Highlander 5: The Source -- IN PRODUCTION

I was going through my laptop's bookmarks tonight looking for a specific link, which I did not find, and came across the Adrian Paul web site. It had been quite a while since I'd been there, so I decided to pull it up.

I was quite surprised to see yet another Highlander movie being made. I'm curious if it, too, will follow the grand and glorious tradition of most of the previous films and run out of money before production is complete and be taken over by the insurerers.

http://www.adrianpaul.net/current/thesource.shtml


The first movie was fun.

The second movie sucked, but there were specific reasons for it. The main problem was that they ran out of money and the production was taken over by the insurers, who slapped together a movie for release so they could make some money back. According to the DVD release, the story actually made sense, it was just completed poorly.

The third movie, IMO, sucked, because it was just a remake of the first. There were a few things that were cool, but it still wasn't much more of a remake of #1.

The fourth movie. Hmmm. I enjoyed it in that it had a considerably more complex story than we'd seen in a long time. It's been a while since I saw it, so I think I'm going to have to pass on providing an opinion for it. I think overall that I liked it.

I was a huge fan of the TV show, followed it until the bitter end. I'll definitely see this flic, which, BTW, has both Dawson and Methos returning.

My Personal New Mexico Road Kill Score Card -- Wayne: 1, Critters: 0

As I recall, the first critter that a car driven by me killed was a suicidal pigeon, flew straight into the grill of my '73 Impala 4-door back in the very late 70's/very early 80's. There was a mass migration of suicidal tarantulas (I kidd you not!) across a highway as I was heading home from Sierra Vista one evening while I worked for the State back in the late 80's.

And that was about it, except for an uncountable number of insects.

Until tonight.

Coming home from school, a cat ran across the road and gave me pretty much zero chance of avoiding it. THUMP THUMP. I felt pretty bad about it as a pet owner and cat lover. I don't think we ever lost a cat to a car in the road (though we lost two to my dad driving over them in the driveway, I tend to think they were subconsciously suicidal to sleep under cars directly behind wheels), though I've known lots of people who've lost pets to vehicles.

Russ suggested that it might have been a bobcat, I suppose that's a possibility. It was rather light colored, though, and I don't know how that would fit in with the bobcat's color schemes, not that I'm an wildlife expert.

Still, *sigh*. Guess I'm just going to have to finish off the Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip sitting in the freezer. ;P

Oooh! Cruise news!

From IMDB.Com news:

Daredevil Cruise Raises Blood Pressure on 'MI:3'
Tom Cruise is terrifying film-makers on the set of Mission: Impossible III, by insisting on carrying out his own death-defying stunts. The superstar actor has refused to allow a stunt double to take on the dangerous high falls necessary for his part as secret agent Ethan Hunt in the sequel - and his willingness to push himself to the limit even scares legendary stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, who is working on the film with him. Armstrong tells Total Film magazine "He did a 70 foot fall for us last week. He's amazing. He did about seven takes. Absolutely terrifies me - I can see the headlines! What a way to finish a career."


I'm not a big fan of Cruise. I like the two M:I movies, mainly for the extreme stunts and the tech goodies. The stories were pretty sucky. In the first movie they turnd Jim Phelps into a traitor just so they could promote Cruise's character. Sorry, very bad move. They didn't have to make Phelps a traitor to make Cruise the lead, a simple retirement would have been sufficient. Heck, I'd have accepted giving Phelps an honorable death. But traitor? I don't think so. (this is a hot-button topic for me)

The second movie: hah! I can buy the face-switching in the Cage/Travolta flic Face-Off even though the two of them have such radical differences in physical build. But Cruise and Dougray Scott switching faces? I didn't buy it. I guess my willing suspension of disbelief has a lower threshold with M:I. Probably because Face:Off had major surgical intervention to accomplish the switch, whereas M:I was a latex mask.

Still, the stunting was amazing even if the story was kinda sucky.

My point was (I'm very tired right now and more than a little dain bread) was that I respect actors who do a lot of their own stunts. Christopher Lambert got beat up pretty badly doing Highlander. Jackie Chan was almost killed in what should have been a simple fall in Europe, fortunately, as it happened, one of the best surgeons in the world lived in a nearby town. Hell, look at what happened to Brandon Lee (well, maybe Lee shouldn't be included because a stupid mistake is what killed him, not a stunt gone bad). There are limits to what actors should do and it seems like Cruise is determined to push the envelope. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it could easily get him killed needlessly.

I just pulled up M:I 3 on IMDB and there is one significant name missing -- John Woo. It will be interesting to see what the stunting looks like with no Woo behind the wheel.

I'll probably see 3. I have been very disappointed in the last two Cruise movies that I've seen (Last Samurai and Minority Report). We'll see about 3, I'm sure it'll be next year's summer blockbuster, the timing is about right for it.

Bionic Ear

The writer was born partially deaf after his mother contracted rubella while carrying him. His hearing was poor for a very long time, but he developed a love for a certain musical work by Ravel, the Bolero. As an adult, he suffered sudden onset deafness and his good ear failed. Wanting to hear again, he found a team that could wire a computer directly into his brain to bypass the ear and directly stimulate the audio nerves.

Interesting stuff.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/bolero.html

Life just doesn't get much weirder than this: Penis size used as defense in trial

http://torontosun.com/News/OtherNews/2005/10/29/1283746-sun.html

( Read more... )

Disney takes interactive exhibits to a new level

I guess it's been a while since I've been to Dizzyland. Apparently there are Buzz Lightyear shooting games built into the ride that you can team up with people playing on the internet for high scores. This, and lots of other stuff. I don't think Disneyland is going to be recognizable from my memories of going to it in the 70's. Heck, that's the way it is now. :p

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69297,00.html