Pair-o'-ducks

This morning I got round to watching the Aquaman pilot from 2007.  Not a bad show, shame it didn't get made though.  It was a sort of spin-off of Smallville with Justin Hartley as A.C.  Hang on a second, doesn't he play Oliver Queen in Smallville.  Man the torpedoes, war has been declared.  (We're moving into the rant now, but check out that pilot.)
There seems to be quite a few people Chicken Little on just because Ryan Reynolds and Chris Evans are playing multiple heroes.  Ryan Reynolds is actually working on them fairly close together as Green Lantern and Deadpool.  Although, for some reason few people mention his role in Blade: Trinity.  As for Chris Evans, he's going to be  Captain America when he was already The Human Torch in Fantastic 4.  Oh, and he was Casey Jones in TMNT and Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  But what do you know, they were all different characters.  Mind you, I'd like to know why no one mentions Jon Favreau was Foggy Nelson in Daredevil and Happy Hogan in Iron Man.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, actors pretend to be different people.  Believe it or not Hugh Jackman is actually a 40 year old Australian, not a 100 year old Canadian with bone claws.

I've finally lost it

I've now lost all sense of internet anonymity, I've joined facebook.  Apparently it's a good idea to do so if you plan on being a journo.  Mind you, I've still got some level of anonymity.  You won't find me under my own name, instead I am Raoul Thompkins.  This alias is due to the fact that people who used to know you tend to want to be friends, even if they were ones who'd push you in the shrubbery.  Hell, most people will have to find me through this thing, and I only promote to those I give a damn about.  If there is a Raoul Thompkins out there, I do apologise for stealing your name.

Yet another series speculation

This week I was overcome with an urge to watch all four Final Destination movies.  Now you may have heard that there's a fifth one on it's way.  I hear you say "Hang on, wasn't the fourth called The Final Destination".  Oh, you poor, naive fool.  If a horror movie describes itself as the final chapter, it very rarely is.  Hell there were two 'Final' Friday The 13th movies.  Any way, Tony Todd will be returning as Bludworth, the creepy mortician from the first two, who has some idea of Death's design.  I better warn you that I'll be getting into some spoileriffic musings, so if you haven't seen all four, you may want to wait awhile before reading.

Let's start with some genuine straw clutching first.  Tony also appeared in the third as the voice of the "Devil", the rollercoaster mascot.  Now was that just so they could have him in there, or are the two connected.  With that out of the way, we can move onto something with more to it.  There seems to be some speculation as to which sucked more; the 3rd or 4th.  Personally, I'd say no. 4 sucked harder than a Hoover in a black hole, especially when it didn't really add anything new, aside from 3-D.  It was just filled with so many references to the predecessors that it seemed more like a bad fanfic then a continuation.  It was set in the same town as no. 3, yet there's no actual mention of those events.  People seem to harp on about how great the ending was, how maybe Deaths whole plan was to have them at the restaurant in the first place.  The first ended the same way. So let's just pretend that one doesn't exist.

Now just what were the new additions for 3.  Well, we had the main hints in the form of photos, taken before the disaster.  So, maybe Death's plan was for them to skip the coaster.  Plus, Wendy's photo suggested that Ian would be responsible for her Death, rather than the usual freak accident.  So not only does the order of the list have little significance, but the "survivors" are actually Death's pawns.

Let the speculation commence.  Bludworth's return must mean we're getting some answers to the great mysteries.  Who is Bludworth and how does he know so much?  Who's behind the visions?  How are the "clairvoyant" and the survivors chosen?  And for the Lostees out there, what's the significance of 180?  Tony Todd has been informed, and revealed that if 5 is a success, 6&7 will be made, back-to-back.  Is there to be a trilogy that answers these, or are they just money hungry?  Here's hoping it's the former.

I have returned at last.

Sorry about the long wait.  I haven't forgotten about you, I just found something shiny... and wobbly.  Upon closer inspection it appeared to Hot Gossip.  After several cold showers I'm now able to string together a coherent sentence.  First off, I am both shocked and outraged at Finland.  They're the second best Metal country, behind Germany, and few years back they won Eurovision with the help of Lordi.  Well, this year Stala & SO, a glam rock band fronted by Lordi's former drummer, were in the running to represent.  Instead, some hippy with an acoustic guitar will be representing them on the world stage.  On a note with much more happy, the trailer for X-Men: First Class has been released.  This movie is going to be awesome-on-a-stick.  I particularly like how it isn't really having much to do with previous films, instead being its film, which was the one problem with Superman Returns.  I'm also a fan of the way they're giving it a real world setting, firmly placing events around the Cuban Missile Crisis.  As opposed to Christopher Nolan's "Fantasy World, Real Abilities" approach.

Look, Up in the sky. It's...

As you may have heard, Henry Cavill has been cast as Superman in the upcoming Superman: The Man Of Steel.  Now, ignoring the fact that this guy's only 6 foot 1, which is far too short for Superman, is making this movie really worth it.  Warner Bros. are only doing it because after 2012, they'll have to actually start paying the creators of Superman.  In other words, they're only making it to get a little extra from the rights.  The last time someone did this was in 1994, when Roger Corman made a Fantastic Four movie, without intending to be released.  Thanks to the glorious box of magic known as the Internet, it has since been bootlegged for all to enjoy.
What I'm really getting at here is, DC Comics have two Supes knock-offs.  The more similar of the two is Captain Marvel, or Shazam.  He was so similar to Superman, DC sued Fawcett Comics and DC owns the character.  Except, about all they do with him is get him to fight Superman in hero wars.  His story is that 12 year-old Billy Batson is handpicked by the wizard Shazam as a champion of justice, so that when Billy calls the wizards name, he turns into Captain Marvel.  And to think Josh Baskin wanted to be Big.  Captain Marvel once got the screen treatment in the 40's as a serial, this was even the first superhero.  Going back to the point, this serial was made because the writers couldn't do a Superman serial.
As for the other guy, that would be Martian Manhunter a.k.a. J'onn J'onnz a.k.a. John Jones.  His story comes about when he was at home in Mars, doing Mars stuff, when this old scientist teleports him Earth and inconveniently dies before he can reverse the process, damn old people.  Deciding that if he's stuck on another planet, he might as well live on it, shape-shifts into a human form, and becomes a plainclothes detective.  At first he solved people crimes, keeping his abilities, until there got to be a few alien invasion type things.  J'onn stopped being John and went out of hiding and became a hero.
Now Superman got his sense of right and wrong from an actual upbringing so that he didn't muck about with his godlike powers.  Billy's a freaking 12 year-old and J'onn got his knowledge of human culture from TV.  So, if you want a darker take, these two would be better than the Big Blue Boy Scout.