Yes, I’m back and should have time once more to write all the wonderful reviews and theories that you, my beloved readers, have come to expect and adore.  In fact I have one on deck that I am writing in a bit.  However, yesterday I drove home from LA which is six hours of nothing but time to think.  Sometimes I come up with something brilliant and other times I come up with questions like this one.

Think about it.  Superman is effectively indestructible.  Wouldn’t his hair destroy any scissors you tried to use it on?  My best friend told me he was a comic once where Superman reflected his heat vision off a mirror to cut it.  This is all well and good, but the thing is mirrors reflect lasers, not heat vision.  He doesn’t have laser eyes.  All that would happen is the mirror would just get super hot.

Let’s say that this were even true.  First of all have you ever tried to cut your own hair in a mirror?  I sometimes trim my eyebrows and let me tell you I am in severe danger of giving myself an accidental lobotomy every time.  What happens if a fly buzzes by real fast and for just a second you track it with your eyes while styling your hair.  Isn’t Superman in serious danger of giving himself an unintentional no-hawk?

For that matter, no one ever notices that Supermans hair length is the exact same as Clark Kent, and they get their hair cut at exactly the same time?  How dumb is Lois Lane?  If male pattern baldness runs in the -el family keeping his secret identity intact may prove problematic.

Sorry, I know.  Completely irrelevant tangent.  This is what keeps me up at night and awake on late night Christmas drives.  Superman logo courtesy of the Superman T Shirt category.  I will be working on a film review shortly.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

I for one couldn’t be happier.  I always felt the whole “Kryptonian society is all based on crystals” to be a little too hippy dippy new age.  Also, how exactly do crystals grow without some other source to fuel the growth?  Isn’t there some law about matter cannot be created or destroyed.  Dave would know that.  He’s the science nerd.

When you go back to the original comics there was none of this crystal crap either.  Krypton was shown as a very advanced planet, not the inside of the universes biggest geode.  They had flying cars that looked right.  The ship Kal-el stuffed young Superman into looked like a Christmas tree ornament.

Also, what was the deal with using a giant flat crystal as a bed and then having sex with Lois Lane on it?  I can tell you from experience that more than once a month on the kitchen floor is a little rough, and unless you are really drunk you don’t want to sleep on it.

It was all 70′s hippy junk IMO, and one of the weaknesses from the last movie was the need they felt to make the magic crystals into a major point of the film.  I think Lex Luthor is smart enough to come up with a way to wreck the planet without stealing alien technology.

Like his Batman collection, Dave has a massive amount of Superman t shirts, which is where I got this image.  He’s such a fan boy.

Jason

Not really sure how I feel about this news.  Was Kevin Spacey so hard to get for a minor appearance?  Honestly he made the last Superman movie for me.  Without him it was really kind of dull and boring.  Sorry, but Superman just doesn’t have the angst and pull of Batman or Spiderman.  This Supes verses Doomsday image from the Superman T Shirts.

Bradley Cooper I find entertaining in comedies, but I don’t know if he can pull off a serious villain roll.  My big worry is that given an actor known for comedy the director and writers will be drawn to making Lex Luthor the comedy relief.  Big mistake in my opinion.  There can be a certain amount of humor from him, but he can’t be made into a big joke.  Although I have to say I am intrigued by the idea of Bradley Cooper completely bald.  Will he man up and shave his scalp, or go the wimpy route with one of those skin caps?

Jason

Most reviews seem to have panned this, but I kind of liked it.

This week is more proof that I have been secretly transported to Bizarro world and that in it most of Bizarro humanity is comprise of freaks and I am the normal one.  Everyone loved Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and I thought it was sluggish and confusing.  Everyone seems to hate this movie and, to be honest, I really enjoyed it.  I found it fun, interesting, and honestly frightening at points, and when I get back to the real, non-Bizarro world I am sure I will find any number of people who agree with me (in the real world I also have a ton of money and women find me irresistible.  Bizarro world sucks.  Bizarro image courtesy of the Superman T Shirt category).

That is not to say this movie doesn’t have it’s flaws, and I can totally see where a lot of the criticism stems from.  We will get into that shortly, but overall I found this movie to be a good time.

What I didn’t find this movie to be, however, was a good value for the money.  It is a woefully short 87 minutes and the ending they pulled out of their asses with no sign of any kind of resolution, conclusion, or development.  As it is a mock “found footage” documentary this is kind of understandable, but honestly this film looks exactly like a student film that the people working on it got bored and decided to just end it in one fell swoop.  The film puts the “ow” in “low budget” and I think there is a distinct possibility they ran out of funds and decided to wrap it up quick.

The movie is presented as a documentary about a daughter named Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade-Why am I Doing This?, Fallen, For Love or Country; the Arturo Sandoval Story) looking into the demonic possession of her mother (Susan Crowley-Born of Fire, Cristabel) with the help of a documentarian named Micheal (Ionut Grama-The Whistleblower, Guber’s Journey, Closer to the Moon) who wants to do a film about exorcisms.  They travel to Rome where the mother is locked up in a Catholic mental hospital.  In Rome they meet two freelance exorcists, Ben and David (Simon Quarterman-The Scorpian King; Rise of a Warrior, Inside, Perfect Strangers and Evan Helmuth-Garfield, Fever Pitch, Franks Book.  Wasn’t the Helmouth the name of the portal to Hell in the basement of the school in Buffy the Vampire Slayer?), both priests who do exorcisms without the consent of the Church.  The mother killed three people when they last tried to exorcise her so the Church wants nothing to do with her.

At that point we get a lot of character development.  Interviews go on with Ben, David, and Isabella that explore their reasons and motivations for being into exorcism.  In a normal film I would be very pleased to see such character depth presented, but in a documentary format I can’t really give props for characters more or less saying “The reason I got into exorcism is blah blah blah”.  Fish in a barrel, really.  This section drags on a little but the pacing seemed appropriate for a documentary.  We get to the actual exorcism and at that point the story kind of drops the character exploration in favor of some scary scenes.  A few minutes later someone switches the record player from 33 to 45 (all my older readers should understand that last one) and the story thunders to the conclusion like it activated the booster rocket embedded in its ass.  Demonic chaos (haw!) ensues and some stuff that was hinted at never gets revealed.

The stars.  Well done, given the limitations that found footage movies must labor under.  One star.  While it was obviously derived from Blair Witch Project, I didn’t feel like it was really just a remake.  One star.  The actors were all pretty good, and I liked all the characters.  One star.  Fernands Andrade is super cute in a wholesome way that I really liked (also brunette, my personal fav).  One star.  This horror movie was actually scary at points, and presented some creepy and interesting concepts.  I found myself jumping at times.  One star.  Good use of camera and lighting to help set the creepy mood.  One star.  Good character development and presentation, at least in the first half of the film.  One star.  The didn’t do the whole camera-man-jogging-so-the-screen-is-constantly-jumping-around thing, which meant I didn’t lose my popcorn.  One star.  Overall entertaining.  One star.  Total: nine stars.

The black holes.  The movie ended so abruptly I expected the airbag to go off.  One black hole.  The film felt really, really short and had a lot of padding in the form of characters walking down hallways and so one.  Not a lot of meat.  One black hole.  While the horror buildup was presented with a nice progression once we got into the actual scary stuff the movie was pretty much over.  It’s rare that I ask for more gore, but this movie could have used something.  One black hole.  There was a large number of opportunities for further plot or character development that were left by the wayside.  Each character, including the possessing demon, had something hinted at that would have been really interested had we been given a little more.  One black hole. Total: Four black holes.

So a total of five stars, which is way more than I expected it to get going in.  I had heard this movie sucked and was more or less salivating in anticipation of something really juicy to chew on, but found that it wasn’t bad.  In fact, I spent the first 20 minutes really looking for the suck before settling into my seat to enjoy it.  Is it worth seeing?  Sure, especially if you can see it for $5 like I did.  It will do OK on a TV scree, but some of the exorcism scenes might lose a lot, especially the first one.  Date movie?  For the right girl, yes.  Don’t take someone who is religious unless you want to get a religious lecture and a firm handshake at the end of date.  Actually, I think this is an excellent date movie.  Scary enough to have her holding onto your arm but not so frightening that she gets creeped out on the ride home.  There are a couple scenes involving things that might creep out a girl particularly, but for the most part if she has a brain and sense of humor it should work OK.

Thanks for reading.  Nothing to see tonight, so I will continue with my end of the year awards tomorrow.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Have a good night, and I will talk to you all later.

Dave

So a few weeks ago I saw the most recent Superman movie again.  Something has been always bothering me about Superman and Kryptonite, and earlier today while sitting in traffic on the Bay Bridge it suddenly occurred to me what it was.  For this explanation we will have to turn to true friend of all nerds, science.

(Superman image courtesy of the Superman t shirt category)

Here’s the deal.  I will buy that Jor-el was a super scientist who could make a space ship capable to traveling to earth in a matter of a few hours (any more than that might have resulted in a bad case of SIDS).  However, if the planet Krypton blew itself up, how long would it really have taken for chunks of the planet to arrive on Earth?  If we assume Krypton was close to us (and not on the other side of the galaxy) then at best it’s 4.5 light years minimum distance.  Now, an explosion that propels an object is essentially a bullet.  The fastest rifle bullets travel at about 4,000 feet per second.  If we boost that up (assuming Krypton REALLY blew up) to about 5,280 feet per second, that’s about a mile a second (I never said I was going to make this science part hard on me).

So a mile a second (which is extremely generous) will essentially mean that it would take a chunk of Krypton 5,865,696,000,000 seconds to cover one light year.  A little basic arithmetic tells me that it would take a meteorite of Kryptonite 837,000 years to reach Earth.  Why, then, does the local museum have a chunk of it lying around for Lex Luthor to steal?  For that matter pieces of it are falling out of the sky all the time in the comics.  I’m sure some kind of argument could be made for a relativistic shift in time for Superman’s ship, but that would just make things worse.  If his ship were slowing down it time it could only be because he were traveling at close to the speed of light, which would still have had him arriving here in a few short years.

Now let’s consider the geometry.  I did some research and discovered that in order for a sizable meteor to arrive on the planet earth it has start out about basketball sized.  In order to make things easier for me, I am going to assume a 1 foot ball.  Now, assume Krypton were broken up into nothing but 1 foot squares (and none of it were broken up into marble sized of just vaporised outright).  If Krypton were about earth sized it would have a radius of 3,963 miles, or 209,246,440 feet.  Using the volume of a sphere equation, V=4/3(pi)(r)cubed, we get 3.86762×10(25)th power.  That’s a lot of basketballs.  However, if we take a volume of space with a radius of 4.5 light years, we get an area of space encompasing 8.4537×10(38)th power.  That’s one basketball of Kryptonite per 2.18578×10(13)th power.  At our largest point we are 94.5 million miles from the sun.  That means we occupy a disk of space that is 4.70614×10(12)th power.  In other words, in our little volume or space there should be exactly on chunk of Krypton big enough to land on Earth and, assuming it doesn’t get caught by Saturn or any of the other outer planets, there is only about a 1/10 chance of it landing on us.

Now that’s not entirely fair, as everyone knows that the basketballs would not be distributed evenly throughout the universe.  They would keep traveling.  So instead of volume, lets consider the explosion of Krypton the instigator of an expanding sphere of planetary debris.  I think the best way to think of this would be as 1 foot chunks of Kryptons surface expanding outwards.  Now the area of a sphere is determined by A-4(pi)r(squared).  Again assuming Krypton about the same as planet Earth means the surface is comprised of at most 5.50206×10(15)th power basketballs.  If they all blew up strait ahead (and assuming the debris underneath it more or less followed in a strait line from the center of the explosion) by the time the debris reach earth the area of the sphere would be 4.32363×10(26)th power square miles.  That’s one basketball per 7.8219×10(10)th power.  Assuming the eliptical plane of the planet rotation is exactly perpendicular to the expanding debris, our planet occupies a ring of about 5.9565×10(8)th power.  That’s even worse than going by volume.  And again, this is all based just on the area of space we are likely to occupy, not the fact that our planet is actually pretty tiny on an astronomical scale.

So you can see how dumb it is that Kryptonite be just lying around for any petty criminal or evil scientific super genius to find and fashion into a weapon.  Sorry if I spoiled the magic for you, but I have always been more of a Batman guy myself.

OK, a week of friends, family, and holiday cheer has gotten me over being rejected last week and, like a Superball dropped off the Empire State Building I have bounced back.  However, while my motivations for starting this subject may have been suspect, I still believe this is both relevant and useful (not to mention funny) and will continue with it.  Tonight we start a list of things to specifically NOT do after getting rejected.

1.  Do not get a tattoo or body piercing in some painful spot. I can’t stress this one enough.  Not that I have an issue with tattoos or piercings, having had several over the years myself.  However, the decision to get one and, more importantly, what to get and where on your body,  should be made with a clear head, not while wallowing in the depths of  despair.  You will probably end up with a tattoo of Edgar Allen Poe on your ass, and this is the kind of mistake you can make that will haunt you for quite a while.

2.  Do not pick fights with random guys in bars. True, you have just had your manhood more or less kicked in the nads, but drunken violence against strangers has about a 15% chance of helping you recover your machismo and an 85% chance of you getting your ass kicked.  It’s surprising how often guys who look kind of whimpy through an alcoholic fog turn out to be kind of tough, or have a bunch of friends hanging around looking for the chance to beat the hell out of something.  Also, there is a distinct chance you are just looking for a way to hurt yourself and drunkenly decided the toughest looking guy is the way to do that.  However, you have no control of how much pain he will bring to the table.

3.  In general, do not do anything that you can say “This will show her.” Trust me, you have already blown it.  There isn’t enough hang gliding, skateboarding, or other dangerous, macho stuff you can do to convince her she needs to see you naked again.  Don’t quit your job by yelling at your boss (or buying a gun and shooting up you work place).  Don’t join some cult.  Don’t make any huge changes to your lifestyle until your head is clear.

4.  Don’t inundate her with attempts to contact. There is a very fine line between infatuation and stalking, and once she has rejected you that line becomes so thin you couldn’t see it with an electron microscope.  Trust me, even a single text or email will start her looking at getting a restraining order.  The best you can hope for is to run into her randomly at some point and have a really awkward conversation.  However, trying to arrange this “random” meeting is pretty much the definition of stalking.  Give it up.

5.  Don’t find some other girl you are attracted to and bitch to her about the girl who just dumped you in hopes of getting some sympathy (cough cough pity cough cough) love. Friends are a great resource and should be willing to suffer through your tribes and tribulations, but if there is a girl you have always had a thing for don’t bitch to here in secret hopes that she will sleep with you.  She never will.  You will look and sound like one of her girl friends in both demeanor and gender.  Also, if some time down the road the new girl does want to hook up with you she will be forever haunted by the ghost of girlfriend past.

For the most part, avoid anything that is dramatic and/or potentially self destructive.  Next post I will talk about thinks you SHOULD do after being rejected.

As for the question of Pee Wee Herman versus Sgt. Shultz, I think as comedic as Shultz is he does have military training and access to automatic weapons.  I think it would go to him.  Not my best question, in my opinion, but I was in a hurry.

Today’s question, I think, is better thought out.  Uber annoying limited meta-morphs the Wonder Twins from the JLA verses super creepy heavy Witchiepoo from drug inspired H.R. Pufnstuf.  (JLA image courtesy of the Superman t shirts).

By the way, in case you were wondering, Witchiepoo’s full name Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo.  WWW???  To bad, Al Gore.  Looks like we found the real inventor of the internet.  Her very cool vehicle was aptly named the Vroom Broom.  She also had a henchman named Stupid Bat.  I have to give her props for that.  It is a evil super villain cliche that the henchmen all be of less than average intelligence, but to employ one who has the word Stupid in his name speaks of a commitment to the stereotype that is beyond the pale.