I think the term “every cliché in the book” has become a bit of a cliché in and of itself, but if there were such a book, these guys found it, read it, reread it, and then plagiarized it. All of it. Every cliché in the book, as it were.

Just one more thing and then I’ll shut up. I’ve noticed that every natural disaster movie that’s released tries to out do its predecessor in terms of death toll. Twister (96) and Dante’s Peak (97) both wipe out various sized towns. Volcano (97) wipes out a major city. Deep Impact (98) and Armageddon (98) wipe out half the planet. The Day After Tomorrow (04) wipes out most of the planet. 2012 (09) …… I can’t say what happens, it would spoil the movie. Let’s just say, to beat it, the next natural disaster movie is going to have to wipe out the entire planet, repopulate it, then wipe it out again. I can’t wait.

Although I think Hollywood is dying a slow, painful (and well deserved) death, I love seeing all these modernized versions of older movies coming out, i.e., James Bond, Batman, and now Star Trek. Coincidentally, my daughter (11) has been showing more and more interest in the Star Trek franchise. She’s even been watching all the old Next Generation episodes. Last week, she was rummaging through a bunch of old VHS tapes (remember those) at her Grandfather’s house and found the complete set of the original Star trek movies. She’s been begging me to watch them ever since. What a little geekling.

Here’s the intro scene. SHAFA-BOOIE!

On a related note, “Transformers the Movie” still holds the title of most incredible animated movie ever made, followed ever so closely by Titan A.E. and the Secret of Nimh. Oh, and all of Hayao Miyazaki movies. That guy’s pretty impressive.

Seven of Nine

“We are the Borg.” – My personal favorite. She is also what prompted me to create this illustrious list. I’ve been on a Star Trek Voyager kick for the last month or two and have decided to re-watch all the old episodes in chronological order. I never realized how utterly boring the show was until they added Seven of Nine to the cast of characters in the fourth season. This buxom Borg made the pain of enduring the previous seasons well worth it. Seven is a by far one of the more interesting characters I have come across in realm of science fiction.

Star Trek: Voyager

Kara Thrace

“Frak.” – Battlestar Galactica is, without a doubt, my favorite television show ever to be aired. When I first heard that they were remaking the original series, I was ecstatic. When I heard that the part of “Starbuck” was going to be played by a women, I was worried. Maybe even a little offended. But all my fears and doubts were laid to rest the moment I actually watched the show. Kara Thrace is a more complex version of the former Starbuck. She is also far better looking and much tougher than her male counterpart ever was. Sorry Dirk, Kara for the win.

Battlestar Galactica

Princess Leia Organa

“I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.” – For all of you younglings out there still daydreaming about Padme, stop it. She couldn’t hold a candle to Princess Leia Organa (Skywalker) (Solo). At age 20, this young spitfire was the leader of the Rebel Alliance against the well established and all powerful Galactic Empire. She even told Grand Moff Tarkin that he stank, right to his face. Let’s see Padme do that! Oh, and this is all while she was being escorted by the Dark Lord of the Sith, the most feared being in the universe. Don’t be fooled by her cute little buns people. By that I mean hair buns naturally. This princess is the kick ass mother of all sci-fi women to follow. Except for Padme of course, who actually is her mother…

Star Wars: A New Hope – Empire Strikes Back – Return of the Jedi

Leeloo

“Multipass.” – Every geek, male or female, has had a crush on Leeloo at some point in their life. Perhaps it’s her flowing orange hair or the fact that her whole outfit looks like one big distorted belt. Maybe it’s her cute incoherent babble or her innocent blue eyes. No, it’s more likely the fact that she could kill you without even breaking a sweat. Sweet and deadly, sort of like a twinkie.

The Fifth Element

Trinity

“Dodge this.” – Finally, this brings us to one of the most celebrated female characters in the realm of science fiction, Trinity. The Matrix spawned a slew of iconic figures and Trinity is at the top of that list. Clad in latex, this cyber-goth-goddess is one hacker that isn’t to be trifled with.

The Matrix – The Matrix Reloaded – The Matrix Revolutions

And there you have it, my top five greatest women in sci-fi list is complete. This list was not an easy one to make mind you. Quite a few of my favorite sci-fi vixens didn’t make the cut for various reasons. Take the women of Firefly for instance. After BSG, Firefly could be my favorite TV series, and a lot of that had to do with the great cast, both male and female. Alas, I didn’t feel that as individuals they could bump anyone off this list. Sorry girls. Below are some of the other gals that almost broke into the top 5, but were snubbed out at the last minute.

The Runners-Up

	Sarah Connor – Terminator 1 & 2
	Max Guevera – Dark Angel
	Mystique – X-Men 1, 2, & 3
	Ripley – Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, & Alien Resurrection
	Lara Croft – Tomb Raider 1 & 2

Discuss or post your own list here…

That’s it. Do you dare disagree with my sci-fi expertise? Post your own list here.

Cut and paste the following text into Google:

{-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "DIGG"}

Replace the word “DIGG” with the name of your favorite band and voila, a listing of open indexes containing downloadable music files. Of course you could just go here and let them do the dirty work for you, but where’s the fun n that?

This won’t happen over night. In fact, we are years away from services like this taking hold at all. There are still plenty of obstacles to overcome. You see, when you download a video from Unbox, you are limited to watching it on your computer or portable video player. That’s great for a small niche group of people, but it won’t impress the majority of consumers out there. Especially the ones with 50″ plasma TVs. Pricing is also an issue. Why would I buy Braveheart as a digital download for $13.17 when I can buy the physical DVD for the same price? Is this service targeted at the spontaneous buyer who wants to watch the movie immediately? Perhaps. That’s still a pretty small niche though.

Digital rentals, however, have more of an appeal to me. I can justify spending $1.99 or $2.99 on a rental. Once you download the movie, you have a set amount of time to watch it until it becomes inactive. I believe that number is 30 days right now. Perfect. I have Windows XP Media Center with a very large monitor and digital 6.1 speakers, however. I’m in the minority. Most people have small monitors and crappy speakers. Who would want to watch The Matrix on that set up?

It will be interesting to see how Apple competes with this. To tell the truth, I’m a bit surprised Amazon beat Apple to this at all. I’ve been hearing rumors of Apple’s movie service for weeks now.

One thing is for sure, the world of media is changing at an increasingly rapid rate. I often think of how we will tell our children and grandchildren about things like network television and the TV Guide. How we had to sit in front of the TV at the exact time a show started or you would miss it, perhaps never to see it again. Or how you had to sit through an entire network news program while they spoon fed you stories you didn’t want to hear, all because of the fear of missing the story you did want to hear.

Thank god we live in the age of the Internet!

I’ve never been a huge Superman fan. I have nothing against him personally, he seems like a nice enough guy. My brain just never really clicked with the concept of an all powerful super man, if you will. He’s like the swiss army knife of super heroes; laser eyes, freezo breath, super strength, gravity defying, x-ray vision, bullet proof, rocket proof, missile proof, umm, pretty much invincible. Where’s the fun in that?

But wait, I recall enjoying the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeves. In fact, I really enjoyed them. Then it dawned on me. It’s not Superman himself that everybody loves, it’s what he stands for; truth and justice. The fantasy that someone is watching over us no matter what. This is an important fantasy, especially in the world we live in today, and this movie did a great job in representing that fantasy. I’m getting a bit too philosophical though.

The bottom line is that Superman Returns did a great job stimulating multiple emotions and not just the ones that are typically associated with this sort of film. The cast was fantastic and the story grabs you right from the beginning and doesn’t let go until the closing credits. True, the movie could be slow at times, but slow doesn’t always translate into lack of intensity. I caught myself holding my breath quite a few times and not just during the action scenes. Louis and Superman had some unforgettable moments together.

I think you get the gist of this review. I would seriously recommend this movie to anyone, Superman fan or not. I think it’s that good.

Mmmm, Scarlett…………………. sorry, what? I drifted off there for a second.

Another important note, this very well could be the last time I’m allowed to write on my blog once my girl friend reads this entry. It’s been real nice knowing all of you…

Umm, I’m not sure how Ralph Fiennes made it on this list. That’s just plain weird.

The only two real contenders in Pixar’s line up are Finding Nemo and the original Toy story, and believe me when I say that I enjoyed Cars only half a hair more than the latter two. Cars was definitely the most visually appealing of them all, but what did it for me was the movie’s setting. It was very nostalgic and that was the clincher.

That’s all I’ll say though. I give Cars a 9.5 out of 10. Oh, and I highly recommend going to see this movie on a rainy Saturday night, with about 100 screaming children who are up way past their bedtimes, strung out on an endless supply Junior Mints. It really amplifies the experience.

By the way, check out this unbelievable tidbit from Rottentomatoes.com.

“The addition of reflections in practically every shot of the film added tremendous render time to the project. The average time to render a single frame of film for “CARS” was 17 hours. Even with a sophisticated network of 3000 computers, and state-of-the-art lightning fast processors that operate up to four times faster than they did on “The Incredibles,” it still took many days to render a single second of finished film.”

On an unrelated note, you guys may also want to check out this post from Buzz Patrol. I won’t tell you what it is, but I’ll give you some hints. It has to do with awards, Scarlett Johansson, and cleavage.

See what a great liar I am? The reality is I usually never admit to my mistakes and I bury the truth deep within the bowels of my soul, hoping that no one ever discovers my dark little secret. Alas, I made an error in judgment that I feel I need to address. Back in October I reviewed a movie called Serenity. I stick by my review for the most part. It’s my thoughts about the T.V. show Firefly that I wanted to amend.

As I said in my review, Firefly is the T.V. show leading up to the movie Serenity. I also mentioned that I watched it and hated it. However, I never really gave the show a fair shake. I only watched the first episode, which I read recently was never intended to be the first episode. Fox, in their infinite wisdom, decided to shuffle the order in which the series would be aired. After Serenity came out I decided to make good on my promise and give the show another chance. I am so glad I did. I rented all the discs from my local video store and watched the entire season in a week. I loved the show so much that I bought the DVD set and watched the entire season again. GEEK! I know, but it could possibly be one of the best sci-fi shows ever. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the term sci-fi best describes this show.

My initial reason for not liking the show was due to its western motif. I’m still not a huge fan of that per se, but the characters Joss Whedon created are so much greater than the environment they are in. The characters in Firefly are so entertaining and interesting (and completely original) that I quickly forgot what it was that turned me off about the show in the first place.

There, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now I can sleep at night. I’m also half way through season 2 of BSG and I’m loving every second of it. For those of you have not yet seen it, I would highly recommend it. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m afraid I’ve already said too much.

So why did I go see this movie if I didn’t particularly like the TV show? Because I’m a sucker for space operas. I can’t not see them. While where at it I should admit to a couple of other soft spots I have. I love movies with women that kick ass, martial arts, and that showcase camaraderie. I tend to let my guard down a bit when when reviewing movies that have one or more of those characteristics. I’m ashamed to admit that there are more than a handful of movies that slipped into my DVD collection that otherwise would not be there considering my strict and often ruthless guideline to what I consider to be a great movie.

Serenity, to my pleasant surprise, had a bit of all four of those characteristics. Now that you know that, you must have deduced that I may be a bit wishy washy with this review and that you should take it with a grain of salt. I would agree with you. The movie had average special effects, sub-par acting, and a mediocre plot, but I still enjoyed it very much. It will definitely end up in my DVD collection. If you can get by the many flaws of the movie and strip away the layers of blah, what you have at the core is a fun shoot’m up space saga that does a good job of keeping you guessing. I would love to be able to rave about how great the special effects were and how deep the plot is, but I can’t. They were simply okay. But okay seemed to work just fine. Let’s get real for a second here. My grandmother isn’t coming to see this movie. As a matter of fact I can’t think of one member of my rather gigantic family that would come to see this movie. This movie isn’t for them. It’s for me and space geeks like me. And for us, it was a pretty fulfilling ride.

The cast of Serenity consists of the original cast of Firefly. You won’t see any Oscar nominations here, but the chemistry and the diversity of the actors seemed to work extremely well. As a rule I try not to get too deep about the plot or the characters in my movie reviews, but I feel I must mention Summer Glau. The movie is worth seeing just for her. Not necessarily her performance, but for the character she played. (Although her performance was hands down the best in the film.) She plays a character called River Tam. Let’s just say that she is what Jessica Alba’s character should have been in that other failure of a TV show, Dark Angel. Minus the psychic ability of course. I honestly got goose bumps watching some of her scenes. That’s all I’ll say though. You’ll have to see the movie for yourself to see what I mean.

I’m glad I saw Serenity and I would definitely go see the sequel. If I had to give it a tag line I would say it was a “fun-filled, adventurous space saga that is caught somewhere between cheesy and epic”. Kind of a broad statement I now, but I’m a bit out of practice. All in all I think Joss Wedon got it right. It makes me wonder if I was to harsh on the original Firefly series. I think it’s time to revisit the old show and give it a second chance. What the hell, it’s only $3.00 to rent at my local video store. Why not?

// Update: My new thoughts on Firefly //

“A sense of humor is a strong male quality, a sign of good intellect” Those crazy Ruskies. I’m hilarious and wicked smat.

I’ll be seeing this on Thursday. Prepare for my full review…

This is a great interview with Tim O’Reilly by Wired. Make sure you read the “O’Rielly:What is Web 2.0″ article I posted last week before you read this one. It’s worth it.

I’ve been a fan of Ubuntu Kubuntu since I learned about it last year. Here is an interesting interview with Mark Shuttleworth about various topics concerning Ubuntu. Originally from slashdot.