~ having returned to my native soil has enabled remarkable progress to the forthcoming releases by the angry red planet zine department. previous ‘coming soon…’ promises expect to be fulfilled by the 13th of the coming october, which is, coincidentally, a friday.

~ the angry red planet has been doing more than just churning out obsolete technology, though. research has continued in the motion picture department: ‘wargames’, ‘tron’, and ‘space cowboys’

~ cnn.com reports that more than a few reporters are upset with the treatment that they received at the hands of the los angeles police department. some technicians and photographers were shot in the back with rubber bullets and bruised in the ribs by billyclubs; these incidents occurred as the cops were trying to shoot protesters in the back with rubber bullets and bruise the protesters’ ribs with billyclubs.

~ we were just singing ‘too hot’, and the question of ‘what ever happened to coolio?’ arose. has coolio gone the way of axl rose?

~ though the angry red planet does not currently have any enthusiasm over the choice of tobey maguire as peter parker, we are much more than thrilled at the news [w] that sam raimi, of ‘evil dead 2’ and ‘the quick and the dead’ fame, will be directing the newest motion picture starring the amazing spider-man.

~ i was *forced* to wait 1.5 hours to see ‘x-men’ and *had* to sit in the third row from the screen, but the movie was suprisingly worth it. having been an unabashed collector of marvel comics for the past 16 years, i have seen repeatedly the shameful adaptations into live action: ‘captain america’ (video), ‘nick fury – agent of s.h.i.e.l.d.’ (television miniseries), ‘fantastic four’ (to my knowledge only bootleg copies exist), ‘blade’ (starred wesley snipes). even a true-believer should be ready for the worst. however, apart from an initial impatience with the back story that had to be spelled out to the philistines who hadn’t picked up an ‘x-men’ comic in the past 35 years, i was more than pleased with both the personalities and the accurate relationships in the film. the good examples of the love-triangle between cyclops, jean grey, and wolverine or the personal respect/professional animosity between xavier and magneto both outweigh the tender footed portrayal of storm by the vapid halle berry. i happen to know that technology is capable of better effects than we are given, but logan’s claws looked totally righteous, even if it seems that the x-men never existed without him…

~ does this week’s news [npr.org] unfair to anyone else? if you live in florida, and are actually stupid enough to misunderstand (and stupid enough to admit it) the dangers of smoking, you now get a piece of $145 billion; on the other hand, if you were forced into slave labor during the holocaust, you have to make due with only splitting $4.8 billion…

~ are *still* you looking for the photos of the new home for the southern california institute of architecture? in seven weeks, this building (*link removed) will be converted into the most intense, ‘avant garde’ graduate and under-graduate architectural school in downtown l.a., if not the world….

~ ‘x-men’ was sold out hours before we arrived at the theater, so we had to move along down santa monica boulevard and see ‘time regained’, a fetishist’s absurd adaptation of proust’s final volume. today….

~ i added a few photos to the dingbat scene report.

~ happy bastille day….the angry red planet is celebrating along with stereolab, air, brigitte bardot, and, of course, the vidal band. tout le monde, descendez…

~ time to get ready for the convention at www.d2kla.org

~ are you looking for the photos of the new home for the southern california institute of architecture? in seven weeks, this building (*link removed) will be converted into the most intense, ‘avant garde’ graduate and under-graduate architectural school in downtown l.a., if not the world….

~ it might be late for a countdown, but there are now less than four hours until the first showing, at midnight, of ‘x-men’ in los angeles.

~ the mazda 323 still lies dead in the road.

~ the angry red planet is back after a four-day ‘holiday’ spent entertaining guests from no.cal. yesterday was, of course, ‘independence day’ in the united states, so the angry red planet packed the car with water and headed out of los angeles and into 1,000 palms in the california desert. without notice to the angry red planet, the refuge we sought is closed for july and august. so, we turned back and wasted a total of $28 on mel gibson movies…

~ there is a new skywriter in los angeles.

~ another entire weekend has gone to waste. the only moment we were out of the house was foolishly spent on ‘titan a.e.’ we assumed that any animated movie involving spacecraft and the destruction of earth (ie, ‘starblazers’) couldn’t go wrong. this particular film was partially penned by ben edlund, of ‘the tick’ fame, which gave it even more promise. for this kind of embarrassing loss of money and time, we should have saved our time for ‘heavy metal 2000’.

~ i never go to the beach in los angeles. i don’t think that i have been there once this year, except maybe to try to steal a poster from a phonebooth. when i have out-of-town guests, like i did this weekend, however, i have to entertain them with trips to the ocean. as my wretched body is not conditioned for the sunshine, though, the sun quickly wreaked havoc upon my skin. my legs in particular are too freaking sunburned to be moved. the best i can do is wobble like frankenstein’s monster and yell for my roommate to bring me coffee and tortillas and salsa verde. maybe that’s not so bad…

~ i finally got to see ‘dinosaur’, but it wasn’t quite what i expected. it was pretty soft; there weren’t any gory battles, no one got killed, and there was this crazy love story. worse, there were ‘monkeys’ running around the place. i think that it may be a movie that is more for kids…