The Man Behind The Curtain (S3, ep. 20)

Voice: “Help me.”

After a much-needed break for Thanksgiving festivities we’re back up and running and just about through the tail-end of Season 3. The Man Behind The curtain remains one of Lost’s finest hour’s – an installment that’s as packed with revelations as it is with questions.

Thoughts:

• Another great fake-out opening – making it seem as though Ben’s mother Emily is giving birth in a clearing on the Island, only to reveal that they’re actually just outside of Portland – the same generalized location that Mittelos Bioscience gives as their place of business.

• Horace Goodspeed enters the picture here for the first time. Horace is played by Doug Hutchison, a character actor known for playing utter jackasses (see: The Green Mile) and homicidal mutants (see: The X Files). Hutchison is also in the underrated horror film “The Burrowers,” alongside fellow Lost cast members Clancy Brown (Kelvin) and William Mapother (Ethan).

• Also entering the picture here: Horace’s sister, Olivia. Olivia is played by Samantha Mathis who helped usher this particular writer into puberty with her appearance in the Christian Slater vehicle “Pump Up The Volume” (great soundtrack – highly recommended).

Ben: “You do remember birthdays, don’t you, Richard?”

• Our first hint that Richard is far older than he appears. This sort of oblique foreshadowing is like catnip to me.

• Locke appears in the Others’ camp, carrying the body of his dead father just as Ben instructed. The look on Richard’s face is, I think, much clearer now in hindsight – he looks, for lack of a better word, satisfied. A commenter on Chud’s message boards has pointed out that when Jack and Co. are stuck back in the 70’s, Richard expresses his doubts about Locke to Jack, who tells Richard not to give up on Locke. Prior to that conversation, it seems as though that’s what Richard was considering doing – neither the Pachen Llama test he gives young Locke nor to offer to join an Others-sponsored summer camp in High School have given Richard any indication that Locke is the person he’s looking for. But Jack’s words to him, combined with the word that Locke has been healed on the Island, and now Locke’s completion of the test that was set before him, seem to have convinced Richard of Locke’s worthiness. This, I think, is when he starts to believe.

• I like the choice to frame Ben and Locke’s tent conversation with a folded wheelchair placed behind Locke.

Ben: “His name is Jacob.”

• Ben tells John that he can’t take him to see Jacob, and when Locke suggests that he’ll get Richard to take him, Ben seems genuinely threatened. “He doesn’t know where Jacob is,” Ben protests, “He doesn’t talk to Jacob.” We’re seeing Ben’s jealousy and protectiveness on full display here – he’s sensing the end of his time as Leader, and he’s sincerely unsettled by that prospect.

Ben: “I was born on this Island. I’m one of the last who was. So Jacob talks to me, John.”

• This is either a complete lie, or it’s a half-truth. We’ve seen Ben born off-Island with our own eyes, but we’ve also seen a young, wounded Ben taken to the Temple to be healed. When he does this, Richard implies that Ben will, on some level, not be the same as he was before – which could be considered a rebirth of sorts. But the real answer to this enigma appears to come at the end of the episode – we’ll talk about it at the end of this column.

• Holy hell do I love the fashion sense of the 70’s Dharma Initiative.

• And speaking of which, this episode gives us our first real glimpse of the Initiative in its prime. We see how employees are processed (something we’ll get another look at when Jack and Co. arrive) and we see yet another instructional video from Marvin Candle/Edgar Halliwax/Pierre Chang, in which we learn that the sonic fence was constructed by Dharma (an incredible innovation for the 1970s) in order to keep the Island’s “abundant and diverse wildlife” out of their compound. Cute.

• We see a Dharma employee giving an injection/inoculation to a little girl, again raising the question of the purpose behind them.

• Do we ever learn what it is that Ben’s dad did off-Island, before Emily died? He’s all stink-faced when he’s assigned the position of ‘Work Man’ – was he a particle physicist or something? I’d be kinda rankled too, were that the case. If not, I don’t really get the anger he displays. From the perspective of the Eastern religion/philosophy that Dharma appears to admire and/or co-opt, to work in the service of others (Others?) is to serve a holy purpose.

• Sawyer’s reappearance after the events of the Brig highlight how shaken he is by what he’s done. It’s a good bit of acting on Josh Holloway’s part.

• Mikhail runs into the Others’ camp, shouting for Ben and warning about the arrival of a helicopter pilot on the Island. Ben seems as surprised by this as he does by Locke’s arrival, and on Rewatch I’m struck by the sense of just how little control Ben actually has over his situation. On first watching these episodes I marveled at how Ben always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone and, while that’s still certainly the case, that feeling now comes with an added layer of understanding on my part – one that makes me think about just how tenuous Ben’s grasp on the reins of power are, and appear to have been for some time.

• Locke beats Mikhail ferociously in front of all the Others –  a display of pure Alpha-male dominance. Ben tries to get Richard to intervene, but Richard chooses not to do so, and even flashes a smile at the sight of Locke feeding Mikhail fist after fist. This seems to signify the extremity of Richard’s desire to see Ben replaced, a larger indifference to and/or approval of violence as a claim to leadership (see: daddy killin’), or both.

• Alex arms Locke against Ben, and the recognition of this is clearly hurtful to Ben. It seems to me that Ben has ruled from a similar Alpha-male dominant position, and that the result of this has been distrust and fear.

Annie: “Don’t worry. It’s just the Hostiles.”

• We learn that there’s a volcano on the Island – a detail I’d pretty much forgotten about. Chance that the volcano will play a significant role in the final season: 100%. And speaking of the volcano – is it the source of the rumbling that occurs just before the ‘Hostiles’ attack the compound? If not, what is?

• And speaking of Annie – what happened to her? We can assume that she died in the Purge with everyone else, but this hasn’t been confirmed. Are we ever going to revisit this plot point? Or is there nothing more to it?

Horace: “We’re having some…skirmishes with the natives.”
Roger: “What do you mean, natives?”
Horace: “Well, we’re not exactly sure who they are.”

• They’re the Others, of course. Richard’s (and presumably Widmore’s) band of Merry Men. This is the first confirmation we’ve gotten that Richard and Co. are the Island’s inhabitants, and not simply remnants of the Dharma program.

• That shot of Ben’s mother appearing at his bedroom window is creepy, yo.

• Let’s discuss the ‘ghost’ of Ben’s dead mother. She and Dave, Hurley’s eerie imaginary friend, are as of now the only apparitions that don’t fit my larger ‘Island ghost theory.’ What is the ‘Island ghost theory’? That all of the various apparitions we have seen on the Island (except Emily and Dave) are people whose dead bodies reside ON the Island, implying that a person’s body must be physically present on the Island in order for their ‘ghost’ to appear. We’ve never seen an apparition of a still-living person, and (except for Emily and Dave), we’ve never seen an apparition whose body wasn’t verifiably ON the Island. This is seemingly underlined by the fact that Christian’s body lands on-Island, and that Christian subsequently begins appearing as a ‘ghost’; that Locke’s body is returned to the Island and that the MiB appears to assume his form after this event.

We see and/or hear about the ‘ghosts’ of Eko, Horace, Ana Lucia, Charlie, and Boone, all of whom have died on-Island, and we see the ‘ghosts’ of Yemi and of Nigerian smugglers, whose bodies were transported to the Island aboard the beechcraft plane. Tangentially, but interestingly, we’ve also seen that the ‘burial’ ritual of the Others involves sending burning bodies out to sea – away from the Island.

All of the above would seem to suggest that there’s a link between the presence of a dead body on the Island and the manifestation of that person’s ‘ghost.’ Or it would, if not for Emily and Dave. We see Emily die off-Island with our own eyes and, barring some secret grave-digging-and-transportation team among the Others, we can be pretty sure that her body did not end up on the Island. And while it’s possible that the man we know as Dave died at some point in the Island’s past, we don’t know that for a fact and should probably assume that, if he ever existed at all, Dave’s body isn’t on the Island.

Which kind of blows a GIANT, GAPING HOLE in my theory. ….Maybe.

I say maybe because there’s a possible explanation for Emily’s presence on the Island – one that may stretch your credulity past its breaking point. Nonetheless, I’d like to suggest that both Emily and Dave can be explained, while still keeping my larger “Island ghost theory’ intact. Want to hear it?

When Richard runs into Ben in the woods and hears that Ben has been seeing things, he is noticeably surprised and intrigued by that fact. In that interaction it’s suggested that Ben is somehow ‘special’ because of his ability to see Emily. That ‘specialness’ may be the reason why he’s able to see the ‘ghost’ of someone whose body is not on the Island. The ‘typical’ rules of the Island (whatever they are) may not apply to him. After all, a number of other people have seen the ‘ghost’ of Christian (Jack, Claire, Michael), and it hasn’t been suggested that those people are ‘special’ (though they could be). And notice what Richard asks Ben after Ben informs him that he’s seen Emily:

Richard: “Did she die here, on the Island?”

If Ben is special (perhaps the same kind of ‘specialness’ that Walt also displayed – giving the show a perfect opportunity to explain what ‘special’ means through the character of Ben, without having to bring back a much-aged Malcolm David Kelley to reprise the Walt role) that might explain his ability to see a ‘ghost’ that wasn’t created from the form of a dead body on the Island.

And this concept of being ‘special’ doesn’t only apply to Ben and Walt – it also applies to Hurley, who was the only one able to see the ‘ghost’ of Dave. We learn in the Season 5 finale that Hurley is also ‘special’ in some way – he’s the only one that Jacob confronts directly and speaks to in any real way (and remember that Hurley is also somehow able to locate ‘Jacob’s’ cabin – a talent that’s apparently hard to come by). Most notably, Jacob suggests that Hurley’s ability to see ‘ghosts’ off of the Island is a ‘gift.’

So, rather than see the ‘ghosts’ of Emily and Dave as the exceptions that destroy my theory, I’d like to suggest that they are the exceptions that prove the rule. In both cases, the people who have seen these apparitions have been declared ‘special’ within the context of the show.

What do you think? Am I grasping at straws here? Do you have a better suggestion? I’d love to hear it. Weigh in on the Chud Message Boards or in the comments section on Back To The Island.

Roger Linus (paraphrased): “Well, you killed yer momma. Happy freakin’ birthday, jackass!”

• Roger Linus is a total dillweed, continuing Lost’s theme of terrible fathers. The Bible has something to say about terrible dads, especially as they relate to their kids. Numbers 14:18 speaks of visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon their children unto the third and fourth generation, and Exodus 20:5 speaks of punishing children for their parents’ sins to the third and fourth generation.

This is something that I’d like to delve into more deeply, but to do so would mean that this column will bloat beyond my capacity to make it cohere, so I’m reserving my thoughts on Lost’s fixation with bad dads for the next Too Much Information column on Back to the Island. All I’ll say now is that the bad dad pattern may have significant bearing on the show’s overarching story, and that it suggests something radical, even revolutionary, about what Lost may end up suggesting about faith and religion. Stay tuned for more on this. I’ll have those thoughts up this week.

• The ring of ash/powder around Jacob’s cabin remains unexplained. It’s been suggested that the ring may serve as a kind of ‘binding magic,’ keeping whatever is inside of it contained. But there’s been very little ‘magic’ in this show so far, and that explanation, intriguing as it is, doesn’t have anything to support it (though the Sixth season may change that). So, I’d like to suggest that the ring of ash suggests the Smoke Monster’s presence around the cabin, and that it reinforces the idea that the MiB/Smokey is the one inhabiting the cabin at this point in time. We know that there’s a volcano on the Island, and we know that Smokey appears to rise up from the bowels of the Island – is it possible that Smokey is composed of volcanic ash, animated by the electromagnetic force and/or intelligence at the heart of the Island?

Ben: “Juliet, its Ben. I’m sending three teams to extract Kwon the night after tomorrow. We won’t have time to run Austen’s sample, so if you determine that she or anyone else is pregnant, mark their tents, and we’ll take them too. Good luck.”

• The end-game for the season (on-Island, at least) has been set. The Others are coming for Sun, and for any other pregnant women. The castaways are now aware of this fact, and will be preparing themselves accordingly.

• Ben follows a white rabbit across the deactivated fence-line, again echoing Alice In Wonderland – a touchstone that’s been fairly constant (no pun intended) throughout this season. He encounters Richard here for the first time, and we see that Richard looks like Robinson Crusoe – a far cry from the perfectly-pressed, Banana Republic-style outfits that Alpert typically favors. Either the show made the decision to change his look during this time period in Season 5, or his appearance here is a charade, like the fake beards and the ragged clothing that the Others used in their initial encounters with the castaways.

• Richard tells Ben that he might be able to join the ‘hostiles’ if it’s what Ben really wants, and if Ben is very patient. The reasons for this are unclear. It’s possible that Richard is preparing Ben to act as their sleeper-agent in the Dharma camp, but I’m not sure what other significance his words have here.

• We get our first look at ‘Jacob’s’ cabin at last, and on rewatch it seems much more obvious that something isn’t right about the place or its mysterious, disembodied inhabitant. The whole scene is wonderfully creepy, approaching the same sense of David Lynch-ian unease that Lost occasionally manages to pull off so well. But before we talk about the scene, let’s talk about the cabin itself, and why it’s pretty much the saddest place in the world – as well as why it’s a nifty metaphor.

If you stop to think about it, either Ben takes Locke to the cabin because (1) Ben knows that Jacob hasn’t lived there in a long time, and the whole exercise is a total fake-out for Locke’s benefit or (2) Ben thinks that it is Jacob’s cabin – that Jacob does reside inside it.

We don’t know which of these options is true but what we do know is that Ben’s faith, prior to Locke’s hostile takeover bid for leadership of the Others, was apparently very real. When he rages at Jacob during the Season 5 finale, Ben is revealed to be a man furious at his ‘God figure’ for abandoning him, for making him feel alone and confused in a harsh world without the benefit of real knowledge regarding his purpose in Jacob’s plan. In this sense, Ben stands in for any person who has lost their faith as a result of the seeming-absence of God. He’s bitterly, murderously resentful of Jacob – a man he has never met, never seen, never spoken to, despite his faithfulness in carrying out that man’s apparent wishes.

That’s why Jacob’s cabin is such a sad place to my eyes – regardless of whether Ben thinks the cabin is truly Jacob’s, it’s the only place he knows to go – a place that as always been empty, silent, unresponsive and uncaring – a place that stands as a possible metaphor for the houses of worship you or I have entered into in search of comfort, only to find that once inside we can’t feel the presence we’re longing for.

Ben: “You’ll wanna turn off your flashlight, John.”
Locke: “Why?”
Ben: “Jacob feels the same way about technology as you do.”

• Now that we know Jacob wasn’t the resident of the cabin during this visit, it seems reasonable to assume that the MiB may be the animating presence inside. We know that the MiB thinks progress is for chumps, and we know that in some ways, technology is an outward manifestation of progress.

• I have no idea what the jars in the cabin are for, or what the painting of the dog refers to (although I can make a guess regarding the dog: Cerberus, the three-headed hound of mythology, is also the name given to Smokey on the blast door map seen in Season 2. Is the picture of a dog here a subtle hint that Smokey, aka Cerberus, is the true inhabitant of the cabin at this point?)

• This whole scene between Ben, Locke and ‘Jacob’ is phenomenal. I love the mounting sense that Ben is crazy, that he’s talking to the thin air, and the puncturing of that mounting certainty as something/someone begins to fling things around the cabin like an addled poltergeist. We catch a fleeting glimpse of ‘Jacob’ in his rocker, and to my eyes the figure looks much like Locke himself. If the entity that inhabits the cabin is the MiB, then his call to Locke to ‘help him’ remains enigmatic, but also sinister in the wake of all that’s happened since. The fact that Ben can’t hear the MiB? I’ve got no idea what to make of that.

• Roger and Ben’s final scene together is tragic stuff, and it directly foreshadows the final confrontation between Ben and Jacob. In both instances, a father-figure to Ben has disappointed him in profound ways, and in both instances Ben’s response is to destroy that father figure.

• Note that after Ben and the Others set off the gas which kills Dharma, Richard checks his watch before removing his gas mask. I’d like to suggest, as I’ve suggested before, that the ‘quarantine’ signs and hazmat suits were a direct response to this Island-wide gassing.

Ben: “You know, John, you’re not wrong. Some of the things I’ve told you—some of the things I’ve told everybody—are simply not true.”
Locke: “Like what?”
Ben: “Well, for starters, I wasn’t born on this island.”
Locke: “Then where did you come from?”
Ben: “That’s what I want to show you.”

• The implication here is that Ben thinks of himself as having been reborn through the Purge – that the death of the Dharma Initiative simultaneously signaled the birth of the Ben Linus we all know. Thanks to the episode’s final flashback we know that the Purge occurred 12 years before the events of Season 3.

The sight of that mass grave – of all those Dharma employees stacked like so much cordwood – is a horrifying one. Ben may not have the knowledge we’ve assumed him to have, but he has ice water in his veins to make up for that fact. He’ll do anything to maintain control of ‘his’ Island, anything to ensure that Locke doesn’t achieve his perceived ‘special destiny.’ And the irony of it all is this: had Ben succeeded, he would have kept the MiB from achieving his loophole.

*****

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To view the complete, pre-Chud Rewatch archive, please visit Back To The Island.

To talk about/join the rewatch, jump onto the Message Boards.

Missed a column? Catch up here:

• The Brig (S3 ep. 19)
• D.O.C. (S3 ep. 18)
• Catch 22 (S3 ep. 17)
• One of Us (S3 ep. 16)
• Left Behind (S3 ep. 15)
• Exposé (S3 ep. 14)
• The Man from Tallahasse (S3 ep. 13)
• Par Avion (S3 ep. 12)
• Enter 77 (S3 ep. 11)
• Tricia Tanaka is Dead (S3 ep. 10)
• Stranger in a Strange Land (S3 ep. 09)
• Flashes before your Eyes (S3 ep. 08)
• Not In Portland (S3 ep. 07)
• I Do (S3 ep. 06)
• The Cost of Living (S3 ep. 05)
• Every Man for himself (S3 ep. 04)
• Further Instructions (S3 ep. 03)
• The Glass Ballerina (S3 ep. 02)
• Season 3 Premiere

Season 2

• Season 2 finale
• Three Minutes (S2 ep. 22)
• ? (S2 ep. 21)
• Two for The Road (S2 ep. 20)
• S.O.S. (S2 ep. 19)
• Dave (S2 ep. 18)
• Lockdown (S2 ep. 17)
• The Whole Truth (S2 ep. 16)
• Maternity Leave (S2 ep. 15)
• One of Them (S2 ep. 14)
• The Long Con (S2 ep. 13)
• Fire + Water (S2 ep. 12)
• The Hunting Party (S2 ep 11)
• The 23rd Psalm (S2, ep. 10)
• What Kate Did (S2, ep. 9)
• Collision (S2, ep. 8)
• The Other 48 Days (S2, ep. 7)

Duke Nukem Forever is the oldest joke in the gaming world. The poorly titled sequel to Duke Nukem 3D was announced way back in 1997, but game engines were changed and promised release dates pushed back time and time again until the game was finally canceled this May. That’s right, 12 years later. However, soon afterwards screenshots and videos from the game appeared online, making it apparent that 3D Realms was further along in making the game than anyone believed.

Besides some lawsuits flying back and forth, nothing much has been revealed about the game, and most figured that was it for the ol’ one-liner stealing savior of the Earth. But today a Facebook fanpage for Duke Nukem popped up, stating that “Duke Nukem doesn’t stay down for long.” and offering up this preview picture, titled “D-Day preview pic”.

It’s obviously the boss creature from the original game (as well as that demo reel) and it’s certainly looking good, but what does “D-Day” mean? Is that a new title for the game, a level name, or perhaps an event to show it off?

After the success of Duke Nukem 3D on Xbox Live (review) and iPhone, the interest certainly is there for the return of Duke. Let’s just hope this doesn’t take another decade, because we won’t be holding our breath.

Place your bets on a release date on our messageboards.

Ubisoft just officially announced Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a game which will hit in May to tie-in with the feature film. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Prince of Persia (the film) will focus on the storyline from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the first reboot of the franchise. Ubisoft’s temporarily abandoning their second Prince of Persia reboot to cash in on the film with this title, which seems to be a sidestory to the original Xbox and PS2 game and will apparently be more of a throwback.

You get all that?

“The goal is to reach both audiences, the core and casual gamers. It will be a game that will have lots of combat, with the possibility for gamers that are not as good – a level for beginners. In that sense we are trying to cover both groups.” Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during their financial report. That seemed to be the intention with the (quite fun) next-gen cell shaded reboot, but it will be nice to get back that time-rewinding feature from the last trilogy.

The trailer for the game will premiere during the Spike TV Video Game Awards on December 12th but since you probably don’t want to waste your time watching that, just keep an eye out for it online soon after. Expect The Forgotten Sands to hit all the major consoles and handhelds right alongside the film.

Turn back time (or simply waste some) on our messageboards.

What

follows is a scattershot bit of staff and reader submitted photos that

showcase the lunacy that exists in the world around us. Submit images HERE, and comment on the thread HERE. Also, please post links on your Facebook, Twitter, or Digg accounts if you want to help keep us swaddled in sweetness.

1. Possibly the most exciting game ever made.

As a huge fan of the ‘Papal Election Board Game’ genre I must admit that I was a bit excited about Vatican: The Home Game. Then I realized I could sit on the couch farting and staring at the wall, and chose to do that.



2. Impulse Buy Personified.

Photo by Nick Nunziata.

Joe Mantegna is the cover of Cat Fancy magazine. I have no joke for this.

3. The Rest of Shopping List: Jury. Executioner.

Photo by Marc Pilvinsky.

I’m more inclined to take the plunge and purchase a gavel, to be honest. It’s always the case when I rent something I end up wanting to keep it forever. I’m still paying late fees on the Hydraulic Chicken Deheader I just can’t seem to part with and I’m still getting automated calls from Blockbuster asking for that copy of Farce of the Penguins back. I just know I’ll RENT a gavel, and realize that I am addicted to adjourning. I’ll put an end to everything I don’t need. A Jehovah’s Witness will knock on the door, I’ll open the door and smash the gavel upon its slamming place and they will turn tail, Watchtower in tow. My wife will start to suggest I do something with my life and I’ll adjourn her. My kid spills milk, I’ll cease that business in midair. I’ll be the Beta Ray Bill of ending shit.

4. Sir Percival’s incontinent.

Photo by Nick Nunziata.

That’s a fucking HALO name.

5. Car Color: Cherry Ice Cream Smile.

Photo by Carl Kampmeyer.

I must admit that for a brief stretch of the 80’s I was a massive Duran Duran fan fan. I could wail in the shower of Wild Boys and Snake Unions and sometimes I enjoyed my prayer in the evening, defying Simon Le Bon’s wishes. Then he got trapped in a boat, sold his soul to the Devil, and emerged alive with massive orchestra hits to please Roger Moore. I outgrew Duran Duran, though I still appreciate our time together. I enjoyed the Nick Rhodes keyboard stylings, the various work of people named Taylor. I was even a fan of their drummer, Casio Electronics. I do not wear my fandom on my sleeve, however. I do not hate the person who owns a Duran Duran custom plate. We all make mistakes when the pressure at the DMV line mounts. I’ve been there. I’ve been there to get my custom tag to say LOVEUSA and accidentally walked out with LITAFORD. It happens. That’s a consumer choice.

I am however appalled that there’s a Duran Duran custom license plate frame, because that requires a decision by someone in a business.


6. “I drank this and got a massive case of Dwarfism of the Priapism.”

Photo by Claire.

Normally I’m all for horrible mangling of the English language by folks from newer regions with less history, like Asia, but this is simply too dangerous. Life, the opposite sex, and our own fluctuating barometers of risk/reward already crunch our thrust on a regular basis. How are we to know if this is a typo or just a way of Earth saying ‘you’re gonna lose, so why not get right to it with a tasty beverage’?

7. If you could see me sitting at my computer you would see a man gritting his teeth and seething with hate and contempt.

Photo by Gavin Lines.

8. Why isn’t this called ASSTRONAUT?

Photo by Christopher Drake.

“I am going to fuck Halloween in the mouth with brilliance.”

“Remember how much America loves space and the exploration of the sky?”

9. MATTER. OF. FACT.

Photo by Evan Dickson.

This person just wanted to remind us of a mythical creature with a horn coming out of its face, that’s all. Continue driving knowing that UNICORN.

10. If you look real good you’ll see Amelia Earhart making eternal plane u-turns in the sky above.

Photo by Jason Jaworski.

Which sign is the tougher? Because one simply has to win the fight. You can’t stop and not stop, it’s like one of the first laws of nature right after DON’T DRINK AND SWIM and AVOID THE ACT OF WRESTLING AT ALL COSTS. I’d like to camp out here and watch people slam on their brake gas.

11. Believe it. Frist has a black belt in chainsaw murder.

Photo by Mark Pezzula.

Each line in this important sign has their own adhesive sticker easily created by an automated handheld machine. Each easy to modify, amend, or redo within seconds should anything be wrong. Which is good, because the first time it asked Ash Customers Please Prepay Frist and we all know there’s not a crematorium within thirty miles of this important sign. Speaking of, I think Richard Gere’s work in Frist Knight is underrated.

12. “Why do all these religious trinkets keep flying out of my head?”

Photo by Nick Nunziata.

13. Because we’d all be concerned if CH was on the fence about it.

Photo by Carl Kampmeyer.

I have had two nagging questions in my life. One of them was ‘God damn it, is Cole Hauser gay?”

Good to know someone got behind him in traffic and got my answer. Now, all I need is a reader to find out where Michael Ironside buys his long johns and I can go spin in my coffin peacefully.

14. It’s been called the Busch Gardens of Dump Springs, Alabama.

Photo by Renn Brown.

First of all, no. Second of all, what the fuck is happening to my eyes right now?

15. Metaphor.

Photo by Unknown.

If you want yellow balls, go the fuck ahead and follow those instructions.

By the way:

“Why don’t hummingbirds learn the words?”

Message Board Thread.

In the second character premiere via toy within a week, we’re getting our first taste of Don Cheadle’s Iron Man duds from an action figure preview magazine. Bleeding Cool has a scan from Diamond Previews that gives a shadowy look at what War Machine looks like. The image is only a blacked-out profile, save for a closer peek at an accurate but disturbingly blank Cheadle face.

As one might expect, the profile gives the impression of a guy in a robotic suit, but it is clear War Machine isn’t going to have the sleek and slim look of the Iron Man suits. Between Mickey Rourke’s stripped down, enhancement-skeleton version of a power-suit and War Machine’s less-than-graceful kitchen-sink style, Tony Stark’s suit is going to look even slicker and higher-class than usual. Favreau must be going for serious contrast among all of his robot men.

Perhaps Marvel will be encouraged to get out in front of the leaks and release a nice high-res pic of War Machine- something that would actually be discernibly new.

Source | Rich Johnston via Bleeding Cool

The last thing I expected from Best Worst Movie, a documentary about Troll 2, was to have my heart warmed. But the film, which reunites the cast of the seminally terrible film and delves into the world of Troll 2 fandom, is sweet and good natured and captures the love of cinema in a most unexpected way.

When I was a young man I made a trek out to the Amityville Horror house. Yawn. It’s not that interesting. And neither is the story now that it’s pretty much conclusively been proven to be a huge, shitty hoax.

But the hoaxiness won’t stop the Weinstein Company from remaking The Amityville Horror for a second time! Just five years after the last one! At least that’s what Bloody Disgusting hears, and they also hear there may be a director attached who is developing the project.

I no longer have a knee jerk reaction against remakes, but this is ludicrous. Even if the Weinsteins just want the title – a very recognizable, very good one – it’s still ridiculous. A new Amityville Horror would have no impact on MGM’s planned sequel, The Amityville Tapes – think Paranormal Activity in the Amityville Horror house – which is probably falling to the wayside as MGM implodes.

Terrorize a Brolin on our message boards!

I can already tell you that I’m going to be accused of ‘overhyping’ Daybreakers. What that means is that I saw the film early, really liked it and tried to get you to go see it, since I think you might like it as well. And when some people don’t like it quite as much as I did, or maybe at all, they’ll start saying I ‘overhyped’ it, like I was trying to trick them into seeing a movie.

It’s one of the occupational hazards. But for the rest of you – the folks who will like Daybreakers quite a bit – here’s a look at a long TV commercial for the film. I think Lionsgate is figuring out how to sell this sucker, even though this commercial only hints at what I really liked about the film. It opens in January.

Jeremy Renner, who got a real bump from The Hurt Locker, is getting his name attached to all sorts of geek properties. First he was talking about a role in the new Mad Max (which it seems like he didn’t get – it appears to have gone to Bronson star Tom Hardy), now he’s chatting up a part in The Avengers, Marvel’s all-or-nothing superhero team movie.

Renner tells Empire Magazine that he’s been talking with Marvel about playing the team’s bowmaster, Hawkeye.

“I met with the Marvel guys, actually, but we didn’t talk about Captain America. But one of the writers, Zak Penn, we’ve become friends over time and he was thinking maybe Hawkeye could be interesting. He sounds like an interesting character.”

He is a pretty interesting character, at least in the original Marvel Universe. He was originally a criminal; he was also in a relationship with Soviet superspy Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2, and likely in Avengers as well). Hawkeye is sort of Marvel’s take on Green Arrow, only with fewer boxing glove arrows.

We’re still a year or two from The Avengers really getting moving, but there’s no telling if Marvel wants to cameo Hawkeye in Thor or Captain America. There had been talk of a SHIELD agent named Clint Barton – Hawkeye’s civilian name – in Iron Man 2, but that appears to have been just a rumor.

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This is one for the ‘No Shit, Sherlock’ files, but Anne Thompson has done some legwork on the whole ‘Superman franchise is in suspended animation’ thing we’ve all been talking about the last – I don’t know, 2 years? – and shed a couple of new lights on the whole thing.

According to Thompson it’s the pending lawsuit between DC Comics and the Siegel and Shuster estates, who will be getting full copyright over all material from Action Comics #1 in 2013, that’s stalled the return of the Man of Steel to your local cinema. Thompson says that Legendary Pictures is accepting pitches for the character while they wait for the legal business to clear up; later in the article, though, her sources do admit that Superman is just a tough character to make work in the modern age.

I’m surprised that the lawsuit is holding things up. Whatever happens in court, Warner Bros and DC Comics will continue to have Superman past 2013. They won’t part with their flagship superhero, and the Siegel and Shuster families would be foolish to take their aspects of the Superman character to another publisher; there’s already plenty of money being generated, and it’s all a matter of figuring out how to spread it around. It would be a total blindside if the families walked away from Warner Bros with the Action Comics #1 copyrights, sundering the Superman character forever. It reminds me of the Watchmen lawsuit in that everybody knew there would be a settlement, it was just a question of when and how much. The same thing is going on here, and I’m shocked that Legendary is supposedly hedging their bets and cooling the franchise because of that. I bet there’s a lot more The Incredible Hulk-itis (you can’t reboot a franchise too soon or people don’t go for it) than Thompson’s sources wanted to admit.

via IndieWire

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