recently concluded AnimeNEXT convention in Somerset, New Jersey, and one dealer in particular who decided that the next innovation in images on body pillows should be actual human cosplayers. Read along with us using the links below, and then listen to the podcast to untangle the legal issues involved.
In short, this kind of incident could have been easily avoided by all 93 of the cosplayers if they’d just read the agreement carefully, questioned its provisions, and/or refused to sign. That’s why the “Contractual Obligations” episode of “Strip Search” has been the most important one, and the one that all creative fans need to watch.
Here’s hoping everyone involved has learned a valuable lesson.
Why the fuck can’t the people who put on the Oscars have this much fun with opening numbers?
Also. while not as epic as his closing rap number from 2011 (check out how it was written!), his closing number with singer/actress Audra McDonald as also quite sweet.
Star Trek Continues – “Pilgrim of Eternity”
Directed by Vic Mignogna
Written by Steve Fratt and Jack Trevino
Story by Vic Mignogna and Jack Marshall
Starring Vic Mignogna, Todd Haberkorn, Larry Nemeck, Chris Doohan, Grant Imahara, and featuring Michael Forrest
Rating: This series is suitable for all-ages.
As a bit of a disclaimer, I was never really into the Star Trek franchise as a young geek. The Original Series was long gone before I was born, and since my parents aren’t into fiction that strays too far from reality, I didn’t watch “Star Trek: The Next Generation” with my parents, like many of my fellow geeks did with theirs. Therefore, when I heard that anime voice actor Vic Mignogna was involved with a project to continue the original serial, I didn’t think too much of the project at first.
At the same time, this is the same Vic Mignogna who produced his own fan-film for Fullmetal Alchemist titled “Fullmetal Fantasy” where he dreams that after receiving a replica State Alchemist pocket watch, he has transformed into main character Edward Elric and that everyday people around him have been transformed into characters from the series; this is definitely a form of meta-fan service as Mignogna is the English dub voice for Edward Elric. According to Mignogna, there were some legal issues regarding his showing it at anime conventions for a while; this ban seems to have been lifted since the short film has now shown up on Mignogna’s concert DVD.
I believe I saw “Fullmetal Fantasy” within the first year of its debut in either 2004 or 2005, and I remember being impressed with how professional it all looked, even to the point of one of the scenes taking place during a rainstorm, one of the most expensive effects to reproduce for filming. After doing some more research on the production staff of Star Trek Continues and learning that Steve Dengler, philanthro-geek extraordinaire was an executive producer, I knew I had to see at least one full episode. Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: “Star Trek Continues: Pilgrim of Eternity” review”
Did that movie poster for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire surprise you? Apparently, this was a new online marketing gimmick in 2012 as Empire Online.com handily showed.
But what if you did the same thing for older movie posters? Then, you turn to the fine folks at The Shiznit.co.uk with their look at moving movie posters for Jaws, The Shining, Metropolis, and more.
[Editor’s Note: This article has been partially revised from its original form at the request of the SFWA to remove material which may have infringed on a copyright.]
ETA: For some links and commentary on this issue, check out this list which Jim Hines compiled.
Considering that I’m not a member of the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), anyone reading this article can take it with so much salt that they go into a self-induced hypertensive shock. But rather than add my name to the list of voices condemning writer-members Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg for their ill-written rebuttal to critiques of their anti-feminism in the organization’s most recent quarterly newsletter, I’m going to instead talk about how the entire mess could have been avoided in the first place. And to do that, I have to throw Bulletin writer/editor Jean Rabe under a bus.
The beginning of this blog post and this review has been very difficult for me to write, so I’m just going to come out and say it:
I think that Wil Wheaton is wrong about “The Big Bang Theory,” aka TBBT.
As people who admire Wil Wheaton’s work know, he’s had several very fun guest appearances on the show as “Evil Wil Wheaton,” the alternate universe version of himself who for several years was main character Sheldon’s nemesis, helped further along the initial break-up between Penny and Leonard, used his fame to line-jump during a midnight screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark that had 21 extra seconds of footage, and then finally get off the “shit-list” by giving to Sheldon a mint-in-box Wesley Crusher action figure, and that’s just the first iteration of the guest character’s story arc.
When he threw open the comments on a blog entry about the show to people who had questions about his first guest appearance, the following exchange took place:
Q: I think TBBT has really made geek chic in some respects, which I’m all for! Do you think the show’s had an impact making geeks more mainstream and funny?
Wheaton: I think it’s part of the general uncloseting of geeks, if that makes sense.
It’s no secret that I originally thought BBT was making fun of us, and I couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t until late in the first season that I gave it a real chance and ended up seeing that it was laughing *with* us and not *at* us. I love that the show embraces its geekiness, refuses to dumb down its humor, and manages to find a balance between mainstream and nerd humor. That’s a lot harder than it seems, and is sort of like playing Comedy Operation. If you touch the sides, the audience’s red nose lights up and instead of laughing, there’s a loud buzzing noise. It isn’t pretty.
Based on those words alone, I put “The Big Bang Theory” on my list of shows that were kind to geeks and science; however, some opinion pieces I saw earlier this year had me questioning his words. Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: The “Big Bang” problem”
Not the Messiah: He’s a Very Naughty Boy
Directed by Aubrey Powell
Written by Eric Idle, John Du Prez
Starring William Ferguson, Rosalind Plowright, Shannon Mercer, Christopher Purves, Eric Idle and featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Special Guests (in order of first appearance): Michael Palin, Carol Cleveland, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Neil Innes
When I first heard that they were going to be turning Monty Python and the Holy Grail into a Broadway musical, my immediate reaction was to scoff and wonder which idiot it was who thought it up. Imagine my chagrin when I learned that the “idiot” was original Monty Python cast member Eric Idle, he who was responsible for writing and performing many of their more popular songs, including “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” and (my favorite)“Penis Song (Not the Noel Coward Song).”
I never got to see Spamalot in its original run, but considering that it was nominated for 14 Tony Awards, won the Best Musical Award in 2005, and got some very good reviews, you can imagine why I didn’t hesitate to press play when I learned that the performance of an oratorio written by Idle and John Du Prez, his Spamalot collaborator, was streaming on Netflix.
Based on Monty Python’s Life of Brian and called “Not the Messiah: He’s a Very Naughty Boy,” this particular production was filmed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the creation of the TV series. For those of you who aren’t British or Anglophiles but are Doctor Who fans, you’ll know this place as the one where they held a two different concerts featuring music from the series and featured an original video in 2008 starring 10th Doctor David Tennant and hosted by Matt Smith (the 11th Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), and Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) in 2010. Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: “Not the Messiah” review”
One of the things that is the source of the Internet’s greatest power is the rabbit hole effect, wherein when you’re looking at one thing, you click a link, see something else, maybe do a search, and then end up at a totally awesome thing that you’ve never seen before.
For me, the rabbit hole began while watching Part 6 in the “Let’s Play” of Cursed Crusade from Loading Ready Run and then heading over to the comments on the forum post, which lead to the “Crash Course” episode on The Crusades, and from there I started to wonder how and why John Green got to be so funny, which lead to finding out about the 2007 web project he conducted with his brother Hank called Brotherhood 2.0.
See, brothers John and Hank Green decided that they conversed entirely too much by text (emails, IMs, text messages, etc.) and for a whole year decided that they would only communicate in means which didn’t involve text and/or written words. This meant that for a year, one brother would upload a video to the shared YouTube channel vlogbrothers talking about his day and the next day, the other brother would reply. (There were also phone calls and possibly in-person meetings as well, but that’s not germane to the thesis of the project.) There were punishments involved for violating the rules/concepts for the project which would also be captured on video and uploaded to the channel. There are two playlists of videos on the channel for the initial project and several more concerning the side projects and what happened when the brothers decided to continue doing the vlog (Oh, God, I hate that word so much).
One of the reasons why I’m drawn to Brotherhood 2.0 is that it’s a glorious collaboration between two witty people, another is how quickly things scale all the way up to dangerously silly. So far, I’ve only seen 25 of the 200 videos from the first part of 2007, and my favorite moments so far include the improvised songs (because I do that to make my boyfriend laugh all the time) and seeing the brothers interact with the world around them in their intros. Also, the “In your pants” game is one that I’m definitely going to have to play with our current library.
I can’t recall when I started watching these, but I can definitely tell you that this is one series that I’m going to be watching for quite some time.