I Loves Me Some Heroes

How awesome was last night's episode of Heroes? If you said "pretty darn awesome," then a winner is you!

I don't get to watch Heroes when it airs on Mondays, since I have an outstanding date with Monday Night Raw every week and I sadly don't own a TiVo. So because of that, I either catch reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel whenever they are, or download them and watch them on my computer. I downloaded last night's episode and just finished watching it, and holy cow, it was great.

It's obvious that Hayden Panettiere is the star of the show, since Claire is the best written character on the show (with Masi Oka's character coming in at a close second). And because of that, it makes sense that there'd be a Claire-centric episode somewhere down the line. That episode was this week, and I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it's probably the best episode of the show thus far. I don't want to give too much away, since I don't want to ruin it for anybody, but the episode was absolutely tremendous.

I'll admit that while I wasn't too sure about the Mr. Bennet character when I first got into the series, but he's really grown on me over time. And because of how much he and Claire have grown on me, the episode really got to me, especially the ending. Oh boy, the ending. It was so sad and so heart-wrenching, I don't know if Heroes can top it. And is it just me, or is Heroes's Nuclear Man a zillion times cooler than Superman 4's Nuclear Man? Because he is.

I really can't wait until Heroes hits DVD. That way, I can sit down, watch every episode back-to-back, and see how everything pieces together. Heroes is an absolutely amazing and enthralling show, no doubt about it. And if you're not watching it anyway you can, then shame on you. Now I'm just waiting for NBC to give Hiro and Ando their own spinoff series. That'd be awesome.

Justice League: The Movie?

I was doing a little reading around this wacky thing we call the Internet, and I noticed a bit of news about how Warner Brothers is considering doing a Justice League movie. A script is being written, but that's no guarantee that it'll ever be anything more than that. But if a Justice League movie is put into production, how would they do it?

If it were up to me, I'd probably want to do seperate movies for each of the core members first, as kind of an introduction to them. They've already done Superman and Batman, and Flash and Wonder Woman movies are being worked on, so that leaves Green Lantern, the Martian Manhunter, and maybe Aquaman and/or Hawkgirl (depending on what "core members" they decided to use). That could get tricky. I could be wrong, but I don't think Hawkgirl and the Manhunter have a whole lot of big-name recognition. And people outright mock Aquaman for being kinda lame, so I don't know what kind of a reaction he'd get. And a Green Lantern movie could be complicated too, since his power ring can do pretty much any random thing he wants it to. It's like he's wearing a great big deus ex machina on his finger. So unless he fought Sinestro or somebody else with a power ring, people might just figure there'd be no drama in it and ignore a Green Lantern movie.

If they hadn't already done the Justice League TV series, I think Warner Brothers and DC could easily do something similar to Marvel's straight-to-DVD Avengers and Iron Man cartoons. They could make a mighty crapload of money doing that. But if they've got their hearts set on doing a live-action Justice League movie, I hope they can find a way to make it without it feeling crowded like the X-Men movies. I mean, the X-Men trilogy is like friggin' War & Peace with all the characters running around.

But I'm not going to worry about a Justice League movie right now. I'm too busy looking forward to The Dark Knight. That's going to be too awesome.

Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Time

I've been feeling awfully emo lately, and it sucks. I'm afraid if I get any worse, I'm going to end up dressing like Rivers Cuomo and listening to Death Cab For Cutie. And that'd be terrible.

But anyway, enough of that crap. Let's talk about something good. I just finished watching Carrie on TV, and every time I watch it, the more I fall in love with it. If it didn't spawn that awful sequel and that mediocre made-for-television remake, it'd be even more awesome. I can't really think of anything bad to say about Carrie. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie are both absolutely brilliant, and if I were to put a list together, Spacek as the titular telekinetic would be high on my list of my all-time favorite movie performances.

Everything about the movie is spectacular, and it's a crime I haven't bought the DVD and reviewed it for Sutton At The Movies yet. You know, I've got half a mind to do a big Carrie triple feature for S@TM, but I'm really not looking forward to watching Carrie 2 or the remake again. The sequel sucks hard, and the only good thing about the remake is the brilliant casting. Whoever hired Angela Bettis and Katharine Isabelle for the remake should be commended.

You know, if I actually do a Carrie triple feature, I think I might just get a little more ambitious and do Super Saturday 2. Remember Super Saturday? When I posted all those reviews of comic book movies? My idea for Super Saturday 2 is to do a crapload of movies based on Stephen King books. If you count the three Carrie movies, the two Creepshow movies, and the movies based on his "Richard Bachman" books, there's maybe a dozen movies or more I could do. Maybe I could even hold off until the movie version of Cell comes out and hits DVD so I could review it too.

If that goes through, I've even got an idea for Super Saturday 3: movies based on video games. I've done six of them already, but there's a number that are begging to be reviewed. I mean, I could have a lot of fun reviewing Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, or the Mortal Kombat movies. But in looking at the list on Wikipedia, there's a few that I don't even want to watch, let alone review. I'm not really interested in watching Double Dragon, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, or Wing Commander, and if any of you suggest I review a Pokémon movie, I'm gonna punch you in the throat. A man has to have his limits, and Pokémon is mine.

We'll just have to see how this goes. I don't want to put too many reviews on my plate, or else I'm going to get sick of writing these things. And we don't want that, do we? Of course not.

There's Always Room For Improvement

From the Joyride: "With Gemini: Dare to express three of your different sub-personalities." Hey, I'm a Gemini! So what's this stuff about sub-personalities?

Moving along, I was reading my review of The Blair Witch Project last night, and it hit me: a lot of my older reviews are kinda weak. I'll excuse my Blair Witch review, since aside from a few minor alterations, it was taken verbatim from a review I wrote for my high school newspaper way back when. But with the exception of my Friday The 13th review, which I still think is one of my best, my older work could be a lot better.

I think the biggest reason why that is could be how I've developed as a writer over the last few years. Most of my early reviews are pretty short, and not as in-depth (or as well-written) as my most recent ones are. I'm not saying my early reviews aren't any good, but I could probably stand to rewrite a few of them. Or at the very least, give them a few touch-ups. Something to make them as good as the new stuff, y'know?

It just goes to show what a few years worth of practice can do. I'm just happy I finally found a voice for Sutton At The Movies, because I don't think I could have maintained all three of my regular readers with those super-short, half-assed reviews I used to write.

Mother Nature's Coming Through

I feel like I've got one more post in me today, but I'm not sure if I have enough material. I really hate that, doing those "I've got nothing" posts. But I figure I can whip up something. How about... the weather?

Yeah, how about the weather? The weather's has actually been pretty nice lately, believe it or not. It rained a bit last night, but other than that, it's been pretty comfortable outside. It certainly beats it being 15 degrees outside. That sort of thing makes me want to rethink how much I like cold weather. I used to say I liked cold weather, but I think I should amend that to "I like cool weather." Cold weather and I don't get along too well anymore.

And that's all I've got.

Opinions On A DVD

Okay, I'll go ahead and make that ECW post I was talking about earlier. Like I said, I bought the new "Extreme Rules" DVD on Sunday, and I'm satisfied with it. I already have five of the eight matches on the first disc on other DVDs, and I wasn't really all that desperate to own a Mike Knox match, but other than that, I don't really have any problems with the DVD.

There's a few omissions in my ECW DVD collection, so I'm glad they included matches from Guilty As Charged '01 and the two One Night Stand shows on there. And though the new ECW gets a lot of crap, it contributes a few really good matches to the DVD. Though if it were up to me, I'd have taken out the RVD/Sabu-Test/Knox match and replaced it with the much better Dreamer/Sandman-Knox/Test match from back in August at the Hammerstein Ballroom. Or maybe they could have held off on finalizing the DVD specs for a few months so the Extreme Elimination Chamber match could have been included. But I don't work for WWE's home video department, so what do I know?

To be totally honest, I almost bought the History of the WWE Championship set instead. But it came down to a coin flip, and with the ECW DVD I went. And as much as I'd like to get that WWE Title DVD, I think it'll have to wait for a bit. I'm saving my pennies to buy Mick Foley's new book when it comes out in two weeks. I'm totally gonna have that on my bookshelf.

Mike Awesome Was Just That

I finally finished the second of those three upcoming reviews just a little while ago, and I'm going to get started on the third once I get it from Netflix. I've got three movies in front of it on my Netflix queue right now, so it might be a little bit before I get to work on it. But I'll have it done eventually, I promise!

In other news, I was thinking about writing a post this past Monday about ECW, since I bought the new "Extreme Rules" DVD after seeing Ghost Rider Sunday afternoon. But just as I got ready to start writing that post, I read that former ECW champ Mike Awesome apparently hung himself. And that's a real bummer. His matches with Masato Tanaka in ECW are some of my favorite matches ever, and I'm sad that he didn't really take off in WWE or WCW when he was there, because he really was awesome. He most certainly lived up to his name in ECW, that's for sure.

I think I'm gonna go grow a mullet and throw a Japanese guy through a bunch of tables. It'd be a fitting tribute.

Coolest Motorcycle Ever

So me, my dad, and my sister caught Ghost Rider this afternoon. And believe it or not, it didn't suck. My opinion won't be shared by everyone, and I'll admit to maybe being a teensy bit biased since I like Nicholas Cage, but I won't lie when I say that I really liked Ghost Rider. Yeah, it might have somewhat unbelievable effects, corny jokes, and an air of silliness to it, but I walked out of the theater thinking to myself, "Oh man, how cool was that!"

I don't believe any comic book fan will disagree with me when I say Ghost Rider is a solidly B-list superhero. If he wasn't, the movie would have been a summer blockbuster like the Spider-Man or Fantastic Four sequels coming out in a few months instead of being saddled with a release date in the middle of February. But let's not let that get in the way of the fact that I had fun watching the Ghost Rider movie, pure and simple. And having fun goes a long way in my opinion of movies. The cast looks like they're having a great time, especially Nicholas Cage, and while the CGI effects aren't exactly the most believable, it doesn't hinder the action scenes from being entertaining.

If I had to compare it to any other superhero movies, I'd say that Ghost Rider is probably on the same level as The Punisher. Not everybody will like it, but those that do will have a ball. So I'm going to give it three and a half stars on the actual filmmaking scale, and four stars on the fun scale. Take that for what you will.

Brazilian Spiders Are Nasty

After it came highly recommended by Libby, I finally got the chance to see "Sick Girl," an episode of Masters of Horror, just a little while ago thanks to Netflix. And I have to agree with Libby: "Sick Girl" is tremendous.

I don't know if I'd call it 100% horror, since it's very, very kooky, but I really liked "Sick Girl" a lot. I'm a fan of both Angela Bettis and Erin Brown (the actress formerly known as Misty Mundae), despite seeing a combined total of three movies starring either of them, but both of them are totally adorable. Even when Brown is spazzing out, yelling profanities, and punching herself in the head and Bettis is freaking out, they're just too darn likable. Somebody needs to put them in more movies right away. Immediately. Right now. I'm not kidding. Better yet, Showtime should give them a regular series to air after Masters of Horror. I'd subscribe to Showtime just to watch it.

I thought "Sick Girl" was entertaining, silly, and downright fun, and I'm giving it a thumbs up. Now I wonder what some more of these Masters of Horror episodes are like. I might have to check them out.

Thanks For The Snow, Mother Nature

So after this past Thursday's little rant against the lack of snow, what happens? We're actually getting some snow today. I guess Mother Nature didn't want me complaining about how she does work anymore. It's been snowing for a few hours now; not blizzard-quality snow, but maybe an inch or two so far. But still, I like having the snow.

My only complaint is that it didn't snow like this on Christmas. It just doesn't feel like Christmas unless there's plenty of snow, and we didn't get any until recently. I'm glad we even any snow at all, but come on. Maybe Mother Nature can make up for it next December. But I'm gonna go play in the snow while it's there now.

WWE Hall of Fame Speculation

I haven't done a wrestling post in a while, so I figure now is as good a time as any. So if you haven't heard, WWE has announced that the first member of the WWE Hall of Fame's class of 2007 is "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes. I'll admit that I haven't seen too many of Dusty's matches, but what I've seen of him has been really entertaining, and I think he's a great choice.

But it does make me wonder who else will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this year. Bob Uecker and Mr. T would be excellent inductions into the "celebrity wing," but I'd have to put some thought into actual wrestlers that I personally would like to see inducted. There's already a lot of big names in the Hall of Fame, but I've noticed a few sticking out that have yet to be added. Take Bruno Sammartino, for example. His two WWWF World Title reigns total just over eleven years, and I'm sure he'd have been in the Hall of Fame already if he'd accept an induction. And I think that Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat are definitely big names worthy of induction too, and adding them to the Hall of Fame's roster this year would be neat, especially since this year's WrestleMania marks the twentieth anniversary of their huge match at WrestleMania 3.

But who else belongs in the Hall of Fame? A lot of big-name talent from the old WWF are already in there, and I think it might be too early to induct guys like Steve Austin, The Rock, or The Undertaker. So why not induct someone whose greatest fame came from other promotions? If they can induct Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race, and Verne Gagne, certainly they can induct someone that isn't primarily known as a "WWF Guy." Ric Flair and the Road Warriors are definitely deserving of the honor, and guys like Gordon Solie, Arn Anderson, the Freebirds, and the Von Erich family have earned that recognition too. And since he's had a lot of impact on the business, Stu Hart could be worthy of induction as well.

Or they could include some lesser-name candidates as well. People like Bob Backlund, Mr. Perfect, Ted DiBiase, Jake Roberts, and the British Bulldogs are definitely worth nominating, and if it were up to me, I'd even add guys like Jim Neidhart, Jim Duggan, Rick Rude, Big Boss Man, and the Honky Tonk Man. And just to be humorous, I'd induct the Brooklyn Brawler too. I think he's earned it.

WWE's only announced Dusty Rhodes so far, and I'm sure there'll be several more names announced between now and WrestleMania. But it doesn't hurt to speculate, does it?

Winter Is Stupid

I used to like winter. I really did. But lately, I've found that I should really rethink my position on that. I keep hearing about everybody getting several feet of snow, but I've only seen two inches of it. It melted in no time, and even when it was around, you could still see some patches of grass popping up through it. But in lieu of snow, we've been getting plenty of ice and rain. Oh, am I sick of ice and rain. I'd give anything for a foot or two of snow right about now, but no, I don't get any. What's your friggin' problem, Mother Nature?

It doesn't help things any that the temperature doesn't get any higher than 30 degrees. If the weather is going to be all screwy, you'd think that it could warm up for a bit too. I'm just begging for spring to hurry up and get here, since I can't handle any more of this icy, freezing bullcrap. So quit jerking me around, Mother Nature. Either bring me some snow or just skip ahead to spring already.

Notes On Future Writings

Those three reviews are coming along slowly but surely. I'll get them done eventually, I promise.

On the topic of writing, I have to admit that I haven't put a whole lot of thought into writing that script lately. I don't really know what to blame it on. It could be due to either me being really wrapped up in writing my reviews, or the fact that I don't how how to progress a story any further than the ten pages I wrote several months ago. I don't really know why I can't come up with even a little something to further what little I have. I'll admit to not being the most creative writer there is, but surely I can think up something. Right?

The only problem I have is that it seems like most of my ideas are knock-offs of scenes from other movies. At this point, I think I might as well write a remake of a movie or an adaptation of a book. While I'm not exactly opposed to doing either of those ideas, I'd really rather do something original first. The legalities of a remake or a book adaptation would really hinder what I could do with my movie if I tried shopping it around Hollywood unless I was inspired by something public domain, but I mainly want to do something original to prove to myself that I can.

I've long been kicking around my "Clerks in a Wal-Mart" idea, and I think that I could have a lot of fun with it. I've also had the idea of doing something akin to Broken Lizard's Puddle Cruiser. I believe I might have brought that up in the past, but screw it, I'm talking about it again. Puddle Cruiser isn't the best of the Broken Lizard movies, but I'm fond of it and doing something like it would be both fun and simple. It's just a matter of coming up with something that would be in the same style without being too blatant of a ripoff.

It all comes down to fully fleshing out my idea, and taking these ideas in a direction I would be satisfied with. I don't know how I'm going to accomplish this, but I do know that this a goal I don't want to give up on. Even if I'm old and gray when I'm done, I'll just be happy knowing I gave it a shot. I'll figure it out sooner or later, I'm sure of it. I almost always do.

I Miss Anthony Hopkins

Had a bit of a boy's night out with my dad tonight, and we caught the 6:55 showing of Hannibal Rising in Bardstown. It made for a good Punisher movie, but the catch is that it was a Hannibal Lecter movie. Don't get me wrong, Hannibal Rising isn't totally awful, but it seemed like it would be better suited as an issue of Marvel's "What If...?" comics, where The Punisher is a cannibal in post-WW2 Europe. See, the plot centers around a young Hannibal, played by Gaspard Ulliel, seeking bloody vengeance against the Nazi soldiers that murdered and ate his beloved baby sister during the war. That sounds like an extreme twist on Frank Castle's origin story, if you ask me.

And I'll come right out and say it: the movie is nothing more than a slasher movie starring Hannibal Lecter. They could have named the lead character "Joe Smith," and it would have made absolutely no difference whatsoever. I did like the direction and the music, but the rest of the movie is just kinda there. And while he's no Anthony Hopkins (or even Manhunter's Brian Cox, for that matter), Ulliel isn't all that bad. The rest of the cast is serviceable, but nobody really stands out. I don't want to call the movie mediocre, but upon reflection, I think I'm really starting to lean that way. Pending a second viewing when it hits the DVD format in a few months, I'm going to give Hannibal Rising three stars out of five and a recommendation to see it only if you're a Hannibal Lecter completist.

Though in the movie's defense, I have to say that living up to the Hopkins Hannibal Trilogy would most certainly be a tough job. But at least Hannibal Rising took a shot at it.

I Just Don't Get Esurance Ads

You know what really grinds my gears? Those weird Esurance advertisements. If you haven't seen them, there's these bizarre animated commercials with a pink-haired woman ("Erin Esurance," I'm told her name is) engaging in a series of thrilling adventures, whether it be fighting robots in the Old West, partaking in espionage, winning a stock car race, acting like a superhero, or whatever nonsense the ad agency can think up. And in every one, she's casually discussing Esurance with "the mysterious stranger."

But there's a catch: I had to look up Esurance online to find out just what it is. And despite that, I still have no clue what these commercials are trying to sell me. There's so much going on in the commercials that the message gets lost in the presentation. And there's so much crammed into them that I can't make heads or tails of what's going on, let alone what the product is. It's like the ad agency decided to condense the movie Crank into a series of 30-second commercials for a website selling car insurance.

See, I think Esurance should take a cue from Geico. Those caveman commercials are awesome, but as cool as they are, you still know what they're selling. Esurance's commercials are nothing short of confusing, and it makes me want to pay even less attention to them than I already do. I doubt that's what Esurance wants people to do. At least, I don't think they want people to ignore their commercials.

So in summary, Esurance should either hire a new ad agency or tell their current ad agency to start putting cavemen in the commercials. Because the commercials they're running now just aren't working at all.

A New Tripleheader

So anyway, here I am trying to survive all this Super Bowl madness. And in attempting that, I managed to finish up one of those reviews I mentioned a while back. I want to go ahead and share it, but I believe I'm going to hang onto it for a little bit. That's mainly because as I was ruminating on other reviews I could do next, I had the idea to do a review tripleheader centered around a particular theme, a theme that will be revealed in due time.

It may take a few weeks for this triple feature to get posted, depending on how fast both Netflix and I can work. I'll get them posted when I get them posted, that's all I know right now. Have fun waiting, and don't let the anticipation get to you too much.

There's A Football Game Today?

Am I the only person on the face of the planet that doesn't care about the Super Bowl? I mean, really, the only thing I'd care about watching are the commercials and Prince's halftime show.

Can't I just fast-forward to March? I'd much rather watch the Final Four.

Adult Swim: The New Al-Qaeda

By now, I'm sure you've all heard about that whole stupid thing that happened in Boston the other day. So I figured I'd throw my two cents as well.

If you've been living under a rock since Wednesday and haven't heard the news, there was a bomb scare in Boston. But it turns out that they weren't bombs after all. They weren't even related to bombs. They were just a guerrilla marketing campaign organized by Turner Broadcasting. An advertising agency had put together a number of LED placards featuring the Mooninites from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a show that's part of Cartoon Network's late night "Adult Swim" programming block, and placed them in ten major cities around the country. They'd been around for two or three weeks, but suddenly someone in Boston confuses a homemade Lite-Brite for a bomb and things go crazy.

Look at that picture there on the right. Look at it. Does that look like a bomb to you? Not to me. I really doubt that Osama Bin Ladin would think to tell his henchman to construct explosive devices that look like Lite-Brites featuring obscure American cartoon characters giving people the finger. But get this: it was said that because the LEDs had wires, electronic components, and batteries, it fit the description of an improvised explosive device. Gee, if that's what homemade explosives are made out of, then electronics stores nationwide must be fronts for terrorist organizations. These signs had been up for weeks all across the country, and you didn't hear about Philly or San Francisco or any of these other cities panicking over them. It might be just me, but I think Boston really needs to pull the stick out of its ass and calm down.

Ever since the World Trade Center attacks, it seems like terrorism has become the new Communism. Everyone was afraid of Communism back during Joe McCarthy's red scare, and now everybody's afraid that every little thing is some kind of terrorist development. If you left a broken VCR in a cardboard box on a street corner before 9/11, it would have just been a cardboard box with a broken VCR in it. Nowadays, if somebody stumbled across that box, everybody would freak out and say it's a bomb. Is America that paranoid? Are we that afraid of our shadow?

It appears that the nation has lost its sense of whimsy in this post-9/11 America. And that's terrible.