Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

The Furious Truckstop Waitresses are going to be facing their rivals, Iron Curtain, in a bout next Saturday. I have to root for FTW, and not just because Jezebelle will pound me if I don't say so. My favorite skaters all skate for FTW. I was going to name them...but I don't want to ruin team chemistry with rivalries and petty jealousy. Some of IC's names from last season are no longer skating for them; Moscow Minx and Kay G. B. are no longer skating, and league MVP Whamma Pavlova is now with a different team. But, they have some eager younger skaters, so we will see what happens.

I saw FTW Elbow Bomb the other night. I still say that I am taller than she is.

The new Fantastic Four movie is going to be out on Wednesday. This is actually the second attempt at putting them on the screen, the first being in 1994, when every movie associated with Marvel Comics sucked in the most henious way. That version was never released theatrically, although I saw a preview of it on a foreign tape that I rented, which tells me it got released on VHS somewhere.

Fantastic Four was the first comic I ever read. The thing that made them unique when they emerged in 1963 was that they actually had a reason to be together. Previous super-groups, such as the Justice League, were thrown together assemblages with no rhyme or reason. The Fantastic Four were basically a family who shared a common reason to be together. They also had some level of characterization, yeah, admitedly not much, but it was there. The Thing, for example, was bitter at Reed Richards for what making him into a freak ("I'm just a...a...thing!"), where the brash Johnny Storm thought that it was cool that he could fly and thought it would be a good way to pick up girls. It looks like, at least from the previews, that the folks that put this movie together understand this.

The mistake with the comic book movies that have failed is that the producers didn't understand this. What made these comics interesting wasn't that things got blown up, it was that we could get into the characters. The reason why some of these movies have been failures (Daredevil, The Hulk) is that producers think that the thing that make these stories attractive are gee-whiz special effects. The Batman moveis started getting bad when they became more about who was going to be in them than about the story and characters.


For the most part, I'm happy with the casting decisions. I am a bit confused about Jessica Alba, though. Lets face it, she is in there for eye candy...and they have her playing the Invisible Woman. Who was the genius on that one? I like Chiklis as the Thing; he has done well on The Shield going between brooding and ass-kicking. Gruffudd (which is pronounced "Griffith", you tell me why people have trouble with my name...) will probably be good as Mr. Fantastic. I read in USA Today that the producers wanted Brendan Fraser at one point. I like Fraser, but could you buy him as a brilliant scientist? The fact that someone put the kibosh on this is a good sign for the film.

I noticed that the Thing is more the lumpy 1963 version than the later rocky version. I don't know what this means, but I think it's interesting.

No one seems to be worried about the Human Torch causing kids to do stupid things. At one time, people thought that the character would encourage kids to light themselves on fire. For this reason, the mid-seventies cartoon Fantastic Four replaced the Human Torch with a robot named Herbie. Yes, Herbie. Apparently, the brilliant scientist Richards crated a robot who's only purpose was to say smart alecky things.

Mr. Fantastic's powers are rather mundane by comic book standards, but I suppose it would have been impossible to make the stretching to look anything close to realistic without CGI. This has probably stopped anyone from trying to make this movie until recently.

The Revs tied again yesterday. Geez. Yes, I can say that the Revs are still undefeated this season. But I can also say that they haven't won in three weeks. Former Dandy Town forward Khano Smith impressed, scoring the Revs only goal. In the World Cup Qualifier, Clint Dempsey got an assist for the USA in the 3-0 victory over Costa Rica (which also featured former Rev Mauricio Wright, playing for the Ticos). Trinidad and Tobago (featuring Rev Avery John and former Columbus Crew member Stern John, that's for you, Lorio) beat Panama, which pulls them within striking distance of qualifying for the World Cup Finals.

Hmm...It's late...I'm tired...

Buenos noches, dobrenoc.