Courage

The Tank Man, made famous by standing his ground against a line of tanks during the Tianamen Square Massacre in 1989. The moment I stumbled upon this clip I knew I would post it. Yes, it has nothing to do with Christmas but I hope it encourages you to be bold for the next year. If he can take a stand against a tank and, with that, the entire Chinese government, then you can take a stand for yourself too.

Merry Christmas!

Miscellanious things: Featuring the work of Apricot

troupe by *apricot8585 on deviantART
NOTE: Edited to put art in the post. Show don't tell and all, you know?

APRICOT - There are many manga artists on DA and most of them, honestly, are not very good. The ones who are good, however, are often great. However, Japanese artist Apricot (listed as Apricot8585) stands out because her work has a decidedly unique and fresh look about it. While the manga look is obvious, it does not take a well trained eye to see that her work is significantly different from that of other manga and anime influenced artists. For one, she has an obsession with the color red. Almost every piece she makes is thick with cherry red color. However, what is truly significant in her work is the influence of the forefather of manga style, Ukiyo-e, the woodblock prints known as the pictures from a floating world. Her mix of classical Japanese art, along with occasional shots of Euro-American Art Noveau influences, makes her work feel fresh and sharp. Apricot seems almost dangerous because she is doing things that other manga stylists aren't. It's as if she's breaking the rules with her work and that's why she's exciting. She's making manga style works that reach the level of high art by embracing her influences instead of mocking or criticizing them. Apricot also stands out because she's one of the few Japanese artists on an English language website. Her English is getting better all the time and I hope it gets good enough that she can realize her dream of publishing English language manga.

Read an excellent interview with her on The Anime Blog and see her work on Deviant Art.

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Christmas is fast approaching and I've got most all of my holiday shopping done. There's only one present to go and I don't know what it will be but I have some ideas.

Writing wise I feel like I might be figuring out what I need to do but I worry I might be dawdling over something that I needn't worry about. There's a new character in my head born out of my examinations of past story concepts and finding that the same elements creep in over and over again. I don't want to be redundant but I know there are things that fascinate me and those are things I want to explore. Hopefully I'll find leeway to explore them in different ways. Werewolves, for instance, always interest me but I'd like to create and explore different concepts and realities for them rather than create one universe for them and only explore them that way.

I started more than I finished today--okay, I started three or four different pieces and finished nothing--but I still feel like I was actually productive. One piece was something that's been rattling in my head now for a while: a short comic spoof of J-RPGs like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. I also wrote a wandering piece on why I don't like Superman and why the idea of writing a Supes book fascinates me anyway but it's gonna need some work. I'm also working on that new character. All I can say is that he's the result of my worries of redundancy in that I decided to put a lot of the concepts that always come into my story worlds into him and his new world. I think it will be interesting but I'm also worried it may feel too weird. I did some searches today for help with character development and found a character sketch template to work with. It's helpful but I think it's high time that I created one of my own to use.

Most of today was spend puttering around Deviant Art and here's where things get tricky. Because I have a profile there now (which you've probably already know about) I'm seriously considering removing my semi-anonymous status from this blog. I think I've learned my lessons and am careful enough now to not go around publishing things that I wouldn't want people seeing. However, I'm pretty private so I worry about people getting the wrong impression of me, even though I also worry about the opinions of others way too much--geez, I sound emo. I'm 26! That's too old for emo! Anyway, I hope you liked my feature on Apricot. I'll do more of these in the future so look forward to them!

Bob Welch featuring Stevie Nicks - Ebony Eyes

When I first heard this song I thought it was the perfect theme song for one of my movie ideas. The lyrics don't quite match the idea but the exuberance of the music and that late seventies, early eighties sound captures everything I'm going for. The song would go well with an animated adventure along the lines of Heavy Metal or Rock and Rule (A nearly lost classic I happen to own on a legitimate two-disc DVD set. I'll tell you all about it someday. -B)

The footage itself comes from a concert called Cal Jam II. It was huge but, as you may have surmised, it wasn't Woodstock.

Review: Casino Royale

Starring Daniel Craig as 'James Bond'
With Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, and Dame Judi Dench as 'M'
Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis
Directed by Martin Campbell

Note: I'm cheating by copying a review I wrote earlier on MovieLens (see the sidebar.) -B

I'm not a huge James Bond fan but when word got out that this was going to be a big reinvention of the series that was closer to Ian Fleming's vision I was intrigued, even though I've never even read the Bond books or short stories.

Indeed, the movie is as good as everyone says it is. I can't say its the Best Bond film ever but if it isn't the best then its close. So many of the Bond films, especially the more recent ones, seem to go through the motions with easy to follow plots overly focused on the villains. This one, on the other hand, has its own unique rhythm. As we get to see Bond develop he becomes a brand new character to us which is aided by Daniel Craig's debut Bond performance. Craig looks a little too rough to be the Bond most of us think of and he hasn't got the swagger and thrust of Sean Connery but I think a few more films will seal him as the new face of Bond.

I liked that there were only a few gadgets, the only obvious one being a clever one that I can't describe as its a mild spoiler. The lack of the usual science fiction trappings were refreshing and I'd like to see the next few Bond films follow the grounded feeling of this film.

If I can't say this is the best Bond film then I can say that the opening sequence is the absolute best opening I have ever seen. One reviewer called it boring but I think he was just mad that there were no naked girls. Being a man, I missed the silhouetted vixens too but that didn't hurt the opening as we get to see Bond fighting and killing his way through a psychedelic world of playing card motifs. And Chris Cornell's Bond theme is a perfect one. It has the unmistakable sonic signature of a Bond theme but the rock roots and Chris's voice matches the rougher Bond world involved in the film.

Also, one has to mention the Bond "Babes" but here, at least in Eva Green's character of Vesper Lynd, we have a Bond Woman who, while not at all tough, still comes across as a strong and real person, not a bimbo or superwoman like many other Bond heroines.

And, like many other recent Bond films, there are lots of fun in jokes for Bond fans. One I caught was a familiar interior from one of the films in the final action sequence. Again, I'll say nothing since its a spoiler but the scene was rather elevating.

The only problems the film has are the shape of its plot and its running length. Personally, I prefer a plot that builds continuously up to the climax and conclusion but this film . . . well, I can't describe it well without spoiling things but it has an odd structure that can be difficult to follow. I actually enjoyed that it didn't take the usual route of most storylines but had the movie been shorter it might have taken some of the confusion away. An easier way around this would have been to let us viewers in on more of the story that isn't revealed until the end but that would have made things less surprising. Casino Royale doesn't have obvious flaws, just unusual choices made to tell the story in the way the filmmakers needed.

Overall, this was an unusual Bond film but a much more satisfying adventure than many of the others. At the very least we have the best Bond film and the best Bond actor since Sean Connery. If the next films stick with a similar storyline (I suspect that the new films will form an ELLIPSIS) then I am all set to go again.

One more observation: While the violence and sexuality in this film is not as intense as others have said it is, this is a film for grown-ups. I say that as a compliment.

Sunday Funnies

Okay, let me apologize for the title. While this is a post about comics, its about the type you find on a newsstand, not a newspaper. This started out as a reply to a post on the CCN message board by a local ghost-buster (which had nothing to do with ghosts.) He wanted to know what comics everyone was reading and I started to get wordy, as usual, and I realized that I was writing a blog entry so, here it is: What the Bombastic B is reading in comics:

Thanks to my unfortunate home situation, I have a lot of spare cash so I've been able to go to the comics store and buy at least one new comic for every week in the month. For the most part I stick with mini-series since they're easier to pick up since its just three to six comics to tell one complete story.

However, I've dived completely into and am now lost in Bill Willingham's Fables. It's my current comics obsession and has almost everything I like: werewolves (sorta), multiple worlds, magic in modern settings, boobs, sacrilege, a focus on characters over plot, and artwork that puts everything else in comics to shame just based on how its presented. I've bought every trade paperback including the new hardcover. However, I've stopped buying the individual comics until the next TPB comes out at which time I'll either pick them up again or just resign myself to trades. Fables, for me, might work better as a trade than as individual issues.

I'm also picking up lots of She-Hulk comics. Funny that, even though I'm a Hulk fan, I don't read the Hulk himself since I find most of his comics boring. The lack of jellyfish floating in the desert does it for me. She-Hulk, however, is way too much fun. Dan Slott does what I want to do with superheroes: he has fun with them. Nothing is too terribly serious here and Slott chooses to focus more on character (do you see a trend?) than galactic battles and funky villains. The book is weird and I love that.

The two mini-series I'm on are about to finish: Secret Six, Gail Simone's continuation of work on Villains United, and The Escapists which is a loosely based sequel to Michael Chabon's incredible novel, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Both have been quite entertaining and I'll miss both. However, I'm hoping they both spawn full series if possible. I'd read them.

Last, but not least, I'm just starting out reading the new Juggernaut arc on New Excalibur. The book itself doesn't interest me as most anything X-Men feels ruined after House of M(ess.) But Juggernaut is a favorite character of mine and I want to see if he stays a good guy or goes back to evil as well as whether or not he'll get his powers back--or get new ones.

Heroes We Have Yet to Meet

Heroes is my official show of the 2006/2007 TV season. It's got all the superheroes you want without the spandex, code names, and steep $2.99 price tags that usually plague them. Like most of the other fans, Hiro Nakamura is my favorite and his actor looks to have a promising future. However, last night's episode revealed some other potential heroes who we haven't seen yet.

The names come from Mohinder My-plot-is-boring Suresh cracking the password on his father's computer, thus revealing his list superpowered humans both living and dead. Most of the names on the screen were of heroes we've already met. Some of them, perhaps all of them, are just throw away names and cities, but that has yet to be seen. I'm guessing at least one of them will be seen in a later episode.

• Byron Bevington (Marshfield, VT)
• Daniel Buzzetti (Greeley, CO)
• Tracy Chobham (Frostburg, MD)
• Paula Gramble (Monteith, IA)
• Curtis Hovsepian (Grant Pass, OR)
• Penkala Burton (Albert Lea, MN)
• Teresa Hue Pham (Shreveport, LA)

Some of you in the know can rest assured that I've already picked out my favorite person from this list. ;)

EDIT: I found four more names!

• David Berman (New York, NY)
• Adam Soo Hoo (Kailua, HI)
• Sparrow Redhouse (?, New Mexico)
• Amid Halabi (Los Angeles, CA)

Just so you know, I didn't find these on my own by any means. Here's a link to the best screen capture (so far) of the list.

What I'm Thinking About

Movies:

• Casino Royale: Bond is reborn
• Stranger than Fiction: Smart Ferrel
• The Fountain: Aronofsky/Jackman Masterpiece

Comics:

• The Escapists: Denny's in trouble
• Fables: Waiting for trade paperback
• Secret Six: Just one more!

Video Games:

• Wii: are curious, but waiting.
  
• Playstation: Not until it's affordable.
• Final Fantasy XII: Transgendered heroes?
  

Politics:

• Democrats: Don't blow it (again.)
• Republicans: They blew it (again.)
• Bush: Why are you president?

Me:

• I hate my stupid job.
• Must develop better work ethic.
• Must go to bed. Bye!
  

Casino Royale Theme: You Know My Name - Chris Cornell

I'm not that big of a James Bond fan but I respect the franchise. Think about it: a more or less Hollywood film franchise with a British hero that has lasted 40 years and still makes an impact on the culture. It's pretty incredible that these films are still so popular.

The last few films, however, have only been passable. Pierce Brosnan was a darn good James Bond but the movies seemed flat. Even lovely Halle Berry in Die Another Day wasn't enough to save that clunker. In fact, you knew it wasn't going to be that great going in just because of that awful Madonna song!

I like Madonna (her old stuff, at least) but that DAD theme was not happening. I appreciate that she went somewhere other than the Shirley Bassey route but a poor excuse for techno does equal Bond in my ears. While I'm not big on Bond movies, I LOVE the openings. Full of sexy women in nude silhouettes mixed with guns and killer visuals and awesome music, Bond openings are often more fun than the movies themselves. The last opening was interesting as we saw Brosnan Bond being tortured during the opening, but I'd have preferred a slightly more traditional opening and a much more traditional song.

So its pleasant for me to feel that this new Bond movie, Casino Royale, the film in which we see the beginnings of Bond, looks to be the best Bond film in years. And it's even better to hear this brand new Bond theme. It's a rarity in that instead of having a woman sing, they chose Chris Cornell, ex lead vocalist of Soundgarden and Audioslave, to create the new song. As you probably heard already, its a gritty, hard rocking song but one that still sounds very much like a traditional Bond song. Mix that song with a new Bond (who actually looks like the man Ian Fleming envisioned in the books) and a plot stripped of tacky sci-fi lite trappings, and you get what should be a huge hit.

Unfortunately, I have other movies to get to. I have yet to see what is being haled as the true masterpiece of the year, Borat!, and I'm also dying to see Will Ferrel's new comedy for the smart set, Stranger than Fiction. And I have to see Darron Aronofsky's The Fountain on day one. Seeing it any later will not be allowed.

Jill Scott - Golden

This is one of my sister's favorite artists and one of mine too. Jill Scott dumps the oversexed-kitten act that other artists use in favor of smart and cheerful R & B. Her musical sensibilities are old fashioned but that's her strength. Listen very closely and *gaps!* are those real instruments? Is that a melody? Wow!

Hi, Richard

Do you like the new look? I think it might be a little bright although not too loud, I hope. I like purple with orange because it reminds me of the sunset and dreamier landscapes so I hope this gives you something of that feeling. Purple is a color representative of creative people so it suits me. I'll probably change this, though, since the Blogger update allows me to change my blog's looks much more easily.

I went and saw some of my Warrensburg friends last Wednesday. If I didn't see you don't feel shafted. I wasn't there that long but I need to try and visit more. While I was there I got to see Richard and his fiancee, Becca (Congratulations!) and Becca's son who, through no fault of his own, further convinced me that I don't want to have children--at least not yet.

Tomorrow I have my writer's workshop and nothing to show for it. I need to get more serious about my creative work but you've heard that before. I've been poking at a self-help book that my sister gave me but I'm so lazy that I haven't even implemented the suggestions it gives. At least not fully. One of the suggestions, however, is that you set a goal for yourself with a set completion date and look at it everyday. I've decided on one dominant goal for my life:

To be the foremost creative force in the world by October 13th, 2026.

Yeah, it's unreasonable but maybe...

Every man needs to have a dream. And I'm sick of dreaming. That's all I'll say for now.

Six word short stories

Stolen from Neil Gaiman who did one for Wired Magazine. The task: write a short story only six words in length. An easy task but you have to try to beat this one:

For sale: baby shoes, Never worn.

-Ernest Hemingway

I can't do that...yet. But let me try a few:

Me eat world. Me full. Good.

As she waits he weeps alone.

My heart stopped during rush hour.

I thought I could fly. Oops.

My hammer opened her beautiful mind.

You murdered me... but I'm back!

This is fun. I'll try more.

Fast Film

happy birthday: i am ? years old today

Today I turn 26 years old. That's how old I am. How old I feel however is a different matter.

Sometimes I feel older. I have aches and pains that seem incongruent to my actual age. I look at young people, my age or younger, and marvel at their choices and tastes. They confound me at times and always have. I have a taste for older movies and I'm developing an appreciation for jazz standards by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald.

But, more often than I feel older, I actually feel much younger. While my elderly side is simply a result of having gotten older, my young side seems to be a sort of arrest in my development. It's like I have one arm that is growing and changing at a normal rate while the other doesn't age at all with the exception of accumulating scars.

I think we're all like this in a way and that gives me a little solace. Many of the things that excited individuals as children still excite them as adults. I still have a fondness for cartoons even if I now prefer animation geared or appealing towards adults, but I always remember that I never would have developed such tastes had I not long ago decided that I didn't want to give cartoons up as I got older. Somehow I've found my way back to the career I chose in 3rd grade, cartoonist, although I'm still wondering if I'm just chasing rainbows (and how gold there will actually be in the pot at the end.)

More importantly, I still live at home with my parents and I work a job that is well below my actual abilities and certifications. Somewhere along the way I decided to take a summer vacation from school that has lasted almost three years. I'm even considering ending this pseudo-vacation to go back to school! Yes, I would be going back for a master's degree but what can one really do with a creative writing other than sell his soul to the devils of advertising? I haven't published anything substantial enough to justify teaching even at a high school level (not that one needs to do so.) And I couldn't give a kid an F unless he spat in my face. I'm too sympathetic to poor students as I have always been a poor student. (Yeah, man! Homework's for douche-bags! WOOOOO!)

I am sorry to bring you my depressing rants on a day that I ought to be happy but lets face it: like Christmas, birthdays lose all of their shine after childhood ends. Honestly, I think my presents-giving-and-receiving-days have gotten progressively less exciting since I was seven but that's mostly greed talking. A different subject we can look at some other day. I just wish that I could have woken up this morning and thought "Wow! It's my birthday! I'm 26! Look at all I've done! Look at what I'm doing! My life is great!" Instead I thought this: "I'm turning twenty fucking six and I still live at home with my parents. God help me." And for the many of you who feel the way I do, may God help you too. May God give us all at least one birthday to be happy about.

Haircut

I've gone from Samuel L. Jackson in Unbreakable to Samuel L. Jackson in, well, pretty much every other movie he's been in. I'm not completely bald but there's not much left. It feels good, cost only 14 bucks including tip, and I'm again wondering why I was so reluctant to get it done although I actually liked my hair beforehand except that it was too shaggy behind the ears and in the back of my head where, on one side, my hair grows three times faster than the other side.

More importantly, I'm looking forward to the weekend before Halloween but until I get more info I won't say why. If I play my cards right, however, it could be HUGE for me. Wish me luck!

Today's Sucky

I hate today.

I hate a lot of days but I REALLY hate today.

To avoid trouble I'll spare you the details but to sum things up I was in a car accident AGAIN. It wasn't my fault but I didn't handle the situation well so now I'm in worse than before.

My life sucks.

Kansas International Film Festival

I've been spending the weekend in front of a screen. A movie screen at the Glenwood Arts Theater for the 2006 Kansas International Film Festival. So far I've seen eight films not counting 20 plus shorts and I'm going to give a quick rundown of what I've seen. Here we go in order of viewing:

DAY ONE

Sandstorm: Set in China, it is a hazy examination of a police officer trapped in a massive sandstorm with his wife and his guilt over his actions in the brutal persecution of the peaceful Falun Dai (or Falun Gong) movement. While it does a good job of showing the cruelty of the police, this film seems to be Falun Gong propaganda. There's nothing wrong with that since we're talking about a nice bunch of people who were punished for promoting peace in a nation that thrives on military fervor--sound familiar?--however, I do not need to be convinced to believe Falun Gong is hao. I am convinced that the film had alterior motives and I didn't appreciate that.

Night of the Living Dead: Wow! It was my first time seeing it and I got to see it on a big screen. How great is that? And director George Romero was there too with his collaborator Tom Savini! Just having the opportunity to see these two in person was nice but it helps that the film was interesting too, if not that great.

You already know what the movie is about. If you don't you need to go and download a free and legal copy of the film for yourself. I knew that the film had a black hero but it was still amazing to see it on the screen knowing that it was a film produced by white people back in 1968. He actually hits a white woman (not his finest moment) and fights with white people, killing one. This is far more impressive than the zombie stuff.

The movie is old and was done on a low budget with inexperienced people and it shows but for all of its glaring flaws there are moments where everything working against it works for it, creating moments that feel uncomfortably real or become quite frightening without relying of gore. It's a must-see, at least because of its acclaim in the film world.

BachelorMan: I met the director of the film while getting tickets and told him I would go and see it. Big mistake. The movie isn't absolute trash as the acting is actually quite good (Missi Pyle shines in a role many more popular actresses wouldn't have put effort into and David DeLuise is charismatic as BachelorMan himself) but the script in not only juvenile but often doesn't make any sense. Things happen because the formula demands them to happen, not because they make any sense. Some scenes were obvious candidates for cutting but somehow still ended up in the film to suggest things that never happen. This is a "guy" film that most mature, real guys would be offended by.

DAY TWO

Sentenced Home: In 1996 a law was passed that forced every non-citizen American convicted of a felony to be deported, even if they had already served jail time. The law provides no appeals process and, with our post 9/11 world, it seems unlikely that there will be any chance of this law being changed to take into account those who have changed their lived around and/or have never been to the countries they are being deported to. In this film the subjects are Cambodian citizens brought over to America to escape Pol Pot back in the 70s. Some of them don't even remember their home countries but because of their crimes they are being forced back there.

Not all of the subjects are sympathetic but the unfairness of their plight is well stated. It's also impressive that the one voice in the film supporting the deportations (or at least the one that represents the deporters) makes a good arguement in favor of the law. That said, it still shows families being torn apart and young men being tossed from the opportunities and advantages of America and back into the poverty of Cambodia all because of crimes for which they thought they had already payed the penalty.

The Hole Story: A mockumentary about the director's quest to solve the mystery of a hole that forms on the frozen surface of a lake in Minnesota despite freezing temperatures. His exploration, however, is sidetracked by reality.

While the story is nice and clever, it isn't all that interesting. The hero who is the real-life director of the film comes across not as a loveable loser but a big loser who might be loveable. Parts of the film seem a little farfetched and it just isn't that entertaining. Everyone else liked it but I wasn't impressed.

IFCKC Horror Film Competition: Lots of horror shorts. So many were entered because of Romero and Savini's judging of the films that they had an overflow day on Thursday night. That resulted in the two winning films being shown BEFORE the festival and leaving many people not knowing this until that night. A good display of bad organization. Also, during the films I did get to see, one had technical difficulty and was skipped over to the insult, in my opinion, of the filmmaker who worked hard to make his or her film.

Most of what I saw wasn't very good and I probably shouldn't have expected much but one film I noticed was Female Intuition. It was the only film that felt like something I had never seen before (or, more accurately, hadn't seen a million times before.) In it a girl goes to the doctor because she feels her sixth sense of danger is telling her she has a chronic illness. Turns out she's not the one with the problem. At least she's not the only one... The production values were high quality and the story was told well. Some of the other films seemed sloppy or had vague stories (including some "experimental" films that hopefully stay experiments) but Female Intuition stayed logical, functional, and fun.

Creepshow: Another Romero scarefest, this time with Steven King's help to create five short tales of terror. Romero himself says that the film is more funny than scary and this is true. Although it has gory moments the real focus is on the jokes.

The best story featured Stephen King himself (he's not a bad actor) playing a country bumpkin who encounters a meteor that unleashes a green weed that grows on and over everything. While the other stories are tradition fare of monsters, this one is a tale of torture from beyond and its frightening--and funny--to watch Stephen wrestle with the bizzare plants.

DAY THREE

This Film is Not Yet Rated: Best film of the festival so far. The director was kind enough to submit this film as a sneak peak showing prior to its official October run. Despite showing in a small theater it is still impressive that they actually had to turn people away from the screening. They actually had to set up folding chairs to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend.

None of us were disappointed as the film is a funny but angering look at the MPAA movie rating process. A system that, as you might already know, sees sex and pleasure as more vile than violence. It is amazing to learn what the now not-so-secret screening board thinks constitutes an NC-17 rating. Female pleasure is essentially offensive to them. Bloodless violence is not. Gay sex is far more offensive than straight sex even when the latter is more explicit. Little moments that make a film feel real are the moments that the MPAA (and studios by association) want removed to get that precious R.

It was pretty disgusting but the film has a bemused tone seeing as this is not nearly as important a subject as war or disease or the-idiots-in-office. The real amusement, however, comes from the director hiring a private eye to find out the identities of the MPAA ratings board. A group that is supposedly made up of the parents of young children and teens turns out to be full of people who have adult children and at least one member who might not have any kids at all! What effect the revealation of the board will have is yet to be seen (I doubt much will change since many of thsoe who most need to hear this message won't even hear about This Film is Not Yet Rated.) but one can hope that, someday, a new rating system will be put in place that at sees violence as more offensive than sex and that considers the artistic integrity of a film.

Drakmar: A documentary that started as a look at a charismatic teenage geek which turned into something more. Colin Taylor is (or, rather, was) a 14-year-old with a passion for Halo, Dungeons and Dragons, and live action role playing with real steel fighting (how cool and weird is that?) The documentary details his quest to move up in the ranks of the LARP realm but it gets a positive sidetracking through Colin's brother Corwin who asks the filmmakers to help him find their absent birth-father.

It's great to see a film that looks at geek-culture through a positive lens even though the weirder and sillier aspects of Colin and his friends still show. Better yet, the movie was made on 200 dollards cash. 200 dollars not only gave two filmmakers their shot at the big time but they also changed the lives of two people for the better. Money is so amazing when used the right way. And as for Colin himself, I think he'll be a geek hero for years to come. I know a lot of kids across America will see or hear about this film and say "Hey! That's me! Someone made a movie about me!"

WHAT'S NEXT?

I only have eight more showing to go. Only one film stands out as a must see: American Stag made by local filmmaker Ben Meade who is also a chairperson of the festival. Stag looks at 50s and 60s porno films (hooray porn!) It shows on Wednesday evening so, if you can, come on down and get a look at it (but for the intellectual value, not the porn you perv.)

The Lord of the Wrong

Neil Gaiman, master of all media (but not video games, at least not yet) has alerted his fanbase to a magical place of absolute horror. The Shire housing development in Bend, Oregon promises to slowly turn into one of the largest sustained areas of concentrated geekery outside of Silicon Valley. By the looks of it this could slide from severe geekery into sheer dorkdom. I'm overdosing on nerdiness just by thinking about this place.

Sure, it looks nice and uses green building methods and is located in one of the most liberal places on the planet but isn't their such a thing as too much?

And should they build this in New Zealand? It's a lot prettier over there.

Check the title for the link.

Muse - Time is Running Out

I've been hearing this song in the September ads for Turner Classic Movies (some of the best ads ever. Always hip and sexy and very incongruous to most of their films which makes them PERFECT.) Today I thought to myself "Gee, that sounds like that Muse band that I'm enamored with."

A quickie look up of one lyric proved me right. Indeed, this is another full on blast of musicality from Muse.

You wanna know why I like them? Because they sound like a Japanese rock band but not only do they sing in English (of course) but their lyrics actually make sense and don't sound silly. There's another band that comes close to this feeling for me, Linkin Park, but their lyrics never seem to work even though their songs are great music-wise.

Muse - Knights of Cydonia

I'm sorry that most of my posts lately are just music videos but, aside for selfishly building a list of favorite sounds outside of the YouTube favorites system, I like sharing good music.

96.5 The Buzz, former home of Lazlo, current home of some other DJ who sucks, is having a "shuffle weekend" and they just happened to play this song. I've been hearing a buzz about Muse but never checked them out before.

I think I've just become a devotee.

The video is silly but just listen to the song. It's epic and that's a feeling most bands don't bother attempting anymore which is why a lot of music today doesn't last longer than it's airplay. Muse wants to take us somewhere. I wanna go!

People Make Me Sick

Look at the video first and then read what people left behind. Disgusting!

They ought to be banned for saying such things. Banned from living, that is. We're always wondering why the world is in such a mess and that's the biggest clue: ignorance.

Oh, Sweet Jesus...

...you have some crazy people who love you.

Armor of God PJs
: Why?

Passion (and a bonus!) - Utada Hikaru

Hikaru is her first name. Utada is her last name and the sole moniker she goes by in the States. Hikaru is one of a small group of Japanese pop stars who had the good fortune to spend their formative years in the United States but this hasn't yet translated to strong U.S. sales. Nor has it translated to strong English language music as you can see here.

The song is in Japanese and is lovely, as is the video, but the English version (which, oddly enough, was written first and titled "Sanctuary") is clunky in its lyrics although it is brilliant compared to her first U.S. release, "Easy Breezy" which made her most hardcore American fans weep and everyone else laugh in her face. That's worth a post in and of itself.

And, you know what? As much as I love her, you have to hear Easy Breezy. It's hilarious...and still not half as bad as some of the music coming from the post-Mickey Mouse Club era of Disney Teen Moppets (TM Disney.) Utada is young and talented. Here's hoping she finds a way to break into the American market without caving to bland pop or becoming tethered to the anime fandom.

Not that we'd mind having her...

Media Day

Today was one of those rare days when my life didn't belong to someone else. I took care of business by going to see Little Miss Sunshine, one of the best family films that the people who ought to see it will never see because it's deservedly R rated and actually has a brain. I actually laughed so hard at the end of that movie that I started crying. There were a few points where I think people will genuinely cry because...you'll have to see it yourself.

However, due to a time mix up, I went to the theater too early so I went almost all the way back home and wound up at the library where I picked up a reserved copy of The Man Who Heard Voices, the semi-biography of M. Night Shyamalan's process of filming Lady in the Water. People say the book will either make Night look like a scorned genius or a crazy. I'm leaning towards Night being a guy who wanted to make a movie he really cared about without stupid suits getting in the way but who didn't realize that those suits he rejected were actually right. More importantly I wandered upon a graphic novel called Valerian: The New Future Trilogy. I don't know what it's about yet but it's French, it's sci-fi, and it was one of the inspirations for The Fifth Element (and supposedly parts Star Wars.) The book is part of a long running series of Valerian "graphic albums" by Jean-Clause Mézières and Pierre Christin. With what I'm working on now and with my need to learn more about comics outside of the U.S. and the superhero world I'm looking forward to seeing how the French handle their comics. So far it seems very cinematic. I can see some complaining (whining) about decompression with this but I just see opportunities to slow down and enjoy some pretty pictures.

Mika Nakashima - Legend

A beautiful song sung by a beautiful woman. Mika is one of the few who go beyond simple Japanese pop and creates music worthy of the title 'Idol.'

But what's up with her doll? Look closely...

Under the Influence of Giants - Mama's Room

The 2ist century has been defined musically by the return of the 20th century. Innovation hasn't been about creating new types of music but discovering old genres and styles, often ones that really aren't that old. Usually, this is just more sad rehashing but sometimes it works just right.

Case in point: Under the Influence of Giants. Their real name should be Junior Bee-Gees but whereas the original Bee-Gees were disco light, UTIOG is disco heavy. Disco beats in general have been coming back for a few years but UTIOG combines the beats and sounds of the 70s with a harder edge. UTIOG is what would have happened had those early punk pioneers wandered into Studio 54 and liked what they heard.

It's Been A Long Time

[I] Should not have left you
Without a dope beat to step to...

-Timbaland


It has been a long time. I haven't even updated the subtitle for the blog! That's bad.

You can add "Lady in the Water" to the list of to-be-reviewed films (Good, but perhaps only for the Shayamalan faithful like myself.)

Also, if you have Animal Crossing for the DS please leave a comment and we can swap friend codes.

Here's a video by defunct Japanese band Psycho le Cemu (or "Ce Lemu" as I always want to say it.)

It's called Roman Hikou and, besides being more bizarre than usual for visual kei videos, it also inspired a character in one of my comics projects.

Which reminds me that I'm working on something with a friend involving Flash Gordon style sci-fi so look for updates on that.

Clerks II Pre-review

Sometime soon I'll be reviewing Clerks II. My early word: Kev did it again!

Also there'll be word on A Scanner Darkly, also a good piece of celluloid.

TMNT Return

The ninja turtles never went away. I just grew away from the other versions that came after my beloved first series of cartoon turtles. The original comic book was, much as people will berate me for this, too grim for me. I like my happy pizza eaters over Raphael as Wolver-turtle.

I'm not sure what to think about this new movie but the trailer looks pretty damn awesome. I'd be saying that even if I'd never heard of the turtles before.Poor Michaelangelo!

Read more at www.apple.com/trailers/...

Everything is Role Playing

I was in Borders Bookstore today just to have something to do when a copy of Werewolf: The Forsaken caught my eye. Like I've said before, I'm a werewolf nut so I had to look at it. Most of the story concepts aren't for me. All the pseudo-spiritual hoo hah and the fancy tribes all seem to get in the way of the monsters and mayhem but it's still interesting to look at. RPG books are fun in that they're guidebooks into other worlds and how they work that don't have a set hero or a storyline to follow other than everthing that has happened. And reading Werewolf got me thinking not so much about werewolves or fantasy worlds but about how much I want to get into role playing again.

I've never been a big role playing guy. I never played D&D until college and that was only a few times. I was in one campaign for a different system but it didn't last too long although I have a funny story or two about it.

To be honest, as fun as making characters is and as much as I like it when my guy is up to play, pen and paper roleplaying can be awfully boring. But at the same time it can be more engrossing than video game RPGs that are played alone or with Internet strangers. Pen and paper RPGs let you play with, if not your friends, flesh and blood people and without the restrictions of a strict computer program and a weak CPU.

I think I ought to look around and see if I can find some people to game with. I already know a few people who might be available or who know some people who might be available. Maybe sometime I can even be Dungeon Master again although I'll have to cool it on dungeons that feel like Donkey Kong levels and slapping the players around.

Really, I just miss having people to hang out with all the time like I did in college. That's probably why I want to try role playing again, even if it gets a little boring.

Guardians of Luna

Werewolves are my favorite. They're the best monsters ever. Imagine being able to live a normal life for all but 12 nights of the year when you get to let that angry, snarling monster you keep trapped inside out to terrorize the chickens. Werewolves rock.

And when they get to be the good guys? That's the rock getting its roll.

Guardians of Luna is a new animated adventure show from one of the minds behind Batman: The Animated Series and, my all-time favorite cartoon, Gargoyles. Honestly, it sounds dangerously similar to White Wolf games but it balances that with robots. Werewolves AND robots? All right!

The show hasn't been picked up by anyone yet so it probably won't make it on our screens this fall or it might go into syndication hell but it sounds like it will actually make it to TV and I can't wait. Check the link in the title for a preview. I'm hoping someone leaks the video to YouTube.

And Now I See the Lite

Earlier this week I finally got my hands on a gorgeous Nintendo DS Lite, a brilliant white gaming device that doesn't even need games to feel sexy. Seriously, the thing is so stylish that it is sexy. Give an average looking girl a Lite to hold and she will suddenly develop larger breasts, wider hips, a lean and mean waistline, and the longest and smoothest legs ever made.

Okay, that last part was weird but stay with me here.

I'd been debating getting one for a while. Earlier this year I was planning on getting a Playstation 2, something I still plan on doing before the end of the year if not the end of Summer. Even then I already knew that I wanted a DS because of the quirky game titles that Nintendo has been releasing and because it would be the system that would host a long awaited game, New Super Mario Bros. Aside from being Mario's return to classic sidescrolling (and away from his frustrating 3D career) NSMB looked to be the perfect compliment to the DS Lite. Of course it helps that they made their American debuts only weeks apart from one another. Either way I now own both and I'm very happy with them.

Sometime this week I plan on getting a new game, preferably one that I can play over the internet. The DS Lite is wi-fi equipped so I don't need to buy anything other than a game. Will it be Animal Crossing: Wild World? Mario Kart DS? Tetris DS? Metroid Prime: Hunters?

Failure

Let me issue a warning: This is going to be another bit of rambling whining from me. I need to get this out so don't feel pressured to actually read this. Do, however, try to comment more. It sucks to put a blog out and get so few comments. One word responses are fine but I don't have a counter so I'd like to know that people are actually reading this.

So what am I complaining about? A lot of things.

Being an "anonymous" blogger is pretty troublesome. There are all sorts of things I want to talk about that I can't to preserve this wonderful mask that is "B." Either that or I can't find a way to talk about these things. I'm lazy so I don't want to take the time to do such things either.

Lately I also find myself increasingly unhappy with my own life. Again, a lot of this involves stuff that I don't even want to bring up out of fear that the wrong people with the right info will read this and respond accordingly. It is almost purely paranoid but its what works for me.

How can I sum this up? I know what I want out of life and I can't wait to get it, but I'm slow to do the work involved and sometimes I'm too lazy to do the work involved. A certain person especially tells me that I need to plan ahead and focus on the future to which I agree but when someone is harping on you it doesn't matter how much of it is true because that person needs to shut their yap and go find someone else to annoy.

There's nothing worse than wanting something and not knowing how to get it or even being afraid to get it. There's nothing worse than wanting to say something but being afraid to say it or being embarrassed to say it. If only we could be free of these limitations like time and reality and society. There are so many damned wall around us and they're made of various types of glass. They let us see what they want but they can't be raised or lowered. The walls have to be broken and the glass pieces that will be made are sure to be very sharp.

It's my fear of failure that does it. More than anything else I am afraid of messing up. I'm almost clinically kakorrhaphiophobic (say that three times fast.) And I'm afraid of embarassment too. That ties in well.

More and more reality is closing in on me. I'm beginning to give up on my real aspirations to settle and be like everyone else. EVERYONE ELSE IS MISERABLE. I feel badly now but I don't want to be like them. At least seeing that justifies my fears somewhat. But they say its worse to try and then fail then to never try at all and that sounds true.

But I also have this terrible conservative streak in me that is constantly telling me to be like everybody else. I suppose its an after-effect of being picked on and unpopular in school. I can't believe that its almost been a decade since high school and I still worry about fitting in. I'm a geek by nature. I don't want to fit in. But my instincts, which I cannot trust right now, keep telling me that someone will beat me up if I do what I want. That won't happen but I keep feeling like it's unsafe to do what I do or what I want to do. What if people don't like it? What if people don't want it? What if people ignore it?

What if I fail? What do I do?

My suffering is so petty but why does it feel so desperately strong?

Christopher Volkman's Renaissance

Looking like a smash up between The Matrix, Sin City, A Scanner Darkly, and Blade Runner, Christoper Volkman's Renaissance promises to be the new darling of fans of high brow, high concept films. Click the title to watch the English trailer. It's GORGEOUS.

Dead or Alive - Teaser Trailer

Yes, it's a video game movie. Yes, it looks like crap.

Yes, I can't wait. This looks so wonderfully bad that it has to be good. (And it's probably this way on purpose too. No one is going to take this seriously.)

Sports Nerds are Normal. Sci-fi Nerds are Weird.

Peter David, premier comic book writer and blogger, set off a hot discussion on his blog about the animosity displayed towards my--and most likely your--strong and proud geek community. He says: "where the hell does the media get off being snotty about fans who are dressed as Klingons when you can go to any Yankees game and see 1800 guys wearing jerseys that say "Jeter" on the back[?]"

I don't know. I'm weirded out by Klingons too but they're kinda fun. And it's always great when someone dresses up as their favorite character and actually pulls it off. But how many fat-asses wear Jeter's jersey? No one can wear that jersey and do it justice other than Derek himself. But somehow its okay to wear sports jerseys, the costumes of pro-sports, out in public but its weird to wear a Star Trek or Superman T-shirt--although sometimes the Supes T's are en vogue.

Many people see the love of science fiction and fantasy and all the related facets as childishness overgrown, symptoms of adults who haven't let go of or who haven't moved on from adolescence. This, for good and ill, is true. But can't you say the same for the grown man who still fantasizes about being a baseball star with his sports jerseys and fantasy football and steady accumulation of facts? And what about the man who has achieved that dream? For all his skill and talent, isn't it true that he is getting paid millions of dollars to play a game?

More Than Meets the E.Y.E.S.

Transformers: THE MOVIE! Not the cartoon movie with the giant Galactus robot and Optimus dying--only to be brought back--and songs by Scorpions and Weird Al*. This is the new movie produced by Steven Spielberg (yay!) and directed by . . . MICHAEL BAY?!! WHAT THE FLYIN' @#$%!!!

Sorry. Geek panic.

Seriously, it's not that bad. I just saw the teaser trailer (click the title to see it) and it wasn't half bad looking. It's far too little to give an impression of what the movie might be like but it suggests that they're going to ditch a lot of the stuff from the cartoon for a more adult feel which I am all for. I like the idea of bringing back kids stuff from the 80s for today's kids but making something that will appeal to the people who grew up with it, but if they just make another kiddie movie and don't go after adults by being adult then it will fail.

Ideally, however, they would forget the kids altogether and do a Transformers movie made just for adults. No, I wouldn't want them swearing or killing people or having sex. That would be messed up, especially the robot sex. (eww...) But I would like something more serious but with a tounge-in-cheek-because-this-is-awful-silly humor. And I'd like some hard science fiction in it as well. Not lengthy exposition but something to explain how robots turn into cars that no one can tell aren't normal cars. There is so much fodder in this concept for someone with talent.

Oh. And don't forget about character development. And PLOT! That's important too. You gotta have plot.

And maybe they can throw us a bone and work in something about how all of these oil gussling vehicles are destroying the environment and our way of life (and how we can't fuel them anymore.) The energon crisis is so close to our current oil crisis that this is the one possible element of the movie that they cannot risk to ignore lest they be too stupid to think about anything other than thar robot cars are neat-o.

*How 80s is that?

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Anime

I found this purely on a lark by typing in "Mario Anime" into the YouTube search bar. Surprise!

This is part of a 60 minute mini-movie made back in 1986. It's 20th anniversary is on the 20th of July but, for some reason, the movie is such a rarity that copies of the laserdisc fetch up to $180 dollars on Japanese eBay. And, of course, Nintendo never bothered to let us Americans take a look. Why they did that (and saddled us with the inferior Super Mario Super Show) is beyond me. Not that I didn't like Lou Albaino but that cartoon just doesn't work after nearly 20 years.

I'm going to try and find a torrent for the whole movie but I doubt it's available. However, I'm sure that someone will upload the whole thing onto the net and that some brave team of fan translators will make a fan sub.

Or maybe Nintendo will step ahead and give us a legal re-release so that they can make some money.

Banlieue 13 (District B13)

Banlieue 13
Director: Pierre Morel
Screenwriter: Luc Besson and Bibi Naceri
Starring:

• Cyril Raffaelli as Damien
• David Belle as Leïto
• Bibi Naceri as Taha
  
• Tony D'Amario as K2 (Pronounced Kuh-Doo)
• Dany Verissimo as Lola

When did the French become the masters of action movies? While Asia discovered horror movies and Hollywood discovered it could put its head up its ass, France became a center for all things kick ass. Luc Besson is specifically responsible. You probably remember his movie The Fifth Element which looks like he had a baby with Moebius, but this film, Banlieue Treize, translated into English as District B13 eschews almost all of the sci-fi wonderment for martial arts fighting madness and look at the exciting new extreme sport called parkour.

There's a story, not that it really matters in these types of films, but in this case even the story is something of a gem, albeit not as shiny as the fighting. The year is 2010 and Paris has decided to pull an East Germany on the nasty neighborhoods and has sealed off a neighborhood called (wait for it) Banlieue 13 from the rest of the city. Leïto (parkour co-creator David Belle) is something of a noble hoodlum who protects a building in this nasty place from drug lord Taha (Multi-named, multi-talented Narceri) and his comic henchman K2 (Tony D'Amario who, tragically, passed away in June 2005 of a heart attack.) Leïto has stolen drugs from Taha and has to quickly destroy the goods before

The opening scene is pure excitement. For the uninitiated, this provides an excellent first glimpse at parkour. As I said, Belle co-founded the sport* and shows it to excellent result. In parkour, participants perform dazzling urban acrobatics by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, slipping themselves through narrow passages in seconds, and all sorts of daring-do that usually requires trick photography and blue screens. In the scene, Belle combines his parkour magic with some basic martial arts to create one of the most exciting action sequences in years. While it suffers from the malady of hyper-cutting and too many fancy filming tricks, the sequence remains solid. It's obviously Belle doing the work and he does it terrifically. He even lets some other parkour practicioners have some screen time as thugs who chase after him and match many of his death defying stunts.

After this scene things get interesting. To get even with Leïto, Taha sends K2 to kidnap his Leïto's sister, Lola (Dany Verissimo) at the supermarket. Leïto, however, knows Taha so well that he comes to his sister's rescue based on the assumption that Taha would do such a thing. Pretty clever, huh? Leïto and Lola capture Taha and, one car chase later, bring him to the police station but only to have the police let Taha go free with Lola as his new sex slave and they then imprison Leïto who gets his revenge very quickly in a style that is best described as <très révolutionnaire. This is a key clue to the direction of the film.

Six months pass and we meet Damien (Cyril Raffaelli who looks exactly like a college pal of mine) who is an undercover cop. While he doesn't do the parkour thing per se, he does do the ass-kicking-karate-style thing somewhat well. With gun, fist, and feet he lays waste to a room full of goons providing an interesting counterpoint to the less violent Leïto.

Damien eventually gets contracted by the higher ups in the government to diffuse a nuclear bomb that has been detonated to go off in B13 and a plan is concocted to get Damien teamed up with cop hating Leïto. You can figure out the rest from there but there are still major twists and turns which I won't tell you about. Shakespeare or Hitchcock its not but it's just nice to have them in there rather than the same pimped-out story skeleton.

Rafaelli and Belle are competent actors and great stunt fighters. I'd like to see them in an American film someday although they'd most likely not be allowed to talk as neither has the edge the Jean Reno has. At least not yet. Give them some time and they might be ready for English roles.

Tony D'Amario has almost too much screen time as K2 as it's clear that Luc Besson thinks D'Amario is great. This makes it sadder to know that he's no longer with us as he really was funny and even likeable in a role that is usually designed to inspire hatred.

Going back to the story, it's notable that, while we're just now becoming aware of French youth unrest and crime in Parisian suburbs, Besson and crew were well aware of the trouble brewing. While dystopian futures are a movie staple all around the world, Besson has his film set only four years ahead but seems to purposely have skipped the small advances in fashion or technology that will happen. For all intents and purposes, this film is set in today's Paris but only with walls and soldiers. Perhaps the walls we see are the walls that the Parisian youths felt when they rioted last fall.

But, for all its implied messages, the movie is mainly about fighting. Other highlights include some crazy flips and spins by both stars, a really big fat guy, and a final fight that I can't describe without spoiling. The reason and resolution for it are no surprise but its something you'd never see in an American action movie, especially not as the final fight. And while it's not completely groundbreaking it is, like all the rest of the movie, awesome.

This is an action movie where you get sit back, munch on your popcorn, and cheer on the bad guys without worrying too much about the rotting state of cinema. In fact, if you leave your brain on, you might have a little intellectual fun too.

*Belle is often listed as the sole creator of Parkour but others beg to differ. Check around the Internet to learn more about the controversy.

How Do You Score?

Yes, I am finally caving in! There's a TEST on this blog now!

Let me back up for a bit and say that it's not the type of test that tells you which color you are or which Inuyasha character you should marry. Instead it's a test that indicates your likelihood of having an autistic disorder.

As someone who knows people who deal with Asperger's Syndrome, something many people refer to as high-functioning or mild austism, as well as someone who knows many people who display austistic symptoms but haven't been diagnosed, this is a subject of interest to me.

There's a theory that Aspergers and other similar conditions are "geek syndromes" because their symptoms include intense focus on a limited range of subjects (or just one subject) and limited, underdeveloped social skills.

Sound like anyone you know?

The link to the test is the title itself. I won't tell you what it means now but my score is 18. You might want to read the article that goes with the test. You'll find the link at the bottom of the test page.

The Renaissance of B? (And a Monkey)

SO it's too early to tell but I seem to be hitting a groove with my comic project lately. My secret? I write what I want when I want and I'm finding I want to write a lot. A lot of it is out of order and right now I'm focusing on dialogue and skipping the action stuff but I feel like I'm making headway. I AM making headway since before I was doing nothing. So I'm not just having a good writing day but a good writing week. Things are looking up.

And a quickie note: I just saw Peter Jackson's King Kong remake today. Ugh, what a stinker! I respect that Jackson was going for serious artistry with this but that movie was far too long, far too slow, and Adrian Brody's character had no business in that movie. Most of that movie had no business in that movie! It was too much! Stinker! Ugh!

Here's a surprise bonus video: Renai Revolution by Morning Musume.

Introducing The Bleedin Bleedins

It's very rare that I can talk about something I've discovered ahead of everyone else. Often times I seem to be the last one to know but, in this case, I'm ahead of the pack.

The Bleedin Bleedins are a new band out of Boston. They don't have a major label backing them so right now they're just a local thing. Thank God for the Internet because they're on the verge of becoming a global thing.

I heard them just now on Pandora in my specialized station for Franz Ferdinand--you know who they are, right? No, not the archduke--so that has got to be the biggest endorsement for them right there. This band is definitely on Franz's level as far as their talent goes but they may actually be more palatable for the general American music public since, well, they're American.

Anyhow, they have a full album available from ITunes but you can listen to their music for free on their website. Just click the title above to go there and then select 'MP3 Player' from the tiny menu line. 'Tonight' is the song I first heard and it sold me on them right away. Here's to the next big thing.

Jem - They

JEH-EMMMM is truly outrageous! Trulytrulytruly outrageous! Woah-oh-oh JEM!

Oops. Wrong Jem.

I didn't hear enough of this song when it came out last year and haven't heard anything from the artist since. Seriously, I do wonder if sharing her name with a cartoon character hurt her, but fans of good music will know this girl is not outrageous. She's just a good singer with some exotic hip-hop sound and honest lyrics--in other words she's not bragging about being a stupid spoiled whore like nearly every other woman standing in front of a microphone these days.



Aw, what the hell. Let's have cartoon Jem show up anyway!



Man, I miss the 80s.

Blog News, Writing News

I made a rather stupid decision when starting this blog that has been corrected, at least partially: Now, EVERYONE who reads this can comment. Please note that I'll delete anything that looks like it was written by someone who didn't pass first grade English (foreigners are excluded . . . for now . . .)

As for my previous writing rant--good job if you got through that beast--I've decided that I'll avoid any fiction writing until I feel the need. Yes, that's already my strategy but let me explain. I think I've been putting too much pressure on myself to create good output so now I'm going to wait until I feel like writing something and I'll do it then. There are some other factors I'm trying to work on and develop but it may take some time. I also need to invest in an ergonomic keyboard and a new chair because my CTS is killing me! But I like video games and net surfing too much to stop. That's a bad thing.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is the silent epidemic of my generation.

Step One: Get Over Myself

Many times before I've complained of the symptoms of writer's block but that, I believe, is not my disease. In fact, I'm not sick at all. Not in that way, at least. A writer's block occurs when a writer can't write. I'm not sure which bothers me more: that I might be holding back because I'm scared to write what is really in my heart or that I don't know what it really is in my heart that I want to write or that I'm just lazy.

Let me let you in on a secret: All of my stories, the novels and comics and movies and whatnot in my head, are all the same. To clarify, they all have the same features:

A.) I come across similar characters all the time like the jovial tough guy or the kind-hearted girl with power or the ambiguous villain who thinks he's saving the world.

B.) I have an obsession with the concept of a false reality and characters finding out that their world isn't real or wondering if their world is real. I blame the Matrix for that.

C.) The revelation of the villain. While I like the idea of villains redeeming themselves in fiction I often find myself turning heroic characters into villains to the surprise of almost everyone. Not only that, but becoming godlike. It's like the Gnostic concept of God in the Old Testament, an evil or cruel God who created the world only to be defeated by the New Testament God and Jesus.

D.) Speaking of Jesus, I love putting godlike powers into human bodies. Turning everyone important into gods or, at least, superhumans is appealing to me.

E.) I'm obsessed with transformations. Some of you know I'm a huge werewolf fan and that I like the Hulk, anything that unleashes inner rage in a nasty phsyical form with muscles, claws, and fangs. But I like all sorts of transformations from the grand to the mundane, both external and internal. I love the idea of characters transforming their lives and viewpoints, or transforming how we see them through revelation.

F.) I have a love/hate relationship with death. On the one hand, I don't want to kill any characters off. I actually tend to start disliking a story when they kill of a character that I like (meanwhile letting the whiny protagonist and his characterless girlfriend live.) On the otherhand I always imagine grand death scenes and grander scenes of grief. Character X's girlfriend dies so he kills villain Y without thinking thus breaking his moral code. Character A saw her father die and she's so distraught that she tries to kill herself and only Character B can save her from this fate so that they can make out at an inopportune time.

To be honest I'm overexaggerating but when it comes to my stories nearly all of these features will come into play in one way or the other. That bugs the hell out of me. I am well aware that every artist has his themes he obsesses over. Hitchcock had an obsession with false accusation, even moreso than murder. Spielberg, much to a friends dismay, is obsessed with the image of a door of light and a silhouette of something stading in the doorway. I probably shouldn't worry too much but I do.

I feel like there's something I'm missing in all of this. Something that I can't seem to find within myself or within my past. A valve that will pour all of these ideas into one bowl so that they'll mix into a proper story.

But even if I find that valve, will everything I make be the same? Will it just be a matter of adding some extra flavor to the same old thing? Will I spend my writing career pouring out new Cokes? Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Classic, Coca-cola with Lemon, Coca-cola with vanilla? Coca-colla with vanilla with black cherry?

And then there's the matter of getting an acutal writing career started. I worry too much and too early. I tire or bore easily and I am always in seach of "flow." Without the pressure of a deadline and a grade a la college creative writing that "flow" has retired to Florida. It isn't really there anymore.

Every night, like tonight, I go to bed thinking "Damn, I wasted another day." Not a single thing written or, if something has been written, then its no good.

I have no clear plan for getting my skills to where they need to be but I do know the first step. It's called "Get over myself." Just doing it, I believe, isn't going to work. I either can't or, more likely, don't want to force it. So what do I do? What am I missing? What am I holding back?

L'Arc~En~Ciel - Spirit Dreams Inside

When the high point of your day is breakfast you can tell things aren't going so great. So, to make up for that, I'm going to change the high point of my day to rocking out to the greatest band on the planet that our anglophonocentric mainstream culture has yet to recognize: L'arc~en~ciel. The name is French. The band is Japanese. The song is from that Final Fantasy movie that had nothing to do with Final Fantasy but none of that matters. L'arc is IT. Enjoy.

NOTE: I've chosen to post a live version of the song even though it differs very little from what you would hear in the video. It lets you see the band, of course, but it also lets you hear the big pop from the crowd when they appear. Awesome.

The Blue Night - Downtown Lights

I had never heard of this band or this song until I signed up to use Pandora, a free personalized radio site. It's pretty accurate since it mostly ignores genre and focuses on "musical DNA" or the unique elements that construct a song or styles of songs. This song kept popping up and I kept liking it so now I give it to you.

And it's 80s. You gotta love the 80s.

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (and other stuff)

This is my new anthem.

Speaking of music, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO LAZLO?!! He was my favorite DJ, he actually played something other than the Beastie Boys/Sublime mix that has taken over the radio (96.5 Buzz in Kansas City) and now he's gone? I guess I'll be listening to more NPR.

One other thing: I'm on a sleep schedule that says that I'm supposed to be in bed by 11pm and I'm still up. The schedule hasn't been working anyway but this isn't making things near better.

Beauty and the Beast Pt. 1

I'm burnt out doing comic book stuff so this is a return to prose and an experiment. If you like it then leave a message because I've gotten like one freakin' comment since I started this thing. Geez. -B

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST according to 'B'

A peddler was making his was home from a long trip through the northern lands of his country and was only a day away from home. He had taken the path he normally would have taken all the way to the point at which I've begun telling this tale and here is where it becomes a tale indeed for only a day away from his home the peddler decided to take a shortcut.

"The forest is spacious and has little danger." He thought to himself. "If I go west through here I shall surely be home before sundown."

And so he went through the forest, a forest he had known since he was a child and that his family had known longer than he could conceive of. It was a dark place and strange but that was what the peddler liked about it. The mysteries of his homeland were a comfort to him for he always knew he could stumble upon something strange.

But he never considered that he would stumble upon something so strange as...

"A palace?" he cried. Even the two little donkeys who pulled his cart stopped and balked before the grand ruin. The peddler searched his memories and when they failed he took out his map which he never looked at until that moment and it too failed. "How could there be a palace here?" and he said this aloud but got no answer.

The peddler thought about going home, running home really, but as he looked at the palace his eyes grew large. Gold? Silver? Jewels? More likely than not there were no such things inside but the peddler was no rich man and to find such things would be a great boon. "At the very least I can get a present for Beauty." he said and with that he shook the reins of his donkeys and they dragged his cart forward, ignorant of what lurked inside.

Look forward to part two...

Little Miss Sunshine

This one looks like a winner. It comes out on July 26th.

Mjæv & Pipert

Funny, I never meant for this to become a video blog but, well, it is what it is!

This is a cartoon from Norway, a spoof on Tom and Jerry with one little difference that you might not notice.

La Salle de Bain

This is the craziest song ever made. Of course it helps that its Japanese in origin. And sung in . . . English? The artist is Shiina (She-E-na) Ringo (Like the Beatle) and I've included two versions of the song. The first is the original video which is . . . um . . . just watch it. The second is Shiina with her new band, Tokyo Jihen, at a live concert. It's almost a song in its own right and less crazy but perhaps more dramatic.

X-Men: The Last Stand - Review (At Last!)

Do not let the fact that I want to see this again in the theater convince you that this is a five-star-A-plus-must-see film. I don't know exactly why I want to see it again but part of it is due to the craptacular conditions of my first viewing where I was so close to the screen that I could see that it was torn in one corner, part of it is that I want to take my sister to see it, and part of it is that the movie was, believe it or not, not that bad. In fact, when it came to the big action sequence at the end it was down right terrific.

There is no need to go into heavy details with the story. If you haven't seen the first two X-Men films or haven't read the comic books or seen the TV cartoons then you need not bother. This is an unfortunate fact of this number three entry in the successful X-Men film franchise: It is inaccessible to the non-X-fan. The script does little to reestablish the world or story for non-fans or even some casual afficionados. Instead the movie starts out with flashbacks to Jean Grey meeting Xavier and Magneto as well as the introduction of Angel who, as I'll later explain, could have been completely removed with not a single problem in the film.

The introduction to the film also introduces us to a new stylist in the X-Men film world, Brett Ratner who takes the reins from Bryan Singer who opted to direct Superman instead. Ratner is not Singer. He does not try to be Singer. If he did try to be Singer maybe the movie would have been better. Ratner is not at all a bad director but it is clear that the dark and grim world of the first films has been replaced by something that can only be described as 'The Usual' with Ratner as the Suspect. The film is faster and shorter compared to X2 which was long and almost leisurely paced. Visually their world is more colorful and less sterile which is almost welcome. Worst of all is the fact that the film drops or forgets that mutants are feared and hated. The only protesters in the film are mutants and mutant supporters. When mutants and normal humans interacting all of the animosity is on the mutant side. Humans, apparently, have become hunky dory with the idea that there are people out there who can kill them with a random thought. More than all of the above there is also a loss of poetry in this film. I can't explain it but you'll know when you see it that something that gave the first films a strong artistic push has been left out.

With that artistic push gone it seems that they tried to fill the remaining void with new characters and this doesn't really work. The actors who filled these roles were probably better than they needed to be but I'm not complaining. Most notable for me is Vinnie Jones playing my favorite X-Men character, Juggernaut. He has only a few more lines in the film than Ray Park (whatever happened to him?) did in X-Men 1, but he does them superbly. Yes, he made Juggernaut a Brit and I accept that. British Juggernaut rules. And while its pretty obvious that his best line in the movie was inspired by a notorious web-meme that line got a huge pop from the midnight crowd I saw the film with and I'm sure most of them weren't thinking about the cartoon when he said that. Yup, he's the Juggernaut, bitch.

Being a bad guy, however, Juggernaut gets taken down by none other than Kitty Pride. While the character earns her place by having cameos in both of the previous films she doesn't get taken to the next level. Instead she has one heart to heart scene with Iceman and a decent chase sequence at the end. It should be said that as big a cheer as Juggernaut got when he uttered his once again infamous line, an even bigger cheer came when Kitty Pride took him down.

The biggest new character, however, is Beast as played by Kelsey Grammer. The choice wasn't inspired but was obvious and definitely a good move. The film doesn't know what to do with Beast. It definitely wants him in the story but doesn't do much with him other than let him speak. In a way this works as it establishes him first as an extreme example of a mutant, second as one of the smartest and most powerful mutants in the world (which has nothing to do with his mutant abilities), and third as someone who can kick a lot of ass. Beast doesn't fight until the third act. It is almost jarring to see this philosopher and strategist suddenly roar onto the battlefield and lay the smack down on fifty other mutants. Again, this is something that you wouldn't expect if you haven't seen anything else X-Men. But this doesn't make Beast less appealing and Grammer definitely has fun with the character.

But this also leads me to the character that had no place in the movie at all. Angel, whose mutation is obvious, serves no purpose in the film other than to shock the viewer in the opening scenes--not that this works on fans since we already know what he's doing when we first see him. The only other times he appears is to escape his father who tries to use the mutant "cure" on him only so that he can return in the end of the movie to save his father from falling to his death. These scenes could have been cut completely with no harm to the film. Angel's actor, Ben Foster, is okay but he doesn't do well enough with what he has to make his character stand out. Most everyone else owns their character enough to solidify them on the screen. Even Multiple-Man (Eric Dean) who only has an extended cameo has his character moments that make you think "gee, why didn't they use him more?" Angel has none.

I've gone over and over about the bad parts of the film so lets get to the good. This is definitely an action movie and Ratner hits his stride here. While the pacing is still hyper it isn't blazing fast like Batman Begins which destroyed its action in unreadable and rushed scenes. This film is just fast enough and contains great Wolverine one-on-one fights. One is him against Juggernaut but his better scene is against a version of Marrow, a mutant similar to Wolverine in having weird bones but Marrow creates big bone spears that he throws. Even though the winner is obvious due to the hero being the hero, not to mention his virtual invincibility, it was still an exciting fight. The end fights are also good with lots of things going on and zippy one liners although there were a few that garnered cringes instead of grins.

Also, Halle Berry has stuck it out for a long time to get some real screen time as Storm and it has paid off. She's in charge and powerful, getting to use all of her powers at full force. While I'm still sad that she went from African Goddess to African-American with superpowers she still makes a big impression. And she's not wearing a stupid (but hot) leather outfit.

So the movie isn't perfect. But it has its moments. It has its surprises. It has Juggernaut, bitch. So it works. But I do hope that the producers realize that this one didn't come out as well as the last two. Even though Bryan may have kept some elements down, some of what he did was for good reason. The movies will really work once everyone realizes that, for all of the fun of seeing umpteen million crazy superpowers going off at once, the real power of X-Men is about seeing human beings who are very different struggling against those who fear and hate them as well as those who among them who fear and hate back. And a little artsy-fartsiness won't be such a buzzkill either.

"The Devil" has a Fierce Trailer

Yeah, yeah, there oughta be an X-Men review here. Sue me. I just saw this trailer for The Devil Wears Prada and I must say that it is probably the absolute best trailer that I have seen in years. Maybe ever. If you saw it then you probably know why. It sets up the entire movie in three minutes and gives away nothing. It doesn't tell you why you need to see this movie. It doesn't even show you why you need to see this movie. It makes you WANT to see this movie.

And now I want to see The Devil Wears Prada. There's more to summer than guys who wear their underwear on the outside, you know.

Epiphany

When you give someone excuses you're really telling them it's their fault even when it isn't.

X-Men 3: Rapid Response

I'll have a real review up sometime this weekend if not today but, for starters:

• I miss Bryan Singer
• I didn't mind the deaths
• I did mind the character cramming
• "I'm Juggernaut, bitch!"

More details to come...

X-Men 3 Reviews

Tonight I'm going to attend a midnight showing of X-Men: The Last Stand. Unfortunately, the people who've seen it already don't think its too hot. The rumors are true: some of the heroes die. That doesn't sound like such a good idea, even in a comic book movie, but at least it proves that the filmmakers are "serious." I'll give it a shot anyway but I'm prepping myself for a not-so-hot ride.

It's a shame that Bryan Singer isn't directing because, aside from the script, it sounds like its his touch that's lacking. My own suspicions that the movie caves into character cramming might be in effect too. I could go and try for a refund but I think I'll stick it out. No matter what you guys will get a review from me tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have better things to say than the not so happy reviewers.

A 58 point average so far. Yeesh.

Quote

"You cannot learn anything about truth until you know about deception"

-Penn Jillette, heard on Turner Classic Movies. He and Teller will be hosting a night of their favorite movies including Tod Browning's Freaks at 10:15 tonight on TCM.

Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

I just have to share this with you. It's a webcomic but far cooler than most of the ones that you see out there. Scott McCloud is probably proud of this thing because it uses a lot of the principals he hoped people would use in putting comics on the web.

And it has robots too.

An Example of Why You Should Never Post Blog Entries at 2 O'clock in the Morning

I was going to post a long entry on how I'm:

1. Jealous of Rob Schamberger
2. Being too lazy
3. Annoyed at my self-imposed anonymity
4. Annoyed at being annoyed at my self-imposed anonymity
5. Depressed because everyone seems to be moving ahead while I'm stuck far behind.

But I don't feel like whining so instead I give you:

MORNING MUSUME vs LIZARD!!!
(THE UNCUT VERSION!!!)

Art School Confidential

Director: Terry Zwigoff
Screenwriter: Daniel Clowes (based on his short comic)
Stars:
Max Minghella as Jerome
Sophia Myles as Audrey

Also features Anjelica Houston, John Malkovich, and Jim Broadbent with a cameo by Steve Buscemi

Terry Zwigoff directed one film I like and one film I love. The one I liked was another Daniel Clowes adaptation, Ghost World. The one I loved was the Christmas Anti-Classic Bad Santa. Both films did away with the usual cliche characters to look at real people or, as others might call them, weirdoes. Both films also had some troublesome endings: Ghost World ended too vaguely. Bad Santa ended with what felt like a cop-out though I suspect that Zwigoff intended this. Art School Confidential ends well enough but, like many professional critics have said, it already colapsed in the second half of the film.

Perhaps it collapsed even before this. Art School Confidential is muddled with unintended plot threads that never go anywhere and characters that are either slaves to the plot or are cliches that don't belong in the plot.

The story starts with Jerome (relative newcomer Max Minghella), a gifted artist who gets accepted into a lofty art school. His desire is to become the greatest artist of the 21st century. The film tells us explicitly that he thinks he's better than everyone else but it never really shows us this. He has outbursts in class where he puts down the work of other students but even though his work is technically better we never see anything that says he has any talent beyond the mechanical. Just as Jerome's criticisms of others are accurate, so are his peers criticisms accurate of him. It doesn't help that he has the personality of a sponge and the motivations of a white-washed caveman.

Jerome falls in love with Audrey (Sophia Myles), another mysterious character who probably shouldn't be mysterious but, unlike the annoying Jerome, these mysteries are more appealing and our disappointment in not having them solved is sweeter than it is sour, but the sourness comes from Audrey performing actions that, like Jerome's, leave us thinking "and you did that because you what now?"

There's something to be said about a film that trusts it viewers to know whats going on so much that it doesn't bother to tell them what's going on. Unfortunately, in the case of Art School, it either says that Zwigoff and Clowes think that we're all telepaths who can read their thoughts via their films or, more likely, it says that Zwigoff and Clowes spent too much time skewering the art world and creating a clever plot to think about the fact that their two main characters didn't make sense and were surrounded by cliches that weren't even good cliches.

There's little else that needs to be said about the story line unless you want the movie spoiled. There is a serial killer who appears although his timing is off with the reactions of the other characters at the end. The film is aware of this with one important character indicating that he knows that what everyone else assumes isn't true. That, however, doesn't explain that it makes no sense for everyone to jump to the conclusion that they do.

It also doesn't quite make sense for the film to end when it does although its conclusion isn't at a bad place. Relative to other films and what the likely sequence of events would be had the film continued on, Art School does itself a favor by stopping short. However, because of this, we miss out on potentially interesting events and what could have been a more satisfying ending be it happy or sad.

In the middle of all of this are plot threads that don't belong or that go nowhere. I love a good subplot but when it doesn't connect to the main plot I can't understand why they're there. Ethan Suplee, who I'll mention later, is a film student doing a movie on the serial killer. As funny as his storyline was it could have been cut without any damage. There's a running gag of a male fashion student who's gay and in denial but who cares? We also have an Animal House style buddy (Joel Moore as Bardo) who disappears halfway through the movie seemingly because the filmmakers don't know what to do with him. There are also hints of what could have, would have, or should have been plot threads featuring John Malkovich that don't go anywhere and were possibly only left in because he was one of the producers.

While it might seem like I'm down on the film I didn't find it a waste of money. John Malkovich provides one of the largest surprises in this film simply in that when you watch him you forget that you're watching John Malkovich. He doesn't do anything fancy or even terribly interesting. He just stops acting like John Malkovich "acting." For a long time I've felt that Malkovich was one of the most overrated actors on screen. In many films, especially period pictures, he seems almost amateurish. His expressions are stiff and his dialogue delivery is cold and stale but in this he's just so natural. There is so much to be said for being natural in films that I could do an entire post on it.

There are also some other good performances and scenes including a hot new artist played by who justifies his own assholiness and garners applause for it--although he does this by being, you guessed it, vague--and a nice turn for Ethan Suplee as a parody of Kevin Smith. Perhaps the one good way this film was vague was in how you couldn't tell whether Ethan's role was meant to be a ribbing tribute or an insult.

Overall this film had a lot of potential and a lot to say but Zwigoff and Clowes are so concerned with being clever that they ignore common wisdom. They provide us with a main character that doesn't make sense, a romantic interest that doesn't make sense, supporting characters who do make sense but don't do anything special, and a lot of loose ends. I respect the film enough not to give too much away, which is why I have been vague myself with the storyline, but I think a much better film was possible given the material. This film is a lesson in focusing on story and character and not getting wrapped up in clever jokes and social statements.