First Production Photo of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead

Entertainment, TV

Rick

OMG Nerdgasm!

Every picture that I get from this series says “We’re taking this seriously”. AMC is going to make the Godfather of Zombie TV shows. Actually the bar isn’t set very high. The effects were pretty decent on [W:Dead Set] but the overall show didn’t really go anywhere. I can only hope that this show will go on for at least a few seasons so that we can get a good long look at the world that Kirkman created.

First Production Photo of Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead – The Walking Dead – AMC.

Schu-Review : Nas and Damian Marley – Distant Relatives

Entertainment, music


I was talking to a friend about the existence of this album and the first thing he said was ‘I’ve always wanted to like Damian Marley but he’s not hard enough for me.’ which I thought was strange because I’ve always wanted to like Nas but I thought he wasn’t ‘Musical’ enough. I like his lyrics, but sometimes his beats are kind of basic and his choruses are lacking. But he’s from the streets, YO. So this is the album for both of us.

It starts out with a bang. ‘As we enter’ is the classic hip-hop “who we are” song, with an interesting beat and lyrics. Lots of back and forth between the two. Marley really ups his lyric game on this track. Starts the album with a bang, really gets you going. I love this song.

[Damian Marley]
Masuri Sana
Switch up the language and move to Ghana

[Nas]
Salute and honor, real revolution rhymers

[Damian Marley]
Rhythm piranhas

[Nas]
Like true Obamas, unfold the drama

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but this is my favorite song on the album. The album as a whole follows a track where it starts out loud and fast and then each song gets more mellow. There are a few really good songs ‘Strong Will Continue’ , ‘Land of Promise’ , and ‘Friends’. But with the statement it makes when it first starts I wish that it could have maintained that energy level through the whole thing. But I guess that is the melding of these two styles. It’s still a great album, put it on and chill out for 45 minutes.

4 out of 5 Schus

You should be excited about this… The Walking Dead

Entertainment, TV

Reasons you should be excited about The Walking Dead on AMC this fall

  1. The Comic is amazing. It’s pretty hard to have jump out and scare you moments in a comic book so this book  is filled with ‘I cant believe that just happened’ or ‘I didn’t think that guy was going to die’ moments. The story is so dense I’m glad it’s going to be a series and not just a movie, pace is going to be very important.
  2. Written, Directed, Produced by [W:Frank Darabont]. Have you heard of a little movie called the [W:Shawshank Redemption]? or perhaps [W:The Green Mile]? or to a lesser extent, [W:The Mist]?  He directed all of them and also adapted screenplays for the movies based on short stories by Stephen King. This guy knows two things Characters and Scares. He’s going to be the prefect director for this project.
  3. It’s on AMC. A few years ago this wouldn’t have meant much, but then a couple of shows came out called Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Now this network is know first for producing great drama and second for showing . If there’s any network that can elevate the Zombie genre it’s going to be this one.
  4. No Stunt Casting. So far there hasn’t been a known star cast in any of the roles. Which is a really good sign. Could you have imagined the Dad from Malcom in the middle doing dead serious drama? Or who knew who John Hamm even was 5 years ago? I think the characters in The Walking Dead are going to be like that.

I’m very excited about this show. I think they have the right team in place to make a great drama that just happens to have zombies in it. It’s a show about the end of the world and how people deal with it. I just hope that people will tune in to a show with so much potential and so little name recognition.

But two words AMC… SLOW ZOMBIES!


AMC Zombie Photo Gallery

AMC Walking Dead Blog

Random Blog Thought Nuggets

Randomness

I was going through my blog and saw that I had 26 posts in the Draft folder, which seems like too many.  So I’m going to lump them all into one giant post.  It might not all be awesome content, but there are some nuggets of awesome that I couldn’t elaborate into a longer post.

The Advantages of not being a Creative.

I’m just a guy.
A creative is someone who works in advertising, but they know they do so they use the lingo. Somebody in advertising looked at his own profession and decided that to market the creative people IE:graphic design professionals.. better he needed to talk about them in aesthetic terms that other marketing people would understand. You have to be in the industry to understand the term. it doesn’t’ mean anything to the regular person. which makes it arty and cool. It’s a cycle It’s one idea feeding another. It’s the regeneration of creative waves in the world.

The Downfall of Graffiti in DC

Jack Boyz... you can do better.

There’s something about this picture that says more about the state of DC public schools than any statistics could. Not only are they misbehaved little bastards on the Metro. But they can’t even manage good graffiti. I think all the texting has ruined it, you need style, the letters need to be so stylized that you can barley read them. I need to go teach an after school program in graffiti styles. This is like the Jerry Springer guest version of graffiti, stupid words repeated over and over like it’s going to be any better the second or third times.

I live my life close to ceiling fans
I’ve always been mesmerized by spinning objects. There’s something about the inherent danger of something spinning at thousands of rpms that is so intriguing. When I was a kid I used to open the washer when to was on spin cycle, jam a pen in the latch and watch it spin. The cool damp air whipping around my face. Maybe it was the danger of possibly getting something caught in there and being mangled. I’ve heard some people are like that with tall things. They imagine themselves jumping off.

Strangely I’ve never felt this way about ceiling fans. I’m tall, not freak tall, not tall enough that Billy crystal would try to make me his giant. But I’m tall. So I’ve spent my adult life looking on top of refrigerators and being closer to the ceiling than the average person. I don’t know where I’m going with this…

Open Letter to Dr Laura.
I just thought this was informative and interesting

Bad Omen
Worst omen since Yule Brenner kissed Sanka’s lucky egg and caused the bobsled to crash and ruin the hopes of a whole country….But fuck that East German guy and his slow clap.

Repurpose the Future
Maybe the human pop culture machine only has the capacity to create new things for a 30 year window.. maybe 20. and that’s why we’ve started remaking everything. …or something? I don’t know it sounded good in my head.

I hear you’re all concerned about how liberal I have become.
Dear Family and Friends,

I know recently some of you have expressed concerns over how liberal I have become. But Let me set the record straight. You should not look to this as losing a friend but gaining an ally in the coming Liberal revolution. I will make sure that you, my trusted underlings, will have a place at the front of the bread lines created by the new Socialist government. Voting for Obama may be the best thing I could do for you! When you are all rounded up and forced into the reeducation facilities I will be able to ensure that you are given preferential treatment. Assuming that you undergo the required training and pass all necessary loyalty exams.

When the center of government is moved to Riyadah I will be able to communicate with you through the trusted citizen system as you will all be locked behind the great internet firewall.

A list of semi-horrible movies that I like

  • XXX: State of the Union – Ice Cube
  • Jason X
  • Cannibal: The Musical
  • Baseketball
  • Orgazmo
  • Flesh Gordon
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • Cabin Boy
  • Showgirls
  • Killer Clowns From Outer Space
  • Spaced Out
  • Road House
  • Monkeybone
  • Ice Pirates
  • Joe’s Apartment
  • Masters of the Universe
  • Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
  • The Core

Quotes that I thought sounded funny at one time.
“I spend my days flicking boogers in the face of a plastic tiki god.”
“Have you ever wanted to see just how much coffee you could drink in one day?”

Break out the #15 Chitwood jersey, it's time to watch Hoosiers.

Entertainment, Movies


I realized that I wrote this mini review of Hoosiers about 6 months ago and never posted it. I cleaned it up and I’m posting in in honor of Dennis Hopper. RIP.

Maybe I love this movie so much because I was born in Indianapolis but didn’t grow up in Indiana. So I view it with  some kind of forced nostalgia for what could have been. Maybe I’m a racist bastard for liking a movie about 5 white guys who can play basketball? A story about a poor farm school that comes out of nowhere to win the state championship, how could you not like this. It’s the prototype underdog story for people my age.

These are more notes than a review, because for me this would be like reviewing Star Wars. Because I’ve loved this move for so long and I went to college at George Mason (The Milton HS of the NCAA tourney)  There’s no way I could ever provide an objective review for this movie. So here are some thoughts.

Notes

  1. Early on I think that the music is influenced a little bit too much by the 1980’s a little but too much synth.
  2. What a sweet leather jacket Gene Hackman has.
  3. My dad ran these drills in practice. I’m sure of it.
  4. *shotgun blast*, “IDENTIFY!” Has to be one of the best greetings in film history.
  5. “I apologize for nothing” (Hackman at the town meeting) He might as well end this speech with “Suck it.”
  6. Jimmy = Jesus!
  7. Jimmy comes back from months of quietly shooting jumpers in his lawn and is draining threes long twos on the other team like he’s been there the whole time. He’s like Jordan, everyone else around him is now an all star.
  8. Gale has to be one of the ballsiest SOB’s ever. He just barely survives the townspeople revolt so he decides to get himself thrown out of a close game to teach the drunk assistant coach a lesson about responsibility. Or it was a blowout and Norman was sweating bullets in the locker room as Shooter almost blows the whole thing.
  9. Also Shooter’s first speech makes no sense, “Allow yourself to be taken out”, nothing like that happens on the court. I think he was still drunk. That might change the whole scene!
  10. I’m positive my Dad ran the picket fence play during a game I played in when I was 13.
  11. What’s with the way the other assistant coach runs off the court after Shooter wins that game? He looks like Phoebe from Friends.

Cheesy Parts

  1. In all those practices did he forget to do the “moving without the ball” drill, because they just stand still in the first game.
  2. Why does he need 2 assistant coaches? There are only 6 players.
  3. They really do play up the romance without much exposition besides one walk and helping with the groceries. …If only it were that easy.
  4. “Don’t be distracted by their fancy uniforms” …awwwwweeee ORANGE.
  5. “I want to know what flavor gum he’s chewing” and the answer later is Dentine? Dentine is a flavor?

Differences in this viewing.
I finally got that the basketball scholarship thing really wasn’t going to happen. I never believed her that she was looking out for his best interests. I just thought that she didn’t know just HOW GOOD Jimmy was. So her character becomes a little more sympathetic.

The movie is still awesome and will always be awesome. I could fall asleep to the montage of the state basketball tournament every night and be happy. It’s one of those movies that makes you think that even at (close to) 30 I can still find some sporting event that I can be the underdog in and win the whole thing.