So I’d had Dear Zachary on my Netflix queue for a while and I’d just put off watching it for a while because I knew partially what it was about and you have to be in the right mood to watch a movie about a dead friend.  I’d read positive reviews online and I quite like documentaries so I thought I would enjoy it. I enjoy true crime stuff, my mom raised me on those “Dateline NBC special reports” about sisters who murder their parents and the ensuing trial. But I don’t think I was really prepared for this film. It was a weekend when Laurel was out of town, because she never wants to watch all the depressing movies that I rent. Going into the movie I only knew that his friend had been murdered and he wanted to make a documentary about him that he could show his unborn son. Here’s my thoughts that I wrote down just after the movie ended.

There’s just this incredible sadness after watching this movie. You want to believe the filmmaker’s words that the film had became a tribute to Andrews parents, but really? Maybe there’s just nothing you can say about a situation like that. I mean the movie builds for about an hour and 15 minutes before they drop the shock on you.  I have NEVER felt shock like that in a movie, maybe because in a FILM you know it didn’t really happen. You can tell yourself that this is all a dream and the monsters aren’t real. But this really happened, the monsters are real. They live with us every day. They are that guy “who just never seemed right” they are all around us every day. I just don’t know how to feel about this… On one hand I want everyone to feel that kind of loss when I die. I want to be the kind of person that would inspire people to film a documentary about me.  I want the outpouring of affection, but I just feel so empty inside after this movie. I really feel for them, I don’t even know this person or his family and I REALLY feel for them. I’m having a real emotional response that I’ve never had watching a movie. It’s tough to get to know someone and then have them taken away from you, even if it’s just on film.

What can I do?

I’m gonna go watch Ghostbusters.

That’s still how I feel a month after I watched that movie. I’m not going to reccomend anyone watch this movie, it’s a good film. It’s one of those movies like Requiem for a Dream^W that you only have to watch once. But I have no idea what kind of mood you need to be in to appreciate it. I wouldn’t watch it on your happiest day, because it would ruin your day. But I wouldn’t want to be too depressed going into it, because you might end it all.

Schu-Review : 4 out of 5 Schus

Last night Laurel and I ventured out of our own little rabbit hole and went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D at Fairfax Corner. She had been bugging me for weeks to see this, I had been interested but I had fears of it being like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory^W. Which I did not like…

So which was it? Terrible or Awesome?

Find out more after the break?

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I don’t give a shit about 80’s metal and this is still the best documentary I have seen all year. Hell it might be the best movie that I’ve seen all year. I just connected with these guys so much. It’s the reason I love documentaries, these are real people. They aren’t some characters thought up by writers. They have real problems, real emotions, and real heart.

Through the movie you see how much promise and success they had back in the beginning and then they just kind of went nowhere, but they never gave up. Now it’s 30 years later and they’re still trying to make it. The movie focuses on the lead singer and drummer of Anvil. The lead singer ‘Lips’ is the one in the band who won’t let the dream die, he works at a catering company and takes vacation time to play shows. There are people in his life that you can see don’t share his vision and don’t really support him. But his girlfriend and older sister stick with him no matter what. Maybe that’s the part that really resonated personally with me? The other main character is the drummer, Robb Reiner (not the actor/director). He and Lips have this rocky ‘Brothers in Metal’ relationship that creates some intense emotional moments through out the film. When the ending comes you are so emotionally invested in this band that they really feel like family.

I cannot believe that this movie didn’t even get nominated for best documentary in the Academy Awards. The only close competition I would give it was The Cove and that for me is a distant second. Food Inc., the front runner for the award, was NOTHING compared to this movie. ANVIL doesn’t need flashy graphics or voice overs, it thrives on basic human spirit. The story of Anvil provided enough emotion for 10 movies.

If you have a heart and a dream, you will love this movie.

watch the trailer
buy the music

Schu-Review : 5 out of 5 Schus

*UPDATE*
Apparently this movie came out in 2007, but since I just watched it last week. I’m still calling it the best documentary of 2009.

Blue is the new black

So over my winter vacation I saw James Cameron’s Avatar in the theater. It’s one of the first times that I’ve ever seen a movie that I was just to totally engrossed in from start to finish. I never questioned any of the effects, I just assumed that everything was real. Which is a weird thing to say when a movie features 15 foot aliens who ride dragons. I went back and watched the Totally Rad Show review of the film and they went in to a little bit of the technology involved in capturing the performances of the actors. The Facial movements just really match the actors. Maybe I’m getting more complacent in my old age, but the story was told so well and the editing so tight that I never had time to question “How did they do this”. Which is really a testament to just how entertaining this movie is.

But the technology is what really got my mind working… Video cameras have become common place and the home editing software is on par with anything Hollywood had in about the early 1990’s. If you take 5 minutes to look on Youtube you’ll find some amazing videos that would have played on network TV in the past, but are done in someone’s free time, with home equiptment.  I’m not saying  everybody is making District 9 in their back yards, but some people are. Now that we’re on the cusp of the ‘3D cinema revolution’ I can see a future where home 3d recording will be feasible. You could just set up a couple of cameras in your house and then you’d have an exact 3d replica of everything. You could change the camera angle if you miss something or do some digital retouching on your 3d body scan. I can’t imaging what ’some people’ are going to to do with this.

I remember back when I was playing Quake or Fallout and I could download another character skin, so that I could have Johnny 5 sniping fools on a gravity jump. I’m Alive! I saw this trailer, it’s a mashup of ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘Terminator’.  I thought, that would be a really cool movie actually, I wonder if something like that will ever get made… then I though who will play the parts. But like in the trailer, you really just want the original actors to play them. Then i got to thinking… in terminator salvation they have a CG Arnold attack, in XMEN they have a younger version of Magneto and Xavier, I mean for God’s sake they put marlon wayans head on a babies body for an entire freaking movie. But in all those cases you didn’t really buy into it all the way. But now, with Cameron’s tech out there what’s going to stop them from making a 3D character of an older actor, then having another actor act out the movie. This leads to all kinds of weridly exciting possiblities for REMAKES STARRING THE SAME ACTORS. If this gets popular then you can recast a movie AFTER you’ve filmed it. It can be seen as Brad Pitt’s face in the leading roll, but really it’s Tom Hanks behind the scenes doing the acting. And if we’re going down this path then why do movies have to star one person? They could advertise on the poster ‘Starring Leonardo DiCaprio or Jude Law’ and then you could switch between them on your personal movie glasses Then do they have to create another Oscar category for “Best Motion Capture performance” and then “Best Voice Acting” because they dont have to be the same person. Then you add in the amimatators who are basically left to clean up the data and make the non-humaniod characters move. then if they come out with motion capture suits for animals all those guys are out of business.

This leads to what I both hope for and fear most… Lucas remaking Star Wars with all CG actors and sets.

I think if Cameron is going to unleash this kind of technology on the cinema world then he should be responsible for teaching all the other directors how to do it.

Chapter 1: Backstory.

This movie came out in 2007 and for some reason I had never watched it. I like the director’s first movie, Donnie Darko^W, but something had been stopping me from actually sitting down and watching Southland Tales^W. I heard that it was bad, but I’ve liked bad movies before (The Island, Terminator Salvation). Laurel was working on Friday night so I decided that I was bored enough to watch it.

I was unprepared.

To say this movie is bad is a disservice to other bad movies. You know when a movie is so bad it’s good? (Road House) Well this movie was heading there then it would snap back to good for a second, then dive headlong into a shit storm of terrible, then it would try to redeem itself, then it would snap off into a vat of crazy.This movie is so insane that it will make you question your own sanity.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here

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Twice a year at my office the boss runs this movie contest. We all have to submit a list of what we think will be the top ten highest grossing movies of the “season”. We do one for the summer and one for the holidays. There’s a certain style in picking movies that you personally don’t want to see (ever!) but you think will perform well at the box office.

1. Avatar – 350 million
2. New Moon
3. Princess and the Frog
4. 2012
5. Christmas Carol
6. Planet 51
7. Old Dogs
8. Blindside
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks 2
10. Sherlock Holmes

I know there are some problems with my list. I’ve very influenced by a good trailer, I am such a sucker. I just finished watching the second trailer for Avatar and I’d watched Aliens the week before so I was on a bit of a James Cameron buzz. So I might have ranked Avatar a little high. The other problems are that I might have ranked Princess and the Frog a couple of spots higher than I should of. It’s a return the the classic Disney style of my childhood, which I’m very excited about, but I’m not sure what today’s kids are going to think of it. Do you remember when every animated movie was a musical? I didn’t even realize they stopped doing that until I saw this trailer. The third thing I missed is I should have ranked Alvin and Sherlock a little higher, the contest runs through the 20th of January… so they’re going to come in higher than 9 & 10… whoops. But you never know, some other movie could sneak in an bump them down, it’s pretty much a crapshoot.

My boss likes to do analysis of the picks and sends out weekly update emails. After searching on the web I’ve decided to post them here. This is an average office with most of the people between the ages of 30 and 50.

Breakdown of pics by movie

Ferris Bueller: Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in The Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus but it still wouldn’t change the fact that I don’t own a car!

I’m watched “A Galaxy Far Far Away” and I’ve come to a realization… and it’s not a good one. I no longer consider myself a nerd. I’ve moved on to some higher plain, not quite hipster… but just south of normal. I would like to align myself with a new faction of subculture, perhaps the Art-Dorks would have me?

You can tell that this documentary is not produced by Lucasfilm in any way, there are no pretty girls, there are minimal celebrities, there are only Nerds… Pitiful creepy nerds. It’s just hard for me to align myself with these people… they are no longer my people. These are some epic specimens of Nerddom and looking at it 10 years in the future it makes these guys look even worse. They camped out in line for 45 days to see The Phantom Menace, one of the most disappointing movies of all time.

Maybe my vision is skewed because I almost was one of these people. I always liked Star Wars but I totally bought into all the hype surrounding this movie. I had a black t-shirt with the words “Episode One” embroidered on it. I recorded the trailer off tv and had it playing on a looped VHS tape in my bedroom for months before the movie came out. I thought this was going to be MY Gone with the Wind, MY Godfather, MY Star Wars. When it wasn’t all that I thought it could be, my nerd spirit was crushed.

I’ve never really bought into the hype ever since then. That made be realize that I can be swayed by a good trailer and some advanced hype. It could have been the fact that I was only 17 years old. But I think this happened to a lot of people older and smarter than I was. Now I’m sitting in my office looking into the face of a plastic tiki god and thinking, Man what a dork I used to be…

It would actually be nice to see a sequel to this movie that goes back and visits with these guys to see (sadly) where their lives have gone … and how much these toys are worth now… its like the end of the baseball card craze, when everyone thought that their Steve Avery, Tops stadium club card was going to buy them a car one day. I do have hope for some of them, in the interviews after the screening of the film some of them seem to share my views of “It’s only a movie.”

This is not the kind of nostalgic documentary that makes you want to be a kid again and buy toys and collect them. At least not for me. It makes me realize that there’s a difference between being a “Kid at Heart” and being the guy that lives with life size replicas of characters from a sci-fi movie. On some level I want to commend then for sticking with something that they love. But when it seems to be the only thing they care about and the only thing that makes them feel normal then I think it’s gone too far. Diversity is the key my friends, I love Star Wars… but it’s not the only thing I love.

Later!

When I find awesome things ont he internet they are usually horribly expensive. But unfortunatley for my ba nk account this one is only $30… how could I NOT buy it at that price. I know we don’t really have any more wall space… and I just bought a bunch of prints while we were at ALL GOOD… but look at it.

JUST LOOK AT IT DAMMIT

It might be the perfect combination of illustration/nostalgia/printmaking/poster/kitsch… and don’t forget awesome. So now it’s on the way to my house. I’ll have to decide what Kevin Smith poster gets put in storage in favor of this one.

IT’S LIKE DRIVING AN ICE CREAM TRUCK FULL OF BEES!

genius.

I’ll defend Idiocracy until the end of time, it’s so difficult to make a good satire and I think on repeat viewings the movie gets better and better. It’s weird that the movie came out (what seems like) 2 years ago and now the tie in products are hitting the internet. Could be a shrewd marketing move though. Also the only thing better than actually making funny products from movies is hiring guys from internet memes to write the commercials. The Powerthirst videos were the most awesome use of the internet evar.

“Kick em in the face with your POWER LEGS!”

…in other news you can also buy SEX PANTHER