Entertainment

Went to see the new Iron Man movie this weekend. Suffice it to say that I had a great time, and the movie deserves the glowing reviews it's been getting. The two hours went by like a breeze, with a great mix of action, drama, and humor to keep things going, and I left the theater eager for a sequel.

While driving into work this morning, I was listening to my copy of Pac-Man Fever, rockin' my inner geek with some cheesy '80s pop music.

After a while, I realize that it's been 25 years (plus a few months) since the album was first released in 1982.

And then I wondered, "Wouldn't it be cool (in an unabashed geeky way) if someone were to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Pac-Man Fever with a follow-up album?"

If you're anything like me, you've probably given up on the mainstream news nowadays. And who can blame you? Between the demands of a 24-hour news cycle, the blatant bias, the time-wasting celebutard updates, and the death of fact-checking, the only way to stay informed nowadays is to follow the blogs and the comedians for news, and relegate the mainstream media for sports scores and weather reports.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a major Pixar junkie -- I follow news of their new releases, I try to catch their new movies in the theater on opening weekends, and I've got boxed-set deluxe editions of the home DVD releases. Granted, my fanboyish devotion has wavered a bit lately due to external distractions, but I'm still enough of a geek to plunk down big bucks for fanboy fodder like this (buy it now, it's awesome!).

So just in time for the holidays, Activision has a new video "game" for the Nintendo DS called Spanish for Everyone. As you may guess from the title -- and its kid-friendly sunshine-yellow cartoonish box art -- this is a child-friendly "edutainment" title, the kind bought by well-meaning cousins to foist on their relatives they don't care too much about.

Sometimes I run across something that's just so cool, so nifty, so neat that I have to gush about it to everyone.

This is one of those times, and if you're anything like me, the title alone is enough to make you squeal in glee:

Somehow I missed this, but apparently MGM is bringing out The Princess Bride: 20th Anniversary Edition this November.

Normally I wouldn't think much of it, as I already have the movie on DVD (and I've read the highly-recommended-and-often-overlooked "novelization"), and as a general rule I avoid double-dipping my DVD library.

But now I'm seriously thinking of breaking this rule, just because of the awesome box art for this new disc:

[Updated August 28, 10:10am] Tempting as it may be, I usually try to refrain from making too many jokes on the "dumb southerner" stereotypes. Sure, it's a cheap shot to make jokes about inbred families or trigger-happy hicks who pronounce "oil" with three syllables, but I'm usually enough of a sensitive librul-type to remember that there are real folks who live in the southern United States and shouldn't be collectively tarred with the same brush.

Yeah, I know, I know -- this site hasn't been getting a lot of attention lately. But if it makes you feel any better, it's just a reflection of how full my schedule has been these days. I've got a backlog of comics I haven't touched, a backlog of movies I haven't seen (I really want to catch Ratatouille, Sicko, Rush Hour 3, and The Simpsons before they disappear from the theaters), a new game I've barely touched, and a zillion other things I've had to put on hold for the time being -- though, hopefully, not for too much longer.

So according to the news, the Manchester Republican Committee in New Hampshire is planning a fund-raiser at a shooting range next month, where folks can pay money for the opportunity to shoot machine guns, assault rifles, and other similar instruments of machismo overcompensation:

Well, I gave in to my inner fanboy today and caught an early-evening showing of Michael Bay's summer blockbuster opus, Transformers. Since it's pretty late as it is, here's a relatively quick spoiler-free blurb on the film.

For those of you (like me) who have been cringing with fear over Michael Bay's upcoming live-action Transformers movie, your fears have been confirmed: high-resolution pictures of the movie's mechanoids have been released, and they are -- to use a highly technical term -- damn uggggggggggggggggggggly.

Here are a few samples:

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I am an unabashed Pixar junkie. Long-time readers of this blog will also know that I have not been innundating folks with updates on Pixar's next upcoming movie, Ratatouille, which opens in a little over a month.

I normally don't recommend things that I haven't seen, read, attended, or perused myself, but I'll be making an exception today. Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

[Updated 10:25pm] I managed to get out of my hermit cave long enough this weekend to go see Spider-Man 3. I don't know why people have been dinging the movie; I thought it was a terrific film, a great balance between fun, adventure, and a surprisingly healthy dose of in-depth characterization. It's easily my second-favorite film in the franchise so far, right behind the original Spider-Man and superior to the (admittedly great) Spider-Man 2.

And for the sake of hearing myself blather on a bit more, I will now list the spoilers-loaded things I liked and disliked about Spider-Man 3 right after...

I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in a while. Unfortunately, things have been pretty busy lately, and most of my free time has been taken up with mundane tasks like fixing water sprinklers. Hopefully this pair of comic book reviews will make amends.

As an unabashed Pixar geek, I'll quickly note -- for my fellow Pixar geeks in the audience -- that Jim Hill Media has two articles with spoiler-ish teasers for the computer-animated film studio's next movies, Ratatouille and WALL-E.

[Updated 9:04am 2/9/2007] Okay, I'm not usually the kind of person who dishes out salacious gossip on the bubble-headed celebrities du jour, but even I did a double-take for this:

For those of you long-time visitors who remember our first (and only) encounter with Captain Copyright, it's time to break out your polybags -- Captain Copyright has fallen, never to return!

So after watching Conan O’Brien play Serena Williams on Wii Sports Tennis the other night, I have just one thought:

(Video after the jump)