Category: News

They’ve been waiting for months, and now the twin geeks have finally seen Divergent. So what did they think?

It’s amazing how money changes things.  Norm McDonald once did a bit about buying a friend a lottery ticket for a Christmas gift – “You don’t actually want it to win…”

Oculus Rift, the latest uber-cool project amongst video game mavens, just hit the jackpot, and a lot of people are annoyed about it.  The VR-goggle system, designed primarily for videogame use, but bursting with potential other uses, got its initial funding via crowdfunding site Kickstarter, much to everyone’s joy.  But this week, the company made news when it was sold for a staggering two billion dollars.

Sounds like good news, right?  A rags to riches, Local Boy Makes Good story, yeah?

It was bought by Facebook.

You can actually hear the Internet’s face fall. (more…)

This is the second part of a two-part look at the actor who has taken over the lead in Doctor Who. The first part discussed his work in Hotel!, In The Loop, and in the Oscar®-winning Franz Kafka’s It’s A Wonderful Life. This week, we focus on another upcoming performance.

There must be a law somewhere that mandates an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers every several years. Punch it up on IMDB and your computer will explode. Some of these movies and teevee series are quite good, others, well, suck… although I’m quite partial to the movie version that starred The Ritz Brothers. The latest version, The Musketeers, went up on the BBC earlier this year – it will be on BBC America in June – and it’s as rip-roaring as any. I’ve seen the first five, and I enjoyed them. Political and religious intrigue, swordfights, gunfights, fistfights, buxom femme fatales, handsome leading men… what’s there not to like?

Particularly when there’s a great villain in the mix. Only Ming the Merciless tops Dumas’ Cardinal Richelieu when it comes to great movie villains. And when it comes to great Cardinal Richelieus (Cardinals Richelieu?), Peter Capaldi is among the very best.

That’s saying a lot. Recently, Christoph Waltz played the part and Waltz could read off a bowl of Alpha-Bits and make it seem insidious. Other Richelieus include Stephen Rea, Ben Cross, Tim Curry, Charlton Heston, Vincent Price and, arguably, Michael Palin. That’s quite a club.

Capaldi’s performance is more nuanced than most. He can say more with a slight turn of his head than by eating the scenery, befitting a villain who’s in a British television series and committed to the long haul. Richelieu’s lurks over every scene, even in those episodes where he’s only around for perhaps five minutes. He is as smooth, as powerful, and as controlling as a true top-rank villain should be.

Coincidentally, The Musketeers was developed initially to fill the Doctor Who slot (in part) during the latter’s off-season. The Musketeers’ producers did not know Capaldi got the part as the Doctor until… well, until you did. Now they have to plan for a second season without Peter, and without Richelieu.

I find myself of two minds. The Musketeers is great fun and well-made, shot in the Czech Republic with an internationalish cast (mostly British, but many of the leads are from western Europe) and a costume budget that could feed a small nation. Capaldi is so good here that I’d be perplexed if I was the one who had to decide to leave the show for Doctor Who.

After going though all this material, I can understand why Steven Moffat and friends chose Capaldi for the part in Who. I believe he’s likely to bring back a bit of that crusty edge that most of the earlier Doctors possessed while interjecting his own unique quirkiness, just as the eleven – or is it twelve – performers who previously had the job.

Besides, the Millennials deserve a punk rocker Doctor.

Particularly one who will play the part with a genuine Scottish accent.

I don’t get it.

I just don’t get it.

Last week I wrote to both my audiences at ComicMix  & Bleeding Cool that I’d answer any and all Milestone questions. (Well, that’s any and all questions except the ones I won’t answer.)

Over at Bleeding Cool I got a TON of questions. So many in fact I’m missing my weekly deadline so I can better organize my responses.

And what about ComicMix?

ONE guy supplied ALL the Milestone questions.

WTF?

Translation…WHAT THE FUCK?

I just erased a few hundred words of righteous WTF wisdom. Why? What’s the point? I’ll just answer Doctor R-Man questions and spend the rest of the week pouting.

Does DC have to pay Milestone any amount of money to either publish Milestone titles or have Milestone characters appear in their books? i.e. in teams or in guest appearances? Hence, no Icon in the Justice League or no Static in Teen Titans?

Sorry doctor-that’s a business question best left alone.

Going from the previous question, is the reason DC isn’t publishing Milestone     titles or having Milestone characters make appearances in DC books because there’s not enough people purchasing them or enough demand to justify publishing them, as a result of those fees DC has to pay? Hence, little return on their investment?

(more…)