Cool Harry Potter poster

I thought the trailer for this was really creepy. See it here

The Rents are gone. Life returns to normal.

Now that we're married, Jeff and I are taking things way more seriously.

So, does anyone know how to get video from imovie onto Quicktime?  I guess I need to do this first before I get it onto Youtube.  I'm running into roadblocks trying to get our wedding video on the blog.

Tin: Old School

Tee-shirt available here

Kirsten Dunst dating Drew Barrymore's leftovers (Oh, how the snaggle-toothed hath fallen...)

From thesuperficial, Justin Long has apparently rebounded from his break-up with Drew Barrymore and landed in the pale-white arms of Kirsten Dunst, according to NY Daily News:

he duo "were making out hard-core while waiting in line for margaritas," says our spy. "They were holding hands and were all over each other."

I don't think this is proof that Justin and Kirsten are a couple as much as it is proof she drinks the blood of the living. On the plus side, no more smug Mac ads that make me want to stab Justin Long in the face with Bill Gates' glasses. Thanks, Nosferatu!

The Real World Fears Behind 8 Popular Movie Monsters

7.The Monster: Pennywise the Clown

What You're Really Scared Of: Perverts.

Pennywise is the razor-toothed clown terrorizing the children -- and later, their adult counterparts -- in Stephen King's It. I know what you're thinking: "Duh. Pennywise is scary because clowns are scary." Really -- you're scared of clowns? The guys that ride tiny bicycles and can't figure out the difference between water and confetti? The folks with the crazy hair and an inability to correctly size their shoes? BULLSHIT.



Stephen King made clowns scary, and he did it by turning one into a child molester. Clowns don't try to lure you away with candy so they can do awful things to your body -- child molesters do, and that is what makes Pennywise scary.

See full list here

'Watchmen' Covers Reveal Rorschach is Wearing a Sofa

From iwatchstuff, Superhero Hype has some scans from a Brazilian magazine that ran mugshot-style covers of Watchmen characters. I'm pretty sure Rorschach's costume is made of microsuede and a golf towel, but otherwise things are still looking good.

Babylon A.D. Director Hates His Own Film

From cinemablend, Babylon A.D. opens this weekend and its outlook is pretty dire. It’s being screened for the press, but only selectively (for instance there are no screenings in Dallas), and those few who it has been screened for have hated it. It’s not just critics that think this thing is a piece of crap though… so does its director.

Talking to AMC, French import Mathieu Kassovitz ripped apart his own movie. “I'm very unhappy with the film,” he admits. However, he’s not taking any of the blame. He says, “I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience.” The result was a film which he categorizes as “pure violence and stupidity.” Kassovitz wanted to say something substantive with the film, but instead he ended up with a movie that plays “like a bad episode of 24.”

Kassovitz’s ranting fits in pretty well with what we’ve heard about Babylon A.D. all along. As far back as April there were rumors of studio interference and we already know that the version being released here in America is a drastically different, completely neutered, PG-13 version of the way R-rated way the movie is being released in Europe. The production was riddled with problems and Kassovitz blames 20th Century Fox’s lawyers. “Fox was sending lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots.”

That’s right, this is a Fox film. It makes sense now doesn’t it? This is after all the studio that loudly pronounced it was out to keep people from seeing Watchmen, damn the profit loss. The studio that ruined X-Men. The studio that rumors say is currently screwing up Wolverine. The studio that killed not one, but two brilliant Mike Judge movies. The studio that thumbs its nose at its fans and film critics while ruining and interfering in just about everything it touches. Of course it was Fox. This is what they do.

Before you start feeling too bad for Kassovitz though, remember this is the guy who made Gothika. His track record, when it comes to making American movies, isn’t exactly stellar. Fox may have interfered, but there’s no reason to think that even if they hadn’t Kassovitz would have gotten the movie to work. He certainly didn’t manage it with Gothika. Still, it’s Fox. Their reputation proceeds them and Kassovitz says, “they don’t give a shit.”

Mona Leia?

From slashfilm, Jim Hance created this wonderful parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting The Mona Lisa using Princess Leia from George Lucas’ Star Wars. The paining recently sold on ETSY, and unfortunately Jim has promised to never duplicate the design or make prints. The Mona Leia is hand painted with acrylics on canvas board, and framed in a Gold painted wooden frame with gray accents. Here is Jim’s official bio:

“Jim has been a whirlwind of artistic creativity, selling hand painted originals and commissions worldwide. Jim specialises in slightly ‘twisted’ art (or ‘twart’, if you will), be it Laurel & Hardy in a Mexican stand-off, or a scenic portrait of an ‘At-At’ being taken for a walk in the park. Everything is created from scratch, by hand, from the initial pencil sketch to the final wibbling masterpiece. Jim likes to write in a confusing third-person way, he hopes you enjoy perusing his works, and asks that you feel free to contact him should there be anything you’d like him to paint for you.”

You can find more of Hance’s work on sale on his official ETSY profile.

More Chronicles?

Vin Diesel revealed to MTV that screenwriter David Twowy is writing the scripts for two Riddick sequels. And for Diesel, the question isn’t if another Riddick movie will go into production it is if they will attempt to “shoot the two chapters at the same time” ala Lord of the Rings or The Matrix sequels. Diesel has been talking up a third Riddick film for some time now. In March 2006 he sad a storyline had already been written for a third film in which Riddick would enter The Underverse. The fourth Riddick film would then conclude the “Chronicles” trilogy, with a return to Furya.

The character of Riddick first appeared in Pitch Black. The Furyan warrior went on to appear in one big screen sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, and two video games The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and the upcoming The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Last we heard, Universal was not interested in producing the films, and that they had planned to fund a sequel independently.

Crime created Superman: Did robbery spawn Man of Steel?

By David Colton, USA TODAY

On the night of June 2, 1932, the world's first superhero was born — not on the mythical planet of Krypton but from a little-known tragedy on the streets of Cleveland.
It was Thursday night, about 8:10 p.m., and Mitchell Siegel, a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, was in his secondhand clothing store on the near East Side. According to a police report, three men entered. One asked to see a suit of clothes and walked out without paying for it. In the commotion of the robbery, Siegel, 60, fell to the ground and died.

The police report mentions a gunshot being heard. But the coroner, the police and Siegel's wife said Siegel died of a heart attack. No one was ever arrested.

What happened next has exploded some of the longest-held beliefs about the origins of Superman and the two teenage boys, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who invented America's best-known comic-book hero.

Past accounts suggest Siegel and Shuster, both 17, awkward and unpopular in high school, invented the meek Clark Kent and his powerful alter-ego, Superman, to attract girls and rise above their humble Cleveland beginnings.

Read rest of article here

Death rides

Miko, you asked for stories and it’s your lucky day because I’m feeling generous. I’m also going back to an idea that I had mentioned in a post, which is that we should each post a picture of ourselves from when we were younger. Who’s with me?

Here is me and my grandfather at the pumpkin patch. According to the date on the photo I was 5 years old. I look like a boy because my mother had just recently chopped all my hair off. I still haven’t fully ever forgiven her for it. I remember crying in the salon as I watched my hair scatter to the floor. Clearly, my mother didn’t know how to dress me either. Though, the hat I’m wearing is actually very symbolic because almost everyone in my family has a picture of themselves wearing this hat. My grandfather thought it was a funny thing to do, and so several generation of my family have worn it.

My grandfather is an interesting character. He’s in the junk business. He crushes cars, salvages scrap metal, and all that kind of stuff, and he loves it. He’s 90 years old and still goes to work at the junkyard everyday. He’s been on the go his entire life and doesn’t know how to stop. When he goes away to Florida in the winter he frequently attends yard sales to keep himself busy, buying shirts that look like they came from George Costanza’s father’s closet. My grandfather has always loved junk, when he was in his twenties he had a great job working as a mechanic for the city, but he couldn’t keep away from the junk. He simultaneously rented space at a junkyard, and soon his city job got in the way of his junk job, and he quit and has been renting space at a junkyard ever since. (This is the same junkyard where my grandparents found the dead body.)

He used to get jobs cleaning out old buildings. He could keep anything he wanted and dispose of the rest. Once I went with him on one of these jobs. This one took a long time. It was a massive warehouse type building that was later turned into a hotel. The building was filled with everything and anything you can imagine. Beat up cars, thousands of tires, at least 300 dilapidated bicycles, dolls, strollers, hubcaps, large sheets of metal, pots and pans, clothes, torn up mattresses and couches, busted TVs, VCRs, record players, etc. It was really endless. Three guys had been renting the space for years, and then they stopped paying rent. Eventually they skipped town, leaving their years of collected treasures behind. My mother was always coming to the job site trying to get involved, but my grandfather gets mad when she interferes. One day he threatened to drive over her car if she didn’t leave, and she knew to take him serious. My grandfather does not kid around, which she was quite aware of from personal experience. He once drove over and crushed her car. I was maybe about 9 years old at the time and could barely believe my eyes. He warned her he would do it and she didn’t listen and next thing you knew her car was scrap metal.

My cousin Matt got to live out every little boys dream. My grandfather used to take him to work with him and let him help him crush cars. He still says it was like the best toy he ever played with in his life. My sister, other cousin, and I were so jealous. We girls weren’t allowed because my grandfather didn’t believe it was a female’s place. I often thought about disguising myself as my cousin, especially considering I had the butch hair to do it.

One last story before I get back to the pumpkin patch.

My grandfather is notorious for getting injured at work. One of the worst incidents happened about six years ago. He was by himself up on a latter at the junkyard torching an old bus. He lost his balance fell to the ground and the torch, still ignited, landed on his head. He has no recollection of the events following falling off the latter. We don’t know if he went unconscious or how long the torch was on his head. He didn’t even remember getting home; though, he packed all his tools into his truck and drove. He was in a daze when he walked into the house with his head black, and his hat singed to his head. My grandmother started screaming, and my grandfather didn’t understand what all the fuss was about until she showed him his head. He had to have several skin graphs done, but it’s still noticeably scarred. This was so typical of him that my family and I could do nothing but laugh.

Going to the pumpkin patch with my grandfather, sister, and cousins is one of my favorite memories growing up. My grandfather was and still is friends with a guy who owns a farm in southern RI, and he arranged it so he could take us there every year to pick pumpkins, gourds, and Indian corn; although, picking those items wasn’t the fun part. The fun was driving around the farm with my grandfather. We would all pile in the back of a truck filled with hay, just like what you ride in for a haunted hay ride. My grandfather is the fastest and craziest driver I’ve ever known. As soon as we approached the truck we all knew to immediately climb in and hold on tight because my grandfather never ever stopped to see if we were all in, and as soon as the engine was turned he put the gas pedal to the floor. The narrow, winding dirt roads throughout the farm were often gouged with deep tire marks and covered in puddles. Typically a person slows down at such road hazards, but not my grandfather; instead, the pedal pushes further to the floor. The truck was often up on two wheels, and we were constantly being sent airborne from our seats. We were always on the lookout for each other ready to grab a shirt, leg, arm, or whatever it took to keep everyone in the truck. Oh, and there was always the threat of being splashed with the mucky farm puddles. We had a couple close calls, but we always knew that if we didn’t die we would have the ride of our lives. I think it’s these death rides in the pumpkin patch that has made me a lover of motorcycle rides. (I don’t own one, if I thought I could drive one, I’d get my motorcycle license in a second.) I’ve been thinking lately that my sister, cousins, and I need to talk to my grandfather about a pumpkin patch reunion. I think it would be fun for their spouses to experience.

I hope you all have a nice vision in your head of me with a butch hair cut and ridiculous clothing flopping around in the back of a hay filled truck.

And post your pictures!