DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-ALONG BLOG: Pure genius from the mind of Joss Whedon!

Last week, around the time that we were in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I started hearing about something called Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly creator Joss Whedon wrote, directed and even composed the music for this three-act comic opera about Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris), a down-on-his-luck mad scientist trying to gain both respect as a supervillain and the girl of his dreams (played by Felicia Day). I couldn't get to its website in time to catch the streaming video of the three chapters as they were being released, but based on the good buzz and the positive word of several friends (including Phillip Arthur) I went to iTunes two nights ago and checked it out.

People, if you haven't already, you owe it to yourself to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: it's one of the funniest, most clever and even thought-provoking things that I've watched all year. And the songs are catchy! I've had "My Freeze Ray" playing in my head almost constantly since Wednesday night, and I even found myself singing it this afternoon while driving around with my wife.

Click here to purchase Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog from iTunes. You can either get each act individually for $1.99, or all three for $3.99 (which is what I did). And let us hope that this is not the last that we have heard from the nefarious Dr. Horrible!

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Randy Pausch, the "Last Lecture" professor, has passed away

Randy Pausch, the computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and pioneer in the field of virtual reality, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then turned his fight for life into an inspirational video and book, has passed away at age 47.

If you've never had the opportunity to watch the lecture, here it is courtesy of Google Video. It's easily one of the most uplifting things that I've ever seen.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and three children.

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Andrew Klavan: Batman and Bush have much in common (What the...?!)

Still working on my review of The Dark Knight, but it should be up later today. Part of the reason for the delay was that I've been so gosh-darned busy since it came out, what with crossing the country (and I didn't even see The Dark Knight in my own, mind ya). And also 'cuz I needed some time to really "suss" things out about this movie.

In the meantime though, I cast your attention to Andrew Klavan, writing for The Wall Street Journal, and he asserts that The Dark Knight proves that Batman and George W. Bush are practically one and the same. In short...

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Bush is like Batman?! 'Tis writing so mad, Klavan should be locked up in Arkham. If anything, Bush is The Joker: everything this man has done has sown and reaped chaos and destruction... but on a global scale.

But let's look at the comparison to Batman again and why Klavan is so wrong. First, Batman is putting himself on the front line in the war against crime in Gotham City. When Bruce Wayne takes the armor off and we see those cuts and scars, he acquired... nay, he earned... those on his own. President Bush has never been in a real fight. He's a spoiled brat king who sends henchmen (not talking about U.S. military personnel at all, folks) to do his dirty work. Just like The Joker.

Second, from the very beginning of his term of office, and throughout most of his life, Bush has been obsessed with creating a "legacy" that he'll be remembered for. It's a kind of narcissism that fuels the greatest of supervillains. This is not what motivates Bruce Wayne. Wayne is not out for fame or glory, and he can live with the fact that history must never know that he is Batman because that simply does not matter at all to him. What does matter is that he will do whatever is in his power to make sure that no one will ever die... not even those who might most deserve it.

This brings me to another point: Batman's compassion even toward his enemies. We see this in The Dark Knight: Batman doesn't kill The Joker. Heck, if you read the comics at all, you already know that for all his understanding of how twisted and dangerous The Joker is, Batman has never given up hope that the man might be reformed and redeemed. Incarcerated forever for his crimes, yes... but at least with a conscience. Batman does not kill his enemies. He will stop them, and at times punish them when the law fails... but he does not take it upon himself to judge them as unworthy of life. Go read Alan Moore's The Killing Joke if you've never done so, if you want to see what I mean. Does anyone believe that George W. Bush has just as much strength of soul that would keep him from killing his worst enemies and getting away with it, if he could?

Batman wants the people of Gotham to stand up and fight the darkness on their own. Bush wants the people of America to be a superstitious, cowardly lot. 'Nuff said.

I'm going to write more about it in my review, but The Dark Knight is a movie about morality under duress and sometimes having to compromise that. Klavan argues that Batman in The Dark Knight vindicates the neo-conservative belief that Bush must do away with personal rights in order to win the "war on terror" (by the way, nobody who seriously believes in the "war on terror" is worth respecting, in my opinion). He totally missed the point of The Dark Knight here: that though good people are not infallible and do fail at times, good people do at least harbor remorse and regret for not possessing complete wisdom to deal with the world around them. I think this is one of the greatest attributes of conscience... and it's one that Bush and the vast majority of his supporters have never demonstrated.

Which leads to my final point: the possession and abuse of power. In The Dark Knight we see Batman use a technological ability to locate The Joker, though Lucius Fox believes that it is too much power to be given to one man. Batman agrees, and after the need for the power has gone, he gives Lucius the ability to destroy the technology. That could never be George W. Bush. He would keep that power to himself... hell, he darn nearly has that same power already... and tell everyone that he needs it because "the Jokerists are still out there".

Therein lies the greatest reason why Batman and George W. Bush have nothing in common with each other: Batman can say no to power, while Bush cannot get enough of it.

Klavan's essay is the most damned silly thing about The Dark Knight that I've read to date, and is proof of the desperation that Bush's die-hard supporters have been driven to in the final months of their idol's bid to achieve lasting fame. Which made it all the more fun to shoot holes in :-)

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Disney announces TRON 2 at Comic Con

Geez Louise... has the movie news during the past 24 hours been crazy, or what?

In a move that surprised everyone 'cuz nobody really saw it coming, Disney premiered the trailer for Tron 2 at Comic Con today in San Diego.

You heard that right: a sequel to the 1982 film Tron, which was about a programmer who gets zapped into a world that exists within the realm of the computer.

Click on the above link for more details.

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Obama wants to "remake the world"

Until now, I haven't felt anything particularly bad about Barack Obama, the candidate who's pretty much locked-up the Democrat nomination for President of the United States. I disagree with him on pretty much everything, and I sure as heck won't be voting for him. But I'm a guy who knows how to draw a line between not seeing eye to eye with someone, and being able to like him or her as a person. I'm blessed to have friends from many different ideologies and philosophies and even what some would consider "other lifestyles". Doesn't mean that I approve of those things, but I'm not gonna stop that from considering someone to be a person that needs to be loved by me just as God loves them. Just one of the ways I've realized over the years is how I'm supposed to be a witness for Christ to others, I guess you could say.

So yeah, it takes a lot for me to frown on someone enough to more than merely distrust them. And I hadn't had a reason to do that with Obama. Until today.

Speaking at a rally of more than 200,000 people in Berlin, Germany, Obama promised that he would "remake the world", and made what can only be considered blatant appeals for "global citizenship".

So much here that's popping big red flags. For starters, why is Obama apparently campaigning in Germany, when it's United States citizens who are the only ones who are supposed to be voting for him?

And then, "global citizenship"? When I was a Boy Scout I earned the Citizenship in the World merit badge. It was about recognizing your role at the local and national level and how it extends to the rest of humankind. It was not about yielding sovereignty to some nebulous greater good.

But what really is starting to scare me about this guy is that he's openly boasting that he wants to "remake the world".

Mr. Obama, the world is being remade every day, by ordinary men and women. Like the final song from a musical that I was recently in goes: "It's in our hands." God has given each of us the free will of how we choose to make not just our lives, but the world around us.

Mr. Obama, if you ever read this: Who the hell are you to proclaim that you should be given absolute power to "remake the world"?

And that almost a quarter-million people would rally to his cause, chanting his name like a mantra... I thought the whole thing about a "messiah complex" with this guy was a joke before. Now, it's starting to remind me too much about another man in Germany, about seventy years ago. He promised to remake the world too.

Until today I thought that Obama was at most a curiosity. Now, I'm finding myself genuinely worried about what this man's intentions are.

No, I'm not voting for John McCain, either. The wiser, more righteous choice in this farce of an election is not to choose at all, considering that we're being expected to pick between a man hellbent on igniting World War III and a man now seemingly worshiped as divine.

We, the American people, could have remade our world already. We could have chosen to be vigilant and wise. We should have thought for ourselves! Now look at us: a once-proud people reduced to a slave race. If the past sixteen years of executive administrations did not prove that enough, then the next four years at least certainly will.

We had our chance. And we blew it.

And no, I'm not laughing, because there's not a damned thing funny about any of this.

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LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT... found at last?!

So I'm up late, working on the video that will chronicle what happened during those eight days that Lisa and I spent on our epic journey north, and I was about to call it a night when I happened to check Ain't It Cool News and found this story.

Apparently, a horror film expert has located a pristine copy of London After Midnight, the 1927 silent movie starring Lon Chaney and widely considered to be the most lost film of all time...

The print is said to currently be residing in the vaults of Time-Warner under the alias The Hypnotist. Until now, it's been thought that London After Midnight had been lost for all time, because the only known copy was destroyed in an electrical fire at MGM in 1967.

This month has already witnessed the discovery of the full print of Metropolis (and I joked then that maybe London After Midnight could be next). Dare we hope that, after so very long, we might finally behold what is thought to be the last great thriller of the silent era... and what many have said was the finest performance of Chaney's career?

Heck, this actually makes me feel like I can go to bed happy after hearing about The Rocky Horror Picture Show remake :-P

Seriously though: if this is true - and I pray that it is - let us hope and pray that London After Midnight is given a full-bore restoration effort. 'Twould be great on my DVD shelf along with Metropolis (whenever it comes out).

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And now they're remaking THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Things don't get much worse than this...

Variety is reporting that MTV is going to remake The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

What I find particularly funny about this is that The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released in the summer of 1975... and it's still playing in theaters! It's the longest running theatrical release in movie history. I know of a few cinemas within driving distance of here that are still showing it. So this would be the first remake of a movie that is still selling tickets at the box office.

This does not need to happen. Ever. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of those things that happens so rarely, it's the acme of vanity to try to recreate or recapture that kind of lightning. There was a showing at Elon my first year there. Everyone who came to watch it got into the whole "audience participation" thing, including toilet paper and water pistols. I heard there were butter stains on the walls from where people were throwing toast all over the place. And although I never saw it there, I've heard it plenty said that when the theater at the old Carolina Circle Mall ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Saturday at midnight, the place was packed and with lots of regulars coming in costume. How does something like that get "remade"? It would be like trying to remake The Beatles.

The only way this could possibly work is to get Joss Whedon to do it (based on what I've heard of his Dr. Horrible, which I still haven't seen 'cuz I was out of the country for the most part, he could probably pull it off). Maybe I would feel a smidgeon of curiosity about it. But otherwise, leave it alone. 'Cuz it's gonna be impossible to improve on something like this...

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iTunes now has first three seasons of new DOCTOR WHO

A lot of us have been wanting it, and the BBC has delivered: the revived Doctor Who series is now available on iTunes! The first three seasons can now be purchased and downloaded, and hopefully the incredible fourth will be coming soon as well. Strangely, none of the Christmas specials are included, an oversight which I hope will be remedied soon, since "The Runaway Bride" introduced Donna Noble. The BBC has also put all the episodes of Torchwood up on iTunes as well, if you're aiming to be a completist on the modern Doctor Who saga.

I wonder if this means the Beeb would be up to putting the original Doctor Who series on iTunes also. They stand to make a fortune from "The Deadly Assassin" and "Genesis of the Daleks" alone.

And thanks to Geoff Gentry for passing along the news!

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Report: TSA Agents out of control

The last time that I flew anywhere was this past December, when I went to the Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival in Texas. I took Southwest Airlines - a carrier with superb service, I might add - out of Raleigh-Durham International Airport. And one of the few unpleasant memories that I have from the trip was watching the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) goons at RDU doing things like throwing bottles of baby formula and shampoo out, telling travelers that it was "regulation". And not one traveler protested, because everyone knew that the TSA goons could have them arrested or worse for "talking back" or some other bullcrap. I also saw things like how the TSA scans for "shoe bombs": they actually made one girl take her flip-flips off to have them x-rayed, and made another remove her ballet flats.

It's stuff like this that makes me chalk up TSA as one of George W. Bush's more spectacular failures. It's an agency that epitomizes government out of control and drunk on its own power. TSA's real mission is not to deter "the terrorists" so much as it is to bully and cower innocent Americans into accepting the authority of the state without question. I won't ever fly again if I can help it. And hey, as the trip I just came back from proves, you see much more interesting country and meet all kinds of neat people when you come across it all up close instead of flying above it.

Anyway, CBS 2 in Chicago has published a report about how TSA agents are using their power in some pretty horrific ways. Among the incidents that are described as "abusive and even x-rated" are: humiliating a 71-year old man in a wheelchair, forcing one girl to remove her nipple rings with pliers, and throwing a woman onto the floor for arguing with a TSA agent.

If we can ever get over the collective idea that we are a supposed to be a nation of wimps, and finally recover the backbone that our forefathers had, I hope and pray that the whole sorry lot of the Transportation Security Administration - from its highest officers down to its lowliest thugs who would otherwise not be employable anywhere else - are the first to be thrown against the wall. And no blanks, either.

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Estelle Getty has passed away

Have just heard from some friends that The Golden Girls star Estelle Getty has passed away at age 84.

The Golden Girls was one of the best shows of the Eighties, and Getty's Sophia Petrillo was the best reason to watch it. I was a kid when that show ran and she always cracked me up.

Don't know of anything else to add, but I'll close this post out with a classic Sophia bit...

"Picture it: Sicily, Nineteen Forty-Two."

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Steve Jablonsky is scoring TRANSFORMERS sequel and GEARS OF WAR 2!

While I was gone for over a week (and I'm working on getting a report, some photos and video of the trip up soon) a number of people wrote in asking if I knew anything about whether or not Steve Jablonsky (left) would be returning to score the sequel to last summer's smash-hit movie Transformers (right now the next chapter is being called Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen but I'm still wondering if Michael Bay might have another title up his sleeve). Anyone who's read this blog over the past year will recall how it became a focal point for the drive to have Jablonsky's amazing music for Transformers released on CD. Happily it was, but it's now no longer being published and unless you pay literally hundreds of dollars for it on eBay the only way you can get it is via iTunes or Amazon's digital download. Hopefully we'll see it released again in time for the sequel.

Anyhoo, I did some checking and it turns out that this past week at E3 it was announced that Steve Jablonsky WILL come back to score the next Transformers movie!

But... that's not all! According to the same report at Music 4 Games, Jablonsky is also composing the soundtrack for Gears of War 2, due out this fall.

This is awesome news! Y'all wouldn't believe how much I listened to the Transformers score on my iPod during the drive out there and back. And I'm a huge fan of Gears of War. The sequel is supposed to be a much deeper and more emotional story. Throw in the heavy-metal mayhem that the first game was known for, and Steve Jablonsky becomes the perfect choice to tap for the soundtrack. Can't wait to play - and listen - to it!

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Exactly two thousand, nine hundred and forty-five miles later...

Man oh man, I really need a laptop now, don't I?

Lisa and I arrived back home almost forty minutes ago. Already stuff is piled up on the plate that I'll have to address in the next few days. No rest for the wicked, eh? Next time, I'll try to blog some from the road too.

But right now, after a journey of epic proportions, I'm thankful for the adventure, for having a wonderful wife and best friend to share it with, and that God brought us back home. Fittingly, we crossed the border with Virginia right as James Taylor's "Carolina In My Mind" was playing on my iPod.

In the next few days, expect a number of write-ups and YouTube-hosted video about what happened, which entailed chasing down Amish farmers, animatronic cows, the longest road trip to a barbecue joint ever, snogging Ukrainians and Bollywood hopefuls, absolute horror at eighteen-hundred feet, watching The Dark Knight on opening day in another country, at least seven weddings in one afternoon, how we celebrated our anniversary, what can only be described as Providence near Providence, the Big Apple at night, breaking a bunch of laws on the Turnpike... and everything in between.

More soon.

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Opening intro for STAR BLAZERS first season

One of the greatest title sequences for a children's cartoon ever.

The theme song alone will make you want to go flying off into outer space on a World War II battleship with a bunch of other men...

Okay, so it wasn't originally called Star Blazers, the original Japanese title is Space Battleship Yamato, but it's still an awesome show no matter what language it's translated in :-)

Maybe someday the suits at Disney will finally give us that live-action version that's been promised since 1995. Would be cool to see what the wave motion gun would look like...

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Tonight we saw THE DARK KNIGHT

We barely got into a showing (and yeah we paid... in whatever was the appropriate currency) but we were able to catch The Dark Knight on its opening day! I'll be able to file a full report after a few days, when time affords both opportunity to devote to a full write-up, and for it all to really "sink in".

Suffice it say, it's very very good. Better than Batman Begins was even. But man, the makeup/CGI work that went into post-burn Harvey Dent is going to stick with me for the next few days, no doubt. Then again after the crazy time we had last night, maybe I needed something like that :-)

Okay, must go and investigate the raucous Bulgarian wedding party that is currently boogying to "I Want To Rock and Roll All Night"...

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The first trailer for WATCHMEN

Zack Snyder did it. He really, really, did it.

He has made the movie that everyone said would be impossible to make.

I'm ready to say that, just going by this trailer...

Click here to watch it in Quicktime at 720P.

I've watched it three times now. I'm going to go to sleep tonight, after a very unusual day, with that image of Dr. Manhattan burned into my subconscious.

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Most unusual post to this blog to date

This post, yup the one you are reading right now, is in many ways the most unusual one that has been made to The Knight Shift since this blog began in earnest almost five years ago.

Can you guess why?

I may or may not be able to see The Dark Knight tomorrow. If so then I'll take my best stab at posting a review and if not well... there are more interesting things going on, which I shall be able to share with y'all soon.

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Ten worst uses for Microsoft Windows

Would you trust Microsoft Windows to run a building's elevator system (via a web browser)? Or to operate an Amtrak train? How about the computers regulating radiation therapy at a major hospital? No, I'm not totally dissing Windows but ya know: stuff like that really should have their own dedicated operating systems. Richard Stiennon at NetworkWorld.com has what he considers to be the top ten very worst uses of Windows. Chilling stuff... in a funny kind of way.

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