Oscars wrapups and liveblogging

Cleolinda liveblogs the Oscars, and is funny.
Defamer liveblogs the oscars, and is mean, but funny.
Redfish wraps up the show, and is in Hebrew, but funny.

Personally, I watched the show. I thought Rock's monologue was mostly funny. I thought the gimmicks (on stage nominees, off stage nominees and winners) mostly worked. I was happy, happy, happy to see Charlie Kaufman win for Eternal Sunshine, and it was nice to see The Incredibles walk away with two awards.

Cleolinda Jones has SEEN Oscar's future

And she future-blogs all about it. And it is FUNNY. Also, be sure to check Cleo's lj before, during, and after the ceremony, as she'll be blogging the real one too.

Romance novel covers "reimagined"

This has been linked to all over the place, but it is of the funny, and you may not have seen it yet.

Vote for Veronica Mars, or don't vote at all

Eonline's Kristin Veitch is running her annual "Save one show" poll. Go there. Vote to keep Veronica Mars on the air. And if you live in the states, watch the damn show.

New Hitchhiker's Guide trailer released

Optimism jumps through the roof.

You may recall how mild my enthusiasm was for the first HHGTTG trailer. Well, there's a new one, it is narrated by Stephen Fry, and it is F U N N Y.

Link, again, via fisheye.

My first published review

In 1989, I helped Dena Bugel-Shunra (that wasn't her last name then. Same person, though) publish a bilingual SF&F fanzine called About Sci-Fi, or Al-Madab in Hebrew. In it, was my first film review column. When reading it, please remember I was only 17 at the time. I do still enjoy my evisceration of The Running Man, although I've grown to like it more over the years. Still a crappy movie.

As I just wrote to Dena, it's interesting to see my thoughts on The Princess Bride then, now that it's an acknowledged classic, and a film I own on Special Edition DVD.

My Constantine review

Over ten years ago, when I was a member of the working press (well, a part time member, writing about computers and the internet on Maariv's local Tel-Aviv Newspaper Zman Tel Aviv), I managed to publish a couple of reviews. I wrote what may have the first Israeli review of Opus' translation of Ender's Game.

In the intervening years, I've written some film reviews for websites, and many book reviews in this site, back when the content was in Hebrew.

But now I've gone full circle, and had my first film review published in Maariv's weekend entertainment supplement, Promo. It's a review of Constantine, a film I liked more than I expected to.

I hope people read it, and I'd certainly be interested in people's comments on the review. It isn't available online.

The Webber trade

So Chris Webber got traded to Philly for Kenny Thomas and some dead weight. This is actually a good trade for both teams. The 76ers will benefit in the long run, as they probably make the playoffs, and possibly advance a round. They lose in the long run, as Webber is hobbled, 32, and scheduled to make 60 million bucks in the next 3 years.

For Sacramento, this is addition by substraction. Every time Webber has been out, Miller and Peja have been better. Peja was a superstar last year, until CWebb came back from injury.

While I don't have any of the players involved on my fantasy team, I hope to benefit in a big way. Peja was my 3rd round pick, and I've been hoping either he or Webber get traded. With Webber gone, Peja will hopefully go back to being the centerpiece of the offense, along the way bringing in some nice fantasy numbers. Now, if Shareef can traded in the next 5 hours (which is the trade deadline for this season), I may finally have a team that can legitimately contend for a title.

Brief TV thoughts: VM, Lost, AI

First up, Veronica Mars. Russkie Business was an awesome ep for anyone who grew up in the eighties, and I guess it was good for others as well. Alyson Hannigan's performance as Trina Echolls was odd for me to watch. It's like it was a different kind of "Evil Willow." Not the flashy vampiric of witchy kind, just spoiled rotten. I'm a huge AH fan and a huge Willow fan, so I dug it, but I wish she'd show more range. As for the ending - W.O.W. The most annoying time possible for a month long hiatus.

The Lost episode, "... In Translation" was a terrific ep plotwise, and a little weak as far as dialogue. But weak in Lost standards, which are abnormally high. It was great to see Jin's side of the story we saw in "House of the Rising Sun".

American Idol. Yes, the lure of American Idol has finally gotten to me. It started when I was sick and bored, and now I'm compelled to watch. Sarah Mather, one of my absolute favorites was kicked off this week, after a really weak performance. Even with the weak performance, I thought she should have stayed. Others were weaker, not as talented, and frankly, not nearly as HOT. Annoyingly, she gave a better performance after being booted. Argh.

Updating the blogroll

I try to refrain from having too many blogs on my blogroll, because when I encounter huge blogrolls, I may sample a few, but never check everything out. So many great blogs are not included. Everything that is included, however, is top notch, and you should check them all out.

I've removed Kathryn Cramer's blog, because she hardly ever blogs about genre related stuff, and I'm off American politics for the time being. I've moved Electrolite to the SF&F section, because it seemed silly having it and Making Light in different sections.

I've added Jonathan Carroll's blog, because Carroll is a wonderful writer, and while the blog gives only a tiny sample of his wonderfulness, even a tiny sample is a great thing. VanderWorld is a terrific blog, by an excellent author. Fafblog is funny. The Great Curve, The Beat, and Fanboy Rampage tell you everything you need to know about the world of comics, and Lifehacker tells you many things you need to know about many topics. Finally, two excellent Israeli blogs (both in Hebrew) added to the mix - Dror Foyer's blog which is one the best written blogs in Hebrew, and deals with many topics, including the tech-life connection and writing, and Aharon Hauptman's blog. Aharon is a futurist, and he deals with mostly in emerging (and future) tech and science.

Doing the meme thing

As taken from criminalenglish.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

The book: Reveletation by Carol Berg

The sentance: 'The filth was never a part of me.'

New International trailer for Fantastic 4

Looks much better than the first trailer. I remain cautiously optimistic.

I'm sorry, I don't have any JLU torrents

It seems I've had a big spike in hits in the last couple of days, due to people looking for torrents of Justice League Unlimited, presumably bacause I've talked about torrents and about JLU here. I don't have torrents. I don't have links to torrents. JLU really isn't very hard to find if you look in the major torrent sites, but you can't get from here to there.

I will say that the ep wasn't quite as crappy as I expected, especially due to Batman being very cool. Next ep - Gail Simone sctipt, Huntress and Canary and Question and Green Arrow. Should be fun.

Whedon and Cassaday on X-Men for 24 more issues

Wonderful news. Joss and Cassaday's run on the book has been terrific. In its own way, it has been as good as Grant Morrison's mind shattering run. Less mind blowing ideas, better characters, and an overall story that will hopefully be on par with Morrison's.

Edit: It seems it was initially misreported. It's only going to be 12 more issues. Bummer.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer

Well, it's now out in a decent format, right here. It doesn't look bad, but seems a bit action oriented. Still, it looks like a good looking movie. And Sam Rockwell is awesome, and I kinda Martin Freeman (even if he does act like he's still playing Tim from The Office).

So I'm looking forward to this with mild optimism.

Still, would it kill them to give Marvin a single sound bite in the trailer?

Link via Fisheye.

Constantine

Watched Constantine at a special screening for Comics fans tonight (thanks to Yossi and Ofra of Comikaza). It was actually kinda good. The best part about it is that when you're laughing, you're mostly laughing with it, not at it, as was the case with Van Helsing and Underworld.

It bears almost no relation to Hellblazer, the comicbook on which it ostensibly based, but I spent the way to the theater telling myself "this is NOT Hellblazer" many times over, and it mostly worked.

I'd write more, but I'm writing a review elsewhere.

Next week's Veronica Mars preview

If you're watching the show on Israeli TV, don't watch this. If you're up to date, do watch it. I'm a bit worried about one thing - Hannigan's acting in the preview cuts a little too close to playing Willow. I loved Willow as much as the next Buffy fan, but this is a different show, and a very different character. I hope the preview does not accurately reflect the job she did on the show.

Funny article about sweeps, fans, and (sorta) google

Red Fish posted the link to this amusing article to the Ort SF forum. It talks about sweeps, and the things the networks do to get ratings. And then it becomes funny.

JMS to do some TV series on 2006

He says he definitely won't be doing Trek for the next year or two, as Paramount wants to take a Trek hiatus, but accepted an offer to do some other show for the 2006 season.

Bill Simmons writes Vince Carter's letter to Toronto

Sample:

Here's the deal. As I admitted a few weeks ago, I stopped trying in Toronto. Looking back, a number of things were at fault. First, the $94 million contract the Raptors gave me after my 2001 playoff duel with Allen Iverson. NBA contracts are, of course, guaranteed, so no matter how poorly I played, my huge check was going to arrive every two weeks. I mean, what would you do?

I stopped driving to the basket because, frankly, I didn't like getting knocked down. Once I started settling for jumpers I became easier to defend than Tommy Heinsohn in an old-timers' game, and players and coaches started to whisper that I was soft, that I was the biggest baby in the league. But, I swear, I suffered a bunch of nagging injuries, not to mention various allergies (to defense and rebounding). Within three years, we were back in the lottery. And everyone blamed me.

Read the whole thing. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, it's funny because it's true.

Bill Simmons writes Vince Carter's letter to Toronto

Sample:

Here's the deal. As I admitted a few weeks ago, I stopped trying in Toronto. Looking back, a number of things were at fault. First, the $94 million contract the Raptors gave me after my 2001 playoff duel with Allen Iverson. NBA contracts are, of course, guaranteed, so no matter how poorly I played, my huge check was going to arrive every two weeks. I mean, what would you do?

I stopped driving to the basket because, frankly, I didn't like getting knocked down. Once I started settling for jumpers I became easier to defend than Tommy Heinsohn in an old-timers' game, and players and coaches started to whisper that I was soft, that I was the biggest baby in the league. But, I swear, I suffered a bunch of nagging injuries, not to mention various allergies (to defense and rebounding). Within three years, we were back in the lottery. And everyone blamed me.

Read the whole thing. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, it's funny because it's true.

Lifehacker

From Gawker Media, the people who brought you Defamer, Wonkette, and Gizmondo, comes Lifehacker, a blog dedicated to all the little things that make life easier, mostly online but off as well.

Better search methods, email tips, useful apps, and tying stuff with velcro are amongst the recent topics they've covered. I've found it quite useful. Check, check, check it out.

DC solicitations for May are out, and I'm excited

Most of the fuss and hype you'll read online will concern DC's Countdown book and the mini series stemming from it.

But a few years back, when I first read Alan Moore's brilliant Top 10, there was a promise at the end for an OGN called Forty Niners, that will take place a few decades earlier in Neopolis' (the city in which the series took place) history. That book was supposed to be published "next year" several years ago. But never mind the wait. It's coming now, and seeing Moore and Gene Ha's workin on Neopolis again is just as exciting now.

Of course, what I REALLY want is for Top 10 to come back as regular series. But this'll do in a pinch. This'll certainly do.

Dudu Geva dies

This is incredibly sad. I grew up reading Geva's cartoons. He was wise, funny, funny, and really, really funny.

Haaretz reports about the death in English.
kinnblog reports in Hebrew.

More announced programme participants for Worldcon

Some of these names make me happy. Some make me indifferent. There's two guys I really, really, really don't like, as well. There's two whose books I've translated, which is exciting.

A long time ago, after his visit to Israel, I corresponded with Chaz Brenchley for a while. We've lost touch, but it will be nice to meet him face to face again.

I'm really excited about GRRM, Robin Hobb, Mieville, and Ken Macleod. There's writers here, like Cecilia Dart-Thornton and Suzanna Clarke, whose work I wanted to read but never got around to (or, in Clarke's case, was sold to another publisher before I got around to).

Seeing Gavin Grant's name made me check if Kelly Link will be attending. And she WILL. Maybe this will make a certain friend of mine, who's a even bigger Link fan than I am, change her mind about attending.

I checked the membership lists for new Israeli attendees, and found two new ones, and it's two people I don't know. Anyone know Uri and Levana Barkai?

Lyda Morehouse interviews Tim Powers

Great interview over at Strange Horizons. Here's a sample:

I mean, what sort of statement can a writer make, in a story? "Racism is bad," "Sexism is bad," "Homophobia is bad." Well, sure—but a bumper sticker could have conveyed those, no need for a whole novel. And if you try to make a novel express these things, illustrate these things, it seems to me that the characters and settings and events just become jigsawed metaphor figures. Somebody once told me, "Dracula is actually about the plight of 19th-century women," and I said, "No, it's about a guy who lives forever by drinking other people's blood—don't take my word for it, check it out."

Link via JP at criminalenglish.

Must. Have. Lost. DVD.

Dayum. Even though the season is only a little beyond the midway point, I know I must have the DVD. Now, after reading this, I really, really, really Must. Have. It.

Monkeys love their celebrities and hot babes too...

A study has shown that monkeys will give up perks and suffer unpleasantness to watch pictures of dominant members of their troop, and potential mates. They have shown no willingness to do so for pictures of other members of the troop.

A note on the whiteness

About two and a half weeks ago, I changed the color scheme from white text on a black background to black on white. I asked what people thought of the change, and got mostly negative responses, online and off. Tammy and I preferred it white, though, so I kept it as is.

Now that some time has passed, and I have fairly valid (and very clear) data, I can say that since I made the switch, the blog's daily hits have risen by at least %50. I think I'm gonna keep the whiteness, y'all.

A note regarding posting comments

Those fine folks at Blogger have improved the comments system, allowing posters to add a name and a url to their posts. Please use the feature when posting, as I prefer to know who I'm talking to, and who's talking to me.

Thanks.

Sin City buzz at Entertainment Weekly

As anyone who reads this blog regularly probably knows, Sin City has been at the top of my Movies To Watch For list ever since the trailer hit. Now, Entertainment Weekly names it its number #1 movie they're dying to see this spring. They also gave it the cover (on which they speculate if this may be the next Pulp Fiction) , and revealed one scene was shot by Quentin Tarantino. And of course they have a large preview feature online.

Could I possibly wait for this film with any greater anticipation? I'm not sure, but we'll see what else they can throw at us. At least Israelis won't have to wait long, as it starts airing here on March 31st, one day before it hits American screens. And this is one film for which I'll definitely be making an extra effort to get an pre-screening ticket.

Link via the fantabulous Cleolinda Jones.

Kung Fu Hustle

For years, American films have been inspired by Chinese and Japanese films. From Star Wars to Matrix to Kill Bill, and all points in between, martial arts films have been an inspiration.

Kung Fu Hustle takes all of those films, ingests them, and takes them back for to make a truly Chinese film. And makes it funny.

It is an awesome, awesome film. It is ridiculous and sublime, and eventually, even moving. And it has kickass action, laughs, great characters, and a pure sense of fun.

I didn't see director Steven Chow's previous film, Shaolin Soccer, but I certainly want to now.

ps. Don't watch the trailer. Massive spoiling of fun scenes.

I was almost ready to give up on Point Pleasant

As time passed from the second episode, which I praised, I realized it was mostly praise-worthy in comparison to the pilot. The show kept making baby steps, but it never actually became good.

Until this week's episode. This was actually good. Not mind blowingly good, but good, solid supernatural drama.

Before, I was kinda hoping it gets better before it gets cancelled. Now, I'm hoping it continues to build on the progress made, and finds an audience before it gets cancelled (something which rarely happens on Fox when series start out slowly).

Vogons

Some pics of the Vogons from the coming Hitchhiker's Guide movie. They look really good, errr, I mean bad, errr... you know what I mean.

Movies to watch for: Southland Tales

Richard Kelly is the guy who directed Donnie Darko. That alone makes his next film one to watch for. The fact that it's an sfnal musical comedy starring some of my favorite actors (SMG, Janeane Garofalo, Jason Lee, Tim Blake Nelson, Ali Larter, Kevin Smith) really puts it over the top. It shall clearly be a unique movie.

Now we have the first insider comments about it, from Kevin Smith, and suddenly I'm looking forward to it even more. Also, Smith comments about Clerks 2, which I REALLY hope won't suck.

Superbowl 2005

Yeah. The Patriots won again. I'm not a Pats fan, and I've never been fond of teams that dominate this much. But the Pats win through hard work, brains, execution, and just being better. They're pretty much the antithesis of the Dallas Cowboys type of collections of mega stars.

I respect this team more than any team in pro sports today. They win because they're a better TEAM. And that's what team sports is all about.

Mirrormask wins Audience Award at Sarasota

The Sarasota festival isn't a very large one. Still, I would imagine that an award, especially one awarded by the audience, bodes well for a wider release.

Some more worldcon updates from Glasgow

Well, apparently, this weekend is ConStruction, when the people who will bring us Interaction, this year's worldcon, all get together in Glasgow and do a bunch of stuff and get a bunch of balls rolling for the con.

A couple of them (mostly Cheryl Morgan, but also Kevin Standlee) are putting up updates in the worldcon's livejournal and blog. Not so much Construction updates, more practical stuff for congoers, such as reports on the food, shopping, Wi-Fi, and such.

If you're going, check the updates out.

An essay by, and an article about Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem is a writer I feel very strongly about. He's one of the writers I'm most proud to have published in Hebrew (I was the editor at Opus when we published his novel Girl In Landscape). And I'm very happy that he's become the sort of writer who gets significant space in places like The Washington Post, which published his essay about writing, and an article about his writing (free registration required, or use bugmenot).

I wish GIL had sold more in Israel, but it kinda fell between the cracks, as a novel some genre fans were uncomfortable with, and most mainstream readers never even heard about.

Getting fired for blogging HELPS career

Joe Gordon, the bookseller who was fired for having a blog, is now hired. Hurray for Joe, and for the folks at Forbidden Planet, who hired him, and gave him a better job than he had at Waterstones.

Comics creators - Mike Carey

This is the first in what will hopefully become a feature on this blog - an appreciation of some of the finest writers in comics. I figured a good place to start would be one of the most under appreciated writers in the field - British writer Mike Carey.

Carey writes two ongoing series for DC's Vertigo imprint. Both are spinoffs, and may well be the best spinoffs ever.

The first was Carey's first series for a major US publisher. Lucifer is one of many, many, many Sandman spinoffs and offshoots. But it is the only one which is ongoing, and certainly the only one that is destined to become a classic. In Gaiman's series Sandman, Lucifer quits his job as lord of hell and turns over the keys. Lucifer explores what he does after that, and it is a huge story, with gods and angels and great forces at work, but also with some excellent "regular" characters. The series has one major Achilles heel - the first few issues, collected as the first trade paperback collection, Lucifer: Devil in the Gateway, aren't very good. They're not horrible, but they're a bit muddled, and certainly not brilliant. This makes Lucifer a really hard sell. If you're an honest shop owner, you basically have to tell your costumer: "Buy this, it isn't very good, but it gets amazingly better, and you HAVE to read this to understand what comes later."

And it does get amazingly better. It IS worth spending your time and money on a mediocre collection, because the overall story (which still isn't finished) is staggeringly good. It's certainly the best fantasy comic I read, and I would say it's the best American fantasy comic on the marker (I don't really read manga, but Raz may comment on what he feels to be the best fantasy comicbook out there, and I know it won't be an American one).

Carey's second ongoing is one he was handed after several illustrious names have had their runs. Hellblazer started out as a spinoff of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, and has gone on to be the longest running Vertigo series by far (currently at 204 issues). Carey took over the series at issue #175, at the end of Brian Azzarello's controvesial run. He's been spending most of his time beating up on John Constantine, protagonist of Hellblazer and Vertigo's top anti-hero. It's been a very solid run, with some remarkable highlights (#200 was a brilliant issue). Recently, Carey wrote a Hellblazer OGN (original graphic novel) called Hellblazer: All His Engines, which showed that he definitely CAN write a strong Constantine. IMO, AHE has been the highlight of Carey's involvement with the character (and reading it was the incentive to writing this post). I certainly look forward to seeing the character be written this strongly in the ongoing series.

Last year, Carey took a break from the gloom of Constantine and the epic drama of Lucifer, and wrote a three part mini-series, My Faith in Frankie, which was a romantic comedy, with demons, a dead guy, and a god with one follower. This was a delightful series (and is a delightful tpb), which showed Carey can bring the funny as well as the scary and epic. The story of Frankie and her personal god Jerivan is funny, warm hearted, and very recommended.

One thing Carey can't seem to do as well as fantasy and horror is straight superhero fiction. He recently wrote a mini series for Marvel, set in Marvel's Ultimate universe, called Ultimate Elektra. It was better than Marvel's previous series, Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra, but was still nothing more than ok. Much like Fables writer Bill Willingham, Carey seems to be much better at writing Vertigo style fantasy than "regular" superhero stuff.

Carey was scheduled to start writing another superhero book, Wetworks, for DC's Wildstorm imprint, but I haven't heard anything about that in a while, so it's possible that it was quietly cancelled. He also has a teen fantasy series set in Salem due from Marvel, an upcoming movie (currently in prepduction), and a book deal. This guy is definitly going places.

For more information about Mike Carey, you can read Matt Peckham's excellent Lucifer Morningstar blog.

Be rude in a multitude of languages!

The Alternative Dictionaries contain swear words and rude expressions in a multitude of languages. There are some inaccuracies in the Hebrew dictionary, but it's still pretty cool. And potentially quite useful for translators.

Link via it's all one thing.

Fafnir has trouble getting revenge

I keep telling you people to read Fafblog! Do you do it? I have no idea, as I have no way of knowing what other blogs you go to.

But I once again call to your attention a very funny post from Fafnir at Fafblog. This time, about the difficulties of getting revenge on your arch-nemesis. Truly, a universal problem. On most weeks, Fafblog makes me laugh more than anything else I read on the net. Some weeks, its the funniest thing I encounter anywhere.