Um, more like Incredible Hunk!

After appearing with the cast of The Avengers at ComicCon over the weekend, it seems Mark Ruffalo has been cast as Bruce Banner in the upcoming Marvel feature. He will replace former Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton in the role, after an ugly press release last week in which Marvel claimed Norton was “difficult” to work with. (I’m guessing Norton had problems with the script, but we’ll never know.)

Personally, I don’t really have a lot of hope for the script, but we’ll see. There’s bound to be lots of action, and with a cast that includes Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr., unless it’s in 3-D, it shouldn’t be too hard on the eyes.


Lattice of Coincidence

“A lot o’ people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch o’ unconnected incidents ‘n things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice o’ coincidence that lays on top o’ everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinkin’ about a plate o’ shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o’ shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin’ for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconciousness.” 

  • Miller in Repo Man

This line rings true for me more often than I’d care to admit. Like sometimes, I’ll be thinking of The Incredible Hulk, and this will show up in my yard for no reason that I know:

I like how it’s busting out of its cover, ala Bruce Banner/Hulk.  How did this ball come to settle near my trash cans?  Did I will it there with my anticipation of this summer’s movie?  Did it escape the angry kicks of the kid up the street? It most likely traveled on the wind of the weekend’s nor’easter, but coincidence?  I think not.

 


Green Momster

Went out with my girlfriends last night.  Some of the few things I remember:

Awesome dessert.  Peanut butter ice cream covered in chocolate and sprinkled with nuts.  Mmmmm.

K, telling us more than we wanted to know about the Kardashians.  I still don’t understand why they are fodder for reality television, but then, I don’t get the genre in general.hulk

That all moms can, at any moment, turn into the Incredible Hulk.  I’m not the only one.  And I need that reminder from time to time, because I only remember my own mom from a child’s perspective, so I have no reference point for her faults.  My cousin, who’s older than I am, tells me that I remember her just as she was.  That she was, in fact, the perfect wife and mother.  And I kind of believe that, because we are talking about a woman who ironed absolutely everything.  I can remember her ironing sheets, my father’s handkerchiefs, his boxers.  But I also remember a few fleeting moments when she went Incredible Hulk on us as well.  Any mom with kids, at any time, can turn into the hulk.

I am often reminded, whenever I drive a certain on-ramp of the interstate, of a moment 40 years ago when my brother and I were arguing over a rubber wrench in the back seat of the car. It was green and it had a little pin in the center that allowed the jaws to open and close. It went with a whole rubber tool set my brother had.  But I liked the wrench. My mother must have gotten sick of hearing “It’s mine,” “No, it’s mine,” etc.  So she called to us from the driver’s seat.  “Let me see that,” she said innocently enough, and so we gave it to her.  She then rolled down the window of the Impala, threw it out onto the highway and gunned the engine.  We were left dumbfounded, looking out the back windshield as the thing skipped in the dust in our wake.

 

Manfrengensen and I went to the movies tonight to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was very funny.  But I don’t want to talk about Sarah Marshall.  I want to talk about the preview I saw for The Incredible Hulk.  Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m really looking forward to this movie.  I don’t have any problem with Edward Norton as Bruce Banner.  I don’t know why some Hulk fans are up-in-arms about the casting. I think Norton will be awesome as Bruce Banner. rock See, Bruce Banner is not some muscle-rippled athlete.  He’s a scientist.  I’m not saying that there aren’t any muscle-rippled scientists out there, but I do think, when you think scientist, you don’t think of this guy:

So, my problem is not with Edward Norton.  My problem is with the size of this Hulk.  He looks too big to me.  How are they going to cover his gnads?  In the 70’s show, he wasn’t that big, he was just an extra-large man.  Bill Bixby’s jeans turned into cut-off bermudas for Lou Farrigno, and everything was on the up-and-up so to speak.  When Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk, what’s he going to wear?  I’m not a reader of the comic, so maybe this question has already been addressed, as I am sure the Hulk has increased in size over the years. My guess is that in the film Banner’s always wearing pants with Spandex. Lots of Spandex.

 

 

 


Momma’s Got a Brand New Blog

Manfrengensen and I are really enjoying this show on HBO:

 

Very interesting series, and we’re learning a lot about America’s second president. Though I thought the sex scene between Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney was gratuitous.  Kind of like some executive at HBO thought it had to be added to give the series that HBO signiature.  “If it doesn’t have gratuitous titties, it doesn’t say HBO.”

Upcoming movies I’m looking forward to:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, War Inc., Dark Knight, Wall E.

T3 is psyched for Speed Racer, but my hopes are not high.  The cast list credits one actorSpeed Racer portraying Rex Racer, and then Matthew Fox is Racer X. Um, what up with that?? I really hope the Rex Racer actor is playing him as a child.

Here’s the thing I don’t understand about some of these remakes of nostalgic series.  Why don’t they just take pages from the originals?  If you really want to get a franchise out of it, take what people liked about the series and build on that.  Most of these remakes are too kitstchy to catch on. And like most pieces of kitsch, it’s mostly just crap. Like if you are going to remake Speed Racer with live action, why not just take the first four episodes of the cartoon and bring them to life?  You can’t beat campy lines like the one where the villain tells Speed, “You’re tough kid, but you’re no match for Ace Deucey.”

My brother loved Speed Racer and Ultra Man, both of which used to be on in the afternoons when we got home from school.  I loved this one in kindergarten and first grade:

 

I think Marine Boy was my first crush.  My best friend and I used to take turns at recess pretending one was Marine Boy and the other was the mermaid, Neptina. Occasionally someone else would play along, pretending to be the dolphin. You can learn more about Marine Boy at:

 http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/tv/kids/marineboy.htm

 

I also loved Kimba the White Lionhttp://kimba.rightstuf.com/

 

Nope, they don’t make ’em like that any more.