Henry found the coolest thing I’ve seen on the internet this month… And that includes a Flickr set of mugshots from the 40s full of the downtrodden dregs of humanity…
I give you, ZOMBARITAVILLE! It’s those songs you just can’t claw out of out of your head, rewritten for the undead who just want claw into your head.
Saturday I was talked into seeing the new Star Trek movie by my girlfriend and two of our friends who had already seen it. I saw a trailer a while back and thought, “That looks sorta cool,” but that’s as far as my thoughts on the movie went. I’m not a Trekkie. I was too young to enjoy the original series, and not interested enough to enjoy TNG. DS9 and Voyager didn’t do much for me and I quickly lost interest in both for different reasons. I tried the pilot of Enterprise and did not enjoy it. The movies were either mind-blowingly bad (I’m looking at you, Time Traveling To The 80s Whale Movie) or extended episodes that tried too hard.
But that’s ok, there’s nothing to say that by being a geek I *must* like Star Trek.
A bunch of my friends watched the reboot of the Trek franchise on Thursday and Friday and they gushed so much I was afraid they might start leaking. It currently enjoys the insane Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 95%. So I figured that the reboot must be doing something right. I was willing to give the movie a chance, my girlfriend didn’t exactly need to twist my arm to get me to agree to watch it.
So let me start with the good: Lots of in-jokes and fan service for the Trekkies. Lots of references for enthusiasts of the various series. Lots of explosions. Lots of fights where Kirk gets the shit kicked out of him. (Seriously… He doesn’t win a single damn fight and I bet his ribs were broken by the end of the movie.) And Simon Pegg is excellent in everything he does. Even when he was an extra on Land of the Dead.
The bad: The majority of the drama was built using an uber-dramatic score, a hand held camera to give everything that “realistic” look, and blurred out pans to other actors for reaction shots instead of cuts. The bad guy was a plot device that was forgettable other than using him as a method for getting the crew together. New Spock – total douche. New Bones had some great moments but his “Damn it, I’m a doctor not an X,” lines were pretty ham-handed. (The ham-handed scene was pretty fucking funny, though.) The opening scene with a pregnant woman being wheeled past explosions as she was going into labor was funny and lame – I kept imagining studio execs scribbling all over the script and saying, “We need to raise the stakes!”
I did like the movie. It was entertaining. The action was fun, if over the top. I just don’t think it was the second coming of Star Wars like people are saying. The reboot will end up making enough cash that a sequel is guaranteed, and I’ll watch it. But this wasn’t a movie I feel a desperate need to own or watch again.
There. I’ve been outed.
I was never exposed to Austen as a child. My first real introduction to Pride & Prejudice was through a girl I had something of a crush on; her sister informed me it was her favorite movie, and I purchased the BBC mini-series DVD set for her as a present. This act is probably directly related to our now being married, so I suppose I owe something akin to gratitude to the work. My wife, like countless others I’ve since met, loves Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy. Bridget Jones’s Diary would not have made sense at all had I not known about this particular fascination that many people seem to have.
I suppose she enjoys Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennett as well, but I must say that I’ve heard about her less. ^_-
At any rate, the work has grown on me. I’ve seen the BBC version many times (albeit never at my own behest), as well as the newer movie and the original 1940 version, which has its own charms. I even went so far as to read the book. ^_^ Recently, though, the magic of the public domain has caused another book to be written. Credited to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, it proclaims itself: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! Pride and Prejudice and Zombies arrived at my door yesterday, so I’ll let everyone know how it holds up soon.
An hour ago, Mike mentioned wanting to link to a post on a FaceBook profile he’s about to create. The context of his question was such that it had nothing to do with where I took it. Mike wanted to know if anyone would be annoyed because the Basement is looking a little shabby at the moment.
But I ran with the question and began wondering if he could establish an RSS feed of the Basement that would auto-post to his FaceBook thingie when he made a post here on the basement with a specific tag. (I have no idea if FaceBook can do this, so whatever.)
Creative Commons Photo by Marcus Metropolis
So, I’ve heard increasing chatter that pirates might be losing their geek cache due to certain real world events (yeah, I’m looking at you Somalia).
@omarg even wondered earlier today if Talk Like a Pirate Day would ever be the same again. So, have pirates been downgraded in coolness by their recent rise on the world stage? It’s important because pirates completely pervade geekdom. Consider:
If pirates become a “real” again, does homeland security start freezing the assets of Texas Tech coach Mike Leach? (and Mike a pirate can beat a soldier, just not a Navy SEAL–but no worry, the Aggies will never be that competent)
Should we rename electronic piracy to distance theft from “real” piracy? WotC would you like to weigh in on this? Is Adobe Acrobat the AK-47 of the 21st century?
Finally, when discussing if zombies, vikings, or pirates are more cool, must we now include Navy SEALs?  CNN cleaned up this article, when I first read it they used headshot at least four times.Â
On the last question, I think the SEALs win. I mean even a zombie pirate dies from a headshot. However, a Valhalla-risen zombie viking may not be stopped by a headshot. Frankly, I’m not sure what stops one and hope never to find out. Unless some SEALs are around.
I just got home from running a table top role playing game where a group of people have to survive a zombie outbreak.
Currently, they’ve foolishly chosen to help others who were trapped in their homes when the zombies attacked, and now they have a group of 70 survivors they can’t feed or protect.
Bad things are gonna happen. And it’s gonna be great.
(But yeah. despite this post, if this turns into a role playing only discussion site, I’m going to have to set you all on fire.)
(See the comments on Mike’s post.)
The group Metric released a new song, Help I’m Alive, just prior to the release of their new album. I liked the song enough to check out and then buy the album once it was released.
My view of the song was slightly changed- perhaps for the better, even- when someone on 101x’s Chillville made an offhand comment along the lines that she must be being chased by zombies. It makes one appreciate the song in a whole new way. ^^;
Maybe I’ve played too much Left 4 Dead.
Or maybe I haven’t played enough. Hmm.