Coming soon. Yeah, I want to see it, don’t you? Stephen Colbert’s in it! There’s also a Facebook page for it.

Been field testing new equipment around Austin lately, so check me out. Latest update: Amy Sage and Mike Boyd of Fiesta Explosion, covering “Game of Love” by Santana. Taken with a Flip Ultra 30-minute model, uploaded with my MSI Wind U123.

Here. I’ve got my Limited Edition Festival Screener DVD at home, which proves that everyone who hasn’t donated both can get a DVD and were totally justified. Watch it anyway.

Also, yes, I have a job. Stuff happens. I don’t know. Metal Gear.

Tuesday morning I spent at a restaurant in north Austin called Chez Zee, for a panel discussion about the use of technology in current political campaigning, co-sponsored by Leadership Austin and the Digital Media Council. The panel moderator was Rodney Gibbs, head of the local game development studio previously and recently rechristened Fizz Factor.

I probably wouldn’t have gone had Rodney not asked me. But it was informed and informing, the panelists were fun and engaging and I got some useful perspective as well as a handy list of polling sites for Travis County (though I live north of the county line in Williamson County, so I had to find that other list.)

Starting to feel like a man about town, I am. It was useful to note that there were other people who are as excited about the presidential election as I am, living around me, and a stark reminder for me about how I need to read up on the other local candidates. It’s going to be more than just Obama and McCain on the ballot.

I also met two UT grad students, Jessica Mullen and Kelly Cree. Note in the picture linked on Jessica’s site, they’re the ones with laptops and minicameras out, covering the event, and I’m sitting back just listening, trusting they’ve got everything covered.

Yeah, that seems about right. Let the hungry kids be the reporters. I’m old and lazy now. And I was part of the majority, as Kelly pointed out, of people in attendance at a discussion called “Twittering to the Ballot Box” that does not have a Twitter account, and I’ve long been on the habit of obscuring my real name on this site and my other Internet habits. Sigh. Yeah, I’ll work on that.

Plus, the food on the bar was high on quality but low on quantity. It was 7:30 in the morning, I wanted biscuits and gravy. I ate a lot of honeydew and mini-muffins. I feel fat.

Easily the best science fiction story anyone will see at the movies this summer, probably all year.

Robots in love, a ship full of neotenic humans who have to discover the difference between surviving and living, and a legitimate answer to the question, “What do we need a planet for?”

Plus there’s a new Peter Gabriel song, which is kind of a bonus. You’ll want to stay through the credits.

Seriously, go.

Maybe it’s just because Simon Pegg is best at playing losers with charm enough to woo women that ought to be beyond their reach, or because Britain hasn’t had a good movie about racing since Chariots of Fire. Or maybe it’s that while the main cast of Pegg, Thandie Newton, Hank Azaria and Dylan Moran all do a great job, the real treat is Harish Patel, as Pegg’s landlord/personal guru, an actor who few people outside of India will have ever seen act. Or maybe it’s that Pegg and Moran have the most entertaining two-man fight since They Live, which you can see toward the end of this BBC interview.

Whatever. Run, Fatboy, Run is a brilliant piece of formulaic underdog romantic comedy. Besides maybe three scenes that are unnecessary and awkward (unfortunately, the end coda counts), everything else seems to flow extremely well together. David Schwimmer did at least as well as Ben Affleck did with Gone Baby Gone, both first-runs for unlikely actors as well as both having titles that begin and end with the same word. Go figure.

J. says, check it out. Expect to laugh. Yes, I know critics are more than half against me on this one, but I disrespectfully disagree by calling them names.

Well, that was pretty goddamned good. Two questions:

1. Where can I get a video camera that can last on six hours plus of continuous use without a battery recharge, a spotlight and an infrared view, and get knocked around eight way to Sunday without breaking? (Edit: OK, maybe it wasn’t six hours, really, but Sony’s Sigital8 HandyCam models apparently fit most of the above. This one’s only $320 off Amazon resellers!)

2. How the hell did that movie get a PG-13 rating? Methinks some people are going to have something to complain about, but that doesn’t include me.

Going to see “Cloverfield” tomorrow in Austin. It’s the matinee showing, because neither I nor the friend I’m going with are sure just how you can make an interesting “realistic” thriller about a barely-seen rampaging monster in New York be PG-13.

Theories include the New Yorkers being so scared for their lives that they forget how to curse (unlikely) or the shaky-cam is so effective that we’ll all be leaving the theaters wondering just what the hell happened (hopefully not the case.)

Go see that new Will Smith movie. A few fresh reactions, with some spoilers later on.

Continue reading I Am (Bacon) Legend…

While I liked the Transformers movie a lot more than Damion did, I highly suspect he felt the same way about it that I did about The Golden Compass, which I saw tonight. Only this time it wasn’t about giant robots fighting, it was giant armored polar bears fighting.

You do not mess around with giant polar bears in armor. You just don’t do that. (Spoilers follow.)

Continue reading The Golden Compass…