Bat guano or no bat guano? That is the question...

I hope everyone had a really great Memorial Day weekend! The weather was really nice for it this time around. Usually in the nothern midwest we're being whizzed heavily upon with rain showers as a Memorial Day tradition. Mother Nature decided to give us a little respect and not go off the Zoloft and Zanex this year.

So, I guess the next big movie to hit theaters in the wake of Ep.III that will have us fanboys foaming at the mouth will be "Batman: Begins". Now, I don't think that people will be lining up days in advance and camping out for tickets for it. But, if it truly is a departure from the crap-fest that was Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" and a return to the gothic, avenging, Dark Knight and inspired by Frank Miller's (Sin City) graphic novella (that's comic book for you lowly non-geeks out there) "Batman: Year One", the thing will be a smash hit!!!! Hey, they got Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson in this thing. So far there's no sign of any suckage about this puppy as of yet. I mean GARY FRELLIN' OLDMAN as Detective Gordan (pre-commisioner)!! How frellin' cool is that. I was way bummed when he pulled out of being the voice of General Greivous for Ep.III (a goofball move at best), but the guy is such a chameleon of acting, he can really do little wrong in my opinion. Let's cross our fingers on this one.

I guess the next REALLY BIG movie to look forward to is the next insalment in the Indianna Jones series. But, god knows when that will be out. Rumors of a summer 2007 release have been brewing, but first Lucas, Speilberg and Ford will have to settle on a final draft of a script. Then they'll all have to finish thier current projects an have free time to shoot the bugger. We could be waiting a quite a while. It's not like they're getting any younger for crissakes! Got on it, fellas!

Well, that's it for today. Take care.

Zangz

Trainwrecks and being published (Pt.1)....

I'm gunna let you in on a little secret (since only three of you read this anyway). I have a friend who's working on his own free press, locally distributed, comiedic periodical. He's ask me to write a few editorials and reviews for him since I'm a big supporter of fandom. The first issue goes to print very soon.

Now, if you've actaully been reading my blogs (the three of you) you'd know that I'm not that gifted in the tallent of creative writing. Heck, I'm the king of misspellings and run-on sentences! But, in an attempt to stroke my ego and stiffle the slight low slef asteem that tends to haunt me from time to time (as it does most normal people) I decided to give it a go and see where it might lead, if anywhere. I've got two segments that will be published in the upcoming inaugural issue. The question is, am I setting myself up for some form of great fall? Ah, Slef Doubt, my one constant nemesis, you've returned to once again knee me in the groin. Blast you!!!

Already, I have a slight problem with the situation. My friend, the publisher, has taken the second article I've written and has done a good dose of rewrting what I originally had into his own words. Now, I could be very silly about all of this. But, on the other hand, he is the publisher and is flipping a lot of the bill for this thing. So maybe I've got to just bend over the sink and take it as a man if I'm going to pay the fiddler (or some sort of anaolgy to that effect). It's just that when I put my words down in print or paper I want them to be 100% MY words.

Well, we'll see where this leads. Hopefully it won't be too violent of a trainwreck.

Zangz

No tolerance from Leno & Co.

Here's a quickie for today since I only have 20 minutes until the season finale of "Lost", the best thing to happen to ABC since Luke married Laura (that was the first, and hopefully last refference to a daytime soap that you will see here in my Blog of Geekdom). But, seriously, "Lost" is an incredible show and for those of you who missed the entire season will want to buy it on DVD when it comes out within the next year. Well worth it!!!!!

More Star Wars fan bashing on Leno last night. He could have gotten director Kevin Smith (an out of the closet SW fan, who does some occasional remote schticks for the Tonight Show) to interview SW fans in a good light. But, NO! He had to get some no-name blond actress to go out to the Ep.III line (obviously recorded last week) and call them all virgins and continuiously remark about they have no lives or girlfriends. Great. And I point out again, if Leno ever made one nasty gay or minority joke in his monologue, the world would come tumbling down upon him. But, I guess it's open season on us SW fans. Nothin' like the hypocracy of Hollywood.

Well, enough of my yammerin'.

Zangz

Miniskirt Mandy, Comic Book Addiction and the Evil that is Bill Gates...

I'm sorry for the lack of blogging here latley. I know I promised a final, huge, spoiler filled review of Ep.III, but I have limited access to my mom's computer. You may ask, why I need to do it on my mom's computer and not mine. Well, for some odd reason, my own computer is limited to being able to access certain toolbars on this blog site. The tool bar in question is one that allows me to do things such as change the color of the text, make text bold or itallicised and some other things that I wanted to do to make the review special. I don't have a clue as to why this tool bar comes up on this site when I'm on my mom's computer and not mine. I also encounter certian icons on certain websites that I can't see on my computer that I can see on others. Not being a computer guru, I can only surmize that it may have something to do with one of the wonderful Microsoft updates that I apply to my computer to keep it "safe" that may not allow me to access certain web scripts. Or maybe it's because Bill Gates knows how to screw up good computers with cruddie operating systems so we're forced to either get new computers or continue to upgrade and make him wealthy. So you can thank Bill Gates for the indefinite postponement on the big SW, Ep.III review I had planned.

In other geek happenings, the Ep.III afterglow is very slowly wearing off. The anticipation is over and the hype is wearing down. Sigh, I can't say that there will ever be a series of movies that will have such an impact on fandom or pop culture ever again. Now we wait for the TV show!!

A comic book shop has opened within a 5 minute walking distance from me. This could be a slight financial problem.

Several years ago I got into comic book reading frenzie that lasted nearly a decade. I didn't buy to collect, I bought to have a good read. My search for really good reads turned into a $30 to $90 a week habit. Granted, I found quite a few that I enjoyed the frell out of (Hellblazer, Preacher, some SW titles, Sin City, Akira, a boat-load of Batman titles and many others), but after a while I got frustrated that the titles would either come to an end, change from good writers to crappy, rely on schtick rather than good story telling and the major fact that the comic shop that I frequented and was a top notch place for comic lovers, closed abruptly and without warning. Layered onto that was the fact that the only other comic shop in my area wasn't a very organized operation and was somewhat at fault for me missing out on some key issues. So I slowly stopped buying them. Oh, I'd occasionally pick up a trade paperback of a series I used to pick up to check on where they're at with it, but no major buying.

But, now that there's one soooo frellin' close that is VERY well organized and has some very friendly people behind the counter and a very good atmosphere.... suffice it to say, I need to control my urges. But I still picked up a trade paperback of the collected works of vol. 1 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. God help me!

Last night was the two hour conclusion of "24" and it didn't end in a big bang. It ended with some political intrigue that worked quite well. Allas, no Chloe / Michelle mud wrestling scenario that was suggested, but they made up for it by bringing in fanboy favorite "Miniskirt Mandy"! She's kind of like the Boba Fett of the "24" series. She's the mysterious assasin for hire that pops up from time to time to wreak havoc on our heros. She gets away through an immunity deal at the end. Hopefully we'll see her next January when the new season begins!

Well, I'm heading out and relaxing with my SW comic book for tonight.

Zangz

Is Political Correctness only for "The IN Crowd"? Or can us geeks get memberships too?

Well, I've seen the sucker twice now and loved it each time! Before I leave to see it a 3rd time, I'm fixing up a better review of it that I'll probably post tomorrow. It may be filled with spoilers, but if you haven't seen it yet, GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!!!

Now I want to move on to a topic that I've been mulling over for a while. Something I've noticed on a lot of the media during the anticipation of Ep.III is that there was a lot of anti-fandom humor flowing freely from many comedians, talk show hosts, radio personalities and other media darlings. It wasn't quite as scathing as it has been in the past, but it was still presant.

Now, I'm not gunna cry like a baby about it. At times I can laugh at myself and others I know when a couple of these jokes come out. But once in a blue moon I do have to roll my eyes in frustration when people like Harvard frat boy turned late night talk show host, Conan O'Brien, tells his umpteenth, "you Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fans live in your moms' basements and will die alone" schtick again and again. You don't hear him making any racial slurs, anti gay humor or handicap jokes, do you?

Though I do admit that we can make ourselves easy targets, I still find it hypocritical when the supposedly liberal media and Hollywood are at one moment preaching tolerance for all races, creeds, handicaps, religions (Well, a few of them. At least Kaballa and Scientology) sexualities and other precieved oddities. Then as soon as a genre based film makes big news, everybody is going out of their way to point and laugh and take away our joy about the event.

I don't want to get all PC and silly about it, but look, If you want to make fun of us in the media, go for it. But you have to then level things out and allow shows like South Park or the quasi-defunct Shapple Show get away with what they do without some socio-political group getting up and whinning about it! Either the media should cow-tow to the politically correct police and make fun of absolutley no one, or make fun of ABSOLUTLEY everybody! And I mean NOTHING is taboo AT ALL! Either be tollerant of everybody or take a whiz on everybody. Choose one or the other, but enough with the whole, "We can't make fun of gays, minorities or the handicapped, but if someone is in line to see the next Star Wars movie, it's open season!"

That's my soapbox of the moment.

Zangz.

The morning after...

I sit here at my computer as I type this to all of you (ok.. the three of you) today in a state of both awe and satisfaction! Though I plan to give you a more thorough review at a later date (since I'm going to try and see this thing a couple more times this weekend), I'll just hit you with a quick review of "Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith".

Here's the spoiler free review....

In a nut shell, this was by far THE best film of the prequel trillogy! Now, granted, that's not exactally a very difficult feat. Both Ep.I and Ep.II were plagued with a lot of faults that ruined some fans' whole Star Wars experience. Well, this film certainly has its faults also, however they are more than outweighed by the wonderful and dark as heck completion of the story, the beauty and grander of the visuals of the film and the nearly non-stop action throughout the movie.

But first the bad:
- There's still a lack of beleivability in the love story between Anakin and Padme.
- The famed DUEL at the end of the movie is nowhere as long as it was rumored to be.
- Not enough Count Dooku or new villian, General Greivous.
- Not enough Wookies, Chewbacca or their battle on their planet of Kashyyk. That all seemed like a quickie plublicity ploy to try and erase the whole "Ewok Fiasco" in Ep.VI from our collective SW fandom memories.
- And what was with Greivous' hacking cough? At times he seemed more like a sufferer of Emphysema, not a formidable villain.
- There is one scene during THE DUEL in particular that looks way too computer generated, though it's a cool scene.
- Of course there are a few lame performances and plot holes, but what would a SW prequel film be without them? It wouldn't feel quite the same (I say that with satire).


Now, the totally Kick-A list:
- Christian Hayden's performance improves a bit with this film. He certainly has more to chew on, and he does a decent job of going down the dark path leaving any remanent of the light side of The Force right down the crapper.
- I think that this SW film has far more action and battles in it than any of the prequels. Not a lot of time for love scenes and talkie-talk when the Galactic Republic is crumbling. The action that is provided is quite astounding!
- Ian McDairmond, who plays the manipulative Chancellor Palpatine (aka: Darth Sideous... oh, was that a spoiler for you.) runs away with this movie. It is his film! A phenomenal performance!!
- This is probably the most visually stunning SW film of the entire series!!! Though, most of it is computer generated, you'll forgive that fact due to the sheer enormity of the film that it lends itself to. Everything is grandiouse and huge, the way a space epic should be!
- The darkness! This isn't your kiddie inspired, Disney-esque, Fisher Price-ized film that Ep.I was! This is ballzout, bad-ashed, mother truckin', nobody-gets-outta-here-alive dark! Sure, the first 15 minutes or so are a bit happy-go-lucky. But, it's in a cool, buddie action picture kind of way. From there the film slowly snowballs downhill into a vat of molten hot darnkness with no return! And it's all beautifully played out right in front of your helpless eyes.
- THE DUEL!!! Although I mentioned that it wasn't quite as long as I pictured it in my minds eye, it was executed wonderfully!!! It was made up of a lot of quick, graceful and brutal movements in a more than challenging enviroment.

It should also be mentioned that if you have any soul in your body at all the very last scene and shot of this film should bring a bit of a lump in your throat!

Well, that's the review for now. All in all, THE best picture I have seen all year so far. If you're even one onehundereth the SW fanboy I am, you need to drop what you are doing and go see this film now!!!

---------------------------------

Waiting in line was an experience all to itself. The eight hour geekfest that is a SW movie line was incredibly entertaining and made the eight hours feel more like, umm... three. But seriously, it's fun to be in a line that has a lot of like-minded, good natured folk!

Were there costumes? Heck yea, there were. We had several Jedi and a number of Sith also. Vader and his stormtroopers showed up later and an actual operational R2 unit worked the line. A few people had their lap-tops up and running episodes of the animated SW cartoon "Clone Wars". There were quite a few light sabre duels going on throughout the evening as well as news trucks and camera crews (though, none of the local stations sent any of their cute female reporters. We got sent dorks dressed as yuppies. Sigh.).

Me and my posse all met up without any problems and weren't hampered by any torential downpoors that were forcasted for earlier last night. Though we got some drizzle, the heavy stuff didn't hit until we were inside the theater. I'm sure the people in the line for the 3am showing were quite moist by the time they were let in, and the drive home was less than fun.

Now I gotta go buy more online tix for a showing by myself tomorrow morning and one on Sunday for me and my family.

Again, GO SEE THIS FILM NOW!

Darth Zangz.

00:14:37:00 closing in!

Well, here we are. The home stretch. Though, I can't say that the day has started off as swimingly as I would have liked it. Woke up with a sinus headache to the sound of a troll of a woman yelling at her boyfriend out in the parking lot of my building and finding that there's still a good chance of storm showers forcasted for tonight right at the time of being in the massive line for Ep.III at the Uberscreen.

At the very least I have the next few days off to mull over what I shall witness tonight and ,hopefully, see it a few more times during that time!

My friends and I are set to meet there around 6pm-ish armed with raincoats, umbrellas and food. Wish us luck!

Keep your eyes peeled right here for a full review of the movie that should pop up sometime tomorrow morning!

And what's up with one of my favorite bands, Type-O-Negative? Last Friday (the 13th) they made a reference on thier website to the fact that their lead vocalist, Peter Steele, died. Now, he had been ailing from some form of mysterious heart condition (????) where they had to cancel their fall tour. So many of their fans completely freaked out! In the end, this was one of thier dark practical jokes for Friday the 13th. I guess when you're a TypeO fan, you gotta expect that kind of dren from them. Anyway, they are working on a new album to be released later this year. So that's something to anticipate!

Since I'm talking about Star Wars and heavy metal, I might as well give a nod to the folks at MetalSludge.com, a humorous website dedicated to catching up on what's going on with a lot of the metal acts and hairbands of the 80's and 90's. They sent one of their "roving reporters" nammed CC Banana (A guy in a big banana costume) to cover the big Star Wars con in Indiana (CIII). He took pics with some of the celebs and even got to ask George Lucas a question at one of his Q&A's! And they didn't really make fun of us Star Wars fans in thier article covering the event! Usually MetalSludge (or "The Sludge" as it's affectionatley known by its visitors) can be quite verbally abrassive in their humor. Especially if you're among the aging rock stars who have out of control egos (Axle Rose, Yingwie Malmsteen, Don Dokken, etc.) Give them a visit at www.metalsludge.tv. But, be warned, some of the material is of adult humor!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Well, I'll talk to you all after I've seen the flick!

Zangz

01:05:26:00 and counting!!!!!!

Holy carp!!! We're almost there!!!!

Can you feel it? The silence? The yellow and black clouds overhead? No wind. No birds chirping or dogs barking. That dankness in the air, that freshness in the smell. There's a storm coming. Search your feelings. You know this to be true. There's a geek storm a brewing and it shall release itself soon!!! That geek storm is in the form of the celluiod love fest known as "Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith"!!!! Get ready, 'cause if you ain't at one of the many Milwaukee theaters at midnight tomorrow night, you ain't gunna feel the dork vahalla that is the Star Wars experience! Scoff if you will, laugh if you must, but if you're not in line by midnight, you're left in the dust! (Hey, that was a cute little rhyme! Somebody write that down before I forget it!)

So, we are fully in the pre-hype of the opening of the 3rd story and final movie of the Star Wars saga. This is where we will see the Galactic Republic fall and the Sith influenced Empire rise, where Anakin Skywalker will succumb to the dark side and become the Sith lord that has become the #1 villain of all of moviedom known as Darth Vader. Also where his Jedi master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, shall slice him into a nice london broil stake, forcing him to become "more machine than man" (oh, have i spoiled it for you?). It shall be a beautiful Shakespeareanesque tragedy!

Now, I'm hoping all will come into fruition when it comes to meeting my friends at the theater! I'll be there a bit earlier and they'll show up around 6pm. Hopefully we'll meet up and not be deinied a good seat in the theater. There's also rain planned for tomorrow night, and sitting in line, outdoors in a rain storm is not exactly a fun idea. But, this is Star Wars fercrisesake! Even if there's a volcanic eruption, I plan to stay firmly in line!

Hey! They brought back "Mini skirt Mandy" to the show "24". She's an evil terrorist for hire that is also insanely beautiful that shows up from time to time on the incredible Fox TC show. Don't get me wrong! I don't support terrorism! I'm no Dixie Chick or anything! But, for those of you who follow "24" she's kinda like the Boba Fett of the series. The mysterious, dark villain who only shows up from time to time. So it's kinda cool to see her when she pops up!

Ok, I gotta get outta here. Got some Star Wars geekin' to do! We shall talk tomorrow!

Zangz.

All Good Things... sorrow for the Trekkies.

I have never been a huge Star Trek kinda guy. I'm all about Star Wars, but never became very obsessed about Star Trek. The only Star Trek object I have in my entire collection of geekdom is a Borg action figure. My favorite Star Trek movies aren't from the series, but are documentaries about the fans ("Trekkies" and "Trekkies II"). The only Trek show I got halfway into was "Star Trek: Next Generation" which premired over a decade ago.

Now, I've seen many of the Star Trek actors at conventions including James "Scotty" Doohan, a very tired John DeLanci, the guy who played the computer generated doctor on "Voyager", the Asian guy on "Voyager", the guy who played Chekov from the original series (see, I can't even remember the actual names of a lot of these actors) and of course Jerri Lynn Ryan (now her name, I remember!!! Way hotter in person than on TV!). While at these Q&A sesions, I saw many a Trekie dressed in the garb of the Federation of Planets or as Klingons or Romulans or those Orion slave girls.

I always found these people, good natured, friendly and passionate about thier love of all things Trek. Sure, the world shunned them for being who they are, but I could always relate to that being a huge gamer and Star Wars fanatic. That's whay I feel thier pain this week.

The last of the planned Star Trek series, "Enterprise" hits its final episode tonight, leaving the Trek TV franchise in complete and utter limbo. Where will these people boldy go to get their Sci-Fi jones going? Sure they could delight in the upcoming Star Wars TV series coming out in about 2 to 3 years. But that's quite a wait and it's not even their franchise (although story and quality-wise one million times better)!

I remember when "Farscape" was carved off of the Sci-Fi channel's schedule. I was dumbfounded and bewildered and at 8pm on Friday nights... quite lost. I also just realized that eh "Andomeda" TV series is coming to an end this month. And that show had a lot of babebage!

I can't even imagine the pain a lot of Trekkies and Andromeda fans will be going through in the coming months! All I can say is, good luck to you. May you find peace through your loss, strength through your pain and another year's free rent in your parents' basement.

Ok, that was mean and uncalled for and calling the kettle black, and for that I appologize (actually, I don't live in my parents' basement. But give me a year or two and how cruddie my luck is and I'll see what I can do.)

But seriously folks, if you're a Trekkie or Andromada fan out there reading this, be strong and have hope, 'cause there's always a new franchise on the horizon!

Less than a week 'til Ep.III, Motha Trucka!!!!

Zangz

Looking for love..... and a good spot in line!

Well, I conned... er, I mean, I talked my friends into showing up at the Ultrascreen a bit earlier than they had planned. The next step shall take place early next week where we'll be figuring a way to meet up amongst the throngs of fellow SW fans.

Speaking of throngs of fans, I gotta wonder if there may be some single female fans there. I always wonder if there will be single "geekettes" at these type functions. Whether it be a convention, a get together, a big jagurnaught of a movie franchise, us single, male geeks are always hoping to bump into someone special. But, usually it ends up being a whole bunch of single, male geeks all staring at eachother awkwardly and maybe one or two single girls who are there with their boyfriends, husbands or fiances (usually rich guys who happen to be geeks). Such is the life of a geek looking for love.

Before this starts to sound way too pathetic, the final episode of "The Apprentice" is on right now and it looks as though Tana has the far harder task and more difficult team.

So I'm outta here.

Zangz