MAN-THING!!!!!

MAN-THING!!!!!, originally uploaded by PinthGarnell.

Okay, fuck Batman for just one second. Yeah, sure, I know, two days left. But today is the day, let me get seriously old school here, like Reb Brown old school. My favorite genre is and always has been The Live Action Superhero Movie (LASM) and once upon a time there weren't that many of them, which made my interest special. I'm excited for see Man-Thing because I've spent far more time in the LASM drought than in the present era-of-plentiful. Back then, if it wasn't a Batman year, you watched...whatever you could get your hands on, whether it be that shitty Generation X tv movie (Generation X - the Marvel Mutant Comic not everyone born in the 70's) (1993) which I proudly watched and taped or that Matt Salinger Captain America Movie (1992) which I own thank you very much, or even the David Hasselhoff Nick Fury TV movie, which I love. Yes it was all shit but prior to X-Men 1 how was a Superhero Movie nut to pass the time between The Phantom and The Shadow?

Which brings me to Man-Thing. You see, we're so spoiled now, we've got two Live Action Superhero movies coming out this summer, the third of year (Elektra, which I love, was released in February). Four if you include Man-Thing, which nobody would. While Warner Brothers (who owns DC comics was putting out Superman (1978) Marvel (independently owned) was putting out Spider-Man the shit tv show, while DC/Warner was putting out Batman (1989) Marvel was putting out The shit Punisher (Dolph!). Aside from the pilot episode of The Hulk, Marvel put out pure shit for it's entire existence up until Blade, from Captain America (79) to Fantastic Four (93), and now they're the golden boys but Man-Thing is sure to be shit, but that's the Marvel I know and love. THIS is the Marvel who made The Trial of The Incredible Hulk tv movie with the worst Daredevil ever and Sallah as Kingpin.

GODBLESS them and the Man-Thing out on video today. Today I'm back in 1988 and Blade had never been produced, and it never begat X-Men, and that never begat Spider-Man, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Batman Begins, Superman Returns, and I know that this would be my only superhero fix for the year. So I'm buying Man-Thing today. I'm like Nicholas Hammond old school.

Now here's the question of the day. Will they run their spiffy Marvel Films logo in front of this one or disown it?

When's the last time you were told whether to be worried or not?

I just got really curious about what threat level we were under right now because nobody talks about it anymore. I know we all make fun of it, but that terror alert chart is dumb. I guess I'll be the last guy to call it out. It's just so funny that it was the most important thing in the world, the thing you checked along with the weather channel before you left for work. Well it's Yellow right now on Monday, June 13th 2005, just so you know. So there is a SIGNIFICANT risk of a terror attack today, kinda like yesterday. Yellow's the average, it's been yellow ever since we were significantly attacked, and I think it was orange a few times too, you know, for the holidays. I guess it should've been Green all this time if it were anything close to accurate. But it's never been Green or Blue. Not in four years has the chance of terror attack been anything but SIGNIFICANT. Our governments funny, and we all know it, but we don't do anything about it but gather all in one place so we fuck our chances of winning the electoral college. And blog, we blog too.

It's Batman Week!

The agony, originally uploaded by PinthGarnell.

Everybody's excited about Batman Begins. And if you're not, from what I've heard, you ought to be, yes you, the guy who hates those stupid movies, evidently even you can get excited about this one. And being predisposed to liking live action superhero's enough to be excited about Man-Thing's straight-to-video debut, I am of course excited as hell.

But probaby the man most excited about this, even more so than Chris Nolan or Christian Bale is Joel Schumacher. Perhaps the bricks and garbage will stop being thrown through the window of his Beverly Hills home, perhaps finally the mailbox will be unbashed in the morning, and maybe just maybe the only shit in his yard will be from his little gay dog and none of it will be on fire.

I feel sorry for Joel Schumacher. Here's a self-made man who made it all the way to the top, braved a tougher Hollywood than most, directing shit like D.C. Cab to great movies like Falling Down, Lost Boys, and Flatliners. But all he'll ever be remembered as is the buy that fucked up Batman. It's such a pervasive theory, that my friggin' grandma knows Joel Schumacher fucked up Batman. It would not surprise me if he blew his head off this week, EVERY SINGLE magazine, paper, trade magazine, website, chatroom, everything I've read about the new Batman also mentions that Joel fucked the last two up.

But Live Action Superhero movie prior to Blade go, how far off was Batman & Robin? We act like the movies got campy "all of a sudden" but how far is Schwarzeneggar from Tommy Lee Jones, and how far is Tommy Lee Jones fron Danny Devito, and how far is Danny Devito from Nicholson? None of this is THAT far from the original Batman, just one too many nudges in that direction I guess. That mixed with a pure misunderstanding of the audience, and some really stupid stuff. I like Batman Forever a lot, there's some real good stuff in there. I know plenty will disagree, sure it's colorful, but the Robin story has some weight to it, and Kilmer is really good, I love Kilmer as Batman, more than Keaton. But even if you considered Batman Forever the standard-bearer of the franchise, Batman & Robin is still off the mark. But no more so than any fourth entry in any franchise (unless you renumber your series like Lucas did, but we all know what the fourth film is)

Although, I should say, as far as "bombs" like Batman & Robin go, we should all be so lucky to have a bomb that makes $230 mil before DVD.

Short-Haired Chick Friday

Natalie!, originally uploaded by PinthGarnell.

Here's your short haired chick of the week. I love short hair on women, I think Nastassja Kinski ruined me when I saw Cat People at an impressionable age. Well now a very attractive woman in her own right has joined the ranks and Alien 3'd her hair for "V for Vendetta", produced by the Wachowski Brothers, based on the Alan Moore comic book. Natalie, first you turned 18, that was a very sexy move, then you starred in Star Wars (quick path to my heart), then you played a stripper (quicker path), now you've shaved your head. Seriously, there's no reason to try this hard to get me, you should focus on your career.

THX11384EB

THX11384EB, originally uploaded by PinthGarnell.

Rereading Skywalking: The Life and Films of Geroge Lucas. I never realized how much George Lucas was the Tarantino of his time. Say what you will about The Phantom Menace, you can't find a more perfect beginning of a career, it would take 25 years for another film to come out that had the impact of American Graffiti (Pulp Fiction), and I don't know if a film more radical than THX 1138 has been greenlit by a major studio since. And then of course, his third film. We forget how radical his third film was, how visionary, how new, the world had never seen anything like it. From 1965 to 1977 nobody was better. We're so spoiled now, sitting on our asses, eating doritoes, complaining that Lucas doesn't work doesn't stand up to our standards, and saying how we coudl make a better Matrix Reloaded.

Observations on G.I. Joe while watching Season 1 Disc 1

Zartan!, originally uploaded by PinthGarnell.

Tomax and Xamot, the leaders of the Crimson Guard were this twins who ran a megacorporation and funneled all their money into Cobra. Imagine if the head of Dow was running the resitance in Iraq. Considering the G.I. Joe was made during Reagan and was all ra ra, we're American, and you suck, this is a pretty awesome fuck you to big business. The Crimson Guard doubly so because they all dress up as businessmen and live next to you in your neighborhood, even their wives don't know, but they're the elite of the elite with Cobra. And when these simple businessmen get the call they don the Crimson Guard uniform and go fight. It's taking the communist scare thing (your best friend could be a communist) but saying that businessmen ar the communists.

Mutt and Dusty let Duke out of some laser prison and he slaps them both low fives. awesome.

Is Mutt supposed to look like Burt Reynolds?

They use the word terrorist a lot. Back when it didn't mean anything.

Roadblock reminds me of my old roommate, especially when he gets angry and yells.

They sure find a use for the Bridgelayer, every episode they have a chasm that must be crossed. Which is funny, because I had the bridgelayer when I was a kid and never found one chasm for that useless toy.

I love how many characters there are, perhaps the best ensemble cartoon of all time? Althought they don't have the diversity of the characters from Transformers, they all had a lot of personality.

Snake Eyes is awesome, Storm Shadow is awesome, but Quick Kick was bullshit.

There are three types of men in this world, those who like Scarlett, those who liked the Baroness, and those who like Lady Jaye. To this day I am still a serious Lady Jaye guy.

I'm wondering why Alpine and Bazooka and Shipwreck are such prominent characters leading all the stories, as opposed to Duke who's the leader. And then I realize that these action figures were all introduced at the same time, they were probably new when this show was airing. Buy Shipwreck kids, look at all the cool stuff he does. I guess that would explain the bridgelayer as well.

Snake Eyes just breakdanced. Out of control.

The Worst Job I ever Had (the many temp jobs of Adam Witt)

There's a place on Wacker Dr. going North from the loop, where it hits the river and starts going East. A shitty place to spend your smoke breaks. Staring at Wacker where it curves. Inside this building is a cheap jewelery wholesaler who has all these cheap little stores that they put in places like Bowling Green, Ohio where nobody’d know the difference.

The Main Office of this Mega corporation was so small. Like a one bedroom apartment. The whole office and BREAK ROOM were all in the same room. So at some point when the cubicles that were stuck in between filing cabinets (leaving some businessguys only a 1 in 10 chance of getting out of their desk with their businessguys knees intact. At the end of all the hallway created by the space in between desk and in between filing cabinets was a glass partition and 20 Asian women all speaking asian in a room the realistically could fit 12 if you took the two bad seats with your back to the vending machine. They all worked sorting diamonds in the diamond area.

This was a people-first kind of place.

I worked with another buy, a black kid, and the only thing I remember about him was that he went to GNC at lunch and came back with like a billon millgram Vitamin E, because it makes you able to screw longer. Never heard that since.

This is unbelievable, so there we are sorting out complaints and we put one color highlighter in an interoffice envelope and put it in one postal bin and another color highlighter in another interoffice envelope and put that in another postal bin. Exciting stuff, huh? Once our fascination with the job and our drive to do it better wore off Mr. All-night-long and I started talking, then joking, then having a good time, and then we got SHUSHED! The woman in charge of telling us what to do (and answering any questions should a highlighter of a third color show up) SHUSHED us! Like we were in fourth grade. Now, of course we were loud, their stupid upper management shoved all of these fearful underground dwellers in the smallest office in the world! You numbskulls! Who would work for this company, hey, I’m just here for a few days, you people have committed. Oh, they were so sad.

Okay, anyway, so The Coked Up Boss. So I knew they weren’t spending money on real estate, and then one day I figured out where all the money was going. We got SHUSHED by The Big Guy. He was so 45 and bald and overly Florida Tanned because he vacationed all the time because all the money went to him and he was so coked up and angry, so angry. And I guess Mr. Dickhard and I were being too loud too often so Mrs. Pleasedontfireme calls on the big guy, who comes in an tells us to shut up like your Mom would when you’re 13 and you know everything and you’ve pushed your her to the end of her rope during an all-day mall outing.

So later I’m looking for a phone, because they were all at desks with people in this tiny place. So I wander into, what I later assume was the luxuriously large executive lounge and make a call from what I later assume was the executive phone, and the Coked-Up guys busts me and assumes I’m stealing money. And treats me like a guy he caught trying to steal money! I’ve never been yelled at so bad in my life. I went back to my sorting job, only to have the Coked-Up guy walk to the door and point to me “that’s the guy” he says as a security guard escorts me out of the worst job I ever had.