The Real Amazing Race Returns!

Tonight at 8pm (Winnipeg time) the Big Dog of all competitive reality show returns, in its unmolested form. That's right, the Amazing Race is back!

After a brief but painful foray into the craptastic realm of family programming, TAR is going back to the classic 2-person teams format that won it multiple Emmys. And not a second too soon.

It actually feels to me like TAR has been on hiatus since the Rob & Amber season, as the latest edition, which pitted four-person family teams against each other in a race around, um, parts of North America, was so bad that I actually stopped watching a few episodes in.

I'm more than ready for airport subterfuge, jetlagged aggression, and, of course, the widowmaker that is the India leg.

TAR is one of the few shows that Tam and I both enjoy (she having thus far resisted my requests that she start watching Doctor Who and Veronica Mars), and we routinely end up supporting different teams, which makes the viewing experience all the more enjoyable. (there's nothing that can't be made more fun with some merciless heckling).

SO thank you, CBS, for returning TAR to its intended form, and here's to another great Race!

Oh, and my early pick to win? BJ & Tyler: two globe-trotting hippies who speak multiple languages. I'm so confident that they will be a strong team, that it is almost a sure thing that they'll fail miserably. Lookit 'em.. poor, grinning bastards... don't even know they've got the Jhunt Curse all over them....

So be sure to watch tonight to see them get Philiminated first...

Related posts:
Amazing Race: Family Edition - Episode 1

Sloth Weekend: Post-Mortum

Wow. It had been quite a long while since I gave in so completely to laziness and idleness. Other than a quick trip to the library on Saturday, I accomplished very little that didn't involve a sitting or lying position.

I certainly didn't watch everything on my list (which actually relieves me a little bit), but I did watch some fun stuff, and some not-so-fun stuff. What really surprised me though, was the amount of reading material I tore through. Sunday, I had one of those really intense, multi-hour reading sessions. The kind where you only move to relieve your bladder or get a snack.

Well, on to the wrap-up...

What I Watched:

Timeline - This movie was exactly what I thought it would be. Which is not really a good thing. I watched it while cleaning out my file folder, and I think that was the best way to watch it. I caught the gist out of the corner of my eye, and every once in a while something interesting would happen and I'd watch for a few minutes. The acting was remarkably flat, and Billy Connelly was particularily jarring, as he seemed to have been shipped in from a different, sillier movie. They could have named this movie Generic Adventure Movie, because that's pretty much what it was.

HBO's Rome (eps 9 & 10) - I quite like this show, probably as much as the Sopranos, really. However, this pair of episodes has caused me to question some of the basic structure of the series. It's framed very much like a typical soap-opera, with a bit of Upstairs/Downstairs in the way the two groups of characters are explored. The problem is, recent happenings have damaged this structure a bit, I feel. The treatment of both the incestuous encounter between Octavia and Gaius Octavian, as well as the casual murder of a slave by Titus Pullo, has left me stragely disconnected to the characters and the story.

I understand that moral conduct was quite a different animal at that time, but I'm no longer sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for. If a show wants to treat its subject matter in the fashion of a soap-opera, and in fact spends a good deal of its earlier episodes building up certain characters as "villains" and others as the "heroes", it seems a bit sloppy to suddenly flip things on the viewer, and leave them with no one to support.

The murder bothers me more, I suppose. Titus Pullo had been, up to this point, one of the two "heroes" of the show. The viewer has seen many examples of his loyalty, bravery, and refusal to compromise. And then, with the brutal murder of one of Lucius Vorenus' slaves, all of that character-building is destroyed. Lucius comes out of the incident poorly as well, directing his anger at the fact that Pullo a) destroyed his property, and b) did it in front of his children.

It's hard to enjoy a "buddy movie" when one of the buddies is a brutish murderer and the other is a callous slave-owner.

I'm still enjoying the show, I'm just not sure that I care very much about any of the characters. It's a strange feeling.

Way, wayyyyyy too much Doctor Who-

Um... 10 episodes. Ouch.

Still, it was good, cheesy stuff. Just the thing for a Saturday night spent in. The Sontaran Experiment was a nice little story, but Genesis of the Daleks was clearly the highlight. An epic story that actually warranted the expansion to six episodes, it was easily the high point of my Doctor Who exposure thus far. I'm sure the storyarc would have had more resonance had I seen some of the earlier Dalek episodes, but I got the gist pretty easily (Daleks are a Borg-like destructive race) and really enjoyed this story-arc.

I've watched the first half of Revenge of the Cybermen as well, and boy, those Cybermen are goofy looking. But quite cheerful looking as well. Which is nice, I suppose.

What I Read:

Night Fisher by R. Kikuo Johnson
Minimum Wage by Alex Robinson
The Filth by Morrison and Weston
Doom Patrol: The Painting That Ate Paris by Morrison and Case
Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes
Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse
New Frontier vol1 by Darwyn Cooke
the South-Western Coast portion of Let's Go: Road Trippin' USA (Honeymoon preparation... Napa Valley, here we come!)
and the 1st half of To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer

I think I actually reached the point of reading overload. Too many differnt types of material battling for position in my brain. What left the largest impression on me?

Honestly, I don't think I understood much of The Filth, and what I came away with most of all was a sense of deep sadness over the (um, spoilers, I guess) fate of his cat. Maybe it's just because this was around hour six of an eight-hour reading blitz, but most of The Filth left me numb in the face of its relentless barrage of, well, filth. Greg and his cat were the only aspect of the book that engaged me, and the eventual result was heartbreaking.

I know Grant is a cat-person (Animal Man #26, for those looking for written confirmation) and I can't imagine what writing those pages involving Greg and his cat felt like, but I can't imagine it was pleasant.

I am looking forward to reading some analysis of The Filth, and hopefully I can get a better, if not appreciation, at leas tunderstanding of what this project was intended to accomplish.

Related Posts:
Pants Optional Weekend

Pants-Optional Weekend

Tam's working overnight this weekend, and my adherence to her desire to return to the confining embrace of the South Beach Diet means ducking out to the pub for a couple of drinks is not an option. Therefore, I have prepared a Geek's Paradise of sorts to occupy my time for the next couple of days.

The plan is mostly based on (surprise!) sitting in front of the teevee, with a small outing on Saturday afternoon to the big downtown library. Here's what I plan to watch:

-Ultimate Avengers: The Movie (maybe. it looks a bit shite, to be honest.)

-Wet Hot American Summer (sure thing. I haven't seen this movie in a couple of years, and I remember it being hi-larious.)

-Rome episodes 9-12 (I was watching this regularly until CondoBurn 2005, and am pretty psyched to finish out the season)

-Band of Brothers episodes 7-10 (It's about time I finished off this truly excellent mini-series, I've been dithering and chipping away at it for about a month)

-TimeLine (yeah, I am fully aware that this movie will suck. Sometimes it just doesn't matter. You just want some junk.)

-Doctor Who: The Sontaran Experiment and Genesis of the Daleks (I've watched two full story arcs thusfar. Verdict? Robot was pretty crappy, but may have suffered under the need to tie off the previous Doctor's supporting cast and milieu. It certainly suffered from some of the most inept special effects this side of a poorly-made fan film. The Ark in Space, however, was quite good. It was a bit spooky, had much improved dialogue, and was set in a much more interesting environment than Robot, which looked to be filmed primarily in someone's backyard.)

-Veronica Mars (I have about six episodes of VM to catch up on. It's actually a little disturbing; I'm right up to date on The OC, which I can't really stand, but have fallen way, way behind on VM. Maybe it's due to the fact that I'll watch The OC just to kill an hour, but I feel the need to really be in the mood to watch VM. I won't waste an episode while I read a magazine or something, for example.)

Wow, that's a big list. I hope to God I don't honestly finish all that stuff. That would be ridiculous.

Oh, here's a link to the top Doctor Who resource on the net, Outpost Galifrey, just in case anybody else was considering testing the TARDIS-infested waters like myself. Nerdery loves company, it's true.

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Me, Now 35% Nerdier!

Decompression Can Be a Powerful Tool

Case in point: Drawn and Quarterly's Walt and Skeezix, Book One .

I took this book out of the local Public Library, and have been nearly overwhelmed by the sheer pleasure of reading it. It collects (more-or-less, skipping a bit of the earliest material) the first couple of years of the oft-forgotten (but much-acclaimed) Gasoline Alley newspaper strip by Frank King.

The strip, which began as a gag panel dealing with the earliest age of automobile enthusiasts, really gets cooking when perennial bachelor Walt finds a baby on his doorstep.

From this point on the continuity that King has applied to the strip becomes more evident, as the baby (Skeezix) gradually ages in "real-time". And yes, if you read the current installments of the strip, Walt is just over a hundred years old, and Skeezix is in his eighties. It's really quite an achievement.

There are seasons, holidays, birthdays, just about everything that could be expected to occur in a year. But there are also strips that feel much like those countless days when nothing much of import happens. Days where the only thing you might retain is an interaction with a friend, or something funny you saw out of your window.

I'm only about half-way through this collection, and it already feels like I've been reading it for weeks. It's kind of mind-blowing to think that there are about 86 years worth of strips that have yet to be collected.

I have a kind of obsession with Caniff's Terry & the Pirates, but Gasoline Alley is satisfying in such a different way. It's the perfect book to read while laying in a hammock. It's a book best read without haste, taking the time to really appreciate each panel.

So hopefully, the second volume will be realeased by mid-June, which will probably be my first opportunity to laze outside. Hurrah, Winnipeg!

Me: Now 35% Nerdier!

I seem to be getting more and more geekish as I get older. After having managed to avoid it for nearly 30 years, despite its unwavering presence on Public Television during my formative years, I have now started to watch Doctor Who.

Good god.

And not even the currently popular, slick and stylish new series that started last year, but the dorky, clunky, cheap-looking episodes from the seventies and eighties. I am, to be precise, watching the Tom Baker episodes.

I've only watched a couple of episodes so far, but they are fun little bits of cheese. Baker is certainly enjoying himself in the role of the Doctor, and his enthusiasm is hard to resist.

Regardless, thank god I'm already engaged, because I seem to be intent on turning myself into the world's finest female repellant.

I wonder if there's a group for those of us who feel such intense shame in their own nerdish tendancies. If there isn't, there should be.

"I wish I could quit you, Doctor Who..."

(..and yes, that quote does mean that I have watched Brokeback Mountain, bringing me ever closer to my goal of having seen all 5 best picture nominees before the Academy Awards. Only Crash now remains, and it is sitting right on the DVD player, waiting for my attention.

oh, Brokeback? It was excellent. But sad. Holy Moses, was it sad. I had to use Arrested Development as a kind of sorbet after watching Brokeback, just to cleanse the palate of mopiness and gloom.)

Will I Dig the New Spectre?

Newsarama has been bursting at the seams lately with DC goodness, mostly with the steady trickle of awesome projects that Grant Morrison will be tackling in the months to come. Now, buying what Morrison creates has pretty much become a no-brainer for me, so (this time) I won't bore you with detailed knowledge of how stoked I am for his Batman run, or his WildCATs run, etc.. etc...

However, there is a book featured on Newsrama which I'm cautiously excited about, that might be more interesting to discuss: Will Pfeifer's new Spectre miniseries.

I am emphatically not a Spectre fan. Although I've heard nothing but praise for the John Ostrander run, and am in fact a huge Ostrander fan, I've only read a couple of issues, and wasn't grabbed the was it seems many readers were. A large part of the problem might be that horror comics have never been an interest of mine, and the Spectre comics, while incorporating some of the tropes of superherodom, are at heart horror stories of comeuppance and retribution.

What might make me take a second look at the new Spectre? Two things. Will Pfeifer's writing and Cris Allen in the lead role.

Pfeifer made me like Aquaman. I think we should all pause for a second and take a good look at that short sentence. Aquaman. Buffon of the High Seas. The scaly-shirted tool. Captain Hookhand McBeardy.

I didn't even like Aquaman when Grant Morrison was writing him in JLA. But when Pfeifer took over the solo book, and managed to take him back to his roots while at the same time thrusting him into an innovative, fresh situation (Sub Diego).

So, if anyone could make me give a rat's about The Spectre, Pfeifer is certainly top of the pack.

Plus, Cris Allen is a terrific character. I'm glad he's surviving the end of Gotham Central (um, surviving is probably a poor choice of wording).

So, I will be giving this book a shot. Mostly because Pfeifer's rundown of the concept sounds intruiging:

“This is the kind of mini-series where there’s big, cosmic stuff happening, and there’s action, and violence and weird visions, and the Spectre’s classic ironic sense of punishment, but ultimately, it’s about a man accepting his role in the cosmos, and a man dealing with faith in his own way. That’s the real essence of the series, and the big, flashy colorful stuff is how we get to that point.”

Sounds good to me, and Pfiefer, based on his track record, has earned at least a first issue pick-up from me.

Jeff Smith's Captain Marvel Is Coming...

The latest DC Editors Debriefing at Newsarama (which I read, so you don't have to) contains a couple of interesting nuggets, but none is so exciting as the news that Jeff Smith's long-awaited Captain Marvel project, Shazam: Monster Society of Evil, is progressing.

DC Editor Mike Carlin says the book is about half finished, and he also gave a quick hit on the basis of the series:

"Basically the story follows a young Billy Batson and his even younger sister, Mary, in their first tussle with Sivana. It will include several other classic Marvel villains and concepts (the "Monsters" in the "Society of Evil", even)... as well as a new take on Mr Tawky Tawny!"

Oh my god, this book sounds like fun. It's planned for four prestige-format issues, and I honestly might not be able to wait for the trade on this one. I mean, just look at Mary Marvel! It's almost too adorable to handle.

Maybe, if we're lucky, DC will release some sort of collection of the original Monster Society of Evil saga back form the forties. I think that would be awesome, mostly because I want to read it. It would make for a ginchy tie-in with the Smith book, though.

The Neswarama piece also has some other preview pages and art from assorted DC books such as Hawkgirl, Green Arrow and the JLA & JSA Classified books. So, go and have a look if that sort of thing seems like it would appeal to you.

If mini Mary Marvel doesn't appeal to you, however, go seek a physician's care immediately, because you are sick, buster.

Breaking News: Love Monkey On Hold

This is some sh**ty news right here. Love Monkey, Tom Cavanagh's new show, has been shelved for the forseeable future (source). It hasn't officially been cancelled yet, which is good news, but it is definately on the bubble.

I loved Ed, and Love Monkey was turning into another great hourlong comedy-drama in the same vein. I really hope this show gets another shot.

Come on people, it's got Judy Greer for cripes sake! Who doesn't like Judy Greer? I'll tell you who, crazy people! So, if it gets another airing, please watch it. I'd consider it a personal favor.

I can't believe they can keep making the Bachelor, but this show might get the axe. I know reality shows are supposed to be dirt cheap, but what about the emotional cost? Or the karmic cost? What about that, tv programming bigwigs!!!

I Can't Remember Where I've Been!

I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis. Like, about a hundred or something. And often, I'll leave a comment on some entry or other. The problem is that I often can't keep track of where I've left comments, meaning I can't keep track of any responses.
This is annoying, and up until now, my only solution was to clip the blog entry in question into my Bloglines account. This was a real pain in the ass, and not really a satisfactory solution.

Then I heard about coComment. This little piece of code purports to keep track of your blogments for you, just by clicking a little button on your toolbar before you press "POST COMMENT". Perfect, I thought, and promptly signed up for the beta.

Well, I've been using it for a couple of days now, and there is one crippling problem with coComment: it doesn't support pop-up comment boxes. This renders it useless for a huge amount of blogs, mine included.

Nice try coComment, you might amount to something if you can plug this gaping hole.

Video Test Post: A Ninja Pays Half My Rent

I'm giving the YouTube embedded video thingy a test run, but lest it be said that I waste people's time with pointless test posts, here is a very funny little short that it is possible not all of you have seen. I present - A NINJA PAYS HALF MY RENT -



Enjoy!

X-Factor #3 - Why Won't This Book Let Me Love It?

The latest X-Factor series started out as the mutant book seemingly written specifically for me. It avoided, for the most part, any serious need to be a comic fan long steeped in the X-Universe. Sure, there were some nods to Marvel continuity, most seriously to the recent House of M "event", but a simple one sentence condensation brought the casual reader up to speed.

"Dude, there used to be like hundreds of thousands of mutants, but Scarlet Witch went batsh*t crazy and now there's only like 200."

"Oh, okay."

Simple.

The Layla Miller thing was a little more annoying, but at least none of the characters really knew anything about her either, so I had the reasonable expectation that I would fill in the blanks as the team did.

That notion has been damaged slightly in this most recent issue of X-Factor, as Layla makes reference to her reasons for forcing herself upon the team. Those reasons, it seems, are going to be mired in the fall-out from House of M, setting up the book as one of the main depositories of post-M plot detritus.

Sadly, right up to that little speech about "making sure the world never found out about the real reason mutants were depowered", I was actually begrudgingly enjoying Layla's role in the issue. She was much less annoying, and her cryptic responses seemed snappier, more on mark than before. But, as she is now serving the needs of some uber-Mutantverse conspiracy or something, she has turned right back into a major annoyance.

Honestly, if they just took her and her House of M fallout crud out of the book,this would probably be my favorite current team book. Jamie Maddox is a wonderful character, and the supporting cast in this book nearly as enjoyable. Peter David's "tweaking" of the basic nature of Madrox's powers is quite close to genius, and opens the character up in any number of ways. There is the danger of turning him into the resident deus ex machina, as in the "lawyer" scene this issue, but until it becomes a problem this book has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Plotwise, this book is moving very slowly, but it is much less vexing than the "decompression" evident in some higer-profile Marvel books. There are so many engaging character moments and interactions that I find myself reading the book less for the detective story, and more for the dialogue and off-beat situations.

Turning to the art, it seems word has finally gotten out (beyond this blog) that Ryan Sook is leaving the book, to be replaced by his tag-team artist over the past couple of months, Dennis Calero. Now, I was very critical of the Calero portion of issue 2, but I have definately come around some. I think the two artist blend was a bad decision, as the artists' styles are just too disimilar. Sook is slick, while Calero works more in a Michael Lark-Gotham Central style. While I do prefer Sook's work, I'm certainly gaining a growing appreciation for Calero's pages, and I think his art will look much better when he's doing the entire book. Artistic continuity is very important to a book's flow, and I'm surprised the decision was made to go with a piece-work approach for the past couple of issues.

It's too bad that, just as this book is starting to straighten itself out art-wise, it seems poised to take a flying leap into the cesspool of the X-Universe. I honestly don't want this book to have an overriding conspiracy (as Layla alludes to in this issue), and if there is going to be one, I certainly am not interested in it being tied directly to the fallout from House of M.

Look Marvel, I'm predominantly a DC reader. You have lured me over to Marvel with a clever, fun book that lets me enjoy it with a minimum of Marvel continuity infodumping. Please don't blow it. I'm positive I'm not the only casual-to-rare reader of Marvel books that you have on the hook with this book.

Am i wrong? Or is this, in fact, the Marvel book DC fans have been waiting for? And Marvel doesn't seem to realize it.

Sad, really.

Related Posts:
Ryan Sook Off X-Factor
X-Factor #2 - Aw, crap.
X-Factor #1 - A good Mutant Book? Que?

Super Bowl XL - One More Poke at the Corpse

Looks like I'm not the only one with some uneasiness about the reffing in this years Super Bowl...

Slate:How the referees handed Pittsburgh the Super Bowl

TV Barn: Six thoughts on Super Sunday

Rossputin.com: The Seahawks Were Robbed

ESPN.com: Game's third team upstaged Steelers, Hawks

...and many, many more that I don't have time to list.

It doesn't really mean much though The game is over and done with, and no amount of kvetching is going to change the result. Hopefully, the Seahawks will come back twice as hungry next year, and will put themselves right back in the hunt.

..stoopid refs....

Super Bowl XL Post-Mortum

Honestly, I was pretty disappointed in the game. I really felt like the Seahawks were controlling the pace, and I think that, had a few very questionable calls and non-calls gone Seattle's way, there would have been a much different result. Ben Roethlisberger never seemed to find a rhythm, and looked pretty rattled through much of the game.

However, I might just be digesting some sour grapes, because I was definately rooting for the Seahawks. It was nice to see the Bus go out on top in his home town, but I couldn't help feeling like the game was decided by the refs, not the players.

Oh, and thanks for playing the same 5 commercials over and over and over, Global TV!! Watching the Super Bowl in Canada sucks.

Kind of a down close to what I thought was a strong season, all in all. It was pretty cool to see all the former Super Bowl MVPs though.

Regaining My Film-Geek Street Cred

Well, I'm making some solid headway in my quest to view all five Best Picture nominees prior to the Academy Awards. I am pleased to report that I have watched both Munich and Capote this weekend, leaving just Brokeback Mountain and Crash.

Of the two I most recently viewed, I would have to say I preferred Munich. Steven Spielberg has put together an intelligent thriller, one that asks many difficult questions but offers no answers. Eric Bana is excellent as the head of the Israili assasination squad, and Daniel Craig (in probably his final supporting role) does good work as well. Munich is exciting and tense, but more than that it is very effective at showing the toll that the "work" takes on the men charged with it.

Capote was also quite good, if a bit slowly paced. I'm sure that it's not a surprise to anyone that Philip Seymour Hoffman dominates the picture, with his portrayal of Truman Capote being almost unsettling. It's an interesting story, and it's told well, it just didn't really connect with me. Still, the performances alone are enough to recommend this movie, and it's possible I would have enjoyed it more if I had waited until I was in the mood.

So, I am kicking serious butt in my self-challenge. 3 down, 2 to go, and time to spare.

Boo-rah.

Related Posts:
As A Movie Buff, I'm A Bust

Bookworm Alert

KCRW has released another exceptional comic-related episode of Bookworm into the internetosphere. They've had a number of great comic podcasts before (check the archives, because there's plenty of gold to be found), and this one is no exception. Host Michael Silverblatt is joined by John Carlin and Art Spiegelman to discuss both the current Masters of American Comics display at MoCCA as well as the exceptional "catalogue" produced to accompany the display.

I always find Spiegelman much more enjoyable in audio interviews than in print, where he seems to come off as rather humorless. Listening to him speak gives me a much greater appreciation for his enthusiasm for the art form.

Silverblatt is one of the best literary interviewers I've encountered, and he certainly has a clear familiarity and affection for comic art, without ever descending into the fan-enthusiasm that often weakens other comic related podcast interviews. It's a bit more academic than most, coming off as nothing so much as a much less snarky audio Comics Journal.

As always, KCRW remains my podcast hero.

Grab it here.

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Podcasts: Quality, Not Quantity

As A Movie Buff, I'm A Bust

This is how bad I suck. Here are the five movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year:

Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Munich

So, do you want to know how many of those movies I've seen?

One. And that's only because I saw Good Night, and Good Luck last night. I am like the world's worst film fan. It's not even that I haven't seen most of this years best movies. It's worse than that. I actually have a copy of Crash at home, and just haven't gotten around to it yet. Capote was filmed right here in Winnipeg, and I haven't been able to drag my butt to a theatre. It's pathetic.

I wish I could say it was because the movies themselves didn't interest me, but that is just not the case. It has just become one of those times when I'd rather watch a couple of episodes of NewsRadio than a movie.

But all that changes now. I'm making a vow, right here, right now. I will see all five Best Picture nominees by the evening of the Academy Awards. No excuses, no exceptions. I'm tired of nodding silently while others discuss Brokeback Mountain's haunting landscapes.

Oh, GN&GL was excellent, by the way. I have a fair understanding of the Cold War era from my Internation Relations B.A., but to actually see the footage of a sputtering, sweating Joe McCarthy was something of a revelation.

The performances from every actor in the piece were note-perfect. There is no grandstanding in this film, even the most powerful speeches were delivered firmly but delicately. A good choice, in my opinion, as this material provides its own gravitas. George Clooney has had a very good year, between this film and his Oscar-nominated performance in Syriana, and I'm really looking forward to his future projects, especially if he continues to select them based on what inspires him. He can be a compelling actor when he's not mugging his way through an Ocean's [insert digit] flick.

Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly had very specific ideas about the role and responsibility of journalism in American society. They felt it was their duty to challenge what they saw as the injustice and fearmongering of the HUAC trials, regardless of the consequences, be they personal or corporate. This is a story of courage and integrity, and it was a pleasure to watch, both as a moviegoer and as a student of modern history.

So, onward and upward, then. Capote, you're next!