loonyblog.

Oddee, said to be “a blog on the oddities of our world,” has posted a roundup of some great old print advertisements. There are some real gems here including this one I’d never seen before:

Incidentally, while I thought it was great, the explicit Puma ad is of course, a complete fake.

You know it’s something awesome when I post twice about it before it even comes out, but really, in case there was any question, the recently released Blade Runner DVD set is one gigantic box of awesome.

I’ll start by saying this much: Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time. I’m not saying it’s the greatest movie of all time — that’s probably Casablanca, The Godfather, Citizen Kane, The Graduate, 2001 or any one of a dozen other nearly perfect movies. But Blade Runner is my favorite movie. No other movie fascinates me as much as Blade Runner. Its endless reinterpretations, its flaws, both subtle and obvious, and most importantly its fully realized world…everything about it just jumps out to me. It’s definitely #1 on my desert island movies list (#2 is 2001, #3 is Manhattan, #4 is Casablanca and #5 would be Kicking and Screaming — the good one).

Anyway, let’s talk about this new DVD set. I got the Blu-ray variant, but it’s also available in HD-DVD and standard def versions, all of which are identical. Major props to Warner Bros. for being totally platform agnostic on this one (even if they just decided to drop HD-DVD support, it’s good to go out with a bang). In the box you get five versions of the movie (more on that in a moment), a super long documentary, a disc with other random extras, a corny hologram film cell, some cards showing designs by the incomparable Syd Mead, a little origami unicorn figure (awesome) and a replica of Deckard’s spinner (also cool).

So the movies: the final cut is a slightly more refined version of the director’s cut. There aren’t too many differences here, just minor tweaks that are welcome. The audio and visual quality is simply off the chart. It’s stunning. Sony’s Blu-ray release of Casino Royale is the best looking disc I’ve ever seen, but this comes pretty close to that. And it also gets major bonus points for a super crisp soundtrack.

Outside of the final cut you get the director’s cut, which I feel has been superseded at this point by the newer version, but it’s nice to have it. There’s also the theatrical cut – which is great to have, since it is dramatically different from the later versions, the international cut, which is basically the theatrical cut with some violence that was removed for the American release, and most incredibly, the workprint edition.

To understand why the workprint edition is such a big deal, you have to know a little bit about the history of the movie. When it was released in the early 80’s, it wasn’t received terribly well. Over the years, fans gravitated to it, and started to dissect the movie, and word leaked out that the original version screened for audiences was quite different. The movie started showing in revival houses, and somehow (the full story is in the documentary in the set, as well as the excellent Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon) during one screening, audiences were shocked to discover a version that was dramatically different from any they had seen before. This version started to circulate as an unofficial director’s cut, and was ultimately a major factor in the production of the real director’s cut.

The workprint version is a strange melange of the theatrical and director’s cuts of the movie. There’s no voice over or happy ending, but the unicorn footage wasn’t included either. Ultimately I think there are only three real versions anyone needs: the workprint, the international and the final cut. The other two are just variations on the other versions. But they’re included for completeness’ sake, and that’s certainly welcome. It’s also worth mentioning that all versions are in HD (even the workprint!) but the transfers on the other versions aren’t nearly as awesome as the Final Cut. But hey, they’re in HD!

The documentary on the disc is excellent. It’s 3 1/2 hours, which may seem excessive to some, but it’s basically broken down into seven 30 minute chunks, so you can watch them one at a time or in one single marathon session depending on your level of insanity. The documentary has new interviews with most everyone. Harrison Ford, Ridley Scott, the producers, the writers, Paul Sammon (author of the previously mentioned authoritative book on the subject) and others. There are some areas I wish it went into more detail on, but it’s tough to complain that a 3 1/2 hour documentary is somehow not comprehensive enough.

Ultimately, if you’re a super huge Blade Runner fan, you won’t find a better package anywhere. It’s hard to imagine what else they could have included in here to make it any more comprehensive…Future Noir maybe, or perhaps the spinoff novels, but that’s getting excessive. This is the most complete, most loving package for a single movie ever assembled. I can’t think of any other movie where three versions are actually different enough to warrant watching on a regular basis, but that’s what you get with Blade Runner — and you get two more variants for good measure.

Now all we need is a new Blade Runner game (not that the Westwood one was bad — I still have mine!) and a proper sequel directed by Ridley Scott. Hey, it could happen…apparently he said at last year’s Comic-Con that he’s considering it. That might make my head explode, but even if that never happens, I’ve already got enough Blade Runner to last a lifetime.

One of many things that happened this past week while I was completely insane with other things was the semi-annual MacWorld expo. Apple had a few announcements, so I’ll take ‘em one at a time.

• MacBook Air: I’ve been asking for a miniBook for almost two years now, so this was the one I was most looking forward to. In many ways, this is exactly what I wanted. In many other ways…not so much. On the plus side, it’s nice and small, with a 13.3 widescreen display. That’s actually larger than I need…personally, I think if you’re gonna go small, you should really go small, and an 11″ screen is plenty. But since the overall unit is still nice and compact, the larger screen is cool nonetheless. I love that it’s light, and I love that it has a full-size keyboard despite its size.
   
  On the negative side, you’ve got just one USB port, which kind of sucks. I have two on my MacBook Pro, and they’re both hooked up to hubs. What people tend to forget is that USB is not some magical port bus that you can just endlessly daisychain. Particularly on macs, you’re gonna run into problems if you overload that bus. Keep in mind that on all other Mac laptops, the built-in mouse and keyboard are already using one of those ports, so anything you add to it is just sucking more bandwidth up on top of it (this is why traditionally one port on mac laptops is more reliable than the other). Having only the one port means that your portable mouse had better be Bluetooth or else you’re going to have to swap out between the mouse and an iPod or portable hard drive or whatever else you carry with you. I also miss the lack of an optical drive, although admittedly I use mine less and less when I travel these days. What it comes down to is this: the MacBook Air is a pretty awesome secondary computer, but it’s too underpowered (particularly the graphics card…ick) to act as any sort of desktop replacement. Had I $1,800 to blow, I’d love one of these. But I’m pretty satisfied with my current MacBook Pro desktop/laptop arrangement at the moment.
  
   
• iTunes Movie Rentals: No surprises here. It’s exactly as limited as I expected. Not being able to rent HD for anything other than Apple TV is weird, but whatever.
   
• New Apple TV: It’s definitely a step in the right direction, but it’s still a very limited device. It still offers nothing that I can’t do with the multimedia functions of my 360, and that has a totally kickass music visualizer and an HD-DVD drive. Apple really needs to put a Blu-ray drive in this thing to bring it to the next level.
  
   
• New iPhone/iPod Touch apps: Good all around. No games yet, which is baffling, but again, it’s a step in the right direction. The touch is still the iPod of my dreams, but I won’t even consider getting one until they release a model with dramatically better battery life and ten times the hard drive space. But once they reach that milestone, I’m there.
  
   

All in all, not a bad MacWorld. I’m still waiting for Apple to fully embrace Blu-ray (they’re on the board…come on already!) and hopefully there’s an iPod refresh coming later this year, but still, encouraging stuff.

Care of KryptonSite, I give you your first look at Black Canary, from the Feb. 7th episode of Smallville:

What on earth is that?

Granted, Black Canary is always one of the more absurd looking characters in the DC universe…she’s above Wonder Woman, but still well below Power Girl. But at least she usually looks sexy. That costume is just embarrassing for all involved.

Now see, this is how you do Black Canary:




Having said that, I’m still looking forward to seeing more Smallville, even if only for a short time.

Man, what a week this has been. Apologies for the lack of updates, but it’s been a little crazy around here.

The full story: last week, during a regular doctor’s visit, Heather’s doctor noticed that she had too much amniotic fluid, and recommended that she come in for a fetal monitoring. Through some random stroke of luck, she was able to come in last Saturday. I took her there, and during that monitoring, the nurse (who was extra-specially attentive, thank god) observed an unusual amount of activity going on down there, and what do you know…she was having contractions. She couldn’t feel them, of course, but she was having enough that there was a real danger of her going into pre-term labor.

So she was admitted to the hospital, where she stayed from Saturday to Wednesday. They put her on stuff to slow/stop the contractions, but also gave her stuff to develop the fetus’ lungs so that in the event that she went into labor and the baby had to be delivered early, she would be just fine. Fortunately that didn’t actually happen, but at least we’re prepared.
Since Wednesday she’s been home on strict bedrest, which hasn’t been much fun for her, but at least the baby’s safe and sound for the time being.

In all, this was a pretty stressful week. Heather’s 33 weeks and change now, but when she first went in, she was still at 32 weeks, and with this sort of thing every day counts. Right now the plan is to wait and see. We want to make it to at least 34 weeks. Were she to deliver then, the baby would still have to stay in the hospital for a couple of weeks before we could bring her home, but she’d be strong and healthy, with fully developed lungs, so that’s certainly good.

Of course, I’ve talked to someone who went through a similar situation only to have the baby delivered late, which just seems like a cosmic joke to me…I mean, can you imagine how stressful those post-term days must have been? Every sneeze would have to be examined as possible signs of labor.

Anyway, we’re doing okay here. I think Heather’s going slightly stir crazy from being trapped in the bedroom all day, but it’s definitely better than the hospital.

My usual nerdly updates will return soon…most weeks I usually have a few drafts of random crap I meant to post but never got around to, but this is really the first time I’ve had even the tiniest moment or energy to attempt to write anything. There’s definitely stuff to write, I just haven’t had the energy. Stay tuned.

David Cronenberg is apparently directing an opera based on The Fly, with music by his longtime collaborator Howard Shore. One can only wonder how they’ll depict the brundlefly on stage…hopefully it’ll look like this:

…although I somehow doubt it.

Honestly though, this makes total sense to me for some reason. I’m not sure it’ll be any good, but Cronenberg’s a weird guy. This somehow makes sense in my mind as a project for him.

Care of the Internet Movie Database, I give you the plot to Jack and Diane, the upcoming movie starring Juno co-stars Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby:

Jack and Diane, two teenage girls, meet in New York City and spend the night kissing ferociously. Diane’s charming innocence quickly begins to open Jack’s tough skinned heart. But, when Jack discovers that Diane is leaving the country in a week she tries to push her away. Diane must struggle to keep their love alive while hiding the secret that her newly awakened sexual desire occasionally turns her into a werewolf.

Wait, what?

I mean come on! What chance do normal humans have against Super Obamaman?

Oh, Rudy. To think I voted for you twice.

Man, I was kidding when I said I was going to name my daughter Kara Zor-El Nukem Bergman (well, mostly kidding, anyway), but compared to some of the names celebrities have actually given their children, that seems fairly normal. This is, after all, a list where Nicolas Cage’s son Kal-El Coppolla is number 20, which means there are 19 other names more insane than that. And there are some doozies in there, too.

For example, I’d never heard of “Tu Morrow,” or “Rocket Rodriguez,” both of which sound like rejects from a 60s era DC Comic (actually, one of them basically is).

It is somehow comforting to know that some day, when my daughter wants to know why her middle name is Nukem, I’ll be able to tell her it could be worse. I could have named her “Fifi Trixibelle.”