Jet Li to Play Mummy in Mummy 3

Prepare to witness the wrath of Jet Li and a terracotta when the son of Rick and Evelyn O'Connell unearths more than he bargained for in The Mummy 3. According to Stax at IGN, Jet Li will star in the upcoming Mummy sequel which will focus on the child of the adventurers from the first film.

When I first read there was going to be a new Mummy movie, I was a little concerned. I didn't like the second one as much as the first. In fact, I was becoming wary of all the Universal horror remakes after Van Helsing, but getting Jet Li to star in a movie directed by the director of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is enough geek-nip to overcome any fears I might have.

We're talking Jet Li here!! And Mummies!! And terracotta warriors!! And the Forbidden City!!

Hat tip to Anne Thompson of the Hollywood Reporter.

All we need are Ninjas, Pirates, Dinosaurs, and Giant Robots to make a film completely invincible to any criticism. Ooh, ooh, and cowboys...zombies...

Just so long as there are no mummy-pygmies...

Piracy and the Los Angeles Economy

According to the Los Angeles Times, there are about 100,000 people in the Los Angeles area who might like to have words with Cory Doctorow if they knew where to find him.

According to a study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp, piracy costs 100,000 people across 9 industries there jobs because of lost sales in 2005. I know that Mr. Doctorow thinks that DRM and other measures to protect that antiquated idea known as copyright are evil. God forbid you actually claim ownership of something you create. You see once you make something it belongs to the collective interwebconsciousness and not to you. You are merely a part of the Species Being and once you accept that your concepts of individual rights are mere selfishness made manifest you will be as free from slavery as your pirated creations are from cost.

If only all 100,000 of these people knew that Cory was a visiting professor at USC. They could just march to campus to protest his opinions. Of course, his employment at the University (and as editor of Boing Boing) means that piracy only costs 99,999 jobs. He is, after all, employed to advocate piracy.

I doubt that any of the 100,000 people who are unemployed because "information wants to be free yo" will bother to march to USC in protest. That would require them to know who he is.

Lichtenstein Revisted

When it comes to the Pop Art of Roy Lichtenstein, I am of two minds. One the one hand, I like the fact that he demonstrated that the draftsmanship of comic books was worthy of being considered Art. On the other hand, his demonstrations pretty much had the exact opposite effect when it comes to how the art world looked at comics. Most people look at a Lichtenstein and they thing that he elevated the image by making the common into the grand, the low into the high. Personally, I think those people are absolutely nuts.

I like the Lichtenstein comic series, but his artwork is actually inferior in craft to the ones that he lifted whole cloth from the pages of the "funny mags." Alex Beam of the Boston Globe has an article discussing whether or not Lichtenstein was a Creator or a Copycat that was written last October. It's a good read, and it direct you to David Barsalou's enlightening site "Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein." At the deconstructing site, Barsalou displays many of Lichtenstein's most famous pieces next to the comic pages they are "inspired" by. I'll leave it to you to decide whether the images are copycats or not, but I will say that the original version of "Kiss II" with the weird "emanation" lines is far more moving aesthetically than the "explosion" that Lichtenstein gives it and that the different backgrounds (in that one particular image) changes the meaning significantly. The Lichtenstein Foundation adamantly asserts that Lichtenstein added considerable value and alterations to the images that inspired him, but that's their job.


I am reminded of a conversation in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol where Andy is discussing Art with "Damian."

Damian: "I guess you have to take a lot of risks to be famous in any field...For instance, to be an artist."

Andy: "Any time you slice a salami, you take a risk."

Damian: "No, but I mean for an artist--"

Andy: "An artist!!...What do you mean, an 'artist'? An artist can slice a salami, too! Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job."

Damian: "But to become a famous artist you had to do something that was 'different.' And if it was 'different,' then it means you took a risk, because the critics could have said it was bad instead of good."

Andy: "In the first place,...they usually did say it was bad. And in the second place, if you say that artists take 'risks,' it's insulting to the men who landed on D-Day, to stunt men, to baby-sitters, to Evel Knievel, to stepdaughters, to coal miners, and to hitch-hikers, because they're the ones who really know what 'risks' are."

I just love the fact that he says that "artists" don't take risks, Evel Knievel takes risks. Though I imagine, if you pressed him, Warhol might say that Knievel also made art. But that is another discussion. I just wanted to highlight the Evel Knievel quote because I am going to see Ghost Rider this evening and Johnny Blaze is nothing if not inspired by Evel Knievel...but with a flaming head.

Spend Some Quick Quality Time with "The Dude"

Guy With the Glasses has put together quite a few "5 Second Movies," including one of my favorite comic riffs on noir The Big Lebowski. Without further ado, here's the dude's tale in 5 seconds. Okay, it's really around 20 seconds, but the title claims 5. Sadly, the abridged version lacks the nihilists.

You can watch more of Guy With the Glasses' 5 second mania over at his site on You Tube.

An Edgy Argument for Aesthetics

After reading Hal Duncan's recent apology for aesthetics I am reminded that two of the major writers in the field were moral philosophers as well. Both Kant and Hegel wrote about and discussed aesthetics, Kant made deep connections between aesthetics and the moral imperative. One might even notice that Edmund Burke was a dabbler in this particular field.

Conservatism and Anna Nicole Smith

When one thinks of how conservatives might react to the recent death of pop culture figure Anna Nicole Smith, one imagines many different reactions. The first that jumps to mind is a Thomas Hibbs-ian commentary on how Anna Nicole's life was a perfect example of how nihilism manifests in popular culture and how any obsession with Anna Nicole is an obsession with the void. One might also imagine what Rod Dreher of National Review might write given the less than kind things he has had to say about her in the past.

What one might not expect is that they might find a heart-felt eulogy in the pages of the Weekly Standard. This is especially true given the way that the media writ large has been treating her recent death. It is an odd thing to see what is often private sorrow, turned into public spectacle.

My favorite line from the piece, written by comedian Larry Miller, "We all have a lot to be forgiven, because, you see, like it or not, we're all part of the mob. No: We are the mob."

His description reminds me of other portrayals of the media consuming mob. One can only wonder where Homer Simpson and his large hands are. That's not a cartoon reference for those wondering.

Movie Lists for Geeks

The Houston Star Chronicle has a list of 15 "geek movies to see before you die." I can't really disagree with any of his choices. I'm a geek, I've seen all the movies listed, and some multiple times. It has some of the true geek classics, and even has two Shatner films (both Star Trek), so kudos for that.

He also links to another list called "81 movies for geeks that do not suck," which has the added bonus of being cataloged by the particular geekdom to which the film would most appeal. I've seen all of those as well, but I wouldn't agree that they all don't suck. Swordfish is pretty bad. It features both "fast typing" as a substitute for activating algorithms when hacking and has an over the top John Travolta. Top Secret and Real Genius are also stinkers. I might like them, but there is no way I think that Real Genius doesn't suck. It just sucks in a lovable 80s comedy kind of way.

I thought I'd add to the mix by including some films that every "Gamer Geek" should watch. Beware, some of these are really bad.

• Beastmaster: This movie used to be on the TV so much at my house that we started calling HBO "Hey Beastmaster's On."


• Cloak and Dagger: You knew this would be on the list, it has to be. Come on. A kid stops an evil spy ring with the help of his Super Spy roleplaying game character? How much more gamer geek can you get?


• Hawk the Slayer: The Lord of the Rings books might have inspired the creators of roleplaying games, but this film is an accurate portrayal of what the "shared experience" of any gaming session would look like if it were a movie.


• E.T. the Extra Terrestrial: They are playing D&D in the opening sequence, no more reason needed


• TAG: The Assassination Game: Linda Hamilton stars in this film where a first generation live action rpg game based on Steve Jackson Games' Killer goes wrong. One of the players goes crazy and stars really killing all the other players. Good stuff.


• Gotcha: It's TAG: The Assassination Game meets Cloak and Dagger. It's fun, funny, and Anthony Edwards has a big yellow pencil.


• The 300 Spartans: Classic sword and sandals film, with ample quotes from Herodotus.


• Jason and the Argonauts: Remember when your high level PCs almost suffered a TPK fighting a small group of skeletons? Me either, but this movie makes me believe it could happen. One of the best parts of the film is the gathering of the Argonauts. A Harryhausen classic.


• The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad: Kerwin Matthews proves that Sinbad doesn't need to be "beefy" to be a compelling hero. The movie features both "Dungeons" and "Dragons."


• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: A great "quest" movie starring Tom Baker of Dr. Who and Dungeons and Dragons fame.


• Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger: It's all about Minoton.



• The Valley of Gwangi: This film has almost everything. Gypsies? Check. Dinosaurs? Check. Cowboys? Check. What more could you want? An rpg based on this movie, that's what. Well, you could just buy Deadlands, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, or Broncosaurus Rex

Have any more gamer geek movies? Other than The Gamers that is.