Tag Archive for: Movies

batman v superman The new Batman/Superman crossover movie now has an official title and logo. The title of the movie is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I think it’s now pretty obvious (as if the casting leaks for Wonder Woman and Cyborg weren’t enough) that this is going to be the first installment of The Justice League.

Growing up as a comic book nerd, the silver age Justice League of America was one of my favorite books. I think this was mainly because this was the comic my dad grew up on, so it was something that allowed me to connect to him. I’m really scared that DC/Warner Bros is going to ruin my fond memories of the JLA, just as they have done with almost every other comic book property that has been turned into a movie. Let’s be realistic here, DC does not make good movies, save for the Christopher Nolan Batman series. All their other ventures in recent years have failed (don’t get me started on Green Lantern). Zack Snyder did an OK job with Man of Steel. The flashback scenes were great. They made the character of Superman more human, but the fight scene at the end was spectacle for spectacle’s sake. I’m afraid that Dawn of Justice is going to be more of the same. I guess we’ll see on May 6, 2016 to see if I was right.

I was a huge comic book nerd when Superman died (and subsequently came back) in the comics. Like many other people, comic book nerds and regular Joes, I was shocked when DC Comics announced they were killing the Man of Steel. We were even more horrified when DC decided to bring him back a few issues later.

Max Landis (son of famed director John Landis) decided to make a hilarious short film about the whole ordeal. Check it out below.

During the filming of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray was asked to hire an assistant to act as a buffer between him and the studio. He deliberately hired a deaf mute who could only communicate in Native American sign language. (60 Bill Murray Facts)

After reading Owen’s post about Twitter Influence there was a brief discussion in the Habari IRC channel about who people follow and why. One part of the conversation was about celebrities. One person in the convo didn’t follow any celebrities. Owen follows just one. I, however, follow 50+. That got me thinking about why I follow these people and how I’m actually using Twitter.

First off, I want to point out that I am not a TMZ, Perez Hilton, US Weekly, People celebrity stalker. In fact, if you look at the celebrities I follow you would find a bunch of names that rarely, if ever, appear in that type of celebrity drivel. The celebrities I follow are people from TV show, music, and movies that I really enjoy. Their updates are usually really good and provide me with entertainment. Denis Leary always has great one-liners. Rob Lowe embraces his fans and frequently talks about his role on The West Wing. Nathan Fillion and Colin Ferguson are just regular guys that tweet just like anyone else. Roger Ebert provides thoughtful political and film essays. Louis CK posts clips from his very funny show and tour dates for his stand up.

The thing is, I get quality tweets from most of these people. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t follow them. Sure there might be a few on there that don’t update, but for the most part they all do and I enjoy most of their tweets. It’s gotten to a point where I enjoy their tweets more than most of the other non St. Louis people I follow. Twitter has evolved from a place where I can see what other people are currently doing to a place where I can get info on my favorite TV shows, movies, musicians, and actors. I still enjoy seeing what my fellow St. Louisans are doing, but that’s about it. I used to enjoy reading what other people were up to or things they found interesting, but that has definitely changed, and I can probably pinpoint two reasons why that has changed.

The first reason is I started following too many people. I follow a lot of people but the people I follow, I follow for a reason. This has disadvantages though. The people I tend to follow update more frequently. Follow a lot of heavy users and statuses begin to fly by one right after another. Even though I find what they have to say interesting, I can only read so many tweets before they are lost forever in a never-ending stream of unreadable text. After a while of not being able to catch up, these updates become noise and provide nothing meaningful. The second thing is what I’m going to refer to as static. These are tweets that interfere with an otherwise good signal and will often contribute to the first issue. These tweets can be anything from a Four Square check in or a re-tweet to get into a contest for an Apple product (which I swear no one ever wins). Then you have paid tweets. That one bugs me the most. With celebrities and other high profile users, it’s easier to get high quality content without a lot of noise. You know if there is an update it’s not going to be a Four Square check in, a RT for a contest, or what song they are currently listening to. It’s going to be something that I find meaningful.

So, have you changed the way you use Twitter over the years? Do you still find it as valuable as before? Do you use it to make personal connections or more broad connections for your interests?

There, I said it. She’s a bad writer. The writing in Juno was bad. Jennifer’s Body was the equivalent to your 50 year old dad using slang to sound cool. Just awful. Her columns in Entertainment Weekly are just as bad, which is why I’m baffled as to why people pay her to write.

I know many of you may like the movie Juno. It wasn’t a horrible movie, but the dialogue was. The thing that saved the movie was excellent performances by JK Simmons, Michael Cera and Ellen Page, not the writing that threw in more clichéd phrases than a spoof of teen movies (“What’s your damage?” “Honest to blog” “This is one doodle that can’t be un-did, Homeskillet.”). The story wasn’t all that great but it was something that Hollywood hadn’t overproduced yet. Jennifer’s Body was even worse.

I finally got around to watching it over the weekend and I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece. I was expecting a B movie horror story. Instead what I got was horrible acting by Megan Fox (big surprise there) and laughable dialogue from Diablo Cody. I thought Juno was over the top with the slang, but JB blew Juno away. Cody cannot reasonably believe that normal teenagers talk like that, can she? Seriously, in what world do teenagers say jell-o for jealous or tell someone to move on dot org? When is the last time you heard a teenager say the phrase lesbi-gay? I really think Cody is a mixture of the old dad trying to stay cool using slang that no one uses and the mom who dresses like her daughter to seem young.

I know I shouldn’t come down too hard on her. I’m not a good writer either, but I also don’t get paid to do it. I’m pretty sure I could bang out a script using every slang phrase in the book and make a movie that is just as good, if not better, than Juno or Jennifer’s Body. The only difference between Cody and me is that I’m not a stripper-turned-screenwriter and I think that explains Hollywood’s fascination with her. Hollywood loves success stories and what’s better than a down-and-out stripper hitting it big with a screenplay? Remember, Ben Affleck has an Oscar for writing as well.