I can’t. Hate Tom Cruise, that is. I can’t help it, I love the guy.

Yes I know he’s a Scientologist, that totally bizarro-world nutcase religion with some really whacked-out ideas about space thetans and trillion-year old aliens, the same religion that’s not above using violence and extortion to keep their secrets intact. But hey, at least they don’t rape kids.

It’s not that all of Tom Cruise’s films have been so awesome - some have even been pretty damn bad. Really, really bad. But you have to admit that many of his films have been pretty good. Some films have even been really, really good.

But none of this really matters. Because the main reason I can’t hate Tom Cruise is because he doesn’t take himself very seriously.

This is one of Hollywood’s leading men, a one-man box-office hit-generator who is arguably one of the most famous people alive on the planet, and he goes around and does things like this:

And then, for no other reason than because he wants to, he goes ahead and repeats it on one of TV’s biggest annual events: the MTV Movie Awards.

(Unfortunately there’s no video available outside of the US due to Viacom’s anally retentive copyright-obsessed lawyers denying the rest of the world the glory of Les Grossman via legitimate means, so I suggest you find the video on your favourite file-sharing site.)

A man that is that famous, and yet possesses sufficient quantities of humour and self-mockery to do this sort of thing and enjoy it, deserves praise.

So there you have it. I like Tom Cruise. I really do.

Last night when I left the office I noticed a huge sign going up on the pub next door. This morning I saw the sign in all its glory:

Click for a bigger version on Flickr

It’s for a scene in a new film called Killing Bono, whose final scenes are due to be shot just outside my office building this week.

Apparently they’re still looking for extras.

I came across this today: Jedi Knight Training Event in Belfast!

A part of me really wants to go to this, just to see what it’s all about…. But another part of me - the part called reason - thinks it’s all a gimmicky scam.

“Rory, creative thinking expert and creator of Rory’s Story Cubes, will join me to offer Northern Ireland’s most exciting/only Jedi training event of 2009. Rory and I will explain the famous Jedi Mind-Trick by showing how to gain control over and from the minds of others. Rory will explore the subjects of Energy Psychology and Subtle Energy fields to gain modern insight in the mystical Force. I will then walk participants through the films to see those psychological skills Luke Skywalker gained in becoming a Jedi, and those Anakin lacked in his fall to the dark side.”

I wonder what the practical applications are in modern life. “These are not the tax return forms you are looking for….”

Update: Allen Baird, one of the event’s organisers, has responded in the comments. Be sure to read it, he makes a good point.

There have been a lot of negative reviews of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. And when I say negative, I mean negative:

“Transformers 2 has a shot at the title Worst Movie of the Decade”, “a horrible experience of unbearable length”, “a pile of glittering junk”, “infantile”, “despicable”, and “tumescence”. (Yes I had to look that one up too.)

Transformers 2 even inspired this satirical review on io9 that, while brilliant in its execution, boils down to a verdict of cinematic excrement.

But I liked Transformers 2. Actually, that doesn’t describe my enjoyment of the film accurately. I fucking loved it.

Now according to the prevalent opinions of movie critics around the world that can only mean one thing: I’m an adolescent, intellectually-challenged and hopelessly insecure male geek. Well, two out of five isn’t bad, I suppose. (Hint: it’s not anything before the word male.)

I loved Transformers 2 because it delivers everything it should. It’s got supermassive robots rampaging through industrial cityscapes, sufficient explosions to vaporise the moon, abundant views of Megan Fox’s abundant curvature, a ginormous Transformer composed of multiple smaller robots tearing through an ancient Islamic state’s most holy archaeological sites, and Optimus Prime punching through another transformer’s chest.

Let me repeat that. It shows Optimus Prime punching his fist through the chest of a Decepticon. If that was the only thing the movie showed, over and over, for its whole two and a half hour length, it would still rock.

Yes, the plot is vague, incomplete and rather superfluous, but how many art-house films provoking rave reviews have simple, inane plots you can describe with a single sentence? (”Man has memories of failed relationship erased” anyone?)

Yet the crippled plot seems to be the central issue reviewers have with the film. The plot sucks, the plot is vague, the plot serves as nothing more but a flimsy curtain rail to hang countless over-the-top action sequences from, yadda yadda blah fucking blah.

Yes, we get it. The plot sucks! Guess what? I DON’T FUCKING CARE. Transformers 2 isn’t about the plot, you Merlot-sipping, Camembert-nibbling, pseudo-intellectual elitist movie-critic twit. It’s about robots beating the shit out of other robots and blowing up half the world while they’re at it.

And you know what? Transformers 2 does that VERY WELL. I can’t wait for number 3.

Today it’s exactly 10 years since The Matrix premiered. This cinematographic amalgam of pop-culture and sci-fi influences is arguably the most important movie of the first decade of the 21st century. The impact this film has had on modern culture is difficult to overestimate. So let’s give a big Happy Birthday to Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and Agent Smith.

“Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?”

Any self-respecting Penny Arcade fan, or any properly nerdified geek for that matter, should be familiar with the music genre known as Nerdcore. Names like MC Frontalot, Optimus Rhyme and MC Hawking are well-known in this particular underground scene, where hip hop meets geek. It’s the sort of music where you hear raps about coding Perl, Transformer toys and Star Trek episodes.

Now this scene has crossed over to Europe, with a new Nerdcore event called Glitched. The first of its kind in the Netherlands, Glitched will feature big Nerdcore names like MC Lars, Beefy, MC Router and YTCracker. Additionally the Nerdcore For Life movie will be shown in full.

I’d so be there if I didn’t have a previous engagement that required me to fly to Munich that same evening. I definitely want to see more of these events in NL, so anyone able and willing to go, do so! With a successful first event it’ll be all the more likely we’ll see more of this here.

The US Pirate Party (not a particularly good name to choose, if you ask me) has released the preliminary results of a study they’ve done to investigate the MPAA’s claim that online file sharing hurts movie theaters and threatens the movie industry’s income from theatrical releases.

Unsurprisingly, the MPAA’s claims are lies. There is no indication that file sharing has a negative impact on movie theater visits. On the contrary, ticket sales have shown a slow, steady climb for the past ten years or so.

Another example of corporate lobbies favoring deceit and manipulation over reality and fact in order to protect big business interests and limit consumers’ freedoms.

(Via Tweakers.net)

Usually I’m the first to excrete all over Uwe Boll’s cinematical oeuvre, as so far his every film has been total and utter crap. But after seeing this trailer for his latest videogame-to-movie production Postal, I can’t help but feel a desire to actually see this film. Especially after reading this positive review.

This Wired piece hits the nail on the head. Transformers has always been more than just cartoons and toys. Optimus Prime was more than just another square-jawed hero. He was a childhood icon, a surrogate father for those of us who grew up with a dad that worked 12 hour days to support his family. Optimus Prime helped raise us. He’s family. And nobody fucks with our family.

I just watched Sicko (bittorrent is my friend) and I can only say one thing: some countries still have a long way to go.