Now I know a couple of weeks ago I was in distress over the announcement of a remake of "Escape From New York"...and while I still am...I did see some movie news this week that has allowed me to put aside this blasphemy for a time and dwell on what could be.  Now stick with me here, because this stuff is important.  First, I read that a movie deal has been signed for as film based on the videogame "Gears of War".  Now my faithful readers will remember last Fall when I wrote about a new badass...the main character of "Gears of War" named Marcus Fenix.

A movie based on this game could honestly be one of the greatest of all time, coming in a close second place behind the movie I'll discuss in a few.  The gist of it is that in the future, there are a race of these mutant insect-type things trying to take over the world.  Marcus was busted out of a military prison to help get rid of them.  Why?  Because he's 100% pure badass.  He fears nothing, and laughs in the face of overwhelming odds knowing he'll figure out a way to escape and take out as many of the locust horde as possible along the way.  When I saw the story about a movie, I was pretty ecstatic, but that was short-lived.  My mind started to wander and think about who Hollywood would cast to play such a major role.  The article had a follow-up with the writer giving his choices on who should play various roles in the movie, and his choice for Fenix was Bruce Willis.  Now, I am a huge fan of Bruce Willis.  By the way, have you ever listened to The Ventures?  They're an all instrumental surf band form the 1960's.  I just got hold of some of their out of print stuff...man these songs are great.  Oh I know, a far cry from Black Flag and Slayer, but it's good stuff.  Anyway, while I know Bruce Willis can easily pull off military roles of this fashion, he'd be the wrong choice.  Yes, Fenix is older because he's been in a military prison for a while, but that's something that isn't a huge detail.  Whoever plays Marcus Fenix has to have a bit of an edge to him, someone who could carry themselves with a "I take no shit off of anyone and fear nothing" kind of presence.  Plus, his voice needs some gruff to it so when he talks, it's got that grizzled veteran sound.  I know who would be perfect for it, and I will reveal it in a minute.

The next movie news I saw was that a film will be made based on the videogame "God of War".  This game is a man's game.  The main character is a dude named Kratos, the most feared Spartan warrior, who takes on the god of war - Ares.  Oh I know, a mortal taking on a god?  Well that shows what a badass the guy is.  He knows ZERO fear and will waste anything that crosses his path without even thinking about it.  I mean the dude has chains that have been burned into his forearms that are connected to the Blades of Chaos...how much more badass can someone get?  In the first game, he kills Ares and becomes, yep you guessed it, the new god of war.  In the second one, which I picked up last week, Zeus tricks him and Kratos gives up all his powers.  Kratos is now a mortal again and is hell-bent on defeating Zeus.  Talk about someone with some balls...a mortal challenging Zeus to combat.

What I love so much about the two "God of War" games is that Kratos has one purpose in both - to defeat the one that crossed him.  Nothing else matters.  Like Marcus Fenix, the guy knows absolutely no fear.  So, who could play Kratos in a movie?  It would need to be someone who has above average height and is pretty built.  Yeah, I'm almost 6'3", already bald with the kickass facial hair, but I couldn't handle the Hollywood lifestyle, so I'm going to withdraw...haha.  I saw some rumored floating around as to who would play Kratos and I wanted to cry.  The one name that kept popping up was Dominic Purcell (I think that's his name).  He's the dude who played Dracula in "Blade 3" and is also on the TV show "Prison Break".  The dude just doesn't have the presence to play a role like this.  Knowing my luck, Vin Diesel will probably get the role and I'll feel the need to stage a protest.  Screw the environment or the war...protesting Vin Diesel as Kratos would be important!!!  Let me ask you this...could Vin Diesel pull off a role as a character who will smash someone's head into a book to spill blood for a sacrifice after that same guy translated what the writings said?  Yeah, I agree...he couldn't.  Whoever plays Kratos has to have the ability to convey an attitude of "I have ZERO time to mess around".  Well I have the perfect actor to play BOTH roles.  Seriously I do...I have one name that could easily play the role of Marcus Fenix and Kratos.  Who is it?  Here you go -

In case you don't know, this is the same dude that played Leatherface in the latest two Texas Chainsaw movies.  He was also in "Any Given Sunday" as a semi-psychotic offensive lineman, and was in "The Program" as the psychotic defensive end who would paint his face up like a skull.  He was also in "Higher Learning" and for some stupid reason had trouble in a fight with Busta Rhymes and Ice Cube, but it was a Spike Lee movie so go figure.  Plus, like I said in my review on the latest Texas Chainsaw movie, the dude listens to Slayer.  I picture Vin Diesel thinking he's really "rocking out" when he puts on some Nickleback or Pearl Jam.  Dominic Purcell strikes me as a hardcore Dave Matthews Band kind of guy, which translates into "wuss".  I'm not going to rag on Bruce Willis...his band is actually pretty good...I just don't think he's right for the role of Marcus Fenix.  I remember when me and a buddy of mine who was an All-American TE at Missouri went to go see "Any Given Sunday".  When Bryniarski's character is confronting Lawrence Taylor about jamming to Metallica, my bud said "man...all good teams need some psycho like that to give that edge".  If Hollywood was smart, they would cast him in BOTH roles.  But it's Hollywood, so I don't have much faith.  After all, I rented all the "Eight Movies To Die For".  Did you hear about these?  The marketing ploy was that these 8 indie horror films were too much for a major distributor to pick up for theatrical release.  They were packaged and shown in several market as a film festival.  Well, after watching five of the eight, there was a reason they weren't picked up...and it's because they really aren't that good.  Sure, they all aren't horrible, but it's not like "THEY'RE TOO SHOCKING FOR MAINSTREAM VIEWERS!!!!"  Give me a break.  I got real nervous when the first one I watched called "Death Ride" completely sucked.  The rest have been better, and from the reviews I've read, "Death Ride" was the worst one.  Not even the girl who plays Meadow Soprano could save "Death Ride".  It's some story about a psycho living in a carnival haunted house ride.  I was just hoping at some point the girl who plays Meadow would have to remove her clothes to escape whatever situation she was in, or the sprinklers would cut on for some reason which would make her clothes cling to her....but nothing like that happened...hahaha.  Yeah, I got suckered with these movies that are "too shocking" for theaters.  This is weird...I'm listening to a Ventures tune right now called "Sleep Walk"...I've hummed it myself many times over many years and had no clue who did it or where it came from.  Most are those "the spirit torments people until the body is laid to rest" junk.  So for a guy who doesn't believe in ghosts, several have been quite lame.  In fact, that dude Dominic Purcell I mentioned was in one called "Grave Dancers".  Guess what the plot was?  The spirits of some dead people tormented the living until the bodies were put to rest and blah blah blah.  That's just way too formulaic for me.  Wow...I could get really out there right now talking about my beliefs and what The Bible says...maybe another time because it's getting late.

Oh...one amusing anecdote to end the night with.  I took Vick and Jessi to the dog park this weekend.  This girl shows up with a German Shepherd that looked like Vick somewhat.  Vick is all distracted with all the other dogs and I'm like "Hey buddy, go play with the other Shepherd so I can talk to the owner".  After a little bit, he decided to.  I'm sitting on a bench and this girl sits next to me and asks me if Vick was my dog.  I told her that both Vick and Jessi were mine, and we start talking.  Her dog is about 2 years old, and is almost the same height as Vick, just not as thick.  Anyway, she starts to ask me questions about Vick because of the age of her dog, so I start telling her about training him and how hers will thicken out over the next year or so and I'm thinking "ok...you're getting along...maybe bring up other stuff and see how it goes".  So I work some movies and music into the conversation and think it's going pretty well.  Yeah...riiiiight...this is me we're talking about...hahaha.  After a little bit she starts off a sentence with "Oh I agree...in fact my husband..." and after that all I heard was "blah blah, blah blah blah".  Yeah, typical for me but funny.  But you know what drives me crazy when I take Vick and Jessi to the dog park?  The way people act like their dog isn't taking a dump.  The park furnishes all these areas where you grab these small plastic bags to grab the dog turds with to throw them away.  Vick and Jessi both get all worked up whenever I take them, so I usually grab a few bags and keep them in my pocket when I first get there because they piss and crap all over the place.  Hey, they're excited so I can overlook it.  But I always see someone paying attention to their dog until it hunkers down for a dump and then they turn away and start talking to someone like they didn't see it.  "Oh wow...how did this pile of poop get here???  Well I know it wasn't MY dog so I'm not going to clean it up".  It drives me nuts.  You know why my dogs rock?  I'll be sitting there and someone else's dog will come up to me, and the next thing I know both Vick and Jessi are right there getting rid of that dog.  And it just cracks me up how if a dog is harassing one, the other will jump in.  One woman there said to me how well they're trained because whenever I would go walking around, the two of them would flank me.  Oh yeah, my dogs rock....in fact it's time to go play with them before bed.  Later sportsfans!