Wolf Gnards

We’re on our forth iteration of La Femme Nikita, and as hard as it is to believe it seems to be even less original than ever before. Nikita is the classic hot girl kicking ass scenario, and since that has become a classic film and TV plot pretty much demonstrates how used up it is. The ads for the new Nikita television show on the CW though seem vaguely familiar to me and anyway who has read a comic book in past 20 years (especially the Marvel Swimsuit issues)… Maggie Q’s new Nikita is a dead ringer for X-Men’s Psylocke. Replace the guns with katana blades and I think Marvel might call the lawyers.

The back story for Psylocke is too hard to explain to any non-fans (and fanboys and fangirls don’t need an explanation), it involves genetic race altering, various brainwashings, and like 12 kidnappings (Psylocke may be the most kidnapped non-sidekick character in comics); but for the layman all you need to know is she’s a hot ninja who kicks ass mostly in her underwear. And judging from the CW add for the new Nikita television show, she appears to be a hot mercenary who shots people while sitting oddly in chairs mostly in her underwear. I’m not saying it’s intentional, but Asian + assassin + lingerie = Psylocke. Add in psychic blades and gratuitous butt shots, and Marvel’s got a case. Part of the problem is Nikita star Maggie Q, who has been every comic fans’ choice for Psylocke since she first skinnied herself onto the silver screen playing various thin Asian girls who kick people.

However, this is how networks get you to watch, take a familiar concept (sexy girls go bang bang), slap on a familiar name (Nikita), and showcase a nice familiar character with a nice familiar butt (Psylocke). I would like a TV network to be honest and a name a show Babes & Bullets or Panty Kickers: which could feature a wide variety of panties, high kicking, and possibly girls in panties high kicking. If you’re not going to bother putting any thought in your new TV show, let’s really not put any thought into it.

An Open Letter to David Stern and the National Basketball Association:

Mr. Stern, with another collective bargaining agreement vastly approaching, I think it his high time for the NBA to take a firm stand against dogs, specifically, Air Bud. I might be a traditionalist, but dogs just don’t belong in basketball. So, why would you want to disclude dogs from shooting hoops? Well, as we all know, dogs are a gate way animal. And basketball itself is a gateway sport. First, dogs playing basketball, then what? Dogs playing football, baseball, soccer, or volleyball. Mules playing football. Monkeys playing baseball, football, and hockey. If the NBA sets an example, I believe other major sports will follow suit.

The problem is movies about animals playing sports, both amateur and professional, will never end until we make it impossible for animals to partake in sports. No one wants to watch these movies, but how can we stop if studios keep making them? We would think these films would simply run out of premises but there’s a seemingly endless supply of animals to mix and match with various sports: porcupines playing ping pong, ducks doing dodgeball, tigers trying taekwondo. It won’t end. And naturally we think screen writers will eventually run out of bad puns to name these movies i.e. Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch. But puns are easy and they don’t even need to be good puns to be movie title puns, watch… Duck Dodgers III: Bombardquack. Easy. We can’t rely on Hollywood running low on bad ideas, that’s all they have. No, if these films are to die, the NBA must take proper action.

The simplest way to ban animals from taking over human sports would be to create a rule. Why hasn’t anyone thought of this yet? RULE #1: NO DOGS. In every one of these movies, there’s always a scene where some dim witted referee consults a rule book and exclaims something like, “There’s no rule about dogs playing basketball.” Which obviously means dogs should play. So, if you make it an official rule, Mr. Stern, then these movies will finally end. This way if a dog accidentally scores a basket, the ref can calmly look at a rule book and confidently say, “No basket, dogs can’t play.” No baskets means no movies about dogs making baskets, which means I don’t have to watch Space Buddies.

Besides the rule book incident, every animal playing sports movie also involves a kidnapping plot. This is because the only logical way to stop a dog playing basketball is to kidnap them (or dognap them). Do you really want your coaches going around the league kidnapping the other teams best player? Letting dogs play just promotes bad behavior. By not banning dogs, you’re telling your coaches that kidnapping is not only acceptable behavior, but encouraged.

Of course, we cannot stop at the canines, Mr. Stern. Basketball should take the initiative and ban all non-humans including but not limited to aliens, robots, and demonic entities. Ghosts are ok, as long as they’re human ghosts; dog ghosts, alien ghosts, and robot ghosts will not be included. Dogs/aliens/robots could present an unfair advantage to earth-bound human basketball players. Speed, endurance, fetching: all superior dogs traits, all great traits in a basketball player. But it goes further. Most animals that play professional sports, however, posses super human abilities. Gus the field goal kicking mule, for example, can kick a football a 100 yards. Ed can hit baseballs so hard they leave a trail of smoke. Meaning eventually humans will only be able to compete by splicing their DNA with different animals. Is this the message you want to present to the world, Mr. Stern. If we take action today, we could also disclude animal/human hybrids, and their incredible leaping abilities.

So, during future negotiations with the players association, please, bring up banning dogs from the sport. In doing so you eliminate bad movies, sloppy play, kidnapping, and possible alien invasion. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Wolfie G. Nards

And if anyone agrees with me and would like to sign a petition, please, leave your name in the comment section, and I’ll make sure David Stern gets the message.

Here we are at Comic-Con 2: Electric Boogaloo… if you didn’t catch the first part of my San Diego Adventure, check it out here. As for now, alright, you got it out of me, I’ll tell you about Scott Pilgrim.

Where were we? When we last left off, our fearless Wolfie was trapped in one of many endless lines at San Diego Comic-Con. No hope to see a cool panel. No hope for a cheap meal. Powerless and basically sealed in a cement tomb with thousands of nerds with limited to debilitating social skills. But there’s a bright shiny spot: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Comic-con provided three free screenings for those willing to put in the time and effort.

So, I did not get to see many of the big stars, and I didn’t get into many of the panels I set out to get into, so on Saturday of Comic-Con I camped out for a Scott Pilgrim sneak preview. I had to wait 5 hours in line, but I got in. It was all very secretive and hush, they took our cameras, and told us if they saw a phone screen there would be dire consequences. Edgar Wright stabbed someone in the eye. But once Edgar stopped stabbing, he introduced the audience to the cast of Scott Pilgrim, even Captain America was there. If you squint at the photo, you can almost see something, maybe. The big blurry one is Brandon Routh, he truly is as huge as he is boring.

This made the entire trip to San Diego worth it. Comic-con pass, flight to San Diego, Hotel room, meals: all worth it. It did turn a free movie ticket into a a $1200 movie ticket, but still worth it. From the moment the 8-bit Universal logo starts, you know you’re in for a good time. This is a Will Smith summertime rap good time, good clean fun. And all the stuff about being packed in with anti-social people I said early, forget it. A theater stuffed almost entirely of fanboys and fangirls probably made the whole experience a 100 times better.

In a lot of ways, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is Edgar Wright’s Citizen Kane. I don’t mean it’s the greatest movie of our time. I mean that it’s the culmination of Wright’s talents, everything that he does well in a movie, comes together perfectly. Scott Pilgrim is basically Spaced if Spaced had an unlimited budget. If you’re a Spaced fan, prepare for the mind blow. If you’re a Micheal Cera fan, you’re going to walk away an Edgar Wright fan. If you’re Simon Pegg fan, you’re gonna ask “Where’s Simon Pegg?” That’s the one thing that’s wrong with the film, it’s a shame that what could potentially be Edgar Wright’s magnum opus doesn’t star Pegg.

What I liked about the film was that Wright was faithful to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s source material without being beholden to it. He definitely put his own Edgar Wright stamp on the project. A lot of comic book fans don’t understand when comic films deviate from the graphic novel, it’s just because a film is not a comic book, sacrifices have to made to tell the story in under 120 minutes. The changes were all done well and for the most part do not take away from the comic. Conversely, a lot of screen writers don’t understand that the comic book source material is something that should be revered, this is a sacred object and should be treated as such. Wright clearly respected it, while elevating it to another level. In a lot of ways, film is a better medium for the pop culture and media obsessed Scott Pilgrim comic than a comic book. The only problem I felt was that some of the animated sequences seemed wedged in, trying a little too hard to nod to the comic book.

I do fear many of the references will be lost on the film’s target audience. Does anyone under 25 even remember 8-bit video games? Maybe, they’ll get it. Maybe, they’ll laugh politely, afraid of not looking in the know. Also, at times Pilgrim was perhaps a little too gimmicky. The film never reaches the same emotion core as say Shaun of the Dead, and at times Pilgrim seems like a loosely compiled collection of bits and skits, but they’re incredibly charming bits and not hitting that emotional chord is almost excusable. Plus, deep emotions combined with Pilgrim’s flashy, fast paced style could cause seizures, the same thing happens when kids watch Pokemon.

Michael Cera was a perfect bit of casting as Scott Pilgrim, a nice guy that you wouldn’t mind punching, but you still would like to see him end up with the girl even though you still kind of want to punch him, too. It seems like Cera really only plays himself and it’s just fortunate that this works for Pilgrim. Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers is something I actually had a bigger problem with, and I love Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Seriously, I watch Sky High whenever it’s on TV and it’s on TV all the freaking time. She seems like she should be perfect for the role, as the dream girl type, the same way Zooey Deschanel is in (500) Days of Summer. In (500) Days of Summer you understand Gordon-Levitt’s obsession and feel for it, the obsession of Ramona is less clear in Scott Pilgrim vs the World. But she just never fully connects with the audience, and in the end, you want to see Scott Pilgrim end up with someone, but I really didn’t care which girl he actually ended up with.

Fun, flashy, a bit of fluff… you’ll enjoy it if you have a soul and some concept of popular culture of the past 20 years. If you’re the kind of person who glues themselves to a TV (like yours truly), you’ve found something new to glue to.

The lesson: I won’t be going to San Diego Comic-Con again anytime soon. I will be seeing Scott Pilgrim in the near future.

Let us go on a journey… a journey of the bogus. It seems to me that as well remembered as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is equally reviled. A man of a certain age and a certain time, a “Dude” for lack of a better description, will defend the excellence of Excellent Adventure with his dying breath, but that very same Dude, however, has nothing but spit and vile for Bogus Journey. Maybe, it’s because Bogus Journey is somehow both darker and sillier than its predecessor. Maybe, because it’s a time travel movie with very little time travel. Maybe, it’s because Wyld Stallyns actually played, and you can’t actually listen to the greatest music that ever was without it being a major let down. For whatever reason, because of this hatred, many have tried to pick at the bones of Bogus Journey with every little detail becoming a major crime.

What’s up with Station?

Specifically, why are there only two aliens in heaven? Well, we only see two, that doesn’t mean there’s only two. Plus, they might be the only good aliens, the bowels of hell could very well be jam packed with evil Station-like aliens. Or they could be visiting from alien heaven. And where’s Stations wang, you ask? Obviously, Stations need not wangs to merge, but merge by running out each other at full force. Or Station could also be a lady, come to think of it, I’ve never seen Barbra Streisand and Station in the same place at the same time. And why do the two little Stations combine to the one big ass Station? Because Station aliens not only combine their bodies, but combine they’re intelligence as well, and how else are you going to create Good Robot Usses?

How did they Build Good Robot Usses?

The junkyard robot is the staple of any super genius on a budget. Other famous robots made from garbage include: the Conky 2000 (Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), J-5 (Blankman), Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot (MST3K), and the tiny stichpunk robots of 9. What you shouldn’t be asking is how Station made robots out of household parts, but why he needed so many parts? Everybody knows a good junkyard robot only needs a garbage can for a body and two flashlights for eyes.

How did Rufus become Pam Grier?

The big reveal is that the club owner portrayed by Pam Grier is really Rufus (because who else would give them a break?) However, Rufus was thrown into the past with nothing but his wits, so unless he happened to have a Pam Grier costume in his back pocket, how did he come across such a hi-tech disguise? However, who needs hi-tech? Rufus could have easily have gone low tech a la Leatherface or Buffalo Bill. All Rufus needed to do was capture Pam Grier, skin her, then wear her skin on top of his. Easy.

How come De Nomolos wasn’t Stopped in the Future?

Since, De Nomolos was eventually captured and imprisoned in the past (and married to Missy), the future dudes obviously would have known what De Nomolos was going to do. They could have stopped him and imprisoned him at any point in his life. However, De Nomolos also set in motion all the events that started Bill & Ted’s career, so not only did the future dudes have to let De Nomolos run wild in the future, but they may have attentional let De Nomolos steal the time machine (which would also explain the Pam Grier outfit in Rufus’ back pocket). On top of this though, it would have been in the future’s best interest to ensure that De Nomolos would grow up hating Bill and Ted. Not only was there nothing they could do to stop De Nomolos, but they had to do everything possible to make sure De Nomolos would go through with scheme.

How did Bill & Ted Beat Primus at the Battle of the Bands with a KISS Cover?

Okay, this one I don’t have an answer for.

Which brings us back to..

The Clock in San Dimas is Always Running

There’s only one real problem with Bogus Journey, and it’s this, the writer’s forgot that the clock in San Dimas is always running. In a time travel movie, how do you make action relevant when time travel allows for unlimited do-overs? Or how can you be in a race against time when time is infinite? Back to the Future does it by having the time machine broken with an exact time and place where the time machine must be fixed. The climax builds toward this moment. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure did this through time always moving forward. No matter what historical period Bill and Ted traveled to, they still needed to be to their report on time.

This means if you need to be somewhere in 3 hours, you need to be there in 3 hours relative to yourself and your time line regardless of the amount of time hopping taking place. This is why it was so important for Ted to wind his watch and make it to their oral report on time. If the Bill and Ted from time line A weren’t at history report A on time then the universe would implode, and a Bill and Ted B can’t give the report at time line A because Bill and Ted B do not exist because the universe imploded. Get it? Me neither. But this does change the fact Bogus Journey ignored this rule entirely. In Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, they leave the concert in the time machine and practice for 16 months and then return to perform at the Battle of the Bands. This is impossible because the clock in San Dimas is always running, it means Bill and Ted would have been a year and a half late for the concert (not counting their medieval honeymoon). The Bill and Ted of that that time and that place have to perform the show, not a future version of Bill and Ted or else the temporal paradox that was threatening the first movie would form and the future would be destroyed or unraveled or whatever future’s are want to do.

Scientific Illustration of Tachyon Particle

By far my favorite bit of Sci-fi voodoo… a little deus ex tachyon particles. Meaning when in doubt throw in some tachyons. Are you a screen writer, and have you written yourself into a corner? No need to fear, tachyon particles are here. Call it a MacGuffin, call it technobabble, call it anything you want, the tachyon is your way out. What can a tachyon do, you ask? What can’t they do? Spilled some red wine? Tachyons and club soda will get that right out. Killer shark off the coast? Explode some tachyons in its jaws. Have a friend trapped behind enemy lines? Give that tachyon a gun?

What is a Tachyon?

A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that move faster than the speed of light. Unlike ordinary particles (bread crumbs, Legos, and such), a tachyon’s speed increases when energy decreases, which means once set in motion the tachyon particle would keep moving on and on, faster and faster. Being a subatomic particle also means it’s much smaller than your average Lego, making a tachyon not particularly useful for travel. In science fiction and hypothetical theory, tachyons are used for transporting not people, but data, mostly for interstellar communication. However, if tachyons are used to “phone home” you run into a slight dilemma known as the “Tachyon Telephone Paradox.”

The Tachyon Telephone Paradox

Faster than light communication sounds awfully cool, but there’s a hitch: the tachyon telephone paradox. If you use tachyon particles to place a phone call (sometimes called the tachyonic anti-telephone), you’ll end up sending the call before you actually make the call. This is home it works, as an object approaches the speed of light, time actually slows down, and once a object actually passes the speed of light (which a Tachyon would eventually do), time moves backwards. So, your call would actually arrive to your outpost or destroyer fleet before you actually even made the call. Is this why my iPhone drops so many calls?

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A nice disembodied head represent all that mankind hopes to aspire to. This is life everlasting. For a head. A giant head harkens back to birth as in an oversized baby’s head—big and full of life—but simultaneously it represents all that can be known for surely a living head is filled with knowledge. Innocence and wisdom, magic and science. And severed heads are just fun for the whole family.

Here are some the top disembodied heads, be they floating or giant or both.

Chesire Cat

Alice in Wonderland’s Chesire Cat possesses undefined and potentially unlimited powers that include invisibility, transmogrification, and teleportation. He’s kind of like Firestorm or Houdini, but more kittenish. In fact, like most kittens the Chesire Cat has evil running through his veins, but the adorable kind of evil. Chesire Cat’s greatest ability though is his complete immunity to head offing, because how can you off with his head someone without a body?

King of the Moon

Combine Terry Gilliam’s native strangeness with an unlimited bloated budget and Robin Williams with an unlimited supply of cocaine and what you have is the King of the Moon. The King of the Moon from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a gigantic head that attaches to a body through matching plates and can fly off into space like a pop top. The King of the Moon separated himself from his body to keep his intellect away from the body’s baser more sexual needs.

Wilson

Wilson is perhaps the greatest actor of our time. Wilson is one of the biggest grossing volleyballs of all time. I liked that Wilson had actual lines written for him in the script fro Cast Away, but I hated hearing that Robert Zemeckis read the lines out as they shot. Can’t you just let Wilson do it himself? I think it takes away from what Wilson was able to do on screen. That’s like hearing that Gollum or Yoda wasn’t real.

The Head of Richard Nixon

Of all of Futurama’s heads in jars (God bless you Ron Popeil), Nixon is perhaps the greatest head of all. Not only had Nixon not been in office for 40 plus years when Fururama was made, but he had been dead for nearly 10 years when it first ran. Originally just another head in the illustrious Hall of Presidents, Nixon’s head would go on to become President of the Earth and start intergalactic wars with just about every alien race available. Billy West described the voice he used as not an imitation of Nixon, but of Anthony Hopkins’s imitation of Nixon with “a little bit of werewolf,” thrown in.

Sinistar

Tons of video games have featured various floating heads in space be it floating Medusa head or some sort of alien zombie super being. Perhaps, heads in video games started with the classic goomba, which are little more than walking mushroom heads just waiting to be stomped on by Mario’s heavy work boots. Or way back to Pac-man himself—a pizza shaped head that eats cherries and ghosts. Sinistar, though, is the standard in video game heads. Sinistar is a giant robot skeleton head that eats spaceships and shouts about Ron Howard. Beware, I live!

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