Aquaman's Home Movie Meme

What is it with me and so-called memes this week? Use the blank provided below or the comments section if you like!With Aquaman around, no special effects required.
See you in the soggy papers!

Three Weird Books

A meme of sorts, if you'd like to participate, consider yourself tagged (comments section or your own space). The idea is to look at your shelves and find the three strangest books you own. Obviously, it's all relative. Twilight would be a very strange thing to find on my shelves while a Klingon dictionary or Finnegan's Wake would not. I've also decided to omit graphic novels and role-playing manuals from this pool, though you don't have to. I just put them in another category entirely. So what are the three weirdest books in my library?

The Urantia Book
I found this blue brick of more than 2000 onion-skin pages in a used book store and it was so strange (and I'll admit, cheap), I just had to get it. It fits my collection of sacred texts (I like to keep books from every religion, alive and dead, on my shelves) and yet doesn't. Urantia is this faiths' name for Earth, and the book is part Christian, part Scientology. I might have used it as a sacred text found by player characters in one of my games, but never did (still, I'm not dead yet). The faith elements aren't too bizarre, though it tends towards a more scientific vernacular. The shard of God the Father that is in each of us, for example, is called the Thought Adjuster, and it helps each individual, and society, reach some kind of enlightenment over time. There are a great many pages also devoted to history and cosmogony, freely confirming the existence of aliens, and a proto-human race of blue, red, green, etc. people (we used to be into primary colors before we started mixing into beiges and browns). How the universes are constructed and their function, how mutations arise to create new species, it's all in there. There's also a section on the life of a mortal Jesus - the best example of this cosmogony and enlightenment at work - which is pretty much written as a novel. As eclectic a religion as you're likely to find, and I have a first edition!

Pop Poems
A literary experiment by Ronald Gross, Pop Poems attempt to take the philosophy behind pop art and apply it to text. The result is pretty awful. So for example, while pop art would take non-"high art" illustration like ads, stamps or comic strips and reproduce it in a high art context (in size, medium and/or location), Pop Poems takes non-literary writing and gives it a poetical "shape". Gross translates newspaper articles, instruction manuals, tax forms, legal texts, grocery lists, and of course, ads into sonnets, free verse and odes of all sorts. It only works occasionally, in the way an exquisite corpse might, but usually, it sounds exactly like the original text did no matter the type setting. Bonus points for turning the indicia and About the Author into extra poems.

Psychic Pets
This booklet was bought and given to me at the check-out aisle at a local market and for some reason, I've always kept it (and its cousin, How To Talk To Your Cat, but that one seems right now my alley). I guess it's mostly strange because of the psychedelic pink dog on the cover, but it's also full of weird stories we're supposed to take as Truth, about life-saving seagulls and the ghosts of pets back from the dead. I'm sure we can believe the sources. 1920s local newspapers were famous for fact-checking, right?

There might be something strange SOMEwhere in the house. It's hard to get to all the books at the Casa del Siskoid. But I think these are pretty good. So now it's your turn - What are YOUR three weirdest books?

The Last Starfigh--Bosconian?!

Might this be the first nostalgio-meme of the year? Only if you answer the question for yourselves! Context: So I was watching The Last Starfighter last week, and it made me think of my arcade years in the 80s. No quarters were more badly spent. And if a machine were ever to hand me a fantastic destiny, what would it have been? Based on amount of time/money spent, it would surely have been the somewhat obscure Bosconian.

I never had the street cred to "own" a popular machine - in fact, the only time a crowd ever huddled around me was to steal my wallet (I was an inconsolable 12-year-old) - so it had to be a game no one else much cared for. I spent many a lunch hour blasting space station from both my front and my ass, and in return getting blasted by the often unintelligible messages from the game's digitized voice. "CONDITION RED! CONDITION RED! CONDITION RED!" However, a powerful race of aliens never came to recruit me. Can't blame them, really, because I never hit any kind of spectacular score.

We'll have to look at consoles if we want to find my real strengths, and the game from my youth I actually "flipped" the score on was Demon Attack on the Atari 2600.

A simple enough shooter pitting you against waves of demons who get increasingly fast, start off increasingly low, shoot with increasing accuracy, and multiply when you shoot them, their babies often turning themselves into living weapons. In the days before pauses and saved games, it was a hand-crippling feat to get to a million points and turning back over to zero. But I did it. And then I was whisked off to the ice planet Krybor to face the real legions of demons. Yeah, I can't believe there was that much detail to the back story either.

But now it's your turn! Go back to your teen years: What arcade or console game(s) would have gotten YOU recruited?

100 Things I Love About Television

Being the second in a series of positive memes sent out on the radiation belt we call the Internet.

1. "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!"
2. Theme tunes you can hum or sing
3. Salem jumping off the couch
4. "Oh boy."
5. Heritage minutes
6. Vorenus & Pullo
7. Figuring out who your partner would be if you did the Amazing Race
8. Seinfeld's love of Superman
9. Walk and talks
10. "Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice..." PIEW PIEW PIIIIIEEWWWW

11. The f**k conversation on The Wire (everything about that series really)
12. Will they, won't they relationships
13. John Casey headbutting a punch
14. Carl Kolchak
15. Buffy's musical episode
16. How (not) long a character is expected to survive on Oz
17. Stephen Moffat scripts
18. Aaron Sorkin scripts
19. The Unit, both as a military procedural AND as a badass in-your-face-Jason-Bourne action series
20. The TARDIS materializing21. People who are really, really disappointed on Trading Spaces
22. That perfect first season of Heroes
23. Jack Donaghy
24. Celebs admitting they sold their soul to the devil in G vs. E
25. Garak
26. Syndey's various looks in Alias
27. They actually published Castle's books
28. The Battle of Bastogne in Band of Brothers with the trees exploding and stuff
29. The moment Neon Genesis Evangelion "turns"
30. Annie, the charming ghost of Being Human
31. Bender Bending Rodriguez
32. There was this time on As the World Turns when I was a kid, where Gina Davis and whoever played her boyfriend are trapped on an island by an evil mastermind and forced to solve puzzles based on the works of Lewis Carroll and they have to fight this giant mechanized Jabberwock and cut its head off... but I've already admitted to too much
33. John de Lancie's EPCOT robot in Days of our lives (ditto)
34. "These giant cups might as well have nipples on them!"
35. Everything about the From the Earth to the Moon episode "1968"
36. When people who have been on Star Trek guest star on another show
37. When people who have been on Doctor Who guest star on another show
38. Blackadder's sarcasm
39. Elisabeth Sladen
40. Real dinosaurs in a nature documentary!
41. Captain Jack
42. Captain Sheridan
43. The deep fryer incident in Spooks' first season
44. The whistly tune for the Canadian Wildlife PSAs
45. Blue Peter's on-set pets
46. "The tribe has spoken"
47. The fourth Doctor's scarf
48. Never going to commercial in British and HBO shows
49. Benedict Cumberbatch (just saying the name)
50. "This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds."
51. Sailor Jupiter
52. Cat Deeley (items #51 and #52 may or may not be related somehow)
53. Captain Kirk puts his boots on the morning after (saucy!)
54. Firefly's Chinese/western lingo
55. Michael Palin takes a dhow in Around the World in 80 Days
56. Guerrero!
57. Explaining the cons on Hustle
58. The Number 2 switcheroo in every opening of The Prisoner
59. Jon Stewart on Crossfire
60. Max Headroom
61. Kate Winslet explaining how to win an Oscar in Extras (then later winning one exactly that way)
62. The Blue Planet episode in which we go down into the deepest depths
63. The Batman animated series doesn't NEED a title. He's Batman, bitches!
64. Octopi take over the WORLD! in The Future Is Wild
65. The Tim-Dawn romance on The Office
66. Samurai Jack
67. Bear McCreary's music
68. Brave and the Bold's Aquaman
69. Nate Fisher's meditation on grief in the first season finale of Six Feet Under
70. Judge Wopner
71. Anne of Green Gables pulls a Lady of Shalott
72. The 24 ticking clock
73. Camisra's "Let Me Show" in Spaced's clubbing episode
74. Mel Profit takes it between his toes
75. The Sledge Hammer finale that ends with a nuclear explosion
76. Dana Delaney (any role, including voice work)
77. The use of "Paint It Black" as Tour of Duty's theme song
78. Columbo's "One more thing..."
79. Ozzie and Harriet's twin beds
80. Space hippies!
81. "So say we all." (Everything about BSG, really)
82. The Gene Genie (AKA Gene Hunt)
83. Space 1999's opening credits
84. Batman's bat-handkerchief
85. Myths finally busted
86. French game shows (ex: the almost unbearably nerdy Des chiffres et des lettres, the sassy and impolite Pyramide, and whatever the one with two towns facing off against a cow is)
87. Chef Ramsey's fish slaps
88. Hugh Jackman's Oscar song
89. Crispin Glover attacks David Letterman
90. OMG GOD LOOK AT ALL THOSE SUPERHEROES! (Justice League Unlimited)
91. Lucy Brown as Claudia Brown
92. The father-daughter relationship in Veronica Mars
93. Denny Crane
94. The widescreen revolution
95. Early Cybermen's creepy voices ("You will be like uzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz")
96. The sad piano music from The Incredible Hulk
97. Chiggy Von Richthofen
98. Sally Sparrow
99. PIGS! IN! SPACE!
100. The DVD/on demand revolution

I left tons of stuff out too...

100 Things I Love About The Movies

Inspired by Michael May, who was in turn inspired by Cinema Fanatic and Jason.

1. Godzilla's wrestling moves
2. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meeting again 9 years later
3. Jason Bourne
4. "But you aaaare, Blanche, you aaaaare!"
5. Bruno Kirby's story about his father in City Slickers
6. The gorier sound effects on Akira's original English dub
7. The fact Harrison Ford hated making his best film, i.e. Blade Runner
8. David Mamet scripts
9. Janeane Garofalo (in any role)10. Magnolia's use of Aimee Mann's music
11. Shakespeare adaptations
12. Khan's speech leading up to Kirk's famous "KHANNNN!"
13. Charlie Kaufman scripts
14. Any appearance by Ricky Jay
15. The Princess Bride's final "As you wish"
16. Doc Holiday in Tombstone
17. Forest Whitaker getting called out as a hustler in The Color of Money
18. Paul Giamatti freaking out about the Merlot
19. Bud Brigman letting his wife drown in order to save her life in The Abyss
20. The Golden Harvest logo
21. Evanescence in Daredevil
22. Twist endings to 1970s SF films (double points if Charlton Heston stars)
23. Ian Holm
24. Roman Polanski's kid on his bike chanting "Creepy Carrie! Creepy Carrie!"
25. Athletes vs. terrorists in Born to Fight
26. Toby discussing Revenge of the Nerds in American Splendor
27. Everything about Apocalypse Now! both in front and behind the camera
28. The heart-wrenching final scene of The Plague Dogs
29. Cameron finally snaps in Ferris Bueller's Day Off
30. HAL 9000
31. Watching Groundhog Day every year on Groundhog Day
32. The premise of Bubba Ho-Tep: Senior citizen Elvis and black JFK fight a soul-sucking mummy
33. Donnie Yen
34. Seeing Canadian money in a film
35. Edward D. Wood Jr.
36. Any time James Bond orders something other than his usual martini
37. Harvey Keitel as The Wolf
38. Use of the theremin
39. Garak in Dirty Harry
40. Sweding
41. Puss'n'Boots eyes
42. The cats in Logan's Run
43. Fahrenheit 451's spoken credits
44. The Cohen Brothers
45. The kitten refereeing the Bruce Lee-Chuck Norris fight
46. The character of Sanjuro
47. The music in Blood Simple
48. Body Snatcher screams
49. Every word of Shakespeare in Love
50. Neurotic female characters you can't help but fall in love with
51. The history-bending finale of Inglourious Basterds
52. When Lau Kar-Leung's fight choreography extends to 12 or more moves in one unbroken shot
53. Robert Downey Jr.'s banter
54. All the sex in Dr. Strangelove
55. The Rheostatics' soundtrack for Whale Music
56. "There's that word again; 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?"
57. The Shoveler
58. Captain Picard quoting from Moby Dick in First Contact
59. All the ridiculous justifications for both Schwarzenegger's and Van Damme's accents
60. Yul Brynner in a cowboy hat (various sources)
61. Thelma and Louise driving into the Grand Canyon
62. The more miserable Michael Douglas gets in a film, the happier I get
63. Taylor Mead in Coffee & Cigarettes
64. Once Upon a Time in China's theme song
65. Antonio Banderas playing a new-made guitar in Desperado, not long before he pulls a gun out of it
66. Wong Kar-Wai's improvisation
67. The snapdragon scene in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
68. Kurt Russell
69. Sam Peckinpah
70. The animation in Waking Life
71. Peter Sarsgaard's freak-out in Jarhead
72. Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing
73. Dustin Hoffman's literature professor in Stranger Than Fiction
74. The "Michael Jackson" interrogation scene in Three Kings
75. El Tango De Roxanne
76. Dead Poets Society's classroom scenes
77. The message Jon Favreau leaves on a girl's answering machine in Swingers
78. Chris Doyle's cinematography
79. Those little bits they sometimes put after the end credits
80. J.K. Simmons' J. Jonah Jameson
81. The long tracking shot that starts Altman's The Player
82. Movies that lovingly allude to other movies (Hot Fuzz, Kill Bill, etc.)
83. Silk Stockings' singing communist robot girl ("Do you find me aesthetically pleasing?")
84. Anything with Tony Leung in it
85. Navigator: "She'll fly apart" Captain Sulu: "Fly her apart then!"
86. "You need and you need and you need and you NEED!"
87. Slim Pickens' death in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
88. The discovery of face-to-face sex in Quest for Fire
89. Editing (in general)
90. The human arm candle sticks in Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête
91. "Passionate eye" documentaries
92. Puzzle movies
93. Amy Adams in Junebug
94. Badass Sarah Connor
95. The idea that Serenity was even allowed to be made
96. Kruge: "GET OUT! GET OUT OF THERRRRRRRE!!!"
97. Divine on a trampoline in Female Trouble
98. Tony Stark's rubbish robot arm with the fire extinguisher
99. Mothra
100. There are so many awesome films I haven't even seen yet

Reign of the Supermen #49: DC Heroes' Supermen

Source: Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG (1985-1993)
Type: Role-playing gameMayfairstivus compells me! This is the last day of that grand festival, as heralded by my prophet, Firestorm Fan's Shag (and his prophet Frank Diabolu). Many blogs are participating, so check it out.

But what is it? Well, it seems a good number of us remain fans of Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG, and though I'm trying out Green Ronin's DC Adventures right now, DCH remains the best superhero game I've ever played. To me it's still the most elegant. I thought I might show off Superman's stats in that system, but which version? 1st edition is the clunkier, with Superman's stats wayyyyy out of control. Click to get a closer look:
Keeping in mind that each numbered increment in DCH represents twice the previous value, that Strength of 50 is moon-shattering! My first copy of DCH was 2nd ed., where most high-end characters top off at 25 (which benchmarks at nearly a million tons for Superman's Strength), so in getting all those old sourcebooks and modules, I couldn't believe how inflated the numbers were. Does he really need Flight 45?!? But in retrospect, it's perfect. The 1st edition Superman was clearly the pre-Crisis model, that Silver Age wonder who could literally move planets.

2nd edition and 3rd edition Supermen are near identical, so here's 3rd (again, click to make it bigger):
The first thing you notice is that the stats are way more manageable... Well, actually the first thing you notice is that Superman is "deceased". Talk about being topical! 3rd edition also features the Reign of the Supermen replacements, so that's pretty cool. But I digress. The point is that even with reduced numbers, Superman is still the most powerful hero out there.

On Siskoid.com, I still have a pile of stats for DC characters I made or adapted. There are 13 discreet versions of Superman, as well as Superboy (pocket dimension), Superboy (Connor), the Eradicator, Steel and the Cyborg-Superman. I keep meaning to do more, but the project was insane to begin with.

d4s Get a Bad Rap!

What the what?! I'm just misunderstood! I swear!

"You are a d4: You are bright, perceptive, and driven. You would be considered a blessing to mankind, if you didn't insist on using your powers for evil. You are devious, deceitful, doubtful, and downright dangerous. Assassins can learn a lot from you. If your fellow party members knew how rotten you were, they'd go over and join the bad guys. Justified or not, you are meticulous in your ways: A poison for every person, and a dagger for every back. Much of your day is spent scheming or plotting. The rest of your time is spent trying to convince others that you're simply misunderstood."

Yeah... they got my number...

My take on d4

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Top 5 Songs on TV

Being a continuation of the meme I started last week, and you're invited to play with this one too. The rules I'm sticking to on this one are: Stick to soundtracks played over the action. No more than one song from any given television series. No scores or theme songs written for the show (pre-existing songs used as theme tunes are ok, but borderline). And no songs sung exclusively by the actors (i.e. in musicals, sorry Cop Rock!). I also want to say, no songs from the end of a Cold Case episode, but that's not an official rule. Lots of TV out there... what do I choose? These are only my favorites, not an objective "best". You're invited to draw up your own list.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is one of those shows that seems replete with fun and interesting musical choices. The pilot alone uses some 15 pieces of music, everything from loungy air to Blue Oyster Cult to the chick rock of Taxi Doll to Miriam Makeba's Pata Pata. I've probably acquired over 80% of the songs used on Veronica Mars in its three seasons. The "musical casting" is just that perfect. And because I couldn't choose a single moment to put in this list, it stands as my LAA. My thanks to the Music of Veronica Mars blog for all the research. Check it out.


And now, the real top 5, and I find that like Veronica Mars, the selected shows have universally good song selections. Gonna be hard to pick just one from each!

5. Live and Let Die (Wings) - Life on Mars (Episode 2)


Life on Mars (the UK original, of course) features great (I'd even say "forgotten") tunes from the 70s. Live and Let Die isn't in any way "forgotten", but I love how it plays up the comedy of this scene featuring an absurd chase in swimming trunks.

4. Let Me Show You (Camisra) - Spaced ("Epiphanies")Won't embed, so here's the LINK. The now iconic clubbing scene from Spaced has a kicking beat that is both fun and inspiring. There are world-class DJs who listen to the episode before going to work, and here in the apartment, simply playing the song will make someone get the shot glasses out. No joke. Bonus mix with the A-Team theme song at the end. It kind of broke my heart not to nominate Lemon Jelly's Staunton Lick from the final episode of Spaced here, but I had to admit to myself that Camisra took the prize.

3. Mr. Blue Sky (ELO) - Doctor Who ("Love and Monsters")


Here is an example of a song running through an entire episode (or in fact, a few songs from the same band). In the offbeat Who episode, Mr. Blue Sky manages to hit Elton's highest highs and lowest lows in a way that makes you feel like writing the episode started with the song itself. Sure, the Absorbaloff stuff is terrible, but the ELO stuff in the episode is just magical.

2. Breathe Me (Sia) - Six Feet Under ("Everyone's Waiting")


This is the final scene of Six Feet Under, so SPOILER WARNING. The way Breathe Me's silences are used to edit the scene is, well, breathtaking. It narrowly wins against Radiohead's Lucky, played at a pivotal moment of the series. Best damn car commercial ever.

1. I Don't Like Mondays (Tori Amos) - West Wing ("20 Hours in America")


Breathe Me drives its scene. I Don't Like Mondays, on the other hand, is an example of how a song can support a scene that would be strong without it. And yet, Tori Amos' sweet voice adds to the sadness of the moment, while the music gives it a funereal feel that I couldn't do without. Aaron Sorkin has used great music on his shows, infrequently but at crucial moments, and has always manages to elevate his scenes with it. I might just as well have named Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah ("Posse Comitatus") or the Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms ("Two Cathedrals").

So those are the songs I can't hear without thinking of the scenes they supported. What are yours?

Top 5 Songs in Movies

Am I starting a meme with this? I think I am. Read on and see if you want to blog your own choices and let me know about it in the comments section (or just create your own list right there). The idea is to talk about your favorite songs in films. Those beautiful moments when a piece of soundtrack matches a scene so perfectly, it gives you goosebumps, or just makes the film and song that much cooler. The rules (which you may break at your leisure, of course) are simple: Stick to soundtracks played over the action. No scores written for the film, no songs sung exclusively by the actors (i.e. in musicals), and no selections from television shows (they'll be a future post). Songs that play over credits are eligible, since they comment on the film as a whole, but they're not as interesting. I'll personally stick to one song for any given film, though you're free to like more. Fair enough? Here we go.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Quentin Tarantino
Before I get into my list, let me just put the master out of the way. I could run a Top 20, even a Top 100, of JUST Tarantino song choices. I won't. And I can't really choose one song out of his entire oeuvre. From Little Green Bag in the opening of Reservoir Dogs to the wonderfully anachronistic Gasoline in Inglourious Basterds, there's hardly a misstep. I'm a huge fan of the soundtrack-before-film technique, and no one does it better. Instead of a scene, I present a relevant interview filled with clips.


Now that I've apparently already broken my rules, let's get into the Top 5. I start with a very personal, even silly choice...
5. Take My Breath Away (Sandy Lam Yik-Lin) - As Tears Go By

Wong Kar-Wai is a director I admire greatly who also makes very interesting song choices across all his films. This Chinese version of Take My Breath Away is kitsch and ridiculous, in some ways because the original is associated with the 80s-cool Top Gun, and yet immediately memorable as the love theme between As Tears Go By's cousin lovers. I love it for its camp value as much as anything, and really don't want to apologize for it.

4. Bring Me to Life (Evanescence) - Daredevil

I know a lot of people hate Evanescence, but their two songs on the overly heavy Daredevil soundtrack are perfect. Bring Me to Life is set up by the band's My Immortal, earlier in the film, a beautiful song that acts as a dirge for both Elektra's father and her ability to love Matt Murdock. Later, as Daredevil and Elektra get ready for battle each in their own space, Bring Me to Life raises Elektra and in ironic fashion, her relationship with DD, from the dead. The song is a duet and so is the scene, despite the characters not being together, and the action cut to it is immensely satisfying. Also note how each song has an eye motif appropriate to the lead character.

3. Hey (Pixies) - Zack and Miri Make a Porno

I've been a fan of the Pixies since I first heard Doolittle in the summer of 1990, but Hey was renewed for me in the way it was laid into this movie. Rarely have words so well matched to a scene. The final series of "We're chained" blow a hundred "I'll never let you go" hand-slipping moments from Titanic and elsewhere out of the water.

2. Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan) - Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Here's where I get teary-eyed. Bob Dylan composed all the music for this Peckinpah classic, including Knockin' in Heaven's Door which has since become a classic itself. Over the death of Slim Pickens' character, it is heart-breakingly moving despite the fact that Sheriff Colin Baker isn't much more than a cameo. His quiet death is that of the frontier's way of life, beautifully evoked by Dylan.

1. Wise Up (Aimee Mann) - Magnolia

But when it comes to grinding my heart into a fine powder, no song use compares to P.T. Anderson's Magnolia. Wise Up is that lyrical moment of despair at the center of the film, as the camera moves in on each of the characters, as the song plays on Claudia's stereo. Connecting them in their loneliness and isolation is a song that, in a transcendent movie moment, they each sing a verse to (always well chosen too). It quite literally gives me the shakes. The film breaks the fourth wall again at the end, with the more hopeful Save Me, another great moment, but only made possible by this centerpiece. It is my all-time favorite use of a song in a film.

Over to you, film and music buffs. What are your favorite uses of soundtrack in film? Give me about a week, and I'll let you know what my favorite musical tv moments are.

Cat of the Geek #27: The Original LOLcat

Name: Lost to the ages
Stomping Grounds: First, a 1905 postcard. Then, the world!
Side: Evil (gotta be)
Breed: American shorthair
Cat Powers: Viral.
Skills: Eat 9, Sleep 5, Mischief 5, Wit 8, Spawn Meme 25
Cat Weaknesses: Atrocious spelling. Meat and cheese sandwiches. Does not yet yield the full power of Arial Black.

This Week in Geek (29/06-5/07/09)

Buys

I wasn't kidding when I said it would be a Kung Fu Summer. Kung Fu Fridays now enliven the week here at Siskoid's place. I have friends come over, we watch a Hong Kong film, and then act like we know martial arts until everyone goes home or to bed. I got a lot of Dragon Dynasty product to get the ball rolling this week: The One-Armed Swordsman, Tai Chi Master, Infernal Affairs 1-2-3, Seven Swords, King Boxer, Come Drink With Me, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Hong Kong cinema's comic tour-de-force My Young Auntie, and... Secret Diary of a Call Girl Season 2? I'm not a proud man.

"Accomplishments"

DVDs: This Kung Fu Friday was taken up by Tai Chi Master AKA Twin Warriors. Jet Li, Michell Yeoh, a guy who never quite made it but is quite good as the Jedi who succumbs to the dark side of the Force... It's a great wuxia tale (wires showing and all) about the legendary creator of Tai Chi. Great action of course, but I'd say it was notable for Jet Li's comedy bits. I've never seen him emote as much as this, and I like it. The DVD includes the usual informative Bey Logan commentary, interviews with stars and experts, and a visit to the birthplace of Tai Chi for a quick demonstration.

Internets: Started a new blog in Hyperion to a Satyr, as I mentioned Friday. Still twittering (tweeting? being a twit?) comics singles as I read them. And suffering the loss of Outpost Gallifrey, the Doctor Who forum where I developped my unofficial CCG, among other discussions, closing its doors to posts today.
The forum is still readable to members until the end of the month at which point, it will be absorbed by the vortex. I've moved operations to Braxiatel.com, an art-related Who forum.

Awards: There's an internet award making the rounds, and Jon K. was nice enough to highlight this blog among his nominations. The "Uber Amazing Blog" award is given to sites who:
-Inspire you
-Make you smile and laugh, or maybe give amazing information
-Are a great read
-Have an amazing design
-Any other reasons you can think of that make them Uber amazing!

The rules are:
-Put the logo on your blog or post.
-Nominate at least 6 blogs
-Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog
-Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

So in lieu of Someone Else's Post of the Week, let me present the Uber Amazing Blog award to 6 blogs I find pretty damn cool:
-Articulated Discussion
-Every Day Is Like Wednesday
-Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun
-Strange Maps
-A Character For Every Game
-And the new and improved Living Between Wednesdays

To read them is to love them.

10 Favorite TV Characters

Ok this is it: The last part of my 10 Favorite Onscreen Characters. I promise. Compiling my favorite television characters, I found my choices almost universally New School. Only two characters appeared before the 90s, and one of those continues to appear today. In fact most have seen some air time past the year 2000. While I may have affection for a lot of Old School television, the character work just wasn't the same, with few being able to evolve over time. I definitely prefer "long form" to episodic.

Note that I also made things harder for myself by limiting the number of characters from any single universe to ONE. Only one Star Trek character. Only one Doctor Who character. Only one CSI character (well, CSI didn't make it in at all, but you get the point). Let's get to it!

Drama
Sam Seaborn (The West Wing)Though not in the same universe per se, Aaron Sorkin's shows (West Wing, Sports Night and Studio 60) could easily have eaten up a third of the slots on this list, so I decided I could only pick one. On the surface, not an easy task, but it has to be Sam. The first character we meet on The West Wing, it is immediately HIS story, and I thought the show was pretty much dead as soon as he left in the fourth season (something Sorkin and Schlamme must have agreed with, as they left as well). Though endemic to the whole cast, Sam was perhaps the best example of Sorkin's "passionate politician", doing right because it's right. Eloquent, neurotic, endearing, a little nerdy... he's Sorkin's stand-in. And a pretty amazing performance from Rob Lowe who had been stuck playing slimy villains after his Hollywood scandal. That we accept Sam Seaborn so completely is a testament to his skill.

Bob "Cool Breeze" Brown (The Unit)
I must have a thing about rookies. Just as Sam Seaborn was the West Wing's junior member, so is Bob the Unit's (at least in the first season). I like all the guys in the Unit, but while Bob is the rookie, you can tell he's the smartest one there. All he needs is the experience. Deceptively disarming, cool and professional, with a Bourne-like array of skills at his disposal, and a delivery that honors Mamet even when Mamet didn't write the script. He'd be my first pick for any black ops team I needed to assemble (hm, there's a blog post in that).

Claire Fisher (Six Feet Under)
The only woman on this list (I'm as surprised as the next guy), Claire is gorgeous and quirky in a way that makes me want to fall in love with her. But at the same time, she's completely messed up, so I stay away. Over the course of the series, she's the one that probably develops the most, and we're privy to her every terrible decision. And somehow, we're never quite able to judge her.

Comedy and Variety
Geoffrey Tennant (Slings and Arrows)
After Slings and Arrows, Paul Gross can do no wrong. The brilliant and eccentric former actor, now artistic director of the New Burbage Festival, Geoffrey Tennant, embraces his madness thoroughly and we love him for it. In many ways, he's a living Hamlet, using that madness to say what we're all thinking. Misbehavior as truth. And he understands Shakespeare better than most university professors I've had.

Jack Donaghy (30 Rock)
Alec Baldwin's Republican send-up is the funniest thing on tv right now, period. And yet, if you espouse those values, he can be your hero.

Brian Topp (Spaced)
There's something to love about all the characters in Spaced, but I've known people like Brian, for whom the artist lifestyle is more important than producing art, but none of those people have been SINCERE. Brian is. Brian believes in his anxiety. He doesn't do anything to APPEAR to be an artist. He just is. He is driven by a purity of soul. So I both laugh at and admire his passion.

Dr. Will (Big Brother)
Ok, weird one here. You're gonna say a contestant on a reality show shouldn't count. Especially one from possibly the lamest of the long-running reality shows. However, Dr. Will certainly IS a character, a put-on personality/strategy by Will Kirby, and always the reason to watch both seasons he's been on. The most charming villain ever, you want to laugh WITH him at the other house guests, and you can't believe how he wins or almost wins using a two-fold strategy of 1) being hated and 2) abandoning challenges before he can ever win them. That, my friends, is flair.

Science Fiction
Number 6 (The Prisoner)
Patrick McGoohan's Prisoner is the coolest cucumber of them all. He will not be broken. His determination and acerbic sense of humor gets me cheering every time. I never even skip the extremely long opening sequence because I want to see him driving... intensely. Walk to the office... intensely. And tell Number Two he isn't a number... INTENSELY!

Benjamin Sisko (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
If I can only pick one Star Trek character, I've got to pick my namesake. There's a REASON he's my namesake, after all. Basically, I love Sisko's multi-dimensionality (no that's not a Wormhole Alien joke). He's deadly serious, but has a sense of humor. He's easy to anger, but has one of the most loving family relationships ever portrayed in Trek. He gets the most intense dilemmas, and sometimes has to do the wrong thing because it's the only right thing to do. He's no-nonsense. He'll even hit Q. Just you watch.

The Doctor (Doctor Who)
Obviously, there was going to be a character from the Whoniverse in here. I looked at a lot of classic companions, Sarah Jane and Leela most especially. I looked at New Who characters like Rose, Martha, Captain Jack and Donna. For a while, I thought it was gonna be Gwen Cooper from Torchwood. But in the end, I had to go with The Doctor himself. And I didn't even do him the disservice of choosing a single regeneration. It's the character in all his forms that fascinates me. One man who is many, and whose psychology and history are interesting exactly BECAUSE he is more than one man. And soon another layer will be added. Can't wait.

What are your favorites from the small screen (they're not exactly small anymore though, are they?).

10 Favorite Movie Characters

Michael May put me up to it. The idea is to name my 10 favorite movie characters, with the added difficulty that they can't come from other sources (comics, novels, plays). Seems like most of mine are in one of two classes: Girls who've stolen my heart and total badasses (sometimes both at the same time).

The Exception
Mike Peters (Swingers)Neither a Charming Girl nor a Total Badass, Jon Favreau's long-suffering movie alter ego is the poster boy for what my inner circle calls the Pathetic. Unable to get the girl? In fact, convinced you can't get the girl so you sabotage yourself from the outset? Yeah. I guess I can relate. To that and to being surrounded by idiots. That scene with the answering machine is an Oscar moment if I ever saw one.

Charming Girls
Clementine Kruczynski (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
I seem to have something about eccentric, free spirited women in movies, though there's every chance I might look at them funny on the street. Now, I've always thought Kate Winslet was attractive, but I've never wanted to date one of her characters. It's the mark of a truly charming character/performance. And this despite our seeing her ugly as much as her pretty side. And that's probably what's irresistible about her. I love paradox. Here's this exuberant and unapologetic wild child, and at heart, she's driven by insecurity.

Sam (Garden State)
In much the same vein, Natalie Portman's animal-loving, slightly nutso Sam is another keeper, with truly infectious enthusiasm, a perfect counterpoint to Garden State's Largeman. Like Clementine, she has an innocent forwardness I appreciate as a pathetic (see above) introvert, and is upfront about her own dark side. She's a pathological liar, and yet the truest character I've seen Portman play. And what a perfect introduction to her character with that Shins song. Completely charming.

Faye (Chungking Express)
I knew I wanted a character from a Wong Kar-Wai film in the list, and to tell you the truth, there could have been many. I just couldn't choose. So I went with one of the first, but at the same time, the last I met. Faye is yet another free spirit. When she gets her hands on Cop 633's apartment key from his ex-girlfriend, she starts going there during the day and changing the apartment one bit at a time, and changing herself into the ex as well. It's a crazy story, with a crazy, but undeniably lovable character at the center of it.

Dr. Abby (The Truth About Cats and Dogs)
The male version of Mike Peters, Abby is behind my long-standing jones for Janeane Garofalo. I'm also a cat person, I also worked in radio, I've also got a quirky sarcastic sense of humor... They were obviously writing this for me specifically. The movie contends that she is somehow an ugly duckling. I believe none of it.

Total Badasses
El Mariachi (El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico)
Whether played by fresh-faced Carlos Gallardo or suave Antonio Banderas, the simple idea of a mariachi action hero is a wonderful one. Make him tormented by the death of his love(s), even better. Have him hide a gun in his guitar, genius.

Ghost Dog (Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai)
Speaking of tormented badasses... Ghost Dog is a hitman who lives in a shack next to a pigeon coop and studies the way of the samurai. Forest Whitaker's soulful performance will not be denied. The importance of such a code in the inner city is for Ghost Dog paramount. He is restrained, zen-like, wise. And yet he kills people for a living. A tragic anti-hero characters like Wolverine only aspire to.

Frank T.J. Mackey (Magnolia)
The only villain on this list, and I've picked one of the most irredeemable I could think of. The filth that comes out of this man's mouth. The hatred he is capable of. But he's hilarious, and in the most wrong of ways, he can be a little bit right, and when push comes to shove at the end of the movie, he doesn't give in, but appears to have unplumbed depths. One thing I like about all three badasses on this list is the mystery that clings about them.

The Magic Combo: Both
Yu Shu Lien (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
Yeah, Li Mu Bai is cool, but for my money, Crouching Tiger is all about Michelle Yeoh's Shu Lien. She kicks some serious ass, son! Certainly, she's involved in the two best fights in the movie. Plus, you gotta respect her undying unconsummated love for Li Mu Bai. She's strong as hell, but she stands by her man. Who says there are no roles for more mature women?

Mothra (Mothra, Godzilla vs. Mothra, etc.)
Come on! She's gorgeous! Every time that giant moth flaps her wings to make a wind that flings Godzilla to the ground, my heart glows. She'd be my favorite giant monster even if she didn't come with a twin pair of singing fairies. FLAP FLAP FLAP

As usual, these are subject to change without warning. Honorable mentions: Blake (the only character not from the play in Glengarry Glen Ross), Ashley Johnsten (Junebug), Alyssa Jones (Chasing Amy), Joshua the lusty preacher (The Ballad of Cable Hogue), Mickey O'Neil the Pikey (Snatch), and others that didn't fit the strict criteria, so...

Next week: 10 favorites who DID start out in other media. Let's talk about interpretation!

Consider yourself tagged folks!