… returns!
This morning Amazon sent me a friendly email, asking if I wanted to pre-order The Dark Knight.
I really loved The Dark Knight, so I decided to check it out and see what Amazon had to tempt me today.
Apparently, a lot. Read the rest of this entry »
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I am a pathetic fan of the Farscape series. I’ve been a huge fan since the first episode I saw, somewhere in the first half of season one. Unfortunately, I moved in the middle of season two and never managed to catch up with the stories. I would log onto SciFi.com and read the epidsode synopses, but that was never going to be good enough.
Eventually ADV began publishing the seasons of Farscape in a “two episodes per tape/DVD” format. And I picked up the Pilot on VHS, and eventually the rest of season one, as it came out, on DVD. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was around twenty five dollars per release, and something like ten releases just for the first season. I ran out of money and couldn’t keep up anymore.
And eventually ADV began releasing the whole thing all over again, this time in a “StarBurst Edition” with about seven episodes and lots and lots of extras. Each season took three releases. So season one was 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and season two was 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. I began collecting these, partially because they were cheaper, but also because I love the extras commentaries. Of course, I was only able to get one here and another one many months later and sometimes I would forget about Farscape when something else had my attention.
Then last week, while checking on the order status of a gift to myself (Farscape Starburst 2.3), I noticed that Amazon had changed the message in my wish list. It now said that the manufacturer had discontinued seasons three and four. Oh dear. See, the problem is that they had discontinued season one a while ago and I couldn’t afford to buy them… they sell used for a low price of sixty to ninety dollars. I immediately starting filling my shopping cart with Farscape.
As it is, I ended up spending a hundred dollars on new and used Farscape Starburst Editions. I was able to get 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 in new and used copies for between sixteen and twenty-two dollars each. Unfurtunately, 3.1 was already sold out with no used copies available on Amazon. When I went home I was agonizing to Jade that I had just wasted money but I vainly tried to self-justify by saying how much I was saving by buying now instead of waiting till each one was extremely expensive. But I really didn’t buy into my own argument.
Until yesterday. Farscape Starburst Edition 3.1 is now selling used for ninety dollars.
Now I am KICKING myself for not thinking clearly and pickup up a few extra copies to re-sell. I knew that the price was going to get jacked up. I could have made a return of 450%! I almost never think to sell something, but this time… I really should have.
Oh well, at least I’m going to finally be able to catch up on Farscape, find out what happens in the Uncharted Territories, and maybe see what happens to Crichton and Aeryn… but I still need to pick up the PeaceKeeper Wars for that.
My initial impression of The Dark Knight last night was that I was not disappointed. In fact, I was really happy with it. Which is rather amazing considering just how excited and just how high my expectations were going into The Dark Knight.
Batman Begins is, off hand, my favorite film of the last few years. I haven’t recommended and pushed and watched and re-watched anything else like this since it came out. I’ve really enjoyed a few other movies, strangely enough including The Prestige, but none to the extent of Batman Begins. So when I say my expectations were really high, I mean they were ridiculously high.
The last time I was half as excited for a new movie was for Jumper. I ended up hearing a review of it on the Totally Rad Show and realized that I was going to be horribly disappointed. So I watched it on video just a few weeks ago and it was so-so okay. Before that was The Bourne Supremacy, where I left the theater almost shaking in rage at the travesty done to The Bourne Identity as a movie and the Bourne series of books. And then there was Riddick. But let’s not go there.
Basically, my point is this; I had, despite my own best intentions to damp down my enthusiasm, reached a disturbing and unfamiliar level of excitation such that I had difficulty stemming my vibrations in order to sleep the morning before. I was literally like a child the night before Christmas. And I was NOT disappointed.
Unlike Iron Man, which apparently was a really awesome movie that I simply did not connect with emotionally on any level, I loved The Dark Knight. (I just have a hard time admitting it.)
<— There may be mild spoilers after the break —>
PenChaft: Although I wish there was more Firefly, I’m glad that it didn’t go so
long as to get as tired as Buffy did.Then again, if there had been more, there wouldn’t have been Serenity,
which was one of the shittiest pieces of full-length feature shit I’ve
ever had the misfortune to be subjected to.
Nomad Scry: You don’t watch many movies do you? Did you happen to see Riddick? Or The Horse Whisperer? Or … oh what was that fucking horrid movie… Steve Martin in… Novacaine, I think. That was WRETCHED. Serenity was not the best thing ever, but it certainly wasn’t bad. I mean, it didn’t have Jar Jar in it. Or Short Round. It was better than Iron Man. But then again, I just can’t connect to that character, so I am biased. Heh.
PenChaft: Riddick was fine, because I was with a friend and we were laughing at
Eomer’s hair.I don’t watch films like The Horse Whisperer.
Serenity was just… it was Joss Whedon SHITTING on his fans. It was
one of the most disrespectful films - to the characters as well as to
the fans - that I have ~ever~ seen. ~Also~, the Reaver thing was SO
GODDAMN DUMB.Iron Man was excellent! Its biggest flaw was a lack of action/srs bad
guys, not TOTALLY RETARDED STUFF HAPPENING FOR A FEW HOURS.I’ve only seen episode 3 and half of… A New Hope? I think? The Death
Star blew up, I saw that bit.
Nomad Scry: I, uh, respectfully disagree. Riddick was the shitting on fans. Pitch Black was a brilliant film that has held up over numerous visitations. Someday I will rewatch Riddick as a FANTASY movie and it may be okay that way. But, as a sequel to Pitch Black, it is a travesty.
Another shit on the fan movie was The Bourne Supremecy (or whichever the second one was.) The entire premise of the trilogy is Jason/David and Marie surviving each other and surviving together. Killing Marie in the first act of the movie was, according to the director’s commentary, supposed to shake Jason out of the happy complacent place. !!?!?!!!??!! That’s why Ludlum had her kidnapped! ARGH.
Sorry, that one … I walked out of the theater angrily appologizing to Jade for “forcing her to see that pile of shit.” I was livid. Literaly.
Serenities biggest flaw was being predictable. It was telegraphed all over the place. It needed to be. It had to wrap up the entire universe in two hours. Pretty rough road when you just spent (how many episodes in the series?) hours opening the story world up and up… and then two hours to tie all the stories and characters together.
And the Reaver thing… was simply predictable. As long as Whedon didn’t want to introduce straight up magic, that is.
I don’t agree, obviously, about Iron Man. it was pretty. And shiny. Like metal shiny, not like Firefly shiny. But ultimately boring, because I simply don’t give a shit that a molly-coddled uber-rich jackass got pissy and used his inheritence to build himself a fighting suit. What a fucking wanker.
Which is utterly hipocritical of me, I know and don’t care, because I LOVED Batman Begins.
PenChaft: I didn’t view Chronicles as a direct sequel to Pitch Black. It was
more of a… spin off? I guess? in my head.Haven’t seen any of the Bourne movies.
The Reaver thing’s not predictable, it’s ~DUMB~. When we walked out of
the cinema (I saw Serenity as a special preview screening surrounded
by fellow SF fans) we started dicussing how utterly dumb the Reaver
planet, the Reaver band, the Reaver backstory etc. was. NOT GOOD LOGIC
OR SCIENCE AT ALL ARGH.But he didn’t HAVE to wrap it all up (and kill it all off at the same
time). He could have just had a glorified episode and WE WOULD HAVE
BEEN OKAY WITH THAT. And it’s not just the plot that annoys me and
makes me think he just didn’t care. There’s no touching on any Jayne
subplot/characterisation, several of their accents were ~horribly~ off
in the first third of the film. OH YEAH, AND THERE WAS ALSO (arguably)
RETCON.Iron Man was fun! I saw it twice (first time was a free screening). It
was just ~fun~. And they’re going to deal with the alcoholism and
stuff in the next movies, and I can respect their reasons for leaving
them out of the first one, and it was just so ~fun~.Batman Begins is, however, ~~~THE~~~ superhero origins movie. <3 <3 <3
You might like these videos:
http://greyreviews.livejournal.com/16936.html (also check out the
other I’m a Marvel/I’m a DC, they’re all funny)I don’t like Superman, though. Now THAT’S a boring character.
Nomad Scry: http://www.epinions.com/review/Superman_Returns_44832383/content_301537005188
That’s what I have to say on Superman.
PenChaft: I’ve never liked the character, and then when I saw that travesty of a
film? UGH. Lex Luther was the only (mild) saving grace.That kid was such an awful, awful, AWFUL plot device.
Nomad Scry: Did you watch any of that Kevin Sorbo scifi show? Andromeda or something? I don’t think there is much else that could have been done with the Reavers that wouldn’t have simply turned them into the Maggog. Which would have been pendantic and boring because it was just done. (And from the little I saw of it, done well.)
PenChaft: I haven’t, no.
Nomad Scry: One of the neat things about Serenity is that you can very clearly imagine it as the story told over a session of the Firefly RPG. So yeah, some of it is pretty geeky lame… which is what makes it better. Walsh dies, for fucks sake. Why, man, why! Heh.
We watched Fantastic Four and the follow up Rise of the Silver Surfer today. I was pleasantly surprised by the first. I had been expecting a steaming pile and didn’t get it. On the other hand, I was disappointed by Rise of the Silver Surfer. The significant difference between the two movies was that the first had a story with the traditional beginning, middle, and end; while the second did not.
My impression of the actors stayed the same throughout both films. The dude playing Mr. Fantastic was fine. He was playing a boring, unemotional nerd and was really very boring. (Kind of like Cyclops actually.) Jessica Alba couldn’t act her way out of bag. And in Silver Surfer, they did something to her hair and eyes to make her look more like Sue, and well… she looks fake/bad. Chris Evans, the Human Torch, was really quite believable as the hotheaded party dude. Quite charismatic. Michael Chiklis was absolutely wasted as the Thing, but then again… There were moments where I was reading emotions off of the Thing, despite only being able to see his eyes. I guess not every actor could pull that off. And I’m a fan of the guy, McMahon maybe, who played Dr. Doom. He was such a good bad guy in Charmed.
Crap, I wasn’t supposed to admit that.
Anyhow, FF is okay. The story is a basic retelling of the FF creation myth. I am somewhat unfamiliar with the details of Stan Lee’s origin tale, so I don’t know if Doom was supposed to be involved. Doesn’t really matter to me. We were introduced to the characters, the big thing went bad turning them into powers, they fought each other and the bad guy, they came back together and won the day. Nothing special or anything, but it worked well enough.
FF: RotSS on the other hand… basically a menacing figure appears, coincidentally re-awakens Doom, fights with Torch turning him into a power swapping machine, gets captured by Mr. Fantastic because the Surfer is distracted by Invisible Girl. Then Doom takes the surf board, the Four release the Surfer, Torch takes everyone’s powers and beats Doom, and returns the board to Surfer. Oh, forgot to mention that Sue gets deaded with a cosmic spike. Then the whiny Surfer decides to actually fight against Galactus (who appears as a swirling cloud) and they both disappear in a big poof.
I just can’t seem to see the point of the story. It almost appears that it should be about Sue convincing Surfer to stand up to Galactus. But it’s not. Which means there was no real point to any of it. Blah. Booo!
On the good side, Stan Lee actually played himself in the second one. Heh.
We watched “Stranger than Fiction” earlier today and I thought it was lovely. I even had a few tears during the last few minutes of the movie.
Jade’s impression wasn’t nearly as favorable. Her comment was that the ending was predictable. And I have to agree with her, so I am not all too certain that my feelings for the movie were all the wonderful story or merely a result of my on-going headache.
