Scattershot, redux

While I'm putting together stuff to write, I figure I'll port some of the stuff from my MySpace blog over to this one. With that in mind, here's a recent smattering of topics I was either too tired, too lazy, or too sick to expand into individual entries.

First off, I wonder who would have commissioned this: http://atomictiki.blogspot.com/2008/03/weed-of-crime-bears-bitter-fruit.html. If comics float your boat, I’d advise you to go out and find Steve Bryant's Athena Voltaire books from Ape Entertainment. They’re about a brunette tommy-gun-wielding aviatrix who fights Nazis and monsters over magic. I swear, it’s like he did those books JUST FOR ME. Thanks, Steve! You’re the best, man.

Think of all the money you’d save by switching to thievery.

New slogan for American Airlines: We know why you fly. We just don’t care.

Battlestar Galactica (that’s the new version, kids) is officially the greatest television show ever produced. If you haven’t watched it yet, I really don’t know what the hell you’re waiting for.

I really, really need to learn how to play the piano.

Other people’s memory never fails both to amaze and to disappoint.

I already have too much to read, so what do I do? Subscribe to a bunch of magazines. Clearly, it’s the only logical way to go.

Ever wonder how many people you’ve laid eyes on in your lifetime?

Incredibly grateful. That’s the phrase I would use to describe my feelings toward the people who put out those grindhouse trailer discs. 2+ hours of trailers, each of them so much longer than they should be, which works so well for me. Since they’re so long (some of them are 5 minutes, people!), I feel like I’ve seen the movies themselves. Thus, I don’t have to watch any of those shitty films, and I gotta tell you how, well, incredibly grateful that makes me.

Go out and read these: Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan, and The Question by Denny O’Neil & Denys Cowan. And thank me at your earliest convenience.

For my money, when he's pulling double duty on script and art, Matt Wagner is the modern-day master of comic storytelling.

I wonder how many people I know would be willing to give me an honest, forthright answer to the following question: what’s the most important lie you tell yourself?

Patton Oswalt is right. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the best movie title ever. (And chainsaw is two words in the original title, kids. Check the film if you don’t believe me.)

On the subject of titles, I don’t care what anyone says…Quantum of Solace is a fantastic title for the next Bond film.

Alright, that’s about all I’ve got. The only other thing I wanted to mention is more serious, more solemn. Director Jules Dassin died this week. As I’ve said to others, his death wasn’t unexpected, but it’s still a damn shame. This was a guy I really admired, and anything I could write about him would seem paltry, save this:

He made my favorite film of all time, Rififi, which is my idea of perfect filmmaking. And he didn’t name names, which is my idea of perfect character.

Okay, time to get a few other things done before my WI Film Fest screenings this evening, not to mention it's t-minus 7 hours 44 minutes until I completely nerd out over BSG's season premiere.

Read: The Tenth Circle, by Jodi Picoult
Watch: Rififi (dir. Jules Dassin, 1955)
Listen to: Eveningland, by Hem