Add to that the fact that last year was a big fat dud, with a few notable exceptions, in terms of entertaining cinema, and what you end up with is a movie buff like myself who hardly ever goes to the movies anymore.

With our youngest getting a bit older and more easily manageable without the constant need of her mom, I find myself looking out on the advent of the summer blockbuster season and evaluating what’s out there that looks worth seeing in the theaters, as opposed to waiting for on DVD.  I’m pleased to say that there are actually a couple of really good candidates out there.  Dare I hope that one, or even a few, of them turn out to be good entertainment?  Dare I?  Dare I???

Oh, I dare, though I admit I should know better by now.  So here’s the rundown of the list I’m looking forward to seeing.  We’ll see if Hollywood manages not to turn all these into more turds for their ever-expanding library of turds.

Clash of the Titans (April 2)
This was one of my favorite movies growing up, along with Jason and the Argonauts (which in retrospect I now see was about 13 years older and nowhere near as cool in actuality, but when you’re nine years old, it’s all the same).  I hope the remake lives up to my expectations.  It looks pretty cool from the trailers.  But am I the only person in the world who is adamantly opposed to this new fascination with 3D?  Thank you, James Cameron, for starting a fad that’s going to be really annoying for a while before it burns out again.

Date Night (April 9)
You’d think Steve Carell and Tina Fey would guarantee funny, but Get Smart wasn’t gut-busting, and none of Fey’s movies have been either.  But my wife and I think this looks funny.

Iron Man 2 (May 7)
Loved the first one.  Really hoping for a worthy sequel.

Prince of Persia (May 28)
Looks cool, with a vibe like the first Pirates.  Hopefully it can overcome the typical stumbling blocks of being a video game translation.  They avoided hiring this guy to direct, so that’s a good start.

The A-Team (June 11)
The trailer leaves a lot to be desired.  I can’t tell yet if this is going to be an awesome translation that’s a sleeper in the hype, or is it just under-hyped because they know it’s not that good.

Knight and Day (June 25)
Say what you will about Tom Cruise, I’m certainly no fan of the guy, but I still think he can act.  While the premise of this one doesn’t look all that terribly original, the trailer indicates a good blend of action and comedy, and it has me intrigued.  I’ll leave it at “I’m interested.”

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (July 16)
Nicholas Cage seems pretty hammish in the trailers, but I love a good fantasy tale, so I’m hoping for good things.

That’s the end of the Summer stuff that I know of.  It seemed like the list was longer in my head.  Probably because of these other late year entries that I can’t wait for:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1 (Nov. 19)

Tron Legacy (Dec. 17 = Oh yeah!)

Aside from all those, there are a handful of potentially interesting “maybes,” as in they may be pretty good, but I’m just not sure.

The Last Airbender (July 2) Shyamalan has pretty much lost his cred with me, but this isn’t a story he came up with, so we’ll see what happens.
Inception (July 16)  It’s Christopher Nolan, which gives a good headstart, but I can’t figure out what it’s really about yet.
The Expendables (Aug. 13) The biggest action gimmick ever.  Who would win a fight between all the old school action stars?  Stallone, Arnold, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren.  The funny thing to me is that Van Damme declined to participate.  What?  Has he got something better to do?  This will probably be completely lame, but I bet it makes big money anyway.
The Green Hornet (Dec. 22) No idea about this one, but I’m keeping a lazy eye on it.

See, at first glance it looks like a great entry into the realm of the SFOP, but from everything I’ve read, it’s actually something infinitely more dangerous, because this film was not intended to be a joke. Maybe that is the real horror…of BIRDEMIC!

I also love the awesome original song.

So what do you think? Joke or no joke?

Those are exactly the words I heard when I turned on my TV at 1:00 this morning intending to watch SportsCenter as I ate a pre-bedtime snack. The channel had been left on Sprout, as is often the case, and when I turned it on, I caught that little gem from Barney before I changed to ESPN.

It didn’t register in my brain right away, as I typically tune Barney out with as much force as my ears can generate (which, unsurprisingly, is not much…ears, what a scam.) But for some reason the phrase wormed its way into my subconscious and stuck with me.

Now I’m just trying to figure out what it means. I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of secret code. I should do some research to see if everything Barney says is that odd, or if it’s just in the wee hours when people like me are watching under the influence of extreme fatigue, rendering us much more susceptible to diabolical brainwashing plots.

I should do that research, but it would mean watching more Barney. Nothing good can come of that.

This opens up a whole new horizon of SFOP possibilities in dangerous creature hybrids. Of course they will have to leverage the typical artistic title/unnecessary colon/funtional title format, like “Badgerine: The Badger and Wolverine Hybrid”, and “Hormite: The Giant Hornet that Chews through Wood to Get at You.” The options are pretty much limitless.

Thank YOU, Sharktopus!

Enjoy.

All Hallow’s Eve: The Legend of Sleepy Hallow

An original short story by MrHattyhat, MtyThor and Atticusser

“What was that?”

Under normal circumstances, two teenage boys walking in such proximity to one another—in fact, in direct physical contact—would have been considered socially unacceptable in Sleepy Hallow.  The Progressive Secularist mode of thought trending through the more metropolitan cities of the country had spread its viral strands in conspicuous ignorance of Sleepy Hallow—Smalltown, U.S.A, complete with its antiquated traditions of moral judgment and self-restraint.

But these were not normal circumstances.

Shivering from equal parts cold and fear, the boys advanced on their objective, neither one the least bit interested in completing it; neither one willing to be the first to volunteer his retreat.  So, on they crept.

Jake, the younger of the two, turned to Caleb and said…

“Quit trying to hold my hand, you fairy!”

Caleb did not respond, nor did he make any effort to distance himself physically from Jake.  Jake could complain all he wanted; Caleb wasn’t about to place himself any nearer to the darkness that filled the gaps between the trees on either side of Old Mill Road.

There was no moon tonight, which had seemed a good thing at first, since Caleb subscribed to a healthy belief in, and fear of, werewolves.  No moon meant no lycanthropes, at least, but the orb-less sky now meant that the mill road through Hawkins’ Woods was unnaturally dark.  It was quiet also…so quiet.

Jake hadn’t uttered another word, though the two boys were nearly embracing now.  The woods seemed to grow taller around them with each step, and the mill road grew narrower.  Soon the silhouette of the mill would appear before them, a great, decaying hulk of pure blackness against the star-speckled sky.  Caleb watched for it desperately, unwittingly holding his breath.

The mill road took a gradual bend and Jake’s feet shuffled and came to a stop.  His throat made a breathy whine…

“Eeaguheghheeeh!”

“Don’t do that!” squeaked Caleb.

“I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.”

“Did what?”

“You said, ‘Eeauheghhoooh!’”

“No I didn’t.”

Caleb was becoming frustrated.  Enough so that he strongly contemplated discontinuing the fervent grip of Jake’s hand and shoulder that would have required a flushed and stuttering explanation to a belated third party.  He couldn’t remember now why he had commenced the socially precarious strangle hold on Jake’s arm, but something inside him said that putting an abrupt end to it would be a bad idea.

“Eeauhgghheeeh!”

“I told you not to do that!”

“That was you.”

“Who?”

“You. Caleb.”

“It was?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m Jake, and there aren’t any other characters yet.”

“You’re Jake?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Oh.  I thought I was.”

“No. I checked.  The alternating order of the paragraphs distinctly implies that I am Jake.”

“Hmm…I must have lost track.”

Jake’s words proved an omen of change, however, for in the quiet shadows before them, a third character stood.  Watching.  Listening.  Existing.  This was the character the two boys hoped with all hope did not, would not, appear.

The character spoke…

“Uh…do you want me to leave you two alone?”

Stepping from the woods, Frank Nathan Stein wore an expression of amused mock revulsion.

“Dude, you scared the life out of me!” Jake shouted, immediately regretting the volume as his voice echoed along Old Mill Road, certainly announcing their presence to every ghoul and goblin in Sleepy Hallow.

“You guys look really gay,” Frank offered, joining in step with the boys whose hearts were just starting to return to normal pace.

“Just wait,” Caleb retorted, “walk along this road for a few minutes with us and you’ll be sticking pretty close too, I guarantee!”

There was an awkward moment of shifting eyes and silence as the boys realized that their terror-induced affection, which they each had conveniently avoided acknowledging, had just been outed.

“What’s with that weird light?” Frank asked finally.

“Don’t know,” Caleb replied.  “Must be the light from that big dude’s cell phone.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed.

Another moment of strained silence and the boys stopped dead in their tracks.

“Big dude?!” They asked in perfect unison…

And then a cold voice broke the still night air.  It was a deathly whisper, a chill hiss that came from neither ground nor sky, and it said, “Holy cow!  New Mexico tied it up!”

The boys all screamed, falling to the ground.

“Eeeauheghheeeh!”

Then they died.

And so ended the lives of the boys: Frank N. Stein, Jake Ulah, and Caleb DeWild.

Though they died young, before their times, their passing proved to be the salvation of countless, nameless victims of horror tales of both film and print.

And thus it was.

Amen?

What the boys didn’t know—what they couldn’t know—was the true nature of those three mysterious figures who, at the end of their lives had manipulated them even as puppets on strings of ink, dancing on a paper stage.  What even those three otherworldly beings could not know, moreover, was that one of them—one of that very three—was not what he appeared.  One of them was not…human.But which one?

It was MrHattyHat, that’s who.

Too bad Ian Holm is getting on in years now, because he was great as Bilbo in LOTR.  I hope they get somebody with a similar look and manner.  Or maybe they should just make him look young with all that magic CGI that James Cameron is inventing.

I won’t go into a detailed review, except to say that I applaud the way these kinds of kids movies are teaching our children in a simplified manner.  For instance, Snow Buddies relied heavily on one-dimensional characterization for pretty much everybody in the film.  The producers of the movie gave each character some notable trait, behavior, or style, which defined the basic nature of that person.   I imagine that as a child, this approach would have made it so much easier for me to recognize the character archetypes and to take from that a simpler world view, a lens through which I could shape my developing interactions with the people around me, who I could more easily define and understand because movies like this taught me how to stereotype.  Cheers to you, Snow Buddies maker people!

There was Jean Jorge the Third (aka, as Atticusser pointed out, “My fazher waz a bakher too!”), the mean French dogsled racer, who wore raccoon furs and cheated shamelessly.

There was a Chinese dogsled racer, who was the token Asian, I think.

There was a Finnish dogsled racer, a pretty blond woman, whose only line was, “Stay avay from Jean Jorge, he vould do anysing to vin.”

There was a Russian dogsled racer, who said things like “Da, comrade,” and gave enthusiastic thumbs-ups.

There was Deputy Dan, the bumbling deputy sheriff who was looking for the lost puppies.

And of course there were the five puppies themselves.  I won’t give away this part, because this could be a fun game.  See if you can guess in the comments the personalities of the five starring puppies.  I’ll tell you this: they were each distinctive and very recognizable, and they were matched perfectly with the personalities of the kids who owned them, of course.  So guess away.  If you were writing this movie about five talking, adventurous, troublemaking, good-hearted puppies, what personalities would you give them?

And don’t worry, at our house we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of the next adventure: Santa Buddies!

There is a side-effect of this combination of his growing up and watching TV that I should have seen coming, though, which is that the commercials are starting to register with him.  I’m suddenly being inundated with stories about these amazing new toys and games that he’s seeing on TV.  What’s more, since he watches a lot of Disney channel, I’ve learned that our Netflix queue has some unexpected new additions.  So this is what I’ll get to look forward to watching this weekend:

Wheeeeee!  I can’t tell you how excited I am for this one.

I typically keep my BYU football banter over on my Thor’s BYU Board site and separate from the Word, but worlds are colliding today because this is a topic that I feel compelled to address.

Why is Max Hall smiling?

I’ll tell you why: because he’s a moron.

Most of you, Word readers, are probably already familiar with the events of this last Saturday, in which rival collegiate football teams BYU and Utah played their annual game (if you can call it that).  It was about the ugliest game I’ve ever watched, marred by a ridiculous number of penalties for personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct.  A friend of mine said it well when he told me that we really didn’t get to see which team was better at football.  Too true.

Well BYU came out the victor in a 26-23 overtime result, but the story continued after the game when BYU quarterback Max Hall elected to speak his mind to the press with regard to the Utah football program.  He later issued an apology for the way in which his comments “came out” (and I love that they just came out that way, because he’s not at all responsible for forming the words in his mind and then directing them through his larynx and out his mouth, right?), but this whole thing reaffirmed for me something that I perceived when Max Hall first took the field three years ago: this is one arrogant kid.  He’s got a lot of talent in the game of football, don’t get me wrong, and at times I’ve been very impressed with his skills, but as his collegiate career winds to a close, I can tell you one thing: he will not be missed.  He’s a choke artist who can’t handle the pressure of a big game, who played like an absolute chump in the Utah game, forcing his defense to stay on the field pretty much the entire second half and do all the work, then claims “We deserve this.  We played our guts out,”  and who then sets his rabid ego loose and starts spouting off about how classless Utah is, etc. etc.

Well Max, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnqqdZZddFE&feature=PlayList&p=CFA0BA940995889C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=61

I thought I’d kick off the comeback with a winner.