Krrish is a super hero movie in Bollywood. It has became a huge hit in South India and overseas also. We know that, in super hero back drop movies villain character should be powerful, other wise super hero becomes a dummy hero. The movie Drona is the best example to it.

In Krrish, Naseeruddin Shah has played the negative role very well. Recently when Rakesh Roshan has announced his next movie as Krrish 2 with Hrithik Roshan which is the sequel to Krrish. Now billion dollar question in Bollywood audience mind is, who will play the villain role ?. Shahrukh Khan’s name was in rumors. According to the news from the sources, Roshan duo are interested to take a Hollywood star for this role.

Deepika Padukone is going to appear in female lead.

If there is a more useless skill than badassery with a tape measure, I’ve never seen it. But maybe when an evil supervillain takes over we’ll need guys like this. He’ll be able to undo the alarm to the secret base from a distance, as long as that distance is 30 feet or less.

I moved her. I need a lens on my Nikon asap.

I’m to broke to mod, but at least I have it. Hella lovin my Z. I’ll take that sticker off it soon. An the hood & whole car are about to be primered black.

Yup I still tag some. To bad all I have is 5 cans of red paint, and a grip of dried markers.

Got a little somethin to put my Z on that ganster status.

More to come……slowly though.

Job search sucks. Z is still stock. It rains constantly in Portland. I need to take the Z out and let it loose. To bad it needs tags. = )

So instead I read my favorite story. Here it is.

http://speedhunters.com/archive/2009/02/10/guest-blog-gt-gt-midnight-mechanics-ae71.aspx

A few pics that made me smile…….

Camber = )

DJ, Inspector Lomdi and I stood staring at the dead body of the black marketer found in the fish market. We were at the morgue.

“Al Topper was running a mail scam”, explained Inspector Lomdi as DJ walked around the corpse observing it from every angle. “3 Down and Dirty Tricks to Crack Any Tough Nut Exam – that was his promise. A lot of students in the Bahrain University paid for it and the Tips, it turned out, were not as dirty as promised. Many suspects there too, DJ.”

I wanted to ask what the tips were but did not have the nerve for it. I was sure that DJ would not approve.

Finally, DJ took out a pen and lifted Al Toppers ear. There, as Faris had promised, was a mark left by the killer. It was the drawing of a tiny bell in black ink. DJ gently scratched it and licked his finger.

“Hmm… common ball point pen – untraceable. But I already know who he is.”

As soon as we reached home, DJ plunged into a pile of old newspapers, frantically searching for some particular piece of news. I sighed, realizing that DJ was in one of those bad moods when he would curse himself for not reading the newspaper on a rainy Thursday three months ago and then go rummaging for it, all in an insane attempt to be completely aware of the world around him. I was about to retire to my room when DJ, with a loud yelp, as if a rabid dog had sunk its teeth into his backside, waded through the sea of newspapers, clutching a sheaf.

We went through them, dating almost two years back, and in each of them, there was a major robbery. An ancient crown from Morocco, a gem studded scepter from Calais, the Golden Camel that belonged to the ruling family of Oman, the first copy of the first issue of the Playgirl magazine from a Polish museum…. and so went the list. In each of the scenes, the thief left a calling card – the crude drawing of a bell.

“That last one”, said DJ, “the Playgirl issue. He was in a hurry there. Left a witness who gave a dead accurate sketch. The Interpol sent it out and found him a week later. He was masquerading as the Professor of Linguistics in the Cairo University. But he gave them the slip before they could nab him.”

“Who is he, DJ?” I asked.

“Professor Maniarty”, said DJ, a hardened look of constipation gracing his countenance.

“Erm… DJ, what exactly is Linguistics?”

“Doctor”, sighed DJ running his hands through his hair¹, “While your bottomless ignorance is at times fanciful, I do find it fatiguing now. You must thank your stars, for I possess a certain flair for languages. The word Linguistics, if you must know, comes from the archaic Arabic word lingam, which means penis. Professor Maniarty, it appears, is a master of the secrets of the penis and the mysterious ways. Many have gone in search of its answers, none have returned…”

His last few words faded away and DJ sat staring into nothingness. I got alarmed and shook him, “DJ, what is it?”

“This man, Doctor, is more wily and crooked than anyone I’ve been against. His list of devilish deeds is indeed endless. He is, I must say, the Napoleon Dynamite of crime.”

^{1. DJ later, in one of his mushroom induced deliriums, revealed to me that he did this to relieve his palms of the uncontrollable itch to slap me on account of my ever present idiocy and mediocre intelligence.}

Fresh viewables today, of the somewhat wacky, bizarre, or otherwise questionable variety.  I really have no idea where all the eyeball-related what-have-you came from.  None-the-less, it makes perfect sense to me that if a pirate gets his eyeball cut out in battle that that eyeball would then be “dead” and could reasonably take the form of an eyeball skull…  So there.

In other news, it is currently about 6AM and I haven’t slept yet, so good luck with the sense and the making of it by me.

Larger individual versions can be scoped at the ol’ flickrbox:  //Evil Eye //Pirate Eye

In the category of illustration that is merely needlessly gory, I give you the following:

You see, despite having had a Wacom tablet for a couple years now, I have only very recently discovered that the “brush” tool in Adobe Illustrator is pressure-sensitive.  Yes, astonishing quickness, I know.  Anyway, I have been trying to take full advantage of this lately, as well as trying to get as much practice with it as I can.  Another thing I’ve been meaning to practice more lately is the comic book type of character, such as ol’ Wade Wilson up there.  So there it is.  Clean dynamic line-weight + comic style illustration.  A match made in… well, Illustrator, I guess.

There’s another Deadpool below in which I tried to flesh out the color a little.  Foolishly, I decided to do this before I actually finished drawing the character.  Given my my lack of practice, it is probably going to take me about 10 more tries to achieve any sort of passable foreshortening with that semi-machine gun he’s toting.  Maybe I should give him a lollipop instead.

“YOUR FATHER WAS the one who thought differently to the others. The idea man, he was,” Georgia says eventually.
            The dissertation starts without preamble or request. Perhaps it was me asking for the mint sauce. I don’t know, but she has a faraway look in her eyes I don’t want to disturb, like it requires some sort of channelling for this story to be told and well, perhaps in a way that’s true.
            “He came to New York for a break from London. Things were too intense there. The Wolfman had died. Protector killed him, you’d know all about that. It’s high school history – well, not high school history, but for feck’s sake perhaps it should be.
            “You’d think a man of John’s calibre would come to New York and be engaged in non-stop, you know, superhuman battles.” She sighs and rolls her eyes and gives a fey laugh. “Sorry love, it’s just at my age the whole thing sounds a little childish.”
            “No offence. Go on,” I say, mesmerised.
            “Well anyway he didn’t. He locked himself in a hotel room with this strange Japanese woman he’d met at a party in Soho and he was already way into the yoga and tantric magic and meditation and, you know, weird stuff with your breathing and all that. He believed it helped him reach a higher plane and be even more powerful. That part must be true, when you consider all the surviving Beatles came back from India more powerful than they’d been before. Just look at George these days, just appearing at random all over England whenever he wants to. He was just a garden variety telekinetic, you know, back in the day. It took him a week’s energy to transport them the whole team anywhere.
            “John locked himself in that room with that mad bitch and her crazy ideas, stuff that would’ve made Hitler turn in his grave only she was Japanese, so it didn’t seem like racism to talk about eugenics and human evolution like ordinary human beings were cattle. That combined with the way his studies were letting his powers grow – he had men bring in a grand piano and he taught himself how to play in a month, never wearing anything more than a bed-sheet –”
            “I remember the news footage,” I say.
            “Well it all seemed so innocent then. ‘Hair peace’ for cryin’ out loud.”
            “What happened?” I ask, the others at the table silent, like statues. “How did you meet?”
            “There was a party,” she says and smiles, eyes lowered, and Max puts a hand over hers to show her it’s alright, I guess, that she knobbed a bloke. “He was gorgeous and famous and, something about his aura then, so powerful. I wasn’t the only one interested, but I was the only one he spoke to. The Japanese witch had gone. Her name was Ono, which sounds about right. She had powers too, just disappeared into the shadows he said, though of course that was a lie. She was probably with us the whole time, encouraging him, urging him on.”
            “That seems pretty heavy. She died, didn’t she?”
            “So they say,” Georgia replies and sniffs like it’s obviously no big loss to her. “Poisoned him, she did. Oh well. He was half-gone in his mind already only we never knew it. Certainly not me, young and randy, I’m sorry love, my name in the papers and every night a new club opening or a crime lord to raid or something else to do. It was a heady time. I’m sure you’ve had your fair share.”
            “Go on.”
            “Well he gave me you,” she says hesitantly. “Sorry Joe, it’s corny I know –”
            “And stop speaking in rhymes.”
            “I didn’t know at the time I wasn’t the only one who spent time with John during that period,” my mum goes on like my wisecracks are nothing, which is to say it’s situation normal around here. “I don’t know if it was part of the Plan or not, considering it wasn’t, you know, until just before the Kirlians that he even tried the whole Doomsday Man thing.”
            “Plan?”
            “It’s what he called it,” Georgia says.
            “Called what?”
            “Well, you,” she says in a way that totally creeps me out, chills flushing down my body hard enough to make me stand, covering my distraction by a brisk walk to the kettle and a refill.
            “You and all the other children. All your brothers and sisters.”
            I drop the kettle and stare hard at the floor, the expanding pool of distilled water as good as blood for all I care. When I look up there are tears pouring silently down both their faces and Tessa, like the young saint she is, scurries across to right the kettle and refill it and put it back on to boil.

I SIT HEAVILY at the table and try not to fry anything.
            “Tell me more about what you said: about my brothers and sisters.”
            “Half brothers and sisters,” Maxine says from somewhere to the side, perhaps half-a-million or so miles away.
            “You were born in, what was it, ‘77 Joe?”
            “That’s right, ma.”
            “So you must’ve been six by then. We had that little place in Walden Park, I don’t know if you remember it?”
            “I remember the oak tree.”
            “Of course. The grandfather tree, poor boy.” We’re across the round table at a slight angle, close enough that she can reach out and almost touch my cheek, though it is emotion – and recollection – that stills her hand rather than any shortcomings of distance.
            “We were living with Lorna Lange, I don’t even know if you would remember her. Titanium Girl?”
            “Titanium Girl?” I don’t think this is the moment to confess I used to jerk off thinking about this woman, though like most centrefolds, I imagined these big-breasted, wide-hipped women as giants, unable to imagine any arrangement of scale where I was not the size of a toddler in comparison to those impossibly perfect and manifestly female proportions. “You’re telling me Auntie Lorna was Titanium Girl?”
            “We were both single mothers. It made sense to throw in together, though the original Crimson Cowl killed her little Jimmy and after that, well Lorna went off a bad way with the drugs and then those photo shoots and then they confined her out at Rykers, back before they had the technology they have now, but she went quite willingly. It was too much for me too and I stopped going out, just concentrated on you. A year or two went by and I was thinking about art school, just an ordinary immigrant girl without a husband and trying to think of a new life and then I met your mother.”
            Georgia laughs, wiping away a tear of sadness as the true source of her delight finds focus still in her eye cast across the dining room table, an autopsy of the curried roast underway beneath my fork.
            “And then one day out of nowhere John Lennon turns up at our house,” Maxine says slowly, hands clasped over her wife’s and eyes fixed now on mine. “Imagine that?”
            “What happened?”
            “He was a blithering madman,” Max says.
            “He told me about the Plan and said what he intended to do.” Georgia shakes her head minutely. “I didn’t even know if he was serious . . . or that it was possible. He wanted to take you and said he would be back to collect you and all the other children. When he left, I saw the Ono woman in the shadows of the drive.”
            “We left that night and never went back,” Maxine says. “Two days later, the Doomsday Man tried his hand at genocide and thank Christ he failed.”
            “How did he do that?” Tessa asks, daring to pipe up from her position at the far side of the table.
            I rake my fingers across my scalp as I try and encapsulate the details of this sad history lesson, but Georgia is already ahead of me. It’s weird to hear such industry-specific words tumbling from my Irish mother’s mouth.
            “He had a map of the world in his head,” she explains. “He’d traced nearly every minor telepath and latent psychic on the globe and found a way to use them as a superconductor for his own powers. He became the Doomsday Man. He made the mistake of co-opting Thoughtstorm, though, a notorious villain of the time, who broke free thanks to his own considerable powers and alerted the Star Spangled Squadron and the Protectors about what was happening. And they took him down. Down from the edge. No trial or anything, or not till much later anyway. Away he went into White Four, as they called it then. Or White Three.”
            “White Four,” Maxine confirmed with muted helpfulness.
            “And ten years later they just let him go?” I scratch my head and give a whistle. “Astounding.”
            “A total balls up,” Georgia agrees.
            “And have you heard from him since then, granny?” Tessa asks.
            “Oh God, darlin’, please don’t call me that I’ve said before,” George sighs, almost weeping. “No, thanks be. We’ve kept our heads down, tried to keep your father in the dark, poor boy, just so he wouldn’t find us.”
            “He must’ve told you something about this Plan of his, for you to be so afraid,” I say and open my palm as if all my reasoning might be found there.
            “I need a cigarette,” George says weakly. “Yes, Joe. He said he’d found a place. A sanctuary. He was moving the other mothers and their children there. He wanted me to come, said he’d give me a day to come willingly before he simply ordered me to do it.”
            “Mind control?”
            “I think so.”
            “But then he went and triggered his Doomsday instead?” I ask, marvelling at how flawed it all seemed.
            “Your mother always blamed the Ono woman,” Maxine says soberly. “And here’s one of the few times and places where we’ll disagree. There was something in him, then, the same as was always there. Something dark. Yearning. It could’ve been a power for good, for hope. Instead, I don’t know how it works when you can see and do the sorts of things you people can . . . but it turned him black, poisoned him. If it was the Jap woman, if she had a role, then it was just that – a role. I wouldn’t blame her any more than I’d blame the bad LSD everyone was taking back then.
            “John Lennon had only himself to blame.”

 I HAVE THE sincere impression there are still a few big holes in the story. Yet I am damned if I know how to move forward. I don’t think beating the answers out of either of them would feel very good and like I mentioned before, maybe my mum would kick my ass.
           “I can’t believe you’d just . . . hooked up with him like that,” I say eventually.
            “Well, it was John Lennon,” Maxine says.
            “Tea?”
            Georgia stands shakily and moves with haste across to the kitchen and begins fussing with the cups. It takes her a moment to notice the big dent in the side of their retro kettle and I genuflect and shrug.
            “Do you have any photos from that time, granny?” Tessa asks.
            “Oh no, child,” George says with her back to us. “Young people nowadays, you’d photograph your own shadow and put it up on Deviant Art I know, but you’ve got to remember these were different times. We used to have some clippings, but I don’t know, they faded. Newsprint, you know. . . .”
            “I can’t remember ever seeing a baby photo,” I say.
            The comment falls into the silence and lays there, a semaphore of neglect, letting me draw my own conclusions along with everyone else.
            “So the old sperm donor story’s dead and buried,” eventually I say.
            “We’re sorry, Joe.”
            “And I guess you came along a few years later than you made out,” I say to Maxine with a Maori nod.
            “As you said, you remember the house with Auntie Lorna.”
            “Yeah,” I shrug. “I guess it’s all a mish-mash for me. Tell me no-one ever scrambled my thoughts, did they?”
            The pair of them stare at me horrified, like I’ve just asked them to come straight with me on any child abuse since we’re ousting the skeletons from the family closet. I want to explain to them how little I remember of my early years and how much it creeps me out. I only have snatched glimpses of the lady with the honey-blonde hair who, it turns out, was yet another world-famous crime-fighter. Titanium Girl, the old face of Colgate and later Hustler. My aunt, in name if not actuality. It’s enough to make me want to hang my head and cry except these walls do not seem as comforting as they once did. Perhaps they never did. Perhaps this coldness that I think has dominated half my life stems back from these secrets more so than any imagined inability of my two mothers to come to grips with having a boy instead of a girl they could fashion in their own image. And maybe, really – and this isn’t a thought comfortable to entertain – maybe it was never about my sex.
            “We’d never let anyone touch you, Joseph,” Maxine says reverently, appalled.
            “Why do you think we did all this, this craziness?” Georgia asks. There are tears dribbling over the crease of her chin. “Our whole life has been about keeping safe. Keeping you safe.”
            Georgia wipes at her face with the sleeve of her pullover.
            “Now promise us you won’t do anything about going to find him.”
            I pause for breath and stare back, dumbfounded by the request, and find I am probably not able to say anything sensible. It was enough to make the belated connection about my older half-brother Julian, living in France like a regular lord of the manor, or so says the Internet, a Norman castle in his possession and a string of pop chart failures. Musicians, I don’t know, it’s as crazy as actors, everyone having to cover the mirrors in case they start making out with themselves.
            The questions I could field that poor bastard . . . and now they say there were more children, kids my age, and sired by the same super-powerful and ultimately mad-as-fuck schmuck now . . . now what? Disappeared somewhere.
            I have to be certain.
            “I honestly couldn’t tell you what this means,” I say to them after an awkward delay. “I’m not sure I even would want to meet him.” Before they can relax I add, “I don’t know I could do anything less. You’ve been hiding from him all this time, ma. Is it because you know where he is?”
            But Georgia shakes her head, a touch of well-played regret in there somewhere, convincing me to imagine an old lady reflecting on a life misspent, an affair that could’ve been something so much more, perhaps. And I nod knowingly, appreciating her pain for one genuine moment – which is a shame, because she’s lying her arse off and I’m just too much of a soft touch to know it until it’s too late.

14 December 2009

Villains. Characters in a story that seem unreasonably bitter, angry and plain evil. They make lives of the “star” difficult with no regrets. They are disliked by everyone. Everyone tries to protect that damsel and everyone tries to destroy the villain, repeatedly. Until one day, in that week-long finale, they finally put the villain in its “rightful” place.

In real life, there are no finales. In real life, there is also a story behind the villain. In real life, that star, that damsel is the villain in his life. In real life, the villain is just as human as that star. In real life, the villain also feels that the world is unfair, that he was being punished. In real life, the villain is sad, the villain is alone, the villain has made sacrifices too but no one seemed to notice because the villain will not announce it to the world. The villain will not look helpless in front of the crowd that hates him. The villain carries his burdens, alone.

In real life, the villain is actually more pitiful than the damsel. Because in real life, the villain was frowned upon, the villain made a mistake and was forever forsaken for it by the same people that he considered friends. The villain was immediately judged. The villain was given a “chance” to explain for mere formality but in real life, his explanations were just gibberish sounds in their ears. They did not give room for understanding.

In real life, the villain looks like the villain because he was never given a chance, because he accidentally went after what he thought would make him happy and even though he made the sacrifice of letting it go, he is and forever will be, in their eyes, the villain just for the mere reason that he probably made someone cry. And that someone, will never forgive him, not realizing that he was being a villain as well because he stopped his “friend” from being happy.

The damsel is sly. Making everyone see how much unfair it is for him. They do not see that the damsel would rather have them both sad and suffering rather than having his friend happy. They do not see that the damsel creates a rift and turns people’s backs to a friend that was just as human as them.

The villain appears strong and firm because the villain cannot afford to be weak. Because the villain, unlike the damsel, was left by the ones that he trusted. Because the villain has nobody that would have his back. Because the villain, actually, lost everything for nothing. Because the villain has nobody that would have his back.

Huh, have been waiting for another sequel of Fung Wan (The Storm Riders), finally it came, 11 years of waiting, actually didn’t wait for it, time just flies, and now it is released…The Storm Warriors (Fung Wan 2)

Yesterday night, watched a bit of the Fung Wan 1 aired on NTV7. Those fighting scenes involving fire balls, air, water made me laugh, because it looks too fake. This time, amazing…what I can say is just WOW!!!!

The visual effects of the Storm Warriors are super great, amazingly-created by those professionals. This is the first bluescreen-created movie, hence technology plays a big role here, and it works very well. Some scenes really look alike with the comics one. Good job done, showing how technology can affect movie industry greatly.

Just excited on the fighting scenes which involved a lot of visual effects. I simply love them, so much. It gives a feeling of amazed as soon as we watched it, very exciting. However, the story is not as good as the first one, the main villain, Lord Godless (very nice and cool name) died so early and in simple ways, nothing more than that. After the death of the main villain, nothing more attracted me much. They focused too much on getting rid of Ekin Cheng’s Wind’s evil power at the end. Too bad, it seems that Aaron Kwok’s Cloud fall off the mountain after saving Ekin and Ah Sa. Sorry, for some spoilers here, if you haven’t watch the movie. Here the synopsis of the movie:

Japanese evil warlord Lord Godless desired to conquer China. He imprisoned a large number of martial artists and tried to make them subjugate. Among the prisoners were Cloud and the martial arts elder statesman Nameless. Wind came to the rescue. The trio was badly wounded by Lord Godless’s evil martial arts attack. Chu Chu was also knocked out when she blocked Cloud from Lord Godless’s strike. The remaining martial artists sacrificed their lives to save the trio, in the hope that the trio would beat Lord Godless one day and save the country.

Chu Chu was badly wounded and stayed unconscious. Cloud was filled with remorse and vowed to take revenge. Wind chose to take the evil way to quickly boost up his martial arts skills, so that he could protect the people. During his training, he met the girl who changed his life, Dream. Meanwhile, the troop of Lord Godless came to attack. Wind’s training was interrupted when he tried to save Dream from Lord Godless’s assault. After some killings, Wind ran away and disappeared…

Lord Godless took The Emperor in captivity and stationed his troops in Heaven Cave. Cloud arrived alone and started a combat with Lord Godless. Lord Godless had the upper hand. In the meantime, the half-evil Wind appeared and joined the battle. During the fight, they inadvertently discovered the secret of the sovereign. The real intention of Lord Godless’s invasion was related to an ancient tomb, a forbidden ground buried with the Royal family’s secret. The truth was finally revealed. At last, how would the battle end? Who would eventually rule over the country?

Anyway, this movie is worth watching, and overall, better performance than the first one, of course, we have to be considerate that the first one is made in 1998 (not much technology). Waiting for another sequel, all sequel seems to be indirect, so that the dead character can be brought back to live, and new background can be created. The director had said that we will not need to wait for another 11 years for another sequel…Haha…hope so! Hope they create another sequel out of it as soon as possible! There are two more villains based on the comic books. First film’s villain is Hung Ba (teacher of Wind and Cloud, leader of Tin Ha Clan), current film’s villain is Lord Godless (Japan general wishing to dominate China), third and fourth will be Dai Seik Tin (mysterious phantom menace) and Duen Long (member of Tin Ha Clan, most powerful villain).

I recommend people to watch it in cinema to see and feel the visual effects better. Appreciate the hard works and effort by people who created such a good work!

Ahh, one more thing to say out…in my previous post, I have told that I have tried the Korean food, now it’s time for Japanese food, eat at Sushi King at Leisure Mall, wow…quite expensive, over RM50 for two person even after 10% discount. Eating different type of food this week…

A pic before I started cleanin it up. It’s been to cold to mess with lately. Soon I’ll get on it again, and finish cleanin this up. I had painted the valve cover(then gas ate it), an a few things silver before in here.

Not goin cherry, but that white drift S30 inspired me.

Artist: VA
Title: Dirty Workz Deluxe Sampler (Part 2)
Label: Dirty Workz
Genre: Hardstyle
Store Date: 10.12.2009
Source: Vinyl
# Tracks: 4
# Vinyls: 1
Lenght: 21:19
Quality: 320 kbps
Channels: Joint Stereo / 44 khz
Nonstop mix: no
*.cue: no
Archive size: 49,2 MB
Recovery record: no

Tracklist:
A1. Coone – Dirty & Deluxe [5:24]
A2. Coone – Here Comes the Boom [5:10]
B1. Ruthless & Coone – Times Like This [4:47]
B2. Coone & Villain – Hard with This [5:58]

Download from Rapidshare
Download from Mediafire

Raavan is the up coming movie of Maniratnam. A.R.Rahman’s has composed music to this movie. Movie was in production for more than two years. Maniratnam did almost 400 days shooting for this movie. Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan, gave their dates when ever Mani has asked with out taking any extra amount.

Tamil actor Vikram has played the key role in this film. According to the news from movie unit members this is the modern day version to Ramayana epic. We know that in Ramayana, Raavana is the villain. But Maniratnam has named as Raavana to this modern day Ramayana.

Now the discussion in Bollywood is, Raavan is villain or hero in this movie. Abhishek Bachchan has played Raavana role. Lets wait until the movie release. Priyamani is going to appear in one more negative role. Govinda and Ravi Kishan are also part in this prestigious project.

Random title, But I really wanna get this dash on. It’s been here a few months. Only has two small cracks. I’m waitin for some gauges, so I can tilt them. Like I’ve seen in some racecars.

Plus I might throw this Decepticon sticker on it.

Found this for reference……..

The rumors are flying around Spider-man 4’s choice of villains. Not long ago it seemed a sure bet that it would indeed finally be Dylan Baker who has played Doc Connors in the films finally transforming into the Lizard. Seems like the logical choice doesn’t it? Well now word on the street now from Movieline.com is that John Malkovich is being considered for the role of The Vulture.

This seems like a good choice to me, besides he is a pretty damn good actor. But good actors or not I think Spider-man 4  has alot to prove. I admit I’m a picky guy when it comes to movies and even more picky when it comes to comic book movies which just never really seem to be what they should. As I look back at the Spiderman films I must be honest with you I think they all honestly kinda suck. I guess the best being Spider-man 2. I really don’t think these films are aging well. I think about the first half of the first Spider-man was pretty damn good all until they introduced the Mighty Morphin Power Ranger version of the Green Goblin. Don’t even get me started on that. The second film was not too bad, at least they got Doc Ock to actually look like Doc Ock. The third film, well, just plain sucked for so many many reasons. Part of me hoped they’d reboot it all together without Raimi. Lets face it given his credentials I think he did a pretty sub-par job on the series and that’s being kind.

So with a fourth try I hope he gets it right. I hope he’s chosen Malkovich on other reasons other than that he’s bald. I’ve heard that they have chosen not to go with the Lizard because Baker’s star power is not enough for the public. A pretty terrible reason to not bring the Lizard to life I’d say. I think he’s got more cred than Topher Grace or Thomas Haden Church don’t you?  Either way I will go see this movie as I seem to do with all superhero movies these days. I guess as far as first impressions John Malkovich is as good of a reason as any to be thinking positive about Spider-man 4.  However I do also remember the excitement of  hearing that Willem Dafoe was going to be the Green Goblin and look how “awesome” that turned out to be….

We seen the tricks of John Abraham in Dhoom as villain. In Dhoom 2 , Hrithik Roshan has played the negative role and shown his stunts. Compared with the first part, in second part, the negative role took more screen time.

Dhoom 3 was in news from many days. Due to many reasons it was not yet hit the sets also. But now the time came for this movie. Aditya Chopra has decided to start the movie at any cost by the middle of the 2010. As per the initial news, Shahrukh Khan is the first option for the negative role.

But recent situations are saying that, SRK may not play that role. On the other hand Akshay Kumar is very keen to play antagonist in 3 rd part. Lets wait and see who will play the lead role. But this time Sanjay Gadhvi is not going to direct the movie.

Graham

Graham doesnt know how he got to be this way.  Occasionally he gets flashes in his head that remind him of times when he wasnt always hungry, when he wasnt always cold, when he had hands.  Sometimes those flashes in his head make Graham angry and he squishes things into tiny pieces. 

Sometimes Graham gets a different flash in his head.  These flashes are red and white and shaped in a circle.  He hears voices when he sees these flashes.  The voices dont call him “Graham”.  The voices say things like “Nemesis” and “P-Virus” instead.  When he sees the red and white flashes and hears the voices, Graham feels strong and he knows what to do.  He needs to go where the voices tell him to and squish all of the things there with his feet and his arms and his teeth and his big guns.

Necrotic Bio-Mechanoid

Graham is a weird figure but fun all the same.  A couple of years ago the Dreamblade CMG was released.  I think that it was about fighting in “dreamscapes” or something else slightly odd.  There were a load of figures for it but most of them were a bit too trippy for my games: things like guys in suits with claw hammer heads and the like.

I picked Graham up whwn I bought a few of the more suitable Dreamblade figures on ebay with the intention to use him as a Umbrella/Parasol augmented Tyrant like zombie.  According to the Dreamblade character card, Graham shoots bullets of clotted blood from those huge gun-hands.  Presumably he gets up to something similar with them in the Resident Evil universe.

Graham threatens Rocko

As you can see in the shot above, Graham is huge and quite suitable to be used as a Tank or Tyrant.  The figure was supplied as grey plastic with silver painted on the guns and black on the trousers, shoes and bandana (?!).  I drybrushed the grey areas a bit to give a little more depth to the flesh and I painted in his huge beard (?! again) just to give him a little definition.  I also painted the veins travelling down to his guns, again to give a little more colour and definition. 

I could have spent a lot more time painting Graham but I figured that he was good enough at that point.  Graham is a pretty wacky figure.

THE WALLACHIAN FORTRESS deposits us in New Central Park and Seeker and I stroll across the crusty grass and over the three bridges across the main lake. Overhead a remodelled biplane chugs across the sky dragging a banner that reads CSI NEW ZEALAND – STARTS MONDAY 8PM EASTERN. Some homeless guys are playing Frisbee and a small dog is gnawing at the half-frozen remains of a mallard. Two park rangers on horseback eye the scene with beatific smiles, their radios providing additional background chatter.
            “So we’re set?”
            “A team of seven, huh?” I remark. “You’re sure about the robot?”
            “He said to call him Tom.”
            “Thomas O’Clock, what kind of fucking name is that?”
            “Do you have better?”
            I consider suggesting Contraption Man, but think better of it. Instead I shrug, surrendering to this one. Seeker looks jaunty, spritely and pleased. I tell her I’m surprised Magus himself didn’t sign up for the team and she says nothing until we’ve crossed the final arch and stop at the iron gates onto Elm Avenue, which leads on to downtown Jackson.
            “I think Simon Magus has troubles enough of his own without signing up for the New Sentinels, Zephyr. Don’t feel jilted.”
            “Jilted? Christ, whatever gives you that idea?”
            Seeker gives one of her sweeter smiles and shrugs, a knowing laugh playing merriment behind her eyes as she turns.
            “Four days to go,” she says. “You think we can keep the secret that long?”
            I blink. “Oh that reminds me of something.”|
            “Zephyr!” she gasps. “You’re not going to break the news early, are you?”
            “Oh hey,” I lie. “No I was thinking about my costume. That Italian dude burnt a hole in one of my new suits.”
            “Who was that guy?”
            “I dunno,” I reply. “Some crazy.”
            “Some crazy with very effective eye-beams,” Seeker says slowly. “I guess we’ll be hearing from him again.”
            My reply is distant and disinterested. I’m thinking about our afternoon, our new 150-year-old teammate and his comments skirting my own secret history.
            O’Clock outlined how he’d been created by Edison, but it was the immortal sorcerer Simon Magus who first found a soul for him. The robot had actually used the Holmes-Watson analogue to explain his period as the magician’s sidekick and then the time through the 1890s when the Western Empire very nearly fell to the Chinese as part of the aforementioned Shadow War. The resolution of that conflict remains a mystery to all those involved still alive today, since at the key cataclysmic moment it required history to be rewritten and all the minds involved were wiped in the process. The Victorian Empire began to ail along with its monarch, but at least the Ghost Emperor in the East failed in his cross-continental coup.
            The robot and his mentor parted ways for large tracts of the Twentieth Century. There was an earnestness, a strange honesty in the way the mechanical being comported himself. We could sense his ennui, his yearning to return to the “real world” from Simon Magus’s idyllic, but utterly yawnsome Nirvana. He is an arcane robot, a thing of equal parts magic and science and possessed of the soul of some formless astral being Magus referred to as a Ki-Rin. I’m sure that’s just an analogy. The guy seems keen on them, but then maybe he’s been staying with the Chi Worshippers too long.
            I bid Seeker adieu and there’s a weird moment where we touch fingers and my sexy, strange, remote teammate bites her peach-ripe lip and drops her eyes and into that moment I drop an awkward cough and say, “Okay, bye,” and do the crouch thing. Six trillion light globes or whatever and I’m damned if I can work out what’s going on there.

I WANTED DINNER to be at a restaurant because people always say it’s hard for someone to make a scene if you have a difficult discussion and you do it in public. I lost the vote and now with Tessa in my company, I book a cab and there’s an awkward moment downstairs when Elisabeth and my daughter arrive in the back of one of the law firm’s town cars and Beth and I just stare at each other as Tessa scurries free with an overnight bag. I am about to say something when Beth veers back to the black chauffeur and instructs him to go on to the airport, she’s got a conference in Dallas, she doesn’t even blink as the tinted glass slides back into place and the car rolls on without a word spoken between us. There’s something a few shades short of hatred in that exchange-that-is-not-an-exchange, a new low for us, or maybe I am just a slow learner because this is the woman who wants to divorce me, after all.
            It’s not with me that Tessa’s staying. The grandmothers have wrangled some time with their girl and I guess it was a) convenient for Beth, given the business trip, and b) a better option than leaving our daughter with me. We don’t have any legal agreement yet, which is one of the reasons why my ex hasn’t turfed me out of the apartment. I figure an end to that is only days away, though now I have cleared a path to some temporary digs, at least, even if they will just confirm my lack of a real life.
            “I’m gonna get changed,” Tessa says as she bounds with youthful enthusiasm up the stairs to our eighth-floor apartment.
            “Hang on,” I say, still in the foyer and pressing the button for the lift like it’s a cigarette butt that won’t extinguish. “You look fine as is. A cab’s coming. I thought we could just go from here.”
            Tessa eyes me with stupefied disbelief. Her mouth hangs open and she somehow manages to capture the right mix of disbelief and ridicule with her eyes despite her expression making her resemble a young retarded foreign child.
            “Dad. Come on. You can’t be serious.”
            The girl is in a new wardrobe: designer jeans, knee-high calfskin boots, a Gucci jacket and forest green blouse by Zara. Her mother is throwing more money at her than ever before. It’s like her company heard she was up for a divorce and decided to reward her for dumping me.
            “Tessa, what is it, honey? You can show off your other clothes when you stay.”
            “These?” The girl plucks at the shirt with disdain. “Mum’s trophies? Or maybe I’m the trophy. I wasn’t talking about changing these.”
            “Okay what were you talking about then?” I ask. “I’m confused.”
            Tessa glances around for spies and drops down the steps to come back close to me, expression morphing like a panther, at once coquettish and coy.
            “Dad,” she half-whispers. “Come on. I was thinking we could fly to Queens. What do you say?”
            “You want to get changed into costume?”
            “Yes!”
            “Honey, it’s a school night.”
            “Oh come on dad,” Tessa says, the breath exploding from her gasp.
            I glance at a watch I don’t actually own. “The cab will be here any minute.”
            “Screw the cab.”
            “Hey watch your language,” I scowl and the lift opens and our neighbours, people who shunned us like we were AIDS victims or from tribal Rwanda since the first day we moved in, they flatten themselves to the far side and exit with their faces down.
            Through the glass door I watch the cab pull in to the curb outside. Tessa looks at me, the whole teenager pleading thing going into overdrive and I sigh and hang my head and, thinking about the guy with the eye-beams again not for the first time that day, mutter something about regretting this decision later as I step into the lift and try and remember if I’ve worn my third costume yet.

IN THE SKIES over Atlantic City, Windsong and I are World War Two fighter planes, swerving and dipping and putting on the speed as we dodge over the open water, the big friendly moon throwing our mirrored selves across the dappled surface as we streak toward Queens. Each time the girl catches up to me I add another burst of speed, curious to know how far she can go, and when finally we hit mach I draw alongside to catch her squealing delight as she tests herself and her limits to see how fast she can go.
            I drop back, a snaking discharge of electrical energy crackling at her heels as incentive to pour on yet more speed as she hurtles close enough to the water now that it makes a trench. Next thing we are crossing land again, Astoria close, and by silent agreement we abandon our game and come down amid the trees that aren’t so leafy any more. Tessa is breathing heavy and she wraps her arms around my leather-clad frame as we duck into the shadows of the driveway and she rests her head against my shoulder, quite unable to speak with a wonderfully adolescent mix of adrenalin, exhaustion and wonder. I can’t help savouring the moment and smooth back her wind-tousled hair, the smell of lemon and cinnamon inexplicably clinging to it, my hand on her leather jacket’s hip as she grins up at me in a smile caught in full radiance by the gibbous moon.
            “That’s the fastest I’ve ever gone,” she whispers.
            “And how did it feel?”
            “Amazing,” she says and gulps, taking a few more breaths. “But you’re faster, aren’t you?”
            “I’ve been doing this longer,” I say and smile, proud in my own way as she recovers her breath sufficient to stagger off a few paces and I follow, we’re rounding into the back yard and pulling our street clothes free.
            “I’m just going to, uh, change,” Tessa says and motions to the garden shed. I nod all patriarchal-like and walk casually, drunk with the moment, up to the vine-encrusted greenhouse and my old familiar change station.
            Minutes later we’re admitted through the back door into the rosy glow of George and Max’s kitchen. A roast drizzled with vindaloo spices is sizzling in the oven and we exchange air kisses and chatter chirpily and try not to think about the recent troubles as Tessa and I file into the house and remark heartily on how nice and warm it is inside and my two mothers smile and observe our chastened, wind-chilled faces and say nothing except to put the kettle on.
            “How are you feeling after that madman attacked you, Joe?” Max asks.
            “Grandma,” Tessa laughs, “I actually think it was dad who attacked him!”
            “Hey thank you very much,” I respond with mock tenderness. “Thanks for your concern, honey. No I’m fine, mom. Fine. I guess he just got the jump on me.”
            “Let me see your chest,” Georgia brogues and fusses forward and starts helping herself to the third and second buttons of the cheap long-sleeve I’m wearing until I bat her off, hands on her wrists as I try and imagine the steel once in her eyes, the cat mask and the flames trickling through her fingers ready to punish the wrongdoers of the night – but I can’t picture it.
            At that moment my heavyset old ma being one of Old New York’s defenders seems about as remote as my own childhood. I couldn’t tell you if they read to me, if I had blocks or plastic cowboys or played armies in the sand dunes on seaside holidays because the whole thing’s a blur, man. Is that just me? I hope not. Let me not be alone in my eidetic anaesthesia.
            Georgia fusses with her fisherman’s knit pullover like she can read my mind, though she also tuts dismissively and moves across to the oven and slips on mitts to check the roast despite her own immunity, half-a-lifetime’s masquerade now just reflex.
            “Och, ‘tis such a shame. You had the most gorgeous nipples as a boy, didn’t he, Maxie?”
            “He did,” Maxine, who I’d otherwise call ‘the sensible one,’ says with all the pomp and ceremony of the queen herself.
            “Get off it,” I mutter as Tessa laughs and discovers a chocolate cake concealed beneath a tea towel and gives a titter.
            They start preparing the table for dinner and there’s a lull, if not a black hole in the conversation into which we all pitch, the inevitable now looming like a kind of death itself ahead of us in the night.
            “The meat smells, uh, good,” I manage.
            “Yeah,” Tessa says. “Is that curry?”
            “It’s an Indian recipe,” Max says stiffly. “That shop on Breaker and Vine, do you know it?”
            No, we don’t know the Indian deli on Breaker and Vine, but we nod our heads like automata and focus so hard on the table it’s like we’re afraid it’s going to sprout wings and fly in to attack us. George places the roast on a platter in the middle and turns, ceremonial-like, and passes me the knife.
            “Your mom said we never did include enough male-reinforcement rituals for you growing up, Joseph,” she says slowly. “How about you be a good lad and carve?”
            I take the heavy knife and consider pitching it into my neck. Instead I provide the anticipated grin, an olive branch, as the diners slowly take their seats and we take yet more steps toward the moment I have been heading to my whole life.