I saw the po-lice arresting Santa Claus?

Nope! Don't worry-- according to The Law and the Multiverse, a blog that takes a close look at superheroes and their actions in the context of US law, they'd have a hard time making the charges stick:

At first glance it might seem that Santa Claus is liable in tort and criminal law for trespass, but the homeowner’s consent negates both charges. Sending letters to Santa, hanging stockings with care, setting out milk and cookies, and the like are all clear manifestations of consent for Santa Claus to enter one’s home and deposit presents (or coal, as the case may be). Indeed I suspect it would be quite difficult to find someone who received a present from Santa Claus yet could honestly claim that he or she did not consent to its delivery.

This is a really interesting blog that I'm sure you guys will get a kick out of. Some of the language goes over my head but the explanations are very clear and get broken down for the laymen. Found this via The New York Times. Says the article, "The site thus suggests that in the grand Venn diagram of life, there appears to be substantial overlap between lawyers and the people Mr. Daily lovingly refers to as 'comic book nerds.'" Something I definitely noticed, especially at Midtown Comics in Manhattan. If you ever went during lunchtime, there were always these youngish to middle-aged men in suits standing around reading the latest magazines. It was always a fun thing to see.

Oh yeah, and it's relevant to the real world, too. Or at least, it will be one day:

Professor Somin added that debating the legal ramifications of superpowers might bring a smile, but might also prove the foundation for something more important some day. “Over the next several decades we’re going to see technology and powers emerge that today only exist in science fiction and comic books,” he said, citing Arthur C. Clarke’s famous saying that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

[pic source]

" And they sort of enjoy that they are the great showdowns."

I want to show you all of them right here right now! but I can't so here are a few favorites. Go check out the rest, from 12 Angry Men to some Big Trouble in Little China at Mr. C's Great Showdowns. You can also see his other devastatingly cute & clever works at his blog.

han solo seriously had too much of that blue milk, which looks totally harmless but apparently is not.

I kept hearing about this interview but never watched the video mostly because I figured it couldn't be that bad. Harrison Ford couldn't be so high that you could tell! Who does that on TV! He's like 80, 80 year olds don't do that! People are just being mean! And so forth!

Okay, well guess what, he is-- you just have to see him walk onstage & sit down and you can figure it out-- & the big scoop: he dishes on exactly why he is going to make another gawdawful Indiana Jones movie. And it's exactly the reason you'd guess.

• Watch "Harrison Ford was High as Shit on Conan Last Night" from Splitsider

ok ok ok stop everything you're doing.

there is an entire site dedicated to space westerns.

Yeah like that.

young indiana jones was awesome ok?

ok sweet peas. if you're looking for a love story to read today, i suggest this one:

Mad Love.

wow these would make great gifts for valentine's day

this & this. if you're a dork. (you are.)

that's what i'd be doing

via Bleeding Cool.

Warren Ellis: just shot six pages of FELL 10 over to you

Ben Templesmith: Oh you tease me sir.

Warren Ellis: rub it on your fucking nipples son

Ben Templesmith: My gods, he actually did. Warren Ellis sent me some FELL pages. Printing out & rubbing them on my nipples right away.

please be real. i think it is!

they are making the inferno into a video game what?

EA will be releasing it in February following a massive marketing campaign that I completely missed-- though I will probably not miss the crowning glory of it, at least, during the Super Bowl. I don't really know, and I'm not clear on how good the game is being said to be. Detailed info is available at Wikipedia, which stresses that the game is loosely based on the poem.

So basically Dante isn't a whiny little bitch who keeps fainting when he can't figure out how to get across a river. Okay. Is Virgil in it?

“The story line is not Dante’s, period,” said Teodolinda Barolini, the Lorenzo Da Ponte Professor of Italian at Columbia University and a former president of the Dante Society of America. “It’s kind of a mishmash of current popular ideas, projected back into the Middle Ages [...]

“I’m not in the least bit turned off,” she said. “I’m very intrigued and I want to see it” [nytimes].

It's an interesting idea and since it is so clearly departed from the original work, I don't think anyone is complaining. Dante's Inferno has become a defining architecture for people writing about hell, so it's not like this hasn't been done before. If it gets kids to try to read the poem, that would be great. The game's website has what appears to be a fairly well put together section about Mr Alighieri and the poem. Though this brings us to the real problem-- the marketing of the actual book using the video game's art, which is ludicrous. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure which edition we have in the house, but it definitely doesn't have a picture of an extra that showed up to the 300 filming thinking it was a movie about the Albigensian crusade. (That doesn't quite work, but whatever. People massacred, wrong period costume. You so funny.)

You know what? Speaking of awesome? Go look at the rest of this picture by MS Corley-- who PS has an Etsy page. Than go see Night Watch. I am rather ashamed that this movie completely slipped my mind when I was doing the best of the decade-- Night Watch is in like Flynn, yaddamean. Great action sequences, strangely moving stories, beautifully shot. Fabulous antihero. Completely confusing but equally awesome sequel. Most amazing subtitles ever-- really wish that style had been picked up by more studios.

fuck yeah! oscar wilde!

Came across this via the LA Times lit blog, Jacket Copy. Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time combines 2 of the most awesome things in the world-- literary figures (characters and authors) and badass illustrators.

Like. . . Pia Guerrra does Philip Marlowe! Shit, if that's not enough awesomeness for the rest of your week there is no pleasing you.

And somebody I don't know but now want to know all about does Phileas Fogg! Shit! And Mike Mignola, some Lovecraft for you dorks, and much more-- I've already found a bunch of new favorites just by browsing the archives. Make sure you check out the headers (detail above from the one by Ming Doyle), too, which are hilarious. It has also reminded me I need to finish The Master and Margarita.

harrison ford. you are wrong.

Says he--

I think it would be interesting to deepen the relationship between he and his son [Mutt, played by Shia LaBeouf] and play on that relationship. .... It's full of opportunity.

Nooo. No, it would not be interesting. Nobody wants (wanted) to see the relationship between Rebels & Ewoks deepened, or the relationship between Jar Jar Binks & the Jedi deepened-- or the relationship between JJB & Ewoks with the audience deepened. . . unless it involves a lightsaber. Ha-ha. Or maybe a Blastech E-11? Which is where I stop?

So, maybe it is safe to announce that there is no hope. Though I do love what Sean Connery thought of the new movie-- "rather good and rather long." Aww, he's just being nice, and he always knows what to say. Just try to fuck with that man.

But I think in the end, the problem was, really-- all the good that was in Indy IV was not good enough to make up for how failure-y the failures were. Much like that sentence.

io9's best Comic Covers of the Decade

Gawker imprint io9 has 100 of their choice covers posted, limited it to 1 per series. My favorite & most familiar cover artists, I'm realizing, are James Jean, Adam Hughes, Ben Templesmith's work on Fell, and of course Mike Mignola, so it's fun to browse the selection and find new artists.

• i09's Favorite Covers of the Decade

Jesus Hates Zombies feat Abraham Lincoln Hates Werewolves?

Came across this picture on Ben Templesmith's blog. He is illustrating the cover for the comic called Jesus Hates Zombies by Stephen Lindsay. Which sounds like the best thing ever. Templesmith used on old Russian-style icon, very cool, and it's a picture of Jesus hatin on zombies. Look at the shit. Look at that nail through the bat. Shit.

Unfortunately I've been drinking and it's making research hard. Yes, it's noon. Yes, this is an auspicious start to the day and the weekend.

And yes, even with minimal research, it is easy to find out how awesome Jesus Hates Zombies sounds. From the Amazon.com description:

The zombie plague has swept across the Earth, and Jesus has been sent down to take care of it. Along with Laz, (his loyal zombie sidekick) Jesus must unite the remaining humans to stand up and defeat the zombie menace. A werewolf-slaying Abe Lincoln makes his debut here, fighting in the 19th century while Jesus saves the world in the 21st century. Will these two historical heroes finally cross paths? You'll have to read to find out!

You think you're cooler than that? You think you are? Cos you're not.

Stormtroopers! STORMTROOPERS!

"Stupid Garbage Compactor. . ." Property of JD Hancock

JD Hancock, whose Flickr stream you can check out here, has put together an awesome and fun set of stormtrooper action figure shots-- a sort of behind the scenes/day in the life of the average Imperial ground troops complete with really, really wonderfully bad puns. It's a welcome addition, especially since the stormtrooper gets no respect, ever since Lucas decided they were all clones. (Anybody keeping up with the EU stuff? Are classic trilogy troopers clones?) Anyway, Hancock's photos are a passel of delightful miniature fun, and if you like what's up there, checking out the other pictures is time well spent. Also check out this creative reproduction of Jabba's palace (or whatever seedy place Boba Fett stopped at en route to Tattoine with a Bith band.)

no, i totally need this.

And you do too.

ThinkGeek, which has a stupid amount of insanely awesome (or an insane amount of stupidly awesome) stuff, includes in their stock Japanese capsule toys-- those little toys you get from vending machines. We have them over here, too, but ours are small potatoes compared to these:

The entire line-up is the the fertility idol, the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, the Ark, Nurhachi's (spelling?) remains urn, a Shankara stone, the Grail, the WE WON'T MENTION IT, and the wee voodoo Indy doll.

And they all come on little keychains shaped like Indy's whip. And they are unfortunately all sold out.

They do have this little 1.5" guy, though.

Here is what the guy playing Gambit in that new Wolverine movie looks like.

Um, yuck?
I'll probably see it anyway. . . check out the Comic Con trailer here.

heh.

[Original picture]

The Robert Downey Jr Post

I'm gonna go ahead and admit it- like every girl across America who saw Iron Man, I am jumping on the massive-crush-on-RDJ bandwagon, and boy is it worth it. For everyone who was a bit disappointed with Indy IV (and when I say everyone, I mean everyone), Iron Man is pretty much The fun summer movie that people look forward to once summer movies start coming out (and no, Prince Caspian isn't it.) I have seen it twice in theaters, something I haven't done for a very, very long time.

Iron Man is officially the best Marvel hero movie that has been made, and yes, I am including Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD. Where the X-Men and Spider-man films never felt like they had very much meat and punch behind them, Iron Man has a great cast (Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Shaun Toub, and Mrs Chris Martin, even though I've never been a fan), a relevant story line that has been suitably updated into our world (here, Los Angeles and in general, a post-911 world), and thrills and giggles. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it. I am not very familiar with the Iron Man of the comics, so I don't know how purists feel about the film, but on its own as a film- it's excellent. Definitely check it out, it's probably still in theaters.

If you're all over the place for more Robert Downey Jr, I'd like to recommended Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, starring the man himself in addition to Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan. I meant to see it when it came out, but a Blockbuster monthly pass plus this newfound RDJ obsession made sure I gave it another go, and it's well worth the- whatever it is that you do to get your movies.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an updated noir-comic film, with "chapter titles" that just so happen to be the names of Raymond Chandler novels. And as you know, Raymond Chandler just so happens to be God. The film follows Harry (Downey Jr), who stumbles into a film audition after a botched toy store robbery and so impresses the audition people that he is brought to Hollywood. He is assigned to accompany Val Kilmer's gay detective character on the job so as to do research for his upcoming role, and as you can except, gets into all sorts of trouble. Michelle Monaghan plays a girl from his past. You get the idea. Dark alleys, corruption in the seat of authority, perversion, strange situations, ladies. The movie takes appropriate genre elements and uses them to its advantage.

Downey is ideal as the ironic antihero, interrupting his own narration when he remembers things he has forgotten to tell us. He's in over his head, and Downey plays Harry to perfection. It's especially fun to watch Downey and Kilmer square off, with Kilmer's character making it clear that he has little use for movie detectives in general or Downey in particular.

Although there are many laughs, this is a violent film, as Black honors the genre while he plays with it. This is not a "Scary Movie" style spoof where we don't have to take anything seriously. People get hurt and some die in the course of the movie, and sometimes it does hurt. That's part of the reason these films continue to resonate. It's not merely about solving the mystery. There are some real human emotions at stake. [Daniel M Kimmel]

The movie is a lot of fun, the characters interesting, dialogue sharp, good pacing.

• Watch an interview between Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr

Aand, if you're not gonna go see the Hulk this weekend, here's the TV spot with Tony Stark. Yippee.

Hellboy numero dos motherfucker

I have seriously neglected posting about one of my top movies of the summer, and that is the upcoming Hellboy sequel! I was sitting in one of my writing classes, and one of those exquisitely cute girls who is in sororities and actually is named after a princess and actually does have a high-pitched voice and actually does dress like she's on one of those shows and says things like, "Oh my god, I have been so busy with this project," and when the person she's talking to politely says, "Oh yeah? What were you working on?" she says, "I don't really want to talk about it"--

Uh, then why'd you bring it up, sweetheart?

--anyway, says she: "I saw The Orphanage. You know, produced by the guy who did [giggle-giggle] Hellboy? I didn't see it, but, like- did he need the money?"

Maaan, if I brought my Good Samaritan to class with me, I would have bopped her on the head.

So- fantastically excited about this film, and so glad they got the whole cast (Yes! Jeffrey Tambor!) to come back. (Except Myers! I loved him, goshdarnit!) You know it's a good cast when they come back and do the animated interregnum releases, one of which I am watching right now while eating me oatmeal and not studying. You've probably seen the trailer, but if you need some eye candy to get yer morning started off, here we go. Oh Guillermo! What are we going to do with you?

• Watch the totally sweet HD trailer here. [I had the snazzy embedded thing, but it loads automatically and was kinda pissing me off.]