People who are already sick of Twilight mania, be forewarned: The next movie in the series comes out next SUMMER. You have less than a year until you get to hear about all the hubbub for the next installment.

Personally, I'm looking forward to how they handle the LAST movie. When it comes time for someone to rip open a woman's uterus with their teeth, can you shoot that shit for a PG-13? What about the part where a grown man falls in love - as in serious, "I am your soulmate"-type love - with a newborn baby? Are they just gonna avoid that issue entirely, or what? Should be FASCINATING.

To get to the point, though, New Moon is out today and I'm seeing it tonight with a couple of serious TwiHards and a couple of more skeptical guys. I only know some book spoilers from the Internets and... well, basically I saw the first movie. I haven't read these books, is what I'm saying. I tried to read the first one, got pretty far into it and everything, but then I realized I really wanted to see Bella trip and fall off a cliff, and I was much happier not knowing her inner thoughts, so I stopped reading the book to escape them. I didn't hate her in the movie like I did in the book - she was self-involved and kinda boring, sure, but I didn't feel that the Kristen Stewart Bella was also an egotistical little shitbag.

In fact, I wish the series was about Bella's friend Jessica instead. Now THERE'S a girl with some personality. She's even capable of smiling! Anna Kendrick, who plays Jessica, is getting her big break next month with a major role in Up in the Air, the new movie from Jason Reitman (you know, the guy who did Thank You For Smoking and Juno). Maybe she can become a big enough star to deserve her own spinoff. Call it Jessica Stanley is Oblivious to Vampires, and make it a comedy about her ongoing near-misses with the entire supernatural subculture that lurks within Forks.

If there is a single flaw with "Smallville" this season, it's that they're still calling it "Smallville." The show takes place pretty much entire in Metropolis now - presumably, the title is now referring to Lois' nickname for her journalistic partner. Yet that's still too much of a stretch for my tastes. I think they should've renamed it "Metropolis" and been done with it.

That's about all the negative I have to say about the show as it currently stands.

Ever since series' dumb-ass creators (Gough and Millar, we do not miss you) abandoned the ship after Season 7 - taking the painful character of Lana and the atrocious arc they'd created for Lex with them, along with the associated actors - this show has become everything it should've been and then some. We finally have comic-accurate heroes and villians making appearances. ALIEN threats from other planets and dimensions instead of half-assed, watered-down "Russian exchange students" and such bullshit. We finally have genuine ACTION SEQUENCES - real goddamn fights, lasting confrontations, throwdowns with special effects, etc - on the scale of at least Buffy or an Angel. The first 7 years of the show, all we ever got were a bunch of people acting angsty and then a bad guy getting the patented "30-yard chuck" across the room in the last scene. Maybe a sequence with some slow-mo if we were lucky. But FUCK THAT. That was then. This is the now.


Lois & Clark, the new generation.

Best of all, by taking the show out of Smallville, we are now watching Clark and Lois in their early journalistic careers - getting scoops, learning the ropes and of course, totally wanting each other in semi-secret. Clark is already a superhero - a mysterious "blur" who constantly zips around town rescuing people at speeds too fast to be seen - but he obviously lacks his iconic costume, opting instead for a a black t-shirt emblazoned with the famous "S" shield. In truth, as soon as Clark can FLY and can wear his tights and cape, the show will become a full-on "SUPERMAN" TV series. It's so close right now that it can damn near taste it.


You NEVER would've seen Michael Shanks playing Hawkman in FULL COMIC-ACCURATE COSTUME during the first 7 years of this shit. NEVER.

Last season was, in many ways, a "cleanup" year - the new showrunners took the time to deal with the dangling issue of Lana, elminate certain continuity issues with the classic Superman mythos that the show had created, and in the process, provide the first tantalizing taste of THEIR vision of the show - bigger threats, more accuracy to the source, and a lot more Clark/Lois 'shippage. This year, you can see they've taken the reins and are going for broke. "Suckville" no longer, this is a Superman TV series FINALLY worth tuning in for.

I can't believe I actually look forward to watching "Smallville" every week. But now I do. And hey - the longer they can keep this up, the better.

Maybe it was her self-described dorkitude. Maybe it was when she was running through Wal-Mart throwing elbows at the other people grabbing up photos with her freaking teeth. Maybe it was when everybody else turned on her and called her "spoiled" and she started getting all bitter and sarcastic. But somewhere along the line, I latched onto Erin, the youngest of this cycle's Top Model finalists.


"ME?! SQUEEEEE!"

She came in as a brunette, and then Tyra (ridiculously) bleached her hair as well as her EYEBROWS, and now she's this freaky Nordic-looking chick who is thankfully entertaining enough to make up for the freakish appearance that was thrust upon her. She is the one who told us that she "doesn't know anything about Tibet... except that it needs to be freed." That's some hilariously zen shit, Erin.

Being hated on by the rest of your co-stars and harboring a deep love of Pokemon gets you pretty far in my book. It's really self-awareness that gets you everywhere with me, though, and her visual summary of her overall Top Model performance certainly captured that.


Yeah, that's pretty much how it's been going, Erin.

Poor Erin. She has no chance of winning the season after barely scraping by for three weeks straight. But you know what? She'll get a career out of this crap regardless. The top 5 pretty much always does.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing, though. Given that we're talking about a MODELING career, here. A modeling career based on fucking Top Model exposure.

Okay, so... probably a bad thing.

So my allergist wants me to try to keep our cats out of our bed.

How the HELL is THAT supposed to happen?

I mean, he'd like them off the bed entirely, but that's unlikely to ever go down. I suppose we could try closing the door to the bedroom 24/7, but won't they just scratch at it like they do most closets? Wouldn't they remember that, you know, they've been in there BEFORE? So we're going to try to shoot for just keeping them out of the SHEETS - the INSIDE of the bed, you know.

Except they follow us around like loyal puppies, and they scratch at any closed door we try to hide behind (unless it's the exit). This is a problem. We can't have them scratching up the doors. So how are we supposed to keep them out of the bedroom at night? And if they're in the bedroom, there's definitely no way to ensure that they never jump on the bed. That's just crazy talk.

The entire thing is basically asking the impossible of us, but I talked to Maria at lunch and we are going to try to figure out... something. Or at least try to experiment. I'm not terribly optimistic, but if anyone has any suggestions on how to make cats LOATHE the bed, I'm all ears, believe me.

- Got a sensitive/sore tooth over the weekend that just throbbed when hit with liquid. Turns out I have to get a root canal this Thursday because one of my back teeth is absessing. Fuck.

- I still haven't scheduled my tonsil surgery that I now officially have to get, and I am DREADING it.

If I give a jellybean to one of our cats, they do not transform into some kind of useful object. I have no access to a "Tangerine Trampoline" or a "Licorice Ladder" or a "Cream Cannon." At least not in the real world.

Luckily, the classic NES game 'A Boy & His Blob' just got remade for the Wii. Now I can vicariously experience the thrill of feeding jellybeans to a pet that will immediately morph into an appropriately themed object. (Apple = a jack, Punch = a hole, etc). And whereas the original was an example of creativity and frustration, this new one finally realizes the potential of the concept. It's adorable, it's fun... and it's all in glorious 2D, just like your 8-bit mama used to make.


Compare the old (inlaid) to the new, and gasp at 20 years of technological advancement!

The original was an open-world game that offered you a limited number of jellybeans and gave no direction on how to handle your surroundings. The new game features level-based progression, unlimited jellybeans, and occasional hints to get you started on the puzzles. But it's up to you to figure out the steps beyond the first, survive the level and make it to the end... hopefully grabbing treasure chests along the way.

Get three chests in a level and you unlock a "Challenge Level." This is where the game attempts to beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Passing each challenge level will only reward you with some concept art, video or other behind-the-scenes insight, so maybe it won't be worth it to everyone. But when you're thrown into a stage full of pits with only two kinds of jellybean flavors, you will feel COMPELLED to prove your survival skills and improvisionational wit. There are 40 such challenges to go with the 40 main levels, so there's certainly a game of more-than-adequate length in store.

The game is awesome. It's cute. It's as challenging as you want it to be. It's addictive. And it has a "hug" button. Which is adorable beyond the telling of it.

The premiere of "V" last night was pretty awesome, and I'm glad to see it was a big ratings winner. Of course, getting people to tune in for the pilot isn't the challenge. The real test is keeping them around. And given ABC's idiotic decision to only produce 4 episodes and then pull the series off the air for a few months before it continues... well, I'm not sure I carry a ton of optimism for the show's survival once it returns next spring.

But that's not the point of this post. The point is that I wanted to take the time to note that, whatever political party's initiatives you happen to support, "V" took the time to associate that party's ideology with evil Nazi aliens last night. This show is nothing if not equal opportunity.

( Some spoilery stuff about the Pilot episode. )

Moving to a totally unrelated point, I would like to think that the show's success in the ratings will prove to networks that people don't actually hate sci-fi. ABC in particular is TERRIFIED of science fiction shows right now. With any luck, last night's victory will serve as a teddy bear and a warm blanket to soothe their feelings and suppress their illogical terror.

The subject line tells you precisely what I am offering you in this post. No more and no less.

If you require more specificity, the pictures in question feature my 4-year-old nephew and 1-year-old niece.

( Children wear costumes in these pictures, as they are wont to do at this time of year. )

That's right, you too can place bids on owning Terminator. Well, I mean, the future of "Terminator." The auction specifies that you don't get to own the first four films, the existing episodes of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" or anything that's come before, but you DO get the rights to produce NEW stuff based on any of the characters or situations therein. So if you want to make more TV shows or movies or books, you know, go nuts.

Sony/Columbia Pictures is apparently first in line in terms of the big-name bidders, but Summit Entertainment is hoping to use some of their phat Twilight cash to bid against Sony. There's no indication of what they want to DO with these rights, however.

As for me, I've got, um... let me check my pockets... $1.91. Top THAT, Sony.

It was October 30th, almost 15 years ago. I was barely a teenager, flipping through TV Guide at night and looking for something to watch after my parents had gone to sleep. It was then that I saw that ABC was going to air a movie called Halloween at midnight. How more perfect is that? Right after the clock crosses over to October 31st, we get a movie named after the holiday. Nice. The description mentioned a serial killer stalking a small Illinois town on Halloween night. Hey, I even live in the Midwest, too. Okay, I'll give that a go.

I had no expectations for what I was going into beyond that. But right from that amazing opening scene, I was totally gripped by the film. The tone of it, particularly carried through by the piano and synthesizer that made up the score, just swept me up. Sometimes there would be stretches of silence that just elevated the tension unbearably. Every little touch seemed to escalate the ominous, haunting feel. The sight of the torrential rain viewed through a car's windshield on a dark night. The cemetary worker's story, left unfinished as he talks to the visiting doctor. The leaves blowing gently across the street as a car drives slowly by. At the end, when the theme music picked up again to reveal that final twist, I was staring agape. Holy shit - this thing was the real fucking deal.



The imagery of the killer's mask and the slightly off-kilter, captivating performance of Donald Pleasance grabbed my imagination, and I knew I had to continue on. I wound up renting the entire series. (I skipped over Halloween III initially, because our dialup Internet had given me enough info to teach me that the third film was not actually part of the main series about Michael Myers.) The rest of the series had some excellent moments - the ending of Halloween IV was a particularly memorable stunner that made me jump up and down - but was mostly a letdown when compared to the original. Or at least, that's how I felt until the summer of 1998. That's when we got Halloween: H20, and of course it was the first movie in the series that I caught in the theater. It took the bold step of ignoring all the movies after Halloween II and offering a conclusion to the saga from there. As good as the original? No. Great in its own way? You bet.

I counted myself a fan of the series for quite a few years, but gradually whittled down my fandom. At first, I loved them all to some extent. Then I let go of parts 5 and 6 - even as a fan, I always knew those two sucked. Resurrection came along in 2002 and was insultingly poor, inspiring me to even drop part 4 and focus only on the first, the second and H20 - the "core trilogy." Then I got jaded enough to drop even those sequels, paring it down to just my love for the first one. I decided that was the only one I ever needed to revisit, and sold off my copies of the rest.

I rewatched H20 this week, though, and remembered why I admired it so much. There's a lot to love there, especially in the last 10 minutes. I guess I'm back to being a fan of the core trilogy that contains Jamie Lee Curtis. It functions nicely as a set with a beginning, middle and end. Even if II doesn't live up to the bookends, at least it's got some striking moments to it.

Oh, Astro Boy. You were NOTHING like I expected you to be. I expected tons of big, well-directed action amid a political subtext. And while the latter was clearly present, there wasn't that much action, really. It had some action, yes. But instead of fancy-pants action, I got something that actually moved me. Something with a real EMOTION and loads of HEART to it. I even got a lump in my throat at one particular scene (When Astro gives his "Maybe this is what I'm meant for" speech, it just broke my heart). Though it's not going to be my favorite movie of the year - I'm too much of a whore for action and adventure and properties I know better than I know Astro - I can probably call one of the BEST movies I saw this year all the same. At least, that was my view. Too bad it's failing at the box office.

Speaking of movies failing at the box office, Maria and I went to see Whip It on Saturday night. And then it was Maria's turn to feel choked up. The movie is cute and has some really fun characters in it. It also has some plot points that really set my teeth on edge and made me scowl in anticipation of massive upcoming pain for like, half the film. Luckily, nothing worked out as badly as I feared it would, and the movie ended in a way that pleasantly surprised me. Maria, for her part, loved it through and through, even when I was cringing. Either way, we both left the theater on an uplifted, happy note. Now we're discussing getting tickets to some roller derby matches here in KC when the league starts up again next year. Hey, wasn't there a roller derby video game on the old NES... ? I should look into that.

Even I'M surprised at how excited I am about this weekend's Astro Boy release. I think it was the excellent GBA game from 2003 that got so emotionally invested in the story and characters of this little world.

It's not just my own investment in Astro Boy that's gotten me pumped, though. It's also the fact that this movie is the second film from the producers and animators of 2007's TMNT. That film proved that they know exactly what they're doing when it comes to translating a nostalgic property to the screen - from writing to directing the action to giving shout-outs to the fans, they're on top of it. They've certainly earned my trust.

For the unitiated, Astro Boy is basically Japan's Mickey Mouse. He's an instantly recognizable icon of animation over there, but unlike Mickey, Astro has deeper themes that have actually evolved with the times. At its most basic, his shows were about humanoid robots who battle and make little sight gags. But at its core, the story deals with how Astro was designed to take the place of a scientist's deceased son, Tobio (or Toby in the American versions) - yet he's his own person, a fact that makes the scientist reject him outright for failing to live up to his son's memory. Astro must make his way in the world and prove his worth while coping with his creator rejecting him.


Since he first appeared in 1952, Astro's design has evolved along with his depth.

The layers at play were developed even further over the years to cover racism (hatred betweeen humans and robots is rampant in Astro's world, and the fact that Astro is closer to human than any robot before him only makes the humans even more afraid of him) as well as the nature of what defines a "soul" or "life." There are morally ambiguous characters among the usual heroes and villians. It's surprising how emotionally deep Astro's stories can reach. But if you don't care about all that jazz, well... there's robots fighting. Climb aboard that shit.

SICK, SICK, SICK!

Myself? SICK!

My girl? VERY SICK!

My nephew? SICK!

My mother? SICK!

My future mother-in-law? EXTRA SICK!

Tired of illness now. So tired.

Ugh.

tangofic is the birthday girl today! She's my fiancée and she's beautiful and I love her very much!

She wins at life, and I look forward to seeing many more birthdays with her.

The first footage from The King of Fighters movie has been released via this 'behind-the-scenes' video. It's a great chance to see how terribly, horribly wrong this latest game adaption has gone.

"The King of Fighters" - the video games - dealt with a team-based combat tournment held around the world that is (at least initially) hosted by a man named Rugal, a trafficker of weapons & drugs who possesses supernatural powers. Different nations each offer up a team of three fighters, who fight in various international locations. In many of the early titles, the plots focused around an ancient supernatural power controlled by a demon.

The King of Fighters - the film - deals with the last surviving members from three legendary fighting clans who are whisked into a series of alternate dimensions where they are forced to do battle with each dimension's native defenders, leading up to a confrontation with the leader of "Battleworld," a man named Rugal. Strangely, all the of the dimensions look like the dark interior of a warehouse.

Amazing.

So, where've I been?

In short, working. A lot. I stay late at work. I take work home. I work pretty much all through the weekend.

There are deadline issues at work, and I am racing to meet them at a speed that I never even thought possible. I've evented whole new shortcuts and broken my own writing speed records in the process. I haven't even played a video game in a couple of weeks. Except maybe Farmville on Facebook, I guess. Does that count as a game?

This all leaves me with a brain that sometimes threatens to implode, and very little to say. But I'm alive.

Just FYI.

I do wanna take some time to thank everybody who bought me birthday gifts! It was an excellent 30th, definitely. Maria made it a grand event, and the gifts were awesome. I have a new iPod, a complete Rock Band 2 for the Wii (that I... haven't played in a couple weeks... ), and quite a few more games and gift cards that I have put towards additional entertainments that I hope to be enjoying once I make it out the other side of this tunnel. Cheers.

For a long time, I never thought we'd get another Predator sequel - one without "Aliens" also attached to it. If we DID, I was damn certain the cast would be a bunch of unknowns on the level of the most recent AVP movie, Requiem.

I'm wrong on both counts.


Heading up the cast of dangerous human beings is Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody (!!!), who plays Royce, who is a mercenary-for-hire that takes on the mantle of leader once the humans find themselves on the Predator homeworld.


Next up we have Topher Grace, star of "That '70s Show" and Spider-Man 3, among other things. He's playing a seemingly harmless account named Edwin, who is... not remotely harmless, of course. Why else would he have been thrown into the hunt?


From South America comes the character of Isabelle, soldier/revolutionary warrior being played by Alice Braga, aka the girl from I Am Legend.


Well-known character actor Danny Trejo is also aboard the project as the criminal Cuchillo. Given that you can barely throw a rock without hitting a movie that has Danny Trejo getting killed in it, I wouldn't place any bets on Trejo making it out of this shit alive.

These are just a few of the recognizable names who will be hunted by Predators when the film hits theaters next year. There are others, including Walton Goggins of "The Shield" fame for those who care. But I'm just impressed that we're seeing recognizable faces from FILM, as opposed to the cast of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, which was focused on supporting players from "Rescue Me" and "24" and shit like that. I mean, we've got a guy who won an Oscar, for god's sake. This is a big damn deal.

So Ridley, how's your Alien prequel coming along?

Maria and I are greatly enjoying FlashForward on ABC, and she's also retroactively getting me into Supernatural over on the CW. I also continue to maintain that Smallville has improved immensely since ditching Lana and Lex, and this season is looking pretty fun so far. Of course, we're only a few weeks into the fall season...

But what's going to survive PAST a few weeks? What's going to make it to midseason - and perhaps beyond?

In terms of new shows, Glee has already been picked up for a full season over on Fox. Fox is feeling good about the performance of The Cleveland Show as well. FlashForward, Cougar Town and Modern Family are likely to stick around for some time on ABC, and The Vampire Diaries is definitely a performer for The CW. CBS' new NCIS spinoff in Los Angeles is probably the biggest ratings winner of the new year; Americans can never get enough cop shows. NEVER

But that covers most of the new hits. The rest have darker futures, or at least muddy ones. Some, like NBC's Community and CBS' Accidentally on Purpose, are in the "too early to tell" ranges. Others, like ABC's The Forgotten and Hank, CBS' Three Rivers, or CW's Melrose Place, seem headed for the junkyard.

More serious is the case of the OLD shows. A lot of returners are suffering this year.

Consider ABC. Some are alreadying calling this the final season for the Desperate Housewives ladies due to the ratings plummet since last season - which seems premature to me, given that by most measures, the lower ratings are still pretty strong. Brothers & Sisters is more likely to die off this year, given that it suffered roughly the same level of drop... and wasn't nearly as strong to begin with. Castle is on the verge of death, too, and we barely knew ye.

NBC almost didn't bring back Law & Order for its 20th year. Now it's looking clear that it won't survive to a 21st... even though the surviving spinoffs will keep the name alive for infinity. Parks & Recreation isn't living up to expectations in its second season, and will likely get snuffed before it earns a third. The most shocking thing is probably that Heroes is performing as well as it is - I wager a fifth year isn't as far-fetched as we once thought. It's only a shadow of its former self, yet still one of the network's strongest rated shows. Which is mostly due to the fact that NBC is struggling a lot lately, but still - can they afford to lose even MODERATE success? Speaking of NBC's struggles, banking on Jay Leno hasn't exactly worked out. He's a ratings dud, but they've put so much effort into his show that I doubt they'll kick it or even retool it for quite a few months.

CBS is suffering the least of the networks. Most of their shows continue to be huge performers (see above, re: cop shows), and even a show they pulled from another network - Medium - is doing better on their station than it ever did on NBC. While CSI suffered a massive drop between seasons due to the loss of its lead actor, the show has been one of the top-rated series on television for years, and it's going to take more than losing nearly a quarter of the audience to make it anything less than hugely successful. Yet the executioner must still grind his ax. CBS barely brought back Cold Case for another go, and it was probably a bad move. It's producing some of the network's worst numbers in quite some time. Don't expect the New Adventures of Old Christine to continue past this year, either. It's reached the number required for syndication, and the ratings don't justify keeping it on beyond that.

What of Fox? House and Bones continue to draw in the viewers. But Fringe made a dangerous move to Thursdays, and is paying the price with severely damaged ratings that could kill it if Fox doesn't move it onto a safer night. But almost anything placed against the other networks on Thursday is a sacrificial lamb, so what can they really do? Dollhouse never should've been brought back - its numbers have actually reached brand new lows. One ratings reporter called it "punching a new hole through the bottom of the barrel." Ouch. It probably won't last past midseason, but then again, a lot of people said the same about Terminator last year, and Fox gave it one last chance to build its following.

The CW is desperate for any kind of hit at this point, and so the performance of The Vampire Diaries - which is now their most successful series! - has to be a relief. But promotional dollars were seemingly wasted on pimping the revival of Melrose Place, which is thus far D.O.A. Smallville's move to Friday sliced its ratings in half, yet it's still performing reasonably well for a Friday series on the network - certainly much better than the old sitcom lineup they had for that day. Who knows what this all means for its future? My random guess: A new series named "Vampires Vampires Vampires." Strike while the iron's hot, I figure.

Surrogates - It's great. Very well-thought-out, clever sci-fi that definitely makes its own mark. The central conceit is so clever and offers so many possibilities, and they explore a shit ton of them, even if only for a second here and there. Honestly, they could've saved the money on the action sequences (there are only two - not much focus is put on action here), because the world of the film is smart enough to support the story without the chases. Not that the chases are bad; they're cool, just not exactly needed. Anyway, there's not much to say about this flick except that it's pretty much excellent. Really intriguing, fun and engrossing. Maria and I both dug it a lot. (Haven't read the comic, so I can't make a comparison there.)

Pandorum - In comparison, this is not quite so excellent. I really figured this would be a great taste of my favorite genre (the people-get-picked-off-by-monsters-in-enclosed-places genre), but it doesn't really deliver due to some notable plot holes and, most of all, crappy action direction. The director films the action in EXTREME CLOSE-UP with such RAPID-FIRE EDITS that you don't know what the fuck you're looking at and can't even tell who's doing what half the time. It's not shakycam - it's the next worst thing! Production design is great - I love the look of it all - the performances are strong, and there are some clever ideas in the plot. But it simply doesn't GEL, y'know? I was interested while watching it, and I don't regret seeing it, but I doubt I'll ever need to watch it again. It's just too flawed. Alas.

Predators starts filming next month for its release next summer, and now it can officially be said: This is definitely a sequel. The new video script review leaves no doubt as to that fact. It's NOT a reboot - thank heaven for small favors.

If you don't care to put up with video reviews of scripts (an understandable position), allow me to summarize the highlights of the draft. I'll put it behind a spoiler cut, but there aren't any SPOILERS per se - all this stuff is simple setup info, most of which will likely be in the eventual trailer.

( The details on 'Predators.' )

The reviewer loves the script and says it's pretty badass, but I must admit that some details still make me wary. But of course I'm optimistic. How could I NOT be?