If I said Kobe Bryant, Nike, and commercial, you would be forgiven if you didn’t think “sign me up for a 5 minute youtube video.” But what if I also said Robert Rodriguez, Danny Trejo, and Bruce WIllis? Ehhh? It’s pretty funny.
Feb 26, 2011
Feb 19, 2011
Feb 18, 2011
Ultra Combos
These guys are kind of great. This video is live action SF IV style combos. They have a few fighty things on their youtube channel, seems pretty good.
Minecraft Fan Film
This is pretty awesome. Makes me sad I haven’t had the time to play minecraft in a few weeks though. And hey, for the first time in the history of the universe, one of those obnoxious links to other videos at the end of youtube videos was actually worthwhile!
Feb 17, 2011
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
The Dungeon Masters – This movie is really very bad, but it’s also very very sad. When I first heard about it – a documentary about people who play D&D – I was excited. There’s many things this movie could be. It could be an interesting history of D&D and look at people who play it. It could be a humanizing story that makes people who don’t play D&D see players as normal other human beings. It could be a complete mockery of these people, which it almost is. And it could be a painfully honest look at these people, which it tries to be. It does not choose normal people. I play D&D, or at least I have as recently as a year ago, and I would still if I had time, I wish I could. Yet, I have a job. A girlfriend. A nice place to live. I may not be mr. social, but I can usually be a normal person. The people they choose are not normal. They aren’t not normal because they play D&D, they are not normal people, who happen to play D&D. I know LARPers, I don’t do it, I think it’s kind of weird, but I know them. And yes they are a bit odd, but they have jobs, they are married, have a house, a kid, and I honestly enjoy their company. No one enjoys the people in the movie, they are disconnected from society. There’s a guy with no life, wants to be a writer, has no other income, sits around and plays games. A guy who is power mad because he’s a DM. And lastly a woman with a truly pathetic white trash kind of life, who likes to dress up as a drow. This movie had an opportunity, in theory, to explore these people in a meaningful way. There is a moment where they have a chance. The woman is talking with her boyfriend, in extremely practical pragmatic nerdy language, about their decision to move in together. The boy is saying its logical, even if they break up. She says she doesn’t think that will happen. He says nothing. She doesn’t look at him. She’s “focusing” on her computer. She has that awkward, desperate feigned apathy. No, not apathy, apathy would be too close to a connection with people. Instead she is faking distance, as if she’s so busy with her laptop, she hasn’t yet considered that her boyfriend didn’t respond to that. There was a chance there, a real insight in to this type of person. I know that type of person. I am that type of person. My friends are that type of person, and coworkers. At least some of them, to some extent. I know exactly what it is to “focus” on something when I’m ignoring something awkward or hard or threatening (emotionally). I know that look. This movie pauses on that look, and seems like it wants to expose what it’s like to be that person. But it passes, mostly unexplored. Each of these three people are sad. The woman was abused previously. The writer has no opportunities, and no ambition to achieve anything not in his narrow scope. The gamemaster is nearly comical in his need for control. I think ultimately no one gains from this movie. These people don’t gain insight on themselves. A non gamer sees only freaks, confirming their every preconception of gamers. A gamer sees a horrible representation of them and people like them. An introspective person sees a missed opportunity. It’s really a waste. At it’s worst it is hurtful, and it’s best, it’s a failure.
The Expendables – Well crap, it’s been a while since I actually saw this. My feeling is that it was fun. Not good by any means, but entertaining. Honestly much more so than I expected, seemed like it would be crap. But the relationship between the various crew members is pretty good. Everyone plays themselves, pretty much – stallone, rourke, jet li, statham – they all play the guy they all play in every movie. But that’s ok, cram them all in there, have lots of explosions, an honestly shocking amount of gore, and you got yourself a decent way to spend an evening.
Legion – This is a movie from a couple years ago about angels. It’s an action movie, slightly horror-ish, it’s the apocalypse, shit done went bad, lots of shooting. Not good, obviously. Some of it is okay, it didn’t offend me, but it’s not good. The acting by the son is particularly horrendous, though in his defense, he was given the shittiest lines amongst a hefty amount of shitty lines. Not much else to say about it, kind of like from dusk till dawn, except angels instead of vampires (and to be clear, only 1 is actually in angel form, its basically just monsters), much fewer tits, absolutely no humor, and not even as good of action. So, yeah, just go watch FDTD instead.
The Color of Magic – This is a bbc thing based on the Terry Pratchett book. It’s not really that interesting. I’ve already written a review of the book (though maybe haven’t posted it), and the basic idea is its pretty funny, but the plot is mostly nonsensical. Sadly, this movie is all plot, little humor. To be fair, its pretty impossible to do snarky british omniscient narrator in a movie. You can have a voice over, and they do, but it’s just not the same. In much the same way that the hitchhiker’s movie failed to capture the humor of the book, this does as well, but much more so, I would say. It’s not that it’s particularly badly acted, written, or special effected (for a low budget thing), it just has almost 0% of the charm of the book, and even the book lost me half way through. Sorry, not really worth the time.
Blood Into Wine – Documentary about the lead singer from Tool making a winery in northern arizona. I had seen him before on WLTV. He’s not really a likeable guy. He has this douche emo persona, I don’t know if it’s real or an act, but either way it’s obnoxious. Doesn’t really make me want to drive to Jerome and try his wine. Really, everyone in the movie is pretty annoying. The head winemaker seems like an okay guy, if a big hippy. But most everyone is unpleasant. Yet the movie is kind of cool. You see a full season of wine making, you hear about a lot of the little bs issues you run into trying to up and make a winery. All that stuff is pretty interesting. So, it’s kind of a good movie, just filled with unlikeable people is all.
Exit Through the Gift Shop – Hrm. Street art is such a pain in the ass. I can’t say you can’t do art. But I can say that any random asshole who can only give his shit life some semblance of worth by spray painting his asshole name on some wall is a douche. As it happens, it looks like most of the talented street artists are douches too. Shepherd Fairy? Anyone with silver hair is a douche. Unless your 70, then you get a pass. Choosing a wall because it “feels” right? Douche. Making an animal stand around on display around covered in paint? You’re a douche. This french guy is nearly the dictionary definition of douche. And his BS pop/street shit is the reason I’ll probably never accept modern art. The crap I saw in a real art museum in Boulder a month ago looks no better or worse than this guys’ crap. But whatever, it’s art, some people think that includes putting clown makeup, a mickey mouse hat, or paint sparkles on any random celebrity. So, I can’t say you can’t do art, cuz it’s art, and I can’t even say if it IS art. Even though it leaves open the possibility that a douche will scribble ‘jackhole was here’ (I’m paraphrasing) on the side of my trashcan. But I can absolutely call you a douche.
Antichrist – the fuck? This is an absolutely serious contender for the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The premise is a couple loses their child through negligence, the woman is having a hard time recovering. Her husband, a therapist, tries to fix her himself, eventually resorting to a sort of psychological rehab at a cabin in the woods. Then shit goes bonkers. To be fair, shit started bonkers, the second image of the movie is WIllem DeFoe’s dick (stunt dick?) “artfully” banging his wife. It’s not quite hard core porn, but it is more than soft. But the woods things are extra bonkers. Crazy violence, disgusting imagery. And, worst of all, it really really thinks it has a point. There are a lot of shit violent movies out there. Hostel is “torture porn”, violence for violence. It’s horrendous, but it’s not really offensive, it exists only for that purpose. Saw is a step worse, because it thinks it’s fancy. It thinks it has something to say. It doesn’t ,of course, it’s a pretentious mask to give it a reason to make Saw 46: In Which You See A Vag And Someone Chews Their Own Ear Off. But this is a whole new level of bullshit. This movie is so up its own ass. It thinks it’s this thought provoking masterpiece on despair, PTSD, and I guess mental illness. It seems to include the supernatural, though that’s not exactly clear. Most annoyingly, I am positive that this movie thinks its gore is to “shock” you. To wake you up. And while I realize I’m giving this movie way more credit than it is due, merely by virtue of the length of the review, it is just so bad, it needed to be said. Don’t watch this, not out of curiosity, I’m sure it’s not really willem defoe’s dick, not to see how bad it is, it doesn’t deserve a single netflix click.
Law Abiding Citizen – Man, this movie started out great. I was really digging it. A guy’s family is murdered, after being denied justice he decides to do it himself. You are totally on board with that plan, as he’s killing murderers and horrible people. The movie switches, he really becomes a wackaloon and takes his “cause” way overboard. At one point I’m pretty sure he kills the hairdresser of the lady who works at the DMV who gave a license to the guy who road a bus next to another guy who was stocking shelves at the safeway on the same day that the murderer’s 3rd cousin bought a snickers bar. That might be an exaggeration, but only slightly. Still, the crazy in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. Maybe it’s a harvey dent thing, the world treats him so badly, that he goes crazy. The problem is he really becomes a supervillain. Not just any ole; like super crazy, super genius, super elaborate supervillain, and it just becomes kinda dumb. It’s actually kind of like the Saw movies, thinking back to the last review, where he just has every little thing planned and is some kind of omniscient super being. But that’s dumb, and it completely ruins the movie. It all comes around, has the only resolution it can have, but by then it lost me. I just feel like they could have gone in a more realistic direction, even with the craziness, and been much better for it.
Eye tracking during a movie
This is a really cool idea. There’s no reason to watch the whole thing, just skip through and get the idea, but it is very neat. I’m sure crazy interesting for filmmakers.
Feb 15, 2011
Thought of You
As my available daily internet time approaches zero, I find myself more and more picky when it comes to little internet videos. But something about this one works for me. Maybe I’ve watched too much So You Think You can Dance. But there’s something really beautiful about their movement.
Feb 10, 2011
Feb 6, 2011
Best Ebay Ad Ever
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).
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.
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