The teacher sex scandals keep piling up, but this one brings a whole new twist that I’ve never heard of before.

Linda Nef, 46, and Valynne Bowers, 39, two teachers at Bountiful Jr. High in Bountiful, Utah, were both arrested on Monday with first-degree felony charges of rape and sodomy on a child for both.  Where the unusual twist comes in is that both women slept with the same 13-year-old boy.

Yes, the same boy.

Ms. Nef, the chid’s math teacher, began her relationship with the child in October 2007 and it lasted through December 2008.  That same month, Ms. Bowers, who had the boy in her history class at the time began a relationship with him.  Neither woman knew about the other until the boy told Ms. Bowers he had previously had sex with Ms. Nef.  Upon hearing this, Ms. Bowers confronted Ms. Nef with the information, and afterward, Ms. Nef confessed to the police while also turning in Ms. Bowers.

Can we say “jealousy”?  I knew we could.

Ms. Nef will have her first hearing over the charges on March 27th, while Ms. Bowers has waiver her right to a preliminary hearing and will go directly to a felony court case on March 16th.  Ms. Nef, a teacher with the school since 2004, opted to resign while Ms. Bowers, teaching in the district since 1996, is on administrative leave.

Apparently both relationships progressed in the same method with the boy first talking to them about his personal problems, then moving on to texting, then sexting (you can figure out what that means if you are unfamiliar with the term), moving on to phone sex and then eventually actual intercourse.  The meetings took place in parks, parking lots and assorted homes.

If you do the math, this boy is currently 13, meaning he was either 11 or 12 when he began sleeping with Ms. Nef in October 2007.

This may be a new low in the teacher sex scandals I am so fond of covering.  Not only do I think this was the youngest boy ever, but it is certainly the first to involve two teachers with the same student.  While these teachers are ultimately responsible, you do have to wonder about the boy in this case.  Was Ms. Nef a fluke and he then figured out a formula to use with Ms. Bowers?  Did he use a formula on both?  Or was this just the weirdest case ever of total blind luck?  Somehow I doubt we will ever know the answer to that one.

These women now join the roll call of teacher sex scandals for 2009!

• Christine McCallum of Boston, MA
• Lisa Lavoie of Holyoke, MA
• Christy Lynn Martin, St. Petersburg, FL
• Sarah L. Tolzien, Richton Park, IL
• Autumn Faulkner, Randolph County, WV
• Lindsay Massaro, Frankford, Sussex County, NJ
• Lauren Breslin, Vineland, NJ
• Kristina Anna Baeta, Union City, CA
• Reanna Jewell, Apache Junction, AZ
• Jennifer Lea Burton, Orangefield, TX
• Tamara Hofmann, Chandler, AZ
• Jennifer Marie Collier, Jacksonville, FL
• Gina Marie Watring, Durham, NC
• Alison M. Peck, Greenfield, MO
• Maria Guman Hernandez, Hialeah, FL
• Helen Goddard, London, England
• Amy Elsworth & Brian Drake, Waterford, MI
• Alini Brito & Cindy Mauro, Brooklyn, NY (no students involved)
• Amanda Watkins, Muscle Shoals, AL

As with every time I write about this despicable act, I am left to wonder “why?”  Why do these teachers do this?  What goes wrong in their minds that they somehow find this to be acceptable behavior?  Do they not see the other news stories from around the country that tell them how badly this can end?  Also, the age old question of, “how in the world do these women find boys this age desirable?”  I think that one puzzles me more than anything.

It’s a sad state of affair folks.

The American version of Absolutely Fabulous has begun filming, and the first on-set photos are none too promising.

While Kathryn Hahn looks pretty spot-on (Edina isn’t too difficult to do correctly), Kristen Johnson as Patsy is a disaster.  A good chunk of Patsy’s character was made up in her ever present beehive hairdo.  Simply pulling up the character’s hair and securing it with clips doesn’t cut it.  True, this is a behind-the-scenes type shot, but it doesn’t look like she’s been prepped for a wig.

Also, Patsy in tights?  Um… no.  Highly doubtful.

What worries me even more is this quote from a recent interview with Kristen Johnson:

I mean, it’s a totally different element, it’s a totally different show. We don’t smoke, we are hungover all the time, we chew Nicorette, we’re trying to be more PC, but I think it really works.

AbFab… PC… these two things should never coexist in even that same universe let alone the same paragraph.  And, yes, I know smoking is about the most out of fashion thing in the universe these days, but if two characters ever needed to smoke, it’s these two.  Even back in the early 1990′s, when the British version of the show aired, smoking was out of style, and it was one of the main props that always told you, without anyone having to say a word, just how out of touch with the rest of the world these women were.  It wasn’t about the actual smoking so much as it was their total lack of consideration for everyone around them.

I’m sure I will check this out if this ever makes it on the air (right now it is still just a pilot), but I can easily see this being yet another casualty in the long line of failed British import series to American television.

(Photo credit to the Daily Mail)

The ratings for Dollhouse continue to plummet, but series creator Joss Whedon promises the show improves with episode 6.

The ratings for the fourth episode of the new Joss Whedon series, Dollhouse, have hit the Internet, and it just gets worse with each passing week.  An anemic 3.5 million tuned in to the show, while 8.4 million were watching a 20/20 special about Siegfried and Roy’s last performance.  Apparently white tigers and their magician owners are far more interesting than a sci-fi show on a Friday night.

Mr. Whedon is promising that the show improves with the sixth episode as that was when he finally convinced the network executives to step meddling with the show’s storyline.  Both he and Eliza Dushku, the star of the series, are telling this to anyone that will listen, but if the show continues its downward trajectory, it may not matter.

With the exception of the X-Files, Friday nights have always been a graveyard for sci-fi shows on Fox.  Honestly, it’s been a graveyard for just about any show on Fox, and it’s almost like that’s where they send shows to die.  Think of it like the end of Old Yeller where they go out behind the house to end the dog’s life… Friday night is the back of the house.

I admit I haven’t had time to watch episode 4 yet as I had to work that night, but it is on my DVR to be watched in the next day or two, but I’m starting to get to that “why bother?” point with the show.  Don’t get me wrong, I still like the show, but unless something miraculous happens, it is just about a certainity that this show is going to get axed by the end of this season.  And this is always a bad time for a show because the viewers almost know it’s a sure thing, and while you still like to watch it, you wonder if you should bother investing your time in it.  The catch-22 being, if you don’t watch, you could be helping to speed the process of the inevitable.

Sometimes it’s tricky being a TV viewer, and this is one of those times.

Another day, another teacher sex scandal.

In what is becoming an all to common occurrence, another teacher has been arrested in a sex scandal with a student.  Christy Lynn Martin, a St. Petersburg, FL teacher, was arrested over the weekend for texting a 14-year-old student with naked photos of herself.  The 32-year-old woman was arrested on Saturday for the charges of transmitting pornographic images through an electronic device and transmitting material harmful to a minor.  She was released on a $20,000 bond the next day, and is on administrative leave with pay from Azalea Middle School.

The “relationship”, as the teenager refers to it, was discovered after his mother found the photos on his phone.  How the two came to be in contact is unclear as the student is not in any of her classes.

This is the third such scandal so far this year, the first two being Christine McCallum of Boston, MA and the other being Lisa Lavoie of Holyoke, MA.  The spring semester of school always seems to be when these stories appear, I guess we should be thankful that it would seem the teachers spend at least the fall semester getting to know the students before they screw them up for life.

Call me old-fashioned if you must, but I am strong believer in that teachers should not be getting sexually interested in their teenage students.  As much as it bothers me to say this, perhaps it isn’t such a crazy idea to give them a psych test before hiring them just to save some children from this mentally damaging turn of events.  Of course the vast majority of teachers do not participate in these type of acts, but the number of those who do is becoming alarmingly high.

Other teacher sex scandals for 2009

• Christine McCallum of Boston, MA
• Lisa Lavoie of Holyoke, MA
• Linda Nef and Valynne Bowers, Bountiful, UT
• Sarah L. Tolzien, Richton Park, IL
• Autumn Faulkner, Randolph County, WV
• Lindsay Massaro, Frankford, Sussex County, NJ
• Lauren Breslin, Vineland, NJ
• Kristina Anna Baeta, Union City, CA
• Reanna Jewell, Apache Junction, AZ
• Jennifer Lea Burton, Orangefield, TX
• Tamara Hofmann, Chandler, AZ
• Jennifer Marie Collier, Jacksonville, FL
• Gina Marie Watring, Durham, NC
• Alison M. Peck, Greenfield, MO
• Maria Guman Hernandez, Hialeah, FL
• Helen Goddard, London, England
• Amy Elsworth & Brian Drake, Waterford, MI
• Alini Brito & Cindy Mauro, Brooklyn, NY (no students involved)
• Amanda Watkins, Muscle Shoals, AL

Lars Ulrich, the drummer and founder of Metallica, has admitted to pirating music off of the Internet.

This wouldn’t be worth even mentioning if it was just about any other musician on Earth, but when you were one of the most vocal opponents to Napster, leading to its eventual downfall, it pretty much leads to every blog on Earth calling you a hypocrite.  True, Mr. Ulrich has seemingly changed his stance on music piracy in general as of late, but now that he has publicly admitted to having done the same, you really can’t help shake your head at his idiocy.

The story goes as follows.

“I sat there myself and downloaded [METALLICA's latest CD] ‘Death Magnetic’ [illegally] from the Internet just to try it,” he told Eddie Trunk of VH1 Classic’s series “That Metal Show”. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it works.’ I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download ‘Death Magnetic’ for free, it’s me. I sat there one night at my house with about six of my friends and a bottle of wine. And what was it called?! [Trying to think of the name of the file-sharing client he used to download the album] We found it — this was like two or three days after ['Death Magnetic'] leaked. I was like, ‘You know what? I’ve gotta try this.’ So we sat there, and thirty minutes later, I had ‘Death Magnetic’ in my computer. It was kind of bizarre.”

True, it was his own band’s album, but does Metallica own 100% of the rights, or does their record company own a portion?  If the record company owns any of it, then he technically stole.

That aside, what worries me is this comment of  “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it works.’”  So Lars has been damning something for years now without understanding what exactly it was he was damning?  He destroyed a business without understanding it?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not endorsing piracy, but I find it shocking that someone would be so publicly opposed to something he hadn’t even bothered to research or try themselves.  Yes, yes, I know the same thing could be said about my opposition to beastiality, but there is a difference between having sex with an animal and taking 5 minutes to learn how a technology works that you are going to launch a one-man crusade against.

The thing is, the more Lars tries to backpeddle his way out of this whole debacle, he just keeps making it worse.  He’s gone from being anti-piracy, to being somewhat okay with it just a few days before an album’s release to doing it himself.  Where does the insanity end?  Is he going to start leaking albums to the piracy sites himself now?

Perhaps it is time for Mr. Ulrich to just finally drop the subject altogether as each time he attempts to address it again, he just comes off worse.

This is one of those movie reviews where you have to wonder where you even begin. Do you judge it based on its faithfulness to the source material? Do you judge it based on it solely as a theatrical work? It’s a tough question, and an even tougher one when it is a film adaptation of one of the most beloved works ever in the history of comics.

For 23 years people have attempted to make Watchmen into a movie.  Some called it “unfilmable”, others wanted to make huge changes to the plot and characters, but ultimately it fell into the lap of Zack Snyder, the director of 300.  The good news was he didn’t want to make many changes at all, and he fought to keep it as true to the original as he could.  While there are some minor and some major changes, overall the main themes still shine through, and it makes for an engaging film.

Let me be up front in saying I thought the opening credits, all set to “The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan, may be some of my favorite opening credits of all time.  As the music plays, we are treated to amazing photographs and video that helps us follow all of the costumed crime fighters that have existed in this movie universe since the 1940′s.  It is a great use of time, it conveys the history you need to know that this is an alternative world you have entered that runs fairly close to ours, but not quite.

This is a story that happens on so many levels simultaneously that it is almost impossible to easily summarize what it is really about.  It is a story of humanity and are failings.  It is a story of what would you be willing to do and/or live with to accomplish what is ultimately a noble goal.  It is a story about ideals.  It is a story about the type of people it would take to dress up in a silly costumes and fight crime, and if they do it for the good of their fellow man or if they do it as some sort of  adrenaline rush/aphrodisiac.  When you realize the number of ideas this work tries to convey, you begin to understand why people thought it was “unfilmable”.

What you end up with for the film that is a surprisingly breezy 2 hour and 43 minute running time that flies by without feeling anywhere near that long.  And while it may not give you clean-cut answers to those questions and ideas it puts forth, it at least addresses each of them.  The thing is that you have to watch for them, you have to pay attention to so much, that most people will just see it as an unusual super hero movie when it is really so much more.

If anything surprised me about the film, it is how unbelievably brutal it is.  While the comic was certainly no field of daisies, when you see the violence of the comic projected on a theater screen, it becomes shockingly violent, but it works.  This is not a film for the squeamish, you will feel uncomfortable, and that may be one of the highest compliments you can pay the filmmakers.  It never feels exaggerated, it feels like these people live in a brutal world, and, at times, they must be brutal in return to do good.  Although I will say the Comedian/Sally Jupiter scene in the billiards room is done so effectively, that even knowing the outcome, I still found it difficult to watch for its realism.

From filming, music selection, special effects and acting, this movie delivers on all fronts. (With the exception of Malin Akerman as Laurie… she got it right in some scenes, and in others you were fairly certain she had no clue what was going on, or how to play it)   Sure some things are missing that I would have liked to see stay in from the original work such as the news stand owner and the kid for example, or Rorschach having his pocketful of sugar cubes, but, in general, Mr. Snyder did his job, and you get to see a Watchmen movie that is darn close to the original work, and is a heck of a good film to boot.

To the fans of the book who have complained about “the squid” being absent (I’m not going to explain this to non-readers of the book as it would give away the ending of the movie completely), what they replaced it with makes a ton more sense.  You don’t miss the squid at all, and you actually wonder if it was ever really needed in the original work.  Believe me, I was nervous about the change, but the new solution works out a heck of a lot better.

Although I was uncertain as I left the theater, I liked the film more and more as I thought about it through out the evening.  My highest possible recommendation, even if you have no clue what you are getting in to.  Just don’t go expecting The Dark Knight, because this is certainly nothing like it.

(And thank you to regular commentor “Contrary Jack” and his wife for actually convincing me to leave my office to see this opening day with them)

Scattercast is 33 and feelin’ fine.

- Daylight savings time kicks in this weekend folks.

- I explain the process behind the Hellboy Vs. Superman: The Battle For The Best Comic Book Movies list a bit more.

- I watched Aliens Vs. Predator 2 and Live Free or Die Hard last weekend… I describe why they both sucked.

- The news of the Spider-Man and Sleepless in Seattle Broadway musical have “suck” written all over both.

- Keep giving Dollhouse a try!

Here’s

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

for those who wish to download it, subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

It may be hard to believe, but there was once a time where a movie based on a comic book being released was like some sort of weird dream.  It was rare, and it was even rarer that they were actually good.  Luckily all of that has changed over the years, and the rule of thumb now seems to be more towards actual quality and care being put into the productions based on the comic book art form.

With the new Watchmen movie being talked about by every one, it seems like a good time to discuss what some of the best comic book movies are up until now.  The question is do you judge them solely as a movie or how faithful they are to the source material?  I think this is one of those instances where you have to do a little bit of both.  Some succeed as movies in spite of a total difference from the books that spawned them, and others are so dead on faithful that it almost feels like you watched the artwork come to life.

In case you were wondering what qualifies me to speak on this subject the answer is  33 years of comic book collecting, 15 & 1/2 years managing a comic shop and a well-known harsh eye for movies.  So go ahead and click to find a list of what I find to be the best movies based on comic books, and then let me know what your top choices are.
Continue Reading ->

***MAJOR SPOILERS***

Continue Reading ->

For some reason Nightline though Rachael Ray was worth interviewing, and the subject of those infamous FHM photos came up.

I say “infamous” because for the life of me I have never been able to figure out why FHM thought they was reason enough to ask her to pose, and then why she was willing to accept.  Although she may have accepted because she originally thought the title stood for “Food and Home”.

Yeah… I know… she’s a brain trust as that would have been”FandH”,  “FaH” or “FH”, not “FHM”.  No one ever said she was quick.

What we did learn from the interview, which I did not watch, but saw the clip later, was that her mother was, and still if, furious over the photos.  Yet, oddly, her husband was all for them!  Imagine that.  Truly surprising.

I have never made my utter hatred of this woman exactly a secret around this blog, but I truly can’t figure out why anyone finds her even remotely interesting.  The fact that Nightline wanted to interview her is odd enough, but why bring up these photos that were published in 2003?  Did anyone even remember they were still out there?  Did anyone even care?  Cynthia McFadden, the reporter interviewing her, acted like it was some great revelation they even existed.  Anyone who has ever done an Internet search on the woman’s name has seen them, even I knew they existed and I can’t stand the woman!

You can watch the video on the Nightline site if you want (I couldn’t find an embed feature), but it just makes me laugh how the whole subject is broached like its some horrid secret from her past.

Dollhouse ratings are dropping, but thank goodness for DVRs.

While I tried to warn you all in advance that this show would need ratings help, and I know that actually got some unexpected viewers, it still isn’t doing well.  From the first week, which wasn’t the best ratings, the show lost 15% of its viewers in week 2.  This is not unusual for new shows, but it still doesn’t help.  In the third week the ratings slipped by a tenth, making the shows survival even more questionable.

Well, there is some good news in that once time shifted DVR viewing was added in, the premiere episode jumped from a 2.0 share to a 2.6 share, a jump of 30%.  Will this be enough to keep the show going?  Who knows.  While I haven’t heard any rumors of cancellation yet, I’m still concerned as Fox doesn’t have the best track record of keeping shows on the air.

One complaint I have heard from viewers is that the show is slow, and some of us are watching it out of devotion to a better, more engaging show we enjoyed in the past.  Well, I would put this challenge to those that say it… go back and watch the first two seasons of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer as if you were seeing them for the first time.  I think you will find the show isn’t as engaging at the beginning as you remember it.

While talking with “M” tonight (for new readers, my best friend/evil overlord who is only ever referred to by the letter M), she agreed with me and pointed out that Joss Whedon essentially writes novels that just happen to be presented to us on our television screens.  I have to say I agree with her.  Mr. Whedon is all about building to a pay off, he doesn’t want to just present it all on a platter to you in one serving. Yes, when you look at all seven seasons of Buffy, it does present a very engaging series, but it also shows that each episode, as well as each season, built upon what came before it.  Seeing as he has a five year plan for Dollhouse, don’t you think it might be better to wait for a few more chapters of his latest “novel” before you write it off?

On March 6th NASA will be launching the Kepler Mission to look for Earth-like planets in our “neighborhood” of the Milky Way. Don’t worry, no one will be visiting any time soon.

Over the next three years the mission will be studying 10,000 stars to try to find planets similar to Earth.  The there is that out of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy, at least several thousand have planets similar to Earth that are capable of sustaining some form of life.  If all goes according to plan, by the end of 2013, we will know the answer to this burning question.

Of course, just knowing these planets exist won’t prove that they have life, and it certainly isn’t like we can hop in the car to drive over and check for ourselves.  Even with out current fastest rocket it would take 10,000 years to reach the closest star to us.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland recently conducted a computer study to see if there was any chance of life just in our galaxy, and the results surprised everyone.  According to the computer model, 361 intelligent races emerged since the creation of the galaxy, and as many as 38,000 have formed.  This is a perplexing situation as physicist Enrico Fermi created the “Fermi paradox in 1950 that simply asks,  “Where is everybody?”

I think this has always been one of the key problems with people saying there is no life in the universe other than our own.  Setting aside the insanely narcissistic aspects of such an assumption, there is no rule it says it has to be intelligent.  To me life on other worlds can be as simple as a one celled amoeba, but so long as it is alive, it qualifies as life as far as I’m concerned.

Space.com made the graphic you see to the left that shows where we are located in our galaxy.  To put it in Earth bound perspectives, we live out in the absolute boondocks.  We are the babies of our galaxy, and it is quite possible that not only were there civilizations deeper in towards the core, they may have very well died off of old age by the time we even came into being.

People say that with a lack of evidence you can’t prove something exists, but in this particular case I take the oppisite tact of saying, “prove it doesn’t exist.”  Simple mathamatical odds overwhelmingly support there is life somewhere in our galaxy.  I know everyone would like them to just pop-up and go, “here we are!”, but that just isn’t going to happen, at least not during our lifetimes I imagine.

I dare you to go outside on a clear night and look up at the stars.  When you see the sheer number of them, I would say it is darn near impossible for anyone to say, “naw, there can’t be any life out there.”  Hopefully the Kepler Mission will find something of interest, but even if it doesn’t, I can’t say I would ever stop believing there is other life somewhere out there.