Friday, January 28, 2011

The kevin Smith Bloggy Thing

True independence is something that a lot of filmmakers have wanted to do, but have been so ingrained by the studio system, they become afraid to take a chance and walk away from it.  George Lucas being
one of the few that is apart from the system and love or hate what he's done, he's done it on his own terms, with his own money.  He has built an empire (no pun intended) making movies his way and then
letting the studios bid against each other for the rights to distribute the movies, to which they only get a small percentage of monies that the films make - I guess you could argue that he "WAS" a part of the studio system up until Star Wars, but that's where it stopped, he has had a long history of fighting the studio system because it's old and broken and he was tired of it.

Now we see that Kevin Smith, who has also gotten tired of the  Hollywood grind and how they want to do things their way, instead of the right way  is going back to his roots and basically telling Hollywood to fuck off, if you follow Kevin's twitter or go to his site (http://www.viewaskew.com/) and read his thoughts on the subject you could see that he is just tired of dealing with the everyday bullshit of what is essentially his
passion, it's been eating away at him since, I would assume, Zak And Miri, a movie that failed - miserably, unfortunately.  but, That's Hollywood for you and it was possibly a career ender for Kevin Smith.  But, he has more fortitude to let something like that get him down, not everything can be a success, in order to learn in life, one has to fail and it seems that not only has Kevin learned from that, but he's going to move
forward and create a system that should have been in place already and he should be applauded for that, Kevin wants us to think that he's a fat, masturbating, stoner, except, he's anything but that.
He's a smart man who has surrounded himself with successful people that have shown him how to get the most out of his career so far and while he doesn't have "fuck you" money, he has that attitude and
focus to see this through. Plus you can't be successful like he has without surrounding yourself with people that have the same goals and passions as you do.

Kevin Smith made a move called Red State. It's something that he's been wanting to do for a long time (according to him), a horror movie instead of another comedy romp. With a shoestring budget and a lot of help from people that cut their pay, didn't get paid or just wanted to make a good movie, pushed through and ended up having the time of his life.  Now, instead of dealing with the typical hollywood studio deal, he's going on a tour to show his movie Red State, like musicians do, to recoup the cost of the movie and then
he's going to take the money he makes above and beyond the cost and distribute it himself afterwards to theaters in October so that a wider audience can go see it. This roadshow/tour is going to be
pricey (50-100 bucks), but value is perception and I bet Smith has some cool ideas, because it's not just
about watching the movie, it's the experience - people go to concerts for 2 hours and pay assloads of money to see their favorite artists, this is the exact same thing, but after the 2 hours is over, there will be more for the audience than just a darkened theater with the lights coming up and everyone exiting to move on with their lives.   Again, value for your dollar, plus it's like going to a concert, don't bitch about it, go experience it.

It's a shame that Smith was so put off by the failure of Zak and Miri (and Cop OUt) that he became jaded with making movies.  He lost his way and really, this movie Red State was a chance for him to go back to what he likes, telling stories and just make something for the pure fun of doing it. Now, I'm really new to all this hollywood stuff, I've wanted to write movies and tv shows for years and all I've seen and read about the process is that it's to difficult to get in, there are so many doors to break through, it's a one in a million chance etc etc etc and What Kevin Smith is doing with this "experiment" - for lack of a better term, is saying that the system is old and broken and it's time for the new hotness, that there are people out there that want to tell stories and get their pictures made and now this is a chance for them to be able to do that.  When this becomes successful, it will open up the entertainment world, which is what should have happened a long time ago.  Better late than never...

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Kevin Smith Is Right

Fixing the Kevin Smith bloggy thingy - it's too rambly needs more points and less distraction.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Iron Giant

Brad Bird is one the great director's of our time, has worked on a lot of shows and movies The Simpsons. The Critic, King Of The Hill, Disney's Fox and Hound, Animalympics and of course The Incredibles, but one of his greatest movies is The Iron Giant.

Brad Bird get's the concept of creating compelling characters and bringing them to life, giving them meaning and function.  How the hell does one give emotion and character to an animated piece of iron?  I don't exactly know how Brad is able to do this, but he does.  It mostly comes from working for Disney, The Simpsons and a few other animation houses and it takes a long time to learn how to animate and write these things.  But Brad does it like noone else can do it, he has that innate ability to tell a good story.

The Iron Giant is simply astounding, good pacing, good emotion, good story writing - all the things that make for a good movie which didn't do well at the box office, considering that (from Wikipedia) "
The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies."[1] Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction blockbuster and cultural phenomenon The Matrix, Deep Canvas-pioneering Tarzan, Best Picture-winner American Beauty, critically acclaimed animated gem The Iron Giant, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's breakout film Being John Malkovich, M. Night Shyamalan's breakout hit The Sixth Sense, the controversial Fight Club, and the highly anticipated first installment of George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy were released this year."

Stiff competition for an animated movie - though it should have done much better at the box office and was overlooked.  Had this movie been released a year earlier or a year later, I think the outcome would have been completely different, especially if it were released in 2000.  I mean hell, 1999 had the release of not only Star Wars Episode 1, but Toy Story 2, The Sixth Sense, Austin Powers, Eyes Wide Shut, American Beauty, The Matrix, The Mummy and The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow just to name a few (the complete list is below).  That's a lot of blockbuster's.

Brad Bird is an incredible (no pun intended) director and I don't think he get's enough recognition for his ability to tell a story.  If you have the chance to see this movie, great for all ages, take that chance and enjoy.

Oh and Vin Diesel played the Iron Giant.

On my scale of A to F this movie gets an A - Highly Recommended and a must see.

Some of Brad Bird's movies

1906 (in production)
 
2007 Ratatouille
 
2005 Jack-Jack Attack (video short)
 
1990-1991 The Simpsons (TV series)
Krusty Gets Busted (1990)
 
1987 Amazing Stories (TV series)
Family Dog (1987)

Also - ALL the movies released in 1999 - 
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Animation

I am a huge animation nerd - I mean to the point of, a couple of weeks ago I could have seen True Grit and instead chose Tangled.  I still would like to see True Grit - it's supposedly amazing, but honestly, one has to be in the right frame of mind to see a movie like that.

I like the fact that companies like Pixar and Dreamworks are putting out decent animated movies, Lucasfilm doing Clone Wars and we have [adult swim] for the late night funnies and reruns of American Dad and Family Guy that we may have missed plus great shows like Robot Chicken, Metalocalypse, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and their Saturday night Japanese Anime line up which includes the phenomenal Cowboy Bebop, but it's really not enough.

There are thousands upon thousands of great cartoons that are not being played because the channels that run them are owned  by one company and they play the flavor of the moment or when they want, pull out the Ren and Stimpy show or Catdog or Rocco's Modern Life - hardly classic, but good stuff.   What happened to Bugs Bunny, Tex Avery, early good Tom and Jerry, Terrytoons (Baby Huey anyone?), Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Challenge of the Superfriends, hell even the bad 80's cartoons like Rubik's Cube, Qbert, Pacman, the kid that turned into the car, Dungeons and Dragons - the list goes on, I have the programming schedules of every cartoon played since 1978, that's how OCD I am about this subject.  It's sad that when kids wake up in the morning, they don't get the full on Saturday Morning experience - cartoons until like 10am which has to include Fat Albert and This Week In Baseball (non cartoon I know, but still) but they get to watch news which starts at like 3am, who wants to get up and watch news on a Saturday while eating their cereal? I don't, plus, there are 24 hour news channels, I don't want my local affiliates to mirror CNN or Headline News, I want them to be original, have original programming and terrible cartoons.

It's a weird topic to be talking about, but it extends to all TV in general - how many tv shows about cops are there, how many of them are good?  How many shows about lawyers or doctors or the whacky suburban family sitcom?  It's a vast landscape of mediocrity, with remakes or reboots or spinoff's.  I think that the last good original show (which turned bad) was Scrubs and cable shows don't count, like Spartacus, Larry David, things that are on HBO or Showtime because those channels take chances on good shows.

Back to the topic of cartoons - There needs to be a return of the Saturday morning cartoon!  Bring it back and let a new generation of kids grow up on these shows that we grew up on - and don't edit them!  That's just lame to edit a damn cartoon.  I wonder how much it would cost to create a channel so kids can experience the whole Saturday morning experience.  Anyone out there have that experience?  I know this one is kind of weak, but it was on my mind and I miss Saturday morning cartoons. Also, I'm not drunk or high which makes this posting seem weirder.

I'm off to look up how to make a tv station so i can make this happen.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Macaroni Grill Frozen Dinners

First off, the mistake was getting a Macaroni Grill "Frozen" dinner.  In the past we've had good success with several different brands of these packaged frozen dinners, sometimes adding fresh ingredients or making a few small edits to the recipe itself which didn't change the overall taste, just added to it.

Tonight, we had Roasted Garlic Shrimp Scampi, which is just a fancified term for utter shit, with noodles.  I've never thought that Macaroni Grill was great, it's a servicable restaurant that wants to be a good Italian eatery, but lacks the means or the chef's.  We, in California, have been so inundated with bad italian food that at some point we all just gave up and felt that this was the best we're going to get and we put up with it.  Anyways, on with the review

It's shit -
The end.

Why?
The sauce tastes like peanuts, with no indication of it being a butter sauce with white wine, the shrimp still had pieces of shell on it, the asparagus is the left over's from the stalks that usually get tossed to the garbage and it was mixed with shriveled pieces of red bell pepper.  The only good part was the noodles - they have frozen noodles down to a science.

Don't buy it, stop yourself from paying the money for this banal garbage, it's a waste of your hard earned money if you continually purchase mediocre food that these companies try to market to us as "good".
I will sacrifice my taste buds (an my inheritence haha) on this crap and give you the reviews of whether to get it.

Recommendations - Red Baron pizza items or Stouffer's frozen foods at least you know what you're getting with those oh and Ore Ida potato products.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Retro Review - The Hulk

This is the movie that made me start disliking the whole "reimagining" of established properties.  Why can't companies that produce movies allow them to be made in the image that they were intended? 

The Premise:  Bruce Banner is injected with nano tech machines, which was done by his father and then he witnesses a gamma bomb explode and then he repressess the memories and 20 years later he's working on a machine to "bomb" people with nano tech machines to cure them of everything from bad breath to cancer, except the machine breaks.  Bruce, stressed out because the has machine problems (as with everything else in his life), decides that he's going to be a test subject and locks himself into the lab where he has started the machine to bomb him with the nanites or nanobytes (or whatever they are called).  Something goes wrong and he is overdosed with these nanobytes and then he has a weird dream about his childhood.  Also, his father (Nick Nolte playing Nick  Nolte) manages to show up because he knows what Bruce is working on, magically, and that he is monitoring Bruce's ability to hulkify when he get's angry.  Oh and it was all set up by Nick Nolte's character (Brian) from the very beginning that this was what's going to happen to Bruce no matter what.  That's all fine and wonderful but here's the original premise - From Wikipedia

"The Hulk is cast as the emotional and impulsive alter ego of the withdrawn and reserved physicist Dr. Bruce Banner. The Hulk appears shortly after Banner is accidentally exposed to the blast of a test detonation of a gamma bomb he invented. Subsequently, Banner will involuntarily transform into the Hulk, depicted as a giant, raging, humanoid monster, leading to extreme complications in Banner's life".

and

"During the experimental detonation of a gamma bomb, scientist Bruce Banner rushes to save a teenager who has driven onto the testing field. Pushing the teen, Rick Jones, into a trench, Banner himself is caught in the blast, absorbing massive amounts of radiation. He awakens later in an infirmary, seeming relatively unscathed, but that night transforms into a lumbering grey form that breaks through the wall and escapes. A soldier in the ensuing search party dubs the otherwise unidentified creature a "hulk".[25]

Pretty  basic premise to use when creating a movie - Man gets into explosion -> freaks out ->hulkifies.

The whole movie in and of itself is actually not bad, it's just not good.  I love Ang Lee's use of border's like a comic book superimposed on each other instead of transitions and I like Sam Elliot as Betty's father -General Ross -(perfect in fact for that role), but the whole of it is terrible in execution.  The movie itself should have had a main bad guy (Rhino or Abomination or The Leader) or even just General Ross who is doing something like building a weapon to contain the hulk and research him for weapons development

They also should have done with this movie - being the first Hulk movie was find a Hulk-nerd director, like Favreau with Iron Man, but having read the Wikipedia on the making of Hulk it was doomed from the start, with one guy writing about a million drafts (and a lot of them used scenes for both Hulk movies) but the problem lies in harvesting bad ideas such as combining absorption man with Banner's dad and a few other ideas like nanobytes or nanodes or whatever.

This movie could have been so much more, but just reverts to "look at this cool shit we can do with computers" or so it seems.  The fight scenes, the scene where hulk gets into it with the tanks are all well done, the ending where he fights his dad and all the supposition there was hard to accept.  The graphics, for the time, were really good, but not Jurassic Park explosive good.  Nothing really made you go "wow" although there was the San Francisco scene that everyone wanted to see Hulk just beat the shit out of the military.

Disappointing, but it's good for a mindless evening of action and bad plot.

The Breakdown

The movie wasn't that bad- it had a great character and good development

The Good - Ang Lee directing the movie in a comic book style, Sam Elliot as Thunderbolt Ross and the look of the Hulk and the Hulk's child like attitude from temper tantrums to his quiet solitude.  Plus - Hulk dogs.

The Bad - Nanobyte technology, Banner's father being a super bad guy and the whole story behind Banner's father.

The Ugly - Hulk dogs - especially the poodle and Hulks tantrum when he kicked the couch.

On my scale of A-F, I give it an overall C, it's ok, but I have a hard time dancing to it.

I have to write up "Deep Blue Sea" - Thomas Jane (Punisher), Saffron Burrows (Some movie that she was popular in) and Samuel L. Jackson (what movie hasn't he been in in the last 20 or so years).  DBS is about genetically engineered sharks killing people in interesting and fun ways.