Best Lovecraft Movie of all time? 

Doesn't have to be a direct adaptation or even mythos. Just the best at capturing the mood and themes. I've gotten some pretty wild answers from twitter, but i want to know what you think. Spread the question around, the more answers the better, obviously. 

Thanks!

 Now, as you know Bugmas is the massive holiday I celebrate because I'm a toddler and my parents can't stop me. It starts on Hollween and runs straight through my birthday on January 9th. That's basically three months of nonstop good times and candy/gifts for me! (Oh, and I guess I have to give Crimefighter stuff too now that she exists.) 

Anyway, right in the middle of Bugmas, some other people have their Christmas celebration and I so I got about a million gifts this year. Many of them were duplo blocks. I have a sneaking suspicison Daddy picked those up mostly because he likes to play with them, but that's terribly assumptive of me.  But of most interest to you, my blog readers, I got a digital camera! No, really. I got a camera especially for my little hands and now I am a photo journalist. Under the cut are some pictures I took Christmas day. I'm no blackwell , nor even Chuck Wendig, but I am cuter. 

( Photo Heavy )

I knew Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was going to be bad going in. I'd heard enough to know that I wouldn't like it. I was comfortable with that. However, any time I know I won't like a movie, Michael J Nelson comes at me with a Rifftrax commentary that keeps me laughing through it. It made the first two Matrix films hilarious. It helped me through the Lord of the Rings films. It made Aeon Flux enjoyable. It made Jurassic Park a great experience. If you don't believe me yet: I didn't want the two hours I spent watching Twilight back. It made Plan 9 From Outer Space one of the best movie-watching experiences of my life. 

I still could not stand Transformers 2. It was that bad. 

Imagine this: Slow-motion shot of a woman with a coital expression followed by fast-forward shot of explosions behind people running followed by slow-motion shot of jiggling breasts followed by fast-forward shot of two robots so unremarkable that you can't tell which one is supposed to win. Then, it breaks to someone saying a one-liner so out-of-context that it puts David Caruso in CSI Miami to shame. Repeat that for over TWO  AND A HALF HOURS, and you have Transformers 2. 

Let's point-by-point: 

Negatives

1) The movie shows dogs humping. There's no reason for this, whatsoever. It occurs multiple times. A dog-sized robot humps Megan Fox's character, also for no reason. It simply facilitates her making a very uncalled-for crack at Shia LaBeouf's character. 

2) It's racist. I talked about this before, but from only watching clips. I watched the whole thing, it's just as bad. There are two illiterate robots with grills and huge ears, talking about "popping caps," and "whooping your bitch ass." Surprisingly, neither of the robots were named "Blackface."

3) A robot had giant testicles that hung over John Turturro, for no real reason. Particularly considering that it's made of two wrecking balls, and none of the component robots is a wrecking ball, let alone two. 

4) The robots were entirely inconsistent. Some of them bleed. Some of them have green goo. Some of them age, while not being as old as other, younger ones. I know consistency is asking a lot. But it should be a basic foundation for filmmaking. 

5) Lines like "Roll out!" don't work when immediately followed by flight. 

6) So there are two Macguffins, and the main characters have them throughout the majority of the movie, and the secret is that they need to be combined? One of them, they know, resurrects broken robot shit, and the other is broken robot shit? The characters don't figure this out on their own. 

7) I couldn't figure out which pile of CGI shit was fighting which pile of CGI shit at any given time. There were dozens of lumps of silver and black robots, and I couldn't identify a single one of them, with maybe the exception of Optimus, because at certain angles you can see other colors on his pile of CGI shit. 

8) WOMEN NEED FOOD IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. When you see Ghandi's ribs, it's because you know he's starving himself for a message. He's not starving himself because teenage boys think that he needs to mutilate himself to be attractive. Adding someone with less nutrition than Megan Fox doesn't make the movie any better. Of course, we're talking about a director that casts fifteen year-olds as strippers. 

9) The characters do nothing but run away, and stop each other from running places. They don't actually contribute in any meaningful way to what's actually happening. 

10) The military loses hundreds of men, literally thousands of people are murdered with no second thought, but this one teenage boy is such a tragic loss?

11) On the topic of killing, how was this movie rated PG-13? I honestly cannot think of a movie with more wanton killing, that didn't involve the complete destruction of a planet. 

12) Good people do not rip off arms and beat their owners with them. Good people exhaust options besides killing. And when good people have to resort to killing, they don't do it in over-exaggerated ways that serve only to terrify and degrade the enemy. If a police officer rips off an assailant's arm and beats him to death with it, he ceases to be a police officer and becomes a sociopath. There's a reason for this. 

13) Cross-country, trans-Atlantic travel happened by car. I think. I couldn't follow the pace with which the characters teleported from one driving scene on one continent to the next. 

14) There's a kid played by Ramon Rodriguez that serves the narrative in absolutely no way, whatsoever. But he's in almost the entire movie. 

15) The movie is two and a half hours. I kept thinking it'd be over soon. It wasn't. 

16) The characters were in Egypt. Sure. But they were nowhere near the pyramids. In fact, they were many miles away from a pyramid. Of course... Geographical consistency is consistency, and Michael Bay doesn't believe in consistency, because consistency doesn't look like a starved teenage girl. 

17) There is not a desert in New Jersey. I've been there. It's not that big. I think I would have noticed one. 

18) Michael Bay's little geography lesson completely ignored the existence of Israel. Jordan and Egypt don't have a border. 

19) Suction can lift trucks but not humans, and magnetism can lift military jets and tanks but not robots? Really? 

20) Shia's lines mostly consist of, "GO, GO, GO, GO, GO," sometimes replaced with, "NO, NO, NO, NO." 

21) Pot does not make you violent, loud and brash. 

22) In one scene, Sam calls Mikaela "Megan." 

23) Repeat after me: YOU CANNOT OUTRUN EXPLOSIONS. You most certainly cannot outrun dozens of them. It's a tired fucking trope, Mr Bay. Stop using it, please. 

I could do this for months. Now, the positives: 

1) The cat robot looked kind of cool. 

2) Eventually, it ended. 

If I didn't have a support group watching the movie with me, I would have turned it off a number of times. We talked about the possibility of turning it off. We kept it on as a sort of mutual dare, a challenge, the kind of thing that four people do when faced with something disgusting and painful. It's like bukkake. Nobody wants to do it. When it's going on, everyone wants it to stop. You keep doing it because of peer pressure. Then, when it's over, you make a communal pact to never speak of it again. But you all do. Then, when you see each other, you can't picture each others' faces without recalling what went on that fateful night. 

That was the experience of watching Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. 

Recently I've been involved in a bunch of in-progress projects that I can't talk about until they go live. (I've decided that all the work I've done in 2009 that I can't talk about is going to make me look amazingly productive in 2010.) The cover I did for Cybrosis is an example of just such a project and I'm happy to say that it is now live! Cybrosis is a podcast novel by P.C. Haring and I'm pleased to say that the cover photo is mine!

I took the photograph for the cover working with Rae Winters, who is the amazing model gracing the cover. Jared Axelrod did the graphic design that makes it look so sci-fitastic. P.C. is releasing episodes now along with some of the voice best talent out there. I am so happy that he asked me to help create the cover for his novel. Thanks, P.C.!

You can download the first episode of Cybrosis here: www.cybrosisnovel.com/

Photo by Rae Winters

In April, Jared jumped off of a six foot wall and broke his ankle in three places. With his remarkable tolerance for pain and his sweet demeanor, Jared manages to make this photo, where he is showing clinical signs of shock, appear like it could be a fine, relaxing photo of two lovers on a spring day.

After this, Jared had a three day hospital stay. I have pictures of him during this time, pale and drugged against pain. It was scarier than I like to admit. A broken ankle isn't a life threatening injury, and it was one that Jared healed quickly from. He learned to walk again faster than his doctors or physical therapist predicted. But I had seen my husband in a hospital bed, breathing tube in his nose, bundled and halfway concious. My world all wrapped up in starched sheets.

It was then that I wrote this story, called "Flipped to the Sky" about a man who finds himself in the hospital after a bad injury. I think that some of my experience of the hospital is in there, and some of my worry and frustration, but it's also about the future of aging and death. The story can be read here: http://www.365tomorrows.com/12/22/flipped-to-the-sky/

No, I haven't seen it. I'll probably see it via Netflix later on. I can't really justify a 50$ movie night right now, and I don't really know that I would if I could. I wanted to talk a little more about what I'm hearing about the movie, because it's apparently The Best Movie Ever Made.

So, let me sum up and paraphrase everything I've been told about Avatar so far: 

"So, there's this thing that you really don't like in movies, and it's the basis of the story." 

"The visuals make it worth not having a strong story!" 

"It's going to change movies forever!" 

"These things mean that you should see it!" 

I don't really see a selling point. 

I'm bored of fantasy war movies. I didn't really like Lord of the Rings. The later Matrix films bored the shit out of me. I can't relate to Braveheart. I'm not saying it's badwrongfun or anything, I just don't like them. I've found that if killing/violence is going to affect me in a piece of entertainment, it tends to be on a smaller, more personal level. An example would be the Terminator films. Lots of violence, but it's all directed at a character. Burn Notice is another example. Lots of violence, but it's pointed and targeted. Whole Bunch of Things versus Whole Bunch of Things doesn't do it for me. 

I don't like eye candy movies, unless they have strong stories. Blade Runner's a good visual movie, while catching me with its story. I didn't like Dances with Wolves. I didn't like The Last Samurai. I've heard the one where thousands of people from a wise and enlightened race can't help themselves until a Lone White Man™ comes in to single-handedly save their entire culture. I don't know that I want to hear it again with super cool graphics. (Although, ironically, my favorite movie of all time is a Lone White Man™ story.) 

If it's going to change movies forever, that's cool. I'll just watch every other movie after it, since clearly they're going to reflect all the relevant changes. Although, the Matrix changed everything, and I can't say I like its contributions to film. 

I like movies that make me think, make me laugh and/or make me ask questions.

Underworld and Van Helsing have great effects. I prefer Ginger Snaps.

From everything I've heard, I really don't think I'll enjoy Avatar. It's pretty, sure, but that's not why I like movies. I can't think of a movie that sold me on its visuals. 

The thing this movie is making me think is, will the strength of its environmental message overcome the millions of Avatar-branded Happy Meal boxes that'll be filling up landfills? The Happy Meal is a benchmark for me. If I have to bet my life on whether or not I'll dislike a movie, I can go to McDonald's. If it's on a Happy Meal box, I probably won't like it. It's not a universal truth, but it's a good rule of thumb.

So, point being: I probably wouldn't like it. It's okay if you do. Most of you probably don't like Bubba Ho-Tep. And as much as it pains me to say it, you're entitled to that opinion. 

This is Katy Crimefighter. You should be afraid.

Photo courtesy of jrblackwell .

I'm basically tired as fuck of 'advice for dating a geek girl.' So, I did my own bit of advice over at Alltern8. Not only that, but I've been blogging a lot over there (about five times a week. Crazy, right?) So you should go check that out. I've done some reviews, some talk about gaming, and other crap. I intend on doing easy geek recipes. I particularly liked this article though, so read it. I cited divalion 's wonderful essay on "Nice Guys" in it. If you haven't read it, you should consider it.