top 10 favorite anti-heroes

In doing research on villains, i started thinking about another brand of character: the anti-hero. My list comes from literature, comics, and film.

10. Holden Caulfield – A very popular, angst-filled character from The Catcher in the Rye.  I really enjoyed the book, even though it’s not my favorite writings by J.D. Salinger.

9. Beatrix Kiddo (the Bride) – Kill Bill – The sword fight from II alone is worth mentioning her.

8. Arthur Dent – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – I liked the movie ok (i really should see it again), but it’s one of my favorite books.  Arthur Dent is something else.

7. Jack Sparrow – obviously played brilliantly by Johnny Depp.

6. Wolverine – comic, film, or cartoon.  Especially Huge Jackman’s performance.  Maybe one of the best nailed performances of a superhero we have on film.

5. Magneto – both a villain and an anti-hero.  He seems to flip flop, but he doesn’t falter in his quest for equality for mutants.  Wow.  I totally geeked out there.

4. Jules Winnfield – Pulp Fiction – he’s just bad ass.

3. Han Solo – Star Wars – A hired hand, a smuggler, shot first, but ends up being one of our favorites from the entire Star Wars saga.

2. Severus Snape – played amazingly by Alan Rickman.  Rickman shaped how i saw Snape as i read.  His performance actually made the books better.  Snape is a very complex character, maybe the most complex of the entire Harry Potter series.

1. Tyler Durdan – Fight Club – This may be the only movie that i actually liked better than the book, although the book is very good.  Brad Pitt’s performance of Durdan is probably my favorite role of Pitt’s movie career.  It’s also my favorite performance by Edward Norton.  Durdan’s desire to positively impact the world through community and pseudo-terrorism is fascinating.  You can almost look into the mind of a terrorist and see why they do things.  Obviously, the amount of bad that Durdan does, or tells others to do, far outweighs the good, but the fact that he is so bad, yet you want to, in a way, be him, is so good.

top 10 favorite villains

In honor of today and politicians in general, here is a list for you. This is a list of my favorite villains.

10. Syler (Heroes) – Creepy, unpredictable, and kind of cool.  The whole part in season 2 where he didn’t have his powers i try to forget.

9. Lord Voldemort (book and movie) – ominous is the best word to describe ‘You-Know-Who’ or ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’.

8. Venom (Spiderman) – just a really cool villain.  Gooey and strong and powerful and some of the powers of Spiderman.  I can play him in one of the video games I own.  VERY fun.

7. Emperor Palpatine – mainly for this speech: “Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends, up there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was *I* who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator! It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them! Oh, I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.”

6. The Brain – Pinky and the Brain.  No explanation needed.

5. Anton Chigurh – No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and made me uneasy in the process.  Maybe one of my favorite performances in the past several years by a villain.

4.  Agent Smith from the Matrix. Hugo Weaving nailed this role like he does most of his roles. Also, in my top 5 favorite movies of all time.

3. The Joker (Both Nicholson and Ledger) – hard to go wrong with demented homicidal maniacs as villains.

2. Magneto – I love the X-men movies, comics, cartoons, and video games.  Magneto is a complex villain, one with a purpose that isn’t evil in the way that trying to take over the world is evil, but has more depth. His dry wit and calm power is truly impressive.

1. Darth Vader – Most evil bad-ass in any movie.  You know he’s evil, yet, you want to be him for some reason.  Or maybe you don’t.  AND, he has a very cool name.

Honorable Mention – I like these guys too. In no particular order.

Boba Fett
Juggernaut (X-Men the cartoon and comics.  not so much the film.)
Kaiser Soeze – The Usual Suspects
Hannibal Lector
Megatron (Transformers)
Cobra Commander/Storm Shadow/Destro
Bill from Kill Bill
Elijah Price – Unbreakable
Sheriff of Nottingham – Robin Hood Prince of Thieves
John Doe – Kevin Spacey – Se7en

music for your inner-geek

The entire soundtrack to Super Mario World performed by 1 man using dozens of instruments.  Like Sufjan Stevens meets childhood memories.  Seriously, this is great stuff.  (thanks to Aaron)

the future is here

ever since seeing Minority Report, i have hoped for something as cool as this.  i guess Bill and his crew have been working to do more than make my life hell by having a crappy browser like IE out there to haunt me in my job.

first the xbox 360, now this thing.  brilliant.  i’m going to take back at least 5 of the bad things i’ve said about Microsoft.

Bits and Pieces.

a. Heard a car’s tires squeeling, then a crash at 11ish on friday night. We ran outside and within minutes there were 11 police vehicles on our small street. Some car was being pursued by officers and smashed through our neighbor’s fence. The driver ran, but the passanger took a ride in a police car. The white vehicle was in fairly bad shape after running through 2 fences and some trees.

b. lowercase collective is playing a show on July 12th at the Exit/In with Ballroom Dancing and The Roman Empire, who just happens to be going to Dallas this weekend to compete to go to the world finals of Emergenza. Starts at 9pm, and we go on first. $5. Please come to the show.

c. i had dinner with some people i just met the other night, and the guy, named Jason, used to go to school at NYU. he would often see Jennifer Connelly walking down the street, and one of his friends dared him to ask her out. He waited for her to come out of a small grocery store and asked her if he could buy her a coffee sometime. She paused for a moment, then said “no” and walked away. He said it didn’t seem rude or anything, she was just matter of fact. This was right around the time A Beautiful Mind was coming out.

d. Superman Returns was watched by me and gets a B. Worth seeing in the theater. Slow in parts. i liked Lois Lane better than i thought i would. i like Smallville better.

e. i will be watching Pirates soon.

f. To better continue my geekness, fantasy football is around the corner, as well as football football. This brings much joy to my heart.

g. i hate the summer. Today isn’t bad, but the last few days were like soaking in a tub of fire ants.

Top ten Superhero films

i know i’ve kind of already done this, but after a few discussions of late, i decided to put a top 10. This list has been revised several times, and it seems to be fairly fluid.

1. X2
2. Spiderman 2
3. X3
4. X-Men
5. The Incredibles
6. Batman Begins
7. Spiderman
8. Unbreakable
9. Batman
10. Superman Returns

Here are a few notes on the list. i think Batman Begins was amazing, but my love of the Marvel Universe, and the X-Men in particular, somehow overpowers the greatness of this film. Surprising to many, i’m sure, the Hulk ranked in at #11. i like to pretend that the last 20 minutes didn’t exist.

There are many movies with heroes with super abilities (such as the Matrix), but our lists were composed based on a few criteria: a) they had to be based on comic book superheroes, not just comic books/graphic novels (Sin City/A History of Violence/The Crow) or b) they had to be based on traditional superheroes to an extent (the Incredibles). The only movie that stretches both of these in my list is Unbreakable, and since it’s my list, i have allowed it.

jones has a list too. his looks like this.

X3

OK, i finally got to see X3: The Last Stand last night. The geek that resides in me (he has a partially furnished apartment, somewhere near my petuitary gland) really enjoyed this movie. i will start with a few negative comments, without spoiling anything for those who haven’t seen it.

First of all, i didn’t enjoy it as much as the first 2 X-Men films. i will say that i think part of that has to do with the fact that Brian Singer didn’t direct this one, in favor of directing the new Superman movie. The overall feel seems to have dropped by just a smidgeon. Not much, mind you, but a bit. There were some small things that bugged me, but that will be the end of my negativity.

The more i ponder the movie, the more i like it. Something that i really enjoyed was the use of powers throughout the film. People were using powers for everything, and you got to see a wide variety of powers throughout the story. Jean Grey was unbelievable. They showed part of her potential, and it was very impressive. I will dare say that this film is probably in my top 5 superhero films, but keep in mind that i love the X-Men, so i’m a touch biased.

Quick top 5:

X-Men
X2
Spiderman 2
Batman Begins
X3

i really liked Spiderman as well, but i think i liked this movie just a little more, mainly because i didn’t care for the green goblin.

i have to say that i went into X3 with low expectations, so i maybe enjoyed it more than i would have had my expectations been gigantic.

8.5 out of 10.

Ninja Wizards.

i found this long ago, but it's one of my favorites.  it's a Lord of the Rings…er…something.  Ninja Wizards.  sound is not required.

why firefox is the browser you should use

apparently, and i won't bore you (or me) with the full details, someone sued Microsoft, and won, as it seems, so Microsoft had to remove they way their browser (Internet Explorer) handles flash.  so, if you use IE, you'll have to click on a flash movie to make it work, or at least be interactive.  that is, unless the owner of the site puts some fix on it.  OR, you could use firefox.

that's what i'll do, thanks.