Halloween Weekend

Scarlett's having a little soirée on my favorite holiday of the year. I loves me some Halloween. Love. Hope you've all got your duds and are having yourselves a good time too...

A Shock To The System

Who would have seen the trial coming to an abrupt conclusion? Keep those hands raised...

We got the curveball of having several witnesses get dropped from the roster as the prosecution rested, and then the defense suddenly rested. We're halfway through the final arguments and deliberation could begin on Monday. It was a shock, but after two weeks, we're thrilled.

I'm going to miss waiting in the jury room and wandering around downtown for lunch. Really. God, that's sick.

Manga And Wife

Two caveats about this...

First, it comes from a small blog I don't know and links to a Japanese news page I can't read, so it could very well not be true. Second, there are probably thousands of Japanese men who want to marry anime characters. What makes this guy different is that he's petitioning the government to allow him to do so. There you have it.

Seriously—he's trying to get one million signatures, in order that he can marry Mikuru Asahina, the large-chested girl (not to be confused with the medium-chested girl or the small-chested girl) from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The blog points out two significant problems with his wish: first, Japan doesn't allow polygamy, so only one person can marry each anime character; also, Japan gives taxes breaks to married couples, which means people who married anime characters would receive an unfair tax benefit.

The problem of these people being fucking crazy is not listed, but I'm going to assume it's unspoken.

64 Part A Capella Thriller

A recreated version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” - by recording all 64 parts in a capella. I don't know that I'd ever have that much time on my hands...

Tomb Of Costumes

I would agree with Topless Robot that the golden age of trick-or-treating may have been the late 70's /early 80's. Kids everywhere would get dressed up as their favorite characters and hit the streets in search of candy and frights aplenty...then it all changed thanks to 1982’s Tylenol poisoning scare and the subsequent urban legends about how a cabal of madmen were seeking to tamper with Halloween candy. Before you knew it, the days of devouring fun-sized Snickers bars on the walk back home were replaced by taking your candy to get X-rayed at the local hospital. And with that, the magic of the day slowly began to die. But instead of dwelling on how lame Halloween currently is for kids, let us recall a time when every pop culture icon from TV, movies, cartoons and videogames were immortalized in cheap vinyl shirts and even cheaper plastic masks. Unquestionably 10 of the greatest—and then 10 of the worst—costumes from Halloweens past.

THE BEST:

Pulsar

Pulsar was Mattel’s answer to the then popular Bionic Man series. Instead of going techno, they went organic— Pulsar had a see-through chest that enabled you to see his bloody organs. How this gave him superpowers was never explained and since children are naturally stupid, we never questioned it. The Pulsar Halloween costume works so well, because it's both accurate to the character and super-gross—the Halloween costume equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter.

Mazinga from Shogun Warriors

One of the earliest imports from Japan, Mattel’s Shogun Warrior toys were 2-feet-tall, fired missiles out of every orifice and had giant fists that shot out at you—and this was in the '70s, so these thing shot far and hard. Despite their lack of a cartoon, the Shogun Warriors were known by reputation (and their commercials) as heavyweights. Your coolness factor doubled if you were able to find one of these costumes for Halloween night.

He-Man from Masters of the Universe

The only time in your life you should willingly wear a pageboy haircut. Considering the whole premise of Masters of the Universe was that a young boy could change into a muscular adult superhero, the He-Man costume was a logical fit for the Halloween trade. It let boys pretend they too were hulking men with rippling muscles and enormous strength. And it gave adults the hilarious view of a midget with a hyper-developed chest and legs, but tiny, bird-like arms.

Jem

Seeing that the highpoint of ‘80s bubblegum pop sensation was all about transformation, this Jem costume makes a lot of sense for girls, just as He-Man did for boys. Little girls could become Jem, a super-popular and beautiful adult pop star, and then sing the Jem and the Holograms theme song for the entire night as they trick-or-treated...until they got home, at which point their poor parents would drink a "truly outrageous" amount of gin.

Ape Warrior from Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes is a sci-fi classic that gave us many things: simian-infused adventure, a twist ending, an unnecessary view of Charlton Heston’s ass, and so forth. But one of the film’s biggest legacies is its collection of spin-off merchandising, including this awesome Ape Warrior costume. Based on a generic soldier ape, it’s most memorable feature is its illustration of a machete tucked behind a bandolier. Interestingly, dressing up as a super-intelligent ape who gets to walk around in this bad-ass, day-glow outfit is as awesome now as it was then.

Robot

No toyline? No cartoon? No problem for this amazing, albeit generic, robot costume. With a mask embedded with working lights and a shiny silver suit, this was the most high-tech Halloween outfit for kids ever produced.

Everything from Star Wars

Before Star Wars came around, most licensed Halloween costume featured a mask of the character, then that character's face on the shirt, in case candy-distributing adults didn't get it. This was pretty much as cool as wearing a shirt with your own face on it, which is to say, not at all. But when Star Wars came out with Halloween costumes, kids could actually dress like the characters, with plastic masks and vinyl outfits which displayed Vader's chest-thingie or Chewbacca's furry chest and bandolier. Thank you, Star Wars.

Warduke from Dungeons & Dragons

LJN’s line of toys based on the popular virgin pastime of role-play were somewhat overlooked by children too fascinated with the Masters of the Universe. The shame is that the character designs—especially lead villain Warduke, who looks like every evil/demonic hell warrior ever imagined—were especially fantastic, and perfect Halloween material. If you were wearing a Warduke costume, you weren't a D&D-loving nerd—you were a badass knight from hell...a significant improvement.

The Devil

Since Satan is kind of awesome, it’s not surprising that costumes based on Father of Lies are perennial favorites. Of the countless Lucifer costumes released for kids over the years, this one is the spookiest. Along with a glow-in-the-dark mask and red hood, the costume features Beelzebub peering out from the flames of hell as if he was trying to summon kids to join him is his fiery kingdom of suffering, and it seems pretty reasonable that Satan would have a smaller demon inside his chest for grabbing children.. Fun!

Alien /Jaws (tie)

For sheer WTF awesomeness alone, these two rank among the best Halloween outfits ever. Unbelievably, someone decided that Alien and Jaws were kid-friendly enough that Halloween costumes based on each of the flick were produced, and small children wanders the streets of the '70s dressed as a murderous shark, complete with jagged fangs, or a hideous, chitin-covered nightmare, ready to lay its eggs in whatever stupid kid wanders close enough. Clearly, these are two of the greatest Halloween costumes ever made.

Now piss yourself in horror at the worst old-school Halloween costumes...

THE WORST:

Rip-offs

This is what happens when you send your grandmother to get your Halloween costume for you—she inevitably came back with these sneaky little lookalikes, made specifically to fool out-of-touch adults into thinking they’re buying Batman or Spider-man instead of their cheap Mexican equivalents. On the plus side, knock-off costumes such as these were wonderful lessons for kids, clearly illustrating the series of crushing disappointments life was surely going to bring in the future.

Colonial Girl

Released to cash in on the Bicentennial craze, this Colonial Girl costume had young ladies dreaming about what life must have been like during the early days of the United States, e.g. yellow fever and feet calloused from cobblestones. And who exactly is this so-called Colonial Girl supposed to be? She looks like some lame-ass villain that Dazzler would fight. If you are going trick-or-treating in era-specific garb, wouldn’t it be slightly better to go out as someone specific, like Martha Washington or Betsy Ross? Or maybe this outfit is based on one of Ben Franklin’s favorite prostitutes—that would certainly explain the whorish lipstick and easily removable dress.

Cyclops from Krull

Getting a Krull costume meant one thing; your uncaring parents, too wrapped up in their own lives, bought your Halloween costume at the very last minute, when this was the last thing on the rack. Which also means we've just unleashed a painful memory you’ve likely kept repressed. Sorry about your luck.

Kooky Spooks

Putting the retard in flame retardant, these monstrosities allowed kids to beg for beatings by having them prance around in a costume with a huge inflatable head. Upon their release in 1979, the Kooky Spooks series of costumes were loved by parents because they came with reflective tape that made wearers less likely to get plowed down by cars while crossing the street in search of some Tootsie Rolls. They were also more durable than the traditional vinyl costumes, which meant hand-me-downs from your older sibling now included bullshit Halloween outfits that instantly made you the deserving target of local bullies. Since each of the Kooky Spooks came with color-coordinated makeup, kids who chose the bat costume suddenly found themselves looking like pint-sized racists after applying the black face paint.

Rubik’s Cube

The year 1983 saw a nation obsessed with this damned cube, which even inexplicably received its own, painful, half-hour cartoon on Saturday morning. Despite the toy's immense popularity, in the end, it’s a Halloween costume of a frustrating puzzle that a nation couldn’t solve, and like it's toy inspiration, deserved to be hurled into a wastebasket in rage.

Chachi from Joanie Loves Chachi / Jimmy Osmond (tie)

If you ever needed proof that Halloween is Satan's handiwork, please look no further than the Chachi costume. It’s troubling to think of how many little brothers were coerced into being Chachi in order to accompany an older sister dressed as Joanie. Being Scott Baio, even for an evening, is a special torture in itself.

As for Jimmy Osmond, it should come as a complete surprise that there were Osmonds other than Donnie and Marie. This youngest singling was best known for his 1972 hit “Long Haired Lover from Liverpool.” That’s great and all, but it’s unlikely that anyone outside of Utah actually wanted to put on what is essentially a red trash bag with his face on it and then go begging for snacks.

The Biker from the Village People

One of the most confusing things about life is how a song about anonymous gay sex became a mainstream hit in the '70s, and yet “Y.M.C.A.” continues to be a staple of weddings/bad parties everywhere. So powerful were the Village People’s homoerotic antics that they spawned this costume, which let kids everywhere pretend...actually, let's not go there.

Scrappy Doo

You’ll need that plastic smock to protect yourself from the endless amounts of rotted fruits and vegetables other children will likely lob at your Scrappy Doo costume. As everyone knows, Scrappy Doo was the repulsive additional character that completely ruined the mojo of Scooby Doo forever—to go out dressed as him was like going out dressed as Hitler or Charles Manson. If you saw a kid dressed like this on Halloween, you'd be tempted to slip a razor blade into his apple.

Hawkeye from M*A*S*H

While no one would question the popularity of such a television classic as M*A*S*H, the question begs to be asked, how many children really wanted to be Alan Alda at Halloween? You could swill gin and throw out equal parts pathos and one liners at each door, stopping occasionally to do a Groucho impersonation. And then you could have the ever-loving shit beat out of you by all the neighborhood kids.

Asteroids

From a questionable line of Atari game-related costumes that included Yar’s Revenge and Missile Command, the Asteroids costume is tenuously based on the then popular videogame of the same name, which has no humanoid characters. There is simply a tiny arrow which is the spaceship, and many, many asteroids.

The costume maker could, theoretically made the pilot of the asteroid-shooting ship, which might have looked okay. But by having the mask resemble an asteroid, the wearer instead looks like he's going as massive burn victim or a discarded sponge from a men’s shelter bathroom. A clever bully could—and would—also use it as an excuse to play Asteroids by repeatedly punching you in the face.

Burning Sci-Fi Bromance

I09 looks into the bromance label that's crept into our awareness. Yes, it's every bit as gay as it sounds, and yet, not. This list of science fiction characters do run the spectrum there:

Recently, we came across a story about “television’s hottest bromances”—you know, guys who share inexplicably tight, platonic bonds. The writer, Erin White, compiled a smart, pithy list: Barney and Ted from How I Met Your Mother, Denny and Alan from Boston Legal, Hiro and Ando from Heroes.… That last one got us thinking: Science fiction is particularly conducive to such relationships, what with all those mind-blowing adventures, brushes with mortality, and long, lonesome commutes into galaxies far, far away. With that in mind, we present to you sci-fi’s most compelling male superfriends.

SHAUN AND ED (SHAUN OF THE DEAD)
Peeved girlfriend Liz couldn’t stop this feelin’ between the cricket-bat-wielding hero and his slothful roommate—even after the latter turned into a zombie. Now that’s friendship, people.

HAN SOLO AND CHEWBACCA
The swaggering Star Wars duo complement each other handsomely: One’s a svelte fast-talker with nice hair who likes both kinds of action (if you know what I mean); his co-pilot is a hulking, hirsute, silent-type who’s handy amid the Storm Trooper kind of action.

WALL•E AND HAL THE COCKROACH
As a New Yorker, all I gotta say is that must be one quality roach. Me? I would’ve hit it with my shoe post-haste; surely there was a volleyball to befriend on that planet somewhere.

GEORDI LA FORGE AND DATA (STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION)
Since I can’t phrase it better, I’m just gonna quote a friend of my buddy Han (no, not that Han), tech writer Jon Sung: “Their best bromance episode is possibly ‘The Measure of a Man’—Data is about to leave Starfleet, and Geordi’s all emo about it. There’s also one where Data and Geordi discuss the finer points of shaving.”

E.T. AND ELLIOTT (E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL)

They biked together…in the sky! Eat your hearts out Armstrong and McConaughey.

BATMAN AND ALFRED
Oh, was I supposed to say Batman and Superman, or Batman and Robin, or Batman and Ace the Bat-Hound? Bruce Wayne has known his English butler longer than any of the aforementioned, and they’ve enjoyed a steady relationship in which this manservant protects his master like a surrogate father.

POWER MAN AND IRON FIST
Comicdom’s Starsky and Hutch didn’t gel together at first: They sparred before talking things through to join forces against evil kingpin John Bushmaster. The odd couple quickly become compadres, headlining a comic-book series together.

FRODO BAGGINS AND SAMWISE GAMGEE
Already Shire amigos, their bond proved tenacious during a mutual fixation on a sparkly bauble. You know, it helps to have stuff in common.

DR. ZACHARY SMITH AND THE ROBOT (LOST IN SPACE)
Although the irritable Jupiter 2 stowaway frequently found himself vexed by his ambivalent companion, he just couldn’t quit hanging with the metal head.

JOHN CONNOR AND THE TERMINATOR
Because of this moment in T2, which has got to be a page out of a post-apocalyptic sequel to Shane:

The Terminator: “There is one more chip.” [Points to head where chip is located] “And it must be destroyed, also.”

John Connor: “No! You can’t go! You can’t go! No, stay with us. It will be okay.”

The Terminator: “It has to end here.”

John Connor: “I order you not to go. I order you not to go, I order you not to go!” [John starts to cry]

The Terminator: “I know now why you cry.” [Terminator wipes John's tear] “But it is something I can never do.”

HOGARTH HUGHES AND THE IRON GIANT
(See John Connor and The Terminator.)

THE TICK AND ARTHUR
What would the big, blue, bumbling, kind-natured Tick be without his level-headed, eternally miserable roommate Arthur, whose sacrifices include leaving a career as a mediocre accountant to wear an ill-fitting moth costume?

R2-D2 and C-3PO
We’re not technically sure the chill R2 actually likes the cloying C-3PO. But you never really see them apart, so clearly there’s something there.

HENCHMAN #21 AND HENCHMAN #24 (THE VENTURE BROS.)
Two of the Monarch’s more resilient muscle, they enjoy matching yellow outfits and a life of heated repartee. And they even wrote a tell-all book together.

HAWK AND DOVE
Hmmm, does it count as a bromance if they’re already brothers?

CAPTAIN AMERICA/STEVE ROGERS AND BUCKY
The WWII cronies stuck together through the years like stars and stripes, until Rogers’ recent death. Bucky went on to assume his pal’s patriotic moniker…which is either sorta tear-jerking or totally Baby Jane-ish.

THE AMBIGUOUSLY GAY DUO

So comfortable in their bespandexed skin that they’ve pioneered the subgenre of crime-fighting as a homoerotic science.

SAM BECKETT AND AL CALAVICCI (QUANTUM LEAP)
A physicist is thrust back and forth in time. The only constant in his life: Al, a dubious pal who frequently appears in the form of a hologram. Hey, you take what you can get.

IRON MAN/TONY STARK AND JIM RHODES
More war buddies! These ’Nam vets became friends for life after they high-tailed it together out of enemy territory and back to the motherland. So as Stark developed his Iron Man technology, Rhodes became his confidant. During the superhero's storied battle with alcoholism, Rhodes stepped into the Iron suit—then ultimately relinquished the mantle after Stark straightened himself out.

CHUCK BARTOWSKI AND MORGAN GRIMES (CHUCK)
The connection between these Buy More employees has endured despite being challenged numerous times after Chuck started working on the DL for the CIA and NSA. In a Very Special Chuck, the title character's priorities were thrown into question on Halloween, when Morgan thinks he’s left without a partner for his Dune Sandworm costume. Stand up dude that he is, Chuck chose the righteous path.

WILLIAM ADAMA AND SAUL TIGH (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA)
When Tigh hit the bottle, Adama welcomed his unflinching supporter to his cabinet…and we ain’t talking ’bout no liquor cabinet. This connection hasn’t faltered even with the shocking revelation that Tigh’s a Cylon.

MICHAEL KNIGHT AND KITT (KNIGHT RIDER)
Producer Glen Larson once said of the chemistry between his two main characters: “I wanted to do The Lone Ranger with a car.” And if Tonto were sassy and loquacious, this dalliance between a man and his Trans Am could be described as just that.

GEORGE FRANCISCO AND MATTHEW SIKES (ALIEN NATION)
Otherworldly police officer George joins the force and is partnered with skeptical vet Matthew. But since positive social metaphors must prevail—and this is a buddy-cop show—the two forge a tight brah-therhood.

BART SIMPSON AND MILHOUSE VAN HOUTEN
We weren’t fully convinced of this alliance at first: The near-sighted, sexually ambiguous nerd was too frequently the witless victim of pranks at Bart’s hands. But after “Homer Defined” (season 3, episode 5)—when Bart goes heartbroken after Milhouse’s mom bans the troublemaker from the Van Houten household—we realized that Bart just bromances Milhouse the same, pesky way most 10-year-old boys flirt with girls.

SUPERMAN AND JIMMY OLSEN
Kal-El protects, and grants exclusive access to, this cub reporter as he snaps pictures and gathers material for his intrepid Daily Planet stories. In return, the Superman-worshipping Olsen stokes the Ego of Steel.

HURLEY AND SAWYER (LOST)
Sure, the con man bullied the big man, ridiculing him for his food stash and giving him nicknames like Babar and Pillsbury. But Hurley’s gentle way (plus a pivotal ping-pong game banning Sawyer from sputtering sobriquets) prevailed, culminating in this shot from season 3, in which Hurley and Sawyer celebrate after the prior gets an abandoned van to start on sheer faith.

Bromances With Awkward Racial Undertones
INDIANA JONES AND SHORT ROUND
The Temple of Doom pair busts a child-slavery ring (and other stuff) in India, while saving each others’ asses. Nightclub singer Willie Scott may have a handle on the good doc’s gonads, but it’s the plucky Shortie who captures his heart by uttering such nuggets of wisdom as “Hey, Dr. Jones, no time for love. We’ve got company”—albeit in an almost-parodic Chinese accent.

THE GREEN HORNET AND KATO
The masked crime-fighter, in his TV incarnation, never leaves home without his dexterous chauffeur, who conveniently handles most of the bad-guy heavy-lifting. Miraculously, the tacit Kato remains loyal to his employer, overlooking any undercurrents of racism—proving that this brand of man-love is indeed blind.

THE SPIRIT AND EBONY WHITE The superhero’s trusty black sidekick could’ve been genre-busting…were the ageless tax driver not initially depicted so off-puttingly as a shocking caricature who spoke in a shameful, pre-Ebonic dialect.

Honorary Real-Life Mention
DIRECTOR JOSS WHEDON AND ACTOR NATHAN FILLION
“He’s the entire package: dramatic, comedic, romantic,” Whedon has said about his nerd-verse muse. “I honestly believe he’s Harrison Ford, if given a shot.” Fillion, in kind, has enthusiastically starred in his BFF’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. To promote those projects, they’ve made countless hysterical convention appearances together—a life-bonding experience, if any.

Monkey Dust

Monkey Dust is a hard cartoon to describe without completely blowing the premise and turning people away from it insofar as it comes off as completely disturbed. Which it most certainly is. And also why it needs to be shared.

Monkey Dust is a nightmare vision of Britain, a dark, twisted other world full of giant advertising conglomerates like Labia, who takes the job of rebranding cancer as “Closure”, an attractive end-of-life option. Its citizens are no less bizarre. Take Mr. Ivan Dobsky, The Meat-Safe Murderer or so he was known until he was cleared 27 years later. He himself always said he “never done it. I only said I done it so they would take the electrodes of me nipples.” Then there’s Geoff, the first-time cottager, who despite his meek, introverted personality holds the lofty goal of fellating a complete stranger in a public place. There’s also Clive, who constantly comes home late only to tell his wife a lie based on the lyrics to The Eagles’s “Hotel California”, inept chat-room pedophiles, pretentious yuppies, and classically trained actors.

These series of interconnected vignettes and recurring characters make for a delightfully sick experience but it is no doubt one you will either love or hate. Some may be turned off by the humor on display here as it is unapologetically dark; but for those who enjoy their laughs more on the grim side of things you are in for quite a treat. A playist for season one over here. And episode one:

The Sugarcubes

Brendan Jamison may be to blame if you're missing something for your coffee in the morning.

Track-A-Rat

NYC's new Rat Information Portal is being billed as "a one-stop resource website for New Yorkers’ rat prevention needs." Still, nothing is available to them to combat their nearly as large smugness problem.

In addition to tips on how to control rat populations, the website also supplies an interactive "Rat Map" with data on inspections, violations, compliance, exterminations, and cleanups for any property in the city going back three years. Basically, it is a hotspot map for creepy vermin within the city. The idea is to put pressure on property owners who are slow to address their growing rat problems and give everyday citizens the tools they need to fight back. And scare the piss out of you to see how many of the little bastards are really living there.

It also reminded about a book I've been aware of for years - Rats: Observation on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants.

The book has plenty of facts about their physical makeup and prowess, habitats, mating habits, food preferences, mental abilities. Also, it gives a short history of New York City, from its founding to the present day, while interweaving the city's history with the history of the invading rats themselves and that of those men who have dedicated their lives to killing them. The author, off and on for one year, sat at the entrance to one alley and patiently watched the rat activity there as a steady flow of food-filled garbage bags from nearby restaurants was deposited there each night. Here's some of the info from the book:

Rats, unless they lose their food source, live in confined areas, generally staying within 65 feet of their nest.

Male rats are more venturesome than females and will go farther from the nesting area.

City rats are often larger their country cousins.

Up to one third of the world's food supply is destroyed by rats.

If they are not eating or sleeping, rats are usually having sex (up to 20 times per day, in fact).

A healthy female rat can deliver 8-10 new rats every 21 days, meaning that one rat pair can produce 15,000 descendants in one year if enough food is available.

The teeth of the brown rat are harder than aluminum, copper, lead or iron and are more comparable to the strength of steel.

Near 25% of electric cable breaks and almost 20% of phone disruptions are the result of rats chewing on the cables that they find so attractive.

Jury Learnin'

What did I learn today?

The Black P Stone gang has lots of different tattoos. That, and you best not be associated with Crips. Welcome to The Jungle...would you like to meet your neighbors? Stone Love, as they say.

I am certain we will not end the trial until Monday at the earliest, and that would only be if we start deliberations then. If. Big if.

Of Course It's Fake

C'mon. Really...

When Ligers Attack

Ligers are Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal and the offspring of a male lion mating with a tigress. They are known to be enormous and tremendously fierce. It's unclear why combining male lion DNA with female tiger DNA results in a creature who is much bigger than either species. But sometimes the results can be deadly, as a volunteer at the Wagoner County wildlife sanctuary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, learned yesterday.

Rocky the liger attacked the man feeding him, biting his neck and chest. The man remains in critical condition and the Wagoner County wildlife sanctuary is currently closed. According to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, accredited zoos frown on the practice of mixing two different species and have never bred ligers. Keeping the two species separate has always been standard procedure. However, the AZA has admitted that ligers have occurred by accident. Several AZA zoos are reported to have ligers...but this particular wildlife sanctuary is not an AZA-accredited zoo.

Sounds like ligers don't occur in nature — only when big cats are cooped up in zoos together. And they don't take to kindly to living in unaccredited parks either.

that's a big kitty

Homemade Hollywood

The gigantic, annual pop culture convention Comic-Con can be many considered things: amazing, exciting, insane, overhyped, controversial . . . and now, heartbreaking.

Clive Young's terrific new book Homemade Hollywood reveals a controversy over fan films at the Con almost destroyed aspiring filmmaker Sandy Collora's career. Collora wowed the 2003 Con with his $30,000, ultra-dark Batman reboot called Batman: Dead End — a year before Warner Bros. made the franchise officially darker with Batman Begins. He was on the brink of stardom, had a possible production deal with Guillermo del Toro, and then he lost everything at Comic-Con 2004.

Young, whose book chronicles the history of fan films from the early twentieth century through the present, recounts Collora's story as a pivotal moment in fan filmmaking. Collora had had some success as a concept designer in Hollywood, working on the Predator movies, The Crow, and Jurassic Park, but he wanted to break in as a director. He decided to do it by making what was basically the first big-budget fan film. For $30,000, he got professional (?) actors (including Josh Koenig, AKA Boner from Growing Pains), professional editors and costume designers, and did a four-day shoot that resulted in a seriously action-packed fight between Batman, the Joker, and (surprise!) alien and predator.

When Collora showed it at Comic-Con 2003, fans went nuts, and it got endorsements from geek gods Kevin Smith and comic book artist Alex Ross, as well as the crew at movie alpha-geek site Ain't It Cool News. Despite the fact that it used copyrighted characters from DC Comics and Warners, the two houses declined to issue any cease-and-desists. Collora wasn't making money on the movie, and apparently the execs had decided they liked getting fans excited about their characters.

As his notoriety took off, Collora planned an even bigger film for Comic-Con 2004. His money was running out, but he was sure he was about to get a production deal with a studio and all he needed was to stay in the public eye. He poured the rest of his cash — $12,000 — into making a movie based on the comic series World's Finest, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and others. The plot was intriguing, with hints that super-villain Lex Luthor's LexCorp was making underhanded deals with Batman's Wayne Enterprises. Collora knew if he could get this flick in front of the fans and media at Comic-Con, he'd get a real movie deal.

Spurred by his success with Dead End in 2003, several other big-budget fan films (many about Batman) were slated to share the bill with World's Finest during the fan film show. But then, just a month before Comic-Con was set to begin in July, the convention abruptly canceled. No fan films would be allowed at Comic-Con.

Writes Young:

San Diego Comic-Con was scrapping its fan film program; organizers had been contacted by the legal department of Warner Brothers . . . David Glanzer, director of marketing and public relations for Comic-Con, explained to Comics2Film, "Comic-Con International received a letter in early June from Warner Brothers requesting that we honor their intellectual copyrights by not screening films which may infringe upon those copyrights. Needless to say, we have complied."

Apparently Warners had decided to issue this ultimatum after consulting with one of Collora's rival fan filmmakers, Aaron Schoenke, a college intern at Sony Studios who had made a fan movie called Batman: Dark Justice. Schoenke's movie would also not be shown at Comic-Con 2004, but that didn't stop Schoenke from claiming that Warners had privately told him the problem was that Comic-Con was making money by showing the fan films. Therefore the convention was benefiting vicariously from the studio's intellectual property.

Still, Warners never made a direct statement, and Young is rightly skeptical of whether Schoenke really had been given the authority to speak for the company in this matter. Sadly, if Comic-Con had wanted to stand its ground it could have. All they would have had to do is make the fan film presentation free to the public. And Collora's World's Finest could have gotten the exposure he hoped for. Instead of the fan adulation he'd gotten in 2003, Collora was tailed around Comic-Con 2004 by a Warners representative who was there to prevent him from handing out any promotional material related to World's Finest.

Collora's offers from Hollywood dried up. He suffered a near-fatal car crash, and it took him months to recover. At last, however, he's able to see his experience in perspective. He told Silvererbulletcomics:

To be blatantly honest, for some reason, it just didn't happen for me. I tried harder than anyone I know, but no one would actually pull the trigger and give me a job, so now I'm doing it myself.

And that's the happy ending to this story. Despite Comic-Con letting the fan filmmakers down in 2004, Collora is back on his feet. He's in the middle of making an indie film called Hunter Prey, which Young describes as a "low-budget, scifi/horror feature pitting intergalactic military against creepy monsters, set to be shot in Mexico." Below, you can see him on the shoot. If anybody can make it happen, Collora can.

And that's only one of the revealing tales from Homemade Hollywood...

Oh Joyful Celebration

Caught up in the glee of a World Series victory last night, Philadelphians took to the streets for a wild celebration. Then they took to the lamp posts. Then the people who took to the lamp posts took hurled Grey Goose bottles to the head. Because hey, why should that guy get to climb a street light? Does he think he’s better than us? Be sure to listen closely for the rewarding sound of frosted glass against cranium. Reminds me of that time I was in a big celebration and threw a bottle at someone. Of course, I was celebrating being the only drunk person at a MADD convention, which may explain the police’s involvement.

Little Yellow Men

Gizmodo chronicles 30 years of Lego minifigs in what has to be the most epic collection of the little fellas anywhere. If you ever played with one, you're going to be amazed by their timeline.

Tourist Jurist

Nevermind the case so much, which if I'm lucky will start deliberating at the end of the week. During lunch I had a chance to stop off at the Bradbury Buliding (yes, the very same as used in Blade Runner), which was beautiful. The wiki:

The building was commissioned by Lewis Bradbury (after whom it is named), a mining millionaire who had become a real estate developer in the later part of his life. His plan (in 1892) was to have a five story building constructed at Third Street and Broadway in Los Angeles, close to the Bunker Hill neighborhood.

A local architect, Sumner Hunt, was first hired to complete a design for the building but Bradbury ruled against constructing his plans which he did not view as adequately matching the grandeur of his vision. Bradbury then hired George Wyman, one of Hunt's draftsmen, to design the building.

Wyman at first refused the offer to design the building. However Wyman supposedly had a ghostly talk with his dead brother Mark Wyman (who had been dead for six years) while using a planchette board with his wife. The ghostly message that came through supposedly said "Mark Wyman / take the / Bradbury building / and you will be / successful" with the word "successful" written upside down. After the episode, Wyman took the job and is now regarded as the architect of the Bradbury Building. Wyman's grandson, the science fiction publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, owns the original of this document. Coincidentally, Ackerman is a close friend of science fiction author Ray Bradbury.

Wyman was especially influenced in the construction of the building by Edward Bellamy's book Looking Backward (published in 1887) which described a utopian society in the year 2000. In the book, the average commercial building was described as a "vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet above ... The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior." This description greatly influenced the Bradbury Building.

The building itself features an Italian Renaissance-style exterior facade of brown brick, sandstone and panels of terra cotta details, in the "commercial Romanesque" that was the current idiom in East Coast American cities. But the magnificence of the building is the interior that you reach through the entrance with its low ceiling and minimal light that seems to hug your senses until you are welcomed with the flood of natural light and expanse within great center court.

The five-story central court features glazed brick, ornamental cast iron, tiling, rich marble, and polished wood, capped by a skylight that allows the court to be flooded with natural rather than artificial light creating ever changing shadows and accents during the day. The elevators in the building are also famous for their being cage elevators surrounded by wrought-iron grillwork rather than masonry. They go up to the fifth floor.

The entire main building features geometric patterned staircases at all ends. The building is known for its large use of ornately designed wrought-iron railings which are supposed to give the illusion of hanging vegetation and are found throughout the building. This wrought-iron was executed in France and displayed at the Chicago World's Fair before being installed in the building. Freestanding mail-chutes are also made out of ironwork. The walls are made of pale glazed brick, the marble used in the staircase was imported from Belgium, and the floors are composed of Mexican tile.