Went to see The Dark Knight this weekend and am happy to report that it is awesome. Not without flaw, easily the best Batman film. Heath Ledger’s performance is as good as I’d heard it would be, and now that talk of an Oscar nomination doesn’t seem so implausible.
Don’t forget that you’ve still got a week (til July 28) to buy a raffle ticket so that you can win one of the fabulous prizes in the KGB Fantastic Fiction Raffle, which I previously mentioned here. There’s lots of cool things, such as story critiques from Ellen Datlow and Gardner Dozois, Tuckerizations, audio recordings, original art and so on. Not to mention an autographed copy of Wastelands.
Go watch this:
For one thing, it’s directed and co-written by Joss Whedon. For a second thing, it’s about a mad scientist. For a third thing, it’s about a mad scientist trying to take over the world who occasionally bursts into songs written by Joss (and Jed) Whedon.
It’s a (for now) web-only series. Episode 1 is up now (run time around 13 min.). Episode 2 will drop on July 17, with Episode 3 debuting July 19. You only have until July 20 to watch them all before they disappear from the web (though later they will be available on DVD with extras and stuff).
So, go watch. You’ll thank me later.
Here’s a video for the song “Rasputin” by the folk metal band Turisas. I saw them in concert a couple of weeks ago (with three other folk metal bands, on the “Pagan Fest” tour). They were awesome–in fact, the whole damn show was awesome, probably the best concert I’ve ever been to.
This song, “Rasputin,” was recently released as a single by the band, previously being something they only played live. Thing is, it’s a cover–of a disco song. I’d never heard of the disco version before, but it’s by an artist called Boney M. Here’s Turisas’s version:
Man, isn’t that violin player a bad-ass? Here’s the Boney M. version, in case you’re curious how it compares:
Not surprisingly, the Turisas version kicks a whole lot more ass, but I have to say–Boney M? Not bad.