Disney Buys Marvel, Announces Projects

Yes, the House of Mouse has acquired the House of Ideas. While you're waiting for your Marvel Zombie friend to finish explaining why Marvel actually acquired Disney, here's a look at just a few of the new projects Walt and Stan have planned for you:

Finding Namor
The Fantasia Four
Xavier Institute for Higher Learning Musical
Holy Hannah Montana!
The Sorcerer Supreme of Waverly Place
Old Yeller Jacket
The Suite Life of ZZZAX and Codename: Spitfire
Modok Tails
S.H.I.E.L.D. M-O-U-S-E
The Incredibles and Fantastic Four Get Together For a Backyard Cookout That is Quietly Fraught With Unspoken Tension and Resentment

Not Wanting to be Called a Republican Does Not Make You a Libertarian

This Daily Kos post addresses an issue that's bugged me for awhile: selling right wing talking points in the guise of libertarianism.

I'm libertarian on a lot of issues. That doesn't make me a libertarian.

But we've had this weird practice for decades of pretending that CATO is a libertarian organization, when it's effectively a Republican one, handling the GOP's attacks on the estate tax or social security, while staying mostly mum on legalizing drugs, and waiting for Bush's approval ratings to fall before mentioning that they're against an interventionist militarily policy.

Try to find Cato speaking in favor on gay marriage, or legalized prostitution, or abortion rights. It ain't easy.

The first two articles I found on a search for Reason magazine abortion turned up 1) a fence-sitting essay, and 2) an argument for turning abortion rights over to the states. (That's Republican speak for "get rid of it.")

I don't agree with everything in the Kos article, but approve of the gist: not wanting to eat elephant meat does not meat does not make you a vegetarian.

Garfield Minus Garfield

Have you ever seen Garfield Minus Garfield? It's a brilliant website that addresses a question many of us have asked over the years: do you know how stupid you look talking to your cat?

Yes, this site reproduces Garfield strips with the cat digitally erased from action, leaving resident human Jon Arbuckle, well, talking to himself. But isn't that what you do when you talk to a cat?

It got so big that a book was published with creator Jim Davis' blessing. It's fun to look at, but it ruins the premise by publishing both the "Garfield minus Garfield" strip and its unaltered original on every page, thus robbing the "minus" strips of their existential oomph.

My Review for Batman: The The Siren's Wail

My IMDB.com review of "The Wail of the Siren" episode of the 1966-8 Batman TV series.

I like reviewing episodes. Most of them are still waiting for their first review, whereas something like Star Wars has 1169 reviews and counting. I could review Star Wars, but who's gonna read review #1170?

Made when the show's episode length was cut in two and the budget slashed maybe even more, this episode does a pretty good job of overcoming those constraints.

It has a new and original villain, beautifully played by the perfectly cast Joan Collins. The Siren's ability to mesmerize men with her high-pitched singing makes her a credible threat, and her plan to defeat Batman and steal Bruce Wayne's millions actually make sense, as do the counter measures taken by Batman, Robin, and Batgirl.

Several twists make this show stand out. The mesmerized Commissioner Gordon actually infiltrates the Batcave and discovers Batman's identity, and Robin and Batgirl have to go it alone when Bruce Wayne falls under siren's spell. But the most interesting idea was that the Siren appeared in the middle of the previous episode as a supporting character, not just in the standard end teaser. Continuity like that was rare in the episodic TV of the '60s, and more of it might have helped the series.

The script cleverly utilizes most of the regular cast, with guest casting required only for the Siren and her two chief henchmen, one of them being popular movie and TV tough guy Mike Mazurki.

Like most of the third season, the new sets are cheap and lack even walls, but clever design here makes good use of them. The Siren's grotto hideout is dark and exotic, and the rooftop Bruce Wayne nearly jumps off of doesn't need walls to work.

Mr. Noseybonk, Devourer of Souls

There's a thin line between horror and comedy, but while this saying us usually applied to how horror often seems silly, it can work the other way as well.

Take Mr. Noseybonk, a character I encountered on Youtube.

Noseybonk, played by a man in a weird face mask and tux, was just one of the silly characters who inhabited Jigsaw, a British game show for kids that ran from 1979 to 1985. His alabaster white face, enormous protruding nose. and giant toothy smile were supposed to make him seem silly, but he became fear personified for thousands, if not millions, of impressionable young kids.

With all the tapes from the series apparently wiped, this bit seem to be the only remaining footage of him, and it's creepy as hell. It seems statistically safe to assume was probably not the creepiest of his many appearances; god only knows what that one must be like.

But Noseybonk was deeply enough ingrained in somebody's head that he was revived as a figure of pure evil, like the videos at Noseybonk.com. It includes this video on kids' TV, in which the first 100 seconds are dedicated to Noseybonk.



And here's a clip of the "new" fan-created Noseybonk:

Wacky Races at Goodwood, UK

My money's on the purple one with the "00"



Here's a good view of the complete line-up.

Concert For Bangladesh

I like to explore Yahoo Answers, which is basically a bunch of people who know nothing getting answers by people who think they know everything.

But once in awhile, an answer can be a real revelation...

George Harrison or Paul McCartney?

i don't wanna make any comparison between legends.But i am gr8ful to George Harrison and so r we all bangladeshi people.coz in 1971 when our liberation war was going on,George harrison arranged a concert for fundraising for bangladesh at the 'Medison centre' of london with pundit ravi shankar & jowan bayes etc.the concert was named-"concert for Bangladesh."A superstar like Mr. Harrison raised his voice and played his powerful guitar for a country miles away just for the sake of humanily.The song 'bangladesh'sang by him in that concert was a big source of inspiration for our freedom fighters that time & still living in our hearts even after 37 years of liberation.

You know, I've always thought the story behind the Concert For Bangladesh was jjust that, a nice story. But I guess that for others, it's far more.

The Questions They Won't Answer

Is someone asking the right questions at last?

I propose this: Answer the questions in this video, and you answer everything.

The Ten Oldest "Certified Fresh" movies on Rotten Tomatoes

The movie review website Rotten Tomatoes has a "best of" section that lists their top movies.

The lists of best movies by year tend to be a bit skimpy up to the mid '80s, because a film needs to have at least 20 reviews before it qualify for a "best of" list, and the RT website tends to collect "Internet era" reviews.

But there's another RT accolade that's even harder for an old picture to attain: Certified Fresh.

As the site explains, "Rotten Tomatoes awards the Certified Fresh accolade to theater releases reviewed by 40 or more Tomatometer Critics (including 5 Top Critics) that score at least 75% or higher on the Tomatometer. A film remains Certified Fresh unless its Tomatometer falls below 60%. Reserved for the best-reviewed films, the Certified Fresh accolade constitutes a seal of approval, synonymous with quality."

A lot of old movies get good ratings on RT, but very few get enough reviews to get the "Certified Fresh" stamp. I think it's a good way to measure not just quality, but proof of continual pop culture heft for a classic to get this approval.

The "Certified Fresh" stamp is also a bit more fair than criteria for the the "best of" lists, which are always topped by movies that get 100% positive reviews. Thus a single negative review keeps Blood Simple, which would otherwise make the all time top ten list, out the top 100 all together.

So here are the top ten oldest pictures to get the "Certified Fresh" rating on RT:


Nosferatu (1922)
Metropolis (1927)
Dracula (1931)
King Kong (1933)
Modern Times (1936)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Fantasia (1940)

Shock Treatment

A little while back, I screwed up my courage and approached one of the odder looking local businesses in South Burlington, VT, a little video rental store tucked away in an ordinary suburban house.

The place was surprisingly well stocked and professional looking inside, and fairly busy too, though at least a few people were trying to sell stuff like an old game system. I had to be impressed to see a surviving example of the Mom and Pop video store when even the big chains like Blockbuster are disappearing, and I began to feel the pressure to, you know, buy something.

Well, it couldn't be something too expensive, because I'm on unemployment, and it couldn't be something I didn't want to actually own, which eliminated 99% of what I saw. I began to toy with the notion of grabbing some Twizzlers, when I spied Shock Treatment, the little known follow-up to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the #1 cult movie of all time.

My brother Ed took me and my twin brother Bill to see it way back in 1981 when it first debuted. Back then, it seemed to me that Rocky Horror, released in 1975, was some primordial relic that had been at part of civilization since Ancient Babylon, and Shock Treatment was its much belated follow up.

That was an illusion born of my young mind, but it turned out to be partially true, as Shock Treatment was from a completely different era, the '80s.

Where Rocky Horror was decadent, Shock Treatment was antiseptic, where Rocky was Dark, Shock was neon bright, where Rocky was celebrated counter culture, Shock satirized pop culture.

It was also filmed completely on one television studio set, and claustrophobic as hell to sit through. Its plot made no sense, and you began praying for Frank N. Furter to waltz in and save the damn thing. I liked some of the songs, but that was it.

So, I sat down to watch i with wifey, who likes musicals in general, figuring we could always eject the thing if we get bored.

My, my, this pic was ahead of its time.

We had a great time. Bernice even watched the "Lullaby" number three times, and I could have gladly sat through it a fourth. "This was really ahead of its time," she observed, and she was right. Now, the story of a town that loves TV so much that everyone spends their whole lives sitting in a studio audience watching game shows in which entertainers put ordinary people through marriage counseling and transform other regular folk into sex symbols and rock stars, doesn't seem absurd at all. heck, it barely qualifies as satire. And the cold, bright decor perfectly reflects the cultural change from the '70s.

It's not perfect. Author Richard O'Brien has a yen for meaningless dialogue that slows down a lot of scenes, and some of the characters and songs (there are far more of each than in Rocky) just don't add anything to the story.

But what Shock gets right, it gets very right, and it feels right at home on TV, as opposed to Rocky, which always seems a little orphaned on a tiny screen without people to yell over it.

It is now a permanent part of my DVD collection. I got it for only $2.00, but I think I would have gladly paid twice that for it.