Here’s to hoping something gets worked out in time for the March 6th release of the Watchmen.

I was just surfing around for new movies and came across one that interested me as a lover of music and music history: Cadillac Records. Check out the trailer.

I guess it was released on the 5th of this month and I’m actually really surprised I missed any news on this one (thanks to school probably, that or a crippling WoW addiction at the moment). Chronicling Chess Records it stars Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Eamonn Walker as Howlin’ Wolf, and Beyoncé Knowles (meh) as Etta James.

Holy fucking shit! This really looks great. I’m really not a fan of Beyoncé Knowles at all, but I’m willing to be optimistic with this one.

Chess Records began as a small store in Chicago called Aristocrat Records. Leonard Chess and his brother Phil bought out the company and renamed it Chess Records. Leonard and Phil would bring in artists they would find and have them sit in with their session musicians, many of them accomplished artists in their own right. Many of the above artists had recorded with Chess, blues musicians and even The Rolling Stones, from England, before they were the “bad boys” the bad version of The Beatles.

An amazing number of well known artists recorded with Chess in the 50’s and 60’s, among my favourites are Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, & Etta James. It was the home for the Chicago Blues, an electrified version of the Delta Blues.

I will be seeing this as soon as finals are over next week. I’m a gigantic music nerd, and Chess was around at the beginning of R&B music, back before it was overproduced tripe, back when it meant something to rise up from nothing and become something. Back when the music was… amazing.

-Tyler

And now – and NOW, I hop on imdb and check that, oh, Dominic Monaghan is going to play Beak. Seriously!? Beak was a fucking lame character to begin with, now they’re going to lame him up even more in an attempt to make him visually interesting and fun on screen? Who is writing these fucking movies!? I had to fucking check wikipedia because it’s been so goddamned long since I’ve even read the New X-Men series and he was so utterly lame and forgettable (until the kind of Hawkman-esque appearance of him after the AoA-like story arc, the beginning of which I just had to quit reading… yes, it was that bad) that I really had to make sure I was thinking of the right character.

Anyway, I know Wolverine is a cash cow property because of whatever-fucking-reasons (“he’s a badass, and tall, and has cool facial hair and can’t die!” ugh…) so much so they’ve already make 3 fucking movies about him and now they’re making a 4th that is apparently going to be based on his origin (which from what I’ve seen is nothing like Origin, thank fucking Christ, but still if you have source material, especially relatively CURRENT source material: USE IT) I wonder if they’re going to establish bone claws? Or had they already done that in one of his other movies? X-Men? I can’t remember and don’t have the angry energy to check.

Bottom line with the Wolverine movies is this: I’ll definitely be seeing it, because there’s not been much out that’s been good and this is no exception. I’m pretty sure I won’t be surprised by OMG SO FUCKING AWESOME to discount my hatred for a character I liked as a kid reading the comics and watching the Animated Series. I reserve the right to be angry because that’s who I am.

-Tyler

I got back around to the Ghostbusters VG booth and met the canon 5th Ghostbuster – Ryan, one of the developers. The guy was really awesome, and loves the property as much as I do. He was really interested in what everyone had to say about the game. After playing it I only had ONE complaint (that I didn’t get a chance to tell him because he had left for lunch) and that was when the characters put away their throwers the animation is not realistic. That’s it. Something in a game about catching ghosts that doesn’t look right because it’s so difficult as to being almost impossible.

After that I ended up collecting a nifty con exclusive LEGO Joker and Batman that I will probably end up giving to one of my friends (he loves LEGOs and I missed his birthday this weekend.) Swagged some other nifty, useless stuff. I’ll probably post a picture on Monday or something.

I saw the entire Guild cast standing around taking in a huddle and I decided not to bother them and just find them while they’re signing later.

I was excited to meet quite a few people that I’d missed on Friday. Wil Wheaton (I got his book “Happiest Days” and talked to him for a bit and he was cool, there’s another story here and I’ll tell that a little later on); Scott Kurtz from PvP, the Candyman, Ken Foree and Cassandra Peterson (awesome lady, I did not expect her to be dressed as Elvira but surprisingly enough she was!) and got my picture with most of them.

I also met Amy & Felicia from The Guild and I think I kind of freaked Felicia out a bit, which kind of sucks. They told me the rest of the cast was signing upstairs and I went and found them (getting my picture taken with an awesome Red Power Ranger on the way) and they were very cool! Robyn and Sandeep were very enthusiastic about the Ghostbuster uniform and Robyn was even more excited when I came back with the pack on. I got a few pictures with them and they all turned out… well, so many people were taking pictures of us it got a little confusing. But there was a picture with Vince, Robyn and Jeff that turned out great and the one where Sandeep jumped in that two of us were looking at different cameras. Oh well, it was a very “Zaboo!” moment.

After that the con was kind of winding down and I stuck around for part of the Masquerade showing in one of the satellite showing rooms since I didn’t know Ballroom 20 wasn’t filled to capacity. I left just as there was a chick dancing around as Emma Frost and there was a nip slip and the lights went OUT. I felt really bad for the lady, but come on… who doesn’t wear pasties underneath a tube top? Not that I’m complaining.

After that it was back to the friends place and slept in the tub ’cause there was snoring.

Yay cons.

-Tyler

Checked out the WB booth and got some cool interior (and a few exterior) shots of Night Owl’s ship (think it’s screen used from Watchmen.) Didn’t swag anything from that booth, so hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for swag-ing shit. I gave up on doing the little scavenger hunt for LEGO Joker pieces, and when I was feeling more up to it they apparently had run out of heads and stopped doing it for the day.

Web of Shadows looks pretty damn cool, I didn’t hunker down and play any of it but that’s why there’s 2 days left at the con. I also need to check out the Warhammer Online MMO. I went by what seemed to be the conglomeration of awesome webcomic artsts and writers – met R.K. Milholland of something*positive, his girlfriend Rinny (dressed at Zatanna, sooo cute), and Jennie Breeden from The Devil’s Panties, and got a picture with the three of them. I also met the writer/artist from Two/Lumps and he was a very awesome guy, he had been doing a few sketches so I didn’t want to bother him with another – hopefully I can stop by and get a sketch from him today!

I dropped by the Penny-Arcade booth and met Jerry & Mike… and honestly I was less than impressed. I don’t know if I managed to piss them off in the few seconds I was there but they did not seem happy that I was there at all. Maybe I cut off a line or something that I just didn’t see. But the two of them were just sitting there doing nothing. Oh well, I didn’t expect them to be really cool and kiss readers asses – because their pay-grade is way beyond false appreciation of fans. That’s not to say that they don’t appreciate their fans, I’m sure they do. Whatever slight they concocted for me to have committed I hope it was something as awesome as flipping off a box of kittens or punching a baby.

More later,

-Tyler

I honestly can’t judge it too much, I mean it’s just the first trailer after all and it very well could be made to look more sensational for us American audiences which only seem to want action and explosions. Of course I can remember watching the trailer for Fight Club and thinking “what the fuck is this?” and swearing I would never see what actually became one of my favourite books and movies.

I really do hope the “visionary” director of 300 – which I honestly had a problem with the changing of the story – Zach Snyder does Watchmen well. We don’t need it to be a super-powered romp through a small conflict, we need the seemingly normal people that fight crime because it’s right and not because they’ve got super powers. Night Owl is freaking Batman and he should be closer to that than let’s say… Superman. The book was about the (at the time) current state of the world and how a comic book could mirror that. Let’s keep it that way. Two people in the story have super powers – Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, and the latter isn’t nearly as fantastical as the former.

However, I have to give it props, some of the scenes they showed are freaking exactly from the comic which is an amazing feat.

-Tyler

ps. the Dr. Manhattan being deconstructed thing in the beginning looks awesome!

-Tyler

Well it looks like I completely glossed over this part when I was writing the post about the 40’s Minutemen – there will be the Black Freighter (the pirate story line) webisodes and compilation DVD!

I’m overjoyed that they’re actually shooting this and releasing the webisodes and DVD, but I’m really hoping that they release the Black Freighter on the Watchmen DVD, or that it’ll be something on the Special Edition otherwise I will be very sad – and there will be two spaces taken up for Watchmen related DVDs on my shelf.

-Tyler

First: Overall I thought this was an okay movie, but it certainly could have been better. This movie suffered from what I like to call the “King Arthur” syndrome – the movie would have been a fucking awesome movie if it didn’t have anything else to do with King Arthur. Just like King Arthur, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” could only have only benefitted with having nothing to do with the Indiana Jones series – the story was compelling enough, and fun (but a little too over the top in a couple scenes, but I’ll get to those later (there will be spoilers, beware), the fact that they got Karen Allen back to reprise her role from “Raiders” is commendable.

Recasting characters is one of my biggest pet peeves with movies, case and point: “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” or as I affectionately refer to it “Terminator 3: The One That Doesn’t Exist”. In T3 I really think Edward Furlong should have been back to play the role of John Connor; he was the right age, and HE’S JOHN FUCKING CONNOR!

Anyway, there were a few scenes that would have been entirely beyond belief for me had I not been on my way to drunk and I will list them here as obscurely as possible for people who have seen the film and to not ruin anything for those people that haven’t seen it yet: the fridge, waterfalls, “George of the Jungle”. At those points my mind just kind of checked out and it left a foul taste in my mouth, one I would much rather have not tasted. It wasn’t vomit from too much booze.

There certainly are other things that both me- the main story didn’t bother me, but the resolution of it bothered me. I have thought about why these things bother me, and I came to one conclusion; George Lucas only makes sequels to his movies to put a giant buttplug in his fans asses. He likes to see them squirm, when he does these things he thinks “what would really make them uncomfortable? Oh, right! Something uncharacteristic of my previous attempts at this franchise! And IcyHot as lube for when I put this ungodly huge thing up their asses.”I’d say the final verdict is that if you’re dead set on seeing this movie in theatres then do so, but just realize that there are true evils that lie within the celluloid and they make fansboys cringe and attempt to hang themselves with their limited edition Indiana Jones bullwhips.

-Tyler

There was a post on “Ain’t It Cool” news with a picture of the original Minutemen (like in the comic) in a 1940 lineup – check it out. Man, that is badass! I do have very high hopes for this movie, and I hope that I’m not let down by it. I know they’re leaving out one plot-thread (the pirate comic, for those who’ve read it) and that doesn’t so much bother me because it just added commentary to what was happening in the main comic. Hopefully they’ll film those parts and release it in something like fear.net did with the “30 Days of Night: Blood Trails” shorts.

I’ve also been working on comments today and I’ve decided that the “highlight-author-comments” plugin is nifty, but it’s too restrictive and a little… strange. I’ll be making some changes to the comments page, and hopefully not breaking it too bad to accomplish the look I’d like. It’s strange, I don’t know why I am so hot to trot about making this look awesome because I’m just going to be changing the theme to my own eventually anyway. Oh well, if anyone reads this it’ll be nice for them… or it’ll at least make me less anal about the whole look of this site.

-Tyler