Now THAT was a good movie. It wasn’t a good comic book movie, it was a good movie. Just go.

I have to confess, one of the reasons I liked it so much is that Iron Man flies exactly the same way I fly when I have flying dreams. I know, sounds weird, but true.

Oh, and if you want to know what possible sequels may be coming out, stick around until after all the credits have rolled.

Update: While I was watching BSG last night, I had a brilliant flash of the obvious that Iron Man is a good Science Fiction Movie. That’s what makes it better than some of the other comic to screen stories that have come out recently. Plausible story, realistic human interaction, and current technology pushed to heightened capabilities. I also remembered thinking when I was in high school, that Iron Man’s armor was directly “borrowed” from Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.”

Okay, I’m done geeking out for the week.

Words/Phrases you’ll start using after watching certain Sci/Fi Fantasy Shows:

BSG: Frak. Fraking, Get Fraked. Skin job. Toaster.

Firefly/Serenity: Shiny. Gorram. It’s broken…can’t be fixed. You can’t stop the signal. I aim to misbehave.

Buffy/Angel: That would be wrong. Gives me the wiggins.

Farscape: Frell, Frelling, Get Frelled.

Star Trek: Beam me up.

Those are just off the top of my head. Add any that you use or have heard used and I’ll keep building on this.

Inspired by this post over at Rachel Lucas’

More Lifted From The Comments:

Stargate SG-1: “Indeed!”

Stargate: “I have no idea.” “Unscheduled Gate activation!” “Cree!”

X-Files: “Disturbing on many levels.”

(If you’re not following American Idol, this will make no sense, carry on.)

How in the name of all that’s holy can you take on Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber and NOT do something from Jesus Christ Superstar? You’re the rock guy! “Heaven on Their Minds?” “Simon Zealotes?” “Damned for All Time?” I’d have been highly amused if you’d have tried “Herod’s Song.” Or maybeeeee, I dunno, “The Rum Tum Tugger” or “Mr. Mistofelees” from Cats? There’s at least a rock beat in those.

“Music of The Night?” Really? The Phantom? I mean you pulled it off but come ON!

Well, at least you performed a song written for a male lead. I thought Jason and David were a tad confused but tonight absolutely proved it. A man…singing “Memory?” I had to listen to the original Broadway cast version just to get that baritone version out of my head. It’s just…wrong.

But dude…seriously, you’re the rock guy. I was counting on you.

So my first reaction to this story was a jaw-dropped five minutes of boggle-eyed amazement. The second was to double check – this wasn’t an intricate send-up by the Onion, or Iowahawk? April Fool’s day was almost two weeks ago, admittedly… but no, it appears to be a completely straight – in the sense of being accurate, not in the sexual sense – news story.

Third reaction – wow, what a horrible thing to do to a poor unsuspecting little Verdi opera. That rumble you hear for south of the Alps? That must be the great maestro himself, revolving in his grave at a couple of thousand RPMs. Hook him up to an electric generator, you could probably power a couple of good-sized American suburbs, or maybe all of North Korea with the resulting output. This is just the latest manifestation of a depressing and currently fashionable penchant for staging operas and incorporating trappings and conventions taken cafeteria-style from an assortment of sources, to include gangster movies of all ages, S&M porn flicks and bloody violence a la Peckinpah or Tarantino…no matter how unsuited the opera is to that sort of artistic vision, or how much violence it does to the plot, or the characters. (more here)

It seems to be the ultra-trendy thing in Europe, apparently; it doesn’t seem to have caught on much in the States, where an opera house actually depends on appealing to the subscribers, season-ticket holders and the audience in general. We’re… umm, kind of traditional, that way. Generally the people who want to revel in gangster movies, S & M porn flicks or whatever, can get their fix somewhere else than the stage of the Met or the Houston Grand.

You’ve got to hand it to the director of this 9/11 Masked Balls-up, though – for sheer Teutonic thoroughness in including every single stupid, tired and overworked anti-American trope in the eu –repertoire: ugly naked people in Mickey-Mouse masks, same old anti-capitalist political posturing, Uncle Sam and Elvis impersonators… the whole ugly collection, calculated to demonstrate American vulgarity and European cultural superiority and creativity. I’m imagining the creative types sitting around, brainstorming and shouting out their ideas for every element and laughing their asses off the whole time at the credulity of their audience. It would be reassuring to think this was some kind of ‘Producers’ type scheme, to deliberately create a production guaranteed to go down in flames on opening night, but apparently not. According to the linked story, it’s sold out, or near to being so.

Ah, well – the next time I read of some euro-snot looking down his artistic nose and condemning Americans for being crass and vulgar and generally uncaring of our artistic heritage, I shall think of this production… and laugh, and laugh and laugh.

Thank you so much for putting my favorite shows online.  Once I found out my cable company was charging me $20.00 a month for the “convenience” of a DVR I dropped it like a sammich with a roach for a garnish.  I work nights.  It’s nice that I can watch a show after it’s run without having to set up an old VHS recorder.

I know I’m exhausted so I’m “altered” but I’ve got to say that kid David Cook is one hell of a singer. I hate the song Billy Jean with a passion, but what he did with it? That was sweet.

Oh, my goodness gracious me, the presidential-race politicking is just betting more and more engrossing, in that tacky drive-by on the high-way and slow down to take a look at the interestingly arrayed wreckage sort of way. Honestly, as an independent-tending-to-the-Republican side of the political side of the scale for the purposes of this particular race, I am a mere interested spectator to the machinations of the Democratic Party side of the house… rather in the sense of a spectator in the seats of the ancient Roman Coliseum was to a show on the sands down below to a match pitting a team with nets and tridents against a team with swords. There will be blood. Just not sure at this point who will be left standing, to receive the thumb-up or thumbs-down at the end of it all. Or how many corpses will be left strewn across the sand.

Yeah, well – I’ve beaten that imagery into the ground… ooohh, now we have a comic interval, with the Spitzer-fest. A prominent crusading New York DA, who made his political bones (and strewed his path lavishly with the bones of others, through strategic leaks to a compliant media) on prosecuting crime! Prostitution Rings! Wall Street White Collar Insider! Hoist on his own petard, stewed in his own juice! Great heaping plates of just desserts, just entrees, just salad course! All the way to the governors mansion on his record (and his family money) but wow – usually my dread is that someone this spectacularly big of a hypocrite and all around a-hole is a Texan. Thanks, New York – this one is all yours! Is he any sort of relation to crusading DA Mike Nifong of infamous Duke University rape case memory? Pity the wife doesn’t have the nerve of some wronged Texas wives- she just appears to be too lady-like to kick him out of the house, loot the bank account and run him over a couple of times in the parking lot with her BMW.

Eh, well – the political season is young, yet. I’d have had a lot more respect for Her Inevitableness… er, Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton if she had done something along those lines to demonstrate her displeasure after The Big He had confessed to his extra-curricular antics in the Oval Office. Sorry, it’s not a shock to me to learn that big men in high political places might be tempted to play hide the salam’ with women not their legal spouse. I just wish that if they must, they would have better **$#^!”!!! judgment about who they do it with. And that perhaps their spouses might be just pissed off enough about being paraded out for the big ‘stand by your man’ finale. Sorry, I don’t mind sex – it’s the stupidity that I can’t make allowances for.

So, the Fresh Prince of Illinois has for two decades attended a church and accepted the spiritual guidance of a minister who is given to saying things like this in the pulpit of a Sunday morning. Hooo-kay… is he some sort of weird kin to Fred Phelps? So much for the appearance of having moved beyond race in this happy shiny 21st century America. At this point, the great insert-whatever-here just looks like Al Sharpton with nicer suits and a bit more polish to him. Note to Sen. O’B.: the clue to being the first ‘black’ whatever in America, is not to be ‘black’. It’s to be… American. Any message, any person in your campaign that counters that impression does not play well, outside whatever bubble you may have been playing in heretofore.

Let the games begin. It’s gonna get very interesting, if this week has been any indication.

(link courtesy of Roger Simon, and practically everyone else who has been linking to the ABC report all day. Note - this intelligence about Sen. O’Bama’s church has been kicking around for a bit in the conservative blogosphere, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise)

…that actor Heath Ledger died yesterday afternoon. Of course the press was salivating over how he died and whether or not he died of an overdose. Were Ashley and Mary Kate involved? Seriously, i could care less.

I was sad because I liked him in everything I saw him in. From “10 Things I Hate About You” to “A Knight’s Tale” to “The Patriot” to “The Brother’s Grimm” I simply thought he did some good work and I’m bummed he won’t be doing more. I’m looking forward to his take on The Joker in the next Batman movie. It takes serious balls to take on a role that Jack Nicholson has put his stamp on.

I never regretted seeing one of his movies. That says a lot.

I don’t know why I expected more actual talent on the first night…but I did…and now all I can say is that I’m grateful as I can be to the inventors of the DVR. I was going to record all of the episodes and just ff through the bad ones but I think I’m just going to skip the sucktitude all together and wait until they get to the actual competition where there’s at least a chance of hearing more actual singing than seeing some fat guy get his chest and back waxed.

Hey, I’ve got movies, I’ve got some of my favorite shows on DVD. I refuse to let the writers’ strike drag me into reality hell…not as long as there’s Discovery Channel.

Hey, who knows, maybe if this keeps up, America will start turning off the TV and reading more…what? It could happen.

Received an email from Robert Ferrigno yesterday. “Sins Of The Assassin,” the sequel to “Prayers For The Assassin,” is due to be released in February. I can’t wait. What I’m expecting is a lot of information on Islam, wrapped in an action packed thriller that will keep me up way too late waiting to see what happens next.

What I liked about “Prayers For The Assassin” was that it showed Islam from all sides. From the whack jobs who want to destroy us, to the good people of that faith that are desperately trying to do the next right thing.

First and foremost, Summer Glau is playing a major character. To say I have a a bit of a crush on this young lady is to put it mildly. Beautiful Wife has nothing to worry about, but ever since I first saw her in Firefly, I’ve been absolutely fascinated by her. I liked her in The 4400 as well where she did crazy well, but I missed her fighting. In Terminator, she’s back to being a badass. There’s something about a woman who can kick ass with style. If the first and second episodes are any indication of what we’re going to see from her, I want more.

Secondly, they haven’t skimped on the CGI effects. They’re good, especially for network T.V..

Thirdly, I’ve always loved the ‘verse of The Terminator. I think we should be more than a bit worried about what we computerize. You know I love computers and what we can do with them. However, I think that we’re advancing faster technically than we are socially. It worries me. When I think about it though. Humanity has survived under those conditions for centuries.

Fourth. The rest of the characters are fully filled in and follow the story line well. Lena Headey does a decent Sarah Connor. She’s no Linda Hamilton, but then again, Linda Hamilton hasn’t been Linda Hamilton since Beauty and the Beast. Thomas Dekker plays John Connor and since I wasn’t that thrilled with the kid who played him in that Terminator movie, anyone could have played a young John Connor better. He’s got some fighting skills as well so I think we’re going to have some decent sequences as the season progresses.

And lastly, did I mention Summer Glau is in it? I’m a happy man.

Boing-Boing linked to AV’s Worst Band Names of 2007.

I really have nothing to add other than to point you there. What can be said about, “Penguins With Shotguns”?.

On a related note, one of the ladies I work with got a text message from a friend the other night, “Be Careful Driving Home, There’s a Camel Loose in Nampa” You could build a punk rock or country song around either one of those phrases…put them together and I think there’s a plot for a SciFi Saturday Night Movie.

So why are Hollywood writers looking for more money? This seems easy.

Lovely video and song for the troops here, forwarded by Simon and also posted at his Power and Control blog. Simon also adds this note: “The author has given permission to those currently serving in the military to share it with nine of their best buddies, wives, husbands, parents, or children.”

Think of things like this as an antidote to the current out-spew of anti-war flicks from our friends in main-stream Hollywood.

Update: Simon has been authorized by the author of to give away 1,000 free copies of the song to our men and women in the military for personal use only. However, recipients of a free copy can let anybody listen to it if they want. Members of the military can put it on their i-pod, use it on their computer, or make one CD. Details and his email addy are here

To: The World, and Especially KDFW “News” Reporter Rebecca Aquilar
From: Sgt Mom
Re: Do-It-Yourself-Law-Enforcement

1. As you may have gathered by now, residents of Texas take a rather rough-hewn approach to law enforcement and defense of self and property. This sometimes results in the perforation and/or premature demise of assorted freelance criminal types.

2. In the long run, no one is very sorry about this. There are very few home-invasion robberies in the Lone Star State, since a fair number of would-be home-invaders are dropped on the doorstep, so to speak, by a well-prepared homeowner or tenant.

3. Count yourself fortunate that being an obnoxious pain in the ass with a TV camera attracts only scorn and derision. I trust that this episode has made it plain to you that a large chunk of the public holds your kind in contempt.

Sincerely,

Sgt.Mom

(Go to Instapundit and scroll down - Da Blogfaddah is all over this like white on rice)

And, an amusing poll to take, here, courtesy of Ace of Spades. And no, no multiple vote casting!

Addtional thought: One of the most gaulling things about this whole thing is how rude and relentless she was in questioning someone whom she would not expect to ever interview again… and contrast how deferential interviewers are when they interview someone they will have to deal with over a long period of time. Why don’t we ever see hostile interviewers hector people like Teddy Kennedy, or Al Gore, or anyone else you could name like this? It’s pretty clear that the press would cheerfully burn the little guy and suck up to the bigger ones in the name of preserving access.

This is supposed to be My Last Five Songs but I’m one of those folks the music industry loves.  Rather than just buy the song, I tend to buy the whole album the song is on, so I’ve generalized it to My Last Five Music Purchaces. Bring up iTunes, the best computer jukebox there is, and sort by “Date Added.” Here ya go:

Bruce Springsteen - Magic. See my letter below. I’m glad I bought it at mp3sugar.com instead of paying full price through iTunes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More With Feeling. I’ve become a huge BTVS fan. Joss Whedon and his crew might be the smartest, funniest and most entertaining people on the planet. “Spike’s” Rest in Peace is perfect this time of year with Halloween approaching. The Billy Idol thing comes full circle. All of the internal dialogue gets revealed in some seriously entertaining numbers that had my ribs hurting. The musical episode of Buffy is pure cheese and it’s warm and tasty.

Elvis Costello - Rock and Roll Music. For the folks who say that EC never did punk, there’s this compilation from when that was all he did. His version of Nick Lowe’s “Girls Talk” is the one that gets stuck in my head. “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea” may be my favorite Costello song.

Joe Satriani - Strange Beautiful Music. I’m sure somewhere here turned me on to this album…Radar? Joe? Sleep Walk makes me want to dance with my wife.

Lacuna Coil - Karmacode. Again, I have the folks who respond to this blog for turning me on to this band after I wrote a piece on Evenescence a couple years ago. This download completed my collection. Basically if you like Evenescnece, you’ll love Lacuna Coil.

Let’s just take a look at the 2008 nominees shall we?

Africa Bambaataa - I’m sorry, I don’t even know who this person is.

Beastie Boys - I like the boyzzzzz as much as anyone my age…but not rock…

Chic - La Freak? Really?

Leonard Cohen - For a Judy Collins album from 1966? What, he didn’t get enough Grammys and Tonys?

The Dave Clark Five - Okay, at least they’re 60s pop rock.

Madonna - Excuse the FUCK out of me? Before Tina Turner?

John Mellencamp - I know, many don’t like him, I do. Should he be there before Todd Rundgren? HELL No.

Donna Summers - The Queen of Disco in the Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame? I have issues.

The Ventures - Okay, I can live with this. How many of you HAVEN’T beat on the bar table or the back of your party partner during the drum solo of Wipeout?

Excuse me while I gape, jaw on the floor, with this sucktitude of nominations.

What are you listening to this summer? I haven’t taken a lot of time to listen to much of anything at all this summer, so I’m living vicariously. Is there anything new that’s worth listening to? What I’ve heard on the radio, has been kind of weirding me out. There’s something seriously wrong with that Coast Guard song…I just can’t put my finger on why it annoys me so much.

Just a quick update on the current book, scribbled between slaving over a hot computer, a couple of job assignments, and mundane things like… oh, I don’t know, cooking meals? Taking the dogs out for a walk. (Er, drag-around-the-block. They. Drag. Me. Just to make that point absolutely clear.)

The text is uploaded to the printers, and the cover is finished and approved… it has all taken nearly two weeks to accomplish this; much longer than I expected. I hope this might be some kind of indication that business is absolutely booming with the POD houses. I was clawing the walls with impatience all this week, but the cover is well worth the wait, thanks to B. Durbin’s very generous offer to let me use one of her photos of the Truckee River. (Appropriate credit is given, natch!)

So, once I have a hard copy in my hot little hands, and approve the whole thing, “To Truckee’s Trail” will be in the booklocker.com catalogue, all 272 pages and eighteen long chapters (with notes!) of it; a gripping read of adventure and discovery along the 19th century emigrant trail to California. I’ll be doing some more marketing, and scrounging for reviews and ad space here and there, and generally trying to sell a good few copies of it. At the very least, I can claim to write fewer clunky sentences per chapter than Dan Brown, of “The DaVinci Code” fame! (That blasted book was unreadable, to me… I kept tripping and falling headlong over sentences that sounded like entries in the current Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest!)

And I’ll be scribbling away on the Adelsverein saga, or “Barsetshire with Cypress Trees and a Lot of Sidearms”. Going by my latest chapter outline revision I’m about halfway through volume two, although as complications and side-stories develop, this is guaranteed to expand to epic proportions, so to say. There are just so many interesting people, and fascinating scenes, dramatic and historic events; a kid in a candy store has nothing on me! Of course, I can’t help writing about them, I tell stories, it’s what I am driven to do. I just completed a tension-filled account of the local Confederate provost-marshal’s men searching a house for a draft-evader… on Christmas Eve… the searchers being unaware that the man they are looking for is dressed as Father Christmas. (In the parlor, with his family… and everyone who knows what is going on is frantically pretending that nothing is the least bit out of place.)

But three volumes of about twenty chapters each… and my chapters seem to clock in at 6,500 to 7,000 words each… that will mean 400,000 words.

So, back to slaving over the hot computer keyboard…

Later: Just realized upon consulting the archives, that today is exactly one year to the date that I was fired from (Boring Corporate Entity Inserted Here) and decided to try for that “best-selling writer brass-ring-thingy”! With the very book that is about to be launched upon a hopefully breathlessly-anticipating world. So, I have way to go to beat out that Harry Potter book… still, funny old world, innt it?

If ever there was a movie that would give you the serious munchies, this is it. Ratatouille may not the first big foodie movie, but it is definitely the first animated foodie movie, and luscious on every level. Visually, it’s a feast; The Paris skyline cannot possibly look as beautiful in real life as it does here, in this tale of a young rat with dreams beyond his station in life.
Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) has a discriminating palate, and an unstoppable urge to be a chef, inspired by a cookbook “Anyone Can Cook” written by late five-star chef Auguste Gusteau and watching too many hours of the French version of the Food Network. When Remy and his whole rat-clan must depart their country home at speed, Remy is separated from the other rats. By chance, he finds his way through the sewers of Paris, and winds up in the holy of holies: Chef Gusteau’s restaurant kitchen, now run by his none-too-ethical senior, Chef Skinner (voiced by Ian Holm).

He teams up with the very junior Linguini (voice of Lou Romano), the garbage-boy, pot-washer and general help, desperately inept and just as desperate to keep his job. While Remy can understand Linguini and human speech in general, Linguini cannot understand him. But with practice, they work a means; Remy sits on his head and pulls at his hair; he is the chef, Linguini his means. Can they meet the exacting standards of the uber-restaurant-critic, Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O’Toole)? Well, of course… this is a movie with a happy ending, but how they do it, with the aid of Remy’s family is where the fun of it lies.

This is one of those animated movies with an absolutely painterly aesthetic, as complicated and gorgeous as one of those 19th century academic visions. The restaurant kitchen where much of the action takes place is a real, tactile place, and the action is non-stop. I am left to wonder if Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential had some influence, especially with the characters of the other kitchen staff. It would have been nice to for them to have had a little more of the action, but never mind. I am sure I missed most of the sight gags, on the first time through; not the send-ups of the cooking magazine covers that featured the late Chef Gusteau, though. This is another one of those rare and lovely movie treasures like Chicken Run, which adults and children can enjoy together… although they probably will be laughing at different things.

(crossposted at BNN, here)

So, we went to see Ratatouille this afternoon, and are still giggling. I will do a review tomorrow, when I am finished giggling.

Or, I may be giggling until next weekend. To tide you over, a recipe for “ratatouille”… in which no rats are harmed.

Combine in an 3-quart ovenproof casserole:

3 TBsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove minced garlic
1 1-lb eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 medium zucchini, cut in 1-inch slices
1 1-lb can whole tomatoes and their juice, chopping tomatoes roughly with a spoon
1 tsp basil leaves
1/2 tsp salt

Cover and bake in a 400 deg.oven for about two hours, until vegetables are very soft, uncovering and stirring once or twice. Serve garnished with parsley.

(from Sunset “French Cookbook” 1976 edition“)

As an aperitif, the website for the movie.

And I am still blegging for funds to cover printing and publicity for my next book, “To Truckee’s Trail.”

PS: The introductory short to this is a hoot, too!