saw Big Hero 6 last night – great movie! While it’s a Disney movie and in some ways, in the tradition of Pixar (and since the Pixar guys are running the Disney animation studios these days, that’s not surprising) – it’s still unique in its own way(s), too.

Apparently this is a Marvel comic – I had never heard of it – but they changed the story more than a bit for the movie. While the plot sometimes clips along a bit too quickly for the story setup, it’s still well done and entertaining. And like with earlier Pixar movies like Up, they don’t hold back on the teary scenes either. Which I don’t mind, really (although Up was a bit extreme in that regard) – it means they aren’t just making a 90-minute toy commercial, after all. 🙂

There are echoes of many other movies in this one – I saw homage(s) to The Matrix, The Avengers, and Godzilla, but I’m sure there are others. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’m glad they didn’t go overboard with it, nor did they spend time with always-despised product placement in the movie, either (Michael Bay, I’m talking to YOU!)

Definitely worth watching.

Other voices:
Yahoo Movies
Rotten Tomatoes
Metacritic

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time to sing the Doom song!

It’s official: Oni Press is partnering with jhonenv and nickelodeon for an original Invader Zim comic, arriving this July!

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Got to go to the third day of the Science Fiction Fantasy and Short Film Festival put on by SIFF every year about this time – very cool! The first bunch were the ‘encore’ best of sci-fi shorts from Saturday (Fri night shows horror shorts); then the second session was ‘best of from the past ten years of the festival, including the winner from the very first one (‘They’re made out of meat‘ – pretty weird).

One of my favorites, ‘The Kirkie’ is linked below but i wasn’t able to find it online. Some other good ones are below the pic – click through and enjoy!

time travel lover

time freak (may work, may not)

decapoda shock – may work, may not

RPG OKC

wanderers – carl sagan narration

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Iron Giant: Up close with Kuratas, the $1.4 million, 4-ton mech robot

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An oldie but a goodie…

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came across this earlier this week – apparently they spoofed Samurai Jack on the more recent Duck Dodgers series – you can watch it here on YT – just fast forward to the 10:25 mark….this still has Mako in it (voice of Aku in the original) – it was done the year before he passed away…..

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In the effective winding-up of my recent ‘read all the John Scalzi books‘ quest (I tried Redshirts, but bailed out), I just finished Lock In, and really liked it.

This is a buddy-cop story with a number of interesting twists and nuances. Suffice it to say one is human and as always, the other is something else (modified human but fairly alien at the same time – this character, Chris Shane, is the central protagonist).

I won’t really discuss the plot because it would be easy to spoil it – but per usual with Scalzi, I liked the semi-regular doses of humor and humanity he gives his characters. And I liked the novel’s setup and back story – which I could easily see getting put into several sequels (hint).

Another angle on this book is that often in buddy-cop plots i’ve seen a tendency to have one be the sane one, one be the edgy one – but here, i’d argue there are nuances of each in both main characters. Clearly one is more edgy but it’s not the one you’d think and if there are more books, i’m confident Scalzi will explore this more as to the other. He’s usually not content to just treat things in a ‘Marvel Comics’ way where the super power makes up for or partially covers character flaws to produce a person we can still identify with – there’s more going on here, but it will take definitely more than one book to explore.

The pacing of the book is well done too, Scalzi is able to introduce the detailed backstory without bogging down in expository details for chapters on end (Dune sequels, I’m talking to YOU).

I guess a basic qualifier of a good book to me, anyway, is if I want to read more or hear more stories about these characters. Unlike Kerewin, I’m not as big a ‘cop story’ guy, despite keen interest in Ghost in the Shell and similar – yet here, I definitely want to read more. Bring on the sequels!

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the one rival to Nolan Bushnell for the ‘father of videogames’ crown…..RIP.

Ralph H. Baer, father of video games, passes away at 92

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While I’m not as stoked for this as I was for the second coming of TRON – and was somewhat disappointed – doh! – I have to say, this looks pretty good. Now to avoid watching any other trailers to avoid spoilers for just over a year……

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