Month: October 2006

I wanted to post…but what?

From Wired, via a whole bunch of people, including one of the authors:

We’ll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

My personal favorites are Alan Moore’s and Joss Whedon’s.

So the Independent has compiled a list of the best (and worst) lines in the history of film. Topping their list of worst lines? “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum,” from John Carpenter’s They Live.

To me, this seems to be sort missing the point. Of course this is a terrible line of dialogue. That’s what makes it so terrific. (It’s arguable that this, plus a famously neverending fight scene, are the only good reasons to see Carpenter’s movie.) The line has definitely lodged itself in popular culture more than some of the best lines the Independent puts forward.

Link via Cinematical.

I believe the phrase I’m looking for here is “What the–?!”

In a marketing move created to finally satiate the underground fanboy/stay-at-home mom demographic, Marvel Comics will debut their newest superhero on the CBS soap opera “Guiding Light.”

Also in the works, apparently, is “a comic featuring characters of the soap interacting with superheros like Wolverine and Spider-Man.” And I thought Peter Straub‘s appearance on “One Life to Live” was weird…

Via TV Squad.

In today’s Ask Matt column, TV Guide’s Matt Roush fields a question from “Laura,” who is upset over the gory nature of shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Heroes. “Why does good old-fashioned storytelling have to get lost in a sea of blood and guts?” she asks.

Roush is quick to point out that neither show really is particularly gory; Grey’s is a medical drama, and Heroes keeps most of its blood and guts in a purely comic-book world.

If Laura thinks those are gory, she ought to try watching Dexter on Showtime. Come to think of it, actually, so should you. It’s actually pretty good, and the first two episodes are available for free online. Now there’s some gore.

From the Sci-Fi Wire:

A federal judge in New York has ordered a trial in a copyright-infringement lawsuit against DreamWorks and Warner Brothers, alleging that Michael Bay’s 2005 SF action movie The Island was based on the 1979 independent movie Parts: The Clonus Horror, Variety reported.

I think their defense should be “Your Honor, who’d be stupid enough to rip off a piece of crap like Clonus?”

Against my better judgment, I still sort of want to see The Island. Right now, though, I think I’m in Scarlett Johansson overload. I think I may be liking her less the more I see of her. I saw The Prestige yesterday, which she’s in, and that was fairly disappointing. (Although in some different ways than Christopher Priest’s original novel was disappointing.) And the less said about The Black Dahlia*, the better.

* Did you know: according to the IMDB, in Germany The Black Dahlia was called…Black Dahlia. Not big on the word “the” in Germany, huh?