OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: MovieBob is not, nor has he ever been, an Atheist. That having been said…

MovieBob’s Definition of a Flawed Thought-Process: Sincerely believing that a benevolent, all-powerful supernatural being has your best interests at heart and – in fact – “loves you” because he only allowed a Tiger Shark to devour a portion of your body, rather than the whole thing.

Below, the trailer for what already looks like a top-contender for one of 2011’s worst movies, “Soul Surfer” – the “inspirational true story” of that teenage girl who kept on surfing through the Power of hard work, modern medical science and positive thinking  Jesus after a Tiger Shark munched her arm off.

Good God (irony!) does that look terrible – it’s like “The Blind Side,” “Jaws: The Revenge” and Kirk Cameron gangbanged “127 Hours,” and 9 months later “someone” left THIS movie in a basket on somebody’s doorstep. I can’t remember the last time I felt as bad for actors as I do for Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt for having to be in this.

Anyway, a minor kerfluffle has erupted over this – apparently the real-life folks depicted in the film were rather angry to learn that one of the producers had opted to digitally remove the words “Holy Bible” from the cover of a copy of “The Holy Bible” in one scene, on the logic that this would help the film have boxoffice appeal beyond the ghetto of the Christian Film market.

First off: All of my requisite snark about the basic premise and message of the thing aside… that’s bullshit, a dick-move, and they had every right to be pissed off. If you want to make the movie about these people’s story, and their sincerely-held religious beliefs are a vital part of that story to them, then you’re obligated to present it as such. If you want the movie to be about fighting back from injury through some other inspiration, change the names. But if you want that golden “true story” marketing-hook… you’ve gotta play ball, simple as that.

Secondly… what the HELL sense does that even make? Show of hands: Even without any explicit reference to such, can anyone look at this trailer and NOT immediately recognize that it’s a big steaming pile of “Overcoming Adversity Through Faith” anyway? I mean… if you took every mention of the word “Force” out of any given “Star Wars” trailer, everyone would still know it was about “Star Wars.”

So that happened.

Still… a little young-looking, I think. Not a deal-breaker, but I’m not getting “intimidation” here. Bad guys should be a bit “struck” by WW even before the “can throw a bus at you” aspect kicks-in, from where I sit.

For me, the only real downside to Hollywood’s current love-affair with superheroes is that along with the “official” adaptations it seems like everyone is pulling their “revisionist take” retreads out of mothballs to try for a greenlight. Every post-“Watchmen” variation on “what happens when they retire??” “What if they weren’t as a good as we thought??” “What if they lived in the REAL world??” was done and re-done five times over by about 1998, but tell that to the geniuses who thought “Hancock” or “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” were a good idea.

But “Golden Age,” unofficially “announced” on Deadline as a Matthew Vaughn project based on a yet-to-be-published Johnathan Ross comic, actually sounds worth being cautiously-optimistic about…

The idea, as described by Vaughn, refers to retired WWII-era heroes who’re drafted back into service when their children’s generation of heroes “screw up the world.” So… “Kingdom Come,” basically – but with an added element that makes me take notice: The rest-home supers will fight their children’s mistakes alongside their superhero grandchildren – The Greatest Generation and Generation X versus The Boomers.

I’m kind of a sucker for “elderly/kid” teamups to begin with, but the potential for something uniquely “zetigeisty” in this intrigues me. There’s a strong undercurrent with a lot of my generation (and the generation directly behind us) of feeling like we “relate” more strongly to our grandparents than our actual parents. Some of it is the mythologizing effects of media (“grammy and grampy defeated Hitler and were awesome, mom and dad were smelly hippies who couldn’t win ‘Nam”) and some of it is probably the dramatic rise in two-income families and with them extended-grandparent-babysitting… but whatever it is it’s there. Heck, it’s not even ENTIRELY new to the genre – Carrie Kelley’s whole arc in “Dark Knight Returns” was quite-directly about young teenager rejecting her Boomer parents – still getting stoned and musing about old rock songs well into parenthood – for Old Man Batman.

I want to see where they go with this.

I’m on my way to bed (early-ass screening tomorrow – ugh!), but rest assured that I WILL have more to say when time avails itself about the ungodly, horrible way the Smithsonian is going about the “public voting” aspect of it’s “Art of Videogames” exhibit. Don’t get me wrong: The effort is appreciated, but everything from the selections to the categorizations on this thing are so wrongheaded, slapdash and uninformed as to make me honestly think it’d be better if they didn’t do it at all.

For example: The voting (which seems to ignore Arcades ENTIRELY, btw) divides the history of the medium into five “eras,” with options to vote for which of three games will be each console/eras “representative” title in each of four genres. Only FOUR? Yes: Action, Adventure, Target and Combat/Strategy. That’s right: No platformer, no puzzle, no RPG – in the 8-bit/NES/Adventure category, it’s Final Fantasy vs. Zelda vs. Shadowgate… and only ONE can “win.”

This. Is. FUCKING. ASININE.

Where did they get this system? Did they just make it up without consulting anyone who knows thing-ONE about the medium? Gaming is young, but there’s NO shortage of historians and credited experts out there who could’ve given them a better outline. This isn’t a matter of nerd-nitpickery… obviously not every game can get in there… but trying to tell the “history” of the form and classifying Zelda and Final Fantasy as the same thing? That’s like if I opened up a Bird Museum and added an Octopus on the basis that it has a BEAK.

I imagine others will want to weigh in on this, but instead of just griping along with me why not gripe directly to them instead: Here’s the exhibit/voting’s comment section.

And here’s the email address associated with the page: AmericanArtGames@si.edu BE RESPECTFUL if you do write in, regardless of what you have to say. We gain nothing by being crass.

My favorite “Donald Duck” cartoon ever, also my go-to clip to refute the whole “only Goofy holds up today” thing i.e. Disney shorts. I love how minimal the setup is – as though Donald and the Nephews exist in a permanent state of antagonism. If I had had the kind of ridiculous snow we’ve had here this year when I was, say, 10… I’d have probably contracted serious hypothermia trying to recreate this stuff…

Even today, the quality of the animation on these things blows my mind, especially considering it’s ALL oldschool ink-and-paint stuff. And you can tell the animators had a field-day playing around with the physics of snow/ice/water – I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that was the whole reason for doing the cartoon itself.

Yes, there are now ads on both of these blogs. I’m trying it out, seeing how it goes, etc; hoping it won’t be some kind of “issue.”

http://cdn2.themis-media.com/media/global/movies/player/flowplayer.commercial-3.2.5.swf

They’ve also seen fit to counteract all those less-than-impressive set photos of the new costume by giving us the first “official” look at the thing with the mask on, in an action-pose, properly lit and color-corrected. That’s it on the right. I stand by my initial impressions up to this point: It’s overdesigned, the blue fingers make it look like he’s wearing ugly finger-gloves over his uniform, and as much as I like mechanical-webshooters I’m not fond of them being big silver buttons on the outside of fabric. BUT, he looks more like Spider-Man than TDK’s Batman looks like Batman, so it’s not terribly unpleasant.

Hey, wait a sec… where are his feet?

Look close: The shadowing has been staged in such a way as to completely obscure both of his feet below the calf. Aside from lending the image a somewhat-ironic Leifeldian quality, it denies sharp-eyed fans an answer to the biggest costume-question to come out of all those unplanned candids: Are those metal toe-shoes he seems to be wearing over his boots part of the onscreen costume or just a stunt/safety thing for certain shots? And if they ARE part of the actual outfit, why exactly does Spider-Man need to armor his toes?

I dropped it into photoshop, blew up the bottom portion and cranked the brightness/contrast to try and bring up the detail and make them out. There basically ISN’T any detail to raise on the feet, as though it’s been darkened even beyond the shadows from the photography, but I got a small hint of what looks like the shiny non–red “tip” of a boot, which leads me to believe that he WAS wearing them in this shot and that they ARE part of the costume-proper. Take a look:

So, if the new Spider-Man has metal feet… what are they? Is the wall-crawling a mechanical-aparatus now as well? Does he have shooters on his FEET, too?

hat-tip to Jeff Wells

Andy Rooney reviews“The King’s Speech,” in a manner that’s both sincerely endearing and also, unintentionally, explains how and why this particular film became an awards season juggernaut:

http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf

“I like movies that remind me of something I know about,” indeed.

Easy to roll your eyes at, granted – though I’d caution folks my age and persuasion to keep in mind that this is basically the “sweet old man talking about actual history” version of how WE sound when explaining why Star Wars references still “work” (back when they still did, anyway…)

I maintain a certain fascination with – if not necessarily adherence to, by any means – Ayn Rand. Yes, yes, I know… an antisocial nerd with a soft-spot for Objectivism? Shocker.

Look, I’m no Objectivist, but I’d be lying if I said that the broad sweep of it – particularly the whole “live for yourself,” “to hell with the Greater Good,” “traditonal-morality and social-stability are secondary to the freedom of visionaries to realize their potential” aspects – didn’t appeal tremendously to what I recognize to be both the best and worst aspects of my personality. Yes, I recognize that the “philosophy” is a lot more about the author’s own pathology and self-justification… but on the other hand “The Fountainhead” IS probably still the most absurdly-potent “Artist Versus The World” story ever, and more-indirectly, “Trees” is a really good song.

Basically, I appreciate it just enough that seeing Objectivist lingo and imagery being whipped out by the Tea Party as of recent is like a stabbing pain in the gut for me – it’s akin to watching a caveman using an M-16 as a club. “Atlas Shrugged” as the banner of barely-literate “family values” yahoos for whom “elitist” is a curse-word? Have these people no concept of irony whatsoever? Sarah Palin is Dagny Taggart like I’m Erroll Flynn. Egh. Anyway…

I’ve always maintained that there’s a good movie somewhere inside “Atlas Shrugged,” but that to find it would require a top-down reworking, merciless trimming and oversight by filmmakers who could “respect” the story without needing to worship the philosophy (such as it is.) For the longest time, Angelia Jolie was trying to get it off the ground, but apparently that’s been stalled. Instead, an indie outfit decided to put a version together as a “keep the rights” move, and they’ve now released a trailer…

…which looks like a Syfy/Asylum level production. Love the ominous “Part 1”, too, indicating that they’re keeping the interminable, meandering length of the thing. This could be the “Battlfield Earth” of political movies.

Incidentally, want a sobering glimpse of just how much political thought in the U.S. has degraded over the last few decades? Google “Ayn Rand” and “abortion,” and marvel at what “conservative” USED to mean in this country.