Mace/Off

Really should stop yakking about how awesomely brilliant Empireonline.com is with their "50 Greatest Movie Finisher Moves", as I already had my shot in the earlier post. Too bad this one's way too neat to be left out. Part of the all-consuming hype for Attack of the Clones focused on the dust-up between Samuel L. Jackson’s Mace Windu – at last getting something to do other than nod meaningfully – and Temeura Morrison’s Jango Fett, father of Boba. Finally, it was on. Jango – he bobs! He weaves! He shoots! Mace deflects! Jango shoots again! Mace deflects again! Mace cuts off Jango’s head! Interesting move – what will Jango respond with? Oh, nothing. Damn, that was short – yet, in establishing Mace’s tough guy credentials, the brevity of the fight is all-important. Then comes the kicker. Especial kudos to Lucas for the blackly comic image of a distraught Boba picking up his dad’s helmet. Hands up who wanted Jango’s head to fall out, scarring the young lad for life? Shame on you!

Nailed

From Reuters. Australian police released Friday a shocking x-ray photo showing the skull of a murdered Chinese immigrant shot 34 times in the head and neck with a high-power nail gun. The body of Chen Liu, 27, was found by two children last year in marshland in south Sydney, wrapped in a carpet and bound with electrical wire. Detectives said the weapon used was a standard gas nail gun widely available and used in construction, firing nails up to 85mm (3.3 inches) long. We will be back with more violent crimes after few messages...

Atheistic Motivational Poster

As much as I loathed those pretentiously boring Motivational poster (what with those brain-dead one-line-puns), a handful of these turned out to be genuinely effective. Motivational, that is. Over to Scott Klarr (who tirelessly compiled them here) for more atheistic fun.

For All The Zombies Out There...

...An Eternal Exercise ...Office Chat ...Ronald on the fast one Just three of the many uniquely humorous (Damn do I sounded like the Singapore Tourism Board) would-be t-shirt design coming out from the very creative Glennz).

Church Of Hell

Though this was released at the same time as "The Dead" (featured in an earlier post), which turned out to be quite the standard fare of a zombie tale, I just finished the first issue of this (courtesy of the free download available at the official site. Won't call it mediocre, but it's pretty standard "Burn in Hell tales" (The type I'll happily get from Garth Ennis) with the primary gimmick being the face of the protagonist/antagonist. Notwithstanding, the potential for this to be good is certainly there, which means I'll stick by it for now (which means I'll be buying issue two).

Mercy Is For The Weak! The 50 Greatest Movie Finisher Moves

Heath Ledger’s Joker had already made his entrance in The Dark Knight, in that opening bank heist. But in terms of establishing his fearless psycho credentials, this moment is priceless. Having gatecrashed a meeting of mobsters – whose money he’s just stolen, remember – The Joker bamboozles everyone by ramming a pencil, point down, into a table. "I’m going to make this pencil disappear," he says and, as one of Michael Jai White’s goons approaches him, he stays true to his word by grabbing him and smashing him face-first onto the implement. "Ta-daaaaa!" cries The Joker, and suddenly everyone is taking him very seriously indeed. Rumour has it that Paul Daniels is thinking about doing the same thing in panto Just one of the many entertaining reads from the ever-resourceful Empireonline.com, "The 50 Greatest Movie Finisher Moves". Worth your puny little time browsing through.

旋風小飛俠 AKA Science Ninja Team Gatchaman AKA 科学忍者隊 AKA Battle of the Planets AKA Eagle Riders AKA G-Force

A walk down memory lane, why, yes. With my earlier entry, I posed the question, Gatchaman anyone? Problem connecting that name? How about Battle of the Planets? Indeed. How about Battle of the Planets, of which under this title, the series was recently remolded and relaunched as a comic book series released by Top Cow, which with the help of Alex Ross rekindled many forgotten collective memories. Interestingly enough, I remembered them all too well enough (despite being close to five or six years old back then) but under a different name, 旋風小飛俠 (a Taiwan representation). One definite contributing factor for my uncharacteristically great memory would be the fact that the number two guy 大明 AKA Joe Asakura AKA Jason AKA Dirk Daring AKA Joe Thax AKA Joe the Condor (too many version, too many AKAs) was revealed to be a Robot (or Cyborg or Android or something along that line) in the episode right before the finale and sacrifice himself to save the team in the grand finale. This might sound inconsequential but it is indeed my first encounter with Death for a major character. Probably the Powers That Be in the company shared my sentiments to this second fiddle character which is why during the advert they made in 2000 to promote Japan's Telcom Giant, NTT, they got the Japan top sensation boyband, SMAP, to portray the five team members respectively (yeah, even the girl) and with the most famous Takuya Kimura as 大明. Check out the ad by the way, courtesy of good ol' youtube.

Global Warming Rocks

Browsing through the illustrations from MYDEADPONY, this particular image detonated an earlier entry that got rigged back in 2007. I happened to chance upon this poster in the corporate alleys of SINgapore.

"Let's Put A Smile On That Face!"

It's Wrestlemania Week, after all. WWE Superstar, Rey Mysterio, Jr., famous for his highflying Lucha Libre style of wrestling, must be grinning all the way before stepping on aisle of the (very incorrectly titled) 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania (Technically, it's 24th) before his match. The week before the Wrestlemania Sunday, Marvel.com had an entry on how Mysterio has been putting on his wrestling garb with a Marvel Comics twist, a'la Ironman, Spider-man, etc. Then they wondered what Marvel Hero he will be emulating this Wrestlemania. Will the Master of the 619 bear the colors of yet another 616 super hero this Sunday at "The Biggest Spectacle of Them All," WrestleMania – the arguable birthplace of the Superstar's Marvel influenced garb? Well...Guess what. In case you'are still wondering, it's not fucking Doink The Clown.

My Dead Pony

Just a couple of the psychedelically luscious illustrations from MYDEADPONY, a self-taught illustrator from Brussels, Belgium. Check out the link for his delicious gallery.

陳綺貞 太陽音樂會 Cheer Chen's Immortality Concert 2009, April 4th

Pictures taken on Cheer Chen's Immortality Concert 2009, AKA "陳綺貞 太陽音樂會 ", held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on the 4th of April 2009.

The Storm Warriors 風雲II

The Storm Warriors (風雲II), sequel to the 1998 film The Storm Riders (風雲), AKA the semi-disastrous comic-to-movie adaptation that helped to usher in even more freakish HK comic-to-movie adaptations like "A Man Called Hero (中華英雄)" and the one that finally dropped the ball on the genre, "Dragon Tiger Gate (龍虎門)". The above sentiment might prove to be debatable to many, as common consensus dictates that sacrifices to the source material are somewhat mandatory while conducting the transition, with examples like Peter Parker developing his webshooter as another manifestation of the radioactive spider effect or Wolverine having his claw laced to his knuckle in a distinctly different manner. On both accounts, I agreed and thought of it as stylistic indifference. However, in the case for these Chinese Manhua adaptations, the alteration seemed to fit no one but probably the Costume Designers (to justify his existence) , the Writers (for exercising his forte by running wild with their creativity on the source materials) and the Directors (for banking on the source material's existing fanbase to cash out the cheque). It's 2009, and we have seen "Sin City", "The Dark Knight", "Ironman" and "Watchmen". With the Pang Brothers at helm (right after their abysmal Hollywood outings) and a seemingly sound plot line to follow, can HK's adaptation of their proud culture relic, Manhua, keep up? Judging from the snippets, I'm afraid to say that keeping fingers crossed seemed to be an optimistic way of looking at it. The trailer seemed okay notwithstanding the fact that it 's not really showing much, but the snippets are indeed worrying, to say the least. A cheap knock-off of 300 if you ask me. Nevertheless, with stroke of genius like the casting of the Nameless Wu Ming 無名 (何家勁 Kenny Ho, who successfully portrayed Hero Hua in the 1990 TV Drama adaptation of "A Man Called Hero (中華英雄)" and its 1991 sequel) and one of the best storyline in Hong Kong's Manhua history, Let's keep that finger crossed.