Upcoming Movies
It’s been a while since I updated my list. I know its far from complete, but here it is.
You’ve been waiting for it and it’s coming soon. On May 4th, 2012 The Avengers opens! Directed by Joss Whedon; Robert Downey, Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemswroth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo come together as a team of superheroes that must do what all good superheroes do, save the world. Tom Hiddleston will return as Loki and Samuel L. Jackson will return as Nick Fury.
May 18, 2012: Battleship, a film based off the old game, enters the theaters. Liam Neeson will star as Admiral Shane, Taylor kitsch as Alex Hopper, and Alexander Skarsgard as Stone Hopper. In this film, an international naval fleet at Pearl Harbor goes up against an alien fleet. Rihanna will make her acting debut in this film as a female sailor.
May 25, 2012: Men in Black 3 (in 3D) will feature the return of Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in a time-travel adventure. Josh Brolin (Jonah Hex, W.) will play a young Agent K and Nicole Scherzinger (The X Factor) and Jemaine Clement (Dinner for Schmucks) have been cast as the antagonists.
The titans are going to get beat down on March 30th, 2012. Perseus gets drafted into battle by the gods again in the sequel to Clash of the Titans. Wrath of the Titans has Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Danny Huston, and Edgar Ramirez reprising their roles of Perseus, Zeus, Hades, and Ares respectively. Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day, Pride and Prejudice) will be playing the part of Andromeda and Jonathan Liebesman (Battle: Los Angeles) is directing.
June 1, 2012: Snow White and the Huntsman, a fantasy adventure film starring Kristen Stewart (Twilight, the Runaways) as Snow White, Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen and Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman. The seven dwarves will also be in the movie.
On June 8, 2012, many of our questions will be answered in Prometheus. In this prequel to the film Alien we will see more of the pilot of the derelict spacecraft and the original Zeta II Reticuli star system. Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2009 film, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) will play Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and Charlize Theron (Hancock, Aeon Flux) will play Meredith Vickers, “a suit who slowly sheds that skin through the film”.
June 22, 2012: we learn what really happened during the Civil War in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Abraham Lincoln is played by Benjamin Walker(The War Boys).
June 29, 2012: G.I. Joe: Retaliation, the sequel to the Rise of Cobra will be directed by Jon Chu. Most of the original cast will not be returning. Roy Park, Channing Tatum, and Lee Byung-hun are the exceptions, reprising their roles of Duke, Snake-Eyes, and Storm Shadow. Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson has been cast as Roadblock, Elodie Yung (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 2011 American Remake) as Jinx, and Adrianne Palicki (Red Dawn, Elektra Luxx) as lead female role, Lady Jay. Ray Stevenson (Thor, King Arthur) will play the main villain, Firefly. Bruce Willis has also signed on to play General Joseph Colton
July 3, 2012: The Spiderman series gets a reboot with a new film starting Andrew Garfield(The Social Network) as Spiderman, Emma Stone(Easy A) as Gwen Stacy, and Rhys Ifans(Anonymous) as Doctor Conners/The Lizard. The film is directed by Marc Webb(500 Days of Summer).
July 13, 2012: just when you thought it was over, they do another one. Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, and the others return in Ice Age: Continental Drift. Manny and the gang set off on their greatest adventure yet after the continent starts to drift, using an iceberg as a ship, they set sail and face exotic sea creatures and ruthless pirates. And Scrat goes after his cursed nut again.
July 20, 2012: the Bat is back in the Dark Knight Rises. Christian Bale returns as Batman. Joining him on the screen are Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle and Tom Hardy (Inception) as Bane. Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman will also reprise their roles as Alfred, James Gordon, and Lucius Fox.
September 15, 2012: Resident Evil: Retribution starring Milla Jovovich as Alice, with Sienna Guillory and Michelle Rodriguez reprising their former roles of Jill Valentine and Rain Ocampo. Boris Kodjoe is also returning as Luther West.
October 26th, 2012: James Bond returns in Skyfall. Daniel Craig reprises the titular role while Javier Bardem(Eat, Pray, Love, No Country for Old Men) plays the film’s villain. Judi Dench will return as M. Ben Whishaw (The International) is joining the cast as Q and Naomie Harris (Pirates of the Caribbean, Ninja Assassin) is this movie’s Bond Girl, Eve.
December 7, 2012, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe take the leads in a big screen musical adaptation of Les Miserables. Hugh Jackman will play the role of Valjean while Russell Crowe chases after him as Javert. Anne Hathaway has been cast to play Fantine and Sacha Baron Cohen (Hugo, Sweeney Todd) will play Thenardier.
Sometime in 2012 there might be a new Bourne movie, The Bourne Legacy. As with the three previous movies, except for the names it will have have nothing to do with the books. Edward Norton is currently in talks to play the films villain. Matt Damion may or may not be in the movie. Jeremy Renner might headline the film as a new character.
May 3, 2013 is the planned release date for Iron Man 3. Jon Favreau wants the Mandarin to be the main villain in this film, though the character will need to be reworked. There is very little word about other details at this point.
July 26, 2013 Thor returns in Thor 2. Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, and Idris Elba are expected to reprise their roles as Jane Foster, Loki, and Heimdall. The script is still in the works, being written by Robert Rodat(Saving Private Ryan). There is no word yet on the plot.
July, 26 2013: Hugh Jackman will return in Wolverine. The film will tell about Wolverine’s time spent in Japan. Silver Samurai will be this films villain and Sarai Givaty is rumored to play the role of Viper/Madame Hydra, the secretary to Japan’s Minister of Justice.
Also sometime in 2014: Deadpool will go solo in a film by the same name. Ryan Renolds will be playing the merc with a mouth. Tim Miller has been announced to be the director.
Sometime in the future there may be a Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Disney told the actors to keep their calendars clear and Terry Rossio is currently working on a script. Johnny Depp has stated that he would be happy to return as Captain Jack Sparrow.
Goals update
I have accomplished one of my goals. I had a second date with Marie. It didn’t as well as I planned, but it was still okay. I cooked dinner for her on Saint Patrick’s Day and we had a picnic on the third floor of the I-Center. I fixed corned beef, cabbage, and culcannon. For desert, I had brought a box of thin mint girl scout cookies.Then we blew bubbles over the railing.
I also have a new goal, I want to visit Heaven’s Gate Mountain and climb the staircase. It’s only 999 steps up to the top. Time to start practicing. I think the I-Center has 4 flights of stairs.
The Fall of Mugen
I recruited a new player to our group, since I knew that Killstealer would not help us much. He created a sorcerer named Rand al’thor, but I call him Black Mage.
Killstealer arrived with Rand/Black Mage, they were our only back up and it was not quite enough. Mugen suggested patrolling around the town to find any small groups to take out, but the group decided on a frontal assault. Being the only true melee party member, Mugen led the charge. Taking the bridge that led into town was easy. The archer and Black Mage took out several flying tyranids while Mugen killed the ones on the ground. Black Mage easily dealt with a trio that had guns, too. The large tyranid joined the battle. Mugen stood against him for a couple rounds before finally being brought down. Neef had joined him at the gate, but could not do anything, so he jumped in the water.
A pack of genestealers, more advanced tyranids, crossed the river, forcing the archer, Black Mage, and Killstealer to flee.
After some convincing, Killstealer snuck into the town invisible to see if they could retrieve the body of Mugen and revive him. The archer and Black Mage provided a distraction to help him get in. After finding Mugen and seeing some tyranids around him, Killstealer fled.
The group went back to a town and much chaos ensued. Killstealer organized a group of hobos to incite panic in the town and then he used the panic to loot the town. Neef created some liquid that he was trying to sell as an anti-tyranid potion. And Black Mage started preaching that this was the end of the world.
Meanwhile, I am trying to create a character that can bring back Mugen.
The Sky is Falling
After spend a week cleaning up the destroyed section of town, some from the adventurer’s guild approached him about something that crashed back by the abandoned village. Some strange monsters from the stars. Mugen and Neef decided to go investigate. No one else showed up for the game that week. And we hired an archer to help us.
It was a weeks travel up to the crash sight. Along the way we kept encountering these bizarre creatures that we could not identify. They were easy enough for Mugen to kill. The ones with guns that stayed out his reach were a bit annoying.
At one point, we made camp. During Mugen’s watch, he saw something, so he woke the others and went to check it out. He found one creature in a bush and killed it. Neef thought he saw something, too and used a sunrod. The light revealed that the trio was completely surrounded. There were even two in the air. It was a long battle and they found a more powerful creature among the aliens, but Mugen still killed it.
Finally the group arrived small town and found it overrun. A larger creature was in the center of town. Having no desire to charge in there by ourselves, we camped a safe distance away and decided to wait, hoping the other players would show up next week.
The creatures were tyranids, an alien race from a game called Warhammer 40K. Putting us up against them was a very interesting turn in the campaign. This session was also the most experience we ever got so far in this game. Also, without Killstealer ruining things, we were able to accomplish a lot more encounters.
In Party Fighting
We were only supposed to be in Port Town for a little bit to sell out loot and get the next quest, but things got a little out of hand.
In our loot, there was a book. Neef determined that it was recipes for potions. One of them called for dragon’s blood. Killstealer and the warforged looked around and saw the dragonwrought kobold and decided to find out if his blood was dragon enough. The warforged and kobold ended up wrestling in the street and Killstealer started taking bets. The kobold managed to get away and Killstealer paid out to the winners, then stole the money right back along with anything else they had. However, someone from the thieves’ guild spotted him.
Meanwhile, Mugen noticed that there were strange lights in the sky. Mugen has a 15 intelligence, however, he sought out Neef who has a 16 and is therefore smarter than him. Neef determined that the sky was falling and this is the end of the world. Being a good friend, Mugen decided to get Neef, who is supposed to be a stereotypical nerd, laid before the world ends. Mugen took Neef to the pier.
“Who says that I went with him?” Nathan then asked.
“My twenty strength says,” I replied. “Mugen throws you over his shoulder and carries you.”
The guy from the thieves’ guild warned Killstealer about working on their turf. Killstealer then followed the guy back to their hideout, which turned out to be the building the silver piece prostitute worked behind. Finding out that he had some trouble with them, Mugen offered to help deal with them for 100 gold pieces.
Mugen burst in the front door and announced that he was hired by Killstealer to kill them all and then proceed to attack. Killstealer actually helped out. While Mugen was slaughtering the thieves, Killstealer used several Molotov cocktails to set the building on fire. The warforged showed up and helped carry some whale oil that was on the pier to help the building burn faster. One of the thieves escaped the fire and attacked them. Killstealer used another Molotov cocktail on the thief, but got the warforged, too. The two of the proceeded to fight and that’s when the town watch showed up. Killstealer managed to convince them that the warforged was behind it all. The warforged had no where to go, but the water, so he jumped off the pier.
Mugen finished off the last of the thieves and found he was trapped in the fire, so he jumped out a window into the water. Swimming away from the scene, he then joined the crowd watching the pier burn and volunteered to help put out the fires.
Finishing the First Adventure
Nathan did not show up for the next session, so the group left Neef in Port Town while everyone else went back to the mine. Along the way, we stopped at small town and found a pack of undead laying siege. After a tough fight, that Killstealer ran away from, we saved the town and continued on to the mine. We found the necromancer’s lair and cleared it and then found another branch of the mine where the gricks were coming from.
Without Neef, who was the serving as the healer for the party, Mugen invested in a lot of healing potions.
Alex had left the table for a while at this point, so I took over playing his character along with my own. Mugen, the warforged, and the ranger took care of the gricks while Killstealer hid. We then found a large grick. Mugen took the brunt of the attack and went down due to the lack of hit points, but was not dead. The ranger did die. Killstealer showed up and took a pot shot at the large grick and killed it.
Luckily for me, the warforged decided to revive me. We found a door beyond the body of the large grick with indentations for some talismans that we had not yet found. Unable to get through the door any other way, we returned to Port Town. In honor of our fallen comrade, I took up the crate and chicken.
Dave, our DM said that this adventure was only supposed to take a week or two, however it took the party two months.
A new character
In the next session, three new characters joined the party. I had rolled up a draconic half-fiend hound archon to be the parties new tank. I made him chaotic neutral so that he might be able to handle the neutral evil Killstealer. The player who had the warforged that died before I joined the group made up a new warforged. And a guy named Alex created a ranger.
The ranger joined the party in the town and came with them back to the abandoned village. They meet my guy, Mugen, in the mine that they were going to clear. The warforged was there, too.
Our first encounter in the mine was with some dire rats and they gave the party some trouble. Due to the racial templates I took, Mugen had great stats and could dish out a good bit of damage and had a good armor class, but he had very few hit points. He managed to kill off a lot of rats.
Meanwhile, Killstealer and the warforged fell into a underground river and were swept out to a lake outside of the village. While they were gone, the rest of the party went deeper in the mine and found some rooms. The group ended up splitting up as we searched the rooms. Neef and Mugen went into one room and several skeletons appeared. The ranger ended up locking us in the room with the skeletons. Neef and I managed to defeat them and get out.
The group managed to loot the rooms before Killstealer and the warforged caught up. That was a first. The group then decided to head to Port Town, a weeks travel from the abandoned village. When we tried to leave, we were attacked by gricks again. The warforged ended up falling down a well with kobold inside of it. Neef went down, but Mugen carried him away.
While in the town, Alex’s ranger stole a wooden crate and a chicken. He then contacted the mage’s guild about making the chicken large enough to ride on. However, he did not have enough gold for it. The crate was for him to hide in so that the monsters in the dungeon would not see him.
The Adventure begins here
I found a new Dungeons and Dragons group a couple weeks after moving to Rexburg. I have to admit, this is one of the most interesting campaigns that I’ve been in, so I decided to start chronicling it.
When I first joined the group, Paul was playing a rogue named Killstealer. He let a warforged fighter die in the session before I got there. I started with a druid. Another guy named Nathan created an artificer named Neef. Joe showed up for one session and played a crazy dwarf that chewed on bones we got from skeletons we killed. The party had been hired by an adventurers’ guild to clear out the undead from an abandoned town.
We started clearing a dungeon under a chapel. Killstealer locked the rest of the party in a hallway filled with skeletons and then went searching for stuff to steal. We managed to escape the hallway and had to go back up to rest.
Robert joined our group with a dragonwrought kobold. By this point, we had a very diverse party.
When we went back in, we encountered a pair of zombies and a pair of skeletons just inside the entrance. The crazy dwarf knocked down one of the undead and put a wooden door that he was using as a shield on top of it and then jumped up and down on the door.
It took us a while to clear out the dungeon and the group decided to head back to town to heal up and so that Killstealer could sell his loot. As we left the abandoned village, we were attacked by a grick. My druid helped Neef fight it off while Killstealer and the crazy dwarf left us to die. We survived though. My druid decided to leave the group at that point.
The Annual Rememberance of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre
On Valentine’s Day 1929, in Chicago, seven people were gunned down. At 10:30 in the morning, four men, possibly members of Al Capone’s South Side Gang, lured several members of Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang into a warehouse in the Lincoln park neighborhood and killed them with Thompson sub-machine guns.
The victims were:
Peter Gusenberg, one of Moran’s enforcers.
Frank Gusenberg, another enforcer and Peter’s brother. Frank was hit 14 times and was still alive when the police arrived. He died three hours later, still denying that he had been shot.
Albert Kachellek (aka James Clark), Moran’s second in command.
Adam Heyer, Moran’s bookkeeper and business manager.
Reinhart Schwimmer, he was not a member of the gang, but associated with them.
Albert Weinshank, he physically resembled Moran and was probably mistaken for him when the massacre happened.
John May, not a member of the gang, but was occasionally their auto mechanic.
The only survivor of the massacre was John May’s German Shepherd, Highball. The men that committed the massacre were never identified. This incident was also the beginning of the end for Bugs Moran. He continued to hold onto his operation for several years, but he never fully recovered from the blow.
We should all take a moment to remember the men who lost their lives for bootleg whiskey and dog races while we tell our significant others how much we love them.
Long time, No see
Wow, it has been a while. I’ve been a bit busy. For those of you who didn’t know, as if anyone outside of my friends and family read this, I have returned to college and started on my bachelors degree. Between school, looking for work, publishing my books, and dating, it has been hard to find time to post on here.
Yes, I now have hard copies out for A Road Map to Happiness and Hello, My Name is Nobody.
Also, as I searched around the internet, I found this little gem:
And let’s not forget the most important thing, the super bowl. It gave us this:
I have been thinking about what to do with this website this year. One of the ideas that I brainstormed was to do a video blog about 30 dates in 30 days. I will also be bringing back the Lame Movie Reviews. If anyone else has some ideas, let me know.
