Beyond My Geeky Life

This great and wondrous digital age,  where all voices can be heard without any jet-lag, is really an amazing thing. It allows us to be an instant part of the world and be given access to so many events in real time. But it also allows us to see those we might look up to in an unfiltered light that might not reflect to well on them. J.K. Rowling recently made a simple comment in a tweet. 'But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?' It was a short sentence, as is needed for any tweets. A quick read out of context and it looks rather innocent, if a little confusing. However, in full context, it was an undeniable attack against transgender people. Needless to say, in our present charged society, Rowling has come under attack from many who once praised her for her for her progressive views. There are comments out there from trans people who found Rowling's writings inspirational and helped them to come out and be themselves, who now feel betrayed....

Here we are, one day away from the opening weekend for what is, at this time, being called the final part of the Skywalker Saga. Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker opens in theaters tomorrow. So right now on Rotten Tomatoes it is at 58%. That counts as 'rotten' by their standards. I do not hold full faith in reviews on their own, as I have seen horrible movies rated 'fresh' there and truly enjoyable films get the 'rotten' label. When you see such a low score you do have to wonder what turned people off on it. Of course with this film, that is actually easy to figure out. In the end there was no way this movie was ever going to be highly rated. It has too much baggage attached and was never going to be able to live up to expectations. By the end of the weekend we will see a divide in not only the die-hard Star Wars fans, but the general movie going population as well, over this film.  That was going to happen no matter what. Even if 'Rise of Sk...

For those of you living in caves, Academy Award-Winning Director Martin Scorsese has recently started a odd war on super-hero movies that feels more about him being an outdated elitist who is upset that his work is being upstaged by films he calls 'theme park' movies. I am all for people having their opinions and they don't all have to align with mine. But his words are reflective of outdated attitudes. Here are his actual claims: "It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” “It’s not cinema,” he said. “It’s something else. We shouldn’t be invaded by it. We need cinemas to step up and show films that are narrative films.” Has he actual seen these films? A huge part of why the present Marvel movies are so popular, is because they do such a great job of conveying emotional, psychological experiences to another human being. Go and watch Captain America: The First Avenger and tell me the story o...

I hope everyone is having a enjoyable Halloween today. I could blog about a lot today, there is just so much going on. I loved the Star Wars Episode 9 trailer.  Really looking forward to the film and I believe it will be good. I don't really like where they have gone with the X-Men in the comics. Not sure what they were thinking. Seems like the X-Men have now become Magneto's dream not Prof. X's. Watched the first two episode's of HBO's Watchmen. Not a fan. Something about it feels off. I don't think it is lined up with the Graphic Novel myself. I think the story itself might work better for me if it was in its own universe and was its own thing, but I don't find it feels like the Watchmen universe. And so far I saw every 'twist' coming a mile away. What I have seen is way too predictable and I get the feeling the writing is not going to improve. Instead of going into detail on any of that, I am going to promote myself and what I have been ...

I remember back before the MCU, back when super-hero movies were a rarity. Even rarer were really good ones. Superman has his item in the early 80s, with movies that only work if you accept just how badly campy they are. There had been the Batman movies, which had a good start, but didn't last long as the quality dropped withe very movies.  Blade had come and surprised everyone, but few realized it was a super-hero movie. Then came X-Men. This was a real super-hero movie with interesting, complex characters, a decent plot, with good special effects and well done fight scenes and one of the greatest openings to a movie ever. In just those few moments we understood the character of Magneto. The first X-Men movies showed us just what the genre could be. Ignore some bad dialogue and the over use of comic book science, and you have an enjoyable film. And X2 was... Well it showed that a squeal could be something amazing and unique. It was so much better than the first. the had clearl...

In the aftermath of Sony Pictures pulling Spider-Man from the MCU, their CEO seems to be determined to make it clear they are not to be trusted with making good decisions. It was announced that they are looking at doing a remake of The Princess Bride. Sony Pictures CEO  Tony Vinciquerra said,  “Very famous people whose names I won’t use, but they want to redo  The Princess Bride ." I don't care how famous the people are, this is a truly bad idea. Already a lot of famous people have come out saying that. This is one of those idea that is not needed and has no rational justification to it. Chances are it will not be as good as the original, which is a practically perfect movie, and if you look at such remakes, they rarely make much money. The announcement itself has already upset fans, which shows that no one wants this. I've yet to find one person who is excited over this idea. Just putting the idea out there weakens my faith in Sony, which has ...

I'm not sure if there is nay geek new out there getting more attention than the big Sony/Disney split right now. The basic story is that Disney tried to renegotiate the deal they had with Sony over the Spider-Man films. Disney wanted a bigger piece of the pie from the stand along films, openly offering to take on a bigger piece of the expense with it. Sony said they were happy with the deal they had. Now if Sony does full walk away from the deal with Disney/Marvel, what does that mean? Well, since the present reboot of Spider-Man has been solidly connected to the MCU, with a strong hint that Spidey was going to continue Tony Stark's legacy, it would almost be a full reboot to make the stories work. The last two Spider-man stand along films have been firmly planted in the MCU with those stories connected to the greater story line. There would suddenly be a lot of history that would just have to be forgotten and over looked, creating some awkward retconning in order to make...

So, it's been over two months since I last wrote a blog post here. Been real busy, as life can get a little crazy at times. While I would love to write about some geeky stuff (Like how great Spider-Man: Far From Home was, go see it. Spidey is still the greatest superhero ever.) this post is going to be outright selling myself, as I have been working on a few projects. I have self published The Cost of Leveling up. Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VMCDV5L/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 Print: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1082287083/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p2_i10 Then I am working on finishing up a much bigger project called 'A Day at Georgie and Armand's Place'. Here are sketches of the title characters. There will be a lot more concerning this book coming soon. Hopefully next post will be back to talking geeky stuff as normal.

I am already getting tired of the TV show Flash and how overpowered the main character is. The character moments and just more and more inadequate to offset the bad logic and science they keep using. As far as I can figure, according to the show, running really really fast can give you just about any powers you can imagine. And it would help if they could be consistent, but I already figure that was asking too much.  Rarely are such shows able to keep the powers working the same throughout, as they get altered as needed for the story.  But this season ended with them really messing with their own rules big time, although they were already rewriting the rules throughout the season as a whole. The rules I am talking about are their rules concerning time travel. Now understand, time travel is a real easy thing that takes next to no effort for a 'speedster' in the show. It is something they do real casually all the time. But early on they hinted at the cost of messing with...

The first Star Wars Episode 9 trailer was just released. I've watched it twice now. Will most likely watch it again a few more times today when I get the chance. The title is interesting: 'Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.' Uh, what? Yeah, that is a little confusing. It also doesn't work to complete the sentence the last two films seemed to be building up to (The Force awakens the last Jedi). Is the title a hint that we were misled in episode 8 about Rey's parents? Is that the Emperor's laugh at the end there as they look at the wreckage of what I am assuming is the 2nd Death Star? How is that all connected? Are the rumors that the Emperor knew something about the truth of Anakin's birth going to be proven correct? Yeah, lots and lots of questions. All in all not much was really shown. We knew Lando was going to return and that there would be scenes with Leia using unused footage. I am wondering if the Lei...

There are times when the news for upcoming projects restores all faith in the creative community and right now we have had one of those announcements: Neil Gaiman will bring back Jim Henson's The Storyteller That has to be one of the most perfect headlines I have ever seen. Jim Henson's The Storyteller was such a brilliantly done series. Regretfully John Hurt will not be able to return as the role of the Storyteller. He was so perfect in that role. With Gaiman as the head writer and producer, working with the Jim Henson company, it sounds like the perfect set up for one incredible show. Neil Gaiman, re-imagining old folk tales... He has already shown us how gifted he is at that, but now he gets to work with Muppets to do this. These are the Dark Crystal/Labyrinth level of Muppets we're talking about. If you have not seen any of Jim Henson's Story Teller, then it is hard to explain how incredible those stories are. I checked and right now the full se...