Awwwooooooooooooooohhhh!!! The Indy IV trailer is here!
See it. Now. Go!
“You’re a… teacher?”
“Part time.”
Exclamation Point!
In excitement for the new Indy movie I’ve bumped Raiders of the Lost Ark to number one on the all time list. Raiders never gets old, never ages, never wears out its welcome. It has always been a spectacularly entertaining movie and I will always love it. (The rest of my list may change, but Raiders will always be in the top three.)
To say I am giddy as a schoolgirl about the upcoming Indy movie would be a tremendous understatement. I’m a gaggle of giddy schoolgirls, twittering every time I see a new poster. So keep that in mind as I gush rapturously over a couple of upcoming Lego Indiana Jones products.
Lucasarts, that crazy video game company owned by George Lucas (go figure) can make some really bad, lets make money quick, games (see most of the Star Wars video games.) They’ve also churned out some of the best games of all time (Sam ‘n Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis etc.) The Lego Star Wars games are fun, cute and easy; in what other game is dying actually kinda fun?
With a new Indiana Jones movie on May 22nd 2008 (early in the morning, I’m sure, like midnight...) Lucasarts is releasing… Lego Indiana Jones! Woot!
Also, some scans of the upcoming Indiana Jones Lego sets were released. WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! This may give away key plot points!
Click through to see.
Midseason TV Report (Slash Which Shows Writers Deserve to Get Paid More)
Posted on Dec 19, 2007 - 12:32 PM
Fall shows are wrapping up their allotment of pre-writers strike episodes and reality shows will be taking over. Here’s what I liked, and what I didn’t. In descending order of goodness.
The Good:
Chuck
I’d need to be a mutant freak to have enough thumbs to rate this one. I love this show. Consitently the best new show of the season. Great cast, funny and fun. Pokes fun at the superspy genre without being condescending. Over the top, but smart. Zachary Levi is perfect as Chuck.
Pushing Daisies
The pilot was the best episode of TV ever. The rest of the season has been very, very good. Quirky, funny, unique and very very cute. Little bits of extraordinary cleverness makes this a blast to watch.
Reaper
Way geek cool. I worry a bit about it becoming a demon of the week show, but so far, very good. The pilot was really, really good and while the rest of the season has been below that level it’s still better than nearly everything else.
Dirty Sexy Money
I’m surprised how much fun the show is. Donald Sutherland is fantastic as the patriarch of the Darling family and the show hits the right level of trash and intrigue. Better so far than Desperate Housewives ever was.
Samantha Who?
Proving that cast is everything this show is mediocre writing and an appealing cast. Christina Applegate is great and aside from her mother (played too broadly by Jean Smart) I like everyone else. Cute as a button pretty much sums up the show.
Journeyman
Didn’t think I’d like this much but it’s pretty good. The most surprising thing for me was when the writers didn’t manufacture tension by making Kevin McKidd’s character Dan Vasser lie to his wife about seeing his former fiance in the past. Instead they make him a good father and good husband. Imagine that. The things he does in the past are pretty ordinary but the toll it takes on his family and the interactions in the present work really well.
Aliens in Amercia
Funny if a bit formulaic. Justin acts like a teenager and does something stupid that alienates him from Raja. At some point he realizes he’s been an idiot and that getting along with Raja is really important even though Raja’s extreme goody-goodyness and weird religion makes that hard. Awwwwwwww. But it can be really funny, and you can’t help but like the kids.
Life
Haven’t watched much of this (I’ve got to draw the line somewhere) but for a cop show it’s pretty good. Mostly because the lead character is allowed to be unpredictable and kinda funny. Still a procedural cop show, though.
The Kinda OK Shows
Bionic Woman
It’s OK at times. Not nearly funny enough and takes itself really seriously. They’ve improved the goofy fast running a bit (mostly by cutting down on the effects) but mostly just kind of plods along. Some bits of fun (such as Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff) but a couple of episodes were plain bad and what was good wasn’t THAT good. They tried to make an edgy show but didn’t cast any edgy actors (again Katee Sackhoff would have been FAR better as THE Bionic Woman instead of the OLD Bionic Woman.) As silly as Chuck without the self-awareness that makes it work.
Moonlight
A vampire show where they took out all the complications of being a vampire. See it’s all a myth, they’re super strong and they can walk around in daylight as long as they wear sunglasses and don’t go too far. Should be darker, should be scarier and they should have worked a bit more on their mythology. It’s not Angel, it’s not Buffy it’s not much of anything.
Back To You
It’s not the ratings bonanza Fox hoped, but that’s probably because it’s not all that good. Grammar is Frasier and Heaton is annoying. Still like the the young news producer, though.
Private Practice
Warm, sunny and vapid. Tries to keep up with Grey’s Anatomy and despite the excellent cast, doesn’t succeed. Just kinda there, TV. Not bad, not good, just there.
The Bad
Cavemen
Really like Nick Kroll and pretty much dislike everything else. Occasionally chuckle worthy but mostly just dumb.
The Big Bang Theory
Stuart Levine of MSNBC thought this was a highlight. Whatever. For a show about smart people this one is as dumb as a fence-post. Only sporadically funny and over-broad. Makes fun of dorks without making them people. Gotta have actual characters, show.
Carpoolers
And I thought The Big Bang Theory was bad. With all the shows that DIDN’T make it, you’re telling me that THIS was better than everything else? This show proves that the networks really do have NO idea what they’re doing. Really, really, REALLY bad. Beyond bad. This is a putrescent pile of poop fermenting in a vat of vomit. I’m serious. It’s that bad. When Mr. Levine said The Big Bang Theory was a highlight, he must have watched it right after this. Only in comparison…
Never saw K-Ville, Women’s Murder Club, Cane, Big Shots, Viva Laughlin etc. I’ve heard that’s a good thing.
Here is my third song and the first that is NOT any form of lovey-dovey song. Garageband has some pretty awesome clapping crowd noise… which I left out. Feel free to clap at the end in you mind/out loud to yourself. This is also the first time I’ve experimented with alternate tunings.
The Kindle, Amazon’s new eBook reader that will change the world. They hope.
Hardly a new idea the Kindle is nevertheless an intriguing one. Initial impressions seem mixed, interestingly it’s the non-techies that seem to get Bezos’ vision. Most of the gadget geeks seem to fall on the side of meh. Those that use a cell phone only to make calls, a computer only to email and read the newspaper on paper every morning seem most intrigued. This is a device they can get behind.
The main innovation of the Kindle is that it is always connected. Like push email on a BlackBerry the Kindle will automatically receive the latest edition of a print newspaper such as The New York Times. Or magazine, or blog post. You can browse and buy books from Amazon’s web store from anywhere. More exciting is that there isn’t a monthly fee, at least for the wireless connection. You only pay for what you want, there’s no service fee or monthly charge. This, in and of itself, is surprising and a huge plus for the device.
It uses eInk technology, a display technology that uses small particles and electrical magic to display text in a way that has more in common with a paperback than a computer screen. It has no backlight, something that is seen as a good thing, and does not draw power unless the screen is redrawn. This means that it is no more fatiguing than reading a book, something that should appeal to a demographic that does not love LCD and CRT displays.