How Hot Am I? or Dude, I'm Asian! *

I've been playing around with the apparently not so great facial recognition software MyHeritage website. If you haven't already done this, you upload a picture of yourself (or someone else) and it will find the faces in the picture and tell you which celebrities that person most looks like.

While I don't think it's exactly accurate, it is incredibly addictive. Load one picture, and you'll soon find yourself loading twenty more to see if you still get the same answers. So why don't I think it's very accurate? With one of my pictures I loaded, my top match: Jackie Chan.

Other people I look like according to MyHeritage: Justin Timberlake, Matt Damon, Adrian Brody.

The person who came up multiple times with different pictures: James Coburn.

Apparently, I'm in like Flint.



* I'm not. Either.

Who Wants to Be a Superhero?

Tired of living in your parent's basement? Sick of the lack of geeks like you on TV? Well, then SciFi has got a show for you. *

Last night was the premiere episode of Who Wants to Be a Superhero? This show pits wannabe super men and women against each other for the praise of comic book legend Stan Lee. Each contestant has created a character, powers, weaknesses and costume. The 12...well really 11, since one of them was a plant who revealed that Creature was a slut, Iron Enforcer wants to kill everyone and Levity hopes to make millions by making action figures of himself...actually 10 since they kicked Levity out before they ever got going...contestants live in "The Lair" where they talk with plasma screen televisions showing Stan Lee who gives them instructions and challenges.

The first challenge for all of them was to inconspicuously (please keep that requirement in mind) change from street clothes to costume and then race to a previously established finish line. The twist? They must be fastest to do this in "true superhero fashion." That means that the supposed heroes who raced right past the little girl who was sobbing about losing her mother did not complete the challenge as it was intended.

Some highlights from the challenge: The Iron Enforcer, who had already been warned that talking about how much he wanted to kill people with his giant wrist laser was not exactly superhero appropriate, being inconspicuous by running around in his street clothes while carrying a gun approximately the size of Rhode Island. Nope, nothing odd going on there. Then there was Creature, in real life a "raw foodist" who drives a car fueled by used vegetable oil (sweet, a car powered by irony). Creature decided that the most appropriate place to change her clothing was in a trash can. Unfortunately, the trash can was less than three feet tall, meaning that her legs were hidden , but that was about it. Also changing in the open, Nitro G and Lemuria, who provides a good laugh by insisting in an interview that no one could see her despite the footage of a man sitting less than two feet away watching her undress.

Back at The Lair, Stan Lee explains the purpose of the challenge to the heroes and chooses three to step forward and explain why they should be allowed to remain: Nitro G, Iron Enforcer and Monkey Woman. Nitro G apologizes for letting him down, and promises to learn from his mistakes. Monkey Woman weeps and claims to have been so focused that she didn't even notice the crying girl, though footage seems to indicate that she looked right at her then ran past anyway. Iron Enforcer combines what the two previous heroes facing elimination have said, which is probably for the best as all evidence seems to indicate that he can't form a sentence on his own. Stan eliminates Nitro G who must remove his costume and throw it into a conveniently located trashcan.

Despite the complete absurdity or this show (or because of it) I loved it and have already picked out a favorite (Fat Momma, because who doesn't love the idea of gaining superpowers from eating doughnuts) and least favorites (Iron Enforcer and Creature).

My only regret is that they didn't have an episode made entirely of bad auditions.

*For the record, I'm poking fun at myself here as well. After all, I'm the guy who just returned Essential X-Men 5 to the library and picked up Essential X-Men 6. I saw ads for this show and my first response was to grab the TiVo remote and set up a Season Pass.

If You Choose to Read This Post, Go to Page 65. If You Choose to Hit the Back Button, Go to Page 90.

Do you remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? How great were those? I can remember a couple of different ones I had as a kid. One was a James Bond book called Win, Place or Die. I also remember having one of the Wizards, Warriors and You series. I loved that I could read the book, see what happened, then go back and try it all over again. I, of course, never, ever peeked at the pages before I made a choice.

I saw an article earlier today saying that there is now an attempt at making choose your own adventure DVDs. How much fun would it be to take your favorite movie and see what would happen if you made different choices for the characters? Of course, you won't get to do this with most theatrical release movies. So far it looks like it is just made for DVD stuff and Final Destination 3. But if you had the option of making a choose your own adventure DVD, what movie would it be and what major decision would you change?

Tag, You're It

You may have noticed that I changed my tagline up at the top. I did this for a couple of reasons: (1) If even one other obsessive-compulsive microbiologist has a website, this probably wouldn't qualify as the funniest anymore. I'd hate to get in trouble for false advertising. (2) I'd gotten tired of it.

Now here's your chance to help. I'm sure I'll get bored of my new tag line very soon, and I will take suggestions from all of you for others that I can rotate. Make your suggestions in the comments section. A few caveats about the whole thing. I reserve the right to

1. Ignore your response completely if I don't like it.

2. Take your response and not give you any credit whatsoever if I do like it.

3. Change my mind randomly and decide to use an old line or not change it at all.

Separated at Birth? v. 3

Trivial Tuesday

Most of you realize I'm a science nerd and a Simpsons fan. With that in mind, what famous scientist has portrayted himself on the Simpsons twice? (Hint: He was the owner of the new Little Caesar's.)

Congratulations to Pookie Bear, who gave the correct answer of Stephen Hawking, who has portrayed himself twice on the Simpsons (once in the episode "They Saved Lisa's Brain" and again in the episode with Ray the Roofer).

Sympathy for Mr. Conehead

Bigger pic

Chewie's back from his vet trip. And happy about it, apparently.

I'll Pray I Never Need to Call You

After reading posts recently about Lost Boys and the Lost Boys soundtrack, we bumped Lost Boys up to the top of the netflix queue and got it last week after we finally returned Good Night, and Good Luck (more on that at a later date). I was somewhat worried that after this long the film would have (like many from the 80's) turned into a depressing nostalgia killer.

It didn't. Don't get me wrong: It was horribly dated. The scariest thing in the film was Keifer's crew cut mullet. These issues didn't keep me from enjoying it, though. Since a review of a movie from 1987 I've seen a couple million times would possibly be pointless, I'll just share a few observations I made during the movie.

-They easily could have cast former MTV VJ Adam Curry as one of the vampires and just had him dress like he did for Headbangers Ball. He would have fit right in.

-I wonder if Alex Winter who played the vampire named Marko hates Keanu Reeves for his success. (Winter was later Bill to Keanu's Ted.)

-Jami Gertz looks pretty much the same now as she did in 1987.

-Sam (Corey Haim) has a poster of Molly Ringwald on his bedroom wall. Understandable. He also has a poster that appears to be Rob Lowe wearing a half-shirt. I don't know what's going on with that.

I Nwwd Hwlp

We were talking a while back about the old elementary school rhyme about vowels. (I have no idea why) You know which one I mean: "A, E, I, O, U..." You remember this, right? Well, we discussed that and had a disagreement over how it went, but eventually just gave up. Yesterday, something made me think of the rhyme again, and I decided to see if you guys could help with part of the problem we were having with it.

Melissa insists that after the "A, E, I, O, U" it ends with "sometimes Y," but I was absolutely certain that the ending was "sometimes Y and W." Not only does this add an extra vowel to the rhyme, but it also makes it...well, rhyme.

The problem is that the extra vowel is a W. That doesn't really help my case. So, I guess I'm asking you to help with two things. (1) How do you remember learning the vowel rhyme? (2) How can I convince her that W is a vowel?

Update: After doing a little research, I found that there are plenty of people online who are curious why they were taught "sometimes y and w." I've found two basic explanations, each of which I have my issues with: (a) W is a vowel in the sense that it functions to form a vowel sound in a diphthong. (e.g. how, cow, straw, etc.) I'm not so sure about that because then I should have been taught "sometimes y and w, l, r, n or m." (b) The second explanation is that in very (and I mean very) few words, there is no typical vowel, but a w is used to make an "oo" sound. Unfortunately, there are only a couple of these and they are all words that have been transplanted from Welsh and aren't really used much (if at all) in English.

A few links discussing this idea: From the Dictionary.com FAQ, an answer to what words in the English language do not have vowels. A few words are listed, but with the exception of the w as vowel words cwm and crwth, they are all onomatopoeic. Also from dictionary.com, do any words use w as a vowel. Finally, from yahoo answers, a discussion of semi-vowels like y and w.

Ants Marching

Imagine this. You wake up early in the morning before work. You need to go to the basement to get the clothes out of the dryer so you can actually have something clean to wear today. At the top of the basement stairs is a door to the backyard and as you pass through that entryway and down the stairs, you notice that the floor feels incredibly dirty. You look back, wondering why there is so much dirt on the floor all of the sudden. Then it hits you. That's not dirt. It's ants. What you were feeling was the formian carnage as you trampled them underfoot.

I haven't just described the beginning of a SciFi original movie (though it could be, and if it was, I'd blog about it). I just described what actually happened to me earlier this summer. The entire floor, door, doorframe, and several of the stairs were covered in ants.

Needless to say, I handled this calmly and started tearing the house apart looking for any for of ant spray. Unfortunately, I couldn't find what I was looking for. While I got ready for work, MK went to the store to get something to kill them. While I was waiting for her to return, I began the assaulted. I broke out the boric acid powder that is intended for roaches, but surely would work on ants too. I began dusting the area, making sure that the door, the walls, the floor and even the ants looked like they belonged in Tony Montana's bedroom. Eventually, MK returned from the store with two separate sprays designed to kill ants, one of which was an all natural mint oil that claimed to be pet safe. Since we have two dogs that walk through the currently ant-infested area all the time, I grabbed the pet safe spray, ripped off the lid and went to work.

Soon the ants were dropping like flies (huh?), but I wasn't done yet. If there were any still moving, they got another spray. If they were dead, they got another spray just for good measure. I may have gone a little overboard with our anti-insect chemical warfare, though. I realize that now that I'm able to be rational. I say that not just because of the visit we got from Hans Blix asking if we could tone it down a bit before the Security Council had to impose sanctions, but also because the entire house smelled like mint for two days. But it was worth it, because they're gone.

I won, because I'm the human: I'm bigger, I have complex reasoning skills, and I have thumbs. Stupid ants can't compete with thumbs.

Separated at Birth? v. 2

Davy Jones

Dr. John Zoidberg

Trivial Tuesday

Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky released his first two full length films, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, in 1998 and 2000, respectively. Not long after that, work began on his film The Fountain, which is finally due out in October of this year. During these years the project has started, been cast, stopped completely and been considered dead only to be revived with a new cast and now completed. The journey for the film has been long and winding. In fact, it's been long enough that during this time, Aronofsky has managed to become engaged and have a child. What award-winning actress is his fiance and the mother of his child?

The usual rules apply, you know the drill by now.

Congratulations go to Itchy, who won this weeks bragging rights by remembering that Rachel Weisz is indeed Darren Aronofsky's baby mama.

Addendum to Yesterday's Pirates of the Caribbean Review

Could someone please feed Ms. Keira Knightly? Really, even just a sandwich would be a good start. Thanks.

Mullet Taxonomy

There's been a lot of talk about mullets recently in the section of the blogosphere where I spend time, admittedly, much of it by or instigated by me. It makes sense to discuss the mullet, because it's just plain funny. Since I'm a scientist by trade and by nature, I feel the need to categorize everything. I figure if we're already talking about them, why not apply that idea to mullets? I know, you're thinking a mullet is a mullet, but it's so much deeper than that. So many styles, so many names. (Sadly, I'm making it sound like I just decide to do this now, but in reality I've been doing this for far too long.) For example:

The femullet or fe-mullet: A mullet worn by a woman.

Permullet or frullet: The permed or otherwise fro-style mullet. (Photographic evidence of said mullet would be greatly appreciated)

The beaver tail: Rather than the typical "party in the back" section, the hair on the back of the head is styled into a long, straight flat tail giving it the appearance of a beaver's tail. Possibly worn by those nostalgic for Fess Parker's portrayl of Davy Crockett.

The Bolton: A classic mullet combined with a rapidly receding hairline.

The skullet: A classic mullet in which the top of the head is completely bald. (Possibly the best name on the list and not even remotely my invention.) Also called the Modified Bolton.

And finally, who could forget the flathead?

I'm sure there are others, but those are all I can think of at the moment. Any others you've noticed roaming free?

Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

We went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean this weekend. At this point most things have been said about the film, so I'm not likely to tell you anything new. It looked absolutely incredible. It was infinitely more complicated than it needed to be and way too long at over 2 1/2 hours.

Was it fun? Yeah. Was it as good as the first? No, not really. The first movie had the significant advantage of being a surprise without the expectations placed on the sequels. I'd still recommend seeing it, but not without reservations.

The thing I really noticed in the film was that the trend of placing scenes at the end of the credits needs to change. One of several things need to happen: The credits need to get shorter, the scenes need to be placed before the end of the credits, or the sodas sold at the concession stand need to be much smaller. If you've already sat through a two and a half hour long film, the need to exit the theater might compete strongly with your desire to see what is going to show up at the end. Anyway, for those of you going to see Pirates in the theater, I have one piece of advice: Don't bother staying through the credits, it's not worth it.

Chee-Ta-Ra!

Is anyone else out there watching the World Series of Pop Culture on VH1? The show is great. It's just a basic quiz gameshow and makes it even more enjoyable by not taking itself very seriously. It's a single elimination tournament with 16 teams of three people each. Teams go head to head answering questions on movies, tv and music. The teams have cleverly named themselves, have logos and coordinated outfits. It's completely absurd, I love it, and I want to be on the show. (Problems with being on the show: Need to audition and make it. Need to pass test to get to audition. Need to find auditions. Need to form team. Need to have friends to form team. Need clever team name. Would likely humiliate self on television...but it's just VH1, so that's not as big of a problem.)

There is at least one problem with the show, though. During episode 2, team Cheetara was going up against Team Smartypants. I wanted to root for Cheetara. Really. They share their name with a Thundercat, how could I possibly root against them? Because they happen to have one of the most annoying game show contestants ever to walk the face of the earth on their team. The first round of the match saw a Cheetara member eliminated from competition. From that point on after each correct answer by her teammates, she would yell (screech, actually) "Cheetara!" After a while this moved from simply annoying to something more along the lines of high-powered drill to the eardrum. This turned me against them quickly. I went from admiring the choice of name to hoping the host was going to threaten to eliminate the team if she didn't shut up. Unfortunately for my ears, she had plenty of chances to scream as her team went on to win the game.

It's not something that will make me stop watching the show, but I will be waiting for them to be eliminated soon. I suppose every competition needs its villain, and for me, I think we've found it.

Ooh, It's Not So Good

Reasons I can't stand Mr. Food^*

1. He doesn't do anything. He never cooks, he just points to items and then shows you the end result.

2. He often does segments where he isn't even giving a recipe, he's just talking about carbs or cheese or whatever else he feels like.

3. "Using whatever brands you want..." Come on, we can see the labels on all your products. Don't pretend to be impartial and yet have obvious product placement.

4. He dumbs down his recipes to the point of insulting the audience. He even renames recipes to make them "easier to understand."

5. Most of the things he makes don't even look appetizing.

6. He's on my local news every morning as I'm trying to get ready for work.

7. "Bam!" Sure, Emeril Lagasse is the one that says that, but I blame Mr. Food anyway.

8. "Ooh, it's so good." Someone needs to tell this guy that catchphrases are pretty stupid in general and that they are never a good way to end anything.

Until later...

^*As a television personality, that is. I'm sure that as a person, he's a really great guy. Unless he beats his wife or kicks puppies or something, but I doubt that. I really can't imagine him kicking a puppy, can you? If he did he'd probably have someone else kick a puppy ahead of time to prepare it, then come in, show you an unkicked puppy, tell you (using whatever brand of shoes you like) to apply your foot to the puppy, then show you what the puppy that was kicked earlier looks like. Not that he actually would do something like that. Like I said, probably a nice guy, just annoying to see on TV.

Trivial Tuesday

Since I almost forgot, today's category will be really easy Summer Movie Trivia.

Some of the biggest movies of this Summer are comic book based. One actor was a significant part of two of this Summer's comic book films. Who was the actor and what were the two movies.

The first to answer is the first to brag...

Congrats to Invisible Lizard who knew that James Marsden was in Superman Returns and X3.

Less Work, More Pay, Better Rum

Did anyone else see True Caribbean Pirates on the History Channel this weekend? I TiVo'd it and then watched it last night. It was pretty interesting. I've always been fascinated by pirates. From when I was young and watching Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk with Errol Flynn and The Buccaneer with Yul Brynner to when I started playing video games and have played at least 4 different versions of the game "Pirates!" (Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PC version circa 1990, new PC version). It continues even now with the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise.

The pirate as represented in popular culture represents a rebellious spirit in all of us. He (or she, as the relatively rare case may be) is subject to no one and lives free. He robs those who would make their fortunes by oppressing the common man. He shares freely with his men, who would gladly give their lives for him. Women flock to him, and he collects them like treasure. He is noble yet not of the nobility. He is the common man rising up and succeeding beyond any of our wildest dreams.

The problem is that the pirate of history is nothing like the cultural representation. Pirates were murderers, rapists and thieves. They were sadistic, merciless, and greedy. The treasure they stole lasted only until they could spend it on rum and women. When it was gone, they had to go slaughter more people and steal more treasure. Yet for some reason, there is a disconnect between who pirates really were and how we perceive them.

Differences between reality and romanticized pirates aside, True Caribbean Pirates was very enjoyable. It was informative and entertaining, proving that these are not mutually exclusive concepts in television. Though they did explain the origin of Caribbean Pirates as well as the terms buccaneer and privateer, I was disappointed that there was no discussion of the origin of the Jolly Roger. They showed the flag, along with several variants specific to certain pirates, but never mentioned where it or its name came from. If you missed it, I'd certainly recommend checking out a rerun.

Until later...

I Want 5 Megawatts by Mid-May

As I was surfing recently, I came across a banner ad for this site. It brought up an interesting internal debate. On one side, I don't know what the purpose is for these lasers. They can't be used as pointers, so most people on earth don't really have a use for them. On the other hand, look at them. Check out the video section that shows them burning paper, popping balloons, simulating light saber fights and lighting matches. This could fulfill all my long distance match lighting needs.

Before I get carried away, I have to ask myself, why would need a laser with a range of 120 miles? Umm...because it's cool, and it has a range of 120 miles. Now if only it weren't $2000.

Until later...

Maybe We're Crazy. Probably...

The randomosity randomism randomaciousness random ramblings continue...

So, people know that mullets are made fun of, right? How do you go in to get your hair cut and ask for a mullet. It's not like you can flip through the books they have there and point to a style similar to the mullet. Do you sit down and say, "Make me look like Billy Ray Cyrus"? If so, isn't it in violation of some hairdresser's code to give anyone a mullet? (I'll spare you the bad joke about it being the Clippocratic Oath...oops, too late.) Just once, I want to be there when someone asks for "business in the front, party in the back."

There's a psychic that I drive past on my way home a lot of the time. There is a sign in the window that says "Walk-ins welcome." If she's psychic, shouldn't the walk-ins already have an appointment? I think about asking her this, but somehow, I think I wouldn't be the first to bring it up.

We attempted to watch Fever Pitch (the one with the Red Sox, not the one with soccer) not too long ago. We made it through 11 minutes of the film before we had to give up. There's only so much Jimmy Fallon I can handle.

The other day a Ford commercial came on, and American Idol winner Talyor Hicks was singing and doing his "child needing a bathroom" dance. So, first he releases a single with "Taking It to the Streets", then this ad. I'm not surprised that it's happening, but I didn't think he'd be so aggressive in stealing Michael McDonald's career. Next he's joining up with the "Ganja Brothers".

I was looking up some lyrics to a song the other day and came across something interesting in the artists list. There in the middle of links to lyrics by all sorts of musicians was a link for Mark-Paul Gosselaar lyrics. So, Kelly went to Beverly Hills (where her zip code was 90210), Jessie started stripping and Zack started a musical career? What would Mr. Belding say? I just hope he plays a concert at the Hub.

I was looking at some of the things I've posted recently and was thinking about how much more interesting and funny things I posted used to be. To try to see what the difference was, I went back to the archives and read the older posts. It turns out I wasn't that amusing or entertaining then either; I just thought I was. Nostalgia's funny like that.

Until later...

Does That Make Me Crazy? Possibly...

It's been a while since I've had a "random thoughts with no real pattern post", so let's do it again.

I love the word schadenfreude. I was thinking the other day how wrong it is that we don't have an English equivalent. How could we not have a word or phrase for taking pleasure in someone else's misfortune? Then I realized we do. It's "reality TV".

Sometimes, when I'm driving and certain songs are playing (currently, I feel this works best with My Posse's on Broadway) , I like to turn the radio up loud so that the bass makes lots of noise and then pull up next to someone else at a stoplight. It's a lot of fun for them to hear the music and look over to see (don't act like you don't look to see who's playing loud music). Once they look over they get all confused and have this look on their faces that seems to say, "who does that fat pasty yuppie looking guy think he's kidding." Then the light changes, we both pull away and I turn the radio back down and probably put it back on NPR.

I take a lot of pot shots at reality television, and the times I do say I want to watch a show, it's because I want to make fun of it. I should be careful about that. I don't want people to get the wrong idea. I do like some reality TV shows. They're called documentaries.

When we were at the movies, I saw a trailer for a new movie called The Guardian. In this film, Ashton Kutcher goes to a Coast Guard rescue training facility where Kevin Costner is a trainer. After the trailer, I described it as Top Gun with helicopters. It really is. There was the bar scene where they picked out a woman to try to pick up, and even a plaque on the wall with names of people who have records. I expected Kutcher to tell us that the plaque for second place was in the ladies' room. If they keep stealing scenes from Top Gun, I just hope that the scene where Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer make out doesn't make it into this one.

I've used our TiVo to record several movies recently. A quick glance at the Now Playing List reveals 4 movies based on comic books, 2 sword and sandal epics, and one zombie movie. What?!?!? Why didn't anyone tell me I was such a geek?

Until later...

Rewriting Children's Songs for Today's Generation

If You're Happy and You Know It

If you're happy and you know it,
You found the right dose, (Clap, Clap)
If you're happy and you know it,
You found the right dose, (Clap, Clap)
All my problems have abated,
Cause I'm highly medicated,
If you're happy and you know it,
You found the right dose. (Clap, Clap)

The Hokey Pokey

You put your credit card in,
You take your credit card out,
You put your credit card in,
And you charge a huge amount,
You pay for things with credit,
So much debt you can't get out,
That's what it's all about.

The Annoying Barney Song

I hate you,
You hate me,
You belong to the wrong party,
You're a Right Wing Nut,
Or a Liberal Communist,
I wish that you didn't exist.

I was planning to do more, but I think that's probably enough cynical social commentary through kid's songs for one day.

Until later...

The Disappearance of The Cent Sign

Remember when you first learned about money? You learned about dollars and cents and that 100 cents equaled a dollar. You learned that you put $ in front of a number to mean dollars and ¢ after a number to indicate cents. After a while, everyone got the hang of not adding the cent sign at the end when you already had a dollar sign at the beginning.

My question for you is this: When was the last time you saw a cent sign (before this post, obviously)? I really can't remember. In fact, I had to go searching in Word for how to make one (it's Ctrl+/, c by the way).

If I haven't seen it then I need to figure out where it went and why?

My first theory had to do with the modern keyboard and that there is no easy way to type one, but that suggests it was already disappearing before that. I'm now working on a theory that it's all part of a vast conspiracy to make all prices in multiples of a dollar.

So, do you have any ideas?

You'll Believe a Man Can Fly

We went to see Superman Returns today. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've talked before about my issues with Superman. He's just not human. Yes, I realize that he's a character from another planet, but that isn't what I mean. He's almost invincible. There's no conflict in him. Normal human's simply do not relate to him. An invincible hero who always knows what is right is a great thing if you need someone to save you, but it isn't that helpful in setting up drama.

Fortunately, Singer sets out to get over these limitations with Superman Returns. The film picks up in a world without Superman. It's been five years since anyone has seen him, and he has left Earth to go in search of any remnants of his home world and civilization. When he returns from his quest, he finds that Lois Lane and the people of Earth have moved on. Lois is engaged, has a young child and is about to accept a Pulitzer for her editorial article, "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman."

As he returns to his job at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent, he must come to grips with the changes in both of the lives he lives. As Superman, he returns to action, first in one location then all over the globe. At the same time, Lex Luthor has managed to get out of prison (because Superman didn't show up when called as a witness at his appeal) and get his hands on a fortune. Luthor hatches yet another plan for world domination (I won't reveal more because I'd like to avoid major spoilers) and Superman must thwart the plot. Just like old times.

So, how did I like it? Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor and Parker Posey as Kitty Kowalski were simply absolutely great. Routh did a great job of stepping in as the Man of Steel, and Frank Langella played Perry White perfectly. I really expected to not like Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, but I came away having not really noticed that it was Kate Bosworth. In addition to the acting, the attempts to make Superman more human worked. He had problems, flaws, disappointments and was even the source of some disappointments.

My complaints about the movie are not numerous. There were a few FX shots that were more cartoon than live-action, but considering some of the things they were trying to make happen, I think that can be forgiven. The largest problem to me is that at 154 minutes, it was longer than it needed to be. It was a good movie, but also one that could have done with some streamlining. In the end, it's the Superman film people have been waiting for since they first started trying to pretend Superman III and IV never happened.

Until later...