loonyblog.

What a great week this is for downloadable content…on Wii (I can’t write that without thinking ennui) you’ve got the original Castlevania (which I’ve never played…was a Sega kid) plus two other somewhat decent games and on PS3 you’ve got David Jaffe’s Calling all Cars. But my mind’s made up for this week…there’s just no question for me. I’m getting Catan on Xbox Live Arcade.

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while now, but I can’t wait to get my hands on it. My favorite Live Arcade game to date has been Uno, but this should easily outclass that. Provided, of course, that it’s not completely overrun with morons, but I don’t see that happening. I’ve had a lot of awesome games of Uno online, and I hope Catan attracts a similar crowd. It should.

If you’ve never played the game, it’s a German board game that revolves around building settlements on the fictional island of Catan. It’s crazy fun, and yes, the title of this entry really is something you could conceivably say while playing.

So yeah, great week for downloadable content. I’ll definitely check out Calling all Cars (I hear multiplayer’s a blast), and I might get to Castlevania eventually (although I still have Castlevania IV and Symphony of the Night to play when I get that itch). But Catan wins my marketplace points for the week.

Also, I might get Centipede at some point. I love that stupid game.

More direct-to-DVD movie news…The Lost Tales the first (hopefully of several) direct-to-DVD Babylon 5 movie has a release date: July 31st. Unfortunately it looks like it’s standard-def only, but I’ll be renting it, not buying it anyway. And I’m just so damn happy to have new Babylon 5 content that I’m not complaining. Provided, of course, that it’s not as bad as Legend of the Rangers was. The less said about that snooze fest the better. Anyway, here are all the details on the DVD care of IGN, and here’s the box art, in all its Babylon 5 goodness:

A trailer for the upcoming direct-to-DVD Superman: Doomsday movie is out…take a look:

It looks pretty good. I like the darker look than the standard animated series/JLA style (seems appropriate), and it’s not too radical a difference. I’m not sure what I make of the principal voice actors, as there’s not a whole lot to judge them by. Adam Baldwin seems like an okay Superman choice, but Anne Heche is questionable as Lois Lane, and James Marsters is downright bizarre as Lex Luthor. But who knows…maybe they’ll all be great.

In any event, this can’t possibly be as bad as the last direct-to-DVD Superman movie. That one had decent actors (for some roles), but the story was so incredibly awful that it didn’t matter. Plus Powers Boothe is a good choice for Lex Luthor, they turned the character into a crazed clown of a man. Ugh. The less said about that the better.

This could be cool, and I’m hoping it will be. But what I’m really looking forward to is the New Frontier adaptation. That’s one of my favorite graphic novels of all-time, and with Darwyn Cooke’s background in animation, stands a really good chance for success. No word when that comes out, but the Superman: Doomsday movie ships in September.

Roger Ebert’s annual Overlooked Film Festival kicks off tomorrow, and even though Roger’s been fighting cancer, he’ll be there. It is, after all, his festival. But even though he’s been keeping up with his reviews, Ebert’s been fighting a much harder fight against cancer than has been previously revealed to the public…in an editorial posted to his web site, he quotes a line from “Raging Bull” that seems pretty apt: “I ain’t a pretty boy no more.”

Without getting into too much detail, his cancer spread to his lower jaw, which resulted in a segment of his jawbone being removed and then ultimately a tracheostomy. He can’t talk, and he looks a little like Darth Vader without his helmet in Return of the Jedi, but he’ll be at his film festival this week. As he says, “At least, not being able to speak, I am spared the need to explain why every film is ‘overlooked,’ or why I wrote ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.’”

(For the record, I think everyone knows why Ebert wrote “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”…or if they don’t, they haven’t looked very closely at Russ Meyer’s oeuvre).

Ebert says, “We spend too much time hiding illness” and has no plans to dodge any photographers who show up to document his condition at the festival. I say, right on…give ‘em hell, Ebert. And hurry up and get better so you can get back on the air.

According to the BBC, scientists have discovered Kryptonite in a mine in Serbia. The article expresses relief at the fact that it doesn’t glow and isn’t green, but anyone who knows their Kryptonite will tell you that’s a bad thing.

Outside of Smallville (the series, not the place), green Kryptonite is harmless to anyone other than Superman. But those other forms of Kryptonite are a whole other story. This chunk is described as being either white or “pinkish orange.” That’s bad. White Kryptonite kills all plant life. And pink Kryptonite? Well, I’ll let Wikipedia explain that one:

From an alternate timeline in a 2003 Supergirl storyline by Peter David, this bizarre variety of Kryptonite apparently turned heterosexual Kryptonians temporarily into homosexuals; it was seen in just one panel, with Superman giving flattering compliments to Jimmy Olsen about his wardrobe and decorative sense. It spoofs the more “innocent times” of the Silver Age (Lois Lane is depicted in this story as not understanding what’s gotten into Superman).

Yeah. Hopefully this won’t fall into the wrong hands.

You would think that would go without saying, but apparently someone at Marvel didn’t get the memo. According to the Hollywood Reporter, we can soon look forward to Spider-Man: The Musical on Broadway. Yeah.

The craziest thing is that there’s actually a lot of talent behind this. The music and lyrics will be written by Sir Bono and The Edge, and the show will be directed by Julie Taymor, the woman who taught me to love again actually got me to enjoy The Lion King on Broadway.

But really, there’s no way this can be good. “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman” was written by a multiple Oscar winner and a multiple Oscar nominee, but that didn’t make it any more embarrassing. I still remember the ads in Marvel books in the mid eighties about the forthcoming Captain America musical (seriously!), but that never actually made it to Broadway.

I have nothing but respect for Julie Taymor, but it’s a pretty simple rule…superheroes just shouldn’t sing. Ever.

First off, sorry for the lack of updates. This past week was unbelievably busy for me. We had a press event here in the city for a certain unnamable retro sci-fi FPS, so there went my blogging time.

One last update on my PlayStation 3 saga: I followed the advice of my fellow a/v nerds (Phil, Bull, Roushi, et all) and picked up a grounding adapter to cure my PS3 of its last bits of video feedback. The cheapo one from Radio Shack didn’t cut it, but this fancypants one did the trick. Upon fixing my PS3 problems, I actually noticed a slight bit of feedback in the signal from my 360, and the Radio Shack adapter cured that…go fig.

In any event, my PS3 is now feedback free. w00p. Now all I need are some games to play on it. I’m already bored with Resistance: Fall of Man…I want to like it, because I love the Ratchet & Clank games so much, but this just doesn’t try to do much. Hopefully the inevitable sequel will be a bit more ambitious. This was after all, a launch title, so I guess I should cut it a little slack.

I’ll try and update a little more frequently this week.

I had no idea about this…apparently Adult Swim is going to be airing a cartoon based on the Maakies strip by Tony Millionaire. Here’s a clip, featuring the theme music by They Might Be Giants:

I’ve never been a big fan of the strip, but I might have to check this out. It’s awfully demented.

Ah, out of context quotes. How I love thee. That quote was actually taken from a story on Scotsman.com, reporting that all the major players (director Danny Boyle, writer Irvine Welsh, actors Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and so on) have all agreed to come together again to work on a film adaptation of Welsh’s sequel to Trainspotting, the novel known as Porno.

I’ve never read Porno (or actually Trainspotting the novel, although I really should get around to that), but the original movie’s a personal favorite and I haven’t heard a whole lot of positive talk about it either. Hopefully if this does get made, they’ll work out the kinks.

Of course, this may not actually get made any time soon. The book picks up with those same characters when they’re in their 40’s, and Danny Boyle has apparently said that he doesn’t want to make it until the actors have hit that particular milestone. Ewan McGregor is 36, so he’s definitely getting there, but the dude pretty much looks the same as he did back then (it’s a little uncanny). Then again, maybe he’s just had great makeup artists.

So we’ll see what happens. I welcome the day when I can run to my local theater and ask to see some porno. Maybe I’ll take in a matinee.

Although my original plan was to drag my big ol’ PlayStation 3 back to the office today to try it out there, I decided to try one last thing first…I picked up the official Sony component cables and tried those out instead of my Monster PS2 cables. And I’m glad I went with that option…the thing’s heavy. Also, it worked.

More or less. I’m still getting some noise on the signal…I’m seeing nasty lines moving behind the image. If there’s a brightly colored image on screen it’s not noticeable, but when the image is dark, it’s painful to look at. I can’t for the life of me figure out why it’s doing that. It did it when connected directly into my television, and also when I went through my switch box. I’m having no such problems with my 360 or Wii, which are also connected to the same switch box via component cables. I even swapped the cable going from the switch box to my television, but that doesn’t seem to have helped at all. I thought maybe I was getting interference from the power plug, but when I move it to other outlets I’m still having the same issue. I’m stumped. I’ve posted to a thread over at AVSForum, so maybe those guys will know.

In any event, at least this works. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with it yet, but flOw is really cool. Very, very mellow. A nice change of pace, even if I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing half the time.

So yeah, I guess I just wasn’t e. I mean, I sort of assumed I was e, but apparently being e is a state of mind. Or maybe I’ve just been playing too much flOw. I was definitely e for that.