No Zytrons In Range

Bridge demolition on Virginia’s Department of Transportation’s YouTube page:

Bridge demolition on Washington’s Department of Transportation’s YouTube page:

You win this time, Virginia!

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An animatronic dog in a spacesuit playing Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Otherside”:

(Courtesy of ProgramBlue.com, via Fark)

I like Will Smith. Not necessarily because I think he’s a great actor, but because he has a knack for picking good movies to act in. His worst, I, Robot, was still very watchable and entertaining, assuming you’re not one of those “it’s not like the novel!” geeks.

But his new movie, Hancock, is asking for trouble. It’s a comedy movie with a superhero, or a superhero comedy… and in the entire history of films I’ve been exposed to, I’ve never seen a half-decent superhero comedy. With one exception.

Let’s review. Does anybody remember My Super Ex-Girlfriend? No? Not surprising, since it has a Rotten Tomatos rating of only 41%, and was in and out of theaters faster than you could blink.

(I have to admit, I haven’t seen this movie. The previews looked terrible enough to scare me away. All I really know about it is that it stole the “wielding a shark as a melee weapon” from an issue of Flare:)

Disney got into the action with their film about superheros attending a special superhero high school where they learned to control their powers named Sky High. Kurt Russel and a relatively-sizeable role by Bruce Campbell couldn’t save this turkey. I think it’s safe to say I’ve never seen a more formulaic and cliche-ridden movie in my life, although I was impressed by the lengths it went to defeat its own premise in the final ten minutes. (Premise, stated dozens of times: even the sidekicks can contribute and fight crime. Climax of movie: former sidekick can only save school by becoming a full-powered hero. Hypocrites.) Rotten Tomatos, surprisingly, gives this one 73%, and I have no idea why.

Next in line, we have the horrible The Meteor Man. This movie stars Robert Townsend as an urban do-gooder who gains superpowers. I actually don’t remember a lot about this movie either, other than he had the power to learn any ability by touching a book about it, which led to a “hilarious” sequence in a library where he and his similarly-powered counterpart constantly changed tactics as they touched different books on the ground. Rotten Tomatos gives The Meteor Man a dismal 25%.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, Will Smith? Be careful out there, ok? This could be the first real stinker of your career, and I don’t want to see that happen.

(Oh, the good movie? I think Mystery Men is hilarious. But a lot of people disagree with me.)

I don’t make it a habit to post YouTube videos on this blog, but I just had to point this one out because I think it’s about the most perfect YouTube video I’ve seen. It’s short and to the point, in focus and in the correct aspect ratio, it tells the message in a way everyone will understand. This actually gives you some hope that the ‘user-created content’ craze can actually create good content.

But most importantly, Charley is damned cute. And it seems to me that having a cat with really poor motor skills would be many times more fun than having a normal cat.