Every Tuesday I post a section of my novella DEFEAT. While I think the readership of OL would be interested in a science fictional tale guaranteed to end with the hero killing himself at the nexus of his reality, I know that there’s skepticism about the value of any fiction appearing on the `net. Whatevs, bro!

However, every episode of DEFEAT. is accompanied by a piece of gorgeous art by my pal Brian Galiano. I’ve given him free reign to do whatever he wants – every Tuesday I just check my email – and the results have been fantastic.

Hit the jump to check out all of the art that Bri has submitted thus far!

Read the rest of this entry »

While this may not exactly be nerdy news or the usual OL steez, I’ve been drooling over this news since last night and had to post. Mildred Pierce, one of the greatest tales of greed and sex from the oeuvre of roman noir, is getting a much-deserved treatment by HBO and director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven). The 1941 novel, by crime scribe god James M. Cain (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice) was originally adapted by Warner Bros. in 1945. That version, starring Joan Crawford, had its balls cut off to appease the censors and features none of the book’s complex narcissism or an ounce of its darkness.

Winslet is playing Mildred, a housewife turned pastry chef desperately trying to maintain her family’s social status during the Great Depression. She’s also desperately trying to win the acceptance of her ungrateful daughter, Veda (Evan Rachel Wood). She’s a total biotch. When Mildred falls in with dashing playboy Monty (Guy Pierce), a twisted tangling of wills begins between Mildred and Veda. Cain’s major works were always about sex and the fast-buck. While Midred Pierce isn’t my favorite of his work, it’s unarguably his most ambitious and “epic.”

Depression era LA looks abso-lutely gorgeous and Winslet definitely has the chops to pull of Mildred’s grim naivete. This pleases me.

Ok. Back to your regularly scheduled nerdiness and sexual euphemisms.

[images & words is the comic book pick-of-the-week at OL. equal parts review and diatribe, the post highlights the most memorable/infuriating/entertaining book released that wednesday]

Life can be too damn busy at times. Too much work to do. Too many errands to run. Too many cults to join.

With free time a commodity, one has to be very careful about prioritizing. As much as it pains me, there’s no way that I’m going to get through this week’s stack of comics before next Wednesday. It sucks, but I’d feel like a real sonofabitch if I sat around reading comics instead of going to the pharmacy to pick up Grampa’s prescription.

So this week, I looked through my funnies and tried to determine which single issue would receive my attention. Again, this wasn’t easy – it sucks to have to put off reading Choker as Templesmith’s art is fantasti-gorgeous, and Wolverine: The Best There Is since it seems to be specifically designed for my ultra-violent sensibilities.

Nevertheless, I decided. This week’s featured collection of wordy-scribbles and colorful-doodles is Sweet Tooth #17.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yayzus Graphics went ahead and re-envisioned token male characters from the Star Wars universe as pin-up girls. I don’t know what’s more disconcerting; the idea, or the fact that I find myself mildly aroused. Yes, yes, Admiral Ackbar with breasts. Oh, so glorious. I can’t tell if this is sharp subversion of powerful male figures, or just good natured fun.

Who the fuck cares?

Hit the jump to see Darth Vader and Greedo with boobs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oh yeah! How about some late Friday night news off your tits? Trent Reznor is once again working with David Fincher. After absolutely rocking out on the Social Network score with Atticus Ross, it’s been revealed that Mr. NIN is returning for Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo remake.

Slashfilm:

Briefly: Not a lot of info right now, but during a New York Times livestream interview with Trent Reznor, the musician revealed that he is scoring David Fincher‘s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and has been working on the film for about six weeks. He said to expect something different from his score for The Social Network, though things might change in the year before the film opens.

Bleeding Cool Update:

Little Bleeder Scorpio tells me that the news originated within a  Times Talk broadcast with Reznor, and that Atticus Ross  isindeed involved. The two of them have been working on the score for a couple of months now. Reznor apparently also talked about his non-soundtrack music career, and said that he had no plans for more NIN.

A “disgustingly huge” Reznor fan at  Filmonic was tuned in and offers this information:

In the interview, Reznor stated that words such as “ice” and “frozen” have inspired the new score, and that it is performance-based, with him playing strings (violin, ‘cello, etc.) to the best of his abilities, and then placing those performances through various processing. It sounds interesting. The score for  The Social Network used entirely electronic sounds and instruments. Reznor was due to perform / play some of the new music for  Girl with the Dragon Tattoo during the interview, but unfortunately was unable to prepare for it and thus perform it, due to the passing away of his mother last Sunday.

Fucking fantastic.  These two dudes have been collaborating together for a while now. Closer was used in Se7en, Fincher directed a video for Nine Inch Nails’ song Only, and there’s the aforementioned work on the Social Network. And since I have a pants ripping hard-on for both of the dudes, this is fanboy wankery to me.

The newest Bulletpoints came out today, in hype of Bulletstorm, and if you thought the first one was great, wait until you see this. Dude Huge pontificates on his grandfather telling him he can do anything. It also features the phrase “blow out a man’s asshole.”

Hit the jump for the video.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s been casting rumors swirling around Elijah Wood, Sir Frodo himself, returning in The Hobbit. I know, you’re all like, wait, what? Jackson is hell bent on getting the band back together, regardless of whether or not it makes sense. How exactly are they going to inject some Frodo into The Hobbit, when he was never originally there?

Oh shit, framing sequence! A little bookending, to get Wood into the game.

The One Ring elaborates:

As readers of “The Hobbit” know, the tale of “The Downfall of The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit or There and Back Again,” are contained in the fictional “Red Book of Westmarch.” In Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, the book is shown on screen and written in by Bilbo and Frodo and handed off to Sam Gamgee. (Not explained on film are Sam’s progeny later having the book and being Wardens of the Westmarch – hence the book’s title.)

The fictional book, and either the telling from it or the reading of it, will establish Frodo in the films experiencing Bilbo’s story. Viewers are to learn the tale of ‘The Hobbit’ as a familiar Frodo gets the tale as well.

Interesting. I’m going to go ahead and still file this bullshit under shoehorning Frodo into The Hobbit flick. Why? Fan service. Marketability. Jackson’s love for Wood and the character. Still though, the framing sequence as th means to accomplish it? I can get down with that. If we need some Frodo in the flick, I like this approach. Better than him rolling up into some awkward scene.

Thoughts?

The bleeding of information about the PlayStation Phone continues. Want some video of the PlayStation Phone in motion? Some gaming? A look into the PlayStation Pocket software launcher?

Then hit the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Watch the fuck out! That’s the Mars Opportunity rover rolling up on a crater. Don’t do it! Life’s worth living! This picture is pretty awesome. It’s of a piece of technology we placed down to explore an alien world being seen by another piece of technology we jettisoned into space and traveled 35-million miles.

Righteous.

Via.

Hello Earthlings of certain proclivities! Salutations. This is Press Start!, the column where I break down the week in gaming. I drudge together five happenings that caught my eye in the Video Gameverse. The list doesn’t reflect importance, or anything other than my personal preference. Hit the goddamn fucking comments box with your own input.

Buckle up, take your accelerant of choice, and let’s party.

—-

#1: Characters From Street Fighter Break Into WWE, Paralyze People.
The characters from Street Fighter don’t give a shit. They routinely smash the living shit out of cars just ’cause. In the middle of a god damn tournament, they’ll thrash your whip with snap kicks and shit. So why wouldn’t they cross franchise boundaries and whip the ass of unsuspecting dudes in spandex?

There’s no good reason why they wouldn’t. And now they are.

Some good chap used the character creation tool thingy in Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 to create twenty or so Street Fighter characters. Which, if I’m not mistaken people can download onto their PlayStation Boxes. This is fucking fantastic. If I bought the game I’d be all over this shit.

Superheroes in a wrestling game? If John Cena doesn’t deserve a spinning lariat from Zangief, who the fuck does? As I’ve blathered on about, the Street Fighter characters are a righteous addition because they call back to the golden days of wrestling. Back when the characters weren’t just assholes in denim shorts. They were assholes fighting for Communism, or capable of voodoo, or undead dudes who dropped tombstones and carried around creepy ass urns.

—-

#2: GameStop Has 3.6 Billion Dollar Holiday, But This Is Failure.
Fascist pig video game whoring multiplex GameStop made 3.6 billion dollars over the holiday season. What was the general reaction to these numbers? The joint’ stock fell by 6 perfect. This is despite the store’s profits rising by a poetically fitting 6 percent. Buh?

Listen, I’m not a economist. The only numbers I can crunch are those of my bank account. And as a graduate student making a shit stipend, the numbers are dismal. After the holiday season, you can hear echoes off the chambers of my savings account. So I’d take 3.6 billion dollars. Fuck, I’d take $5,000.

So what lead to the stock falling? The lack of growth. Despite the sales numbers, stockholders (is that what they’re called?) weren’t happy with the percent of growth. I see, I see. Other contributing factors may be the lack of suitable increase in GameStop’s used gaming market, which only grew 1.7 percent, or people who bought in for the holiday season but are not throwing up deuces and leaving.

Disagree with these reasons? I didn’t think them up, I’m just reporting.

Don’t shoot me.

But a 3.6 billion dollar disappointment? Amazing.

—-

#3: Super Mario At The Ice Capades Will Prolapse You.
I miss the 1980’s. Nothing made sense, and because of that, anything made sense. Take for example this segment from the 1988 Ice Capades. Hosted by Jason Bateman and a hot ass (I hope she’s legal here) Alyssa Milano, it features Super Mario and friends skating around in what can only be described as delirious awesomeness.

Bateman and Milano are rocking out playing some Super Mario backstage when – gasp! – the unthinkable happens. The original Nintendo catches a virus and allows the characters to escape the confines of their shitty grey cartridge.  Trust me, this is amazing.

Also, let it be a lesson to you. Video games are dangerous. Everything your parents hear on the Boob Tube is correct: these games can fucking kill you. One minute you’re boppin’ shit for coins, the next minute Bowser is unleashed on the tangible realm. Looking for some ass to crush. Ask Princess, that shit hurts. Hurts done bad.

Read the rest of this entry »