If Nicolas Cage can be critically acclaimed, then Ben Oviatt can still be an astronaut. Our “Greatest Actor” series continues.

mp3 link

Show Notes:

Break Song: “Nicolas Cage Wants Cake” by Harry Partridge

Phantom Menace 3-D release date: February 10, 2012

iPad 2 released

Nintendo e-Reader

3DS card system

Luke Cage

Nic Cage Internet Memes:

• Nicolas Cage as Everyone
• Nicolas Cage’s Hair is a Bird
• Nicolas Cage, Internet God

Nouveau Shamanic

Superman Lives Suit

Adding to the lush foliage of this uncanny valley is the fact that Bina48 is partially made up of recorded data from a real person named Bina, one of the robot’s owners. Yikes. Check out the video below and see for yourself.

Interview With a Robot – Video Library – The New York Times

YouTube – Conan the Barbarian: The Musical (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

No this is not news of an unreleased horror feature….It’s a bit of New York centric geek news. I know…I’m surprised too!

Growing up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn I occasionally used to visit the Sheepshead Bay area (which isn’t too far away,) mostly to see a movie with my folks or buddies of mine. Once in a while I’d go there to get some food but once I reached college the place kinda skeeved me out.

More often than not people went there to get on a boat that would take you further out to sea for fishing. In recent years it’s become haven for a bunch of shoddy restaurants and randoms stores that have shut down or reopened alongside weird rinky dink mini malls and the odd assortment of strange homes.

Strange homes indeed….in fact one of them used to belong to legendary Illustrator and Animator extraordinaire Winsor McCay. Winsor McCay created “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” and also “Gertie the Dinosaur.”

His home still stands in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn though it’s a shadow of it’s former self. Squating tenants, Bedbugs, Drugs and other general nastiness have taken refuge in this once beautiful home. Hence the new title.

This article over at Sheepshead Bites tells you more.

Another awesome tidbit: The home is on Voorhies Avenue. Like Jason Voorhees…it’s spelled slightly differently but it’s still kinda creepy.

YouTube – FuncoLand Training Video (Part 1), Part 2

When I was but a wee geek, I was obsessed with everything Nintendo. So naturally I didn’t miss the Super Mario Bros. show with Captain Lou Albano. Occasionally besides showing a Mario cartoon, or awkward live action with Lou  as a very Brooklyn (Flatbush) inspired Mario, they would also show a legend of Zelda cartoon.

This was a treat because it came on infrequently and It was just so different from Mario.

Well I watched the first episode this morning and while it’s far from perfect it’s hilarious now in an entirely new way.

So many strange things are happening in this Americanized version of Zelda that I just had to list them all here.

The first episode (The Ringer) starts off much to my dismay…with Link fighting Moblins in his PJ’s. And by PJ’s I mean a small cut nightgown. This is just distracting….why couldn’t he get some phat ass Hyrulian pants or something, or tights even. But nooooo we need to see Link sword fighting with what looks like hospital scrubs.

A lot of my problems start and end with Link. Such as:

Why the hell does he sound like he’s from Jersey? And why does he act like he’s from Jersey (being a dick; though not in that special way Mr. Lawrence speaks about in Macking for Geeks.)

Link is a Jerk with a bad, bad mullet (not like Kurt Russell’s sexy man mane in Big Trouble in Little China.)

And his sword kind of reminds me of the sword of Omens cause it’s so damn short and it can shoot pink beams (seriously SFX animators, why is pink the color of choice for so many 80’s/90’s action cartoons using some form of magical/laser energy beams?) but it never ever gets bigger than Sting ( Frodo Baggin’s sword. If you didn’t know that well…..you’re probably cooler than I am.)

Zelda is a complete Bitch, but then again Link is a dick so they’re perfect for each other and Sprite looks strangely like Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell in Hook.

I was surprised the animation wasn’t as bad as I was expecting (Though it’s still pretty bad, just not to that standard of face shifting and visual awkwardness that G.I. Joe and He-man mastered.)

And the music was all straight out of the game and was probably the best thing about the cartoon.

I abhorred that they used video game sound effects anytime ole’ pig face (if you don’t get this, why are you on this site?) used magic. It took you out of the world of Hyrule they tried to create (which unfortunately wasn’t very creative.)

Wh….what…..WHAT THE HELL? Is that an Indian Elf….WHOA…..apparantly there’s Indian Magicians living in Hyrule. Watch the episode to find out what I mean.

Pieces of the Triforce shouldn’t speak, they also shouldn’t be in easily accessible drafty towers.

Overall there’s a lot of funny and strange interpretations of Zelda’s world. It really is fun to watch…and if you don’t like it….Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me?!?

"Hi. I'm Robert Zemeckis and I love Mo-Cap so much that I married it. Now all my children are digital puppets, but they're more human than human. So there."

Apparently Robert Zemeckis feels that the Motion Picture Academy should create a separate award recognizing Mo-Cap Movies. Here’s an article with more info. Thanks Mark.

Zemeckis, Lucas, and Spielberg really make me feel like there’s some sort of shelf-life for certain creatives. I know this isn’t true because I really enjoy Clint Eastwood’s movies but then again he hasn’t been directing that long.

So this begs the question; Does a combination of power, consecutive bouts of success, and large amounts of money birth an uncreative monster who’s become out of touch with what’s good entertainment/storytelling?

This hasn’t happened at Pixar but it seems like they have a system set in place of creative checks and balances that stop any one director from thinking his ideas are the best and always will be. 

One thing is for sure; somebody has too many yes-men.