Hold it now, wait a minute, just let me catch my breath. Fall semester’s over, and I’m positively jubilant. Made it through a gauntlet of swinging axes, motorized chainsaws, and ovulating desperate women with elephantiasis of the labia. Grad school man, not like it used to be. I’m excited man, excited.

I’m in my sweatpants! Just straight kicking it. Snow is falling, Santa Claus is assuredly preparing his run, and there is scant hours before I’m nestled up to my future-wife. Is time linear? Is God watching? Is he outside time? Has he already seen my children? Are they awesome? Can someone tell me? Aquinas? Anselm? Descartes? Bueller?

I was reading some Zero History by Billy Gibson when the sudden urge to just type hit me. So here I am. Nothing really to say. But most of the time it’s like “Oh hey! Check out X thing that is totally happening! Here I compare it to some sort of genital squirting into some sort of farm animal! LOL! I tell jokes!” It’s different when I’m not strung out on Diet Mountain Dew trying to post a news article as quickly as possible. Or staring at a deadline approaching as I try to cobble together five things in the video game world.

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Some people have dope fucking jobs. Photographer Dan Saelinger was tasked by Fortune Magazine to come up with a shoot based around the concept of gaming’s demise. Dan elaborates on his blog:

We came up with a concept to incorporate still and video footage of exploding consoles and controllers, particularly Xbox 360′s, for the story. The shoot took place at a pyrotechnics studio in Brooklyn called J and M Special Effects. The location was great because they have a permanent NYC explosives permit as well as a pyrotechnician on staff. Below is a behind the scenes video of the initial set up.

The result is gorgeous. Hit the jump for a video of an Xbox 360 exploding in slow motion. For PS3 fanboys, it’s probably orgasmic. To me it’s just very, very cool.

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I’m currently in the “it could be fucking awesome!” portion of my oscillating opinion on the BSG prequel, Blood and Chrome. If it’s a high quality production tackling Billy Adama and the first Cylon War? Goodness gracious, it could be terrific.

Miss out on my earlier article about Blood and Chrome? Here you go:

Blood and Chrome takes place 20 years after Caprica and about 40 years before Battlestar Galactica.

Writer of the script Michael Taylor elaborates:

This is very much an action-adventure, war series. This is definitely dealing with people who are fighting the fight. … As you hope ‘Battlestar’ would do, it kind of comments on that process a little bit… but not in a preachy way, not in an issues-oriented way, not in a hitting-you-over-the-head way.

Hit the jump for some concept art from the upcoming series, which is slated to hit in late 2011 or early 2012.

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Thanks to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we have the most detailed reliefs of the far side of the moon. Ever! Ever! Oh, technology. The Orbiter was capable of capturing the surface down to thirty-meters. G’damn. The trippy colors? False colors used to denote the various heights. The reds are the highest areas, the blues are the lowest.

Hit the jump for the psychedelic space porn.

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For months Hickman’s excellent Fantastic Four has been building up to what I’ve assumed is a death to one of the members of the F4. So what happens to them after the Countdown to Casualty hits? It seems a beginning.

Issue one though? Is it a new monthly? Are they rebooting the numbering of F4? I must know! I must! Know!

My ridiculous excitement over this vague teaser is a testament to Hickman’s run on F4. His ability to bring wonder back into the overly status-quo and rote Marvel universe through intergalactic adventures has me sweating the comic book every month. In a world where everything seems beaten to death, and tropes ground into paste, he has managed to make the Marvel Universe feel enormous. There’s potential behind every door, universes to explore. Whatever the fuck this is, I want in on it.

Via.

From left to right: Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis, and Coppola

Yesterday was Spielberg’s 64th birthday and the HollywoodReporter posted this photo from George Lucas’ 50th birthday party. Makes sense.

I love how everyone is dressed up except for De Palma. He totally photobombed them. It’s like he doesn’t really like Lucas but heard there was going to be free booze. What’s so funny, Ron Howard?! Sweet tie, Lucas. Coppola’s such a lush.

For the second Christmas Creep in a row, I’m putting my foot in my mouth. When I pitched the Creep to the fearless leaders of OL, I told them I would be writing up the shittiest, most painful Christmas specials/movies. Like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and blew my load on the premiere installment, Christmas With the Turtles. Is that like Icarus? It doesn’t matter. What I mean is that after that first article, I keep accidentally watching AWESOME Christmas jams! It’s a Christmas miracle (which I didn’t think was possible since I’m engaged to a Jew). Earlier this week I enjoyed the hell out of Max Headroom’s Giant X-Mas Turkey and yesterday, over a Diet Coke and toast, Santa With Muscles (1996) tickled my bad-good movie bone. And my pecs.

Hulk Hogan plays a militaristic, millionaire grinch who gets knocked out during a mall debacle and wakes up thinking he’s Santa. He befriends the residents of an orphanage – including a 13-year-old Mila Kunis – and helps them wreck some plot by nefarious developers to shut down their facility. Along the way there’s singing, inept figt scenes, and explosive crystals. Yes, explosive crystals. Needless to say, it’s awesome.

Directed by John Murlowski, a volunteer at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center hotline *record scratch* Say wha? Hold up. I’m sure his noble activity as a suicide hotline volunteer has nothing to do with shame over the films he’s directed. Moving on, this movie is the perfect storm of ’90s cheese with a Hulkamania cherry on top. Hogan was on fire in the first half of the ’90s. Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, and the Thunder in Paradise trilogy. Near the tail-end of this streak is Santa With Muscles, his movie-fart swan song, so to speak.

The “film” also stars Ed Begley, Jr. as an evil scientist and Clint Howard as a mall cop. As mentioned earlier, a 13-year-old Mila Kunis plays an orphan and in a weird twist of TV Fate, her future castmate on That ’70s Show Don Stark plays Lenny the Elf. Fellow WWF superstar Brutus the Barber Beefcake has an entirely too brief cameo as a thug but it’s Hogan who carries this turd on his shoulders like Atlas. And Icarus. Atlas and Icarus. I guess

This might be the perfect Christmas Hangover movie. There’s enough cheese to enjoy and enough crap to enjoy heckling with your pals. Consider hunting this down online before you channel surf for some more traditional X-Mas flick.

WARNING: Performing an image search for “santa with muscles” will open up a Pandora’s Box of porn that I’m guessing does not fall into our readers’ preferred spank material.

Sorry to turn OL into a gossip rag for a minute but this is too good. Magnolia Pictures threw its holiday party last night at the IFC Center in NYC and it appears that one of the center’s employees is not a fan of indie-horror filmmaker Ti West. It’s reported that an employee exchanged words with West, allegedly calling him an “egotistical prick.” He then proceeded to pour his beer on West, which is something you just don’t do to anyone. West punched the employee in his smart face, breaking his nose.

This information comes from Devin at BadassDigest, who read a tweet this morning that led him on a hunt to find out what happened. Not that many details have surfaced yet but West was apparently stunned at his own strength. The blood-covered employee was taken to a nearby hospital.

Maybe the sucker is one of the many people who think West is overrated and that his movies have miserable pacing. I’m not one of those turkeys. West’s House of the Devil was one of my favorites of 2009 and a terrific homage to classic, slow-burning terror like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. His 2007 thriller Trigger Man has a third act that will keep your ass clenched until the credits roll. The Innkeepers, West’s latest, comes out sometime next year and at 30-years-old it’s scary to think how bright this kid’s future is. Oh, he also sports the GREATEST IMDB profile picture in history.

Hopefully that glass-jawed employee doesn’t press charges and they can settle like this men; over a beer and a handshake. On a related note, tune into OL tomorrow evening for my review of The Fighter!

This shit is out of control. Welcome to the fucking future. Word Lens is an app for an iPhone which translates languages in real time. Somehow, the world just got a little bit smaller. And more awesome. How fucking ridiculous is this? Goddamn, I love the time period I live in.

Hit the jump for a video of it in action.

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Sneaker Freaker carried a preview of the Preview of the Star Wars x Adidas 2011 line. Some of it is dope, some of it is gaudy, but the important thing is this: it’s all fucking Star Wars. Freaker breaks down what we’re looking at here:

The collection is broken into two parts – the ‘Select Pack’ that is closely modeled on characters from the original film franchise, and the ‘Direct Pack’ which fuses the Star Wars universe with sports and pop culture. Highlights include a AT-AT Pilot El Dorado with a jumbo tongue similar to the Jeremy Scott Mickeys; a vividly detailed Skyline with the urban skyline replaced by an illustration of the Imperial planet Coruscant; and a deathly dark ZX-8000 with crackling energy beams on the midsole representing Emporor Palpatine. There’s also a nod to the Imperial Guard, a rasta Boba Fett mash up, plus some Ewing inspired Storm Trooper ballers.

Hit the jump for a gallery of the line.

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