The Most Convoluted Organ-Donation PSA You’ll See All Year

Last night I was gifted with an opportunity to attend an advance screening of “Terminator Salvation.” I went. Now I’m going to share my thoughts on the film. That’s what blogs are for.

WARNING: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!! Sort of… maybe… meh

First of all, the movie didn’t suck. It’s not my new favourite movie (that, of course, is Star Trek) but “Terminator Salvation” is pretty good. It’s entertaining, it has some degree of plot and story, it is big and flashy and percussively loud.
Which brings me to some generic whining complaints…
There is awesomely loud and then there is too f***in’ loud. No, it doesn’t add to the whole “movie-going experience” when you can feel the ground shake with every step of the giant robot. It is really distracting when my hair actually blows back with the force of the sound. Not needed.
Can we please, please, please, ban all future use of the Shaky-Cam as an expression of cutting edge cinematography? Hollywood should have learned its lesson when people walked out during “Cloverfield” because they had to vomit because of the vertigo-inducing camera work. The Shaky-Cam work in “Terminator Salvation” isn’t nearly that bad, but it is still distracting and detracting. The main effect of Shaky-Cam is to make you think that something really cool is happening, but you just can’t see it. You know it’s really cool because it is insanely loud and making your lungs hurt.
To me, that just says that the film maker couldn’t be bothered working on an actual visual effect that would impress me. Either that, or he still thinks he’s making music videos for MTV.

OK, whining complaints are over. Time for the Terminator Salvation Awards!!! We like to call them Termies because, well, because we can.

Best Theatre Lobby Promotion – The remaining members of the Barenaked Ladies, standing amidst cardboard stand-ups for various other film, singing a re-lyric’d version of “Yoko Ono.”
You can be my Sarah Connor (Oooh oh ooooh)
I will hunt you down wherever you go
Be my (be my) be my (be my)
Be my Sarah Connor (Whoooa whoa)

Best Off-The-Cuff Funny Comment By My Friend Bill – When Sam Worthington kissed Helena Bonham Carter and then said, “So that’s what death tastes like,” Bill muttered, “That’s what Tim Burton said, too.”

Best Name Ever – Actress Moon Bloodgood. She plays a character with a name so ordinary that I can’t even remember what it was, because her real-life name is Moon Bloodgood. Damn, what an awesome name.
And she’s hot, too.

Best Steve McQueen Tribute So Far This Century – Sam Worthington on a motorcycle escaping from the resistance base.

Best In-Context Allusion To Previous Terminator Movies – It’s a three-way tie between “I’ll be back,” “Come with me if you want to live,” and Guns’N’Roses.

Best Non-Speaking CGI Cameo By A Naked Former Body Builder Who Now Holds Public Office – Aw, that would be telling.

Best Unlikely Convergence Of Various Elements To Work In The Good Guy’s Favour – The tow truck / terminator-cycle / bolo / slingshot thing. On a bridge, because such things are even cooler on a bridge. Watch for it.

Best Visual Pre-Empting Of Another Summer Blockbuster Sequel – Auto-Bot Terminator, with built-in autonomous filler motorcycles.

Best Failure To Provide Real Closure To A Story That Has Gone On For Too Many Years Already – Yep, they left it open to yet another damned sequel.

There you have them… The 2009 Termie Awards, at least one of which I just made up.
However, in an overly complicated homage to the time travel aspect of the Terminator franchise, the first joke in this blog post will be the last one you get. When you see the film this weekend, within the first few minutes of the movie you will think you’ve finally got it. You’ll be wrong. It won’t be until within moments of the end that the hilariously clever meaning of this post’s title will be apparent. You may even laugh. It’ll be a hollow, ironic laugh, but it will be enough to alert the people around you that you have been privy to the kind of joke that only comes along once every few decades.

Top 10 Things Not In The New "Star Trek" Movie

Sometimes, an important part of what makes a movie great is what isn't in the film. "Star Trek" is no exception. There are many things that could have in the movie but weren't... and I am thankful for that.


10. Techno-doublespeak neo-sciencey bullshit talk. When technical terminolgy was actually required, it made sense in context and wasn't just a random string of complicated-sounding syllables.

9. Whoopi Goldberg. Her empathic bartender character from TNG is apparently immortal or, at least, very long-lived, having been in San Francisco in the 1870's. Some meddling executive could have thought it would be really cute to have some stunt casting with her character working the bar where Kirk starts a fight. Fortunately, that executive, if he ever existed, was taken out and shot for suggesting such a stupid idea and we didn't have to suffer through it.

8. An after-credits bonus scene where Samuel L. Jackson shows up, snubs Kirk and Spock, and offers Sulu a job with S.H.I.E.L.D. based solely on his fencing skills. C'mon, it could happen.

7. Klingons for the sake of having Klingons. The plot and storyline got along quite nicely, thank you, without Klingons. Their existence was acknowledged but their on-screen presence would not have helped at all and so they were never seen.

6. Cheese.

5. An explanation of why everyone was wearing Aquaman shirts. It was more apparent with the mustard-coloured uniform shirts, but there was a tiny scale-like pattern showing. Nobody questioned it, much like Batman's rubber nipples back in the Tim Burton era. It simply was. I assumed it is in deference to the water-breathing aliens from the planet Atlanticus, who will play a major part in the next movie. Or not.

4. Denial of the curse of the red shirts. When Kirk, Sulu and Olson are assigned a stealth, high-risk, Navy Space-Seals-style, seek-and-destroy mission, there was no doubt what colour Olson would be wearing. In fact, the curse was kicked up a notch. Instead of shirst, the three of them were wearing high-tech, mission-specific, paratrooper combat suits. Kirk in blue, Sulu in white and Olson in, you guessed it, red from head to toe. Olson's inevitable demise was, in fact, his own damned fault and his stupidity put the mission at risk, showing that the Red Shirt Curse isn't simply a cannon-fodder attitude among the higher ranks in Starfleet.

3. Jar-Jar Binks. Lucasfilm and ILM handled some of the special effects on this film and the orchestral music playing under the closing credits sounded disturbingly similar to the Imperial March. Scotty's little Oompa Loompa sidekick could easily have been portrayed mainly for the cute, kid-oriented factor like Jar-Jar, but he wasn't. Thank Tribbles for that.

2. Tribbles. Once again, this film was not the proper forum for cute. There will be plenty of time for cute later, five or six films from now when the whole franchise is getting old and tired again, but not now, not yet.

1. The Prime Directive. Yes, I'm sure it still exists; it's an established tenet of Starfleet philosophy. That doesn't mean that it has to be dragged out and bandied about, slapping people over the head with the xeno-moralistic superiority of it. It had nothing to do with the story and so it was left out. This film is a chance to bring in a new audience, to grow a new fan-base, without over-burdening them with 40+ years of backstory baggage. Give 'em the basics to follow the story and focus on making it a hell of a good story.

Top 10 Lines In The New "Star Trek" Movie

This list is based mainly on the actor's delivery of the individual line, although some lines are just cool on their own. All of this comes down to a matter of opinion, specifically, my opinion which is currently more valid than yours by virtue of the fact that I'm the one typing this right now.

10. "I am not our father." - Spock Prime to Spock.

9. "Wictor Wictor." - 17 year-old Ensign Chekov's verbal security code no being accepted by the computer.

8. "I may throw up on you." - McCoy to Kirk, then later, Kirk to McCoy.

7. "You're from the future? Do they have sandwiches there?" - Scotty to Spock Prime.

6. "I have no comment on the matter." - Spock to Kirk in response to a question about Uhura.

5. "Is there a problem, Officer?" - 10 year-old Kirk to a motorcycle cop after dumping a vintage 20th century car over a cliff after a high speed chase.

4. "Hi, Christopher. I'm Nero." - Nero to Pike.

3. "You can whistle really loud." - Kirk to Pike after Pike stops a bar brawl between Kirk and four Starfleet cadets by simply whistling.

2. "The ex-wife got the whole planet in the divorce. All she left me was my bones." - Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy explaining why he's joining Starfleet. At last, the nickname is explained. I always thought it was derived from "Sawbones."

1. "Live long and prosper." - Spock to the Vulcan Science Council after declining his appointment to the council in response to a derisive comment about his mother being human. The delivery on this line was flawlessly multi-layered, leaving the unspoken follow up of "...and the horse you rode in on," echoing silently in your head.

Yep, they're super, alright.

The last survivor of a doomed planet in a doomed universe.
Star of many doomed mini-series.

Kara Zor-L.

Karen Starr.

Power Girl.
Who is she?

First appearing in All-Star Comics #58 (January/February 1976) Power Girl was writer Gerry Conway's answer to the question, "Did the Earth-2 Superman also have a hot cousin?"

If at this point you are asking, "What's an Earth-2?" then, boy, are you in the wrong place. Go here and search it for yourself. Suffice to say, Earth-2 was DC Comics rationalization for creating new characters with the same names as old characters and explaining why Batman didn't age. Turns out there was a completely different, yet parallel universe full of all the same people thirty years earlier.

Power Girl joined the All-Star Squadron, then the Justice Society of America, both on Earth-2, while on Earth-1 (you know, the "real" one where the comic books everyone actually cared about took place) Supergirl was doing her own thing, which at the time consisted of going to college and wearing a headband.

Then in the 80's DC realized that their multiverse was becoming hugely over-populated and crowded, so they came up with "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in which several major characters and minor universes were killed off.

By the end of the twelve issue series, Supergirl was dead and there was only one Earth (thus only one universe). Oddly enough Power Girl was still around.

The original Earth-2 Justice Society had been absorbed and retro-fitted into the new continuity, but no one could really agree on the new backstory for Power Girl. So they used all of them.

Over the last twenty years Power Girl has been Kryptonian, Atlantean, "of unknown origin," and a magical stripper from the Nether Realm.

OK, I just made that last one up, but you see my point. She's been ret-conned so often it's a wonder she can walk.

And now Earth-2 is back, one of 52 alternate universes, and guess what..? They've got their own Power Girl.

And through it all, none of it really matters. No one actually cares about a Power Girl story or where she comes from or what she does or why she's here, as long as she's wearing that costume.

You see, Power Girl has what are know in the comic book industry as huge tits.

And that is the only reason the character has lasted as long as she has. There have been various comic series about Power Girl over the years and they all ultimately failed because they were bogged down by story and plot and character development and all that crap.

Here's the cover of the new Power Girl on-going series released today.

See..?

A hot blond ripping open her shirt, unveiling a large pair of breasts.

That's how you sell comics.

Sure, I may sound cynical and sexist and archaic, but I'm not the one marketing this stuff. DC is and, apparently, they've finally figured it out.
A few weeks ago I was discussing large breasts (it started as a literary conversation, honest) with a friend of mine who is amongst those women gifted with a healthy set of twins protruding attractively from the upper body. We concluded that the more I, as a man, just want to cut loose and motorboat those puppies, the power she, as a woman, wields over me by simply saying, "...No."
In a weird, Bizarro-World kind of way, large breats are ultimately very empowering for women. Thus, with her impressive cleavage, Power Girl is quite appropriately named.

So, to commemorate this triumph for feminism, I'm going to finish this blog post with a plethora of Power Girl images.

You know you love 'em.

Garth Ennis Is Twisted -- Part Three -- A Stabbing Pain To The Groin

Nothing can ruin your day like a knife to the nuts, as shown by this sad thug in Hellblazer #65.

Garth Ennis actually has a whole section reserved just for him at NadShot.com.

I will probably be going there for several examples of Twisted Ennis as time goes on.

I can't see a damned thing with this black lantern

At the end of the whatever-the-hell-the-major-story-arc-was dominating the Green Lantern books in late 2007, DC ran several teaser panels of up-coming events, up to and including "Blackest Night - Summer 2009." With great excitement and anticipation, I thought, "Yay! Martin Lawrence is doing a sequel to his Greatest Movie Ever!!" But alas, it was not to be. "Blackest Night" has nothing to do with the urban(e) comedy stylings of Mssr. Lawrence.
"Blackest Night" is the culmination of several stories revolving around the rise of several other ring-bearing corps of various colours and power sources. It seems that different colours correspond to different feelings or emotions. The Sinestro Corps have yellow rings that are powered by fear. Red Lanterns are fed by rage. A veritable rainbow of lantern corps are forming, running the gamut of sentient emotion. Fear, rage, hope, love, boredom, ennui, sarcasm and, uh, playfulness, I guess. Then lastly, the absence of all feeling and emotion, the Black Lanterns, representing Death.
Since the initial announcement, the hype around Blackest Night has snowballed, steamrolling through the DCU, rolling like a big, steamy snowball, flattening extraneous plotlines and picking up leftover bits from the last five years of "Events."
And we'd expect nothing less from Geoff Johns, the Brian Michael Bendis of DC Comics. Johns did for Hal Jordan what Bendis did for Luke Cage. He's currently doing for Barry Allen what Bendis is doing for Jessica Drew. And "Blackest Night" should do for the DCU what "Secret Invasion" did for Marvel 616 (because, let's face it, "Final Crisis" left readers slightly less than satisfied and feeling like the guy with a steak knife at the vegetarian buffet).
Lately my DC pull list has consisted mainly of Geoff Johns' books and related titles. He has a sense of scope and long-term planning to his writing. Like Bendis, when he signs on to write a comic book, he seems to be in it for the long haul. "I'll write this book until I run out of stories to tell." That's a refreshing change from writers who sign a contract for a twelve issue run on a title and we're all supposed to be thrilled when, around their eighth or ninth issue, they sign on for another six, then they're done.
Don't get me wrong; I love Mark Millar's writing whenever it happens and I enjoyed Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men. I even liked Kevin Smith's stuff on Daredevil and Green Arrow. I just really love the moment when you're reading a comic and there's a big reveal of some major plot twist and you remember seeing the clues three years earlier. That's just quality story architecture and it impresses me.
Also like Bendis, Geoff Johns seems to able to adapt and absorb other writers' storylines into his longterm plots. Apparently every DCU character who has died in the last few years will be returning as a Black Lantern when "Blackest Night" gets into full swing in July. Earth-2 Superman, J'onn J'onz, that little yappy dog that got crushed under a giant robot's foot in a back up story in an unpublished issue of Blue Beetle's Burlesque Bonanza. There's gonna be a whole bunch of dead folk rising from the grave to kick the little blue asses of the Guardians of the Universe. "Blackest Night" promises to be big.
Even bigger than you might suspect.
Recently Marvel began running some teaser ads in their comics. A white star standing out starkly against a background of black. Across the bottom of the page, the ominous words, "JULY 2009." Upon closer examination, a chainmail pattern was discernible on the black background.
This can only mean one thing.
Black Lantern Captain America.
Awesome.
DC doesn't have enough dead superheroes of their own. They have to borrow some corpses from the competition.

"Garth Ennis Is Twisted" -- "Part Two" -- "Garth Harder"

Punctuation is so important.