You'd think that companies like Apple, Sony, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Sprint, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Western Digital, LG, Samsung, Nokia, Fox Conn, Intel, RIM, Hynix and every other major and minor tech company out there would jump onto a big bandwagon and spread the word about how awesome going into space is, because all of the stuff we use today is either useable because of all the things we've put up into space already, or are based on tech that was developed to support sending giant-ass machines into space. Not to mention things like modern plastics and carbon-fiber which are used to protect all that glorious technology.

And then on top of all that awesome new technology that's just waiting to be figured out and exploited by top tech companies, you've also got the incentive of space and how fucking awesome it is. Knowing more about space is cool.

you don't see the kid cry until like ten minutes in. The thing that makes you stick around is the opening hook. "This is the most important video you'll ever see in your life! Dramatic ticking clock! We can make a difference! Stick it to the man!" They use every trick in the book in the first couple minutes. Then they have a crying kid. It's a brilliantly manipulative video. Micheal Bay should hire the guy to punch up his scripts.

Damn. I guess I should have looked into it before posting that video. Seeing kids cry obviously has a measurable affect on my skepticism (and the people who made the video obviously know that...)

How was I to know, tho? It's on the internet. The internet is never wrong. NEVER!

Watch this. I think it's important.

They're reviving the Ouija movie. They kicked McG off it, cut the budget down from $100 Million (!!) to $5 Million and word 'round the campfire is that they're looking to get the guys who directed the last installment of Paranormal Activity to direct.

The only thing about the news that shocked me was the fact that the Ouija Board movie had McG attached to it and a 9-figure budget. It makes me kinda wanna read whatever story idea they came up with that would have required that much cash to make it float.

yeah, there are things about that movie you kinda have to ignore. I tend to forgive movies for most stuff so long as they provide me with some kind of reason. Like the rigging of the bridges... You could just assume the cops blocked them off so they could be swept for explosives, and in the time it took to sweep however many bridges and tunnels for explosives, a lot of people decided to just take the ferry. I really do like this movie, and I can watch it cause it's batman and it's a really good version of batman, but it's a popcorn movie. It's the sort of popcorn movie where they give you reasons for the improbable events - even weak reasons - and they set up some of it prior to it being a thing in the movie. That's more than most popcorn movies do, so I am lenient with flicks like this.

Goyer's writing career is kinda spotty, tho. He wrote "Dark City", but he also wrote "Kickboxer 2". He wrote batman begins (he has a screenplay / story credit, so maybe first draft?), but he also wrote "The Crow: City Of Angels". He wrote Blade 2, but he also wrote "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengence". The guy's all over the place. I can't tell if he's a decent writer and the directors who work on this stuff suck, or if he's a crap writer and the decent directors can make his stories work. He has more misses than hits as far as I'm concerned.

Patience, maul. All good things come to those who wait...

...Seriously, tho, give us it.

Thing is, if they would let the guys making the movie put together the marketing for the movie - or at least the trailer - then they'd probably end up with lots of awesome trailers. I dunno if they ever let the guys making the movies make the trailers, but it often doesn't appear that way, cause trailers are ususally just a mess of action shots and crap dialogue, give too much away, have no sense of "holy shit what's gonna happen next?" going on, etc. They usually don't answer the main question they're trying to answer which is "Why should I spend $10 and 2 hours to go see your movie?" If the answer you wanted was "We've got fights and group posing and special effects!" then this trailer pushed all your buttons.

I'm sure it will be at least in the above-average group of superhero movies, cause Whedon is good at making movies in general, and good at dealing with ensemble groups of characters who all have different personalities and functions and stuff. I'll bet you that Hawkeye is gonna go from "Who the fuck is that guy?" to "Holy shit, Hawkeye was my favorite character!" overnight. But the trailer is just a generic trailer. I dunno how it all works in the industry, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the same guy(s) cut the trailer for most of the other marvel movies in the last several years. They're all pretty much the same trailer.

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I thought of the Transformers films when I watched this as well. The vibe is made even stronger because they're literally ripping sound design from those movies and tossing it into the trailer.

I remember seeing a deep-sea special about tubeworms that live near these deep-sea vents. They were in this little sub thing that was specially built to withstand tremendous amounts of pressure, with windows that were like 6 inches thick and the structure was reinforced in like 5 different ways and all this stuff. The guy piloting the thing was all "ok, we're going to get closer to the vents, but not too close, because if we get within X feet from the vent, our windows will melt and our sub will go from having 20 square feet of space to 2 in about half a second" and I was like "I will never ever do that ever".

James Cameron is braver than I. Space and deep sea exploration would scare the shit out of me. If I ever found myself suddenly in a deep sea sub or on a space station, I would probably spend a couple hours just pissing myself and vomiting before I had the nerve to look out the window.

I've been slowly getting through a complete volume of HP Lovecraft. There's a lot of really good stuff in it that has nothing to do with the cthulu mythos. The cthulu/dagon/elders stuff is just so awesome, tho...

They gave Joss Whedon a truckload of money to make a comic book movie.

Part of me is totally excited about it.

Part of me is worried that he just climbed into the truck and jerked off all over the money.

The trailer is doing nothing to relieve those fears. But it does look cool as hell.