Nov 26, 2008

Auditorium

Oh em gee, it's like conducting a symphony.  It's like Flow and Rez had a baby and the baby's name is AWESOME.

Nov 19, 2008

Sneakey

Take a picture of a key, and use the image to make the real key..... shit.

Nov 15, 2008

Movie Reviews @ The Temple

Quantum of Solace - Pretty good, not amazing.  The last one had a big advantage, it was such a radical shift, the whole idea of it was great, and I love Daniel Craig, almost as much as I love Jason Statham.  This movie isn't a shift, it's just... another episode.  It's not bad, he beats the shit out of people, cars move fast, people shoot people.  The story is good enough, but it's not epic, like I say, it's just a james bond episode with a james bond I vastly prefer.  -1 point: they made the hot chick the side chick and the meh chick the main chick.  +1 point: there wasn't 30 minutes of driving a boat and kissing at the end.  -1 point: the parkour scene was not even close to the first one. +1 point: I still like daniel craig.  -1 point: they made hydrogen fuel look stupidly dangerous (I'd personally not let a stove fire explode my hotel, but that's just me).  So that's more minuses than pluses, but it's not bad, it's just kinda plain.

Get Smart - Okay, I don't care how the rest of this movie goes.  Smart uses an EEEPC  *and* a creative zen: m!  I'm sold!  ...Ok, I've watched it now, it's all right I guess.  It's a different kind of comedy than the juvenile silly shit from most of the summer.  It's still silly, but it's kind of dry and awkward in that steve carrell way.  So it was fun, there were a few parts that were really funny.  I don't have any affection for the original, I never saw it, so that wasn't there for me.  Carrell is funny, Anne Hathaway is good enough (though why they had to pull the same crap and start her as a badass and end her as a helpless woman I don't know).  It's allright, it's a fine family kind of comedy, I don't think I'll remember much in a month.

In Bruge - Wow, this movie is really good!  I was pretty shocked.  From the ads (which features about 75% of the good jokes in the movie, I'm very sad to say, though you get some more from the deleted scenes), I thought it would be a kinda funny dark movie, and that's it.  Instead it's this utterly different kind of movie.  It strikes me, somehow, as kind of british, so maybe it's just different to me, but nonetheless.  I mean, the movie is only half filled with dialogue, half the time you are just staring at people, or watching them sit around to very mellow pretty music.  That ought to be boring, but it's really not.  It's this very subtle simple really cool kind of movie.  What's shown in the previews is there, it has a tiny bit of action in the end (which is bloody as fuck), and its threaded with humor throughout, but it's not a guy ritchey gangster movie, or a comedy, it's all the sitting around jostled by the jokes and the blood that seem the point to me.  The movie really was a great surprise, most surprisingly of all - colin farrell is in it and not just not a jackass, he's good!  Aces plus!

All The President's Men - Another in my series of reporter movies, this one I probably should have seen by now.  It is, of course, very good.  More than any of the movies I've seen so far, it really focuses on the details of investigating.  The tricks they use to get people to open or up accidently reveal information are great.  All their methods of tracking down the truth behind watergate is really cool to see.  And given that subject material, its kind of hard not to make a good movie, the story is just so amazing.  All in all very good, I'm glad I finally saw it!

Semi-Pro - Mmmmmmmmeh.  It seems Will Farrell will never get better than Anchorman and Ricky Bobby.  I guess I heard Stepbrothers was good, haven't seen it yet though.  This one isn't bad, i'ts just not good.  The humor isn't ridiculous like Zohan or Love Guru, it's just silly will farrell humor.  He acts crazy a lot, runs around in circles, but you really can't do that every movie and have it still be funny.  There are funny parts and funny characters (like all these movies, everyone's in them!)  But its pretty dang forgettable.  It's too bad.  I'm not so much afraid that will farrell will keep making meh movies, I'm more afraid that he'll beat his own funniness to death and when I go back to watch the good ones, I won't like them.  Hope not.

Ze Frank Stuff

So I forgot to post this when it happened, but a while ago Ze Frank started From 52 to 48 With Love.  It's like Sorry Everybody, but instead of everyone apologizing to the world for Bush, the 52 who voted for Obama are saying nice things to the 48 who didn't.  It's a sweet idea, with a couple really nice images.  Well, some assholes, I mean people, no wait I meant assholes, sent him lots of nasty hate mail about it.  In typical artsy hippy Ze Frank fashion, rather than yell back, he's started  Angrigami, print out the angry emails and make pretty oragami out if it.  Tee hee :)

Nov 4, 2008

Nov 2, 2008

Machinima

Every few months I realize I love machinima and watch a bunch.  Conveniently, there was a filmfest recently to provide me some good ones w/o so much wading.  Here are the ones I like:

 The Life of a Turret - just funny

The Ship - not very good, but there's no dialogue, so they are relying entirely on the analogs to cinematography, directing, sound, and acting, which is cool to see.

Ignis Solus - Saw this before, not sure if I posted it, its fantastic.

Chevauchee nocturne- There's absolutely nothing to this except the neat style, so just watch 5 seconds.

Jill's Song - Corny as fuck.  But if you are in a sappy mood, it's a nice analogy.  As it happens, I'm not in a sappy mood, but I'd probably like it if I was.  I'm going to have to go through this studio's stuff (they did ignis solus too).

Without Providence - Holy shitballs, this is filmed great.

There's quite a few others that are worth watching in the general "look how machinima has improved" way, but nothing that is specifically so amazing.  There are some long-form ones that I've yet to watch as well.  I mean jesus, an hour and a half machinima movie??  But it's good to see it all coming along.  It's still pretty amateurish, but there are elements in various ones that are really stand-out, and when someone puts all them together in one piece, it'll be fantastic!2