New Logos.

Look at these new Pepsis.


The "smile" gets bigger or smaller depending on the drink's... what, potency? Pepsi has gone through a LOT of different looks over the years, but I think far and away my absolute favorite is the white can with the old logo from the late 80's/early 90's:


Simple. Elegant. Perfect. If you like Pepsi. I'm more of a Coca-Cola man.

Here's some other recent beverage makeovers.

When I was in high school, Nestea looked like this:


That looks like a fun drink! Now, Nestea looks like this:


That looks like medicine.

And how bout Sierra Mist? I only started drinking this a couple years ago. It looked like this:


That also looks like a fun drink! Now it looks like this:


That looks like a horror movie.

Also:


I feel like every time they redesign beverage logos-- or any logos, for that matter-- I like the new logo a lot less. But I suppose logo changes are necessary... for time travelers to be able to triangulate the approximate year in a pinch.

-Diego

Carolers!

The other night I was out for a run when I turned a corner and found myself looking at real life CAROLERS. As in, a group of people singing "O Come All Ye Faithful." I was quite amazed at the sight. Even though I've been aware of the existence of carolers my entire life, and I've seen them all the time in videos, this was the first time I ever saw them with my naked eye. And as I observed this phenomenon for real, I was struck by what a bizarre thing it is, for this group of assorted persons to stand around in the darkened streets outside a house and sing with their unprofessional singing voices. A woman came out of the house cradling her dog like a baby and just watched them, like she might watch her TV. What a weird thing! The neighbor also popped out, while talking on the phone, possibly telling someone about weird things happening in his neighborhood.

I wonder what other extremely common things I've managed to never see in person.

-Diego

The Day the Earth Did Something Stupid.

Twentieth Century Fox has announced that on Friday, December 12, 2008, not only will it release the remake of 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (starring Keanu Reeves) into both regular theatres and IMAX, it will also be transmitting the film into deep space.

I can't believe it either! IMAX!

The movie will be fired into Alpha Centauri, which is the closest star system to our own solar system, and they'll be receiving it sometime in the year 2012. This is the first intergalactic feature-length movie transmission, so that's pretty cool. Only... well, right now, this movie's got 8 out of 11 rotten reviews on rottentomatoes.com, giving it a shameful 27% on the tomatometer.

What if there's an advanced civilization in Alpha Centauri? These possibly genocidal aliens are going to watch the transmission and make the following observations:

- This movie is shitty and pisses us off.
- This movie gives us the idea to take over Earth.
- The assholes who sent us this are a mere 4.37 light years away.

Then today, I saw a commercial for it on TV. At the end of the commercial, the announcer said this:

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. RATED PG-13. THE ONLY PLACE YOU CAN SEE THE NEW "X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE" TRAILER.

I was actually looking forward to this movie before all these promotional stunts. Doesn't Twentieth Century Fox realize how blatantly they are forecasting that the movie itself is not good?

All I can say is, they better attach that Wolverine trailer to the deep space transmission, because if they don't, those aliens are going to be fucking PISSED.

-Diego

Golden Oldies.

I wasn't very well-versed in popular music when I was growing up. I picked up some of it peripherally, but my entire time at elementary school, when I would listen to the radio in my room, it was always tuned to Majic 102.7, an oldies station in South Florida. That was over ten years ago. I was back in Florida recently, driving around on some nights, so in my search for decent music (which ultimately eluded me), I tuned to Majic 102.7. But something was very different about this station now. Not all of the songs they were playing were oldies. But they hadn't changed formats or anything. Then I noticed that the station was now purporting to feature all the "greatest hits of the 60s and 70s."

Whoa. Excuse me. But oldies are from the 50s and 60s. Not the 70s. Apparently, somewhere around the turn of the century, oldies stations started concentrating less on the 50s and more on the 70s to stay hip to their demographics. This sounds to me like an immeasurably foolish precedent.

You can't redefine what constitutes an oldie as the decades pass. Pretty soon, everything's gonna be an oldie. But everything from the past few decades already has a name. Like disco, classic rock, punk, grunge, or easy listening. And so it goes for all music present and future, because whenever a style of music changes enough that it can be classified as something else, they always come up with a new name. Like nu metal, psychobilly, hatecore, indie pop, or even pornogrind.

My point is that the term "oldies" was coined for one style of music. The original rock and pop music from the 50s and 60s. If they change that, and give its name to something else, the world will be dumber for it. Words from our cultural lexicon change their meaning all the time, but the cause is typically general ignorance. This isn't like Nick at Nite phasing out The Dick Van Dyke Show and airing George Lopez under the banner of classic TV (as egregiously foul as that is). This is serious. This is our language. Fuck everyone who contributes to the death of the golden oldie.

-Diego

This Ain't No Cartoon.

Just a couple weeks ago, I blogged on here about how hurt I was that Superman Returns wasn't getting a sequel, and I referred to my comic book movie wish list, the #1 item of which was that we'd get another live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Earlier this week, Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman said the following on a message board:

Yes, it is true. Although the CGI film did well enough to warrent a sequel, there has been much talk between Imagi and Warners to do a better "re-invention" (newest Hollywood buzzword) of the TMNT's, in a live action film--like what was done with Batman. Back to basics, back to the origin and the intro of the Shredder, etc...there have been talks, trips to Northampton to talk to Mr Laird, and discussions with the original "first" TMNT film director Steve Barron to come back and do it right--but no official word yet...will keep you posted. Best, Kevin

The greatness of this news rivals the shittiness of the Superman news. I am so happy right now. Seriously. All I was even presuming to wish was that they make a live action Turtles movie. I wouldn't have cared if it was a big piece of shit. I daredn't DREAM that they'd even involve Steve Barron in something like this. The idea that they're even CONSIDERING it is just... wow.

This story has since been decried by some people in the know (see some of the Ninja Turtle blogs linked on the right-hand column of this blog), claiming "these rumors are not true." But everyone needs to look closer. All these bloggers are saying is that this is not an official press release about the definitive next TMNT movie. And Kevin Eastman never said it was. He said this is what they're talking about. And I guess some of the more fast food-approach McBloggers like Perez Hilton were reporting that this was an official deal that was happening. But it's not. It's just talk. And right now, that is more than enough for me.

Cheers,
Diego

Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?

Yesterday, I was standing somewhere waiting for a ride, and I started making a list in my head. A list of comic book movie wishes. Like, if I could make a list of comic book movie-related wishes, and they could all come true, what would they be? I'd ask for a Nolan Batman movie with the Riddler in it. Maybe a Fantastic Four reboot (and quick). Possibly an Ed Solomon-scripted Men in Black sequel. Above all, I'd definitely want another live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, the exact style of the first movie, that maybe more directly adapts the early seasons of the original animated series.

But the first wish that popped into my head, and was the thought that prompted the list to begin with, was that I wished there would be a direct Bryan Singer-directed sequel to 2006's Superman Returns. I don't think anyone anticipated a movie like this as the culmination of two decades of false starts and aborted attempts to bring Superman back to the big screen. Some people didn't like it, and they all had their own different issues with it. I was thrown by it, but only because it seemed like it was setting something up that we wouldn't get to until its hypothetical sequel(s). I'd had a similar reaction to Singer's X-Men, which he then followed up with the really awesome X2. So I wasn't too worried about it, and I actually like Superman Returns a lot. In the past year or so, there have been numerous worrisome rumors about Singer possibly not getting to do his follow-up (announced in early 2006 and referred to tentatively as "The Man of Steel"). The shooting date kept getting pushed back while Singer worked on other movies. In October 2007, his two writers actually left the project. And since then, there have been more rumblings that the franchise might get rebooted. The talk would never get too far, but it always troubled me that I never heard any quotes from Singer himself about what was happening. Last month, Warners supposedly started taking pitches from new writers for the Superman sequel. As far as anyone knew, this didn't mean Singer was necessarily losing the franchise, and Brandon Routh was still the official Superman.

Today we got confirmation from Warner Brothers that Superman is getting rebooted. Studio exec Jeff Robinov gave a whole quote explaining about how they're going to do like Marvel and introduce solo movies for each DC hero with the eventual intent of putting them all together in a Justice League movie, and that all the heroes will be dark and brooding like The Dark Knight. He elaborated, proving even further that he had no idea what he was talking about.

This really hurts me. I was emotionally invested in Superman Returns, and it looks like I'm never going to find out where it was going. I want to hear from Bryan Singer already. Why the fuck is Man of Steel dead?

Cheers,
Diego

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Bullshit.

Earlier this week, WB Entertainment President & COO Alan Horn announced that they were changing the release date of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from November 21, 2008 to July 17, 2009. He said it's mainly because a lot of other movies had WGA strike-related complications and they needed something like Harry Potter to pick up the slack come blockbuster season.

At the exact same time, Issue #1007/1008 of Entertainment Weekly hit the stands. It was a Fall Movie Preview double issue, and the cover was a picture of Harry Potter's face.

This kinda sucks for the Entertainment Weekly peeps, who pride themselves on having their collective finger consistently on the pulse. Especially because it's a double issue, so it'll be on racks and shelves everywhere for two whole weeks before they can put out another one. But if you ask me, this was no accident. Warner Brothers knew Harry Potter was gonna be the cover story of Entertainment Weekly. I bet they purposely waited to make the announcement so they could still get that fortnight of face time on newsstands.

Tricky, fellas. But not tricky enough.

Incidentally, I kinda preferred the idea of a Harry Potter movie coming out in the fall. Just, aesthetically, it seemed to make more sense. Now we gotta see it in the summer. And wait an extra eight months for the privilege. WB spun this by pointing out that it'll shorten the wait between Half-Blood Prince and the next Harry Potter movie. In other words, we should go fuck ourselves.

Cheers,
Diego