the book is better?

how often have you seen a movie/show and said "the book was better"? i'm usually as guilty as the next guy, i'm also a big fan of stories transcending mediums, so long as it's not a literal translation, but rather taking the story to ANOTHER level (not necessary a vertical move, but a lateral one), that is more suited to what makes the new medium so special. so in today's post i'm going to discuss 2 such transitions done right.

the Divine Loophole

a few months ago, a friend pointed the Ramayana: the Divine Loophole out to me - a(nother) retelling of the classic Hindu tale. Sanjay Patel, a Pixar artist was inspired by a more modern novelization of the sacred tale (by Ashok Banker, of which i'm still only 1/2-way thru), and decided to make it more "kid-friendly." the end result, a beautifully simple and sweeping tale that captures the essence - if not the themes - for first-generation Indian-Americans to tell the kids that they're now raising even more far-removed from their (grand)mother culture . i've already bought a few copies for various friends with kids, the majority of which are actually NOT indian. a good story is a good story (and this is from one of the greatest stories in human history). and great art is great art (i mean, the guy worked for Pixar!). besides, it's about a blue guy fighting demons with his monkey-sidekick. what's not to love?

Versus the World

ok, this half of the post was a long time coming (in fact, many of you are probably wondering why it did not come sooner, and/or accuse me of coming up with the broader highbrow topic to just talk about the film). Scott Pilgrim VS the World. with all my going on (and on) about Scott Pilgrim on this here bloog, it was only a matter of time before i let my thoughts be known. but for those of you that don't know of my fanatism, let me give you the basics about SP. it's an indie (and award-winning) comic by Bryan Lee O'Malley - about an out-of-work guy in a band who meets the girl of his dreams (literally), Ramona Flowers. but for true love to triumph, Scott must first defeat her 7 evil ex's. along the way are plenty of geek-tastic references (video games, comic books, ninjas) woven into the comic book real-life witty (and at times, charming) antics. what's not to love? 

naturally, i was pretty jazzed when i found out that director Edgar Write (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz - both 5-star films IMHO) was helming a LIVE ACTION version of my new favorite cult-comic, starring Michael Cera (Arrested Development, etc) in the heroic lead role as Scott Pilgrim. once again, for those of you who missed it the first 37 times, here's the trailer:

despite my RIDICULOUSLY high expectations the movie was actually pretty damn good (4.5 out of 5 stars). so what kept it from being a 5-star masterpiece (like my other summer movie fave: Inception?) believe it or not, high-expectations are only part of it. what was really at work in that missing 0.5 was that i was TOO familiar/enamored with the source material. over the course of a few years, and six more slowly-paced black & white graphic novels, i got to know Scott, Ramona and the gang. for awhile i even entertained the idea that Scott Pilgrim was what Calvin (of "& Hobbes" fames) must have turned out like when he grew up. while reading the books, everything else (between the panels and liberal use of onomatopoeia) was left to my imagination.

the film was a colorful, effects-filled, fast-paced, loud-music, and decidedly different (from almost any other film made) approach to the story. not minding the story, the only thing in recent memory that matches the visual spectacle of Scott Pilgrim VS. the World was the film adaptation of Speed Racer a few years back (that's LOST's Matthew Fox as Racer X kids!).

the director's approach to Scott Pilgrim was NOT to make a literal word-for-word, scene-for-scene translation of the source material, but rather to build something something that was unique and appropriate for the big screen - cramming 6 books into 1 film (unlike Harry Potter, it would not have been appropriate to break up the story into several movies...one for each volume). 

so the film was great. critics (geek and non-geek alike) loved it, and the the full row of my friends i took to see it opening weekend had a great time (though given their silence throughout, i was a little apprehensive they might want to stone me after). the style was fresh, the pacing was fun, and even the colors/costumes/lettering felt like something out of a comic (in a good way). sadly - America did not feel the same way (they were all too busy watching Eat, Pray, Love and/or the Expendables). Scott Pilgrim wasn't the blockbuster to payback the high production cost and marketing, so only lasted a few weeks in theaters. the masses don't know what they missed. 


==


so what's the lesson learned? it's not (always) about whether the book was better. what matters is if the story can transcend itself to be told in new and different ways in evolving mediums.


that and everybody needs a monkey-friend.

my content conundrum (in the shallows).

WHY is it easier for me to...


...read the Starman, Superman, or indie comics/graphic novels (via the library, TFAW, or Amazon) VS the Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, or Ashok Banker collecting dust on my shelf/bedside table?


...skim/obsess through articles from Wired, Fast Company, and/or Google Reader VS sitting down with my weekly copies of the Economist and/or the New Yorker?


...watch an episode of Mad Men, [insert HBO series], or Clone Wars VS catching up on any # of films (foreign or domestic) that i've been meaning to watch?




damn you Nicholas Carr for articulating it so much better than i could have. but that doesn't mean i'm going to read your book (i just got 14 new graphic novels from the library)!

phone-evil, pt.2: she don't want no smart-phone?

ahh, the power of double-negatives (and poor grammar). like the double negativity of these 2 posts-as-fists in the face of the evil phone-industrial complex! WHAK! POW! 

phone manufacturers are evil (as explained in two parts) 


PART 2: she don't want no smart-phone? 


smart phones aren't for everyone. i (begrudgingly) get that. though the real icing on the cake was when my mom (and subsequently, my dad) got iPhones last year. i went thru a lot of phases (of grief) to accept this. for the longest time i was upset that they were spending quite a bit of $ (monthly data plans) on something they were hardly going to learn to use, but i eventually got over it. who was i to stop their adoption of new technologies? 


so first, thanks to Steve Jobs - for convincing my parents to hand over their hard-earned money for something they don't need (now i get my dad's objection to me getting Reebok Pumps in 5th grade). 

but this post isn't about my #1 reader (hi mom!), it's about my #0 reader, my fiance...who takes pride in NOT reading my bloog (since it's pretty much a distillation of all the other noise she gets from me on a daily basis =), so we can talk about her all we want here.


my fiance (to protect the innocent, let's simply call her "Katie") needed a new phone. the Motorola KRZR she'd been using for the past 3-4 years was finally breaking down. while i've had a smart-phone of some sort in recent years, she resisted, and i'm OK with that. 


her rationale? her phone was great, and worked fine (a battery that lasted for DAYS - remember that?). beyond that, she rarely texts, and doesn't feel the need to be online 24/7. why bother looking up random internet stuff when i'm always around (not because of my fake-omnipotence/know-it-all nature, but rather the always- on gadget in my pocket)? "Katie" is not too crazy about the Facebook or Twitter, because she recognizes the practical inanity of it all (one of the influencing factors of my "social media blackout" - which is more of a frequent brownout these days). among many other reasons, this practical, no-nonsense nature is why i love her (why she reciprocates still escapes me, but that's another post). 


and let's be clear - Katie's not a luddite. she's gets the interwebs. we chat all day at work, we're both users of the cloud (Google maps, mail, calendar, docs), she's an avid user of TripAdvisor, and she likes to her recipes online (so she can cook with chopsticks...how cool is that?). beyond that, she tinkers/takes apart her car + electronics when she has to (probably because her dad's an oldschool car-guy, her 2 older bros are electrical engineers, and i'm useless). oh, AND she's a chemical-freaking-engineer who formulates secret formulas in a lab all day (sadly, she has yet to concoct a concoction that will grant me super powers, though i am still hoping). bottom line?  she's way smarter than you + i mere mortals (and i'm pretty sure she knows kung-fu). 


but i digress. it's time for "Katie" to get a new phone. she still doesn't want a smartphone. she just doesn't see the point. it's just another way to spend money we don't need to. as with the acceptance of my parents unnecessarily wanting one, i've come to grips with the fact that my better half does NOT necessarily want a piece of tech she doesn't need (you should see the running iPod debate in our household). one day i'll convince her otherwise, but that day is not today

so it's time to go phone-shopping in 2010. as you may recall from Part 1, i recently made the smartphone switch from Apple to Google for a # of reasons (and believe you me, i did my research). since the smartphone market has advanced so much in recent years, i would expect just as much, if not more innovation on the lower end of the phone spectrum (no pun intended nerd-readers). at at least a common adherence to good/simple design principles. boy was i ever wrong.


pretty much all non-smartphones are total crap these days. remember the Motorola Razr (the predecessor to Katie's KRZR)? that thing was heralded as THE hallmark in phone design. beyond making calls - it didn't do much. it didn't have to. it was a great looking phone that fulfilled it's primary function. nothing more, nothing less. it was a great phone used by everyone, their mother and Jack Bauer/Michael Westen.  but good phone design was restricted to Moto - there were some solid phones by Nokia and Sony-Ericsson (even Spidey had one). 


fast forward back to today and take a look at again at the non-smartphone market (via the major wireless carriers in the US). they're all non-intuitive clunkers with far too many buttons, bells and whistles - VS simply being excellent at making calls. it is shockingly appalling.


what's the reasoning here? simple. by having an inferior offering in the non-smartphone market, the wireless carriers make smartphones (with their profitable data plans/contracts) more appealing and aspirational to the masses - even though they may not need it.


(sigh)


so on both the high AND low end of the spectrum, i have firmly illustrated why phone manufacturers are evil. 


believe it.

phone-evil, pt.1: goodbye Apple, hello Google.

a legitimate, long-overdue post (i always say that). but i feel compelled to write to tell you...

phone manufacturers are evil (as explained in two parts) 




PART 1: goodbye Apple, hello Google. 


so i (finally?) got rid of my iPhone, and traded (up) to Android. why'd i make the switch? allow me to elaborate, in order of easiest to most dramatic: 


1. my fiance was on Verizon. 
even though we're still living in sin, we're eventually going to be a family unit, which gives us all the more reason for a family plan (on a related note, see Pt.2). besides my 2-year contract with AT&T was up. 


2. i wanted to try something new. 
in 2007, my love-affair with smartphones began with Blackberry. i soon moved to Asia in 2008 and switched to Windows Mobile. and in 2009, after a tragic bike/phone-smashing accident (i ran into a pole, phone-pocket first), i switched to the Nokia N95. but this was just a stopgap measure. on the Jun'09 release date of the new iPhone 3G, i was first in line to get one. what began as a painful activation experience (i blame AT&T, as the folks at the Apple store were GREAT), soon led into my obsession/fascination with arguably the most advanced phone of the time. Apple made, and continues to make great devices (i recently switched to a Mac), and i mostly LOVED my iPhone (maximizing it's use for a music/media player, work/personal email, GPS, camera, etc). they changed the game for smartphones (sadly, i eventually had to cede my work email, and now also carry a Blackberry). and then Google came along with their goofy idea to get into the computer-in-your-pocket. now the only (major) player left was Google's Android. but we'll get to that later.

3. Apple screwed me (and many others).
unfortunately, like all marketers/manufacturers - Apple ultimately got too big (and partially evil) in the phone business, and stopped looking out for the little guy (me), prioritizing making a buck over optimal user experience. remember how i mentioned getting a Mac? well i finally got around to switching my iPhone over to my shiny new Mac, after which i soon received a friendly iTunes message asking me to upgrade my iPhone Operating System (OS) to iOS 4. now being a former ECE, i should have known better. new software is usually designed for new hardware. so 9 times out of 10, it's just going to slow your old hardware down. "but this is Apple," i thought, "they're smarter than that. besides, they're all about the seamless integration of hardware + software, so i should be OK." WRONG. upgrading to iOS 4 made my phone slow to a CRAWL. and could i go back to the previous version of the OS? not easily. were Apple really so obsessed with user experience, how/why would they make this happen to me? could they not have given me upgrade warnings, perhaps not even allowing me to do so (or better yet, creating an 3G-only OS "tweak"). i only found out the next day of this, and from a tech-blog, not some Apple press-release (tho i recently read this, but it's too little too late). i'm pretty sure Apple isn't this stupid (does that make them that evil? here's a similarly themed John Oliver/Wyatt Cenac bit). i'm pretty ure it's evil. they wanted me to trade up to a new phone (2 years later), even though i shouldn't HAVE to 

IN CONCLUSION. 
THAT was the final nail in the coffin. Apple got their way, and i di "trade up" my phone (and as you already know, it was NOT the iPhone 4). i got myself the sleekest (Google) Android-enabled phone, the HTC "Incredible." 


out of the box it took some getting used to, but my ability to customize and enable it how I want it (unlike the iPhone, for which you have to "jailbreak" to do so) is light-years better. not to mention i can "trade up" the memory (micro SD) and/or battery over time. and video is waaaay easier. i can simply plug-in, and drag+drop files to watch on my frequented planes and trains (whereas with iPhone i had to convert the file into an Apple-friendly format, import the file into iTunes, and THEN sync my phone. all in, a ~20/30 min process per video. bottom line, if you're REMOTELY geeky/computer savvy, go Android. if you're my parents with an iPhone 3G, hold onto it, but don't upgrade your OS (yet).


so that's that. i'm a GoogPhone guy now. 




coming up next:
      PART 2: Why does she have to get a smartphone?

get ready to waste some time...

yea yea, my sister got married last weekend. more to come on that.

in the meantime, here's something that's taken up too much of my day already:
(NOTE - i removed the embedded ad bc the song was getting annoying everytime the bloog loaded with more recent posts - you can find + play the interactive ad here)

WOW. a special kind of ignorance.

as many of you esteemed readers know, the staff at RamanCoke.com subscribes to a whole slew of emails from many different political factions. the latest installment from the GOP (which is curiously missing the signature of one Michael Steele) was quite interesting. 


we're not saying there were NO left-leaning provisions in the recent DISCLOSE Act - Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (strained acronym alert!) - which would force disclosure of election-related disbursements by corporations, labor unions and nonprofit groups (based on the recent alarming Supreme Court ruling that said corporations could basically pump as much $ into campaigns as they wanted)...


...BUT for the GOP to say/send this? 

amazing, eh? send this kind of email to its constituents is just plain silly. but i've come to expect that sort of thing from them.  though let's not leave the political commentary to the echo-chamber that is often the halls of RamanCoke, let's bring in an esteemed, outside expert. 


from the Halls of Asgard (now somewhere over the great state of Oklahoma), let's ask THOR, the Norse God of Thunder what he thinks: 

hmmm. i sort of get your point Wing-Head. this sort of crap makes me want to go curl up in a ball at home too (but i mostly just wanted to jam in a cool graphic at the end so this post wasn't a complete waste of pixels)


(sigh).

what...is...burn notice?

sure, there are far more interesting things i COULD be writing about, but as the lady-friend and i finally started watching the namesake of this amusingly appropriate SNL skit (in the summer hiatus), it felt appropriate to share in good humor:





if you actually watched the show, you might ask yourself "who knew Bruce Campbell had a steady job?" or say something like "i didn't know there was a modern-day Macgyver-ish secret-agent show out there!"


it's no THE WIRE, BSG, or LOST, but it sure goes down like candy. and then Don Draper had to come back and ruin all my fun!

spiderman VS batman. who?

no, this is not a post where i fanboy pontificate on who would win in a battle royale between 2 of my favorite superheroes (let's be clear, Green Lantern, the Flash, the Fantastic Four, Invincible, and Scott Pilgrim all make the cut into such a complex round robin/bracketing system akin to the World Cup). rather, view this post as a complex character study, where we make some elegant compare/contrasts.


but first let's get the basics info out of the way (for sheer entertainment value, as it really provides no useful context for the more interesting discussion below). assuming you live under a rock, let's first answer, who are they?


BATMAN  (a.k.a. "the Bat," "the Caped Crusader," "the Dark Knight," "the world's greatest detective")

• first appearance: Detective Comics #27 (May 1939)
• secret identity: Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy/philanthropist
• main squeeze: Robin (j/k, as Bruce he's a pimp and can't be held down by any one lady, though he fancies Catwoman and/or Talia, daughter of arch-nemesis Ra's Al Ghul
• buddies: Robin, Alfred, Nightwing (the original Robin), Commissioner Gordon
• inspiration: dead parents, bats, ninjas
• powers: none. he's just a slightly obsessive guy in peak physical/mental condition, who's trained to be the best at everything - fighting, ninja-stuff, detectiving. also has a ton of gadgets, cars, planes, etc with a bat-prefix ("where does he get those wonderful  toys?")
• notable media: 60s TV show (holy Adam West!), 60s movie based on TV-show, some Tim Burton movies, 2 crap-tastic Joel Schumacher movies (shudder), a few awesome cartoons ("the Animated Series," and "Batman Beyond"), 2 more recent awesome Chris Nolan movies, and even a musical

SPIDER-MAN (a.k.a. Spidey, Wallcrawler, Webhead, "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man," "Threat or Menace?")

• first appearance: Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962)
• secret identity: Peter Parker, freelance photographer, closet scientist, sometimes schoolteacher
• main squeeze: Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacey (deceased), 
• buddies: Harry Osborn, Johnny Storm, Luke Cage, Wolverine
• inspiration: dead uncle (Ben), pro-wrestlers
• powers: does whatever a spider can (sticks to walls, a "spider sense"); spins a web, any size (web-shooters), catches thieves just like flies; Is he strong? Listen bud; He's got radioactive blood (and thus the proportionate strength of a spider)
• notable media: 1975 rock album, 1977 TV show, 1978 Japanese TV show, 80s cartoon, 1995 Ramone's theme song cover, an awesome 2003MTV CGI-animated series (with Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of Spidey!), a few other so-so cartoons, 3 Sam Raimi films starring Tobey Macguire (the first 2/3 of which were really good), and an upcoming musical.

so what's the deal with these 2 (a.k.a. why am i bothering to write this post) pinnacles of super-awesomeness? it's about


...who are they really?

Bats is just a [war-on-crime obsessed] guy (with LOTS of money). his fanaticism stems from the childhood trauma of having his parents gunned down in front of him by a common criminal. but still just a guy (who dresses up at night and runs around in tights and a cape). to strike fear into the heart of criminals ("a cowardly, superstitious lot"), he has BECOME a symbol of fear and terror - or more specifically, a bat. but it doesn't end by simply putting on the pointy ears. Bruce Wayne IS Batman. and Bruce Wayne is just a mask that he wears to blend in around the rest of us.

Spidey is the everyman. as Peter Parker, he has hopes, dreams, lame low-paying jobs (with jackass boss), limited success with the ladies (though he DID wind up marrying a super-model, so maybe there's an aspirational element to it), and an uncomfortable amount of guilt. he just happend to ALSO be randomly bitten by a radioactive spider (it could have happened to any of us), got powers, and decided to make some cash with it. by shirking his responsibilities to use those powers for good, his father-figure uncle was gunned down by a petty thief Peter could have stopped (and thus the lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility"). and to this day PETER carries that guilt around with him. so everything Spider-Man says and does is really Peter (even those cracks he makes wise with the bad-guys, which is really what he WANTS to say to everyone else mean from his "real" life)


so there you have it: 
    Bruce Wayne is really Batman.
          Spider Man is really Peter Parker.




your welcome.

precious little life.

words cannot describe how excited* i am about this movie:

 

*(but am futily trying to keeping expectations low and bracing myself for heartbreak and/or disappointment) - august 15!


if you don't already know (WTF - you been living under a BRIDGE and/or not reading my bloog?!?) it's based on an india comic i'm crazy aboot. the final volume of which comes out in but a fortnight:

finally, i leave you, dear reader, with one more thing to rock your mind. IF you were paying close enough attention to the (international) trailer above, you'll have noticed co-starring roles by actors Brandon Routh and Chris Evans. what does that mean? this is a movie where the protagonist (Scott Pilgrim) fights (actors who have or will soon have portrayed) Superman AND Captain America.


believe it.

dog day afternoon.

aw.

jean-luc says...

and on a drizzly cliff overlooking the rocky irish peninsula, she said yes.

ireland pics.

this post precedes the next one, which is far more significant. click to peruse the (far too many) photos from our recent road trip thru southwest Ireland:

Éire.

for the first time in a long while - we're actually heading to a (fully) developed country for a holiday, VS some of our usual jaunts (Canadia doesn't count!). fancy that. 


i'll give you 3 guesses where:

spoiler alert: it's NOT the Gallapagos. and it's not easy being green see you in a week!

music + book club.

= musooklub.

several weeks ago i started thinking about music. sharing music, to be more specific...sharing music with friends, to be more social.


a few scribbles, pencils sketches, and ideas for pyramid schemes later, it was 1am, and i was sending the following email to a close handful of friends:

friends - 
had a social-music idea i want to try out for the next year or so. i think each of you is uniquely suited to participate. you'll get to hear some new music, and maybe even meet some (more) friends of mine. if you're interested. please leave a comment on the site ASAP. once we have critical mass, we'll get started.

so what happened? we started a music "book club" to discover a new album every week. still doesn't make sense?

who: 13 signed up - i selected 6 boys, 6 girls, me. i picked friends whose musical taste is a step ahead of most (myself included), with whom i very probably traded/talked music, or went to a show together at the point where our lives intersected. people from as far away as bangalore, brisbane, and portland, or as near as brooklyn and cincinnati.


what: we all take turns sharing with the group an album we've heard in the past ~12 months. everyone listens, everyone reviews (1 to 5 scale, with further commentary/discussion encouraged). i basically started "crowd-sourcing" my new (to me) music consumption. but everyone wins, really, because they get to do it too.

when: every week. members take turns making posts Sunday nights - 1 album a week. we all listen, review online within the week.

where: on the interwebs, a Google doc, and some other fun tools. beyond that, in your ears, on the train, at your desk, in your car, at the gym, etc. maybe we'll schedule a 1-year reunion on a boat in Alaska.



why: i like music. but i don't LISTEN to enough. i hear plenty (there's  just no effective FILTERS): radio-stations, streaming sites, magazines, podcasts, soundtracks, mixtapes, MP3-dumps, and word-of-mouth from trusted sources give me tons of ideas of what's out there. but like you, i keep busy. so more often than not, i don't make the real "leap to listen" (and learn more). so we all eventually go back to whatever's comfortable, familiar, and nothing really changes (enough). until now.

also - i like hearing songs. i like seeing bands. but most of all, i like listening to ALBUMS. from start to finish, an album, like a good BOOK (or film), lets you only know how you feel about it if/when you make it to the end. unlike books/films, this often takes 2-3 tries. what's better about albums - you can easily experience it over (and over) again.

so the klub gives members a GREAT method to listen to something new(ish) EACH week - from 12 other somewhat diverse people around the world. and at the end of the year, we'll have listened to ~50 new albums, and maybe made some friends along the way


can it work? so far we're 14+ albums in and going strong (though we're all behind, we're all committed to staying on the weekly rhythm. while we're keeping the immediate group closed, anyone is welcome to come to the blog, and maybe hear something new each week. if you engage enough, we might even consider letting you join. though nothing is stopping you from starting your own musooklub with your friends


so maybe the concept (koncept?) will become madly popular, i can write a business plan, get some VC money, scale it, get bought out by Google/Apple, and quit my job, start a band, and travel in a winnebego criss-crossing former Soviet Republics and/or Latin America.


OR i'll just listen to more music. and that's good enough for me.

summer movie originality (?)

every day i feeli more and more like an old man. Hollywood only persists by placing another a nail in my coffin.

at first it was music. more than a few years ago i finally caught myself asking (in actual non-mockery) "what are kids are listening to these days?!?" that's ok though, bc the interwebs is causing our tastes in preferred/popular music to quickly splinter. granted, there is still mass-appeal stuff that appears on the radio, but the distribution and consumption of niche tastes is easier than ever (a forthcoming related post on that). 


the same concept (mass fragmentation) applies for TV - network VS cable. don't believe me? google "Frisky Dingo." so despite craptastic shows like "Two & a Half Men" (that one's for you DB) beating out works of art like "30 Rock" week-on-week, i'm OK with what's happend to modern mass television (sorry Aaron Sorkin, big love Bartlett style)


back to the point of this post ("raman is a becoming a crotchity old man"): as i was recently sitting thru a # of movie trailers, it occurred to me: the concept of originality is (nay, has been) fast escaping the film industry. not to harken on the "good ol days" (but i will), but remember when it felt like everything coming out was new + different, blowing our collective minds on what could be done on the silver screen? Star Wars, Alien(s), Wall Street, the Shawshank Redemption, the Matrix, almost anything by Wes Anderson, Woody Allen, etc


so now what are we left with? here's a short sampling of the upcoming summer movies i'm actually excited about (with links to trailers, since many of the idiot studios DISABLE embedding), and i'll let you do the math.

Toy Story 3: Pixar doesn't make bad movies. in fact, 99% of their films are original, well-thought out concepts. BUT this year's submission to the annals of inevitable Pixar greatness a sequel to their sequel. milking a long-standing franchise for all it's worth. i'm sure it'll be better than Cars though.

Scott Pilgrim VS the World: based on a popular indie comic book (of which by now you should know i have a long-standing obsession), and directed by a Edgar Wright - a guy who makes hilarious films such as Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. still, it's BASED on a comic book.

the Last Airbender: based on a good for kids and grown-ups cartoon called "Avatar" (sadly James Cameron got to the name first) that famed thriller/twister M.Night Shyamalan decided he had to make when he got way more into it than his kids. as excited as i am, i'm not sure if a live-action film can beat the delivery of the source material.

Inception: OK. this is a pretty original/intriguing one. and Chris Nolan doesn't make bad movies. and as much fun as i like to make of Leo, he's a good actor who tends to pick pretty solid projects. so i'll be there. hopefully it doesn't go over the audience's head.






so 3 out of 4 of the movies i'm excited about this summer are by definition, UNORIGINAL. throw in Iron Man 2, and the numbers look even worse. OK, so i'm a bit of a geek for some (all) of those i bear excitement for, so therefore i grant that the source material must be equally as geeky.

factor in some movies i was NOT as interested in - MacGruber, Sex & the City 2, the A-Team, and the Karate Kid (which takes place in China not Japan, so is it actually about Karate or Kung-Fu?) - and the numbers look even bleaker. sequels, remakes, books, comic books, genre-sketches, cartoons, TV shows. it's only getting worse. and to make matters worse, the lion's share of actual original concept movies hitting the silver screen don't help the math, because they look like movies developed by marketers and focus groups.


i'm getting too old for this.

it's go[al] time.

the World Cup officially starts today (June 11 - July 11). 

despite hardly being a fan, i can't help but get a little excited. so we'll see where it goes (and how much i actually watch/appreciate). i've got other things cooking.

syrian comic books.

there was quite a lot of awesomeness during my recent trip to the Middle East. but you already know that because you already saw all the trip's pictures.

what you did NOT see was these little gems i picked up on the streets of Damascsus (Syria). sure, they're moreso coloring books than comics, but they feature the trials and tribulations of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and the Man of Steel himself, Superman. what really makes them great is the Arabic/English "interpretations" of what our 2 righteous heroes are really up to.


i'll say no more. enjoy!

Spider-Man:

Superman:

photos: montreal VS the karl.

between the spills, flotillas, lost and what not - there are more than enough things to write about. but i'm going to be lame and let mum be the word.

so here are some pics from our memorial day trip to Canadia - Montreal to be exact:

AND as a bonus, some photos from my good buddy Karl's visit to NY, which was way awesome (though the first 1/3 or so were taken with his phone, so pretty grainy):

NOW, when someone other than my mom comes to the blooog, they see more than just silly videos and/or me poking fun of the RNC.

next up on ramancoke: silly middle eastern comic books!