My Musings

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Who doesn’t love the Muppets?

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Back in the heyday, SNL had a pretty good rep for poking fun at whoever happened to be the incumbent in office. I’d pretty much written them off since it became painfully obvious that they weren’t giving Obama the same treatment they had given Clinton, not to mention Bush. It took almost a year, but they finally came up with a genuinely funny skit. Could this be a sign that they’re finally ready to be funny again? Or did someone just get fired?

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

I’m thankful for terrible holiday-themed movies. I’m also thankful for Netflix’s on-demand service that me stream movies through my Xbox 360 to the TV. I’m thankful that Netflix offers a RSS feed of movies newly added to their on-demand list so I’m always aware of new releases. I’m thankful that all of these things have come together in a perfect storm of awesomeness called ThanksKilling. From their description:

While on their way home for Thanksgiving break, five college kids run afoul of a homicidal turkey that wants them dead. As the cursed bird hunts them down one by one, the survivors scramble to find a way to defeat the possessed creature. Will the bloodthirsty turkey make this their last Thanksgiving feast ever? Writer-director Jordan Downey’s holiday-themed horror spoof features an appearance by adult-film star Wanda Lust.

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

I was 9 years old when my parents took me to the movie theater in Gonzales (yes, the one and only theater) to see Clash of the Titans. I thought it was a pretty awesome movie at the time, but as an adult I never would have picked it for a remake. In fact, the mere thought that they would try merely underscored the whole problem with Hollywood’s lack of creativity. However, now that I’ve seen this teaser trailer, I may have to eat crow. This movie looks awesome!

It’s still possible that the plot will fall apart like wet paper and the acting be a form of remote torture, but it looks fantastic and I can hope that the plot and acting are just as good.

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

I am so renting this movie when it comes out. Who’s with me?

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Oh yes!

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Yes, I know I said that Flametoad was going on hiatus, but this morning in my Flametoad inbox I found an e-mail from a guy named Alex Poutiainen. I almost deleted it, because the subject was “New Vid”, which has “spam” written all over it. However, the first few lines of the message related to Flametoad content, so I took a chance and opened it.

That’s when I was reminded that Alex was the guy who created Nazi Dinosaurs and Zoo of the Dead. It was very cool of him to write me personally to let me know that he’s back with a new YouTube movie – Robowaitress Fury. Enjoy!

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

May your day go better than this. (video embedded)

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Thanks to the magic of Tivo, I finally got caught up on Dollhouse through the episode called Omega. Why did it take this show until the last three episodes to really get good? Alan Tudyk should have been brought in mid-season.

What’s the deal with former-Agent Ballard? He goes from wanting to tear down the Dollhouse to helping them catch a rogue? And when it’s all over he hands Caroline back over to them? And she goes back willingly? The “big reveal” about the doll Whiskey was interesting, but hardly surprising. I’m waiting to learn that Boyle is a Doll as well. Why did it take so long for them to make the Topher character interesting? The thing about Dr. Saunders hating him was interesting.

I’m glad the show finally got better, and I’m glad it was renewed. I still think Castle is a better show, and I’d love to see Alan Tudyk take a guest role there. Or Gina Torres. Or Adam Baldwin!

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Forget the fact that BURIED TALES OF PINEBOX, TEXAS is here. (Okay, don’t forget that.) Forget the coolness of The Raven’s Report. This is the most awesome thing you will see today.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

It may seem a little odd that a Christian film company is making a horror movie called Paranormal. But really, why should that be odd? Christians are challenged every day to live out our beliefs, so why wouldn’t a juicy horror scenario make compelling backdrop? I mean, I’ve essentially described the plot of The Exorcist, right? It’s the challenge of being steadfast in the face of “capital E” Evil.

Anyway, this could be a neat little indie movie. Tip ‘o the hat to Charles White for passing it along.

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

I’m pretty sure that with the “real” Sherlock Holmes, we weren’t treated to bare knuckle boxing, massive explosions, or having sex with hotties. I’m also pretty sure I don’t care. I still want to see the new movie!

In fact, they probably haven’t gone far enough. I want to see Sherlock Holmes in a steampunk Iron Man suit team up with Van Helsing to fight vampires or Lovecraftian cultists and demons. Bring it on!

Also, I know director Guy Ritchie is panned by a lot of people–after all, he married Madonna–but Snatch remains one of my top 20 favorite movies of all time.

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Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

It was great. Go see it.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Please take a moment to read this amazing story of an auto mechanic who built a 36 foot tall, 1,600 lb.,  working scale model of a Saturn V rocket. He will be launching it this coming weekend, Saturday, April 25. When it launches, it is projected to travel between 3,000 and 4,000 feet up. The article reveals that there has been something of an “industrial revolution” in model rocketry, bringing engines of almost unimagined power to the dedicated hobbyist.

I hadn’t really planned on posting this, but since it fits the theme here’s an interesting trailer for a movie about a lone astronaut manning a station on the Moon. Honestly, I’m not sure if it’s going to be my cup of tea. It looks kinda cool, but kinda not. Sort of like Tom Hanks’ Robinson Crusoe remake.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Here’s another Alex Poutianinen movie, Zoo of the Dead.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Just a friendly reminder that the premier of Better off Ted (ABC) is tonight at 7:30 central. Set your DVRs appropriately. Just in case you missed it the first time around, I posted a teaser a few weeks ago.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

They had me at “weaponized pumpkin”. I’m all over this!

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

I need to fill my head with words. Not just any old words. Good ones. Well crafted ones that dazzle my brain with electric bursts of thrill. I have writing to be done, but I’ve used up all the words in my head. Consequently, your mission is to recommend a good great book. Ideally it should be horror, but I’m not terribly picky. The main thing is that it should be a book so well written that it made you realize the last three books you read, which you thought were good at the time, were actually crap. I want to pick up a book that is so good that it makes me want to rush out and buy everything else I can find by that author. Begin.

In other news, I watched the latest movie to reach the top of my Netflix queue– The Covenent. This was a movie that failed to live up to its interesting premise and instead played it safe with a ridiculously predictable outcome. Let’s put it this way. I didn’t pick out the bad guy right away because it was so obvious a plant that I was looking for the “real” bad guy behind the obfuscation. This movie was very much about teen fantasy fulfillment, up to and including the boy-band hearthrobs playing the lead roles.

Speaking of lead roles, here’s another embarassing admission: I spent the first 15 minutes of the moving thinking that the characters were supposed to be college students. Unfortunately, no. Apparently they all belong to an exclusive college-prep school. Yes, high school.

For the two people who read this and actually care about this sort of thing, I’ve already installed the new version of Wordpress. It’s different. Let me know if you notice anything wonky or missing on the site.

Originally published at Flametoad. You can comment here or there.

Okay, let’s face it. Not many people are happy with the direction Heroes is going. It’s like a someone you’ve been dating a while and the “new” has worn off. It hasn’t been so long that you’ve forgotten the good times, but you just don’t feel that electric thrill you used to feel when you first started out. I’ve given this some thought (as if you couldn’t tell), and I’ve figured out when Heroes jumped the shark and how.

Quite simply, when the show started out it was grounded in realism. Everyone had jobs and many of them had spouses. They worried about where the next paycheck was going to come from. They worried about their kids and spouses. They had real life problems on top of the superheroics. That lasted more or less through the first season, and was completely thrown out in the second. That’s when things took a serious slide downhill.

Remember when Parkman was struggling with his marriage? Remember that his wife was expecting a baby? (Okay, yeah, presumably it turned out not to be his.) Remember when they fought over which bills to pay because they just weren’t making enough money? Or what about Nathan? Notice they wrote his wife off the show too? When was the last time you even saw him pining over his kids? What about Peter? Remember when he had a job? Where are all these people getting their money these days? I guess they’re conveniently drawing a Company paycheck. I wonder if they have to turn in their receipts.

Let’s face it. When the show disengaged itself from reality, it snatched the characters from among us and dropped them upon high Mount Olympus. No longer are they people with whom we can relate, but superheroes far above the cares of people like you and me. Without that connection, Heroes has truly become a comic book–in the ugliest sense of the term. Ironically, comics today are often much better written.