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?”

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.

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

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.

I’ve been busy, give me a break… Ok so not really. Well really, but I just haven’t thought of it in a while.

I just got back from the Toronto Film Festival last week. So I’ve been trying to unpack and get life back on shedule. This also now includes packing lunch in the morning and trying to save money because I spent it all trying to seem famous at the festival… Damn you $9 beer night. But it was a really cool experience, seeing how the other <s>half</s> 10% lives.

The best part, by far, was getting to see “Zack and Miri make a porno” with introduction and questions after by Kevin Smith. The movie was phenomonal, just really funny (and dirty) and a good story with characters that you really like. If audiences can get past the title then I think this will make Mr. Smith boatloads of money… well it’ll make the Weinstiens lots of money anyways and that’s always good for Kevin. Seth Rogen was born to deliver Smith’s writing and you can see just enough of his improvizations to add some personality to the movie. This is flat out the best cast ever in a View Askew production, it’s nice to see an entire cast of real actors. (yes I consider Mewes an actor… now)

Schu-Review: 4 out of 4 Schus