Months before the release of Knocked Up, the early reviews and word of mouth were incredibly strong, perhaps the strongest advance word anyone could remember on a recent film. Several months ago, no-nonsense Hollywood journalist Nikki Finke wrote in her Deadline Hollywood column, “Jeez, everyone is gushing over Knocked Up. This is just insane. And I’m talking about people whose taste and acumen I respect. As opposed to most of the morons out there.” Does the film live up to the hype? Two weeks before the movie opened, I attended the premiere in Westwood, CA, and found out for myself.

There was a nice surprise at the beginning of the premiere that kept in spirit of the movie. Before Knocked Up started rolling, its writer / director Judd Apatow brought up his cousin and his girlfriend because he had something special he wanted to ask her, and he picked to premiere as the ideal venue. It sure wasn’t hard to figure out what he wanted to say, but the poor guy just didn’t have the courage to speak. So Apatow called up Jack Black to say the words Apatow’s cousin was too nervous to utter. Apatow then told Black to talk about the journey they could take together, and he sang, “Don’t Stop Belivin’.” In short, Black asked on behalf of Apatow’s cousin if she’d marry him, and she said yes.

After the film, we saw the bride to be at the after party, along with the whole cast, all basking in the screening’s afterglow. I also spotted Edward Norton, Ben Stiller hobnobbing with Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire, Spider-Man alumni James Franco (who has a small role in the film) former Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo, Gary Shandling, who probably had the largest entourage of anyone in attendance, as well as a lot of scary looking Hollywood agents all wearing black, most of them bald, with malevolent focus in their eyes. As Finke pointed out in her column, Apatow is the hottest thing since sliced bread right now, and with the biggest talent agencies trying to poach him, his people were probably trained to kill in case anyone tried to lead him away at the premiere.

But enough of the celebrity scene at the premiere, it’s the movie that’s most important, and it indeed lives up to the hype and then some. It is a mercilessly hysterical film, merciless in that there’s one great laugh after another, after another, after another, giving the audience scant room to catch its breath. Unless you are completely devoid of any sense of humor, it’s impossible not to laugh at this movie. The film’s review in Variety was right on target: “Line for line, minute to minute, Judd Apatow’s latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory.”

Knocked Up is also a very smart and well-crafted comedy. The characters don’t change or develop too quickly, and whatever victories they achieve in the story are earned. You’re rooting for this average guy, Seth Rogen, to end up staying with the beautiful Katherine Heigl, but if their romance bloomed too soon, it would feel tacked on and phony. Thankfully Apatow’s touch is just right, and he never shows his cards too soon.

Knocked Up is also a very smart comedy in that it blends guy humor and chick flick stuff well, making it a perfect date film, which will certainly increase its box-office potential. It’s one of those great films where the planets align and everything comes together right.

Finally, Knocked Up is a strong ray of hope for movies this summer because it’s not a tired sequel or remake. Nor is it based on a comic book, video game, or toy. It’s a brilliant original movie, and I hope its success will prove in this day and age they can still be successful.

The more I see of Michael Bay's "Transformers", the better it looks. I'm already looking forward to "Transformers 2" which needs to have both Dinobots and Constructicons (including a Devastator appearance). I'm not sure where this first clip originated other than the MTV title, but I assume it was shown during the movie awards. MTV awarded "Transformers" with "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet." Hmm... Yes, I think they are creating awards to work in promotional tie-in deals with movies. I guess that's OK. All the award ceremonies are pretty meaningless so at the least the MTV Movie Awards are comfortable wallowing in it as opposed to pretending to be hugely important.

Anyway..."Transformers" is why you're here. This isn't a single scene from the film, but rather a mishmash collage of scenes. I think it's great, but I'm a sucker for action scenes and car chases cut up with speed ramping set to heavy metal.

This clip I found on Michael Bay's blog because I read it every day (no, not really). There's another clip on there of Bay receiving the above mentioned award from MTV, but you do not want to watch it. It's EXCRUCIATINGLY awkward.

It's hard to see from these low-fi clips, but the effects look pretty convincing so far.

As my editor, Rob Wright, and I attended the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors several weekends ago, an interesting debate came up. In the classic horror film Phantasm, the main villain, known only as The Tall Man, uses his evil powers to shrink people down to size so they can serve as slaves in another dimension. They wear dark brown cloaks, very similar to the jawas in Star Wars. Its odd to think that both movies that were worlds apart had this strange dwarf synergy to them, and with the 30th anniversary of Star Wars coming up, the question was raised: Who came up with the hooded creatures first?

As Phantasm writer / director Don Coscarelli recalled, “The idea was trying to come up with something weird the tall man would do. This idea came to me, ‘Well, what if he took a human and shrunk it down?’ We couldn’t really afford to do that kind of a make-up effect on our budget, so we got the cloaks, and there were these kids next door to this house we were filming. We recruited them to come over and play the dwarf creatures, and these kids were made like rubber. They would jump off boxes and fight (Phantasm star) Reggie Bannister, and they had a good ol’ time.”

When asked if the Phantasm team invented the dwarves before anyone saw the jawas in Star Wars, Coscarelli joked, “Yeah, we did. George Lucas stole it from us! No, truthfully what happened was we were filming the movie, and we shot for about three months. Then somebody came in and said, ‘Oh, we saw a trailer for a movie called Star Wars and your little guys are in it!’ So we went and saw the trailer, and thought about changing the color of their robes, but it was just too much of a hassle on a small budget movie. So we just decided, ‘Ah, that movie will come and go, and we’ll just go ahead with this.’”

Phantasm was made with independent money, with the film often being shot on weekends, and was released by Avco Embassy in March 1979. By the time it was released, it’s hard to recall if anyone ever noticed that both movies had similar little guys running around in hoods, but it should be clear to anyone watching both films that it was an accident of some weird dwarf zeitgeist, and nothing more.

"War. War never changes."

And if things go as planned, neither will the Fallout franchise. Bethesda Softworks release the first trailer for the long-awaited title Fallout 3.

We're not going to go into every book this week (or any week from here on out), but rather just pick the top few from our pile. Let's face it, not all comics are good and even the ones that are good are sometimes crap on an issue-to-issue level. It can't all be gold.

Dark Horse

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #4 - Here we are at the end of the first story arc for Buffy Season 8, and it ended (like many many comics these days) with a bit of a whimper. I feel like they are building to something, but I'm a little afraid that what they are building to is X-Men. Buffy goes into a little feminism rant there at the end that comes out of nowhere, but it's still a good book. I'm not crazy about Georges Jeanty's art, but it doesn't bother me enough to take away from the enjoyment. There aren't any pages I want poster-sized, though. Whedon's writing is staying inside the feeling of the show while also branching out into a bigger world. That's what will keep me buying, at least for now.

DC

Batman: Detective Comics #833 - It's nice to read Batman comics that still have that police procedural feeling to them. Paul Dini's stand-alone DETECTIVE COMICS issues are well-written, solid Batman stories that steer clear of the world-ending "crises" that threaten the DC universe on a weekly basis. This issue has a "to be continued" at the end, and I'm not sure how many parts the story is in, but so far it's a good start. What begins as a fairly standard Batman murder case involving a magician and Zatanna turns into something much more sinister (read "better") at the end. I also like the nod to the events of IDENTITY CRISIS when Zatanna turned on Batman. That kind of thing should stain a relationship, and bitterness and hard feelings should come up from time to time.

Marvel

Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears #5 - I've said this before and I'm going to keep saying it: I can't get enough of Clayton Crain's art. His work on the Ghost Rider mini-series from a few years ago was outstanding, but it was also very busy at times. It was difficult to see everything that was going on in a panel. The art in TRAIL OF TEARS is cleaner, but that may also have to do with there being fewer tentacles and exposed spines. The art's amazing, but Garth Ennis's story is a perfect mix of western characters and gothic horror elements. You don't have to be a Ghost Rider fan to enjoy this book, and it will probably help if you aren't. A rider is present, but doesn't appear much through the early portions of the story. He's mostly cloaks and shadows when seen, but there are rare occassions where he's all skull-and-flames. If you're not already buying this you might wait for a trade at this point (the next issue is the end). It's a great example of stunning art and fantastic storytelling outside the typical Marvel superhero world.

Also in the pull this week are:

DC
Countdown #47 - That's a fantastic cover.

Image
Spawn #168 - Spawn fights the Violator. I feel like it's 1992 all over again.

Marvel
Avengers Initiative #3 - Not all bad and with a Spider-Man cameo to boot.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born #5 - Someone tell Peter David that "Wizard and Glass" has been out for a long time. It's all rehash aside from the mythology at the end of the issue (that is written in prose).

Iron Man #18 - I guess he isn't "Invincible" anymore if the book is just called IRON MAN now. Give me more Mandarin and less whatever was happening this issue.

Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness #4 - Ash talks trash to Dr. Doom.

Omega Flight - Horse-faced Thor fights the Wrecking Crew. Interest...fading...

There have been plenty of bad games through the course of the history of the video and PC game industry. But a lot of those games started with a decent enough idea or concept and then lost their way during the development phase and ended up being terrible. But there are a select group of bad games out there that were pretty much doomed from the beginning because they started with an idea so dreadfully bad that no amount of design expertise or brilliance could save them. With that in mind, I give you two games on the horizon that appear to fit the “worst idea ever” category.

1982 is now a year that’s being hailed as one of the best in genre cinema history. Now to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that great genre year, Geek Monthly and The American Cinematheque will be showcasing “A Salute to Geek Greatness!,” from June 15-17 at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, CA.

On Friday June 15 at 7:30 is a double feature of John Carpenter’s The Thing, which after its initial critical drubbing is finally getting its due, and Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People. There will also be a Q&A with The Thing’s director of photography Dean Cundey, Cundey’s long time camera-operator Ray Stella, and Visual effects supervisor Tom Burman (Cundey and Stella, who also shot Carpenter’s Halloween, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park, will be featured in an exclusive TwitchGuru interview coming soon).

On Saturday, June 16 at 3:00 P.M. is a family matinee of Jim Henson’s under-rated fantasy The Dark Crystal. Then at 7:30 is a double bill of Poltergeist, and the George A. Romero / Stephen King collaboration Creepshow.

Then on Sunday June 17 at 5:00 P.M. is a genre geek’s ultimate fantasy come to life with a double bill of Tron, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Not only will the Aero be showing a brand new 70mm print of Tron (!), but also onboard for Q&A’s will be Tron writer / director Steve Lisberger, Tron visual effects supervisors Harrison Ellenshaw and Richard Taylor, and Star Trek II writer / director Nicholas Meyer (did we mention they’re showing the director’s cut of Khan?).

Having been to a number of American Cinematheque screenings over the years, I can attest its great fun to see the classic revivals they program with an audience full of fans, and the filmmakers taking questions from the crowd. Plus for $10 admission, you’re really getting your money’s worth.

For more info:

www.americancinematheque.com

www.myspace.com/americancinematheque

And you can order tickets online at: www.fandango.com

Last chance...

Why do we watch TV shows and go to movies? To be entertained surely, but a lot of it has to do with the desire to see a good story. As a matter of fact, much of the entertainment industry is a result of someone saying, "Hey! Tell me a good story!" A good story, regardless of what act structure you're using, can be broken down into three parts; a beginning, a middle, and the all important ending. The ending is why we're there. The beginning got us interested, the middle keeps us interested, but what we really want to know is, "how's it end?" For this reason, the ending of The Sopranos is absolutely terrible. All you people out there claiming it's "brilliant" are fooling yourselves. Ambiguity is not brilliant, it's cowardly. David Chase started telling this story. HE should finish it. Not me. If he wants me to finish it, I want to be paid. Chase has stated in interviews before when the series was being criticized for "nothing happening" that he went out of his way to make sure even less happened. This ending screams of this kind of arrogant, spiteful writing.

There are those people (you know who they are) who will say, "You just didn't understand the ending." Oh, I understood it. Nothing happened. There seems to be a contingent of people out there claiming that the Sopranos were all killed in that diner. They are wrong. The sudden cut-to-black is not Tony's last sight followed by a professional hit on his entire family. How do I know this? First of all, the shot is not from Tony's point-of-view. Second, the mob war is over, Phil is dead, Butchie has said that he's backing off, and Tony stated in a previous episode that families aren't touched. Third, who would be able to put together such an elaborate hit so quickly when the decision of where they were going to eat was so last minute? No, they don't die at the end. That's just people wishing the ending had some meaning and wasn't excrutiatingly terrible and meaningless. Need one last hint? When Tony is flipping through the song listings at the table, what does he see? Well, he picks the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing", but what other song is listed? It's "Any Way You Want It." That's exactly what Chase is saying. "It ends however you want." It's stunningly and unapologetically awful. If HBO didn't have a new season of The Wire on deck, I'd have already cancelled my subscription.

Another camp of people will say, "That's how life is. It doesn't have a neat ending." Hey, that's great. Unfortunately this is A STORY. Since when has the rest of the Sopranos been applicable to ANYONE's real life? I get it that Chase is allowing the audience to experience the dread that Tony lives through every day, not knowing who is coming through the door and what their intentions are, but is it necessary to do this in the last five minutes of the show's final episode? I don't even know what the whole season was for anyway. Why bother if you're not going to tie up any of the loose strings from the other seasons? This is a terrible terrible way to end this story. Just because something leads to discussion doesn't mean it's good. I remember being involved in many many discussions about Batman and Robin. I would not say that the existence of those discussions heightened it's quality. This is plain old laziness and piss-poor storytelling. Endings make or break stories and a story that lasts this long without an ending turns out to be ...nothing.

Yes, I wanted everything tied up in a nice package at the end.
Yes, I wanted closure.
Yes, I wanted David Chase to tell me how it ends.

I'm a consumer. Tell me a good story.

Capcom is the latest major publisher to jump on the Steam bandwagon, joining the likes of Activision, Eidos Interactive, 2K Games and Majesco. The Japanese developer/publisher announced today that it has partnered with Valve to add several current and future Capcom PC titles to the Steam digital distribution service. Those current titles include Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition, Onimusha, and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, which is scheduled to ship this month.

When you look at the current Ocean’s Eleven franchise, it isn’t that much different than the original Rat Pack caper in spirit. Both have a lot of big stars getting together to make a movie, have fun, goof off, and make a lot of money. But did you know the Ocean’s Eleven concept originated with a contributing writer for Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone?

George Clayton Johnson wrote the Twilight Zone episodes Nothing in the Dark, which starred Robert Redford as death, and Kick the Can. He also co-wrote Logan’s Run with William F. Nolan, among other short stories and TV episodes. Clayton co-wrote the original Ocean’s Eleven with Jack Golden Russell, a friend of his who also happened to be a solider of fortune. They wanted to craft a story about a robbery, and started talking about what would be worth robbing. Russell offered Las Vegas.

They wrote the script together, and it was offered to Peter Lawford (it was paid for with a check signed by his wife at the time, Pat Kennedy). Further down the road, Johnson and Russell were surprised to read in the trade papers that the movie ended up at Warner Brothers, with Jack Warner telling the press, “If nobody wants to make the movie we’ll just pull the job.”

The script had changed considerably from Johnson and Russell’s original concept because, like many Hollywood films, it went through a number of writers (Billy Wilder did some work on the script, and Frank Sinatra reportedly gave him a Picasso as payment). Originally Ocean’s Eleven was going to be a hard boiled story about a group of ex-G.I.’s who pull off with the robbery using military strategy (Johnson initially envisioned Broderick Crawford, the tough cop from Highway Patrol, playing the leader of the gang).

In the original script, once the robbery is pulled off, the Oceans Eleven team march out into the desert, carrying the cash in backpacks. With the cash weighing about eighty-five pounds in the backpacks, it’s a grueling trek. Then the story became more like The Treasure of Sierra Madre, where greed and paranoia take over. “Everybody’s nerves get frayed and everybody’s weaknesses start to become exposed,” says Johnson.

Of course, once the Rat Pack got involved, the story became more suited to their style. “Ocean’s Eleven has a hands in pockets ease about it,” Johnson continues. “It’s packed with stars, and it touched upon the idea that there was this sixties glamour, and it was all focused in Las Vegas. Then Circus Circus moved in, and so did the kids and the young adults. Then it started to lose that sense that everybody went to Vegas in a tuxedo. Las Vegas is no longer that place, and people look back at it nostalgically. I thought Ocean’s Eleven was a culmination of that whole era.”

The Championship Gaming Series draft on Tuesday night was an interesting event, and not just because it was held at the famous Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif. (which, unbeknownst to me, is a few miles down the road from my current residence). For one, it was the first draft in the history of e-sports. And two, the first professional gamer drafted was 20-year-old Vanessa Arteaga of Modesto, Calif., who also goes by “PMS Vanessa.”

Yes, you read that right. Vanessa is female.

This was kind of a light week for comics, but there are still a few books that deserve some attention.

Marvel

The New Avengers #31 - This whole issue is one long fight between the the outlaw Avengers and an army of Hand ninjas lead by Elektra. The Avengers are still in Japan on their rescue mission for Maya Lopez (Echo) who was undercover in Japan during the entirety of the superhero Civil War. At the conclusion of the last issue, Echo had just given in to her Hand reprogramming and stabbed Dr. Strange through the chest with a sword. While all the combat types deal out the damage to the endless waves of Hand ninjas, Dr. Strange gets himself fixed up in time to break Echo out of her trance. Once Echo wakes up, she grabs a sword and heads straight for Elektra. The issues ends on an interesting note that will hopefully tie into the greater mythology started in THE NEW AVENGERS before the Civil War got underway. I wasn't a fan of Leinil Yu's art when he first started on this book, but it's really grown on me. I'd seen his other stuff in WOLVERINE and ULTIMATE HULK VS WOLVERINE, but it wasn't until he started on THE NEW AVENGERS that I warmed up to it. I do wish he'd use less hatching and allow for more ink-shading, but it does give his art a kind of dirty, scuffed-up look. It really works for these big fight scenes.

Punisher War Journal #8 - I've been a fan of this series since it started, but this arc is losing me a little. I don't like the Punisher calling himself Captain America while wearing that ridiculous costume, and Hate Monger and his army of Nazi, rascist, border patrollers just aren't "comic book" enough. Ariel Olivetti's digital art is still top notch even if the proportions are a little on the cartoon side, and scene-for-scene Matt Fraction's writing is excellent. Sometimes I get the feeling that Punisher is really just Wolverine with guns instead of claws, but you could say that about many of the anti-hero comic book characters. I'm hoping this story arc is about over and we can move on to something else soon.

World War Hulk #1 - This is what I want from comic books. It starts with the smallest bit of backstory to catch you up and by page four and five we get a splash page of Hulk riding on the outside of a space ship punching asteroids. By page nine he's outside Attilan on the Moon and Black Bolt speaks. I like Black Bolt, but I do get tired of hearing people say things like, "The faintest whisper could level mountains," over and over when he never says anything. It's nice to see them pull out a big gun like this right off the bat. The story of this event is that before the Civil War started Dr. Strange, Reed Richards, Iron Man, and Black Bolt were getting tired of Hulk smashing stuff and then giving them that "Oops!" look so they shot him into space. Hulk eventually landed on the planet Sakaar and was made a slave/gladiator before starting a rebellion and becoming king complete with a queen and a baby on the way. Unfortunately the ship he landed in blew up and destroyed the planet killing his queen (and millions of other people) so now Hulk and his "warbound" gladiator buddies are headed back to Earth for some payback. I think it's great that all the heroes are in a little bit of a panic when word gets back to Earth that Hulk is coming (and his speech while holding the ruined body of Black Bolt was fantastic). Iron Man in full Hulkbuster armor shows up to deal with Hulk and the resulting fight is incredible. I'm hoping this series goes the distance and doesn't end with some fireman and EMTs tackling Hulk and saying, "Hey! Look at all the trouble you're causing!" followed by Hulk saying, "Wow, you're right. Boy is my face red!"

Also in the pull this week:

DC

Countdown #46 - Mary Marvel fights a monster made out of dead babies. I'm not kidding.

Justice #12 - Well, at least the art is still really good.

Marvel

Nova #3 - Nova takes on the Thunderbolts.

Sub-Mariner #1 - It's a Namor mini-series so I'm giving it a shot.

It was one of those classic rock and roll stories that just wouldn’t go away. When Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat during an Iowa concert, and had to get rabies shots (which he told Rolling Stone “felt like someone injected 60 f*cking golfballs in my ass”), it cemented his “prince of darkness” reputation in rock. In later years, with the press focusing more on Ozzy’s family life, the bat incident went forgotten in the minds of the public, until the VH1 Online Arcade brought it back as a game called Ozzy's Bat Bite.

As metal news site Blabbermouth.net is reporting, the cable channel has created games around the latest artists to be inducted into the cable channel’s Rock Honors. When you play Ozzy’s Bat Bite, you control a video game figure Ozzy, and make him chomp down on flying nocturnal creatures. No word yet if VH1 will create a game based on Ozzy urinating on the Alamo, but we’ll let you know if it happens.

Word came on Saturday from the official Enemy Territory: Quake Wars community site that the public beta version of the game is coming in the very near future. That’s the good news. The bad news is twofold. First, only 60,000 slots are available to the Quake junkies out there who have been clamoring for the team-based online multiplayer shooter. And second, the only place you can get the beta on Fileplanet.

In fact, according to the Quake Wars community site, a “fixed number” of beta slots will be set aside for Fileplanet subscribers, while the rest of the slots will be made available for free Fileplanet users. So if you don’t like using Fileplanet or don’t have a paid account with the download site, you’re out of luck.

But look on the bright site. The closed beta is currently underway, and according to the Quake Wars community site, it’s “yielding excellent results.” And if the public beta is about to commence, then it looks like we can in fact expect the game sometime in the fall. Check out the community site for more details on the forthcoming public beta.

For more information on Enemy Territory, check out the image preview on TwitchGuru.

It appears that there’s no escaping controversy when it comes to Rockstar Games. The developer’s latest title, Manhunt 2, was effectively been banned in the U.K. today after the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) refused to give the game a rating. Since no game can be legally sold or supplied in the country without a BBFC rating, Manhunt 2 has been outlawed (this includes both the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions of the game). The Irish Film Censor’s Office (IFCO) also banned the game, stating “the level of gross, unrelenting and gratuitous violence is unacceptable.”

Warner Bros recently released a pic of the new duds Batman will sport in next summer's "The Dark Knight". I can't think of any other superhero who has gone through more costume variations movie to movie, and yet they all still look like Batman. What I love about "Batman Begins" and Chris Nolan's work so far on "The Dark Knight" is the way he opts for functional over beatiful in order to preserve some realism. In "Batman Begins" we saw that the fins on his gloves were actually ninja parrying daggers and the ears on the helmet were for surveillance. This new costume retains the fins and the ears (obviously) but breaks the costume up into smaller panels. Gone are the clean lines and shine of previous Batman constumes and for "The Dark Knight" it looks like he's going with light composite armor plates over an elastic mesh undersuit. I prefer this S.W.A.T. armored look to the rubber more "costumey" looks we had in the other movies, but all that paneling reminds me a little of "Tron". I like it, though. It just has to look like Batman to make me happy.

As far as the Bat Pod (pictured below), I'll just have to see it in action. That's the thing with going with functionality and versatility over aesthetics, the pictures never do it justice. I remember seing the first pictures of the Batmoblile from "Batman Begins" and thinking, "Wow, this might be a huge disaster." In the end the chase scene in the movie won me over. That car rocks. The Bat Pod looks to be packing some serious firepower, but with very little protection for the rider. I would hope that it's very fast and nimble and gets to see some action. My first thought when seeing those big guns on the front was "Megaforce". I've got to stop watching movies from the 80s.

Just in case you haven't seen the make-up for Heath Ledger's Joker, I stuck that pic at the bottom. You can click all the images for hi-res versions.

A long time ago when I saw William Shatner belting out “Rocket Man” which he, ah, sang back in the ‘70’s, I couldn’t imagine Captain Kirk being any wackier. How wrong I was.

Going to the Internet Movie Database, the headline The Worst Movies Ever caught my interest. The link took me to YouTube, and the clips, provided by www.The-Watercooler.com, are indeed so bad they’re great. How about they award they give out for Most Nonsensical Final Line of Dialog In An Eric Roberts movie, which is, “Ever parachute naked into a volcano?” And just in time for the 30th anniversary, how about “The Top Five Worst Lines in Star Wars?”

But the familiar sight of Kirk’s yellow and black uniform caught my eye, and the Star Trek clip, which you can locate under Worst Fight Scene Ever, does not disappoint. It’s from the episode, The Arena, and the fight choreography as Capt. Kirk battles a giant lizard in a leopard skin loincloth…well, just like his interpretation of “Rocket Man,” words can’t do it justice. The wheezing noises the lizard warrior makes while getting a workout from Shatner alone are totally hilarious, and you’ll notice more than a passing resemblance to the Sleastacks, the reptilian villains from Land of the Lost.

Check out YouTube for Worst Fight Scene Ever, and The Worst Movies Ever, which will also lead you to a number of Worst Movie clips The-Watercooler put up. Be prepared for some serious hilarity.

Wow. This is infinitely cooler than the Far Cry box art. They're treating the Crysis soldier with that same reverance and mystery that Master Chief gets and the first game isn't even out yet. I say "first game" because if Crysis delivers a full game of what I've already seen and played then you're looking at your next big PC franchise right here. When I first saw Crysis at E3 2006, I was absolutely amazed (you can read that story here). I'm hoping it will deliver the same experience we got when we first played Half-Life; that feeling that everything is different now. Those moments are rare. Typically I get that feeling that I've seen it all before when starting a new game. This could be the one, though. You've heard it's amazing, you've seen the the screenshots, but the skeptic in you says, "Wait until you play it." I feel the same way and I have played it. I keep telling myself, "It can't be as good as that all the time." Hopefully we'll soon know. If the box art is finalized then we're getting closer to a firm release date. It's slated for September 11 of this year, but it could still slip into the holiday shopping season. I've already upgraded my PC in preparation. Personally, I think this guy looks like he could put a serious beat down on the old Master Chief.

The term “video game addiction” has been seen quite a bit lately, including on Tom’s Hardware and TwitchGuru. But it seems that it will have to wait a little bit longer before becoming an official medical diagnosis on the order or gambling addiction and alcohol. Attendees at the America Medical Association’s (AMA) annual meeting argued that the issue of compulsive video game playing needs more research and further studies from psychiatrists before becoming classified as a mental disorder.

Recently, premiere.com ran an article on films that have been stuck in what’s known as “development hell,” where movies are planned, but often don’t get made. The article was called, “20 Movies Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You,” and it included Halo, the big screen adaptation of the game.

You’d think this would be a no brainer. It’s a huge selling game, it had a hot screenwriter adapting it (Alex Garland, who also wrote 28 Days Later), and Peter Jackson, who hit pay-dirt with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, instantly making him one of the most powerful filmmakers in the biz, would produce with Guillermo del Toro directing.

At first, the studios wouldn’t bite because Microsoft wanted $10 million for the rights and total creative control. Eventually Fox and Universal would make the movie together, but last year Del Toro left the project to make Hellboy 2. Jackson brought in another director, a newcomer named Neill Blomkamp, and screenwriter Josh Olsen (A History of Violence) was reportedly working on a script rewrite. But then the studios backed away because the film’s budget was nearing $200 million. As premiere.com reports, “Jackson has said recently that he hopes the release of Halo 3 the video game will make studio heads realize what they’re missing."

Articles like this have appeared from time to time in movie magazines, and there’s plenty of unmade movies to write about. Some of the usual suspects include the adaptation of the novel Confederacy of Dunces, which had directors as diverse as John Landis and Steven Soderberg attached to direct. Another book adaptation that still remains in limbo is the big screen adaptation of What Makes Sammy Run, which Ben Stiller has always wanted to make, but the book, which was published back in the ‘40’s, may still paint the ruthlessness of Hollywood a little too closely.

Several projects that were made this decade were stuck in development hell for years. Screenwriter Scott Frank just made his directing debut with The Lookout, which was considered one of the best unmade scripts for years. Frank also wrote the screenplay for Minority Report, which was also stuck in limbo for years. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, the biopic of TV game show host, and alleged CIA assassin, Chuck Barris, fell apart many times with various directors before George Clooney stepped up to the plate and directed it himself.

How about biopics? Pure Evel, the life story of daredevil Evel Knievel, has fallen apart at least twice. The screenwriting team behind 1408, Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, were working on an epic biopic of The Marx Brothers that eventually got stuck when they couldn’t write a “cheap enough” version that could be made. They were also hoping to produce Rainbow Head, the story about the Jesus freak who wore a multi-colored afro wig, and held up John 3:16 signs at sporting events, who ended up in a hotel stand-off with the police.

Some projects become urban legend, like The Day the Clown Cried, which was going to be Jerry Lewis’ first serious role as a clown who’s forced to entertain children in the death camps. Lewis has the only copy of the film, and according to one report, only about eleven people in the world have seen it. People who have interviewed Lewis have also been warned well in advance never to bring the movie up, or it would be the equivalent of using grenades for suppositories (except grenades take longer to blow up).

Anyone who’s been in Hollywood long enough will tell you getting any movie made is a hard, difficult, nearly impossible struggle. Even though the movies mentioned here haven’t reached the silver screen yet, the behind the scene stories of what everyone must have gone through to try and get them made would make a hell of a movie one day.

When Roger Ebert bashed video games a few years ago, I really thought nothing of it. To me they were nothing more than ignorant words from an ignorant man. People who don't play video games as an active hobby have absolutely zero to say about their significance, their presumed danger, or their quality. In response to a reader letter about this claim that video games are inferior to movies in 2005, Ebert said this:

"Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic."

Ebert's old and old people tend to stick with what is familiar; dusty old books and black and white movies. I disagreed with him then and I disagree with him now. Apparently I'm not the only one.

At the second annual Hollywood and Games Summit author/director Clive Barker lit into Ebert like his comments were made yesterday. Keynote speaker Barker said:

“It’s evident that Ebert had a prejudiced vision of what the medium is, or more importantly, what it can be. We can debate what art is, we can debate it forever. If the experience moves you in some way or another… Even if it moves your bowels… I think it is worthy of some serious study. Games aren’t about reviewers. They are about players.”

"If something is so malleable, full of possibilities not under the artist’s control, then it cannot be art. That’s where he is wrong. We should be stretching the imaginations of our players and ourselves. Let’s invent a world where the player gets to go through every emotional journey available. That is art. Offering that to people is art. I’m not doing an evangelical job here. I’m just saying that gaming is a great way to do what we as human beings need to do all the time - to take ourselves away from the oppressive facts of our lives and go somewhere where we have our own control."

Clive Barker, ladies and gentlemen, the gamer's champion. For a novelist I imagine the idea of allowing players to alter the ending of the narrative to be somewhat daunting, so it's great to see someone approach it with such gusto. I'm a big fan of Clive Barker's PC game Undying and from what I've seen of Jericho it looks to deliver something special as well. As for the "games are better than movies" argument, it's hard to say. I think I'd rather sit and play Half-Life 2 again then watch Citizen Kane, but that's just me.

Well, that didn't take long. THQ already announced a new Supreme Commander game coming out in November only nine months after the release of the first game. From the sound of things Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is much more of an expansion than a sequel but a first-party expansion and a standalone game as well. Gas Powered Games CEO and game designer Chris Taylor was quoted as saying, ""Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is not only the continuation of the epic story that is unfolding inside the game's universe, it is the con