CoreyVandal

I did read the first couple of story arcs of Transmetropolitan and really enjoyed it. I have no idea why I haven't picked it up since, thanks for reminding me!

Up until the start of 'The Heroic Age' I'd been reading most things Marvel used to put out, but every time I attempt to dip back in I'm just really not finding it anywhere near as enjoyable (probably my own fault for using big crossover events as jumping off points). Are there any titles worth checking out at the moment? I did consider picking up Superior Spider-Man but figured I was probably better off just grabbing that in a year's time when they inevitably reintroduce the status quo.

 

I also realise this is some kind of comic book sin, but I have to get this off my chest. I've never completed Preacher. I've been reading it on and off for about 4-5 years now, and the reason it's taken that long's not because I'm not enjoying it, but I just don't want it to end I think I'm about 2 thirds through now so the end is in sight, but wow, I just never know where it's going to go next, and even though I'm probably stating the obvious it's definitely a book that deserves all the praise and hype it gets. I'm normally the type of guy that's happy to see any film or TV adaptation of comic book stuff as I feel a bad movie's better than no movie on a subject, but Preacher's one I don't think anyone could ever get right (or be allowed to be).

I realise this is a stupid question, but is there anything else on a similar level that I may not have stumbled across before?

It makes sense in that I get why it's a draw... but it's funny in that it's not like anyone would recognise him anyway. Like, the mask would come off and it was Brian May leading a secret double life or something.

 

If that recent BBC documentary is to be believed, at the time there was a fair bit of speculation around Britain's TV's on a Saturday afternoon that the reason Nagasaki wore the mask was that he was a prominent figure in another field who didn't want his wrestling secret getting out, possibly even a minor member of the Royal Family...

 

I've heard Sir Peter Blake perpetuate this a few times, but never anyone else. Was this an actual rumour in the press at the time time or just someone buying into an announcer's kayfabe?

Wrestling Documentaries

 

Made a playlist of all the wrestling documentaries I could find on youtube that I thought may be of interest. There's all the usual stuff, but also a few harder to find videos and a bunch of stuff I'd never even heard of. Should kill a good few hours.

They could just be imported from Spain, I know a lot of ceramics are.

In an almost exact recreation of a Stewart Lee routine my Nan seems to think Health & Safety and Political Correctness are the same thing, and any encroachment on her right to do and say what she wants is "the muslim's fault". She's also not averse to using the corresponding racial slurs when eating in foreign restaurants, and always seems surprised there's anything wrong with those words when she's called on it. I think she honestly believes 'that lot' are just choosing random nouns from her vocabulary and arbitrarily making them unacceptable.

Yeah, the trailer looks like a parody of a film so ridiculous & shit it would never actually get made. But it actually has been. After how badly Brothers Grimm did I'm surprised this ever got greenlit, especially considering it appears to be almost the same film.

Painfully. There's what I guess you'd call a running joke about one of the kids wanting to watch the final episode of Lost that make it feel dated already.

I made the mistake of watching This Is 40. Try and think of Judd Apatow at his very worst attempting to make an American remake of Outnumbered, and you start to get an idea of how shit this movie is. A likeable enough 1st act, an overly long and meandering 2nd act which just delays the painfully obvious and drawn out 3rd act. Pretty much like every Apatow film, except with every one of his usual sins taken to it's most extreme. The fact it was a sequel/spin-off from Knocked Up seemed pretty quickly forgotten and made the whole film feel like the uninteresting B-story from a marginally better movie. I saw a review for it titled 'This Is 40 (Minutes Too Long)', and I think that may have been overly kind as it felt like it lasted about 3 days.

 

Yeah, even if you're the most hardened Apatow fanboy the most I can see you getting out of this a not-bad-but-pretty-forgettable couple of hours.

According to THR, Paul Giamatti is in talks to play the villain known as The Rhino, and Felicity Jones is negotiating for an unspecified role. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 already has a lineup of Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Jamie Foxx as Electro, Shailene Woodley as Mary Jane Watsonm, Dane DeHaan as Harry Osborne, Sally Field as Aunt May and Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben.

 

The character of The Rhino first appeared in 'Amazing Spider-Man #41 in 1966 as a thug from a Soviet Bloc country who wore a superhuman suit that made him invulnerable while giving him superstrength and superspeed. It also had a deadly horn on top. He's recently became a sympathetic figure who found himself allying with Spider-Man.'

 

The character Jones would play has not been revealed. The sequel, being directed by Marc Webb, is looking for a February production start for a May 2nd, 2014 release.

 

...........interesting choice...... I love me some Paul Giamatti but he'd make a very different Rhino than we've seen before. I could see it working well he's played like an angry small man in a big mech suit, something he could actually act with, but if he's gonna be a CGI Abomination-type character then it seems like very bizarre casting.

 

Jamie Foxx as Electro sounds intriguing as well, but seems like a much more comfortable fit.

I'd like to thoroughly recommend Ressurect Dead to anyone like me that gets excited every time the Fortean & Conspiracy thread is bumped. It concerns the mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, which were bizarre messages set into asphalt that have appeared across 2 dozen US cities and stretching as far as South America since the mid 80's. The story on it's own if fascinating enough, and as well as documenting that very well the filmmakers set out on a seemingly impossible investigation to track down the creator of these tiles which is extremely engrossing.

 

 

 

I also got a chance to rewatch Beyond The Mat for the first time in about 8 years, and without saying too much since we all know it inside out, it still really stands up as a great documentary. While it's perhaps a little long in places it still offers some great insights into corners of the business we still don't get to view much today, as well as some truly fascinating personalities. I have no idea if it's been mentioned it in interviews, but it has to have been a heavy influence on The Wrestler, both content wise and visually.

- Best British Wrestler

Jimmy Havoc

Mark Andrews

Jim Diehard

 

- Best British Promotion

ATTACK! Pro Wrestling

 

- Best British Match

Zack Sabre Jr. vs Prince Devitt vs Adam Shame vs Jimmy Havoc - TXW Fatal Fucking Four Way

It's a series, not a film, but he'd probably enjoy Super Hero Squad. It's basically Marvel's The Avengers for kids, so heavy on comedy, light on violence. As for watching it with him, it's about as painful as any cartoon aimed at under 12's, but there's a few episodes that are legitimately laugh-out-loud funny (mostly the Thor ones).

There's a few full episodes on youtube and I'm pretty sure there's a DVD or two out for it.

I'm going to be in Toronto for a couple of weeks in September, what are the chances of being able to catch any wrestling while I'm over there? I'm aware of a WWE show in the area, but i'm more interested in local indy stuff.

I assumed as much. I'd consider myself a hyper-rationalist and skeptic, but this has definitely given me a great understanding of how people call fall for that sort of thing and get their feet trapped in the quicksand of conspiracy theories. The ideas he has are so appealing, and if they were true make the world that little bit brighter and more interesting. I've got a personal fascination with the story of the Library of Alexandria and civilisations 'lost knowledge', so the sheer idea of 2nd hand information from there hinting at everything we know being wrong sets in motion so many questions that it's just depressing to dismiss it right away.

 

I have found the points he makes about the weathering and watermarks on the Sphinx & the Pyramids being considerable higher than we'd expect with our current knowledge about the area's climate quite fascinating and hard to debunk. There is unmistakable watermarks on the Sphinx that are unexplainable if we accept it was built when we assumed rather than a relic of the last ice age that was 'discovered' by the Egyptians (at least from various accounts I've read, not that I'm an expert on erosion). Even with his recent lectures it's really hard to know what to take seriously, if anything, but it certainly is interesting to ponder.

 

A lot of criticisms about his maps theory seemed to be exactly what you've mentioned, and show examples of how ancient map makers would often draw fictional landmasses just to balance out the map, or include lands of myth that were mearly conjecture at the time. I've just found a recent lecture he has on youtube about angels and other mythical creatures and it's depressing to see him basically going "You see this myth? What if it was true?" and claiming that as his scientific evidence.

I realise I'm veering dangerously into Duane territory with this, but is anyone here familiar with Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints Of The Gods?

 

I've just started reading his stuff and watched a couple of lectures, and while some of his theories are about as out there as you could get (Atlantis is under Antarctica, There was an advanced civilisation on earth 20,000 years ago, Giants were real, ect.) even debunking websites seem to credit some of his assertions as correct, and just wondered what the general consensus on him is? It does seem like he falls into the Terrance McKenna category of valuing storytelling above scientific fact, but he certainly has a lot of fascinating (but most probably bullshit) ideas.

 

One of the more plausible and curious ideas he puts forward is showing ancient maps that were claimed to have been copied from maps held within the Library of Alexandria that show continents in the state they would have been during the last ice age, suggesting humanity either has a much older history or they were 'shown' things way beyond their technological capabilities (or that he's simply cherrypicked a handful of inaccurate maps that fitted his pattern).

I saw his gig in Birmingham a month or two back and it was by far the best live stand up show I've seen. I took my girlfriend who wasn't a Stewart Lee fan and she came out totally converted after spending the entire show crying with laughter. I loved the way he essentially talked for 2 hours about how he couldn't come up with any material.The way he's dealt with his newfound popularity by dividing his fans up in terms of importance and using it to explore the flaws and limitations of 'mainstream alternative comedy' is a stroke of genius. He's taken something that risked making his entire act irrelevant and used it to make himself even more relevant.Oh, and Stewart Lee went to my primary school. Don't really have anything interesting to say about that, but thought I'd slip it in there...

 

This one still shits me up even today.

Bit of a tangent but does anyone know where I can get any Daniel Kitson shows as audio or (very long shot) video files? There's links to two or three free shows/podcasts on his site, but apart from that I can't get hold of much in the way of complete shows, which is kinda infuriating since he's a) so amazing and b) so prolific.

I found a torrent on isohunt that had a few of his shows in mp3 form, as well as his forays into radio, just search for his name on there.

What tape libraries does WWE own at the moment? I heard Vince went on a bit of a buying spree a while back.

Wiki is saying that they just bought the "Ultimate Pro Wrestling" fed library. I'd imagine that would be because of the early Cena footage, right?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_Tape_Libr...n-WWE_purchases

I'm salivating at the thought of all that footage.UPW was a sort of unofficial WWE training school at one point wasn't it? I'm sure the early Cena footage is the primary reason, but I'd imagine a lot of guys who were under contract at one time or another had matches there.

What tape libraries does WWE own at the moment? I heard Vince went on a bit of a buying spree a while back.I've heard chatter of more companies looking into Netflix-like streaming services, and some have suggested communal clouds to be the future of digital media so it's possible we might one day a full on-demand version of their back catalogue, especially with how desperately WWE like to appear ahead of the curve in new media.

Bad news everybody...http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...ie-is-dead.html

Television psychic Derek Acorah has claimed Madeleine McCann is dead, after a messenger from the spirit world told him:

There's some amazing work in this thread, makes me want to get my easel out . I actually really like a lot of the stuff Richie's been posting. There's a slight air of Robert Crumb about it, and the fact Richie seems to have a slightly different world-view to most people gives them a very uneasy yet engaging feeling. It's kind of like seeing Manson's paintings I'd personally recommend you should feel free to abstract more, the most interesting elements for me are the less figurative ones.

 

I've got a degree in Fine Art, but I don't seem to draw or paint much any more. For the past couple of years I've been working on quite a big installation piece that I think may end up being a lifelong endeavour. It deals with tension between fiction and reality in a way that I don't really want to go into on a public forum as it would destroy the illusion, but I will say I received a lot of help and guidance from the artist Jamie Shovlin which will give you an idea of the type of work it is. I exhibited it at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane and it went down quite well despite the fact that I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of where I can take it.

 

I do have a couple of unrelated pieces I can show. I like to see a lot of my work as similar to the comedian Stewart Lee's, in that you'd barely recognise most of it as art when out of context, but I do have a couple of more fun pieces I did to unwind after particularly emotional draining projects.

 

 

This was a quick piece I did for my own living room after I'd spent 6 months working on a piece about wrestlers dying young and needed to remind myself that there was still a fun side to wrestling. Nothing too deep, but I wanted something nice and simple that I wasn't going to get sick of looking at.

 

 

 

Still not quite sure how I feel about this piece. I realise it's a ridiculously obvious idea, but it was something I'd had in my head for a while that I just needed to get out there. Annoyingly an almost identical project came out days after I finished this by a bigger artist that was tied to Morgan Spurlock's Greatest Movie Ever Sold, but I guess that's the danger of approaching obvious concepts. I originally made it to be printed on a long canvas, but never got round to it after I saw that other piece. It was still good fun to work on as I'm fascinated by the concept of creation through removal, and it was a therapeutic few days on photoshop digitally painting over every single advert, logo or piece of information in a location that's defined by exactly that. The original image is about 2 feet tall and fuck knows how long, and the removal goes right to the horizon line.

You got a picture of her, neil?

This is her: http://fapdu.com/conny-soft-curves

That's the tamest porn I've seen in years. I didn't know they even still made it like that! [/jaded]

Bumping this one to note the fact that I just watched Doug Stanhope's No Refunds show tonight and it really is one of the very best stand-up performances I have ever seen. Simply fantastic.I've also been systematically working my way through all of George Carlin's HBO specials on the US Netflix (it's been worth the money for those alone) and his post September 11th show Complaints & Grievances is in a similar bracket to No Refunds. Amazingly good stuff.

Stanhope is the man.I always prefer Carlin's later material to his older stuff, most people have it the other way around but i love his pissed off old man routine, brilliant.

I think Carlin is probably best known for his later stuff when it became a lot more political, really. I do prefer his later comedy simply because you do usually get a lovely mix of the political stuff as well as some of his earlier, sillier stuff.

I feel the extra spark of Carlin's later stuff was down to the general world view he arrived at in his later years. He's mentioned in interviews that he used to get too angry when talking about politics, but the greatest relief he felt was when he realised he was finally too old to truly have a stake in the outcome of the world, and he could just "sit back and enjoy the freakshow". I think this perspective made him a truly unparalleled social commentator as he could very literally view society from the outside and make those hard-to-see, sometimes unpleasant and unwanted connections, and just laugh at the absurdity of the world.Yeah, I've got a bit of a man-crush on Carlin.