We’re back with another episode of The Big Movie Mouth-Off podcast!
The podcast features the stars and producers of The Big Movie Mouth-Off film review show, which appears here at Big Shiny Robot! and on Xfinity (Utah On Demand and Channel 6). That lineup is: Jeff Vice from MSN Entertainment, Jimmy Martin from SLUG Magazine, and Bryan Young (me) and Elias Pate from Big Shiny Robot! and ShineBox Media Productions.
I, like most of the Robots who work to bring you this site am a bit particular about my gadgets and the things I use everyday. I’m sure you are too. From the phone you carry, the OS that runs your computer, or the pens you use to take notes I think every little piece shows a bit of what kind of person you are. Starting today we’ll be rotating through the contributors here at BSR to show you what we carry with us and how the site get its content to you.
The bag itself came from Urban Outfitters a few years ago, and a discount thanks to a friend. Its Ben Sherman with a padded laptop sleeve, zippered pockets front and back and two front pockets with magnetic closures. It works well but I’d like to get a new one that I can put my DSLR in as well.
Starting at the top is my laptop, its a Dell Inspiron 15 running Windows 7. Nothing special whatsoever it was a replacement for one that broke and could definitely use some more features it was cheap but it gets the job done. I only have one game loaded on it, Civilization V, and some photo editing software and thats enough to slow it down. Resting on that is just my cell charger (the Droid X needs a midday charge) and USB cables for my phones and Ipods.
Below that is my Kindle 3, I got it in September and I take it everywhere. It actually fits in my back pocket for days when I’m travelling light. The charge lasts me 2-3 weeks and I am a very heavy user and it saves me lots of space because I have the strange habit of reading 1-3 books at a time. Moving down some more is my red Moleskin with the BSR logo sticker. I don’t use it much but with my work I occasionally get random phone calls and need to jot down lots of names, ranks and numbers. To the right of that is my old pocket knife. I have no clue where I got it or when but I keep it sharp and mostly just use it for opening mail and boxes, my former job got me in the habit of carrying a knife and I can’t shake it.
To the right of the knife are my headphones, I’ve gone through lots of sets of Apple ones that break pretty damn fast and a few pairs of cheap SkullCandy ones that aren’t much better. These are from Sony and the nice thing is they go over the top of my ear which keeps them from falling out when I run. Continuing to the right is my G-phone, this is my work phone (a Blackberry Tour) and it only does email and very limited internet. Basically its a way for me to contact people at HQ and check a few things that The Company needs us to know.
Bottom row I’ve got my various pens, one from a bar I take a pen from every time the waitress sucks, and the rest are just Sharpies. My Droid X follows those and its a great phone, this was my first Android phone and I love it. I text, tweet, and post to tumblr all day so the battery drains fast. When I’m not working it usually lasts the whole day but when I am it needs a boost around 2. That weird looking Dracula is actually a flash drive that was a prize at a Big Shiny Pub Quiz (I know you’re jealous). The flashlight I use constantly because I tend to drop things in my car…like once a week.
The last 2 things are my Ipods. Both are 16GB and get used a lot.. The Ipod Touch is the 1st gen and is showing its age, it can’t hold a charge for long and usually just gets used for games and in the car. Since I got my Droid it gets used less and less and I go back and forth between it and my 4th Gen Ipod. The Nano is new, got it over Christmas and I love it. It usually stays clipped on me all day at work and I really like being able to change the orientation of the screen at any time, plus its so much easier to use at the gym I don’t notice the weight like the other two.
And that is me in a bag. They’ll be more to come from the other editors so keep an eye out and let us know what you use and why you use it in the forum and in the comments.
The new Spider-Man film starring Andrew Garfield is attracting a lot of attention lately. Be it the new suit, or incredibly awkward-looking pictures of said suit, everyone is talking about it. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned as of yet is what will the new film be called? Well now, thanks to the Hollywood Reporter, it can be told. The title for the Spidey franchise reboot is officially The Amazing Spider-Man. I for one think that’s a great title, it was rumored to be the original working title for Spider-Man 2, and I’m glad they decided to use it. It still says “Spider-Man” without having the same name as the first Raimi movie. Also included was a new image of the full suit. UPDATE: Now with ultra hi-res picture.
It certainly looks better than when the lenses are missing, I must say! Let us know what you think!
Holy crapola, lots of awesome stuff coming out soon. A few weeks ago at the The Nurnberg Toy Fair Hot Wheels unveiled some pretty slick Ecto-1 replicas. There are going to be two versions, a 1/18 and a 1/43 scale. A few years back, Joyride had released a die cast Ecto-1 that was 1/21 scale and roughly 20 dollars (depending on where you got it). The 1/18 scale coming out in September will be $115, so we can expect a much higher quality collectible. Lots of moving pieces and such.
Moving slightly forward in time to the 2011 New York Toy Fair. Of course the booth I was most interested in hearing from was from Mattel. They were showing off some figures we’ve seen before, like the Retro Action Real Ghostbusters. And lots of new stuff:
• Movie Masters twelve inch Ghostbusters 2 Winston and Venkman
• Egon in lab coat with the Library Ghost
• Vinz Clorth with a few different heads, Terror Dog shell, collander, pizza and a glass jar of popcorn
• Club Ecto’s Marshmallow covered Ray Stants
• Ghostbusters 2 Winson with a slime blower
I am pretty stoked about all these. The 12 inch two pack is a bit pricey considering most already own Venkman, but to make up for that it comes with a boat load of accessories. I’m really excited to see all of these and review them. Thanks to Proton Charging for letting us know about this super cool stuff.
Titan publishing put together one of the finest retrospective pieces of coffee table art book in Jim Lee’s ICONS. It’s a gorgeous collection and I’ve caught myself thumbing through it for hours on end because it’s so all encompassing of Jim Lee’s career with DC and Wildstorm.
It has plenty of art you’d recognize instantly and so much of the art behind those images that has never been seen.
For the occasion, I was able to talk to Jim Lee about the book and his work at DC Comics.
Jim Lee: This book turned out great. It’s amazing art design and direction can do for someone’s work. These kinds of books are often, because they take a lot of the work that you’ve already seen and published it in periodic form and blows it up and crops it nicely and frames it and puts all the pencil and ink stages before and elevates the art to something more than what it started out as. And it starts as pictures that move a narrative forward and it takes single images and makes it seem more like Art with a capital “a”. It’s a bit of alchemy and highly appreciated by myself. It’s nice to see the work in that good of format.
Big Shiny Robot!: Titan did a great job with this book. What was the thinking… You’re one of the guys in charge of DC, why was the decision made to go with Titan instead of publishing it in-house?
JL: This book was actually started years ago, before I was co-Publisher. I’m pretty sure the logic on books like this was that they take a large amount of work and DC is really set up to create comic book stories, so we’re great at hiring writers and artists to put those kinds of things together. This is a different kind of project and we just license those out. That’s why you see that. There’s a lot of finding the art images, the sketches, more editorial and art direction work than DC is really designed to do.
BSR: What strikes you the most flipping through this book?
JL: I’ve done a lot more work than I thought I have. I normally don’t look back on the comics I’ve drawn, it’s usually only at conventions when fans bring them up for an autograph. Looking through it, I’m struck by the number of pieces I only vaguely remember drawing and some I don’t even remember. It’s my work by I really don’t remember the time and place. To me looking back on the work it’s more a history of my life versus the story that the images are pulled from. A lot of times, 90% of the time, I can remember a very distinct time and place where I did them, different circumstances. Like there’s a Batman Black and White cover I remember drawing in a hotel in Berlin at a store signing and they needed it right away and there’s other images I finished on a train or in an airplane and then the whole years worth of Superman: For Tomorrow, I did that while living in Italy, so I can distinctly remember each image with its own history. In a sense it’s a history of my life as much as images that have told stories that fans are familiar with.
BSR: I would say VERY familiar with. I owned a comic book store when Hush started and you really set the tone from 2002 to today. Even with what Grant Morrison did to change Bruce, the image and look you designed for Batman has really stuck around and defined the character for close to a decade. As a publisher maybe you have a different take on it than you did then?
JL: I don’t set out when I do the work to define anything. I think one of the choices an artist has to make when they start on a story or a run is what they love about the character visually and artistically. And I always loved the shorter ears and the bulkier Batman, but as I worked on the character he actually got longer ears and got more lean. So he kind of started out more of a Frank Miller, Dark Knight Returns and ended up more Neal Adams inspired. I think you make these decisions and you don’t know how the audience will take it, but you make these decisions based on your own internal compass. This was the version that I thought was the best. I really wanted to play up the blue and the gray. His roots are in full color comics.
BSR: The great thing about Hush specifically was that the story was so uniquely comic, where it was coming out month to month and customers would come in and we’d all discuss the possibilities of things. And I remember once a customer came in and said, “Jim Lee is a genius,” and it was right when you thought Clayface was the real Jason Todd and he went back and I guess in issue four or five you could see Hush standing on a building and I guess it was a Robinson’s building.
JL: Right.
BSR: It was very well thought out and very well put together and it could only be told in this medium.
JL: A story with this number of characters and the complexity of the storyline you could never do that in a two hour movie, for sure. That really is the beauty of the medium we work in, to tell longer form stories and have a richness and layers to it, but somewhere between a novel and a motion picture. Look at The Lord of the Rings, the book experience is completely much deeper than the movie and comics bring you to this rich middle ground where you can layer things and set up things in a number of different ways and involve so many different characters in the storyline and still have it make sense in a way you couldn’t do in a motion picture. The trick is figuring out how to fit that all into a story and make sure it makes sense. You look for ways just to dazzle the reader and I do that in slightly ironic ways. There’s actually a cover I did with Catwoman with her arms out and Batman is behind her in a graphic sort of vampire pose with poison ivy circling her. And Superman and Poison Ivy weren’t represented on the cover graphically, but I wanted to suggest them through the secret messages. The fans love that. You’re adding hints and alluding to things and they add a richness of depth you can’t see watching a motion picture because things are just flying by so quickly.
BSR: You’ve been an artist and a publisher for a long time and how has your day to day job with comics changed since you’ve become the co-publisher of DC, especially now that Wildstorm is being folded in to it in some way?
JL: It’s changed quite a bit, actually. I do a lot more press than I used to, and the press I did before was mostly confined to the work I did personally but because we’ve got a lot of new stuff, our digital initiative and the $2.99 price reduction, I do a lot of press for DC Comics. With the new executive team that’s leading, we’re really looking to unleash the power of DC Comics and better integrate it into all of these Warner Brothers divisions. There’s a lot of collaboration going on and there’s a lot of meetings with sister divisions of Warner Brothers and looking for ways to accomplish that directive. It’s creative, but it’s a very different kind of creative process than creating artwork or creating stories. It’s looking for opportunity, it’s looking for ways to maximise the characters we already have, and I’m enjoying it. It definitely exercises a different set of muscles…
BSR: What’s the next big thing we can expect from DC? Since you guys have taken over you’ve jumped into digital, you’ve brought the price point on the comics down, you’ve got your Vertigo titles, Scott Snyder’s American Vampire hit the New York Times Bestsellers list. What’s the next big thing both out of DC and what can we expect out of you, too?
JL: As a company, look for an expansion of our digital activities. Right now we’re authoring the existing backlist libraries and creating these authored .PDF files for people to view on iPads or their PSP’s and we’re looking to branch out into the digital space. On a creative level we’re trying to redefine what DC stands for and all the different characters starting in January 2011. That’s really going through a title-by-title basis and figuring out who these characters are and what they stand for and their reason for being out there. And I think that’s going to strengthen our whole editorial line. As for me personally, I’ve been working on DC Universe Online MMORPG. That’s four of five years worth of work and I’m very, very excited about it. Then there’s The Dark Knight, Boy Wonder which I’m working on with Frank Miller and Batman Europa which I’m working on with Brian Azzarello. It’s a mix of interactive stuff, digital stuff, and my own comic book artwork. I’m definitely keeping myself very, very busy.
BSR: As far as digitally, how quickly to you guys see yourselves expanded your back catalogue? DC has a richer, longer history of things people want to see digitally, how quickly will we see this ramped up so we can see a comprehensive archive?
JL: That really is the question. We have so many years of publishing to draw on that we’re trying to hit the highlights and have a nice mix of older material and more recent material and day and date material. We have our trade paperback program, so we can’t flood the market and convert them all at once. We’ve been doing a mix of things that people will be familiar with because they’ve seen the characters in video games or TV shows or animation or movies. And then we have some of our classic storylines to put out. And then also some more recent work that helps support our efforts going forward. For instance, we have the Green Lantern movie debuting this year, so our library is expanding on existing Green Lantern stories and we’ll have a lot of that out there when the movie hits and capitalize on the awareness of that character. We’re definitely putting out more each month and looking to add to that with new material.
BSR: With Green Lantern coming, are you guys going to be cross promoting? In the past, the comic and movie divisions of all the publishers have had a hard time doing a cross-promoted effort to bring readers to the movie and passive movie viewers to the comics. What do you guys have planned for Green Lantern as a character in the comics as a way to bring some of those movie viewers into the medium?
JL: I think that’s a big proposition that we have on the digital side. If people love the movie and we expect that they will try to find out as much as they can about the character on their mobile devices and on the internet. And that should eventually lead a lot of them to our digital efforts and be able to download the best Green Lantern storylines to their phones or computers. And we want to convert those readers into comics fans and we want to help them discover that there are comic book shops that sell this material and find the toys and statues and that all kind of thing. And we really want to market and cross-promote this movie across all the different activities that we do. So you’re going to see direct toys, digital comics, cool events on the print side, and a video game that’s supportive of the movie. So this is really one of our directives, is to be better integrated and working more in concert with other divisions of Warner Brothers and theatrical is one of the big ones, if not the biggest.
BSR!: When you guys launched digital, one of the things you guys hinted at that everyone was really excited about were incentives for retailers funded and promoted by the digital side. What new stuff do you see coming up with that that you can talk about that will help get people to download comics digitally into a comic book store and buying trades and buying the new print issues?
JL: There are a number of initiatives we’re working on. We’re looking at e-couponing. We’re looking at ways to improve the Comic Shop locator service that already exists within the app itself, through the DC Comics app. And we’ve looked to the advice and input of a large number of the countries best and largest retailers, looking for ways to further bring them into the loop. There are things we’re exploring on the content side where stories will start out digitally and end up in print in the store. And we’re looking for ways that reward fans that are buying print with perhaps digital copies of their books. There are a number of ways we can do it, we’re confident we can do it, and we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think we could help our brick-and-mortar partners and expand the overall size of the pie, of the retail marketplace.
And that was all we had time for, but I would definitely check out the book. Here is the regular version, and here is the limited edition.
I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I ended up committing to writing an article in honor of Valentine’s Day. So, I thought I would share some of my favorite romantic scenes from a few films that might be considered “geeky,” for various reasons. And¸ out of the kindness of my heart, I’ve opted not to include anything from Twilight or its sequels. You can thank me later.
So, just a small sampling of some of my faves. This is in no particular order, nor is it in way meant to be complete.
I can’t say enough how much I love this movie. I wasn’t prepared to love it since I had yet to see a CGI film that compared to the majesty of Beauty and the Beast or any other traditionally animated film. But it moved me. In a way a movie hasn’t done so in a very long time. Flynn Rider is cocky and adventurous; Rapunzel is naïve but stubborn. And yet they truly connect and bring out the best in one another. The scene in the boat as the lanterns light up the night sky is one of the most beautiful romantic scenes ever. EVER. The music, the animation, the way Flynn watches Rapunzel as she watches her lifelong dream come true. It’s not his dream, but he’s experiencing it with her and even helps her participate in the ritual. I suppose it sounds silly and not at all like my usual cynical self to say that this film captured the very essence of love, but for me, I think it did.
Han and Leia have long appealed to movie audiences, but their relationship is a common one seen in film. The rogue and the gal who is unwilling to acknowledge her feelings goes back to classic stories like Gone With the Wind and beyond. Their banter provides more than entertainment; it is essentially foreplay, leading up to a climactic kiss in the Millennium Falcon. Now, I know a lot of people like the “I love you!” “I know” scene from Cloud City, but I have to be different. I like The Kiss. Where Leia tells Han she likes men, and he tells her she likes him because he’s a scoundrel. It appeared on the movie posters and is full of such steam and passion that fanfic writers are STILL writing X-rated stories about it decades later. Makes you wonder what else happened on the Falcon. Hey, just how long WERE they in space, anyways? Makes you wonder.
The Princess Bride is a delightful blend of romance, comedy, and adventure, and it has endured through the years for just those reasons. With lines like “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a little while” Wesley has won the hearts of female audiences everywhere. He risks all to rescue his ‘twue wuv’ from marrying an arrogant and scheming prince, and then there’s the line: “Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” The couple survived the Fire Swamp, Wesley (sort of) lived through torture, and Buttercup didn’t REALLY marry the prince, so all ended happily ever after.
Kevin Smith tackled romance in his film Chasing Amy, and though there is plenty of humor and pop culture references, it also has a lot of heart. I’ve always loved Holden’s speech to Alyssa where he confesses his love for her, in spite of the fact that he knows she’s a lesbian. There’s something so touchingly honest in his speech, as if he’s laid his heart bare for her, and her response will either destroy or save him. It’s a very different film from Clerks or Mallrats, but I still think it’s one of Smith’s best.
This isn’t the most perfect movie in the world, but I find myself watching it whenever it’s on TV, and part of it even takes place on Valentine’s Day. Even Keanu Reeves in a romantic lead doesn’t deter me from watching. This is sort of a modern fantasy, where two lonely people are brought together by a mailbox, though they live two years apart. Yeah, it’s weird. But the overall theme seems to be sometimes you just have to wait for love. Don’t stop living in the meantime, and eventually true love will find you. This is underscored by the reference to Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a book about love delayed for many years. It’s a sweet film, and one that I think is worth viewing.
Ah, my favorite Disney film. The story of a spunky bookish gal who seems to only attract jerks until one day she meets a prince under a terrible spell. Again, I’m going to go with the less obvious romantic scene here. Most would choose the ballroom dance scene, which is truly a masterpiece of animation (CGI and traditional animation combine to create a stunning sequence), but I’m going to have to go with the library. I admit, I have a thing for books. And libraries. And instead of giving Belle “flowers, chocolates, promises [he doesn’t] intend to keep,” the Prince gives Belle his library, which appeals to her more than any generic gift. It’s one of the sweetest, most romantic things I’ve ever seen in a movie.
I suppose I could continue with the list, but I’ll leave it at these few unusual picks of mine. Oh, but I must also mention that scene from Attack of the Clones where Padme reveals that she “truly, deeply” loves Anakin before they are taken into the Geonosian arena. I mention it only because my editor told me to. I think the scene is cheesier than anything I saw in Twilight, but that’s just my opinion. I know he’ll disagree. Vehemently.
Editors Note: I asked Scarlett to put this clip on the list because it is, indeed, one of the most romantic and heartfelt moments in geeky cinema and every time I watch it it chokes me up. –Swank
But that’s the beauty of film. It appeals to all of us in different ways, for different reasons.
So . . . what are your favorite romantic scenes from geeky movies?
“Midi-chlorians are a microscopic lifeform that reside within all living cells and communicate with the Force. … Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to you, telling you the will of the Force.” –Qui-Gon Jinn, The Phantom Menace.
For some fans, the biggest complaint they had about the first Star Wars prequel was not Jar Jar Binks, but the introduction of midi-chlorians to the mythology of The Force.
Since there was no mention of them in the classic half of the saga, some fans felt, that midi-chlorians somehow betrayed the mystic nature of the force. Arguments I heard were that they took all of the mysticism away and turned it into science and made them hate the concept of the force.
A 1977 quote was found by StarWars.Com from George Lucas that is the first known instance of midi-chlorians and it made me ponder the concept enough to bring forth an explanation of what the midi-chlorians actually are based on the explanations in the film that everyone who shouts the most loudly about them seems to forget.
“The Force is really a way of feeling; it’s a way of being with life. It really has nothing to do with weapons. The Force gives you the power to have extrasensory perception and to be able to see things and hear things, read minds and levitate things. It is said that certain creatures are born with a higher awareness of the Force than humans. Their brains are different; they have more midi-chlorians in their cells.”
— 1977 interview excerpt published in The Making of Star Wars
For one, this is proof positive that the classic trilogy was shaded by concept of midi-chlorians.
But my wonder is how do midi-chlorians take away from the Force? They have in no way replaced the Force and there is nothing it can take away from that mysticism. The Force is still an energy field created by all living things, but only some of those things have the capability of quieting their mind enough to listen to it. The midi-chlorians continually speak to those with more midi-chlorians in their system, telling them the will of the force.
But Anakin was a special case and had more than any Jedi anyone had ever dreamed of.
Perhaps people were upset by the aspect of science involved, even though Qui-Gon merely sought to check Anakin’s midi-chlorian count AFTER sensing him so strongly in the Force. But something Kyle Newman (director of Fanboys) said at our Prequels panel at Celebration V has stuck with me. He said, “It’s kind of ridiculous to think that after a thousand generations the Jedi Knights hadn’t explored the scientific aspects of their gifts.”
And that makes a lot of sense. In a world so technologically advanced, why wouldn’t they have discovered something different that set those who were more sensitive to the force apart from those. A lot of people seemed upset by the idea that only people with this genetic predisposition were capable of becoming a Jedi instead of any old person being able to tap into that mystic force. But this was always the way of things in the Star Wars Universe.
For one, Luke points out in Return of the Jedi that it runs strong in families genetically when he explains to Leia that she also has the capability of being a Jedi. And even in the early EU and the old roleplaying games (of which I played many in my Junior High and High School years) there were individuals that were clearly Force sensitive and others that clearly weren’t. But explaining that difference with a symbiotic life form that resides in all living cells that acts as a liaison between the voice of the Force and those who would wield it.
But the most important thing to note is that Qui-Gon never changes the definition of the Force, he only explains a conduit through which the Force acts.
But the nature of the midi-chlorians and the Force begs the question about those who wield it for the Dark Side. If Palpatine uses the midi-chlorians to listen to the will of the Force and foresees everything he needed to to bring about the destruction of the Jedi, was that too the will of the Force?
Maybe so. I’m reminded of another quote from Qui-Gon Jinn: “Nothing happens by accident.”
It certainly made a dramatic film. And midi-chlorians didn’t take anything away from my enjoyment of any of the Star Wars movies, and I hope you can look at it in a different light and not let it bug you either. I was talking to a friend about this article who is as close to Star Wars as I am, only moreso, and he said I shouldn’t write it because at the end of the day people just didn’t want to be reminded of midi-chlorians.
But I think when you think about it logically instead of with a knee jerk reaction, they’re not that bad and serve an interesting story point.
Does this image look familiar to you? Has it showed up in your RSS reader, or favorite blog? I’ve noticed it’s been floating around quite a bit the last few days, despite it being created nearly a month ago. That’s fine with me. Sometimes it takes a bit for great stuff like this to trickle down from its source. One thing I cannot abide by is that this image, nearly every time I’ve seen it in the last week has gone uncredited, or even worse, featured as someone else’s work. I’m here to set things straight.
This admittedly hilarious image is by Kerry Callen. As well as being the creator of the great Halo & Sprocket, Kerry has a personal blog where he shows off some truly inspired stuff that invariably makes its way around the blogosphere, be it Captain America eating his old shield, reinterpreting classic comic covers, or attempting to change his dog’s name. Now, I knew where the above mini comic came from because Kerry’s blog is in my RSS reader, so I saw it a while ago. If I hadn’t and I did end up seeing it at these “other places” (not naming names), I too would be unaware of its origin. This is why it’s important to give credit where it is due when posting cool stuff like this. For one, it gets the original artist more hits and potential feedback, which in turn will make them want to produce more content for their fans. Secondly, when you don’t disseminate information properly, it becomes exponentially harder to track down the source after the fact.
Forgive my ranting, because I am sure its possible to accidentally forget to give credit. What is unacceptable is when people try to pass images off as their own. Take again the above comic. At a casual glance, it looks like it could be from anywhere, the art style is very reminiscent of the Golden Age Superman style, but you don’t need a discerning eye to see that this is a case where the artist signs their work.
So, what I am trying to say is, if you see some cool original content on the internet, go ahead and share it! Just remember that someone made it, they deserve the credit, not your tumblr.
Mad Magazine let me unveil this over at The Huffington Post. I felt it would be of interest here:
If there’s one thing the usual gang of idiots is even remotely okay at, it’s mildly humorous political satire. With John Boehner ruining the country one weepy tear at a time, MAD Magazine saw fit to immortalize him in a portrait that’s much more honest than most other portraits of the Speaker of the House.
John Ficarra, Executive Editor of MAD Magazine noted, “Boehner crying was the most disturbing thing I¹ve ever seen on 60 Minutes with the exception, of course, of Andy Rooney.”
Perhaps the biggest problem with Boehner is that he’ll cry because of the hapless corporations being picked on, but won’t cry about all the children he wants to strip health care from. My hope is that gently poking fun of him will get him to see the error of his ways. You know… Since talking rationally and using logic and reason doesn’t seem to work…
Anyway, without further ado:
John Boehner: Weeper of the House
The issue of MAD featuring this portrait hits newsstands and subscribers this week.
Bryan Young is the editor of the geek news and review site Big Shiny Robot!
Much to my joy the demo version of the HTC Inspire landed in my lap yesterday, and provided me a day to drop in my sim and see how I like it. This phone is fast, scary fast, awesome fast, and the screen is huge, scary huge, awesome huge. After a fast boot up I couldn’t believe how responsive the phone was, with the new version of sense, and Android 2.2 the phone was everything I could have hoped for when announced at CES. The stock apps installed on the phone are a nice plus as well, Angry Birds, Friend Stream, Twitter, Facebook, the stock apps seemed as if HTC knew exactly what the first things I would like to grab on the phone would be, and instead decided to have them waiting there. Initial set up on the phone was quick and painless, if you’ve set up an HTC phone running Android before you’re familiar with the process. Create sense account….done, sign into Gmail….done, sign into Facebook….done, aaaand we’re off!
The phone itself feels solid, most HTC devices have a sturdy feel to them and the inspire falls right in line. It has a 4.3″ display that takes up almost the entire front panel, Android 2.2 with the updated version of HTC Sense, and of course on the back an 8 mega pixel camera complete with 720p video and L.E.D. flash. What’s missing in the design… a front facing camera, where is it? The front facing camera on cell phones is slowly making it’s way to be a standard feature, but for whatever reason, the Inspire is missing that piece. 2 design choices that I’m seeing on the Inspire as opposed to the other HTC devices I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing is the separation of the battery compartment and sim/micro SD storage. The battery compartment sits on the left side of the phone just below the volume keys and requires some solid force to open. The bottom of the phone then pulls off to reveal the sim and SD slots. This makes switching your sim a much quicker process as you no longer have to wait for the phone to power back on after replacing the battery.
Considering the overall display size and solid internals that the Inspire is packed with, I found it to be surprisingly thin. It fit in my pocket, and slid in and out easily without feeling bulky or encumbering. I did at first have a little bit of “this thing is huge” shock when I would pull it out to read an email or send a text. But that slowly passed as my realization that the bigger the screen the better phone calmly set in.
Let’s talk interface changes if we may. The device itself has my favorite device interface, HTC Sense, there are a few standard pieces and a couple new tweaks to the interface. The bottom left key on the docking bar will of course bring up all applications installed on the device, the center will allow you to make calls from your address book, dialer, or favorites, and the palette button on the right will allow you to customize the phone however you see fit. I want to spend a moment talking about the palette key and the enhancements that have come to it with the new sense layout. HTC has taken their idea of “scenes” for the phone and made it universal in customizing the phone. You can now have audio themes, themes for the actual colors and texture of the phones interface, scenes to move your application placement and more. The neat thing about the different groupings is that each one has a large amount released by HTC, and then has the free reign for user created skins and audio themes which can be uploaded, discussed and commented on through the HTC Hub. For those of us that spend hours tweaking every sound effect and image on our phone it’s a good chance to share our ideas with the Sense World, and for those of us who simply want a respectable theme and don’t want to work for it, it’s a great place to quickly personalize your phone, with little to no hassle.
The phone also supports a mobile hotspot feature, which is the first ATT phone to do so without rooting or jail-breaking. Although easy to use and convenient, the cost associated with it is a little high in my opinion. The device will allow quick hot spot access for an additional $20 dollars a month to your $25 2 gig data plan. Dear At&t use the Verizon iPhone as an excuse and give us unlimited tethering… K??? Thanks.
Aside from missing a front facing camera, and requiring an additional data plan for tethering this is a killer device and the price tag associated with it isn’t bad either. The Inspire Releases today for a no-contract price of 399.99, or a 2 year commitment price of $99.99. Specs below:
