It's the nerdiness in life you treasure

-xkcd

When life gives you lemons, just say 'F&%@ the lemons' and bail ... aka my Summer Movie Preview

Mustard: Like the Incredible Hulk without Ang Lee.

Iron Man:
I still can't believe Jon Favreau cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Is there anyone enjoying a better resurgence in his career right now? He's suddenly the new Johnny Depp (and if you don't think Johnny Depp had a slump in his career you haven't seen The Ninth Gate or the Astronaut's Wife). In addition to Downey, it's got Terrence Howard, Jeffrey Lebowski, Stan Winston doing the practical effects plus the guy Sayid killed on last week's Lost. I mean even Gwyneth Paltrow can't annoy the hell out me in this movie, can she? Right? Maybe?

Wall*E:
It's a cruel twist of life that I've seen both Rush Hour 3 and Smoking Aces but I've yet to see Ratatouille. Hopefully this will be rectified soon. But I am excited for any new Pixar flick that may or may not have ripped off it's main character's design from Short Circuit. Yes Virginia, Johnny Five is alive.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:
It's Indiana Frakkin' Jones. I wouldn't't care if Harrison Ford used a walker the entire movie. I don't care that George Lucas lost all story writing credibility with Episodes 1-3. It's directed by Spielberg. It has Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, and a freakishly unaged Karen Allen. Let's just hope there's some face melting left in. I'm still traumatized by the heart rip from Temple of Doom.

The Dark Knight:
Sure, the death of Heath Ledger is going to make this a little eerie but after the disappointment of Superman Returns and the outright cancellation of Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman (Damn you Warner Bros!), it's time for DC to get a major quality movie back out there. Who knows? We might not even miss Katie Holmes (read: we won't miss Katie Holmes).

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
The first Hellboy was a wonderful movie and anyone who doesn't agree is just plain wrong. Guillermo Del Toro has a few more Oscar statuettes to prove his case as a quality storyteller and I'm looking forward to Ron Perlman being back in the red makeup. And then we move on the The Hobbit. Giggity.

The final slot is a two way split: Get Smart and Pineapple Express. The Mel Brooks created Get Smart was quite possibly my favorite TV show when I was young. Don Adams was a comedic genius. So Steve Carell stepping into the shoes is just a dream (I could've made a shoe phone joke there but I'm sure someone already has beaten that joke to death so let's just move on, shall we?). Alan Arkin as the Chief and General Zod as Siegfried are also perfect casting. But the trailer? Not so great. I'm just worried the script and directing are going to turn this into Steve Martin's The Pink Panther. And then I will cry. Pineapple Express on the other hand had a great trailer (which may have unduly influenced me with it's use of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes) and Ed Begley Jr. The latest from Mr. Apatow's clique could be a brilliant stoner comedy or could be dumb as Steve Martin's The Pink Panther. Time will tell.

P.S. Speaking of the Apatow clique, go see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Freaking hilarious.

Until next time:

"There's only one cure for pain like that."

"What?"

"Weed. Ya got any?"

"No."

"Well then let's just go surfing!"

This is the type of Monday morning it was

This conversation came up in relation to the Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker theme party these people http://www.dasbecca.com/ threw for their 5 year old.

See the absurd and yet awesome detail they put into it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dasbecca/2443797209/in/set-72157604730591124/

Jeff: Someday when I have a kid, I can only hope to compete with this party.

Erin: Jeff, I will never hand-stitch deku people or make a Zelda pinata. Or make bird people costumes. Or give 5 year olds swords. Did you guys see the Hero cake though? Yeah, I'm not making that either.

Jeff: Honey, I’m not saying you have to hand-stitch deku people or make a Zelda piñata. That’s just silly. You don’t even play Zelda games. So what we’ll need to do is make a little Kirby costume for the baby and give him a baseball bat. Crowley, you can be Wario but you take those whacks like a man and no running over my kid with a motorcycle, do you hear me?

Crowley: Alright, no motorcycle, but I reserve the right to use the rest of his stuff... including the garlic powered superheroism and the down-and-B attack. If the kid hits me with a bat, he's ASKING for a return volley of flatulence.

Jeff: You hear that hon? Crowley's going to fart on our baby.

Erin: I'd expect him to do that even if he wasn't Wario.

Crowley: Remember, there were stipulations there. Only if the kid hits me with the bat. Or tries to swallow me or cook me in a pot. You know, whatever. Hell, even if it drops on me like a rock from twenty feet up. I'm going to leave my options open.

Of course this got me thinking that we must have a Smash Bros party complete with smash ball pinata and bean bag pikmin.

If it couldn't be Peter Jackson...

Guillermo Del Toro! Yes!!!

Guillermo del Toro to direct 'Hobbit'

Please let Ron Perlman be the voice of Smaug. Please let Ron Perlman be the voice of Smaug. Please let Ron Perlman be the voice of Smaug.

Twitter remains a mystery to me

I just keep laughing every time I read it:

-penny arcade

Merciful Grand Galactic Inquisitor, This Can't Come Soon Enough

GO TEAM VENTURE!!!

I just don't see what wrong with having a nice glass of wine with a pancake.

Mustard: Mahalo version.

So just back from a nice trip to Oahu where I did indeed managed to get up on the surf board. I have the pictures to prove it:





Can someone tell me what's going on with airline services? I realize that airlines are trying to cut down on costs but when you're only giving me one mini-bag of pretzels and The Devil Wears Prada for a 6 hour flight, that's pretty pathetic. Speaking of terrible in-flight movies:

Rush Hour 3 - A thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters would scream and throw their poo at the screen if ever forced to watch this worthless waste of celluloid. I now retroactively hate X3 even more after seeing this latest abomination of Brett Ratner.

The Golden Compass - I consider myself a pretty intuitive guy when it comes to movies. And I can watch a disjointed movie and usually find myself accepting convoluted or even gapping holes in logic. But even after wikipedi-ing the source material for this movie, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Not to mention Nicole Kidman doesn't speak in a normal voice the entire movie. She whispers every single line she has like she's just awestruck to be acting opposite a CG monkey. And I like Freddy Highmore. In general he's one of the few child actors who doesn't either outright suck at acting or who doesn't overcompensate by chewing the scenery Broadway style. But he just is terrible in the voice over role. Maybe it's due to recording his lines alone in a studio but he never seems to be conversing in the same tone as the real actors he's supposed to be talking to.

News and Notes:

Finally watched 3:10 to Yuma. What is up with Alan Tudyk always being killed after a funny one liner?

Baseball season is back. C'mon Mets, let's get those bats going. And stop having your pitchers getting injured.

Summer movie season is almost upon us. Stay tuned for the summer movie preview. Coming soon to a Mustard near you.

Until next time:

"It's awesome! It's like the Sith Lords man, there's always only two of them."

"Did you just Star Wars us?"

Eff You Major League Baseball

You got$650 million dollars from XM radio to broadcast on their service but won't let them do it through their web based service? I'm already paying XM and you money grubbing douchebags want me to pay an additional $15 to stream the audio to my computer? What other nickel and diming can you come up with? Why don't you try to copyright names and facts? Oh, wait, you already tried that!

Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Mustard: Like a Guinness on St. Patrick's Day.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh! I hope you're all out following the companies take line and drinking Guinness responsibly. But probably not.

Has anyone else noticed how hard it is to find a movie in theaters you actually want to go see? Sure, I kinda want to see both Semi Pro and In Bruges but with the ease of Netflix and the movie studios feverous desire to release movies on DVD within minutes of their box office revenue taking a dip, it's getting harder and harder to justify paying $10 for a non-prime movie in theaters. I'm sure studio execs would hate to hear that but they just posted record revenue for 2008 based on those higher ticket prices so they can wipe the the tears away with ten dollar bills.

Smash Bros - I love this game. I'm a little annoyed at all the bashing about the Sub Space Emissary Story Mode and all the complaints that it amounts to glorified fan fiction. Hello? What do you think Smash Bros is? It's a fighting game in which Mario can take on Link and Kirby can beat up on Star Fox. It's literally the old "who would win in a fight" discussion. And you're upset when this doesn't yield a Michael Gondry-esque narrative (actually given the increasingly surreal scripts he's generated lately, he might have come up with something like this)? So for Sakurai's sake, lay off the "story doesn't make sense" whining and just enjoy the fact that the cut scenes are entertaining, the mode is something new and different for the series and the game itself is still unbelievably fun. Now if you don't mind I'm gonna go practice a little more so my wife will stop beating me with Kirby (that frakking cooking smash).

News and Notes:

Notre Dame vs. George Mason in round one. It'll be interesting around here for that game.

Baseball is almost upon us. Amen to that.

The Return of Jezebel James - new show by Amy Sherman Palladino. It's ok but that laugh track is so horrendous. It absolutely kills the humor.

Until next time:

"So, you just finished off the bottle?"

"Well, I had to. It's vodka, you know. It goes bad once it's opened."

"I think that's another one of mum's little fibs. You know, like, I'll sacrifice anything for my children."

In case you were wondering

Yes, I've already bought it.

Fisher we hardly knew ye and Musicians who do drugs

What a sad time in that Fisher Stevens' character arc on Lost was over before it started. Only one episode and our illustrious character actor was killed off. Such a shame.

On the other we're actually going more obscure by the sudden appearance of actor Kevin Durand as another other Other. If you're thinking, "Hey, wasn't he one of the crazy Tremor brothers in Smokin' Aces?" then I feel sorry for you cause that means you've actually seen Smokin' Aces (how the eff do you make an action shoot 'em up that pretentious, Joe Carnahan? HOW!?). You may also recognize him from his less psychotic role as Tree in Mystery, Alaska.

Speaking of character actors, after watching Coffee and Cigarettes I've come to two conclusions:
1. I think it would be fascinating to do a comparison of who's done more drugs, Iggy Pop or Keith Richards.
2. If they ever make a movie biopic about Tom Waits, Ron Perlman absolutely has to star. I mean just look at them:

I shall return in a nonce. At most, two nonces.

Mustard: like sands through the hourglass.

Can I ask why on earth Harmonix has not at least announced a release date for Rock Band on Wii? It makes no sense. It would take very little effort to port the PS2 version to Wii. Granted, it would be nice if they could add in the online mode missing in that version. But Guitar Hero III on Wii per NDP data was the 3rd best selling game across all consoles for both January and December amounting to over 2 million units sold. Don't you think by releasing the game onto what is obviously a receptive market for this type of game could help them recoup the supposed $200 million it cost to develop the game? Just a thought.

Only a few more days until the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Given how it's look so far, I see little reason to sleep for the next few weeks or so. Seriously, it's got a stage that looks like the original DK arcade game:



How ridiculously cool is that?

Indie album of the week for your listening pleasure: VHS or Beta's Bring on the Comets. Little bit of the Killers. Little bit of Interpol. Little bit of Franz Ferdinand. Incredibly entertaining. Burn It All Down made by best of 2007 playlist (narrowly beating out Can't Believe a Single Word). Check it out.

News and notes:

Did anyone notice Fred Armisen's impression of Barak Obama on SNL the other night? When did Obama suddenly become Bullwinkle?

Au revoir Brett Favre.

Slow going for movies right now. Though Leatherheads has a chance to be entertaining in a few weeks. If the trailers are any indication, George Clooney is fully channeling the Cohen brothers. Strange fact, the movie is co-written by Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly. Weird.

Until next time:

"Nobody plays jazz at the Pit Stop!"

"Then why is the song on the jukebox?"

"We use it for profiling purposes. We also have the Pet Shop Boys and Seal."

The sad part is I think this would be awesome.

-foxtrot

God Bless Jon Favreau

Drink and be merry, for tomorrow we will be in a great deal of pain

Mustard. So hot right now. Mustard.

Back from a ridiculously quick weekend trip to San Francisco by way of San Jose. Due to my inability to properly calculate distances, Erin and I managed to pull of a 12 mile walking tour of the city including the harbor, Chinatown and some of the sketchiest areas of a major city I've ever walked through. But damned if we weren't going to see those Full House houses. Needless to say, after all that walking I've been doing a wonderful impression of Javier Bardem's Oscar winning performance sans the terrible hair and bolt pistol.

Speaking of the Oscar's, someone was looking down from on high this Sunday at the Oscars when 'Falling Slowly' from Once took the prize for best song over a trio of Disney songs. Amen to that. Seriously, if you haven't seen the movie yet, the scene with that song is easily the best music moment in a movie since Stillwater belted out 'Tiny Dancer' on a cross country bus trip. Even the performance at the Oscars was oustanding as was Jon Stewart's save of poor Markéta Irglová who was almost gipped out of her acceptance speech.

Can someone explain to me how 2 different Black Eyed Peas got cast in two major movies? will.i.am gets cast in the upcoming Wolverine movie and Taboo is going to be in the new Street Fighter movie. Two questions come to mind. One, is this because Fergie suddenly became a break out single star and the rest of the band is heading the way of No Doubt and Matchbox 20, waiting for the star to get bored of their solo pop status to make a pity album with them? Two, how did Taboo get screwed on this casting? Talk about losing the coin toss. Do you think they'll at least give him a speech worthy of the Street Fighter name:





News and Notes:

So read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. I get it Alan Moore. You're smarter and much better read than I am. Thanks for making me feel next to illiterate.

If you're not on board the Jonathan Coulton train, you're not living.

The Browns look to be tendering a 3 year, $20 million offer to Derek Anderson. Sucks to be Brady Quinn right now.

Variety reports that Jeffrey Katzenberg is blaming videogames for the weaker than expected sales of Shrek 3 on DVD. Apparently Katzenberg has never seen the movie. He's lucky he managed to bamboozle $300 million out of people in the theaters with that worthless cash-in.

Until next time:

"Is that the woman you lost your virginity to?"

"Who?"

"The one that looks like Ronnie Corbett."

"That is Ronnie Corbett. Why would she be wearing a tuxedo?"

"She might be a lesbian."

"Then why would I lose my virginity to a lesbian?"

"Don't know. She might have turned lesbian after you slept with her."

But will he bring a gun to a knife fight?

Is Canada still ruled by the queen of England? Because if the judges there are gonna be wearing wigs, as an American, I might have an issue with that.

Mustard: Once upon a time, it actually existed regularly

Ok, 2008 has been here for quite some time. But it's been a little busy this past month but I've finally found some time to put up my feet, stretch my legs and attempt to write a semi-coherent blog post.

So what have I been up to lately? Guitar Hero. Lots and lots of Guitar Hero. It became the focus of New Years. It's become the focus of a many a weekend. And rightly so. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve been having trouble sleeping as my brain is playing My Name is Jonas on repeat. Now we just need Rock Band to come out for the Wii and all bets are off.

Combine that with my love of Mario Galaxy and I just don’t foresee when sleep will come into play in the near future. Oh and then there’s Smash Bros in a month. And may God have mercy on my soul.

Johan Santana going to the Mets. That makes the 2008 season a whole lot brighter on the rotation side. Now let's shore up the relief situation and make sure they don't get completely burnt out by September.

Lost: It's been way too long since good TV was last on? Ok, Pushing Daisies has only been done for a short time now. But man, it feels longer than that.

So after watching Wonderfalls, I feel more and more guilty that I did not watch the show when it was on. To be fair, Fox only did air 4 episodes but I haven’t been this retroactively bummed since I finished watching Firefly.

A "tentative" deal has been reached to end the writers' strike. Now was that so hard?

If my heart is a little broken Peter Jackson isn't going to be directing the new Hobbit movie, Guillermo Del Toro replacing him makes everything a whole lot better. Now make it work studios.

Until next time:

I don't even like waterparks. I mean I did, until someone thought it'd be funny to go down the slide two seconds after me.

Dude, the lifeguard told me to go.

Really? Did he also tell you to take your trunks off, Turk? Because the last thing a guy wants to see when he's in a splash pool is his best friend's junk headed towards him at forty miles per hour. Felt like I got pistol-whipped

SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP!

Eff-ing Eli Manning just won the Super Bowl. Hahahahahaha!

First Oscar Prediction

A pun will be made involving 83 year old Ruby Dee's nomination for best supporting actress for American Gangster, 82 year old Hal Holbrook's nomination for best supporting actor for Into the Wild and No Country For Old Men's best picture nomination. And it will suck.

An open letter to the HFP

Dear Hollywood Foreign Press:

The Savages is not a comedy. While it has a comedic moment or two (mostly in an awkward sense), is it for the most part a tragic look at the conditions facing the elderly in our society and the effects this has on their families. It is a very good movie with excellent performances by both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. It would seem that Ms. Linney was left off the nomination list because, unlike Mr. Hoffman, she does not have that one particular scene where she manages to go on a large rant which is apparently needed by you voters in order to earn a nomination. Yes, what a pity that subtlety is not longer valued in an actor's repertoire. But I digress. When I walk out of a movie emotionally exhausted, I'm afraid I'm not thinking, "Remember that one part where Philip Seymour Hoffman is in that portable traction sling and looks ridiculous? Ha ha, what a funny movie." Really, I can only come to two conclusions: One, that you didn't actually see this movie. Two, you are all sick sick people who find dismal portrayals of dysfunctional families dealing with terrible situations funny. In the words of my wife, "this was one of the most depressing movies I've ever seen." You can recognize great performances but let's be a little intelligent about what type of movie they're in, what do you say?

Sincerely,
Mr. Snow

P.S. Next letter we start talking about why you can't eliminate the "musical" clarification entirely. If it's a musical drama, just put it there.