my other mother loves me

Yesterday, Anne convinced me to take a break from work so we could go see a matinee of Coraline, which was playing in 3D at a local theater. I love the book, and I love Nightmare Before Christmas, so it seemed like a no-brainer.

But 3D? I wasn’t so sure. I’m not a huge fan of 3D. It always feels gimmicky and intrusive, and I’m always wondering when Doctor Tongue is going to thrust a cat toward the audience.

However, my love of the source material, an excuse to play hooky with my wife, and how excited I’ve been to see the movie since I first heard they were making it was enough to get me into the theater without any real argument.

I am so glad that I went, because I loved the movie. I heard that Henry Selick wanted to use the 3D technology to give the movie depth, rather than shove things into the audience’s faces, and I thought he did exactly that. I told my friends that they don’t have to see it in 3D, but they kind of have to see it in 3D.

Speaking as a fan of the book, I was mostly happy with the adaptation. They added an entirely new character, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but he didn’t feel like Scrappy Doo to me, and if I wasn’t already a fan of the book, he wouldn’t have felt out of place to me, at all. Everything I wanted to see was there, and they managed to create the world that I’d created in my head when I read it with eerie perfection.

Speaking as a fan of movies and stop-motion animation, I was delighted. All the actors are fantastic, and the set design and animation was breathtaking. You don’t need to see it in 3D, but I thought they used the 3D experience perfectly, and if you have a choice, I’d take the 3D option (which is something I never thought I’d say.)

Coraline gets 4.5 out of 5 Beldams, on the Wheaton Scale of Randomly Rating Movies In A Way Which Is Amusing To Wil.

Seriously, people, go see it. I think you’ll love it.

Podcasts I love: Pseudopod

Here's something that you probably don't know about me: Ever since I was a kid listening to KROQ on my Walkman[1] I've wanted to have my own radio show. The idea of playing music for and talking to people across the airwaves remains a dream of mine, and it's why I occasionally do my own Radio Free Burrito podcasts.

I remember when Podcasting was just getting started, back in those 8-bit days when we all thought that our digital watches were a pretty neat idea. I remember feeling really excited about the opportunity to create my own radio show, and gleeful that I lived in the future where that sort of thing was possible.

I don't produce nearly as many podcasts as I want to, but I listen to a bunch, and every day this week I'm going to share one of my favorites with you.

Today's entry is something I love, that probably wouldn't be able to exist in any other medium at any other time: Pseudopod.

Pseudopod "brings you the best short horror in audio form, to take with you anywhere" and it's pretty damn awesome. Every week, they release a new short story, entirely for free. The stories hit way more often than they miss (and that's really just because of personal tastes; the readers are all fantastic and the writing is always very, very good) and they range from short, 10-minute distractions to 45-minute journeys to Places Man Was Not Meant To Go.

Some of the stories are very disturbing — this is horror, after all — but I have yet to hear one that's gory for gore's sake, or disturbing for the sake of being disturbing. Some of them, like Clockwork, aren't even scary; they're just cool.

One of my all-time favorites was released last August. It's considered flash, so it's just 8 minutes long, but not a single moment is wasted in a story called Scarecrow, that was unexpectedly powerful and moving. Now that I think of it, that was the story that convinced me to add a Pseudopod subscription to iTunes, so maybe it's a good place for you to start if you're curious.

As I said above, I don't think Pseudopod could exist at any other time, and it showcases something I love about Podcasting, blogging, and other forms of new media: while Pseudopod would have a very hard time drawing enough listeners in one geographic location to maintain a not-in-the-middle-of-the-night slot on old terrestrial radio (not because it's not good, but just because there aren't that many people who want to listen to this sort of thing in a major market like Los Angeles, I'd guess) there are certainly enough people scattered across the planet to make up a huge audience that can support them and make their efforts worthwhile.

Yes, it's pretty awesome to live in the future.

Next time: embiggen your brain in just a minute.

[1] Imagine an iPod that plays cassette tapes and radio stations cloaked in static and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it was, kids.

there’s a preview of part one neil gaiman’s batman story online

Did you know that Neil Gaiman wrote a two part Batman special? It’s called Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, and starts at issue 686. It’s coming out very soon, and .

I’m a life-long Batman fan, and I’ve been a Neil Gaiman fan since I read the first issue of Sandman the day it went on sale. American Gods remains one of my all-time favorite books, and I loved Coraline so much, I devoured it in about 3 hours, pausing only when stupid real life demanded my interaction.

I sort of know Neil, since he wrote the introduction to my book Just A Geek, so last week he sent me a preview of the first part of his two-parter. (via a DM on Twitter. I know, right?! I love living in the future.)

I can’t get into any specifics, but I can say that it has the same “wow, this is just phenomenal” feeling as Killing Joke or The Man Who Laughs. Andy Kubert’s art is brilliant and Neil’s story and dialog are fantastic. Speaking as a fan of Neil’s work and a Batman fan, it was very satisfying, and I can’t wait to see what happens in the second part.

more work in progress

This is from the Coming of Age review I've been working on:

Obligatory Technobabble: “With this new extricator, sir, we could eliminate three more bulky machines from cargo space.” – Riker, explaining how, even though Picard says it isn’t possible, there really is room for a Foosball table in the cargo bay.

Ha. See what I did there?

I'm going to be at the Phoenix Comicon next week, and I'm bringing two unreleased TNG reviews to read. I'm not saying which ones, in case I change my mind, but I think Coming of Age may be one of them.

work in progress …

I should really tell OpenOffice that Stardate is a word, but now it’s kind of amusing to me that it always tells me “UR DOIN IT WRONG!”

Coming of Age is as enjoyable to watch as I remember, even though I haven’t seen it in at least twenty years. In fact, my only real complaint so far (I’ve watched a lot more of it than it would appear from this screenshot) is that my acting is pretty flat and predictable. I make a lot of obvious, weak choices. Of course, I’m not exactly objective about that sort of thing, so maybe I’m being too critical of myself. Also: really bad pre-helmet hairdo. There’s a story behind that, but you’ll have to wait for the book to find out what it is.

Oh, and to anyone who says that Memory Alpha isn’t exhaustively comprehensive, I can only say: flux coordinating sensor.

(Image can be embiggened at Flickr)