Paper Rival

This is a new band I’m into.  The first video isn’t on YouTube but I really like the song.  The other video/song is pretty good too.

Feist On Sesame Street

I’m not the biggest fan of Feist, and I think Apple ruined her song “1 2 3 4” by overexposing it.  I loved her appearance on Sesame Street though!  Watch it.  Love the penguins!

Japanese Demolition

Apparently 30-year-old buildings are way old in Japan, so they need a good, clean, Japanese way to get rid of them.

Time to Resurrect this Board!

And who better to do it than Bert and Ernie?

Final Fantasy IV DS

Wow.

Preview

I guess it would be okay if this is how they remake VI, but a real console version would be incredible.

Radiohead Nude Remix

This is pretty bleeping hardcore awesome. Yoinked from the MASTER OF THE INTERNET thread at Tides of Blood, posted by….. Kaz.

I don’t know why it isn’t holding the embed. Have the URL

RE: Jack Thompson

Jack Thompson is a notorious fellow in our little culture. And we always delight when he makes an ass of himself, and even more so when it happens in a public forum.

(Ha, I bet you thought I was going to link the Attack of the Show Jack Thompson Adam Sessler face off. You can search that yourself – Adam got too upset to make my point. But even here, on a “grown up” show and being interviewed by a man I very much respect who was giving him the benefit of the doubt, Thompson came across as.. well.. a deluded psycho.)

The Florida Bar is trying to have him disbarred for ten years. Just passing along the news as it trickles in towards me. He walked out on his hearing after orating a ridiculous “rambling” 14 page statement.

What a horse’s ass. Time and time again, he’s the violent one.

A Better Indy Movie?

Unless you care nothing for the Indiana Jones movies DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK!  If you’ve seen the new one though, please feel free to read it.  It basically offers a suggestion for how it could have been made into a good movie instead of the not-so-good actual version.  Despite the valid arguments for the negative I pretty much enjoyed the movie myself, but this brings up a question for me.

With all these returning franchises (Indy, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Transformers, etc.) I wonder whose hands they would be best, well, handled in.  When the new Star Wars movies were coming out I know we all had very high hopes, not to mention the utmost faith in George Lucas to give over 20 years of fans the best story-telling he could muster.  Hey, I even held on to hope saying to everyone that the third movie would bring it all together and make up for all the mostly junky set up in the first two.  Through all of the new trilogy, however, I kept thinking to myself, “This is how it should have happened,” or, “It would be so awesome if Anakin (a non-whiny version) ended up turning so evil that he killed Nat-Nat leaving her still-full belly to die along with her only to find out later that Obi-Wan kept those babies alive with the force or something.”

So my question is this:  Would these movies, or any long-standing franchise really, be better handled by fans rather than the original creators?  I know somehow George Lucas thinks that he and his daughters have the best ideas ever (don’t forget that ‘N Sync almost appeared in the Star Wars movies as Jedi), but is he still the one who knows the characters and the universe best?  Or is it the collective fandom, who has developed a possibly unhealthy obsession with the material, the ones who should be in charge of what happens and how?  Based on the reimagining of the newest Indy movie by Jonathon Landon (link above) I think there’s something to be said about a fan’s perspective on a hugely popular cultural phenomenon such as Star Wars or Indiana Jones.  What do you think?

Keepon

So, having all this time off in recovery was a little worrisome. I really can’t do anything until my doctors say I can – I can’t even drive a car. It is pretty bogus, and I’m sore still (Although I stopped taking my pain meds yesterday and probably shouldn’t have) and still forced to sleep on my back. I would sing about having two weeks off – I’m not back at work until the 17th at the earliest – but I’m not getting paid for missing work either. Like I said. Bummer.

BUT. I do get a lot of time to find random stuff on the internet. I wish I could take credit for this one, but I can’t. A buddy of mine, Joe, linked this to me, and when we were both done gushing about how we wanted one – maybe gushing is the wrong word – I thought, “I should blog this.”

It’s a little robot named Keepon who is being used in human social development research. But he also dances.

More info about Keepon and Friends can be found here.

If a little yellow blob is this mesmerizing, imagine what Sharon Apple will be like.

Because I Must

Here’s a link to yet another great interview with Ron Moore, developer of the new “Battlestar Galactica,” by Wired Magazine.  Somehow he is always so interesting to me.  It’s a long one, but worth it for me.

Interview

Shadow Art

Check out this art. At first I didn’t believe what I was seeing. Then after seeing more I still don’t believe. But it’s cool.

Hyperlink!

New Whedon AND Abrams Shows This Season!

So I’m an avid television fan. I’ve recently been re-watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with my parents (their first time, definitely not mine) and I’m completely loving it. I’ve missed being exposed to Joss Whedon style TV for a while now. The good news is that he has a new show coming in the new season. I think it’s going to be a replacement in January instead of starting in the fall. Anyway, it stars Whedon alum Eliza Dushku and everyone’s favorite cylon-lover Tahmoh Peniket. Watch the trailer for the show here.

I’m a little more excited about the J.J. Abrams project “Fringe” which we’ll actually get to watch in just a few months. It also brings back tomato-face from “Dawson’s Creek” Joshua Jackson. I liked “Felicity,” was somewhat into “Alias,” hated that weird relationship show he did a couple years ago (“What About Brian”?), and love love love “Lost” more than words can describe. There isn’t really much to say that a lovely video can’t do better, so here it is.

And here is the full television schedule for the fall (as of now, at least). Feel free to download it (it’s in .pdf format).

fall-schedule-2008-2009

Paprika

Accept this random oddball post to keep the blog clicking.

Recently, last week some time, I watched the film Paprika. A film by Satoshi Kon (who some of you may know as the director of Perfect Blue), I asked Jordan about it, and he gave it a three out of five stars. But I decided to watch for myself. He and I are known to have different tastes from time to time.

Sporting Satoshi Kon’s distinct visual style and an array of vocal talent (Megumi Hayashibara and Toru Furuya to name a few), the film radiates eye candy. Color is everywhere, and true to its plot the entire thing is cast in a dream-like air. I actually enjoyed the soundtrack, or what little of it there was. The voice acting is solid. The animation is top notch. CG is integrated seamlessly.

The music really caught my attention. The opening credits had me hooked, and I can’t tell you why. I think it’s cuz I’m a secret fan of Satoshi Kon. But also, the song has this weird detached dream-ness to it that I felt didn’t really capture the suspense-film atmosphere most of Paprika had. I really dug the parade music for some reason. It’s very scary doll parade music and I loved it. I know, I’m weird.

I think the biggest flaw here is that too much is crammed into the two hours or however long it runs. There is little room for character development; the audience never really gets to find out what’s going on with At-chan/Paprika. The cop is really just an accessory, and because we get no real character development, he feels awkward and just pinned in. This essentially can be said of all the characters. And the plot, while compelling, feels rushed through. Conceptually I think it was great – there just wasn’t enough time to tell the story in a cohesive, complete way. Not expansive enough to be a series but too much to make a film, I think this story would have been best told over the course of an OAV. If it had been popular enough, I could see them remaking it as such, but unfortunately I don’t know how the film did in Japan, so for now I’ll assume it’s unlikely that it will be made into an OAV.

But really, generally, I liked it. I didn’t feel it was a wasted mail from Netflix. So where Jor gave it a 3 out of 5, I’ll give it

4 out of 5

Theme song:

American Trailer:

Man plays “March of Bee” on cucumber

Yeah, I was like, this is going to be amazing! Think again.

Iron Sky

I don’t know what I think about this, but I think it actually looks sort of awesome. Sort of ridiculous, but also sort of awesome. If steam punk is your thing.

Overheard a dude on Vent talking about it during my latest Slabs run. I got no gear that was an improvement but I did get a good laugh out of them dying on the first pull of Heroic Durnholde. Mwaha. Like that. I know you were all dying to know that.

So, yeah, interested in that movie.

Chinese Emo?

I spent my night watching Hardball, Keith, and House. Afterwards, I spent an hour flipping through some of the applications I’m going to be filling out for the next two months. Browsing the University of Chicago site, I found this – it’s a brief piece on a student’s thesis on the emo trend in China.

I thought it was very interesting, and am actually curious to read this guy’s thesis, if and when it’s published. Thought I would pass the link along.

“Cloverfield” Not For Theater Viewing

While I was watching Cloverfield in the theater I kept thinking to myself, “This just doesn’t feel urgent or surprising or real enough.” Then I kind of realized that since I was sitting in a large movie auditorium I was expecting the bizarre and terrifying events more than I should have. I thought maybe if I was some random military dude in an office watching this tape on a small monitor it would have been really effective at freaking me out. So when I talked to my parents about it I basically told them not to even bother trying to see Cloverfield in the theater because not only would it be okay watching it on their TV at home, it might actually be better. J.J. Abrams agrees with me.

I imagine watching that movie on YouTube would have been so cool. I stumbled upon this little video that sort of confirms all this stuff. Check it out.

Dark Knight trailer.

One of these days I’ll post something that requires some of my colossal brainpower. For now, have this. Kalad indicates that HE suspects Viral Marketting will have a good version out by Sunday. enjoy.

The Black Ghosts

I thought it was time I contribute something. I have really been into this new type of music (for me at least) that I can only describe as being the lovechild of a three-way between punk, new wave, and electronic. This song is actually fairly tame, but be sure to check out “On The Train” by Theatre Of Disco” and “Acceptable In The 80s” by Calvin Harris.” This tune by The Black Ghosts is great. Somehow the randomness of the video plays in perfectly with the song.

No More!

Can we please kill the phrase “across the pond” when referring to England/Europe?  I hate it!