Jean-Charles de Castelbajac apparently has a thing for incorporating Muppets into his fashion. Ok, fine, it's a fancy-shmancy runway show in Europe, no one ever actually WEARS those dresses in public, right?

YOU'VE PROVED ME WRONG, LADY GAGA.

Ah well. Could've been worse.



Speaking of fashion, I have a new t-shirt idea. What do you think? It's a parody of the "John&Paul&Ringo&George" t-shirt by Experimental Jetset. The design's been parodied MANY times, but I don't believe I've seen a Lovecraft one yet.

I also have a Pee-Wee's Big Adventure themed t-shirt design in the works, I'll post it soon..

I watched Punisher: War Zone last night, and I'm going to happily file in it my "Guilty Pleasures" box, snuggled up next to Demolition Man and Judge Dredd.

Let me start off by saying that movie is VIOLENT. Grandmothers get their heads blown off, parkour-enthusiasts get blown up by rocket launchers, necks get snapped, throats get slit...I've heard this movie described as "Rambo meets Saw". And if any Marvel character deserves an R-rated movie, it's Punisher. The comics are some of the darkest that Marvel has released, and Frank Castle out-broods even the broodiest of heroes like Daredevil or Batman. In fact, the entire plot was very reminiscent of the original Batman. A man's family is killed, he ends up disfiguring the face of a criminal, who then amasses a small army of thugs to take revenge on the brooding vigilante. Broody broody brooding. Broody.

The introduction of the villain Jigsaw was a welcome change from the blah businessman-villain Howard Saint (John Travolta) in the 2004 movie. His New York accent was a bit over the top, but his makeup was fantastic, and his brother "Loony Bin Jim" (played by Doug "Eugene Tooms" Hutchinson) was an excellent sidekick.

There were certainly some groan-worthy supporting characters. Detective Soap, while pulled directly from the comics, forced a "gee-golly-shucks, Frank!" character that was distractingly sweet and saccharine. Wayne Knight's Microchip brought absolutely nothing to the film.

"Hey Frank, I brought you some handguns."
"Thanks, but as you can see, I already own 5,000 guns."
"Oh, right, you're the Punisher. Well, I guess I'll just hang around and wait to get kidnapped."

I'm also glad they put Frank Castle back in New York City. Seriously, TAMPA? What the hell were they thinking? Tax breaks or not, the Punisher doesn't belong anywhere NEAR palm trees (except in Vietnam flashbacks).

My favorite part of the movie, though, was the colors. "Colors? You mean night-black and blood-red, right?" Nope. They went all out with making New York City look like a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. The whole "let's put Punisher in the real world" thing didn't work with the 2004 movie, so I'm pleased they attempted to add a little visual flair to remind everyone "Hey, this is a comic book movie".



Seriously, LOOK AT THESE COLORS! Almost every scene in the movie has crazy vibrant lighting like this. And it works, too. The only time it was distracting was all the neon in the Catholic church. What they lost with character and plot, they made up for with eye candy.

Naturally, this isn't a movie for everyone. It's holding a 26% on RottenTomatoes.com, and I doubt it'll be gaining a cult status any time soon, but if you enjoyed Steven Segal at his Under Siege career peak and want to relive the glorious, gratuitous violent action movies of the late 1980s, Punisher: War Zone is a must-see.

From the creators of Hobo With a Shotgun, one of the faux trailers from Grindhouse, comes Treevenge, a short film about sentient, pissed-off, homicidal Christmas trees.

WARNING: NSFW language and some pretty damn gory scenes.

Hollywood Reporter is reporting (from Hollywood) that Ryan Reynolds is in the final stages of negotiations to play Green Lantern.

I was really hoping they'd go with Bradley Cooper. Don't get me wrong, I like Ryan Reynolds, just not as Green Lantern. I think he'll be good in the Deadpool spinoff, and he's expressed interest in playing The Flash one day, but you can't be Green Lantern AND The Flash, and I'm disappointed that it appears he chose GL.

wee_squirrel just added a Pokeball cat toy to her Etsy store.



$7, approximately 3" in diameter, and can be made with or without fresh catnip. You know you want one. myselftheliar, I'm looking at you.

She also recently added a dead duck from Duck Hunt, which is super awesome. Check out her store and buy things for your cat! DO EET!

That's when Superman took off, screaming, "I'm not getting arrested."


Wait wait wait...Batman cooperated while Superman resisted arrest? What the hell is this world coming to?

You know a vacation's good if you're occupied when you're gone, and you're busy when you return. Here's what happened on the recent international journey, minor notes of the time since then, and what this weekend will bring.

( {uyw} #20090710a )

- Check out the trailer for Big Fan, the directorial debut of Robert Siegel (he was an editor at The Onion from 1996-2003, and he wrote the screenplay for The Wrestler). I'm a huge Patton Oswalt fan, and while I'm sure there'll be some very humorous scenes in this movie, I'm really looking forward to seeing Oswalt flex his dramatic acting chops.

- Also, Alex "Bill S. Preston, Esq" Winter has scraped together $1.9 million to finance his remake of The Gate. They start filming in Cologne, Germany this fall. Now, I'm no financial genius, but filming a feature-length, apparently theatrically-released horror movie in 3-D just might cost more than $1.9 million these days. Hopefully some wealthy German horror movie fan throws a few more mil his way.

- VARNING: FOR KLAMRISK. People, DON'T RISK YOUR CLAM BY TAKING TRASH IN AN ELEVATOR!