Freckles Galore at the new Rav-Hen

A couple of weeks ago they finally reopened the old Rav-Hen theater at Dizengoff Square, so naturally I had to go and take a look myself. The new theaters look pretty nice, but I was pretty bummed out by the fact that all the new screens' aspect ratio is about 1:1.85, which means that movies shot in scope take up only 75% of the screen. That's right, from now on the projected image at the Dizengoff Rav-Hen of movies shot in scope is actually smaller than that of standard movies, which goes against the whole basic idea of shooting a movie in scope! Once again I am reminded of that ancient and timeless truth that everybody's an asshole. They even got rid of the beautiful red curtain! Oh well. At least it's an all-digital theater now. On to the movies themselves then. First I went to see Price of Persia: The Sands of Time, because it was shown in the largest and nicest theater in the complex, which is supposed to be the largest theater in Israel at around 500 seats. Also, seeing Gemma Arterton on a big screen makes me feel like there's a party in my pants and every one of my limbs is invited, but that was more like the carob tree-smelling icing on my very pathetic little cake. I suppose the movie was OK for what it was, but apart from the pattern of freckles on Ms. Arterton's face it was completely unmemorable. And Jake Gyllenhaal is an action star about as much as I am a porn star, in the sense that you can tell that he really wants to be one, but sadly he simply doesn't have the goods. Poor little guy. Poor, self deluded, off-putting box office drag. Anyway. A few days later I went to see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in one of the smaller theaters in the same complex, and I actually really liked it. I can't say I'm a huge Terry Gilliam fan, as most of his films aren't as well structured as I usually like my movies to be, but this one was entertaining enough for me to disregard the confusing plot. Now, I can't be completely certain, but I'm pretty sure that The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is about some sort of immortal doctor named Parnassus who operates a traveling stage show along with his smoking hot redheaded daughter, some kid who looks like a young Rowan Atkinson (only not as physically appealing) and Mini-Me dressed like a rat, because every traveling show needs a Mini-Me who dresses like a smelly rodent. For some reason the good doctor keeps making these horribly stupid bets with the Devil, the latest of which means that as soon as his scrumptious daughter turns sweet sixteen he's going to have to hand her sweet little ass over to the master of down under. Sure, he tries to make everybody believe that his baby girl is still only twelve years old, but as anyone can clearly see from the October 2008 Issue of the French edition of Playboy, there are some sweater puppies you just can't hide forever, and for a good reason indeed. A couple of days before the plump-cheeked little vixen is about to become a woman, the merry group finds a dead Australian dude hanging by his neck from a bridge. Or is he in fact dead? On the one hand, he seems to be breathing and walking around and being what passes for charming these days. On the other hand, he looks suspiciously like Heath Ledger, who I'm pretty sure was killed by Batman a couple of years ago. So now Parnassus is going to use this mysterious young stranger to try and win yet another bet with the Devil by winning over five human souls using his fancy Imaginarium thingy, which I guess is some sort of mystical device that lets people live out their innermost desires without going online. The way that every time that Ledger's character crosses over to the Imaginarium it is portrayed by a different actor with identical creepy facial hair almost makes sense, which turned out to be enough, so it didn't make me feel too distracted. What did keep distracting me was how deliciously luscious Lily Cole is. At first I thought she was too weird looking, with those freakishly large cheeks and the general Close Encounters vibe, but her look quickly grew on me so that by the time she showed some skin on screen I was very nearly at semi-full salute. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a pretty cool little film with some very neat visuals and an interesting and exciting story that at times managed to touch my non-dangly bits, and I'm definitely going to watch it again as soon as I, you know, feel like it.

This looks like a 12 year old girl about as much as I do

I know nobody is supposed to care about the Eurovision song contest except queers, the mentally disabled and people over the age of 50, but last night's 19 year old winner is just so cute and German that I'm seriously thinking about crossing over to the poofy side just so I could worship the ground she walks on from a more socially acceptable standpoint. I think it's a sound plan, don't you?

Even gay dudes have a chubby for Lena Meyer-Landrut!

DRAW ME!!!

And this is what you do when some crazy broad keeps asking you to draw her. Let that be a lesson to you all!

Beware the Jabberwock

For he is too adorable!

Clash of the Clash of the Titanses

A few weeks ago I went to see the new Clash of the Titans in 3D and was severely traumatized by the whole experience, but more on that later. More than anything it made me want to watch the original movie again, and so earlier this week I watched it on my awesome new TV and was thrilled to discover that it was even better than I had remembered. I mean, sure, it's pretty much 100% pure cheese, and if you happen to be one of those freaks who claim they can't metabolize lactose you better stay clear of it or suffer the consequences, but isn't that the whole point of making a two-hour sword and sandal epic complete with '50s style stop motion animation? There's so much cool stuff in there I wouldn't know where to begin. It totally reminded me of the time I visited Berlin's Film and Television Museum in 2007 and they had the most amazing exhibition of Ray Harryhausen's work, and my brain got so overloaded by being in the presence of all those incredible creations that by the time I got to the exhibition's guestbook all I could write was the word AWESOME next to a silly little happy face. After I first watched the movie as a kid on TV I got sort of obsessed with the idea that there is a gigantic reptile imprisoned in a huge underwater cave somewhere in the vicinity of Andromeda's Rock in Jaffa. Sadly, as hard as I looked, I was never been quite able to spot the creature in that area, but the image of the Kraken swimming out of its cave and up to the water's surface has continued to haunt me for years. Now, he original Clash of the Titan is a timeless creation that is truly the stuff dreams are made of, so there was no way a remake, any remake, by any director, would ever come even a tiny bit close to its mighty awesomeness, and in no way did I go into the theater expecting to see a masterpiece. I'd seen all the trailers, so I was pretty sure I knew what I was getting myself into, but nothing could have prepared me for the horror that is Clash of the Titans 3D. I mean, the movie itself wasn't that bad, and I'm sure that if I were to gauge one of my eyes prior to the screening I might have even enjoyed Jake Sully's adventures in Mythland quite a bit, but the studio geniuses who decided that the film demanded a brief two week long conversion to 3D have robbed me of every last second of fun I could have experienced in the theater. Once again I was reminded of how everybody in Hollywood is an asshole, and how some people will stop at nothing to make a few extra bucks. These are the kind of rotten bastards who could single-handedly destroy the future of 3D cinema, because really, what kind of moron would ever want to knowingly pay money to see a 3D nightmare that looks even worse than the most horrible cut-out puppet theatre you could possibly imagine? This movie was never a work of art, and even the creature designs weren't all that exciting, but the awful 3D conversion makes everything in it look so fake and distorted it literally insults your eyes' capacity to, you know, see stuff. If it weren't for all the hot chicks in togas there would have been a good chance I would have just left the theater halfway through this 4K disaster. However, Gemma Arterton is just way too lovely to say no to. I've only seen her before in those awful trailers for Prince of Persia, but these days I suffer from a physical inability to produce an erection while looking at something produced by Disney, so I guess I hadn't payed enough attention to how painfully attractive she really is. Alexa Davalos is an extremely beautiful and talented young actress who first got my attention when she guest starred in one of those TV shows about cuddly tormented vampires, and yet for some reason she doesn't seem to get enough work in the industry, at least not as much as I'd like her to get. It probably just means that she's not too great at sucking cock, which is really the only way to get ahead in life, but I guess it's just one of those traits you have to be born with. In any way, those two were the only two things that made the experience of Clash of the Titans 3D even remotely bearable for me, even if they did remain fully clothed the entire time, and I'd like thank them deeply for that, as deeply and passionately as physically and humanly possible.

Gemma Arterton's incredible front side

Alexa Davalos probably stinks at performing fellatio

Gemma Arterton's spectacular back side

This Saturday is going to be Caroline Dhavernas' 32nd birthday, which means that in four days I'll be only one decade away from being able to star in my very own production of a popular Judd Apatow comedy. Hooray!

Happy Birthday Caroline! Best wishes, hugs, kisses and creepy hair sniffing!

It's funny how little pricks can be so friggin' awesome

Earlier this week I went to see Iron Man 2: Return of Marv, and I was thrilled to find that it was, dare I say, even awesomer than the first one, which was a pretty damn cool movie to begin with. The new movie starts exactly where the previous one left off, with Tony announcing to the entire world and its cross eyed grandma that he is in fact Iron Man. What we didn't know back when he did it last time was that on the other side of the planet, in some kind of Russian country (or perhaps the actual Motherland itself, I wasn't really paying enough attention), some big evil dude who kinda looks like Mickey Rourke only with a mouthful of gold and really creepy facial hair (is there any other kind?) was watching too. Watching, cursing under his thinly-haired lip and making his plans for his very own brand of BDSM style world domination scheme. A few months later, on the slightly less icky side of the world, Tony Stark is enjoying his new role as the protector of the free world, which in his case means a bunch of hot chicks in revealing Iron Man-inspired get-ups, a gigantic horde of screaming fans, an even larger horde of chicks who'd kill to have Mr. Stark sign their bikini areas with his fleshy magic marker, lots and lots of money and one redheaded Gwyneth Paltrow, minus the fake British accent. The people high up are obviously not too happy about Iron Man stealing all the fame and glory, and so they send this pathetic, whiny-voiced senator who used to be a pathetic, whiny-voiced talk show host to make Tony surrender the Iron Man technology to the military, but Tony here is just way too cool to let anyone kill his buzz. His real problem is that the shiny thing in his chest that helps him be, like, alive, is also slowly poisoning him, which means that unless he finds an alternative power source to palladium and soon he's going to have to fly all the way to the forest moon of Pandora, and I'm not sure the Iron Man suit was designed for such a distance. Well, that is until he is faced with yet another problem in the shape of a big Russian dude with a couple of big sparkly whips that can slice a racing car in half like a big delicious stick of butter. The Russian dude claims that his dad used to work with Tony's dad, which brings out a lot of Iron Man's old daddy issues, which probably started when Stark senior cheated on his wife with Christina Hendrix back in the '60s when they both worked together in an ad agency on Madison Avenue. The evil Russian guy teams up with this evil arms industrialist who among other stuff possesses a weapon called The Ex-Wife that can do the most amazing thing I've ever seen on screen (you'll have to see it to believe it!), and together they want to pretty much render Iron Man into a fashionable tin foil hat. Could their dire plans ever work? Probably not, but their efforts are still pretty fun to watch. The cool thing about Iron Man 2 is that it is just that. Cool, and very much so. I don't see how anyone could not like Robert Downey Jr. as the fun loving, crime fighting millionaire who can just point at any voluptuous little chicklet and announce "I want one". Mickey Rourke is really good at playing big tough guys, Sam Rockwell is really good at playing total dicks and Gwyneth Paltrow is really good at playing chicks with absolutely no sex appeal. Everybody's good in it, even Hugh Hefner, who this time around plays the role of Larry King for some reason, which managed to confuse me quite a bit. I've never been a huge Scarlett Johansson fan, but I guess even she's sort OK here, mostly due to the fact that she doesn't really have too much to do here other than wear a push-up bra and look technically hot. I really like the new Marvel movies, and as long as Robert Downey Jr. can wear his mocap suit I just want to see more and more and more Iron Man sequels, as far as the eye can see!

This does absolutely nothing for me

And last week I watched The Hurt Locker on my brand new 42" FHD TV, and it was pretty boring. I mean, there was this one scene that looked kinda pretty, but it's not like it's that hard to make fire look pretty during nighttime. The best part of the movie was Evangeline Lilly's five second cameo, but she wasn't even handling a gun (I think they gave her some sort of baby instead), so the whole thing felt pretty pointless. I know I'm known for my politically correct manner, but it just goes to show you that the only people who still care about the Oscars are tards and queers.

Crap. What the hell am I going to do once Lost is over?!

And, um, finally, er, I'm sorry. Couldn't really help myself. Enjoy!

Gawd, I wish I was 3 ft. tall like Dominic Monaghan

Farewell, trusty old scanner

I'm getting a new computer next week, which means I probably won't get another chance to use my old scanner, a yellowing UMAX Astra 610P. To this day I'm still not quite sure why my dad got it for me all those years ago, but it's been really good to me ever since. To mark the occasion and say my goodbye, I drew and scanned the last comic strip I'll ever use it with. And so, without further to do, here is Do You Like Bananas. *sniff*