Anyone who cares probably already knew this, but today (August 10th, 2013) is K-DAY – the date, in “Pacific Rim’s” timeline, when the first Kaiju (Trespasser) appears in San Francisco. I can think of at least one way to mark the occasion (technically, the “event” runs through 8/15 since it takes five days to kill the thing) – though it’s kind of sad that there aren’t more screens left to go see it on…

Get out there and support this one, guys. It’s a winner.

Intermission: “Let’s Watch The New Thor Trailer.”

ALSO: Since the cat is now out the bag, yes – I’ll be doing an appearance to sell and sign copies of “Brick By Brick”  at the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire on Saturday, Sept 14 from noon to 3pm. ACAM is located on the third floor of Funspot, 579 Endicott St North (Rt 3) in Laconia, NH 03246. Hope to see some of you there.

I run hot or cold on Paul Greengrass, particularly when he’s in psuedo-blockbuster mode, but I’m really glad he’s the guy who wound up making “Captain Phillips.” True story or not, the setup of America’s Most Beloved Human Tom Hanks at the mercy of ruthless Somali pirates could’ve made for some profoundly uncomfortable (in a bad way) “optics” in the hands of a more sensationally-inclined filmmaker; but Greengrass’ judgement-free, fly-on-the-wall psuedo-verite style makes that pretty unlikely. Either way, the film’s new domestic trailer looks intense.

Been waiting on “Monuments Men” for awhile, and it looks good. George Clooney directs and stars alongside Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett and Bob Balaban in the true story of a U.S. special division that enlisted architects, professors and art-history experts for the purpose of minimizing damage to Europe’s artistic and cultural treasures from the fighting and, eventually, tracking and reclaiming priceless art stolen by the Nazis themselves.

This looks really, really good. I’d been a little worried that they were going to impose some kind of unnecessarily more “humanistic” story-arc on this, i.e. the unit rolls up on some blighted village that gets all sad when they find out the soldiers are to save “some paintings” instead of the people and a choice has to be made and everyone learns about what really matters and blah blah blah.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case – this trailer, at least, is selling a straightforward guys-on-a-mission movie where the “gimmick” is that much of the unit is comprised of decidedly un-soldier-like academics who have to learn the ropes on the fly to go do their job. To me, that’s a compelling enough story on it’s own – plus, I like the idea of an A-list, big-star “prestige picture” being built around the message that art, culture and knowledge are worth fighting for.

Let’s get this out of the way: The trailer for “CBGB” – about NYC’s legendary punk rock club – looks like just about the “least punk” thing you can picture, even moreso than the decidedly un-punk initial notion of doing a glossy Hollywood “triumph over adversity” version of this particular story. But it doesn’t look precisely “bad.” The downside of the punk movement’s own gleeful embrace of mainstream music journalism’s refusal to pay it’s artists any mind was that the era didn’t really get the shot to inject it’s own mythology into the popular culture the way 60s rockers, disco composers or even the 80s metal scene guys have; so maybe stuff like this is at least something.

We’re probably heading into a looooooong stretch of every other fantasy movie trying to look as much like “Game of Thrones” as possible. “THOR: THE DARK WORLD,” at least, has the excuse of being directed by actual GoT-veteran Alan Taylor.

Either way; DAMN, but this looks good. I still enjoyed Kenneth Brannagh’s cheeky “Golan-Globus with money” take in the first one, but this one looks appropriately bigger and grander as befits the first Marvel movie that’s really going to feel constant pressure to “live-up” to “The Avengers” thanks to it featuring the return of Loki.

The God of Mischief is, of course, all over the new trailer – dig that moment with him and Jane Foster. I like that we’re still running firmly on comics-logic, wherein a villain can nearly destroy an entire city, likely killing thousands, and because it’s good-guy/bad-guy team-up time the “blowback” can be limited to dirty looks and maybe a slap from the supporting cast. Yeah, sure, this guy is technically the greatest force of evil in this history of this universe’s Earth… but we’ll deal with that later – there’s a quest to be had! Still preferable to not acknowledging it at all, though…

Pre-release has been marred by talk of an intensely troubled production; reports of Natalie Portman being furious at her preferred director being removed from the film (I will be very surprised if Jane Foster is alive at the end of this) and rumors of Taylor clashing with the producers to the extent that large portions of the film have actually been (discreetly) handled by other directors. All that could be true, apart from Whedon’s relative free-reign on “Avengers” the Marvel movies are the most openly and overwhelmingly producer-driven blockbusters in awhile, but the if the movie turns out good that’s really beside the point.

UPDATE: 2:20. That’s a KRONAN. Awesome.

Oh c’mon, you didn’t forget  Lisa, did you?

Remember all those jokes about guys getting “crushes” on technology from the seemingly-distant past when vocal-interfaces having gentle, nonthreatening, compliant female-sounding voices was a brand new thing? A chuckle-worthy gag so immediately dated that it got a showing in the “Sex & The City” movie? (Hell, remember THAT being a thing?)

Well, now it’s the premise of “HER;” a movie which stars Joaquin Phoenix as, essentially, a lonely guy who wants to fuck Siri. BUT! It’s a Spike Jonze movie, with Scarlett Johansson as the voice of Babe In The Machine, so it’s probably going to be good and definitely going to be worth seeing.

Have you ever suspected that everything you’ve been told by the LAMEstream media was a lie? That forces far, far beyond your conception were pulling the strings of the world to nefarious ends? Have you ever suspected that Morgan actually is Nelson Mandela? That conservative talker Laura Ingraham, Tea Party Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann and Caroline Kennedy are all the same person? That the notorious Haditha Massacre was actually a “false flag” operation conducted in part by Vin Diesel and “Jackass” star Steve-O? Well, an insane man somewhere in Texas wants to tell you that you’re right…

Part of the beautiful madness of The Internet is that the things otherwise-harmless folks none the less afflicted with with severe mental illnesses might have in previous years kept locked in their own heads or scrawled on the basement walls now get made into searchable websites. Digging around for gems in that vein is a perverse hobby of mine, and today I found the rare one worth sharing… and yes, I looked into it – apparently this is NOT a joke.

Wellaware1.com  is the website of an apparently-prolific conspiracy theorist alternately known as Ed Chiarini or “DallasGoldBug;” who appears to be A.) a conspiracist of the “New World Order” stripe (I’m not seeing any David Icke/”Reptiloid” stuff here) and B.) afflicted with some sort of disorder (OCD?) that leads him to fixate on human facial anatomy. His topic of choice: “They” (whoever “they” are) control the world so extensively that most powerful politicians and/or public figures, plus the known-players in various tragedies like 9-11 or Newtown (which he believes to be staged-events used to manipulate public opinions) are actually actors; a common enough spew from the “WAKE UP MAN!!!” set… but this fellow adds an extra wrinkle: They aren’t just actors, they’re really – really – famous actors! I assume his justification is a “hiding in plain sight” kind of thing. (He traces a surprising amount of this back to the British Royal Family, which makes it even more surprising he does go “full Reptoid.”)

The site itself (which is the quintessential paranoid-delusional mix of exhaustively-compiled yet utterly disorganized) is quite the rabbit hole, though most of it is just links to JPG posters of him “proving” that various politicians look sort-of like various other famous people. I’ve stuck one off to the side here, but some  noteworthy highlights include:

Former New York Gov. David Patterson and Moammar Ghaddafi? SAME PERSON!

Jay Rockerfeller is actually CHEVY CHASE!

Jovan Belcher? WILL SMITH.

ONE mysterious woman is Michelle Bachmann, Laura Ingraham AND Caroline Kennedy.

Robert Blake was also POPE BENEDICT.

No direct link for this one, but he makes an especially tasteless leap alleging that Holly Robinson Bush – George W. Bush’s sister who died in infancy from leukemia – is in fact alive and walking among us as… HILLARY CLINTON.

Also un-linkable: Ron Paul is SIR IAN MCKELLAN.

Not only was Gabby Giffords NOT actually shot in the head, she’s really just TINA FEY… who is in turn really just Jennifer Greenberg Sexton – a member of a wealthy family he is deeply obsessed with.

Jim Jones is hiding in plain sight as the grandfather from “PAWN STARS.”

Sen. Joseph Lieberman is the dad from “ALF.”

And, of course, Steve-O and Vin Diesel participated in faking The Haditha Massacre.

All kidding aside, this is all actually kind of sad – this guy is clearly unwell (though my sympathies are blunted considerably by the fact that he’s actively slandering dozens upon dozens of people here – many of whom are deceased and cannot defend themselves) and is in serious need of psychiatric help. But the site, as an artifact, is kind of an amazing relic – especially if you read a lot of more “mainstream” political-conpiracy stuff and can thus see how amusingly close some of this comes to the standard-issue Bilderberg/Rothchild/Rockerfeller drivel clogging up certain Tea Party (and Anon/Occupy) fringe blogs before he gets to his “big revelation.”

Oh thank heaven…

NERDS!!!