Wy O wy SyFy ?

I'm sorry, but I can't stand it.

The Sci-Fi Channel is changing their name to SyFy.

So, I wrote Sci-Fi channel in regards to their name change...

==============================================================
Hy! Longtyme vyewer, fyrst tyme complayner.

I remember pinning a flyer, of an alien watching TV with a dog, to my wall almost 19 years ago, anxious, eager and psyched about the promise and prospect of the very idea of a network dedicated to Science Fiction. I realize that across almost every bit of the basic cable landscape, stations have sacrificed their specialized uniquity in effort to broaden their audience. For some time now, it has been clear to fans, that Sci-Fi wants to become just another TNT, USA, G4, SPIKE, MTV, TBS, etc. We understand that programming like Galactica is much more expensive than Soth Park and The Daily Show to produce, hence why Comedy Central is one of the few stalwart specialty stations left.

Good luck becoming generic, but, this isn't false posturing of we'll stop watching the network, but this is the truth...

As you become generic, and programming becomes more and more on-demand, I won't need, or want SyFy. I'll have Netflix.

Thank you, and thank you for have been a wonderful network.

You're already missed.

===========================================================================

I had more to say, but it's much better said, when their own NEWS SITE runs this:

Forrest J. Ackerman has a message for you from beyond the grave

Ouch, and that kick to the groin was from YOURSELF! We've NOTHING more to say.

Once again, Thanks Forry!

Forry Farewell
by dreadcentral

Movie: Watchmen

I was aware of Watchmen as it was coming out, and was curious, but I didn't read it. I'd just gotten into comics heavily that year, so I read it about a year or so later, so still It was 20 years ago. I've reread it once or twice, which, says a LOT, and I liked it, a lot, maybe not Dark Knight Returns, but I don't have a favorite Graphic Novel. I just don't. There's really not a lot of them. I love comics as much as movies, but comics don't come with "Beginning, Middle, End." all that often. So, Dark Knight, Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Marvels, V for Vendetta, Crisis on Infinite Earth, the Dark Phoenix Saga... Well, the Dark Phoenix was part of an ongoing series... I would have loved LOVED to see that one on the big screen, but NOOOOOOoooooooooooooo. Oh well maybe someday. Thinking of Dark Phoenix, and Crisis, especially Crisis... Watchmen was unfilmable? Crisis is much worse, if Unfilmable means that it'd cost a billion dollars to shoot. Here, here's what Crisis would look like as a movie...
That'd cost a couple bucks. Really, Watchmen should shame DC/WB into making a Justice League movie, I'd imagine that at least some exec looks at Watchmen, and sees that if a 3 hr R-rated movie with characters outside the pop-culture mainstream can do a 55 mil opening, then a JLA movie is like printing money. The problem is they'd probably screw it up. JLA would need to be as good of a movie as Watchmen. Oh, yea, I'm blogging about Watchmen.
I can't get it out of my head, I might have a greater liking of Bob Dylan than I did a week ago. I think, think, I may like the movie more than the Graphic Novel.
Yea.
Yea, I do.
This is up there with Blade Runner, and The Hunt For Red October. I hope. Seriously hope this isn't my favorite movie of the year, but it's Watchmen's year now. The rest of the year could be shit, and it'll be fantastic, I love this thing that much. This thing is now the best/greatest Super-hero movie ever made. Thank you for being the complete opposite of Dark Knight. But, the Dark Knight wasn't a comic book movie, not like Watchmen... Watchmen one of few comic-book movies to be like this. Dark Knight, like most comic book movies that we've lapped up are more like Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li than they are Watchmen. Oh, sorry, forgot to blog about Street Fighter....

Movie: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
This movie cements the Jean Claude Van Dame version as a classic of modern cinema. I swear this was some, unproduced generic action flick script, and they opened it up in Final Draft, named the female lead Chun-Li, named the villian Bison, and dropped in a description of one bounty hunter dressing like Vega oh, and named Michael Clarke Duncan Balrog.

I'll admit most comic book born adaptions have given more effort than this piece.

Favoritest Movies of 2000

While doing the spreadsheet for this year, I was sure Gladiator might win the top slot, I couldn't tell. I like a lot of these movies for very different reasons. Heck, at one point I was wondering just how high Rocky and Bullwinkle were going to be. Wouldn't they look odd at the top spot. But, no this works. I've actually rewatched Thirteen Days more than Gladiator. While I'm not fond of how Kevin Costner's character feels the need to be the chorus of the obvious, a narrator with legs walking through the plot, and you could argue that the movie would be better without his character at all. None of that has anything to do with Costner either, he's just not playing John or Robert. For faults with the movie, it's THE "Major Motion Picture" of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Battlefield Earth isn't red either. I realised while doing the list, I like this movie in a sense. It's not good. It's the ultimate of bad, the textbook case, but, it's fun to make fun of. Battlefield Earth is so bad, it's a shared crappiness, a benchmark, and a collective whipping boy.

The Dune movie here, is the Sci-Fi mini-series. I'm still wrestleing with how TV movies and straight to DVD play out in this. the majority of these movies I see on DVD and not in the theater. While I did see 7 of the top 10 here theatrically, for instance, the Anime titles rarely even come out in a theater in St. Louis. So, later years may be adjusted with the animated Dr. Strange, Iron Man and Superman Doomsday movies. Crap, Stitch the movie might wrangle to vie for the all time list!

1. Thirteen Days
2. Gladiator
3. Ah! My Goddess: The Movie
4. X-Men
5. Titan A.E.
6. The Road to El Dorado
7. Finding Forrester
8. Frank Herbert's Dune
9. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
11. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
12. Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
13. Pitch Black
14. What Women Want
15. Shanghai Noon
16. Scream 3
17. Escaflowne: The Movie
18. Pokemon The Movie 2000
19. Meet the Parents
20. Quills
21. The Perfect Storm
22. Pollock
23. Final Destination
24. Unbreakable
25. Dungeons & Dragons
26. U-571
27. Frequency
28. Almost Famous
29. The Whole Nine Yards
30. The Art of War
31. Shaft (2000)
32. Charlie's Angels
33. High Fidelity
34. Chicken Run
35. The Patriot
36. Gone in 60 Seconds
37. Coyote Ugly
38. Dinosaur (Walt Disney)
39. Bedazzled
40. The Next Best Thing
41. Erin Brockovich
42. Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
43. How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
44. Digimon: The Movie
45. Boiler Room
46. Mission: Impossible II
47. Snatch
48. The Million Dollar Hotel
49. Traffic
50. The Family Man
51. Battlefield Earth
52. Scary Movie
53. The Emperor's New Groove
54. Return to Me
55. Cast Away
56. Nurse Betty
57. Requiem for a Dream
58. American Psycho
59. Me, Myself, and Irene
60. What Lies Beneath
61. Cruel Intentions 2

One small factor that may have helped Thirteen Days slip by Gladiator. I this poster hanging over my DVD collection.

Favoritest Movies of 2001

If I was only listing first place, I wouldn't have even needed to do a spreadsheet for this year. Some movies, in their own year, are an automatic 100th percentile. Like Star Wars for '77 and Jaws in '75, 2001 ended with a movie that says "You shall not pass!". Coming in 62nd place is a movie my friends and I walked out of. I don't walk out of movies. It was the first and only (willingly Reel breakages don't count). Problem is, the list isn't 62 movies long, it's 66.

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2. Atlantis: The Lost Empire
3. Spirited Away
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
5. The Mummy Returns
6. Monsters, Inc.
7. Iron Monkey
8. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
9. Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heavens Door
10. The Affair of the Necklace
11. Rush Hour 2
12. Just Visiting
13. Swordfish
14. Jurassic Park III
15. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
16. Spy Kids
17. Kate & Leopold
18. Spy Game
19. Shaolin Soccer
20. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
21. Amélie
22. The One
23. Moulin Rouge!
24. Evolution
25. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
26. Josie and the Pussycats
27. Black Hawk Down
28. From Hell
29. Cats & Dogs
30. Planet of the Apes
31. Shrek
32. Bandits
33. Pokémon 3: The Movie
34. A Beautiful Mind
35. Rat Race
36. Super Troopers
37. Ocean's Eleven starring George Clooney
38. K-PAX
39. Donnie Darko
40. Hannibal
41. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
42. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
43. Pearl Harbor
44. Driven
45. Metropolis
46. The Tailor of Panama
47. A Knight's Tale
48. Legally Blonde
49. Ghosts of Mars
50. Monkeybone
51. Behind Enemy Lines
52. Blow
53. Osmosis Jones
54. The Royal Tenenbaums
55. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
56. The Fast and the Furious
57. Zoolander
58. CQ
59. Left Behind: The Movie
60. Scary Movie 2
61. The Mexican
62. 3000 Miles to Graceland
63. Memento
64. Rock Star
65. Vanilla Sky
66. Shallow Hal

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. Did NOT enjoy

Redboxed: Mamma Mia and Babylon A.D.

I rented. We watched. I apologized to my family. I still have great affection for Vin Deisel and Abba. No real, lasting harm done.

(Holly)Wooden Logos: G.I. Joe

Why, why in James T. Kirk's name would you spend money, time, meetings and everything else to develop this?


Instead of using this.


The top one means shit to me. It's a cow-pie, it's some generic store-brand knock of... it's a toy from the dollar store!

The bottom one says "Yo Joe!" So Paramount, if you're not Scrooge McDucking your way through the piles of Joe Money you may feel is due you come August. This is going to be one of the reasons why.

But, before you blame Paramount;

This;

Gets upgraded to this;

Favoritest Movies of 2002

Too many four way ties are going to make me look really indecisive. 2002 is ruled by Weakness and the words; "In Space"

Weakness:
The (in some ways) weaker installments of the two mega trilogies, allows for a tie with the LAST good Disney movie ever. Weaker than Atlantis in many respects, the pair was a non-musical sci-fi stride that I wished had some more gas in it. If you'd asked me in '02, it maybe MAYBE would have made the top 10 that year. Hell, I didn't even want to see it in the theater. I saw Treasure Planet, 2 years later. I know there's technically a couple Disney flick after that before they go CG, but I'll take this one as the end of the line. As for Minority Report, Damn, I remember thinking the film might never happen, when they were trying to squeeze Matt Damon into it, I think as the character that Colin Farell plays, it's an awesome, but weaker Blade Runner. A WEAK Blade Runner, can still kick your ass!
As for "In Space"... Could a Jason movie ever score so high without the words "In Space" in the plot description?

1. TIE: Minority Report
2. TIE: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
3. TIE: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
4. TIE: Treasure Planet
5. Die Another Day
6. Lilo & Stitch
7. Spider-Man
8. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist
9. Millennium Actress
10. Eight Legged Freaks
11. Jason X
12. Catch Me If You Can
13. Austin Powers in Goldmember
14. The Count of Monte Cristo
15. XXX
16. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
17. Maid in Manhattan
18. Hero (Jet Li)
19. The Time Machine
20. Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
21. Ghost Ship
22. Reign of Fire
23. Scooby-Doo
24. Gangs of New York
25. Spy Kids 2: Island Of Lost Dreams
26. The Scorpion King
27. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
28. Pokemon 4Ever
29. Ice Age
30. The Tuxedo
31. Bubba Ho-tep
32. Dragonfly
33. Road to Perdition
34. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
35. Men in Black II
36. Resident Evil
37. Auto Focus
38. K-19: The Widowmaker
39. Panic Room
40. Solaris
41. The Powerpuff Girls Movie
42. Blade II
43. The Sum of All Fears
44. The Mothman Prophecies
45. Star Trek Nemesis
46. The Ring
47. 8 Mile
48. Red Dragon
49. Better Luck Tomorrow
50. Chicago
51. Signs
52. The Master of Disguise
53. Bowling for Columbine*
54. Death to Smoochy

Legend: Onto the next Round! In the middle. Did NOT enjoy!

*Where these Micheal Moore movies have been landing, are in no way a political statement, and I'm not going to comment on that. They're soooo low because; while I'm sure at least a handful, if not more, guys have gotten laid for having the DVD of a Micheal Moore movie sitting on their shelf, I'm equally sure that no one has ever, oh, said, "Hey, I hate to cut this short but, I was really looking forward to going home, kicking back and watching Bowling for Columbine! It's my Wednesday afternoon thing, I like to squeeze it in before Wheel comes on!" That's NEVER been said.