Groonkly Bits

I was always aware of Mignola in the comics world but I never dared read his work. That’s mostly because I was lazy. Then Hellboy was made flesh in th efilm world and I saw something I wasn’t quite sure I enjoyed. A few viewings later, Hellboy reached a cult status with me.

Now the SciFi channel wants to release an animated version of Mignola’s other work, “The Amazing Screw on Head“. Sci Fi Pulse released the pilot online yesterday. I have decided it is a silly thing that I enjoy immensely.

The premise being, there are two histories: One that the world knows about and another that are only documented in one tome. In that secret book, President Lincoln’s top secret agent, a robot with an amazing screw-on head and several dozen bodies with which to screw into, fights supernatural evil and threats to the newly formed USA. Yes, it’s similar to Hellboy but differs extremely in tone. Whereas Hellboy was a reluctant blue-collar type hero who hid behind sarcasm to hide his insecurities, all the characters in Screw-On Head are gung ho about their positions in life and fight evil or commit evil acts with gusto.

The best thing about Screw On Head are the villains. Emperor Zombie, voiced by David Hyde Pierce to perfection, has to be the funniest, undead evil genius in all the supernatural cartoon world. His sense of humor, is my kind of humor. Which gives me hope that one day I will be evil and undead to match my stifled genius.

The Hero, Screw On head, is your typical knight in shining armor type. He fights the evil of the world unrelentingly but not stoic like. He may be limited by the trappings of his shining knight persona but he’s far from unfunny. His character seems to play straight man to the others off-the-wall antics.

The show is action packed(blood included), filled with comedy, insanely silly, and worth a go.

WATCH: The Amazing Screw On Head

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Friday
» The Doctor finds the mummy of a young WWII Londoner during the Blitz. Rose wears the Union Jack as a t-shirt. 51st century man Captain Jack Harkness rides a bomb and grows a heart.

Saturday
» In Justice League‘s series finale, what’s left of the Legion of Doom teams with the League to fight a ressurected god of Apokolips Darkseid. If you missed all the previous JL’s shame on you. Watch this one and kick yourself for missing previous seasons of excellence.

» Cousin Stevie gives his wife a second honeymoon in Saint Marten. Oh and his boss and cousin Adam happens to be there shooting another Team Tushy masterpiece. It’s merely another day in the life of a gonzo porn Family Business.

Sunday
It’s Mother’s Day. Call your Moms you bums. Or better yet, go home and give her a hug.

» The West Wing closes its doors on the Bartlet Administration and opens it’s arms to President-elect Santos. It’s a sad day. The Wing got infinitely more interesting when it recieved a pink slip after 11 years of fantasy politics. If only, just this once, life imitated art. Be sure to catch the pilot episode a full hour earlier. There’s sure to be story symmetry going on.

» There’ll be a cut away, a gimmick, and Family Guy will cause laughter to flow through these dead apartment walls.

» Grey’s Anatomy‘s Meredith remains on my shit list for earlier fictional damage; then she makes time to damage another fictional character , the ex-Boy Blunder. In other news, something shocking happens in the hospital. Unless it’s TV fate making things right by causing Meredith to spontaneously combust, I don’t much care. I would be perfectly happy to rename this oddly popular medical drama Izzie’s Anatomy.

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Wow.

Well, I suppose playing that song does have some kind of point. I mean how can I knock a song Goldfinger remade to perfection. They even sung bits of it in the original german. Now that’s dedication.

Although, it can be a bit like having too much of a good thing. Like oceans of chocolate when all you really want is a pop tart. Song repeatability only falls in two modes:
1)angsty pain relief
2)”happy happy, joy joy” rockability.

99 Luftballoons, for me, falls somewhere’s inbetween. Kind of an 80s Cold War nostalgiac fetish.

I’m postive that I wouldn’t last a full hour.

Though ten minutes might be worth a try.

(update: I watched for 6 minutes. One in german. One in english. Rewound the german one for a bit, trying to get a handle on the language. Then gave up and went about my day.)

No Comments | In: Television, Too Many Thoughts | | #

It happened to me about two years ago. A hard lesson in forgiveness. No. Strike that. A hard lesson in second chances. I was denied mine. I decided to not deny others of theirs.

That has not been an easy road. It is still a road. And it’s best to start any journey with small steps. So I started mine with the easiest of all…TV:

Battlestar Galactica: Not at all Frakked-up

I watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries and was unimpressed. It probably didn’t help that when I saw it I was pissed that scifi would greenlight that show while dropping Farscape, Legend of the Rangers and other good stuff by the wayside. Or that the acting in the miniseries was not engaging and the writing stunted. It definitely didn’t help that they “borrowed” the documentary style filming from the Fox cancelled, beyond awesome Firefly. I was also pissy about some real world issues. I was just full of piss. I swore to all that’s unholy to never watch the thing. There was dancing and blood rituals and everything.

Then a chance viewing of Galactica tugged heavily on my ear. That’s when it whispered this novel idea. The Cylons believe in one God. The Galactica-verse humans believe in many gods. The Cylons interplanetary act of genocide had God on their side. The humans were hapless(so far anyway) victims. It’s a war of ideology.

Sumbitch.

Wars of ideology, no matter how terrible, have a certain draw to them. They always catch my interest in films… in books…in reality. The acting improved tenfold. The writing finally spoke to me. The cinematography issue became an “homage”. Now I’m fully on the “Galactica is pretty darn good” bandwagon. I sold my hate. I ate some crow. I watch the show.

» Ronald D Moore does commentary podcast for each week’s episode. No DVD wait here, kids.
» David Eick has a behind the scenes video blog. It’s season 2 spoiler-icious!

Number two on the second chance list:

Veronica Mars: A Short Time Ago…

Buffy and Angel and Firefly were gone. The Whedon-verse recoiled and sobbed silently in a corner.

“Veronica Mars is the next Buffy!,” they said.

What?

“Veronica Mars. It’s hip! It’s smart!”

Bullshit!

There’s no way in the 7 hells that’s right. All you kids need an enema. Who could dare match the god-Whedon level of wit and charm. Who would dare boast this idea to the hill people and not expect to be crunched. Where was my Dark Willow?

Let me watch this noise so that I can mock it mercilessly among my friends. Friends who would later talk amongst themselves about my lifeless and sloth some ways.

And so I watched. I… was impressed.

Ah, hell.

No Comments | In: Television | tags: battlestar galatica. | #

And so it’s over. The monthlong courtship is finished. The morning sun is coming and it’s time for you to get out from under that girl’s balcony before her father wakes up.

The last two Miyazaki films in Turner Classic Movies lovefest ends tonight with Only Yesterday and Pom Poko.

Set your dvr/vcrs, kids. Don’t let the affair end without saying goodbye:

Only Yesterday: A single young woman in 1982 Tokyo trips into nostalgia while on a trip to the countryside with the family of her sister in-law. Both trips cause her to make tough decisions about her future.

Pom Poko: Magical raccoons fight the good fight against a government construction project. The mischievous little buggers rally other animals in trying to sabotage the project and save their home.

I can’t do the descriptions justice. Just know that when you see any Miyazaki movie, you’ll experience worlds that you never thought possible. Yet they seem so very familiar. You visit the world for around 2 hours and you’re sad when you have to leave.

No Comments | In: Television | | #

Porco Rosso and My Neighbor Totoro and Whisper of the Heart tonight:

Only four five more Hayao Miyazaki masterpieces left on TCM’s January Miyazaki love-fest. I’ve already said a lot on the subject.

Tonight it’s Porco Rosso and My Neighbor Totoro.

Are you watching?

If you’re not watching, then gosh, I don’t want to know you.

update: I missed out on the fact that Whisper of the Heart also played along with Totoro and Porco.

My bad.

No Comments | In: Television | | #

It doesn’t need my help cause I’m addicted to the show. I’ll watch and re-watch the thing at will, ad nausem, and know the episode verbatim by the end of the night.

No, Arrested Development needs your help. All you kids who haven’t watched it for various reasons have doomed it. I’m making a list of each and every one of you bastards and will be at your doors on the end of (show)days.

It didn’t help that the show made the FOX network its home, no. But you kids coulda overflowed Fox Mondays with such high ratings that even a Fox programming exec would feel the heat from that love. Then thinking such a powerful warmth came from his own cold, black heart, he would continue Arrested Development for a full 3rd season and order up 2 extra seasons. Just to round things out.

No such love came from any of you. Now, that Fox programming exec has opened his chest cavity and sucked in the last 9 episodes of the 3rd season into that churning, black abyss where his heart once stood. Forever dooming comedy genius to your local store’s DVD shelves.

There is one glimmer of hope.

Remember:

It may be the one thing you do in your entire life that makes you human.

Or just continue watching American Idol and be damned to eternal hellfire in a pit of my searing HATE.

Your call.

http://savethebluths.org/

2 Comments | In: Television | | #

Don’t watch Sci Fi Channel’sThe Triangle because Dean Devlin(take Godzilla, please) or Bryan Singer(Usual Suspects. X-Men. All Good!) is involved.

Watch it cause Rockne S. O’Bannon(Farscape!) stirred that sargasso stew.

or you could watch it cause catherine bell‘s all up in that joint

That is all.

[update: on second thought, skip this one. o’bannon and singer could not make up for the insurmountable blandness that is devlin.]

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…and right now…”The Boondocks” is lookin’ kinda familiar.

I finally watched my DVRd episodes of Aaron McGruder‘s newly Adult Swimed “The Boondocks“. I waited to watch them ’cause I was worried it would be overly-preachy bullshit(see any Spike Lee movie for reference). I’m rarely in the mood to be preached at by anything, least of all a 22 minute piece of entertainment. I was pleasantly surprised at the biting, and more importantly funny, satire that is “The Boondocks”. Although it does have its soapbox moments, I deal cause damn if McGruder‘s caricatures are damn funny. At the moment, anyway.

Now I find myself looking for archives of his syndicated comic. You know. The reason he even has a show on cable. Sometimes I’m last to the table of goodness. I know this.

I get Huey’s keen observations on the world around him. I dig Riley’s common-sense attitude and tendency to yell out exactly what’s on his mind. I identify with Huey and Riley’s anger more than some may realize. I understand Tom DuBois only wanting to do the best job possible. Although his neurosis may be the driving force behind that.

Laughing at McGruder’s funny is easy cause a lot of it is true. Hell, I grew up around many of the people he archetypes. I went to public school with them. They came over wanting my dad to fix their cars. I saw a damn lot of them. Too damn much most days. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the true bits. Otherwise, how’ll ya learn?

And someone in Hollywood please give Regina King some leading roles in one of your damn movies! She’s damn-well above the role of concerned-sensible black friend of the leading girl-of-the-moment. Her talent is the fresh, glacial air cutting through the steaming rank pile of any movie she dares grace with her presence. Her double voice duty as Huey and Riley in “The Boondocks” only proves that she needs, no deserves, more lead roles in big-budget flicks. So yeah, Big Hollywood, buy a clue.

One last thing: has anyone else noticed that “The Boondocks” is the spitting image formula of “Ducktales“? I mean, old, ornery and apparently well off patriarch. Precocious kids under his care. Various wacky friends. It’s just so damn obvious and brilliant in its simplicity. It makes me wonder what the Boondock version of Gizmo Duck would be. Hopefully, they’ll shoot their Launchpad McQuack right between the eyes before he opens his fool mouth.

Gods I hated that duck.

No Comments | In: Pop Culture Love, Quotes, Television | | #

A list of TV shows in the USA that survived and didn’t survive the mid season(shows that I watch and/or like are bolded):

I haven’t dumped Invasion from series recording yet. Yeah, I’m lame. I know.

I want to watch Everybody Hates Chris but damn if I don’t keep forgetting about it.

Commander in Chief started with an interesting premise but has quickly slid into the “problem solved within 44 minutes” scenario. And the writing is dodgy. And not half as sharp or lyrical or even smart as The West Wing on its worse day.

The E Ring…was renewed…what in fuck?!

Kitchen Confidential made me laugh but of course it didn’t get a chance.

And as many other sites have already noted, the mad genius that is/was Arrested Development finally got the Fox handshake farewell. Which proves without a doubt that Fox really is run by monkeys of moderate intelligence with damaged smart-brain hats.

have some bananas you funking monkeys

(UPDATE: TVFan works at UPN and has informed me that Love, Inc got a full season renewal. I made the appropriate changes in italics in the blockquote.)

2 Comments | In: Pop Culture Love, Television | | #