Welcome back from your holiday weekend. Judging by my Sitemeter results, it looks like I made the right call, putting up four straight days of Fan Film Friday. This was a quick way for me to keep putting up new content without busting my hump to get out fresh material for a time period that wasn’t going to bring in much traffic.

Video game voice actors on strike. I’m not much of a business man, but I think you’re fighting a losing battle here. I don’t think anyone has ever gone out and bought a title based on a non-celebrity adding their vocals to the game.

A woman led the pack, briefly, during the Indy 500. This will upset a lot of whining race car drivers. I’m hoping this driver/model goes on to NASCAR and dominate that circuit. Nothing would make me happier than to see those yahoos get all flustered that their “sport” is being dominated by a woman. Either that or a black guy. Then we’ll see how “mainstream” NASCAR really is once the good ol’ boys love their grip on the league.

I’m sure more happened this weekend, but I don’t have the wherewithawal to go through it now. Hey, I can slack today, I had new material up each and every day this weekend!

“Honey, I wouldn’t be talking about taste if I was wearing a lime green tank top!”

The Sock Drawer’s Memorial Weekend Fan Film Friday Movie Marathon continues with the man in the hat. At first glance, another movie that has inspired a Star Wars level of fan-filmaking could be Lucas’s other creation, Indiana Jones. First up, a central location, TheRaider.net, for fan film info. Unlike Star Wars, though, you can’t see a lot of these movies. I spent about five minutes just trying to get a decent sample to review for today’s FFF. It seems like lots of Indy Fan Films have been made, they’re just not as many available for download.

FF type: Story
It’s the first five minutes of a movie that take place before the original trilogy.
5:48

Production Quality: (4) Some good camera work along with some decent fight choreography. I did take a half-point away because I still have no idea how the hell Indy couldn’t have possibly shot in this scenario.

Performances: (3.5) Pretty good on most parts, although Indy’s got a weird accent.

Fan quotient: (5) There’s nothing that goes on here that requires any previous knowledge of the movies or even the Young Indy TV show.

Entertainment Value: (3) If you enjoy a classic Indy action scene, this is worth a look.

FF obtainment: (5) You download the first five minutes at the official site or at it’s Raider.net page.

Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Templars: 20.5 out of 25.

Previously reviewed Indy piece: Doom Raiders.

“You’re not the man I knew ten years ago.”
“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”

* Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not really Friday.

The Sock Drawer’s Memorial Weekend Fan Film Friday Movie Marathon continues with Bob Kane’s greatest creation. There is no character who’s open to more interpretation than Batman. For Adam West’s cheeze to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight, the caped crusader’s been all over the board. So it’s no surprise that his Fan Films have embraced the character’s many different versions. Today’s choice is one of a number of recent quality Batman fan films. Before I get into this, Batman Fan Films seems to be the one-stop hop for all your Batman Fan Film needs. A central location for multiple movies is a good sign of a strong fan film community. It may not be as impressive as Star Wars, but it is better than Star Trek, like I mentioned yesterday.

FF type: Story
Perhaps, the most controversial Batman film out there. How does the Batman bite it? A final battle with his arch-enemy, the Joker? Gunned down in a gang war? Blown up in the Batcave? Not according to this take.
28 Minutes

Production Quality: (3.5) There is quality camera work, editing, and the Batman suit looks good.

Performances: (4) The fellow in the Bat-suit does a very good job. His antagonist does a good job chewing the scenery. The majority of the movie is a two-man show, almost a minimalistic acting exercise that showcases these actors.

Fan quotient: (4) It’s Batman versus a generic thug. You can go into this with only the most basic of Bat-knowledge. I did dock a point because I have major actions with Batman’s actions and buying into the premise of the movie.

Entertainment Value: (3) Basically, it’s an interesting take on the concept of vigilantism (is that a word) and worth seeing for that unique choice. But I just can’t muster up the interest in seeing it more than once. The film trips up in many places for me because it requires me to stretch my Bat-beliefs on a number of occassions. It asks to me to accept a sloppy Batman who is prone to mistakes while fighting crime and a weak-willed shell. I don’t want to give away the ending (although, the title does a pretty good job of that), but there are two ways to interpret Batman’s final action, and I don’t buy either of them.

FF obtainment: (4) The film can be download it at the official site.

The Death of Batman: 18.5 out of 25.

Yeah, it probably deserved a better grade. But I just couldn’t bring myself to give it a higher score. Despite my negative feelings towards Death of Batman, it has garnered many positive review, including this A-. I found a forum of fans who had problems buying the movie like myself. Overall, it’s a quality movie that isn’t afraid to take a risk with an established character.

Previously reviewed Batfilms include Batman: Dead End, World’s Finest, Grayson, and Batman: New Times.

“Ah, the new boy. Ears are too long and I miss the cape. But not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.”

* Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not really Friday.

Last week, I really complimented the Star Wars fans. They seem to have produced the most fan films out there. By and large, the overall quality seems to be the best. So I wanted to take a look at how fans of other franchises fared in comparison. My first thought was to go to Star Wars main rival, Star Trek. As far as a fan film communty goes, this doesn’t fare too well. The only place with multiple movie listings I saw was this About Star Trek fan films page. Maybe the lack of product is a result of Viacom’s aggressive protection of their property. A few attempts to carry on Gene Roddenberry’s vision seem to have gotten past the crackdown. Like the previously reviewed Star Trek: New Voyages, this is an ongoing production of original episodes that seem to take place after Deep Space Nine’s run ended.

FF type: Series
Currently, they are in the middle of their sixth season of shows. The episode runs are smaller than their network counterparts, but it’s still an impressive library they’ve compiled. I went to watch the very first episode, when a window opened up requesting I actually begin with their season six premiere so they could put their “best foot forward.” As per their request, that is the episode reviewed here.

Production Quality: (4) If you ever saw an episode of Star Trek and really wished those ships did more than just float out in space, this is for you. There is an all-out battle that rages here between dozen of Federation and bad guy ships. Those effects might even be better than the ones on the TV shows. It ain’t too bad inside the ships, either. Almost every scene involving humans is shot in front of a green screen. There’s emerald halo around everyone, but it’s negligible considering how much this saves them from having to build sets. It does, however, make it confusing at times to figure out who’s where and on what ship or station.

Performances: (1) Lots of amateurs. Some of them have accents so bad you can’t understand what they’re saying. Some don’t even have the basica acting ability to look at the person they’re yelling at. Others… well, gosh, how do I say this politely? I don’t expect to find pretty people on fan films, especially if they’re not professionally casted. But there ain’t a lot of these people who has the on-screen presence to overcome their non-prettyness. And another horribly rude observation: I thought Star Fleet had fitness regulations. Sure, Ryker develloped a bit of a gut, but he didn’t have to shop at the Big and Tall Captain’s store. They also recast a character once played by Ashley Judd. Yeah, you ain’t got anyone who can pass themselves off as her.

Fan quotient: (1) The casting can be forgiven, but this category cannot. Not only is there way too much stuff for non-Star Trek fans to absorb, but this show has develloped it’s own mythology that is crucial to understand what is going on. Like I said, I started at the season 6 premiere and it might as well have been season 66. I was lost from the very beginning and hadn’t caught up by the end of the episode.

Entertainment Value: (2) There’s too much Trek babble to wade through to find this worth watching unless you have been a big fan of the shows. The space battles are very impressive and definitely the highlight of the episode.

FF obtainment: (4) Episodes can be downloaded at Hidden Frontier. If I’m reading this right, some are also available for podcasts… whatever that means.

Star Trek: Hidden Frontier: 12 out of 25.

Yeah, harsh score. But this is very specifically targetted at hardcore Star Trek fans willing to spend hours in front of their computers watching this new show. There is nothing on the site that acts as a summary and there’s no exposition preceding the episode, or even during it, to brief the viewer on important details. They’ve got a pretty decent product, now they need to work on reaching out to the casual fan and educating them about this hidden frontier and why we should care about it.

“We need breathing room!”
“Earth. Hitler. 1938″

* Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not really Friday.

I’m going to do something different. In honor of the holiday weekend, Fan Film Friday will be extended all the way through Memorial Day. Yep, just like many programming outlets like cable channels, it’s a movie marathon for the next few days. Not only will I have a new movie to review Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, but I will look at the state of the respective fan film communities.

Okay, on to today’s movie: Debil Dead. Yeah, I don’t know what Debil Dead means, either.

FF type: Story
Ash from Evil Dead fights MacLeod, the Highlander. That’s about it for plot.
3:10

Production Quality: (5) I’ll be honest, stop-motion animation really impresses me. You add camera movents into the mix, I’m floored. If you’re a fan of claymation-type stuff, give this a look.

Performances: (3) When you’re not filming real actors, you strictly grade on voicework in this categroy. Which is a good thing, and a bad thing for this movie. The guy who voices MacLeod sounds pretty spot-on. The guy who voices Ash sounds like a drunken dust mite who’s high on helium.

Fan quotient: (2) Let’s face it. There’s only a small number of people out there interested in an Evil Dead/Highlander crossover. And there’s some parts, the ending in particular, that won’t make sense unless you’ve seen the source material movies.

Entertainment Value: (3) It’s pretty quick paced and mildly amusing. But it’s irritating that one character speaks French and is subtitled English, while the other speaks English and has French subtitles. although, a couple times I think they forgot to put English in. Worth a look, but just one.

FF obtainment: (4) Download it here. Good luck, the Debil Dead site’s in French.

Debil Dead: 17 out of 25.

I found this at the Movie Blog. If you haven’t gotten enough of the Ash crossover experience, check out the upcoming AoD vs. REANIMATOR comic book.

While we’re on the subject of Evil Dead goodness, here’s a look at the next Evil Dead videogame. And, if you’re really good, the real Bruce Campbell may be coming to your town! You can also see him on the big screen in this summer’s Sky High. He plays a gym teacher at a high school for super-heroes. He joins a cast that includes Kurt Russel, Kelley Preston, Dave Foley, and the former Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter.

“Don’t touch that, please. Your primitive intellect wouldn’t understand things with alloys and compositions and things with… molecular structures.”

Well, I was kind of expecting last night’s two hour Lost finale to leave me hanging, to really have me on the edge of my seat for the next three months. But, not really. Don’t get me wrong, they were two fine episodes with lots of quality character moments. But as a “season finale”, meh.

“Doctor playin’ golf? Whoo! Boy howdie, now I’ve heard everything. What’s next? Cop eatin’ a doughnut?”
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I have a feeling June is going to be a looooong month. You can tell because I put more than one “o” in the word “long.” Lost and 24 are done for the year. NCAA Football 2006 won’t be out until the middle of July. And the NFL guys don’t put their pads on until July 28. (See, that’s why I was counting down to July 28, not cause it’s Amy’s birthday.)

The Cincinnati Bengals started practices last week and were the talk of the town at Marvin Lewis’s golf event. Boomer Esiason even called Carson Palmer the best quarterback in the division. It sounds more impressive than it actually it, but he does go on to say “Over the next five years if he doesn’t become one of the top two quarterbacks in the conference, something is wrong.” Interesting. Optimism is high, which is good cause the Cincinnati sports world needs good news right about now. Actually, the whole Ohio sports scene sucks. Everybody on offense is back so they should be able to fire up the scoreboard. They just have to avoid the recent trend of slow starts. We’ll see what ESPN.com thinks tomorrow when it’s the AFC North’s turn in their Off-season Overview.

Yeah, even when there’s so much going on, it’s still fun to talk football.

“The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”

“We’d be burying a million Americans if it weren’t for Jack Bauer.” Wow, what a kick-ass two hours we were treated to last night. It really leaves things nice and open for next season, another non-stop season debuting in January. I’ll get to the spoiler-y stuff in a minute, but 24 wasn’t the only show of interest to bow this week. Of course, Wednesday’s 2 hour Lost season finale. Also, the web-series Red vs. Blue Season 3 finale is ready to view.

“Don’t you ever stand for that sort of thing. Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back.”
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Boy, May is a busy month. On top of all the season finales on TV (here’s a 24 drinking game to try for tonight’s 2 hour finale) and blockbusters coming to the big screen, we also had a whole bunch of video game news come out of E3 and even before that.

Obviously, the biggest news was the next generation console wars, but there was some other news that is getting me a little excited. A piece of news that is tied into the next gen consoles involves Xbox’s biggest game: Halo 3 will come out at the same time as the PS3. Interesting strategy, but I can’t imagine one game, no matter how powerful it is, could sink the launch of a whole platform. Besides, I recall hearing more than a few release dates for Halo 2 before they settled on one a couple years after their initial attempt.

The one game I’m getting excited about is Civilization IV. According to early reports, the formula has been modified. It sounds like lots of changes, which is both good and bad. I hope they don’t fix too much of what wasn’t broken. That game’s creator has got something else in the works, a new game called Spore. I’ve enjoyed the stuff he’s put out so I may give that one a try, too.

There was also a forum about in-game advertising. I’m worried it’s starting to become a little intrusive, although it does help cut down the cost of the games.

It’s going to be a very interesting year in video game land.

“We are wasting valueless time here.”

You don’t have to look far on the internet these days to find blithering idiots spouting off about Star Wars. Take this site, for example. But one man actually had his blithering thoughts published in a local newspaper. Z-Man wrote My Most Exellent Star Wars Adventure about his recent trip to Indianapolis for the Star Wars Celebration. Since he doesn’t write on his blog anymore, I figured I’d share some of his experience with you.

That irritating Jar Jar in Carbonite? I’m assuming this was one of the most popular attractions.

A guy turned his Honda into a space ship. This “H-Wing” may go into hyperspace, but it doesn’t look like it can go 55 on the highway.

Yeah, he spent the day hugging Wampas and not the numerous Slave Leias populating the convention.

He had tons of more pictures and wonderful stories to share. But, since he abandoned his blog, we all miss out. Thanks, Z.

This all took place the weekend of the NFL draft, mind you. I’m guessing, on his drive back, when this Browns fan learned about how his team drafted, here was his thought process: “Wow! We got a great receiver! When we team him up with a healthy, level-headed Kellen Winslow, we’ll be in good shape.”

Back to nerdier stuff: Fans of sci-fi will have to move on to the next thing to follow. Why not Firefly? Sci-Fi will air Firefly Friday nights starting in July. That way, you’ll have plenty of time to get caught out before the movie opens in September. Serenity will have it’s own convention.

Hopefully, the Browncoats will accept Z as much as the Star Wars fans.

“This is how Liberty dies - with thunderous applause.”