Probably won’t be up for long, I don’t know how long ebay keeps old auctions up. But it’s pretty damn funny (make sure you click full description).
Feb 6, 2011
Jan 31, 2011
Jan 27, 2011
Jan 23, 2011
Lazy Teenage Superheroes
Well jeez, two good short films in a row. The humor in this is really juvenile (though the street view joke was great), but the effects are really impressive for some dudes.
Half-Life Short Film
If you are looking for faults, you can certainly find them in this. But c’mon, what coolness about a Half-Life short film aren’t you understanding?
‘Smooth Criminal’ Cello Duel
I’m catching up on a couple week backlog of random internet videos – including some amazing stuff like all the Minecraft music being made, some funny things – but I think the winner is this awesomeness. I’ll understand if you don’t watch the whole thing, or can do without the faux-drama. I’ll not understand if you don’t proclaim its badassery.
Jan 15, 2011
Movie Triangles
This is a great little movie trivia game. Pretty easy up through the 16 triangle puzzles. But gets much harder after!
Jan 9, 2011
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
True Grit –Okay, so this movie IS very good. But I’m feeling a little down on it because I expected it to be mind blowing. That’s not fair, of course. But I loved no country for old men so much, I expected this to be the baddestass western I ever did see. Instead it was a pretty cool western. It’s very funny, the girl does a remarkable job, jeff bridges is great and presumably makes up for tron legacy (haven’t seen it, just heard meh things). The world looks very good, it’s all very well done. But for me, for some reason, there was a spark missing. Sad to say, because it’s not a bad movie at all. But it’s not my movie of the year (I’m not sure what was, I have to go look over the year). But don’t not see it! It is great!
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – Hmm…. Well, it’s pretty good. I think it’s probably as good as it could have been. I’m not at all surprised that it didn’t make money, and the fact that nerds even tried to convince people to go is really silly. It’s so so so nerdy. From the opening 8bit logo on, it’s firmly rooted in all that culture that the comic had. Pretty much 50% video games and 50% anime. I’m not really into anime, so that doesn’t strike me, but it is fun to see two fighters running at each other with fast-moving-lines-background (is there a word for that?). Michael Cera is, and I swear to god this is the last time I say this, forgiven for being Michael Cera in that it obviously fits perfectly. Everyone else is good, Ramona’s hair looks like a wig, but she’s pretty spot on. All the characters, really, fit. I did read most of the comics, btw. I read up till what was out when I discovered it, a couple years ago. I think there’s a volume or two since then that I never saw (hence never saw the ending). I did enjoy the books, but I guess not enough to seek them out aggressively. Now that I’ve seen the rest of the story, I don’t know that I need to. I’m not sure if you could do this heavily fantasized video gamey world any better. But I’m also not sure that that’s the best thing to watch. It’s kind of overwhelming, almost annoying after a while. Michael Cera plays the part perfect, but Scott Pilgrim is kind of an annoying guy at times. I don’t know, maybe there should have been more nerdy elements than just video games or anime? Not sure, I can’t really say anything specifically I didn’t like, but I did feel like it was a bit much. Probably not an appreciated criticism to most nerds, but that’s how it sat. Still a very fun very charming movie, though.
Toy Story 3 – This movie is pretty much as cute as you would expect. Well, that’s not true, it’s cuter, because I would expect a third movie to be pretty bad. I never saw Shrek 3, I have no need to see 4. So it’s better than that. Most of the movie is really just a fun adventure. Nothing amazing there, truth be told, same fun characters doing fun things. Feels a little like the 2nd one, actually, with the “bad” toy group. But the end is very very touching. It’s a silly thing, how do toys deal with their kid growing up, obviously not a real life problem. Nonetheless, it’s a tear jerker, it’s very sweet.
Robin Hood – God damn, what a disappointment! I didn’t expect to like this movie, but the first hour, maybe 90 minutes, were amazing. Crowe, despite being the same old gloomy guy he always is, is a really good robin hood. His band of dudes was actually awesome. Friar tuck was a little meh, but Marian was great. The world looks fantastic – I hate to use “gritty” since that was their whole stupid shtick for this reboot, but it does have that feel. So for the whole first half, thinking it was the build up to the real robin hood story, I was totally in. I kept saying aloud how impressed I was. Then… it went off the rails. I guess this could be considered spoilers, I’m not sure if what I didn’t know is not known by everyone, or if I just didn’t watch previews as I tend to not watch previews anymore. But, it could be spoilers, so be warned. So… this isn’t a robin hood movie. This is… a prequel? I guess? Robin comes back from the war, his gang is actually fellow soldiers, but that’s fine. But then…. nothing happens. Some stupid ass war with France, a new bad guy who is honestly just comically evil. Who the fuck kills priests just to kill priests? So instead of seeing this great iteration of robin hood in this great world, robbing from the rich like he ought to, we see a boring 30 second war on a beach with some french dudes, and that’s it. Movie over. John returns to being a dickhead, labels robin a criminal (“the hood”), movie over. Stay tuned to every other thing you’ve ever seen for the actual story. What an effing disappointment. They totally sold me on the characters (although marian turning into a helpless damsel with 5 minutes to go really pissed me off) and the world, and then forget to actually tell the story. I get, I guess, how telling the prequel is a clever idea in theory. But it isn’t, in real life, it’s just dumb.
Grownups – Holy shit what a horrible movie. What the hell are any of these people doing in this movie? I assumed it was just an excuse for them all to hang out, but christ those apatow people do that to and they at least cobble together some semblance of not shit. There are some funny jokes, but only when they are pissing on each other. The insults are actually pretty funny throughout. But every other aspect of the movie is painful.
Cirque de Freak – jeez, crappy crappy. Based on a young adult book, I assume. Not interesting. Not well acted, not well written, no interesting visuals, not a compelling universe. No, not just uninteresting, super crap. Pink fog lighting? high school quality wolfman costume? Some of this was legitimately bad. What a waste of John C Reilly.
The Cove – Um, wow. This is a documentary about the dolphin “trade” in Tai Ji, Japan. Basically, every year fishermen capture a bunch to be show dolphins, and kill many many more for meat. It’s a surprisingly dramatic documentary in that it shows their attempt to sneak camera equipment into this secluded cove where they do the killing. Though legal, it seems the japanese (fishermen and government) would rather people not see what they do, they go to great lengths to prevent recordings. So it’s kind of some james bond shit to get cameras in there. Pretty exciting. The truth of the situation is horrifying though. The movie will mostly just upset you. Meat eaters will want to stop eating meat, vegetarians will want to go vegan, vegans will want to go become an activist, activists will want to become terrorists. The slaughter is pretty hard to watch. But it is a very good movie, it shows something I never knew existed, and I’m sure most people don’t. Everyone should see it, even though I apologize ahead of time for it.
The Yes Men Fix the World – Here’s another protest movie. This guys, the Yes Men, have made a career (I guess?) of pulling hoaxes. They were the guys behind the fake New York Times a few years ago. The one from the future that had all the good news we wanted to see (end of iraq war, free healthcare, etc etc). That was the only of their hoaxes I had heard of. They set up fake public relations firms for big companies, then go around acting in their name. They went on TV and claimed Exxon was paying some billions of dollars to a town in India that was poisoned by some factory pollution. They go to industry conferences and promote ridiculously callous money-at-all-costs ideas and see how much people will agree to (sneak preview: a lot). It’s amusing, it’s sad. It’s kind of annoying too. But it’s done with good intentions, and it’s interesting to watch.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – Huh. So, that’s an old timey westernish musical, huh? Interesting. Not really for me. Silly acting, silly look. Kind of awful story (abduct your woman, she’ll love you eventually!). The songs are decent, nothing amazing. The dance sequence in the middle is pretty awesome though. Just another musical, one I didn’t particularly love.
The Outsiders – We saw this one because we saw a high school play version of it recently. It’s… not really that great. It’s about some town where there’s two groups of kids that fight a lot, gang like, but it must be set a few decades ago, feels 60s-ish, so it’s not like machine guns or anything. Then some stuff happens, a little romeo/juliet, a little heroism, a little unfortunate death, movie over. It’s got an odd amount of people in it – Patrick Swayze, the karate kid kid, tom cruise, emilio estevez, matt dillon. But they don’t act all that well, Swayze is maybe ok, the rest kind of crappy. And that’s pretty much it.
Days of Thunder – So I’d never seen this. Not really that much to say, this much later. It’s a good race car movie. It’s amazing how much Ricky Bobby copied it (including using John C Reilly!) It’s pretty formulaic, hot shot driver, learns to be humble, comes back and wins the big race. Bet on the little guy. Corporations suck. The wise old mentor is always right. Etc etc. Good ole race car movie.
The Sting – Pretty cool old movie! Not that old, I guess, but old enough for robert redford to look like a kid. It’s in the 30s, I think, some scam artists decided to take down (i.e. take his money) this guy that killed their friend. It’s pretty fun, fun characters, a fun little scam. I kind of saw the big twists coming. It’s possible I’ve seen this movie before and so I cheated. Or maybe it was just obvious to me, I don’t know. I’m not really a figure-it-out kind of guy. I’m not all that great at it anyway, but I’d rather just watch the movie than fret trying to find the secret. But this one seemed like the obvious way to go, I don’t know. Anyway, fun movie.
Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story – Not really sure I should even put this one on here. It’s kind of a throwaway documentary that you’d only remotely consider watching if you really like Eddie Izzard, which I do. Even still, it’s only moderately interesting. Didn’t realize he got such shit from the press and public for repeating jokes. Have people been paying attention? Every fucking comic on the planet does that. I think most people don’t follow comedy, so have no idea. But comics work these things for years and then stick with what works for years more. It’s annoying, it sucks to go to a show (not that I’ve gone to many) and hear jokes you saw on TV. But it is standard, so why Izzard got railed for it, I don’t know. Nonetheless, the fact that he had this little spat with the world and quit comedy for a while and then came back was interesting. Of course, he came back and did Sexie, by far my least favorite thing he ever did, so maybe the world broke him, I don’t know.
The Crazies – I’m only putting this here for record keeping. I apparently saw it in december, netflix tells me. I don’t remember much about it. But I did rate it 2 stars, so it’s pretty shitty, but not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, it’s not Grownups.
Jan 7, 2011
Ghostception
You wouldn’t think a remade trailer for a 25 year old movie wouldn’t be that interesting, but this (set to Inception music) makes Ghostbusters seem pretty badass.
Dec 29, 2010
Camera on Sword
1) How has no one thought of this before. 2) How did they not think to pair this video with what it looks like from a normal POV?
Dec 24, 2010
Event Reviews @ The Temple
Beauty and the Beast – Well it will be pretty hard to disentangle this one from emotion, so I won’t bother, just take that as a caveat. This was pretty cool. First my complaints – the show was more kid oriented than I expected. Maybe that makes me stupid, and I did expect it would be focused there. It was just moreso than I thought. Very silly humor, very slapsticky. Sometimes just a funny face and a “wah wah".” If it was a movie, I’d say it was very bad. As a musical in an audience 25% under 10, it gets away with it. 2nd thing was Lumiere, he was way too over the top. He is clearly a man who has seen/played 20 years of Lumiere, so he’s become a caricature of himself. For christ’s sake, it took him 30 minutes between “Be” “"our” and "guest'” That number, by the way, was probably my least favorite, surprisingly. I thought I would really like it, and it certainly seems like its meant to be the big thing. It didn’t really go for me, though. It felt a little under budget, not grand enough. Lastly Mrs. Potts accent was just about the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Not only was it a horrendous british accent, she couldn’t seem to decide if she was cockney or posh, it was ridiculous. On the other hand, the music is fantastic. The Belle song, beauty and the beast, the mob song, the library song, all awesome. The bar song with this amazing glass clinking dance thing was super cool. I used more words on complaining than complimenting, but that’s not what I mean. Overall it was really just a lot of fun and really enjoyable.
Dec 17, 2010
Dec 14, 2010
Book Reviews @ The Temple
Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee – Wow it’s been a long time since I read a book! This is a pretty weird one. It’s about a guy, in South Africa during the war (I’m going to have to leave “the war” vague cuz I know fuck all about it cuz I’m a bad american). He tries to take his mom to the country to live out her days, things happen, he goes on a weird journey. It’s an extraordinarily odd story, the strongest feeling I can attach to it is actually post-apocalyptic. Traveling between towns, living in the moutnains, avoiding the army, it feels like he’s living after the world done got effed up. It’s actually a cool feeling, so that’s not a bad thing. The book is broken into parts, the vast majority is this weird semi-life of his, then two shorter sections. The first from a different person’s perspective, trying to take care of him, the second back to him finishing out his story. I don’t really know what to think about it. It feels, more than anything, like it’s supposed to have a point. It seems extraordinarily particular to not have some kind of moral before it. The story is very well written. It’s captivating (and short, which helps) and is very carefully written. This was not thrown together to tell an exciting jaunt, it feels very specific. And I can only think that means it should have greater meaning. I’m not sure what that meaning is, though. Certainly there is this idea of living close to nature, living a simple completely isolated life. Not just simple, as minimalistic as humanly possible. In fact, more than is humanly possible as I don’t see anyone surviving this life in the real world. It is as broken down to the bones as any story could be. But I can’t find anything deeper than that. Both the other person’s reaction to him in the second chapter and the finale point to some sort of understanding of this man’s choice of life. But it seems like neither a cautionary tale nor advice. Perhaps his life is presented as pure. But by no means is it presented as good, or even possible for a real person. It’s an odd book and I’m unsure what to think. Very well written, crafted I’d say. But I’m left with a certain lack, after reading it. Like I was peaking through a window to look on a completely different life and, but then the window closed and I just went back to mine, not particularly affected…… Brief update – went to a book club for this (weird, huh?) and was given one idea that I find interesting. That this book is actually a commentary on homeless people. A guy, who goes into things with good intentions, his life goes awry, he ends up a wackaloon who is just trying to survive. The one loose end that theory ties up is the last chapter that involves these weird young people who use Michael K almost as a plaything. Looking at it in the context of how we, as a group, treat homeless people (bum fights?), it becomes more interesting. I’m not sure that that’s a definitive answer, but it’s an interesting thought.
Team of Rivals by Doris Goodwin – Well I finally got to this book! Gawdam is it long. 31 CDs long! Fortunately that’s just a corner of my mp3 player. It’s pretty fascinating. I am, as always, very uneducated about history. So there were aspects of Lincoln’s presidency that I didn’t know about though they must be pretty commonly known. The structure of the book is interesting. Rather than talk about just Lincoln, she talks (with almost equal length!) about his 3 rivals for the Republican nomination for president – Seward, Chase, and Bates. He pulls each of these men into his cabinet (as well as some democrats) in order to have a variety of ideas. Comparing their lives and personalities is really interesting. Lincoln’s greatness is all the brighter for being compared to these men, both in that they were also great, and in that they were sometimes very far from great. Seward in particular is at first his fiercest detractor, then becomes his most loyal ally as secretary of state. Chase, meanwhile, is a fucking asshole and from the beginning to end of Lincoln’s presidency is acting only in his own interest and trying to steal the office. But Lincoln is the star, of course, and it’s astounding the man he was. Granted this book is biased, it’s about his greatness, but wow. I read that Washington book, he was impressive, but he was very very flawed. Lincoln is nearly superhuman, as portrayed in this book. His intelligence and grace and control is just remarkable. I can’t imagine what the country would have been without him, and I’m sad to imagine what else it could have been with more of him. The book also seems to be a lesson in moderacy. I’m not all that moderate. Stewart/Colbert rally aside, I’m pretty firmly in the left camp and think most of the right are either heartless or morons. But here Lincoln is in the midst of slavery, and he argues JUST to stop the spread of slavery to the new states. Not to give them rights, not to let them vote, not to count them equal to a white man, not even to free them. Just stop the spread. Baby steps. That leads to emancipation. And that of course leads to rights, even if it took us 100 years. Yes, we can all absolutely say it was wrong from beginning to end and the “right” thing to do would have been complete equality, immediately. But if the republicans had nominated a “radical” who wanted immediate emancipation, he would have lost, and slavery would have continued for who knows how long. Not only continued, but infected the new states. Lincoln’s moderacy may have saved the cause. I can’t help but imagine the parallel’s to now. Gays should have full rights, we should have full health care, we should take 75% of our defense BS and put it in schools and research. But maybe Dennis Kucinich will never win and if he got nominated would just insure another Bush in the whitehouse. Maybe someone needs to be up there giving us ONLY half assed health care, so in 10 years we’ll have the right one. It’s pretty interesting, I think, even if my nature rebels against it.
The Brothers Mario
This fake trailer is genius. Not just the concept, but the direction and assets are really pretty fantastic.
Dec 13, 2010
Jump Ropers
I know watching jump roping for 8 minutes seems like a ridiculous idea. But I promise you this is the craziest shit you’ve ever seen. If the US gov’t had any sense, they’d recruit these girls into some sort of insane ninja fucking strike force.
The Pale Blue Dot
I kind of fail as a nerd, science type person, and person in general for not having ever read or seen anything Carl Sagan. Some day when I have nothing to do (ha!) I’ll go watch Cosmos. But until then, this seems like a good start.
Dec 7, 2010
Princess Bride Light Sabers
I don’t normally use ‘epic’. When warren specter and disney have co-opted a word, it’s fairly played out. Nonetheless – epic.
Dec 3, 2010
Candlelight – The Maccabeats
I’d never actually heard the original cuz I’m not cool, I’ve since seen it, and it’s not that good! Then this guy did this version, which is really cool. But this is pretty awesome for a bunch of dorky jewish boys.
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