So… Marvel Films got the entire “hero cast” of The Avengers up onstage at Comic-Con. Everyone was expecting it, but it’s still pretty incredible that this is actually happening.

Also incredible yet wholly expected: Mark Ruffalo is the new Hulk, Jeremy Renner is Hawkeye, and Joss Whedon is directing.

There were also teaser trailers and rough scenes shown for “Thor” and “Captain America,” and from Slashfilm I find some details from a “Cap” scene they showed revealing A.) one of the ways Cap will tie in with certain other Avengers characters (what sort of mythology was it Nazis were obsessed with, again? Heh.) and B.) which HUGE piece of the Marvel arcana is playing a previously-unmentioned part… and my mind is now BLOWN!

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf
click here for the site

Intermission: “Why Movies Suck Now – Part II: The Reality”

Okay, so, along with the new formats (still playing with it, content will remain the same) I’ve decided to go and switch OFF the ability for people to leave Anonymous comments. Didn’t want to, still don’t feel great about it, but it’s the best solution I’ve got right now. The fact is I don’t employ a webmaster to police this stuff, and I have to assume that requiring people to at least IDENTIFY themselves might cut down on some of the trolling.

And to be clear, I mean trolling of OTHER commenters. Say whatever the hell you want about me, fine. Bring it. But I won’t tolerate people anonymously-attacking fellow commenters. Period.

Thanks to ScrewAttack G1 “NovaSpec” for posting a video that I didn’t think anyone had taped the whole run of, which more-or-less marked The Game OverThinker’s impromptu “public debut.”

Here’s how this happened: The bad weather kept Brentalfloss from arriving on time for his scheduled live concert (though he did end up doing the whole show later when he actually arrived – that guy is a MACHINE!) so the SA crew had to fill a timeslot. The solution: Get the site regulars onstage to play “Celebrity” (read: Charades-with-proper-nouns) for game characters with the audience (itself split into “USA” and “International” teams.) Being available and willing, they asked me to come up too (playing for “Team International.”) Please appreciate what a generous “leap” this was on the part of Stuttering Craig etc – most of them had only just MET me, so there’s a certain amount of risk involved in inviting a mostly-unknown quantity to a live mic when YOUR responsible for what they might do. In any case, the whole thing was a ton of fun; and I did pretty good… right up until I blew a would-be comeback win by being unable to figure out how to pantomime Ulala from “Space Channel 5.” Ah, well.

http://v.giantrealm.com/saf/272828ab50091da6eb1ae85133def12ae9a44eb4

These are some funny people, and I reccomend you give everyone a watch, but for fans looking for “my” turns they’re at 9:40, 19:40 and 38:40 plus a random silly-dance at 26:09. Enjoy!

(trying some new format stuff, nobody freak out)

SLASHFILM has yet another gloriously preposterous “Thor” image up. This time it’s a wide shot of the Hall of Asgard, where it appears Thor is recieving a dressing-down from Odin. Frigga (Rene Russo!!??), Loki, Fandral and Hogun are also in attendance. It’s hard to make out costume detail, but fans should take note that you can see Odin and Loki both wearing what look like remarkably faithful versions of their comic helmets (that’s Loki down on the far left behind Frigga with the big crazy horns.

I must say I’m still really digging the “alien-ness” of the design here – the main inspiration is still clearly reproducing Jack Kirby designs in live-action (I really want to know if Brannagh has just been a fan this whole time, or if he and his designers looked at old Thor comics and immediately decided “this is what we’re doing.”) and Kirby was famously fascinated by the Ancient Astronaut/”Chariots of The Gods” theory of mythology, i.e. “Gods” as primitive man’s interpretation of contact with extraterrestrials. Maybe that’s the “answer” of how this ties in to the rest of the Avengers etc. “universe,” that THIS Thor etc. are/were alien or extra-dimensional superbeings and the ones we know from Norse myth are actually these guys as-described by early humans who didn’t fully “comprehend” them? I’ve heard worse ideas, and like the man said “any technology, sufficiently advanced, would be indistinguishable from magic.”

Hey gang!


ScrewAttack.com has their Top 10 Moments recap of SGC 2010 up at GameTrailers, and my impromptu (and unscripted) “debate” with The Game UnderThinker came in #3! Plus there’s a whole bunch of stuff in there to give you an idea of what you missed if you weren’t there – including Spoony, The Angry Nerd, Brentalfloss and the INSANE mayhem wreaked by “Keith Apicary” upon the hotel and convention area. Check it out below:


Can’t embed for some reason, so click here!

Go see it.

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.1.5.swf
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/1874-Inception

I’m also proud of this week’s “Intermission,” titled “Why Movies Suck Now – Part I”: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/7848-Why-Movies-Suck-Now-Part-One-The-Myths

…looks really, really, REALLY bad. Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly’s “Comic-Con Issue.”

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/07/15/green-lantern-ryan-reynolds/

Not that it matters. The reaction, I mean. Since negative first-impressions on things like this are always innevitably brushed-aside as “fanboy” complaints not worth taking seriously. In fact, let me save various anonymous trolls some time: “Shut up, Fanboy! You’re just mad it doesn’t look exactly like the gay-ass comic version you fap to in your mom’s basement!” There, copy/paste THAT into the comment-box and feel free to add some choice references of your own to weight, appearance and sexual-orientation for that personal touch 😉

But good LORD, what a hideous design – yes, fine, maybe it looks good in motion… but it’s hard not to feel bad for Ryan Reynolds having to “wear” that thing – “wear” being in quotes because it’s not even a costume, it’s a CGI augmentation being made to him after the fact. This is, of course, par for the course for Warner Bros., who evidently remain so ashamed of “having” to make superhero movies there’s no amount of extraneous detailing they won’t add to make the costumes look like anything OTHER than a superhero costume (See-also: Batman’s awful lumpy bat-armor, Superman’s overdesigned threads and, in the comics, Wonder Woman’s new body-conscious-actress-friendly slacks.) In this case, the design-directive seemed to be “Tron-as-reworked-for-a-reptilian-offshoot-of-Furry-fetishism.”

Look, I get the logic that a green-and-black body-stocking is a hard sell to audiences who aren’t going to see this anyway, and I get that it’s supposed to look more like a “construct” of the ring… but it also looks like ass. I mean, ignore the GL logo for a minute and tell me that even if this were some “original” character this wouldn’t look completely laughable. The Billy Zane PHANTOM had a better-looking suit than this, and he was wearing a purple skinsuit with a fucking WIDOW’S PEAK!

Fortunately, I can at least partially soothe my dissapointments (this project was sounding so promising!) with the new “Thor” image of Odin, Loki(?) and Thor hanging out in (presumably) Asgard:

I love that. Know what I love about it? Absolutely NO pretending it’s anything other than exactly what it is: “Yeah, we’re Viking Superheroes. What of it?” Cheezy? OF COURSE it’s cheezy! What part of VIKING SUPERHERO wasn’t clear enough? And check out the Kirby-esque jagged-line details on Hopkins’ armor. Every Marvel movie has reference being “live-action Jack Kirby drawings” at one point or another, but this is the first time anyone actually seems to have gone for it.

So… it’s taking some time to organize stuff for a “me at SGC video, so for now here’s an interview that got done there – spur of the moment – of yours truly by OriginalGamer.com:

http://blip.tv/play/hOt6gey1VwI%2Em4v
http://original-gamer.com/index.php?action=article&id=1505

Evidently, I’m the only person on the internet who was A.) NEVER at all enamored of Colton Harris-Moore, aka “The Barefoot Bandit,” aka “D.B. Cooper if the D.B. stood for Douche-Bag; and B.) is not at all broken-up over the fact that police finally took the little brat down in the Bahamas: http://gawker.com/5584243/barefoot-bandit-colton-harris+moore-arrested-in-bahamas

For those not up to speed, Harris-Moore is a 19 year-old “career criminal from Washington State who’s managed to become a Twitter-generation “folk hero” for engaging in America’s favorite sort of crime-spree – i.e. crime sprees committed by middle-class-appearing white teenagers for shits and giggles (America’s LEAST favorite sort of crime spree? Just re-read that and mentally run through the opposites.) During his two year run as a fugitive, his exploits have inspired a MASSIVE Facebook-Friendlist, indie-music folk-anthems, YouTube montages and other assorted detritus of a failing culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_harris-moore

Anyway, the cuffs thankfully went on before anyone got hurt or killed; which is good overall but DOES mean that now The Legend will only be further romanticized: Along with leaving cutsie-poo “calling cards,” Harris-Moore was known for stealing airplanes and boats despite not having formal training in the operation of either, and evading cops by “living off the land” in forests; so he’ll probably be hosting a damn “survival reality” show when he gets out.

FOR NOW, expect lots of footage of snot-nosed hipsters with handmade support-signs lining the streets wherever he’s transported, an innevitable “My Story” book soon to occupy a treasured place on the bookshelf of every faux-“rebellious” douchenozzle in your neighborhood – right between Steve O’s autobiography and the complete-collection of completely-misinterpreted Chuck Palanhiuk novels – and an overrated movie built around a “star turn” by a generic “boyish” actor trying to wriggle out of his Disney contract.