The Situation: We all have our types, right? Some guys go for the femme fatale or the Sex and the City-esque fashionista. Some gals like bad boy bikers or tennis-playing preppies. Me? Well, I admit to enjoying the ass-kicking ladies. But, when it all comes down to it, I’m a sucker for a sassy, intelligent gal. (I’m actually a bit surprised it’s taken me this long to do this list…)
The Criteria: The ladies on this list may not be physically imposing–no Xenas, Buffys, or Wonder Women here–but they are far from helpless. Like Robin Hood or Bugs Bunny, these gals use their intelligence and spunk to outwit their foes and save the day (which, of course, does not mean they don’t possess some additional powers or abilities).
1. Katherine “Kitty” Pryde
For me, Kitty is the Alpha and the Omega of sassy, intelligent female characters. When she phased her way into our hearts, Kitty was the youngest member of the X-Men, but that never stopped her from pulling her weight. A buddy of mine (who happens to be more of a femme fatale/’50s pin-up kinda guy) said he could never get behind Kitty because he felt she was created to be the kind of girl comic fans would dig–the smart, cute, spunky girl next door. Um…duh.
2. Hermione Granger
Everyone was all about “The Boy Who Lived”, but poor little Potter wouldn’t have made it to the end of the first book without Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Bookish, principled, and focused, Hermione had no problem bending (or, occasionally breaking) the rules to do the right thing.
3. Clarissa “Clary” Fray
Clary is just like every other shy, artistic fifteen year old in New York City. What Clary doesn’t know is that she’s also a demon-killing Shadowhunter. But, what she lacks in strength and training, Clary more than makes up for in wit, guile, and spunk. It doesn’t hurt that she also happens to be a redhead.
4. The Joss Whedon Triumvirate (a.k.a. Willow Rosenberg, Winifred “Fred” Burkle, and Kaylee Frye)
Joss Whedon works in archetypes. And, since he’s gone on record as being a huge fan of Kitty Pryde (hey, the man has taste), it should come as no surprise that the sassy, intelligent girl next door shows up in one form or another in each of his three series. Whether it’s computer geek-turned-Wicca Willow Rosenberg, theoretical physicist Fred Burkle, or uber-mechanic Kaylee Frye, Whedon knows sassy and intelligent.
I’m sure everyone knows by now, but they’ve found the Eleventh Doctor. Twenty-six year old Matt Smith will be replacing David Tennant on the venerable BBC series.
I’ll admit that my first reaction after getting a look at this kid was “Whoa, who thought it was a good idea to cast Bright Eyes as Doctor Who?”
Then I realized that a reaction like that is probably why people use words like “cranky” and “contrary” when I’m around.
But, then I watched this little video posted over at Karen’s blog, and I started to feel a little better. At least the kid realizes what a huge role this is.
By now, everyone on the internets has probably already heard that David Tennant is hanging up his pinstripe suit and handing the keys to the TARDIS to an 11th Doctor. Everyone has already started picking who they think should step into the role of the BBC’s venerable Time Lord (you can read some picks here and here). Since everyone else is doing it, I figured I might as well come up with a few possible choices.
Anthony Stewart Head
No stranger to the Who-niverse, Head could bring a nice new spin to the 11th Doctor. First of all, he’d be a more mature Doctor. Plus, as he showed us on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head’s got a certain something that says “I’m prim and proper on the outside, but I’ll kick your fucking teeth in if you push me.”
Mackenzie Crook
I love Crook, and would watch him in anything. (Look at him…doesn’t he just scream “British”?) My only concern is that he might be a little too similar in general appearance to the departing Tennant–by that, I mean lanky and somewhat gawky. Although, I would love to see what kind of Doctor Gareth would be.
Simon Pegg
Think about it. A wee, tiny little Doctor whose first instinct is to get really pissed off at people. And, let’s be honest, don’t we all want to save Pegg from Hollywood.
Dylan Moran
If you know who he is, you know why he’d be awesome.
James Nesbitt
Nesbitt showed he’s capable of playing both a repressed wet blanket and a charismatic sociopath in the BBC’s Jekyll. He also has a delightfully expressive face–including a shit-eating grin that stretches for miles–that could bring just a little bit of manic menace to the 11th Doctor.
Martin Freeman
Crook’s Office co-star could bring a quiet mumbly charm to the Doctor, quite a change from the more manic performance of Tennant. Besides, Freeman’s role as Arthur Dent in the feature film version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy should provide enough sci-fi cred for his resume.
And, the winner of the First Annual LET’S CAST… Contest is–
Mando, who submitted the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series.
Thanks to everyone who entered, and congrats to Mando! You’ll see my picks for Jaina, Jacen, Mara, Ben, and “all the rest” posted here as soon as possible.
The Situation: Let’s face it, some guys are just too tough, crafty, or out-and-out evil for regular law enforcement agencies to take down. That’s why we need bounty hunters. Bounty hunters have been a part of American pop culture since the days of the Old West (if not longer), and they seem quite capable of morphing into pretty much any genre you can think of–westerns, sci-fi, fantasy, mysteries, you name it.
The Criteria: Since bounty hunters are so prevalent in popular culture, there are countless examples that you can choose from. But, since I had to limit myself to four, I decided to pick guys (Domino Harvey came close to making the cut…would that I could pick five) who were obviously doing what they do for a tangible reason–whether it’s money, revenge, freedom, or a combination of one or more–as opposed to characters who claim to be bounty hunters, but end up regulating out of concerns more noble than money or vengeance.
1. Brisco County, Jr.
A Harvard-educated lawyer, Brisco never wanted to follow in his father’s bounty hunting footsteps. That is, until County Sr. is brutally gunned-down by John Bly and his gang. With sidekick Socrates Poole, rival-turned-associate Lord Bowler, and Comet the Wonder Horse, Brisco County, Jr. straps on his dad’s six-shooter and searches the Old West for the men responsible for his father’s death. Oh, there’s a weird golden orb from the future involved, too.
2. Ezekiel Stone
Zeke Stone was a cop. When his wife was raped and the man responsible goes free, Stone murders him in cold blood. Then, wouldn’t ya know, Zeke gets killed and gets sent straight to hell. Fifteen years later, there’s a prison break in the underworld and the Devil makes Stone a deal: return to Earth, track down and return the 113 escaped souls, and earn a second chance at life. Bounty hunting + damned souls = awesome.
3. The Man With No Name
C’mon, it’s Clint. The Man With No Name more or less re-invented the western, as well as cementing the idea of the laconic anti-hero in American culture.
4. Boba Fett
Fett’s like Eastwood’s Man With No Name in a helmet and jet-pack. Forget everything that’s been done to and with this guy since 1983, when he first showed up in Empire Strikes Back, you knew he was a badass. He didn’t speak more than a dozen words in Empire or Return of the Jedi, and he still managed to become one of the most (if not the most) popular characters in the trilogy.
Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning special effects and make-up artist, has passed away at the age of 62.
Winston is probably best known for his work on the Terminator movies, Predator 1 and 2, and Aliens. But, his company–Stan Winston Studio–also provided effects for Edward Scissorhands, Jurassic Park, and The Monster Squad. He recently worked on the armor for Iron Man.
Stan will be missed by lovers of aliens, killer robots, dinosaurs, and werewolves everywhere.
Judging from the box office results, most people have probably seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If not, don’t worry, I’ll try to keep this as spoiler-free as I can.
The question most people are asking themselves, their friends, their family, and their co-workers is this: Was anything wrong with Crystal Skull? The short answer is “No.” The slightly longer answer is “No…but…”
I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed myself fully for the 2+ hours that I spent in the theater, and I found myself humming the theme song as I was walking home. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was not a bad movie (if you enjoy silly adventure movies like The Mummy and National Treasure, which I do). But, as part of the Indiana Jones series, it was missing “something.”
What it was missing, in my opinion, was sincerity. It was no more ridiculous than any of the previous movies, it just didn’t pull it off as well. Let’s face it: Indy melting Nazis, drinking voodoo zombie blood, and hanging out with a 1000-year-old knight are all pretty ridiculous, but we bought it because everything else felt grounded in reality. The first three movies were played pretty straight, so when the weird shit started happening it meant something. Part of the problem stems from the lack of actual scenery. In the old days, when Indy went to Cairo or Venice or India, the cast and crew went to Cairo or Venice or India, or at least some place remotely similar. The majority of this movie was shot on a set in front of a green screen, so you never got that sense of realism that you did from the original movies. Most people are going to blame George Lucas. To be fair, he’s only part of the problem. Movies, in general, have become more interested in what they can do with computer effects rather than what they should do with computer effects. It’s easy to beat Lucas up about it because he just happens to own one of, if not the, largest effects companies in this or any other universe. The blame, if there is to be blame, should not rest entirely on Uncle George. He’s just trying to tell a fun story the best way he knows how.
The next head on the chopping-block is poor Shia LaBeouf. He was not bad. He was actually pretty good. It’s just easy to see him as the weak link and use him as a scapegoat for what went wrong. The same thing was done with Transformers. News flash, folks, he didn’t make these movies by himself. Which brings me to Indy, himself. In the previous films, Harrison Ford was Indiana Jones. In this one, he felt like he was playing Indiana Jones. Again, I am not laying blame at Ford’s feet. But, he clearly wasn’t feeling it. He wasn’t bad…he was just missing “something.”
As a friend of mine pointed out, what Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was really missing was the “Oh shit, it’s on” moment. Every action movie has one. If it doesn’t, then it ain’t no action movie. It’s the point in the film when the hero has been literally and figuratively tortured in body, mind, and spirit. He (or she) has been beaten down by the villain, but manages to get up, wipe the dirt and blood from him- or herself, and rain down bloody retribution upon their enemy. This movie didn’t really have that moment. It came close. There’s one scene where LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams gets this look on his face and you think, “Oh shit, it’s on”, but nothing really comes of it.
Bottom line: it was fine. It wasn’t awesome or excellent, but it was an enjoyable movie. It might lack the spectacle of the earlier movies, but it’s still a fun ride. George Lucas did not “destroy my childhood” or “ruin a beloved icon.” If I had seen this back in the day instead of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and Last Crusade, I still would have majored in archaeology. And, really, that’s probably the best compliment I could pay this movie.
I’m going to be honest right off the bat: I am not a lifelong Doctor Who fan. (Gasp!) Well, I grew up in the Eighties in the U.S., where, before the Golden Age of Cable, the only station that played Who reruns was a semi-local PBS station that was barely watchable through all of the static. And, (WARNING: Further honesty ahead!) the only things that I can say with any certainty that I have been a lifelong fan of are Star Wars, Spider-Man, Batman, and Scooby-Doo. Are you still with me? Okay, good. Let’s do this thing.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I stumbled upon the Doctor Who revival completely unprepared. I knew of the good Doctor, as anyone who considers themselves a fan of science-fiction probably should–hey, if you’re a baseball fan, you probably know who the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers are even if both teams headed west before you were born. I was also fortunate to have a friend in grade school who was really into Doctor Who (he was also really into Star Trek, comics, and Monty Python…so, if anyone other than myself can be blamed for my current state of affairs, it’s him). It was under his watchful eye that I learned about the Doctor, K-9, sonic screwdrivers, the Master, Daleks, Cybermen, and the TARDIS.
So, when I heard that the BBC (do people still call it “the Beeb”?) was going to do a whole new Who series, I was all about checking it out. I’m always on the hunt for good sci-fi on TV, and will usually check anything out once if it looks even half-way decent. Well, the new Doctor Who was a hell of a lot more than “half-way decent.” In “Rose” (the first of the new batch of Who episodes), we’re introduced to Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor. Eccleston’s Doctor was brilliant. His maniacal grin and that mad gleam in his eyes told you that being the sole survivor of the Time War had left some deep scars in this immortal rogue’s psyche. Watching Eccleston–especially in the episodes when he comes face-to-face with his old enemies, the Daleks–you just knew a day would come when a blood vessel was going to burst in his brain-box if he kept up that level of seething intensity. So, it came as no surprise when I found out that Eccleston was only going to last as long as the first season.
Shit! What’s a show to do when its star pulls out after one season? Easy there, Binky. Put that replica of Boba Fett’s blaster rifle down. No need to do anything rash. The Doctor is a Time Lord, remember? Time Lords have the ability, upon death, to regenerate twelve times. Eccleston’s Doctor was only the character’s ninth incarnation, we’ve got plenty of Who left.
Enter David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Tennant’s Doctor (first appearing at the end of season one’s “The Parting of the Ways”) is younger than Eccleston’s. He favors tweedy, three-piece suits and Converse sneakers over his predecessors black leather duster. While Eccleston’s Doctor looks like he’d be a bit player in a Guy Ritchie movie, the Tenth Doctor looks as though he should be an office clerk or a teacher at a turn of the century prep school (a role the Doctor actually filled in the “Human Nature”/ “The Family of Blood” two-parter). And, although he still carries the burden of being the last of his kind, the Tenth Doctor seems to be a bit removed from the Time War, allowing Tennant’s portrayal to be a little lighter, a bit goofier. This doesn’t mean that Tennant’s Doctor can’t be a terrifying bad-ass when the need arises. In fact, when he does it actually seems to carry more weight than Eccleston’s usually broody and fatalistic Ninth Doctor.
I adapted much easier to a new Doctor in the second season than I did to the new companion in the third. Every Doctor had at least one companion, usually a comely young woman–hey, if you were a nigh immortal time-traveler, you’d choose a comely young woman to be your traveling companion, too. In the first two seasons, the Doctor was joined by Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper), a young girl from London and, occasionally, her boyfriend Mickey Smith (okay, okay, yes…there was also Captain Jack Harkness, but let’s keep things simpler, okay?). I’ll admit that part of Rose’s appeal was that Ms. Piper is more than a little easy on the eyes. But, Rose also had the kind of strength and resolve that you usually find in characters from a working-class background. When Rose was sent to live on a parallel Earth at the end of “Doomsday”, the role of the Doctor’s companion was filled by medical student Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman).
I’ve divided fictional characters into four categories: those you love from the start (Wash, Doyle, House); those you hate from the get-go (Glory, Jool); those who grow on you over time (Dawn, Simon); and those you don’t really miss until they’re gone (Tara, Zhaan). Rose Tyler falls into the last category. I never really noticed her, she was always just there. But, then she was gone. Her replacement, Martha, is in the second category. I admit it was a good idea to juxtapose the working-class Rose with the better-educated Martha. Plus, Martha being a woman of color (Agyeman is of Ghanaian and Iranian heritage) added an interesting new dimension to the show whenever the pair would travel to “less enlightened” time periods, like the Elizabethan ( “The Shakespeare Code”) or Edwardian ( “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood”) periods. However, it took me more than half of the season for Martha to finally grow on me–partly, I think, due to a pseudo-romantic subplot that ran through the season (honestly…can’t a man and a woman travel through time and space fighting aliens without things getting all groiny?)–and, when I was finally starting to like Martha, she went away, too.
This brings us to a new season (the fourth) and a new companion (the third). Tennant’s Doctor is an emotional wreck. He’s lost Rose, whom he cared deeply for. He’s been through an emotional roller-coaster with Martha, as well. And, after believing that he’s the last of the Time Lords, he learns there was another survivor all along: his arch-nemesis, the Master. But, now he’s gone, too. The Doctor has prepared himself for a solo existence of broodily traveling through time and space for the rest of his lives. When he runs into Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), whom he last met in “The Runaway Bride”, the Doctor realizes that it’s no fun being able to go anywhere (or anywhen) without a mate along for the ride (the Doctor’s use of the word “mate” led to a fun bit of banter between the pair when Donna misinterpreted his platonic intent). I have a feeling that it’s going to take me a while to get used to Donna, whose grating, antagonistic personality seems like it would be a better fit on a show like The Office or Fawlty Towers. Of course, I’ve never been one to deny my fear of change.
What I’m not afraid of is finding out what this season’s story arc is going to be. Back in the day, Doctor Who was a serial; however, the revival is written along the lines of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with stand-alone episodes that lead up to the reveal of a Big Bad (Bad Wolf, the Dalek-Cybermen Invasion, the return of the Master). With only two episodes aired States-side, it’s too early for me to even hazard a guess at what this season’s Big Bad is going to be–however, hints in this week’s “The Fires of Pompeii” could be taken to mean that it has something to do with the Doctor himself, and “his true name.” I don’t know about you, but I know I’ll be there when this season’s big villain is revealed. Why? Well, because as the Doctor would say, this show is fantastic!
I have somewhat mixed emotions about this being the final season of Battlestar Galactica. I don’t want it to go on and on, slowly decreasing in quality like some shows (I’m lookin’ at you, X-Files). Nor do I want the creators to give us a really good wind-up only to have the show canceled by Sci-Fi before we get the resolution (oh Farscape…how they done you wrong [yes, yes...they tried to make it up to us with the made-for-TV movie, but some wounds do not heal so easily]).
However, if they’re going to start killing off my favorite characters, I’m glad to see the show coming to end. I’m not really complaining…I mean, I survived the slaughter of Wash, Doyle, the Lone Gunmen, and Jadzia Dax, so I’ll get over this.
Edward James Olmos said this final season was going to be depressing, and I’ll be damned if he wasn’t right.
The Situation: You lucky duck! You’ve learned of some long forgotten and buried treasure–maybe it was a story handed down through your family; or maybe you found an old map in a book you bought at a used book shop in Europe; or it could just be that you think there’s some truth in a crazy old myth or folktale. Whatever the reason, you really shouldn’t go out looking for this thing on your own. You will need an expert. A professional. Someone who’s been trained at excavating and retrieving artifacts. Dammit, you need an archaeologist.
The Criteria: Personally, I’d go for a university-trained archaeologist, as opposed to a money-hungry treasure hunter. You really can’t trust treasure hunters. It would probably be a good idea to find someone who can handle themselves in foreign countries–whether it’s speaking the local dialect or being able to take on a bar full of drunk locals.
1. Indiana Jones
Yeah, let’s be honest, he’s the guy. You need a detective, you go to Sherlock Holmes. You need an archaeologist, you better find Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. He’s smart, tough, and a snappy dresser. It also doesn’t hurt that he speaks every language known to man and shows up ready to go with a pistol and a whip.
2. Dr. Daniel Jackson
Okay, I know what you’re saying: “He’s just an egyptologist.” True, in the original Stargate film, it was established that Dr. Jackson is an egyptologist, but in the subsequent TV series, Daniel displayed enough knowledge about ancient civilizations to qualify in my book.
3. Flynn Carsen
Carsen has 22 academic degrees, which earned him the prestigious job as Librarian–the guardian of treasures as diverse as Excalibur, the Spear of Destiny, and the Holy Grail. His role also requires him to go out into the world and recover numerous important relics. Carsen might not be as rugged as Indy, but he’s just as smart and driven.
4. Annja Creed
Who says the boys get to have all of the fun? A trained archaeologist, Annja uses her role as co-host of Chasing History’s Monsters to finance her travels as she works on her own research. Although she’s an admitted skeptic, Annja frequently finds herself coming face-to-face with mystical artifacts across the globe. She’s also the heir of Joan of Arc’s magical broadsword…which, y’know, can come in handy.
