A Mimi joint

Ok, you know what's weird? That a couple of years ago, Spike Lee made a short film about/starring Mariah frickin' Carey.



I mean, am I the only one who finds this odd, who doesn't immediately lump those two together in their head? I mean, I just find it jarring considering some of the subjects of Lee's other, feature films, no?

Oh, and ignore the bullshit about a free iPhone too. Sorry, but this is the only version of this video that I could find online.

Meh, it's ok. Provided you don't get motion sickness...

Ah, fuck it. That new Star Trek movie absolutely defies any attempt to take it seriously at all.

Also, I just want to do my part to make sure that this is making the rounds:


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Trekkin'

Ok, I just wanted to quickly jot down some of my thoughts regarding the new Star Trek film before I actually see it later today (I may do a follow-up post once I have actually seen the thing).

Firstly, I imagine that, judged purely on its own merits, this new film is going to be a great success indeed. I can see it being a slick, exciting and fun example of action-scifi-blockbuster fare.

However, my main issue with the film lies more at the conceptual level. In that respect, this film kind of reminds me of Gus Van Sant's Psycho: it's a perfectly good film, as far as films go, when judged on its own merits, but the real headscratcher is why the film even exists at all. Who the hell thought that the world desperately needed a remake of Hitchcock's Psycho?

Indeed, whilst a bold, new direction was very much needed in order to bring life and public interest back to the Star Trek franchise, I do wonder about the wisdom behind harking back to the franchise's Kirk-and-Spock origins, which almost seems to ask us to imagine this film in the same vein as other classic-TV-show-reimagined-as-modern-film releases of the last several years. Is that what Star Trek needs, not a Grace Park Battlestar Galactica but a Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson Starsky and Hutch?

Ok, that was perhaps an unfair comparison, I admit, but my main point remains: what does it say about the future of the franchise that the only way to bring it forward is by looking back, by fetishising the past? Is this 'reinvention' really just a way to sell us on old ideas a second time around? Will we be seeing Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Next Generation twenty years from now when the whole thing goes full circle?

Still, I see that sacrifices have to have been made in order for the money-men behind all of this to have even signed off on making this new film. The thing does have to be saleable, after all. But still, that worry is there: can this new direction actually bear interesting fruit in years to come (they're already working on Star Trek 2, you know) or will the whole thing prove to be a shiny-but-shallow excercise in wistful nostalgia taken to infinite regress?

It's good to see a Nazi and a Communist getting along

Wow, comics sure are awesome, aren't they? You know, I recently discovered a comic book idea so absolutely insane I simply had to bring it up here. Now, I know that using real-world figures as comic book villains is nothing new, but for some reason this particular variation on that old chestnut strikes me as particularly weird for some reason. Readers, meet the Lethal Legion...


Zyklon (Heinrich Himmler), Axe of Violence (Lizzie Borden), Cyana (Lucrezia Borgia (Lucrezia Borgia? Really?!)) and Coldsteel (Joseph Stalin. JOSEPH FRICKIN' STALIN!).

Also: "Zyklon"?! Holy insensitivity, Batman! Did I mention that his superpowers include actually firing poisonous gasses at people? Also: Lethal Legion Lizzie Borden totally has an axe for a hand.

I now know that I must own Avengers West Coast #98-100, which introduces these guys. Luckily, Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow, so I imagine I'll be in the vicinity of a comic book shop.