I LOVE pug dogs!

What a cutie!

I've fallen in love all over again

With Batty. She is the best cat. Reggie has his good points, but there will never be another cat as smart and cute as Batty. Her eye was scratched up, and we've had to put ointment directly into it twice a day. She doesn't like it, but she puts up with it and then sits next to us and watches TV. Go Batty!

Sorry for not posting, I've been watching cable

I’ll take a departure from my reviews of current and just-on-DVD movies to tell you about what I think may be the very worst movie of all time: “Tin Cup.” I just caught it on cable last night. It’s a cinematic travesty, the worst of all possible worlds. It’s a wholly unremarkable film masquerading as a sports movie masquerading as a romantic comedy. And it’s got Kevin Costner, an actor who always seems to be delivering his lines as if he’s trying to read the ingredients on a beer can.

The worst part is the ending. His character, Roy McAvoy, doesn’t listen to the advice of his caddy and flubs the U.S. Open by hitting six balls into that water. Oh, that Roy McAvoy, he can’t golf but he sure is an individual!

Pure crap. And to even cast a thin veneer of romantic comedy on this bomb is a joke. Look at the lame-ass movie poster with Kevin Costner in a nasty tank top wearing a backwards baseball hat. Puh-leeze! The only thing someone who looks like Kevin Costner could shag in this movie is a golf ball.

Maybe it’s time to change course and talk about the best movie of all time.



Mommie Dearest. This is such a classic. Faye Dunaway gives a fantastic performance, hamming it up like no one’s business and delivering unforgettable lines with a perverse thrill. It’s campy, it’s ironic and it’s delightful.

Name another movie that offers up sentences like these:

“Don’t fuck with me, fellas, this ain’t my first time at the rodeo!”
“Tina! Bring me the AXE!”

And this monologue, of course:
No wire hangers! What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you no wire hangers?! EVER!!!! I work till I'm half dead and I hear people say she's getting old! What do I get ? A daughter who cares as much about a beautiful dress I give her as she cares about me. What's wire hangers doing in this closet?! Answer me! I buy you beautiful dresses and you treat 'em like some dishrag! You threw a 300 dollar dress on a wire hanger! We'll see how many you got hidden in here, we'll see! All of this is coming out! Out! Out! Out! Out! We're gonna see how many wire hangers you got in your closet! Wire hangers. Why? Why? Christina, get out of that bed! Get out of that bed! (picks up hanger and begins to beat Christina) You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood and you dont care about crease marks from wire hangers, and your room looks like some two dollar unfurnished room in some two- bit backstreet town in Oklahoma! Get up! Clean up this mess! Did you scrub the bathroom floor today? Did you?

Watching this movie with a bottle of red wine is probably the best way to spend an evening.

I can't wait

I have a secret to tell you. When I was a kid - actually, for most of my life - I have really loved Wonder Woman's bracelets. I don't know why. Most healthy boys would be appreciating some um, other parts of Wonder Woman.

Not me. For some reason I thought the bracelets were really cool. And around Halloween time one year I bought them in a costume shop.

Here's the secret part: Sometimes I still wear them. Over the years I've had to kind of stretch them out, melting the plastic (yes, the ones I have are plastic) in order to fit my growing wrists. I only wear them when I have long-sleeved shirts on, though, so I didn't get to put them on too much in San Diego. It's easier in Seattle to get away with it. I can't wait for the movie to come out because that will produce another round of cool Wonder Woman bracelets and I can upgrade my set.

coming in september

House of M: Fantastic Four #3.

A kick-ass fight between Doom and Magneto, with eye-popping art by Scot Eaton. Booya!

I finished this game last night

Cold Winter, a pretty good, but not in any way ground-breaking first-person shooter. It was written by Warren Ellis, but his name is buried midway through the end-credits, and not even on the box or anything. I would have thought the game people would have taken advantage of that fact, but apparently not.





Anyway, Destroy All Humans is next up in my gaming cue.

More bad news for Tom Cruise

Oh my god. Just days after being squirted with Water™, things take another bad turn today for Tom Cruise.

I just read an article that says the Supreme Court ruled that "Holmes can be siezed as private property." I'm not sure what that mean, but one thing is certain... it's gotta be an outrage!



From the Associated Press: SHINGTON (AP) -- -- The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's Holmes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private economic development.

It was a decision fraught with huge implications for a country with many areas, particularly the rapidly growing urban and suburban areas, facing countervailing pressures of development and property ownership rights.

The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose Holmes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."

Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Connecticut, filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their Holmes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.

yadda yadda

It's official: DEMOCRACY SUCKS!

The three elder Layman kitties wonder why everybody is voting for Reggie instead of them.



Notice: Poor old Batty's eye is not fully healed.

Layman movie review: BATMAN BEGINS

Batman Begins was better than I thought it would be. It was directed by Christopher Nolan.

Batman's house catches on fire, and he smooches with Kate Cruise, who can't act her way out of a bag. He stops Qui Gon Schnidler on a runaway subway train. He fights the Scarecrow from 28 Days Later and a bunch of asylum inmates. He gets sprayed with "I'm scared gas." He gets a batsuit and a modified Hummer from America's most beloved enuch, Morgan Freeman, and get patronized by Wayne Industries bigwig Roy Batty. He trains in Mongolia, or some shit like that, with Qui Gon again, who is actually a bad guy. He sees his parents get killed and falls in a well and gets scared by bats.

Interview... of Infinite Awesomeness.

Here

The Layman Lego Project: Orient Expedition

Because you demanded it... a return of the Layman Lego Project!

Sorry, I've been out of town

My parents live in the stone age... no high speed internet.

I'm back now, and I have a special treat to make up for my absence!

On sale today: GAMBIT #12--last issue!

It's been a fun ride while it lasted. Thanks to everybody who supported this book.

Oops

Would you believe I spent $180 on Legos yesterday?

Well, well, well... lookee here.

An article about Kid Layman and House of M: Fantastic Four up at CBR.

Please remember, in these troubled times

Does this look like the face of a monster?

Reggie inaction:




Reggie in action:



(Remember! You can vote every day in the polls on the left to queer the results.)

Oh, Lord, why must I love the one I must hate?

As readers of this blog know, (especially eagle-eyed fans like "King S,") I was recently felled by one of Reggie's little whiskers, that made its way up my nose and nearly killed me.

Turns out, Reggie's reign of terror has just begun. Poor old Batty's eye has been oozing pus all week, and getting worse more than getting better. It was pretty clear that the ol' Bat was a victim to one of Reggie's claws.




Anyway, $135 dollars later, I have some medicine I now have to rub into Batty's eye every night. Ever try to rub medicine in a cat's eye? It's pretty much exactly what you would imagine. Anyway, dear readers, I know your thoughts and prayers are with Batty, and I will give her your kind regards.

As for Reggie, that little son of a bitch doesn't seem like he feels even remotely guilty for his crime. The little bastard!



Pictured below: aggressor with victim.

Layman movie review: OPEN WATER

OH MY GOD! I was soooooo sad when the two lead characters died at the end of "Open Water."

Open Water is the harrowing account of a pair of divers, a couple, who get stranded after their dipshit diving instructor miscounts people on his boat. This poor couple has to spend an hour of screen time just dogpaddling and freaking out, though their ordeal takes much longer in movie time. They get stung by jellyfish and nipped at by little sharks, and try to hail distant passing boats, while the sharks grow bigger and bolder until, well... things get ugly. Anyway, I don't want to give away too much of the movie, so you may not want to read on, because Spoiler Warnings Apply:


The place where the divers are abandoned is... (Spoiler!)
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The Ocean!!!

The outrage compounds!

Oh, crap, it gets even worse. Turns out the Chewbacca from Episode VI is not even the same Chewbacca as Episodes IV and V. Han Solo burns through them like disposable razors, and just goes to Kssskykk every so often where he buys a new one, just like a whore.

Here's where it gets confusing. I guess the Chewie from A New Hope and Empire are the same Wookie, but the one from Episode III and Return of the Jedi are a different one, who is RELATED to the other Chewbacca. But only by marriage. I swear, George Lucas sure does like to screw up these movies!

This sort of shit really steams me

Well, I just got back from another viewing of Episode III at LucasRanch, where George dropped another bombshell.

I guess --according to George-- on the planet Kssshykk, the Wookie Homeworld, the name "Chewbacca" is very common, like "Smith" or "Jones" or "Perkins." The Chewbacca featured in Episode III is not even supposed to be the same Chewbacca that is in the original trilogy.

I was pretty outraged when I heard that, folks.

Layman movie review: HOTEL RWANDA

First off, I didn't find this movie to be even remotely funny.

As you may or may not know, this is the story of a troubled hotel manager in some crazy country that's in the middle of a genocide. But seeing all those people getting killed was kind of a downer, and I think if the filmmakers would have taken a little more time and made just a few script adjustments, this movie could have ended up being a lot of fun.

First off, why does Hotel Rwanda need to be set in some god-forsaken, war-torn country? Why not set it in Fort Lauderdale, or Mazatlan or Acapulco or somewhere like that? Secondly--and I think this is even more important--maybe make it so people were not killing people left and right. I think there is much more potential for comedy if it's not set against a backdrop of mass murder.

So, anyway, Don Cheadle is a fine actor, but there's got to be better ways for him to spend the movie, right? Like, maybe a bunch of rowdy college kids show up on spring break, and all kinds of hijinks result. And to get out of a jam, to raise funds to compete with rival hotel, or have to pay the mortgage or something, Don Cheadle sets up a bikini contest in the hotel lobby. And some of those mischievious college kids come along and start screwing things up, like changing the signs to read "wet T shirt" contest, or somethign like that. And all sorts of other goofy shit happens, involving beer, co-eds, and various wardrobe malfunctions.

Anyway, these are some of the improvements I came up with for Hotel Rwanda, using all my vast storytelling skills as a world class writer. Don Cheadle, if you are reading this (and I suspect you are) feel free to incorporate these ideas into a re-release of the movie.

Or possibly even Hotel Rwanda II. Now that would be awesome.

Awesome.

"Cooper" to Laymamerican Idol Contestants: You Suck, I Hate You, Drop Dead

As regular readers of this blog know, I nearly died has week as a result of getting an errant cat whisker (from little Reggie!) lodged way up my nose. My dear readers, it's times like this, when you are facing down the barrel of painful death, you stop and think about what's really important in life, and that's friends, family... and the inane opinions of total strangers.

To wit: "Cooper," whoever that is, left a message on my June 3rd posting, saying he's "not that into Laymamerican Idol," but he enjoyed the Layman Movie Review feature, which has admittedly suffered as late because of the multitude of Laymamerican Idol postings. Well, in an effort to molify young Mister Cooper, whoever the fuck that is, Laymamerican Idol is gonna to on hiatus for an unspecified amount of time. You know how America was at the edge of its seat after certain episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewifes, and all they got was repeat after repeat? Well, Laymanerican Idol fans just wait... at least until the persuasive "Cooper" is satisfied.

Look for movie reviews a-plenty, coming soon.

HOLY FUCKING CRAP! MY GREATEST DREAM IN LIFE HAS JUST COME TRUE

Look what Lego JUST announced:





Note: Laymamerican Idol has been delayed a day, whilst I am in the throes of ectasy!!