The first trailer for the new The Amazing Spider-Man film has hit the Internet, and what it goes to prove is … I really hate reboots.

As I’ve said before about this project, I don’t see the necessity to rebooting the Spider-Man franchise this soon after the last three films. What I also don’t see a necessity to is once again going through the whole origin story yet again. Look, if you don’t know his origin by now, you probably never will. We know he gets bitten by the spider, and we know that the death of Uncle Ben is the catalyst for him becoming a crime fighter, show it in a montage if you feel the need, but no, here we are, once again seeing the spider in this trailer, and there’s Martin Sheen walking around as Uncle Ben. Fantastic, thanks for making us go through this whole thing all over again.

Fine, you want to correct the timeline of things and remind us Gwen Stacey was his first love, and not Mary Jane as the last three films portrayed. Okay, fine, but do you really need to redo the whole thing? How about instead of fixing that one little nuisance we just move on to another story of Spider-Man that doesn’t require you to know the last three films, but doesn’t necessitate the whole starting over from square one thing again? Can we not find some sort of happy medium here? Is that really so much to ask?

The only thing I can say that makes me happy out of this whole trailer is the Spider-Man point-of-view scene towards the end, otherwise I just keep going, “Why?”

It had to happen eventually, and it has … I turned 40-years-old today.

Despite my disdain for the concept of hitting this age, many people brightened my day with well wishes via Tweets, Facebook posts, a few IMs and a couple of phone calls.  (Be thankful you never pick up the phone to be greeted by TechnoBuffalo Editor-at-Large Noah Kravitz serenading you with a birthday song he is making up on the spot …)  All of the thoughts and well wishes were bright spots to my day, and I thank you all.

However, leave it to the Diabolical Miss M to be the one to get to the guts of things when she called me to wish me a happy birthday, and later ask me, “How does it feel?” in that dead-serious, “I’m not kidding this time” tone of hers.  How does it feel to turn 40?  How do you think it feels?  It feels like you’ve officially passed the mid-point of your life and you know you’re living with a ticking clock somewhere counting down your final minutes.

Many people have tried to tell me how wonderful your 40′s can be: You’re still energetic enough to get things done, you’ve got the BS out of your way and you can still make the world yours.  As I see it, in your 20′s, you know you’re having fun, but also learning your lessons.  In your 30′s your wise enough to not make the same silly mistakes any more.  In your 50′s you are now old enough for people to think of you as wise.  In your 60′s you cross over into that land of being the distinguished & wizened old owl that’s still worth listening to.  Your 40′s?  You’re counting down the clock to your 50′s and trying to figure out what you’ve done that even remotely matters, and do you still have time to change it.

The 40′s, as I see it with me experience that amounts to less than a day, could be the most perplexing decade yet.  I have no delusions that over half my life is gone, and now I’m looking at things sliding downhill from here.  Don’t get me wrong, I am hopeful this is just the birthday talking and my 40′s turn out to be spectacular, but for now, “How does it feel?”  Not so hot.

Of course, I wasn’t too thrilled about turning 30 either, so, eh, who knows.

The cat from the other day that I said had been dumped on my property … so, yeah, she’s going to stay with us for good.

Despite leaving a message for the Humane Society, they never bothered to call me about bringing the kitten in. So, on Sunday night we decided I would take her to vet Monday morning to have her checked out. First off, we found out she was a girl. Good to know.  We named her Dolly Madison for the former first lady.  We were going to call her Madison for short, but Jon Rettinger of TechnoBuffalo took about two seconds to call her “Maddie,” and it has already stuck.

Overall we found out that she is about six weeks old, weighs an amazing 4 oz. and is healthy overall.  She does have a case of roundworm, but it’s not anything that shocking or scary and they put her on meds for it.  The only bad thing is that due to not knowing her background we have to keep her isolated for a month from McKinley, our other cat.  For now she is living in a (very large) dog crate we had on hand until we can figure out a way to keep her locked up in a safe area.  Honestly, she seems like what she needs the most of now is sleep, and she’s getting lots of that, so the crate is not such a bad spot for her at the moment.

We’re still not thrilled about how she showed up, but from here on out she’s going to have a much better life … and toys that look like disco balls.  (click the image for a larger view of her)

So, yes, for those keeping track, this brings me to seven pets, but that was certainly never the plan.

The Dark Knight Rises is still a year away from release, but that isn’t stopping Warner Brothers from starting its full-course push to get the word out there about the film.

We had the first photo of Tom Hardy as Bane back in May, and then just last week we got The Dark Knight Rises teaser poster, but now we get something a bit more.  Yes, an actual trailer.  It doesn’t show us a whole lot, and it sure doesn’t show us Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, but it gives us enough to get us ready for the third and final film of the Chris Nolan Batman films.  Enjoy.

 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 didn’t hit the $180 million some expected it would, but it did have the biggest opening weekend ever at $168.5 million.

The former record holder was The Dark Knight at $158.4 million, and factoring in the extra fees for 3D, attendance was slightly lower, but still impressive for the last film in the Harry Potter series.  (Sidenote: When are we going to start paying more attention to attendance than dollar amount?  It’s the only true measure.)  Missing the projected $180 million can be chalked up to a 53 percent decline from Friday to Saturday, a far steeper fall than one would usually expect.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon fell to second place with a 55 percent decline to an estimated $21.25 million. It does however mark the first film of the year to cross the $300 million domestic gross milestone, and has now racked up a total of $762.8 million.

Horrible Bosses came in third with an estimated $17.6 million, marking a decline of only 38 percent, a very respectable amount.

Zookeeper fell only 39 percent to come in at fourth with $12.3 million. It fell less than most, but when you start at such a low level, you don’t have to go.

Rounding out the top five was Cars 2 with $8.3 million.  It looks like Pixar may have finally made a misstep with this film as it is trailing far enough back now from the studio’s other features to mark a 12 year low.

Green Lantern? 14th place with $1.25 million for a total of $112.6 million. This really has become like watching a train wreck.

Next weekend sees the release of Captain America: The First Avenger and Friends With Benefits.

If you know me at all, you know that I am a sucker for animals.  Between my five dogs and one cat, that should be pretty evident.  So, imagine my dismay yesterday when I started seeing what appeared to be a little kitten hanging around my dumpster.

A kitten that was obviously too young to be on its own, but it would not let me get close enough to truly figure anything out.  I saw it once in the morning, and again in the afternoon as I came home from running errands.  I went to take a shower, took my dogs out, and I hear, “meow.”  He’s made it back to my house and inside the dog run.  I get them back in the house without them spotting him, and this time he allows me to get with a few feet before taking off.  What followed was hours of me trying to catch this kitten to no avail, and another close call with the dogs as he hid behind an air conditioning unit.

I opted to set the raccoon trap we have (live trap, totally harmless, you can see a picture of a coon in it from 2009 that shows it does not harm the animal on this post.), and I baited it with tuna.  No luck.  After a few hours I decide to take the dogs out again after traipsing all over my property trying to find him.  I go out on the deck to check for him, and I hear him (I keep saying “him,” I still don’t know), but he sounds like he’s a ways off.  I let the dogs out, they start checking smells, and … he was hiding behind a flower pot.  All heck breaks loose, I throw on my work gloves, pull it out of the fray, and walk with a kitten attacking my glove until I can get to the cage.

He is currently residing in an air conditioned room, still in the trap, and he has food and water in there with him until either the vet or the shelter opens tomorrow.  Here is a pic of him shortly after capture.

I want to know what sort of monster dumps a kitten this cute out in a wooded area.  It happens all the time around here, but this time it happened on my property.  I am not a violent man, but someone that would do something like this deserves a good kick in the nether regions of their body.

As to if we will keep it … we’re debating it.  The current cat lives by himself in our 3,000 square foot warehouse, so there is plenty of room for another cat, but taking on another pet … I just don’t know.  Right now it is a waiting game trying to keep it comfortable until tomorrow morning when I take it either to our vet or to the shelter.  My heart says, “keep it,” while my brain says, “are you nuts?”  I know I can give it a good home, but would the person who adopted it do so?  I just don’t know, and I have a lot of thinking to do tonight.

In the meantime, if you ever consider dumping an animal, please remember that intakes at the Humane Society are free.  Is it so difficult to go do that?

A total of 36 this week.

FunJug.com

• Japan World Cup 3 – Video Game or Acid Trip?
• 10 Reasons Why We Hate Facebook
• Penn & Teller Explain Sawing a Woman in Half
• Dog Attacks Windshield Wipers
• Harry Potter: Which House are You?
• My Drunk Kitchen Ep. 4: Not Easy, Bake Oven
• Saturday Shorts: Good Sportsmanship

SeanPAune.com

• My First Full Week With the iMac
• Transformers 3 Enjoys a Second Week Atop the Box Office
• Dark Knight Rises Gets its First Teaser Poster
• Johnny Depp Sells Kolchak to Disney
• Sherlock Holmes 2 & John Carter Trailers Released
• Scattercast Episode #153: Somber Days
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Smashing Records

TechnoBuffalo.com

• HTC Status Goes Up for Pre-Sale Today
• iOS 5 Beta Shows Off Gesture-Based Controls
• AT&T Announces Pair of LTE Connected Devices (UPDATED)
• Ask The Buffalo: iPad 3 Launch and BlackBerry Thoughts
• HTC Status Unboxing (video)
• AT&T Will Carry the Sony Tablet S2
• Star Wars Fleet Commander – The Game We’ll Never Play
• Ask the Buffalo: July 13th Edition
• Motorola Photon 4G Launching on July 31st for $199.99
• Amazon Tablets and New Kindles Coming by Oct.?
• Spotify Finally Launches in the United States
• What’s The Apps: LauncherPro
• U.S. Cellular Roadmap Leaks, Awesome Phones Coming
• Call of Duty XP Convention Gets a Map and Details
• Minecraft to Undergo Changes for Xbox 360
• RIM Working on a BlackBerry Media Streamer?
• Distracted Driving & Cellphones (infographic)
• What is Microsoft Tulalip?
• Video Game Sales Continue to Slide in June
• U.S. Cellular Announces Back-to-School “Switcher” Discounts
• Call of Duty Elite Beta Invites Rolling Out
• The TechnoBuffalo Minecraft Server Wants YOU!

Normally I like to wait for the weekend to end before I report on the box office numbers, but what is currently happening with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 is just too amazing to pass up.

The Thursday night midnight screenings pulled in an amazing $43.5 million from 3,800 locations, easily surpassing the previous record holder, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse with its $30 million from midnight shows. Combined with its take from normal Friday showings, the first day earnings for the film topped an astounding $92.1 million.  Current estimates for the entire weekend are hitting at $180 million, easily surpassing previous record holder The Dark Knight which brought in $158 million in its first weekend.

The idea of splitting this into two films never sat well with me, but somehow I doubt Warner Brothers gives two hoots about the naysayers right now.  Considering the first part brought in $955 million globally, the historic studio is looking at probably close to $2 billion combined for the two films when all is said and done.

How many phone calls do you think JK Rowling is getting right now about writing more books?

I’ll have the final wrap up for you on Monday, but this is just too fascinating to not watch all weekend long.

It’s episode #153 and Scattercast is getting old.

Thoughts on movies (as always).

And then some reflections on the world … it’s a perky episode.

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subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

It’s time for trailers to come spilling out, and there have been two big ones this week, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows & John Carter.

First up is the second film in the re-imagined world of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role and Guy Ritchie directing. The first film was fantastic and exciting, and it looks like more of the same in the second one. The addition of Noomi Rapace (European version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series) to the film is sure not to hurt either.

Here is the official synopsis of the film that releases Dec. 16th, 2011.

Sherlock Holmes has always been the smartest man in the room… until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large—Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris)—and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective.

When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder—a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by one Professor Moriarty.

Mixing business with pleasure, Holmes tracks the clues to an underground gentlemen’s club, where he and his brother, Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry) are toasting Dr. Watson on his last night of bachelorhood. It is there that Holmes encounters Sim (Noomi Rapace), a Gypsy fortune teller, who sees more than she is telling and whose unwitting involvement in the prince’s murder makes her the killer’s next target. Holmes barely manages to save her life and, in return, she reluctantly agrees to help him.

Something about the look and feel of this trailer just feels “off” to me, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

The investigation becomes ever more dangerous as it leads Holmes, Watson and Sim across the continent, from England to France to Germany and finally to Switzerland. But the cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead as he spins a web of death and destruction—all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.

The second big trailer this week is for John Carter. Based on the classic series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, this film covers the first book in the 11 novel series, A Princess of Mars. Why they didn’t include that in the title is puzzling to me as “John Carter” by itself is not a name that screams “sci-fi epic.” Obviously Disney wants to turn this into a series, but we’ll have to see how this first one does at the box office.

Apparently Johnny Depp and Disney are ready to deepen their relationship even further, and it includes one of the best properties of the 1970′s: Kolchak, the Night Stalker.

Considering the current success of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Disney is sure to be even more in love with Mr. Depp.  He’s already signed for a Lone Ranger movie with the studio, and he’s in talks for Pirates of the Caribbean 5. Now it seems his development studio, Infinitum Nihil, has sold them two more projects. The first is a movie based around Paul Revere’s midnight ride that may see him playing the famous American.  It’s the second project that made me go, “YES! MAKE THIS NOW!”

While I am not a fan of remakes or re-imaginings, Kolchak, the Night Stalker was a series that lasted half a season and two TV movies, and may be one of the greatest tragedies of short lived series ever.  (Yes, even more so than Firefly.)  Just about anyone in horror today lists this series as an influence, and it impacted X-Files so deeply they even tried to integrate the character into the mythos.  They were never able to get the character into the show, but they did get Darren McGavin, the man who played him,  to play a role in the series as a nod to its influence.

There was a horrible remake on ABC a few seasons ago, but the idea of Depp as Kolchak?  I’ll buy my ticket now.  Why will I break my hatred of remakes in this case?  That is how badly I want more of this character in my life.  While a goodly portion was the wonderfulness of McGavin, the series was so well written, and the stories so original that pretty much anyone who watched it still gets misty-eyed just thinking back on it.

Deep down I know I will probably end up disappointed, but I will give it a try.  I have faith in Depp, and I can totally see him in this roll … oh please let this happen, and please let it not suck.

And if you’ve never seen the original series … run, do not walk, and watch it.  It is truly amazing and special.

Despite still being a year away from release, The Dark Knight Rises is gearing up its promotional campaign with the release of its first teaser poster today.  While not as exciting as getting our first look at the villain Bane, it’s still nice to see any new imagery from one of the most anticipated movies out there.

The poster doesn’t tell us a heck of a lot, and it took me a little bit of time actually to spot the Bat symbol in the sky, but beyond that it just shows the buildings of Gotham City crumbling down to the street.  (You can click the image for a much larger view)  Are we to take it literally or figuratively?  Are the buildings of the city actually crumbling for some reason, or is to represent the moral decay of this city?  I guess we’ll find out next July.

Considering how much I’ve loved the first two films in this series, I can’t wait for this third one where Christopher Nolan wraps up his trilogy.  Come on, you’ve knocked it out of the park twice, do it for us a third time.