The Joy of Zach: December 18, 2010

I somehow let two weeks slip by without updating, so I've got a lot to tell you about! Mostly TWoP pieces, but it feels good to see how much I've done there.

- We're doing a lot of year-end wrap-ups at TWoP, including a piece on our favorite movies of the year, which I wrote maybe 70 percent of, and our most hated movies, which I did maybe 40%. What can I say, I'm a positive person.

- My reviews for the past week have been The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Tourist and, just today, Tron: Legacy. One I liked, one I loved, and one I despised with a passion. Read 'em to find out which! Next week I review True Grit and Gulliver's Travels, which I expect to be similarly divided on.

- To tie in to Tron: Legacy, I did a couple of photo galleries: the best and worst virtual realities in film, and other actors who should meet their younger, CGI selves on the big screen, like Jeff Bridges does in Tron. The latter one I'm pretty proud of, if only for the split-panel shots I put together. I also compared Narnia to Middle-Earth, and I jumped the gun and updated our best movie eyepatches gallery for True Grit. I love that gallery.

- I still haven't seen The Fighter, but that didn't stop me from writing a Mark Wahlberg set diary, and from converting my list of the best movies about fighting to a gallery, to tie in to the movie.

- Awards season began in earnest this week, and I posted my responses to the SAG Awards nominations and the Golden Globes. My comment on how wacky the foreign press's picks seem to me was interpreted as American superiority, when I merely meant that different cultures like different things. Like The Tourist, for example.

- Back in the Moviefile, with Yogi Bear coming out this weekend (I won't be reviewing), I ran down some classic Hanna-Barbera animated properties that should get the big screen treatment. I focused more on the action shows than the talking animal shows, because Yogi looks like a train wreck. Think less Hong Kong Phooey, more Herculoids. I also did a fun (I thought) piece on directors who should take over Iron Man 3 now that Jon Favreau's gone.

- I posted a rundown of all of my co-author Ruben Procopio's upcoming projects over at the Pop Sculpture blog. I was actually surprised to find out about some of them, and my rekindled love of Tron has me craving a couple of his pieces. But I've been denying myself even a $10 light-up Tron action figure, so I probably won't be buying myself a bust or statue any time soon. Let me know if the picures don't load for you, because I can't see them half the time.

The Joy of Zach: December 6, 2010

Welcome back to your one-stop shop for the writing of Zach Oat! This week it's pretty much all Television Without Pity, since I've been inactive on the LAW Blog and the Pop Sculpture Blog, where Tim has been posting his multi-part Jacob Marley bust tutorial. However, since it's Krampus Day, I just started updating the @MisterKrampus Twitter account again! Naughty boys and girls, beware!

- My latest movie reviews for TV Without Pity are The King's Speech and Black Swan, which is probably my favorite Aronofsky film so far, and in support of that I came up with a list of star Natalie Portman's best and worst roles. Putting The Professional on the "Worst" list was painful, but it was something I had to come to terms with.

- The first season of The Walking Dead ended on Sunday, and it also marked the end of the writer's room on the show -- going forward, it's going to be all freelancers under showrunner Frank Darabont. God only knows how that'll work out, but at TWoP we're pretty much all in agreement that the show needs new writers. I was chosen to express our reasoning in song. Well, singable prose.

- Last weekend we lost a great actor in Leslie Nielsen and a great director in Irvin Kershner, so I wrote a couple of posts, one about Nielsen's greatest roles and another about Kershner's other two great sequels that aren't Empire Strikes Back.

- I knew it was too unbelievable to be true when I heard that the Farrelly brothers were going to try to relaunch the Three Stooges in a feature film starring Jim Carrey, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro... and it was. The movie changed studios, and Penn and Carrey left, so I decided to re-cast the roles. My buddy Jon Abrams had his own ideas -- but we agreed on one Moe, kinda.

Next week: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Tron: Legacy!