Category: Uncategorized

Finding funny words to rhyme with "Conan" is harder than you’d think

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Here’s the easiest prediction I or anyone else will make all summer: Come August, the most obnoxious strata of the nerdscape by far will be the folks swearing that the awful-looking Marcus Nispal directed “Conan” movie – which has a new, awful-looking trailer below – is in some way superior to John Milius/Arnold Schwarzenegger “Conan” on the grounds that it’s “closer” to the original Robert E. Howard “Conan” stories.

I’m not myself 100% sure how one GET’S “closer” to REH’s work unless it’s a direct adaptation of one of his actual stories – which this new film isn’t. The original “Conan” canon is many things (awesome, for example) but what it’s NOT is imbued with a particularly dense continuity or consistency. For the most part they are united solely by the fact that the main character (whose profession and disposition change from tale to tale) is named Conan.

Oh, I’m sure that it’ll be chock-full of REH references – it’s a given that someone calling himself Thoth-Amon will turn up, and that Howard’s myriad fictional civilizations and peoples will get name-checked as it goes, and maybe they’ll toss in some of the more public-domain-ish Cthulhu jargon if they want to really work people up… but no, that’s not enough to make this look like anything beyond the mid-level “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” knockoff it continues to resemble.

Also: Jason Momoa looks like a guy who fronts “totally-brutal” local metal band in Wisconsin but on weekdays works the key-making station at Home Depot – dunno why, but that’s the impression I get.

New "Green Lantern" trailer… still isn’t doing it for me

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The good news: It looks big, and it looks original:

http://d.yimg.com/nl/movies/site/player.swf

The bad news: Everything about the lead character still isn’t working for me. Reynolds is a good actor, but this STILL looks like epic miscasting. He looks like he’s hosting next year’s MTV Movie Awards, and he’s been edited into the clips “everyone remembers” from “Green Lantern” to make funny faces and do piss-takes on all the “weird stuff.”

MovieBob’s Disturbingly Not-As-Insane-Sounding Wii2 Theory: Revisited

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Being right about something in the realm of technology-speculation happens to me so rarely I’m actually a little scared when it looks like it might… happen, I mean. So right now… I’m actually a little alarmed…

Awhile back, when we first got word that Nintendo’s yet-unamed, supposedly E3-bound Wii successor was going to have an iPad-esque touchscreen incorporated into it’s controller, I was struck by a crazy notion: What if the touchscreen IS the controller – as in, the WHOLE controller?

The “big idea,” as I imagined it, was that instead of having one controller with a pre-set arrangement of buttons that each game needed to be mapped to, it’d just be a blank touchscreen upon which each individual game would generate it’s own specific, tailor-made set of “virtual buttons.” Think about it: A six-button arcade setup for Street Fighter, SNES-style setup for platformers or retrogames, etc.

One HUGE problem with that idea: “Virtual buttons” SUCK, and for a very specific reason: You can’t feel them. There’s no texture, no tacticle-resistance, no “feedback.” At least, not on any of the virtual-buttons we’ve used so far…

Check out this story from The Escapist, which details some new Wii2 rumors including a Swedish site’s report that the controller’s touchscreen – whatever else it is – is utilizing a form of HAPTIC TECHNOLOGY, which basically means “artificial feedback.” Haptic Touchscreens, something Apple and Toshiba have been experimenting with and/or demonstrating, use an electrically-charged “film” on the screen surface to make different areas of the display “feel” noticeably different to the user’s fingertips. The practical application is obvious: You can make the “clickable” parts of a website, options-menu or even a virtual keypad feel distinguishable to the touch. Theoretically, that could ELIMINATE the one drawback to virtual-button game-controls.

Now, realistically, it’d probably still have physical analogue sticks and shoulder-buttons, but otherwise… yeah, until proven wrong (which is probably what’ll happen) I’m stickin’ with this insane theory: Wii2’s controller, to some degree, will be built around virtual-buttons on a touchscreen, and that aspect – “one controller that becomes ALL CONTROLLERS!” – will be central to the marketing.

Innevitably-shitty movie gets fantastic trailer

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Are we still obligated to pretend that it’s a surprise that Michael Bay – who’s entire skillset is creating the kind of brief action tableaus that look good when arranged out-of-context into a trailer – gets a great-looking trailer? Below, the 2nd (final?) ad for “Transformers 3: Dark of The Moon,” which I’m assuming will be seen in front of tons of showings of the punishingly-stupid “Fast Five” this weekend.:


Yes, yes, VERY well-cut trailer – even down to the umpteenth ripoff of the “Inception” BWAAAAAAHMMM! DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUM BWAAAAAAAAHM!!!!! music cues – but look between the lines and it’s clear that NOTHING has changed: The mecha-design still looks like shit, the robots are still indistinguishable from eachother, the army/conspiracy bullshit is still taking up plotspace and the “main” story is still going to revolve around Shia dragging a vapid piece of arm-candy through CGI explosions by the elbow.

This is the last one, right? I want to be able to kick-off the countdown to when someone who knows what they’re doing takes over, reboots the franchise and erases this shit from the pop-culture memorysphere.