Category Archives: Music And Movies

22 questions about “Oblivion”

April 30, 2013 8:53 pm \

Saturday night, I took Melissa to see Oblivion. The trailers looked interesting, I had heard good things about it, and read some decent reviews online from non-mainstream movie critics (Filmdrunk gave it a B+, for instance). So when we got a date night, I suggested we go check it out.

Not a good movie. There were a few scenes that were likable, and the drones in the film that Tom Cruise’s character is on Earth to repair are pretty cool (Tom Cruise has a pretty cool helicopter-like vehicle, too). But overall the movie is not good at all. Rather than explain why, I am just going to repeat the list of questions that I asked myself after it was over in my attempt to figure it out. The more questions I asked, the worse the movie became.

In no particular order…

  • if the aliens have the technology to build enormous universe-traversing spaceships, build and deploy hundreds of enormous factories from that ship that are capable of draining energy from out oceans over the course of decades, and deploy hundreds of nigh-bulletproof drones armed with laser cannons to protect them, why in the hell did they need an army of Tom Cruises (TC) and Emily Riseboroughs (ER)?
  • what happened to the other at-least-50 Tom Cruises and at-least-51 Emily Rossboroughs?
  • when Tom Cruise 49 went to Tom Cruise 52′s house, why didn’t Emily Riseborough 52 notice the big-ass “49” on TC49′s uniform?
  • and why did ER52 not at least ask him what had happened that caused his face to get all beat up?
  • why did the aliens put their clone tanks in their mother ship’s hangar bay?
  • why did the aliens give the TCs a vehicle capable of space flight, when visiting the mother ship would absolutely give away their ruse?
  • why does TC’s helicopter vehicle thing have seating for two since his partner is supposed to absolutely refuse to go to the surface under any circumstances, and he isn’t supposed to encounter anyone on the surface?
  • how did Olga Kurylenko (OK) know that the Tet being examined by the Odyssey was the object in Earth orbit, since she was in hibernation when they found it?
  • how did Morgan Freeman discover the Odyssey was in orbit above Earth? The entire movie depends on Odyssey returning to Earth, but given the tech available to MF’s rebels it is difficult to imagine that they had any means to detect it.
  • and, given that the aliens’ mission involves the extermination of humanity, why would they allow a pod full of humans to remain on orbit around the Earth for six decades?
  • if the aliens have zillions of TC clones, why would they give a crap if the drones occasionally kill one/some of them? The drones’ inability to kill TC was the only thing that allowed OK to live, and yet there was absolutely no reason for the drone to choose TC over the human it was sent to kill. OK was an enemy and TC could be replaced in minutes.
  • how did TC and ER live in their home for however long they lived there and not know there was a secret drone in their basement?
  • why were the secret drones in the basement, which seemingly existed only to exterminate drone repair teams when the need raised, so much bigger and more bad-ass than the drones that were out hunting people?
  • when the aliens found the people they knew were the enemy, why did they attack them with only three drones?
  • and why did they never deploy any of the heavy assassin drones to do anything other than kill one lady who had never been out of her house?
  • the TC and ER clones have had awareness for only around five years or so. They have never had any other human contact. They cannot possibly have any concept of religion. So why would the alien central mind try to appeal to fear of a creator by telling TC “I am your God” before TC destroys the ship? How would TC even know what that means?
  • why in the hell, three years later, was TC52 still wearing his Tet uniform and not the same kind of clothes the other human are wearing?
  • how did the drones not find, and destroy, Tom Cruises’s cabin? Why was an area of vegetation not in a “radiation zone” so TC49 could find it to begin with?
  • why do the clones need think they are on Earth? Why couldn’t the clones just think they are part of an occupying force on an alien world and there for a mission? There really is no reason for the aliens to set the ruse up the way they have. It would’ve been far easier to set up a situation where they wouldn’t have to put so much effort into keeping a secret. Even so, any time a clone discovered the truth it could easily be assassinated and replaced anyway. So, really, the entire central plot point exists only so the aliens can fail.
  • how would Morgan Freeman possibly know that the aliens were traveling the universe, destroying planets and then moving on to the next planet? How would he know anything about the aliens at all since his only contact with them has been via TC clones and killer robots?
  • who shot the cable TC49 was using to escape from the library, and why would they do that? The fall could have killed him, and they just as easily could have captured him on the surface.
  • what was TC49 fighting in the library? They weren’t drones; they couldn’t have possibly been people… So what were they?
  • why do the TCs have numbers, anyway? Wouldn’t it be easier to just let the clones think they are alone on the planet, since if the alien plot is to succeed the clones cannot possibly meet anyway? Why even bother with “sure, there are literally dozens of other people down there doing this. But, no, of course you can never meet them.”

I really could go on all night. The more I work on this list the more I think to add to it

The shootout in the library sure was cool though…

Posted in: Music and Movies

Finally bought a light for my drawing table

April 13, 2013 11:36 am \

Melissa went to the gym this morning, so I had some kid time out in town. We went to Rafael’s for donuts, which is always fun, and then went to return the lights we bought for the kitchen at Menard’s. They had restocked their swing-arm magnifier lights for craft tables, which I’ve wanted for a long time but have never pulled the trigger on; empowered with birthday cash from my parents (thanks, parents!) I finally picked one up. It’s not perfect — but for $40 I wasn’t really expecting perfect — but it should provide a significantly better lighting situation at the drawing table in my office. Better to the point that I might actually use the drawing table.

I like the track lights I installed in here quite a bit, but they’re seriously useless for providing lighting to work, and the six-dollar desk lamp I bought from Target to provide a close-up way to fill in the shadows I was getting from the overhead lights was barely functional.

I want to try this setup out this weekend sometime; I’m so, so, so far behind on my postcard project, and it would be really fun in May between the end of the semester and the start of summer school / getting Megan up here to get caught up on that and churn a bunch of these out for my friends. They’ve been waiting long enough…

What I’m Listening To
I started a Daft Punk station on Pandora this morning on my phone, and I’m not gonna lie it’s pretty great. I’ve never listened to much electronic music at all (really, my only experience with it has been Daft Punk’s work on the TRON: Legacy soundtrack and the tremendously great Deadmau5 concert on Netflix), but it’s proving to be excellent background music while I’m trying to get some stuff done in my office today.

What I’m Shopping For
Just for fun, I have been pricing out a wide variety of laptops at Apple’s online store — five different laptops ranging from a 13-inch Air to a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, ranging in price from $1,400 to $2,280. I’d really like to have an Air just for the insane portability (but I wonder if most of what I could do with an Air I could also do with an iPad and a quality keyboard case), but the 13-inch MacBook Pro is pretty compelling at only $1,400. I would totally love to have a tricked-out 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, though — 16 gigs of RAM, etc. Big difference between the compelling 13-inch Pro and the $2,280 I’d drop on the 15-inch Retina Pro I specced out… Ah, well. It’s only window shopping at this point!

Posted in: Computers, Events of the Day, Music and Movies

The toy history of characters in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation”

March 30, 2013 11:05 pm \

Toys can be an important merchandising tie-in for summer’s blockbuster Hollywood movies, and this summer’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation is no different. As it is based on characters which appear in Hasbro’s G.I. Joe toy line, which made its debut in its current format in 1982, toys are a focal point of the merchandising for this film.

The movie features 11 main characters — seven heroes on the G.I. Joe team and four members of their adversaries in the evil terrorist organization known as Cobra. Each of those 11 characters are represented in action figure form in the merchandising for this summer’s film. However, given that the history of G.I. Joe now dates back more than 30 years, those interested in pursuing toys of these characters might also be interested in digging into the deep and often varied stories of these characters as they have appeared in toy form throughout the decades.

Some of the characters in Retaliation have been mainstays of the G.I. Joe universe for the entire life of the property, and collecting each of their appearance in toy form will require chasing down more than five dozen different toys. Others have been rather infrequently immortalized in plastic, with as few as three different toys made of the character.

In total, pursuing every toy made of the 11 primary characters in G.I. Joe: Retaliation would lead to a collection of more than 320 action figures. Here’s a breakdown of the number of times each of the film’s 11 primary characters have shown up as toys in the last three-plus decades.

Cobra Commander
Cobra Commander is supreme leader of the terrorist organization which contains the villains in Retaliation. Hidden behind a helmet for the majority of the film, Cobra Commander is played by Luke Bracey. The Commander was one of three villains released in the very first series of G.I. Joe figures in 1982. Since then, he has appeared in action figure form 51 different times, including three times in the line of toys to support the film. However, none of the three film-line toys represents how the character appeared on screen.

Duke
Duke is the field commander of the G.I. Joe team, played (briefly) in the film by Channing Tatum. Duke first appeared in the second series of G.I. Joe figures in 1983, and has since appeared as 48 different action figures. He has one figure in the toy line to support Retaliation, but it does not represent how he appeared on screen.

Firefly

Firefly is Cobra’s saboteur and demolitions specialist, and the character was played by
Ray Stevenson in Retaliation. Firefly has been represented as an action figure 26 times since the character first appeared in the third series of G.I. Joe figures in 1984, including three times in the line of toys to support the film.

Flint
Flint is a warrant officer on the G.I. Joe team, played in the film by DJ Cotrona. The character first appeared in the fourth series of G.I. Joe toys in 1985, and since then he has appeared as an action figure 20 times. He has two toys in the series supporting the Retaliation film.

General Joseph Colton
Joe Colton is the original G.I. Joe, the man from whom the team of heroes takes its name. However, he did not appear in toy form until the 13th series of G.I. Joe figures in 1994. The character is played by Bruce Willis in the film, and in total he has been represented in toy form only three times. He has one figure in the toy series supporting the film.

**Jinx**
Jinx is a ninja affiliated with the G.I. Joe team, and the character first appeared in 1987. Played in the film by Elodie Young, the character has appeared in toy form six times under three different names — Jinx, Agent Jinx and Kim Arashikage.

Lady Jaye
Lady Jaye first appeared as a character in 1985 and is one of only a handful of female members of the G.I. Joe team. The character has been represented in toy form nine times, and was played in the film by Adrianne Palicki.

Roadblock
Roadblock appeared for the first time in 1983 as part of the third series of G.I. Joe toys. The main character in the Retaliation film, Roadblock was played by Duane “The Rock” Johnson. There have been 23 different versions of the Roadblock character over the years, with three in the toy line supporting the film as of this writing.

Snake Eyes
Snake Eyes is one of the 12 original G.I. Joe figures released in 1982, and has appeared in more incarnations than any other character in this property. The ninja commando, who cannot speak, was played in the film by Ray Park. Since making his first appearance, there have been 66 different Snake Eyes action figures released — including a total of six in the toy line supporting the Retaliation film.

Storm Shadow
Storm Shadow is Cobra’s ninja assassin; the character made his debut in the third series of G.I. Joe toys in 1984. Played in the film by Byun-hun Lee, Storm Shadow has appeared in toy form a total of 47 times, including three times in the toy line supporting the film.

Zartan
Zartan is a master of disguise and was played by Jonathan Pryce in the film. Zartan first appeared in the third series of G.I. Joe figures in 1984, and has appeared as an action figure a total of 21 times. He has one figure in the toy line supporting the Retaliation film, but the figure does not represent how the character appeared on screen.

Interested in learning more about the hundreds of characters and thousands of action figures that make up the G.I. Joe toy line? Visit YoJoe.com, the most complete fan-maintained encyclopedia of G.I. Joe collectables on the Internet and start your own collection today.

Posted in: Geekdom, Music and Movies

Social media checklist, Day 3

November 9, 2012 11:37 pm \

Today is Day 3 of my experiment with using a daily social media checklist.

What’s working:

• Facebook. Setting a goal of three status updates per day seems like a good goal; I’ve managed to hit that relatively easily, but not without having to think about it occasionally, so I’m comfortable with that.

• Twitter. The goal of 10 tweets and three responses has been good; the responses especially I like. I’ve been more engaged with Twitter the last three days than I have been in awhile, and it hasn’t felt overwhelming or overly distracting from my other tasks.

• Instagram. It’s forcing me to look for opportunities for photos, which is good for me.

• Pinterest. Five pins seems like a good goal; it’s been tough the last two days to come up with five things that haven’t felt like I was just shoveling content up there to reach the goal. It’s good content.

What’s not:

• Read and three things from Pocket. This wasn’t a good goal, because I quickly found that I don’t have three things a day in Pocket that I want to read and delete. Pocket’s becoming a repository for stuff I want to read and keep track of for awhile. This goal has been adjusted to just “check Pocket.”

• The “write three paragraphs in an offline journal” goal. I just don’t know that I’m going to be interested in doing that every day; this is day three and I haven’t done it yet – mostly because I haven’t had the urge to write anything that couldn’t just go here. I’m leaving this goal on the checklist for now, but I could easily see deleting it in the next few days or, at the very least, finding some way to severely modify the criteria.

Writing workflow
This week I’ve been experimenting with using iA Writer in my production workflow at work for stories. In the past, I’ve drafted stories directly in InDesign and saved an INDD file and a PDF in my archives. This year I began drafting in Pages and then moving text into InDesign; my motivation for starting was to mess around with saving documents to iCloud (I really don’t like iCloud, but I’ll post on this another time. It works just fine, but its limitations when compared to Google Drive or Dropbox are difficult to deal with). I’ve had iA Writer for a long time; I bought it on my iPad when it was on sale a while back, but I’ve never really used it. Likewise with the desktop version; an update to the desktop version brought it back to the top of my mind, so on a whim I decided to just start using it and see how it worked out.

In short, so far I am enjoying writing in iA Writer quite a bit.

The only limitation I’m running into so far is there is not remotely a straight-forward way to get Markdown-formatted text from iA Writer directly into InDesign and save the formatting. The cut-and-paste process works just fine, but then I’ve got to go through and clean up all of the Markdown indicia. For what I’m writing it’s a relatively minor stumbling block (very rarely do I write anything over 600 words), but it’s a factor to consider when thinking about using iA Writer for anything more significant until somebody comes up with a straight-forward way to import and save the formatting.

Skyfall
Mel and I went to see Skyfall tonight; what an incredibly fun movie. It was basically the perfect James Bond film – and so far and away better than the last outing, Quantum of Solace, that it’s hard to believe both movies are consecutive entries of the same franchise. Skyfall even got the opening credits right; Adele’s theme song is fantastic, and the animation was a throwback to the really excellent Roger Moore-era Bond intros. This entry eschewed Bond’s crazy gadgets – and even joked about that, with Q asking Bond if he expected to receive an exploding pen – but was filled with touches that threaded this movie back through familiar elements from the previous Bond movies. There probably will be reviews that savage this movie for its portrayal of women – which aside from Bond’s boss, M (Judy Densch), is pretty horrendous  – but in all it’s a fantastic entry in one of the most enduring film franchises out there. And, it’s simply an excellent action movie that’s well worth seeing on the big screen.

Posted in: Events of the Day, Music and Movies, Social Media

ParaNorman

August 18, 2012 8:53 pm \

What I’m Watching
I took Helen to see ParaNorman this afternoon and was completely blown away by it.

The trailers looked interesting, but really only gave up the movie’s basic premise — the title character, Norman, can talk to the dead. And having seen Studio Laika’s previous film, Coraline, done in the same style — 100% hand-built, constructed objects and sets filmed entirely in stop-motion — and absolutely loving it, ParaNorman was on my “to watch” list simply because I was interested in sitting through another movie that looked like Coraline.

Coraline is one of my favorite movies; it’s a beautiful movie to look at, and knowing that every single thing you see on screen is an actual constructed object makes it that much more fun to take in. Neil Gaiman’s story is very good, as well — a girl who feels alone after being moved to a distant place by her relocated parents and then feels shut out as they don’t seem to have time for her discovers a parallel universe populated by Other Versions of the people around her that may be real or may exist entirely in her imagination. It’s a fantastic movie — I bought the BluRay the day it was released and have watched it repeatedly.

ParaNorman is a similar film to Coraline in many respects, visually, obviously, and thematically. But what the trailers don’t show is how incredibly dark this film is. It’s hinted that it’s in the vein of “kid talks to the dead; fun hijinx ensue,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This is a parable about the dangers of joining in with a crowd that is reacting to something unknown out of fear, and, similar Coraline, has a misunderstood kid as the protagonist. But, due to his talent for speaking with the dead, ParaNorman‘s Norman is a complete outcast from society — friendless, and not fitting even in his own family. The first five minutes or so of the film, which establish Norman’s character and introduce us to his family, are downright sad. When the film delivers the key moment in that scene, it’s gut-wrenching, and you immediately realize how difficult it must be to be Norman.

During the adventure that follows once the premise is established, the film uses the corpse of Norman’s dead uncle and a neatly bisected dog as comic relief, which should be all the indication you need of what I meant earlier when I called this a dark movie. Bullies, Norman’s cheerleader sister, a friend or two and, eventually, zombies, join the story, and we’re off on an incredibly satisfying journey.

That adventure leads to a spectacular conclusion, made even moreso when you realize that everything on screen is hand-built and there aren’t any special effects or computer imagery used to jazz up the scene. The settings are amazingly intricate, with incredibly diverse and detailed backgrounds, and there are brilliant smoke effects. Finally, without giving anything away, the film’s antagonist is downright terrifying. One of the great moments in Coraline was in the conclusion when it got tense and the Other Mother turned into the spider to pursue Coraline through the alternate universe. There’s no character transformation here, but everything about the antagonist is legitimately scary — how it moves, how it sounds, how it looks. First, it’s a fantastic achievement in character design, and second, all of the elements that have to work together to make it a terrifying on-screen creation all work. They just work.

This isn’t one of those movies-for-kids that throws in references to Thundercats and the Atari 2600 and has double entendres scattered throughout at just the right intervals to make sure the grownups who brought their kids stay interested. This is a movie for grownups, with messages about the consequences of dismissing things you don’t understand — particularly when those things revolve around your children — and the dangers of the herd mentality. It’s an adult movie that’s acceptable to bring your children to.

 

I can’t possibly recommend this movie highly enough. It seems like one of those movies that’s going to be here-and-gone in the theaters pretty quickly, so if you’ve given this film any thought at all — and, really, even if you haven’t — get to the theaters and see it. ParaNorman is a movie that deserves to be seen.

 

Posted in: Events of the Day, Music and Movies

Helen’s Big Adventure, etc.

August 13, 2012 8:25 pm \

Helen’s Big Adventure
Helen had quite the afternoon adventure. Here’s the background. Melissa lined up our go-to babysitter to keep an eye on Millie this afternoon so she could go to school and do some prep work for fall startup. Helen was at Mel’s parents’ house making cookies that she wants to have for a bake sale when we get around to doing our garage sale. Due to the sitter, Mel and I had made arrangements to just meet for dinner, the two of us, after she was done at school. So, Mel is out; Helen’s at the in-laws; sitter had Millie; I figured I’d just take an opportunity to work late and just leave from the office to have dinner with Mel.

Sitter shows up at the house, and Millie wanted to go to the park — so sitter took her to the park. At 3:45 or so, Mel’s dad needed to go downtown for something, so he decided to just bring Helen home on his way downtown. He saw the sitter’s car in the driveway, figured somebody was home, dropped Helen off, and went to his meeting. Only, as you’ll recall, Mel’s at school, I’m at work, and the sitter has taken Millie to the park. We have a Home Alone situation.

So what does Helen do? She walked three blocks to Dave’s Pizza and asked one of the workers in there if she could get a ride to her grandma’s house (which is only another 3/4 of a mile, tops, down the road). She said she thought about just walking all the way back to her grandma’s, but “since Dave’s was open, I just thought I’d see if somebody in there would give me a ride.” Besides, she said she ran all the way to the pizza place and she was tired.

There are so many ways this could have gone horribly, horribly wrong, but in the end everything worked out just fine. Somebody drove Helen to the in-laws, and all’s right in the world. “If that ever happens again, kiddo, just stay here,” I told her.

Sheesh.

First day of high school
Megan started high school today; I’m simultaneously proud and completely dismayed to be the parent of a high school freshman. She posted a picture of herself on Facebook this morning, which is as close as I get to sharing in the “first day of school” excitement these days, but it was great to see. Should call her to see how things went; she claimed to not be remotely nervous. I’m sure she rocked it.

Work
I took last week off work; it seemed like the last opportunity to snag a week off for a good long time, and I was probably right. But as a result, I’m completely avalanched by stuff to do right now. I just have an enormous list of projects to get done, but for the last few days I’ve been at work I’ve felt more productive than I have in years. My job feels different than it did at this same time last year — which is a good thing. I’ve got a basically overwhelming volume of things to get done, but in spite of that work is *fun*. I kinda like feeling that way again.

TBM OMG
The Birthday Massacre kicks off a tour this fall to support their new LP, “Hide and Seek.” They’re going to be at the Miramar Theater in Milwaukee on Nov. 3 and at Station 4 in St. Paul on Nov. 6. I would really, really love to find some way to get to one of those two shows; they’re the only two that are remotely near here. Just for work reasons and the fact that the St. Paul show is on a Tuesday (and since Melissa’s going to Madonna in St. Paul on the 5th), that Milwaukee date is awfully tempting… Tickets are only $19.50, but it’s like a 550-mile drive. It’d be so fun though…

TBM has been one of my favorite bands for a really long time. I discovered them on MP3.com back in the fall of 2001; I was in the middle of Badness that would eventually turn into a divorce, and I spent a lot of time on that website looking for music that fit my mood at the time — equal parts sad and enraged. I found a bunch of bands there – Evanescence, just before they hit it big and got two singles on the “Daredevil” soundtrack, which in turn led to them eventually selling 7.6 million copies of “Fallen”; Tapping the Vein, a band from Philadelphia that I still totally love, although they haven’t put out nearly enough stuff; Jack Off Jill, which was just a fantastic, loud band (I also really liked the band that spun out of JoJ, Scarling.); and a bunch of others with names like Collide and KidneyThieves. In many instances, the decision process that led to downloading the music didn’t go much beyond this: load band page, see picture of band, think “hey, the lead vocalist is hot,” download songs.

In spite of the totally BS way I found some of those bands, and considering that I downloaded a lot of really horrible music, I actually still listen to quite a bit of the stuff that I found digging around on that website more than a decade ago now. But one band — The Birthday Massacre, this little band from Toronto that wasn’t even signed to a label and was getting the word out by giving its music away for free online — really resonated with me. I can’t even really explain why. I just listened to their stuff and something in my brain said “yep.”  What they did just worked for me. Sometimes I’d feel like garbage, and I’d listen to them and the music would make me feel better — which was exactly what I needed. Sometimes I’d be in a great mood and I’d listen to their music and it’d make me feel even better — which was a great bonus. Sometimes I’d feel like garbage and I’d listen to them and the music would make me feel worse — which was exactly what I wanted. It just worked for me. At one point I even signed up for their message board and posted a couple of things there.

TBM eventually got their record deal, and they’ve put out five LPs, an EP and a live record so far. Their most-recent LP, “Pins and Needles,” came out in September of 2010. I bought it on the day it came out, as I have with all of their stuff since they got signed, started listening to it, and pretty much have never stopped. I listened to it on a loop at work for weeks after it came out – I got up to several hundred plays of every song before I even gave much thought to listening to other stuff on my playlist. There’s never been an album like that for me, and I have listened to tons and tons and tons of music in my life. The 11 tracks on that album are the top 11 songs on my “25 most played” list in iTunes. It was on my iPod, and I listened to a few minutes of it every day on the way to and from work; when I got my iPhone I put it on there and did the same thing. It’s what I listen to on road trips. It’s what I listen to at work. I’ve listened to them so much that Helen loves them now, which is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

So while I don’t consider myself in the same sort of category as the “OMG UR MUSIC CHANGED MY LIFE” message board commenters, I’ve gotta say that listening to this band helped me feel better during a time in my life that I really, really needed to feel better. And even today, their music just works for me. They’ve got a new CD coming out in October, and I’m pretty sure whatever it is they put on that album will work for me, too.

Getting a chance to see TBM live would be fantastic.

Posted in: Art, Events of the Day, Music and Movies

Ugh

August 2, 2012 10:17 pm \

The last few weeks have been really, really busy. I’ve been out of town five times since mid-July — a shopping day trip to Grand Forks (about a 220-mile round trip); a shopping day trip to St. Cloud (close to 300 miles round trip); a one-day round trip to Albert Lea (about a 625-mile round trip); a second trip to St. Cloud for work; and a day trip to Fargo (also close to 300 miles round trip). Tomorrow, I’ll spend another five hours or so in the car as we head out of town for a long weekend and a much-needed getaway.

What I’m Reading
Picked up three comics today — nothing from my meager pull list, but a few things I wanted to check out. People have been raving about this week’s Hawkeye #1, so I picked that up; I grabbed Captain Marvel #1 which is one or two weeks old at this point; and I also grabbed Batman Inc. #1 which is from last week, maybe. Plus, I still have Saga #5 sitting on my iPad that I haven’t read yet. And, I’m three issues behind on my G.I. Joe reviews for The Terrordrome.

With the Batman Inc. thing, I keep wanting to give Grant Morrison opportunities to impress me.  I really liked the first story arc of the last Batman, Inc. book, but didn’t keep up with that series at all. I quit on Morrison’s Action Comics after about seven issues because I just wasn’t hooked, and didn’t feel like continuing to spend money on the book every month. He’s getting another chance with this new Batman, Inc., title.

I’m also still struggling to make progress in A Game of Thrones. I keep hearing about how amazing this book is, and I just can’t get into it. Part of it has to do with me being father to a 14-year-old girl, and having the character Daenerys Targaryen be only 13 and treated the way she is. From a story perspective, it seems entirely unnecessary that she be 13, so it just seems like Martin being really creepy. The HBO show exacerbates this; I’ve only watched the first two episodes and haven’t wanted to go much farther because I can’t get “Dude, she’s supposed to be 13 in the books” out of my head.

Plus, as with the show, in the book the only interesting character is Tyrion Lannister and he’s mostly a sidebar.

“It gets better after about 350 pages!” But you’re assuming I’m going to tolerate it for that long…

What’s Up at Work
I started using a new toy we bought tonight, a media contact search and social media publishing tool suite from Cision. We are using the media list-building and release distribution tools, and also their Social Publish platform. I had a small story to release tonight, and used it as a testbed for both tools. The social publish tool is pretty cool; scheduling the post’s specific release time is not at all intuitive, but the process for entering the story into the system is really easy. Twitter posted immediately, but there was a slight delay to Facebook (“slight” meaning maybe a minute, and I think that has more to do with how often Facebook parses external sources for post updates than it does with anything coming from Cision); but it posted as well with one minor issue — due to user error, I was stuck with a default “powered by Cision” graphic as the post thumbnail on Facebook rather than our logo.

During our Cision demo, which has now been well over a month ago, my first impression was that the UI for the Social Publish tool was exactly what I wished I had for BSU Today. The only thing Social Publish really adds is the built-in ability to post directly to Facebook and Twitter from within the post UI. This is somewhat counteracted by the fact that the Twitter and Facebook posts are the same — which means the information I post about a story on Facebook is artificially limited by Twitter’s character limit. We’ll have to see how often that even matters. MailChimp’s Social Broadcasting plug-in for WordPress does a better job of this; it allows for wholly separate and unique posts to Twitter and Facebook, allowing Facebook to be more detailed. Now that I think about it, we could probably use this plug-in to add this exact functionality to BSU Today…
Also, using Social Publish drives traffic away from BSU Today, and removes our ability to use Facebook and Twitter to publicize content on BSU Today that also is on social publish without double-posting. This is something I am definitely going to be mindful of.
For the traditional media release tool, building a single-city-specific media list to distribute the release there was painless. It took a few seconds; the media lists Cision generates are actually far more comprehensive than I’d ever need. Their database lists every contact at a particular outlet, so to get the four people I needed to send to in that city, I had to sort through a list of about 15 people. But, I could save the list of four after I created it, so that’s a one-time speedbump. Developing lists for larger communities — say, a distribution list to Minneapolis/St. Paul-area media — would obviously take a lot more time and effort.
One other twist to traditional-media releasing that I did not recall from our product demo was the “points” budget we are given to spend on distributing releases. We started with 5,000 points, and sending to the three contacts in Brainerd cost us three of those points. I’ll have to explore how often the point total will reset.
There are some other minor stumbling blocks — the Cision system has what look to be some useful project management tools for media releases, but as we only have a single-user account with one login, they are essentially useless to us (which is too bad; I’d have definitely been interested in exploring that).
Tonight was just the first step in a far-broader effort to integrate this tool into my workflow, really. But, I’d have to say the first experiment was pretty successful.
What I’m Watching
The more I think about “The Dark Knight Rises,” the more I get why there are people who really, really don’t like it. I still contend that the plot holes and plot ridiculousness and things that just flat-out don’t make sense were not remotely enough to derail my ability to sit in the theater and absolutely adore this movie. But I may be wavering on my initial statement that it’s the best of the three — that seems to be a case of just being caught up in that initial infatuation for something awesome. On repeated viewings it may not ultimately stack up all that well against “The Dark Knight,” but I still think “Rises” is an absolutely fantastic movie.
All for now. I’m through summer school and now have that distraction gone from my brain, so I’m hoping to be back here posting more.
Posted in: comics, Events of the Day, Grad School, Music and Movies, work

Letterboxd

July 29, 2012 8:47 pm \

Ever wonder how many movies you’ve watched in your life? Well, I started counting. So far, I’m up to 1,679. I got an account at Letterboxd.com, a social site for movie lovers; it’s still in beta, so it’s not quite perfected yet, but what’s there works OK. You can add any movie you’ve ever seen, rate it, review it, and put it into lists if you wish.

My total of 1,679 movies isn’t even remotely close to every movie I’ve seen either — there are hundreds and hundreds of them missing, at least. I’m sure some won’t even make the list; I used to watch around 10 movies a week, and some of them I don’t even remember. The names are familiar, but I can’t remember any more if that’s because I’ve seen the movie or just recognize the box art from decades of visiting movie rental stores.

Do some math on that; figure that an average movie is probably 100 minutes, that’s 167,900 minutes of movies — 2,798 hours and 20 minutes, or 116 and a half straight days of movies. That’s kindof a staggering amount of time stretched out over the decades.

Posted in: Music and Movies

My review of “Love Actually” from 2004

July 29, 2012 4:44 pm \

Thanks to The Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I was able to retrieve the review I wrote of “Love Actually” in April of 2004. When I wrote this, I dubbed this the worst movie of all time. In the now eight years since, I’ve only seen one other movie I think was worse than this one.

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Love Actually is the worst movie of all time. Absolutely the worst. I had previously assigned the lofty crown of Worst Movie I’ve Ever Seen to the painfully ghastly House of the Dead, but Love Actually makes HotD look like Citizen Kane in comparison.

MORE…

Love Actually is set in England, beginning six weeks before Christmas, and starts with a Hugh Grant voiceover about how love is everywhere if you only look for it. From there, the film takes off into 10 different directions – literally, 10 different directions. There are 10 sets of people about whom various stories of love (and not all the gushy good kind) are told in the film, and the film jumps around to all 10 over the course of its ridiculous length of two hours and 15 minutes.

Some are worthwhile; Liam Neeson’s story about dealing with the untimely death of his wife and his dealings with her son – his stepson – is OK, save for the fact that the dialog for his son is atrocious – he talks like no 11-year-old you’ll ever meet. And the film pretty much gives the thumbs up for a father to talk to his pre-teen son and use phrases like, “well, then, I guess you’re fucked.” Could be funny in a conversation between adults, but pretty inappropriate when talking to a kid.

Laura Linney’s story about balancing her desperate need for a social life with her overwhelming (and suffocating) sense of duty to care for her mentally-retarted brother also was OK. They end this story early, because Linney ultimately decides to remain chained to her brother and ignore her own needs for a life – and that letdown of an ending would’ve screwed up the happy little nonsense at the end.

Somehow, every character in all 10 stories is somehow connected to a character in one of the other stories – the naughty office vixen who is trying to nail the married Alan Rickman conveniently lives next door to the chick Hugh Grant is after (for no reason whatsoever – they probably just didn’t want to hire another extra); Rickman’s wife is Grant’s sister; the office vixen tries to score Rickman at a Christmas party set up at an art gallery either owned or operated by Colin Firth; on and on and on. Everybody knows everybody, but there’s no *point* to everybody knowing everybody. The stories are in *no* way tied together – it’s just absurd.

The ending is even worse. Somehow, by the time the movie ends, the seven storylines that have not yet been tied up all come to a convenient close at an airport. By some absolutely inexplicable twist of fate, one person from every one of the seven remaining groups is arriving home at the same airport at the same time! So, there are lots of hugs and happiness and wrapping up of stories in a nice tight little fashion. It makes absolutely no sense, and is proof positive that at least half of the sub-stories in this movie should’ve just been cut.

There’s simply too much going on. With 10 stories and upwards of 30 characters, there’s never time to develop any one of them. You don’t care why Person A is in Situation X, because you know nothing about the characters. And as a result, you care even less when Situation X is either resolved or comes crashing down around Person A. It felt like one of those awful late-run Batman movies – “I’m too busy to worry about the plot! I’ve got more characters to introduce!”

Bullet points on why this movie sucked:
• Hugh Grant is the Prime Minister of England – perhaps the worst mis-cast of all time.

• Billy Bob Thornton is the President of the United States, and exists in the movie for the sole purpose of opening the door for anti-American rants from Grant’s character, and in a truly boorish moment to put the moves on his assistant. It’s only the beginning of this movie’s anti-American slant – more to come.

• During Grant’s tirade against America, he backs up the fact that England is “small but great” by announcing to a gathered press corps that England is the home of, amongst other things, Harry Potter. Seriously – Harry Potter. Thanks, England!

• The film berates overweight women *constantly* – and mostly from father-to-daughter, which is even more disturbing. The father of Hugh Grant’s love interest refers to her as “Puffy” at one point the film, and the sister of Colin Firth’s love interest is referred to by her father as “Ms. Dunkin’ Donut 2003.” Firth’s love interest is then ridiculed for being *too* thin. I guess you can’t win.

• One of the stories revolves around two stand-ins on a porn movie shoot. They spend the movie naked and feining sex so the videographer can get his lighting set up, and then it turns into “I”m too shy to ask you out even though I’ve had my crotch in your face for three weeks.”

• American women are all apparently mega-hot sluts who will drop their pants and have four-on-one orgies with any dirt-ass with an English accent.

• Counting Thornton, there are exactly six adult-aged American characters in the movie, and they’re all either loose bar sluts or under-sexed hornball politicians.

• Liam Neeson’s son goes from knowing nothing about musical instruments to being good enough to play drums in the school band in *four weeks* to impress a girl.
a) No way he gets from picking up a drumstick for the first time to playing the way he did in the conclusion of that segment in four weeks
b) Wouldn’t the big production at the end of the school year already have a freakin’ drummer four weeks out?

• Neeson spends the entire movie joking about how he’ll behave a certain way “unless Claudia Schiffer comes along.” So what happens at the end of the movie? You guessed it! Claudia Schiffer comes along! And miraculously, she has the hots for him! Amazing!

• Colin Firth falls in love with a woman whom he never has a conversation with – because they don’t speak the same language – when she takes off her clothes and dives into a pond. Also inexplicably, she somehow has fallen in love with him too. The parade through the city streets when he nonsensically decides to drop everything and go to France – to ask her to marry him. Even though he’s never spoken to her. Even more stupifying – she says yes. Give me a break.

• The songs on the soundtrack to the film are good, but the score is *terrible*. It’s overly sappy, melodramatic and serves *no* purpose but to try and get the viewer into the emotional frame of mind the movie wants them in. Granted, that’s what a score is for, but in this case it’s so ham-fisted and over the top that it completely overwhelms the movie.

• The movie is at least 30 minutes too long. Granted, they need 2:15 to tell all 10 stories, but by eliminating the story about the porn stand-ins and probably Laura Linney’s story you dont’ change the movie in the slightest and you reduce the length by 20 percent. By the 1:45 mark of this film, should you ignore my pleas and rent it, you’ll be begging for the sweet release of death.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m traditionally a guy-movie guy, but I’ve always thought I have been able to appreciate a truly good romantic comedy – even one with Hugh Grant. I thought “About a Boy,” for instance, was surprisingly good. And I still compare romantic comedies to the Julia Roberts feature, “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” which I thought was superb and probably still stands as my favorite romantic comedy. Love Actually can’t hold a candle to either film. It’s simply dreadful, and I cannot possibly imagine a crime you could commit – short of tying your significant other to a chair and forcing her to watch you slaughter her parents with a chainsaw – that would in any way justify being forced to sit through it.

It’s the worst movie of all time.

Posted in: Music and Movies

Thoughts on Minutemen and Prometheus

June 13, 2012 9:23 pm \

What I’m Reading
Behind on comics this week; for the last two weeks really. I’ve got Batman #10, Batgirl #10, Cobra #13, and Silk Spectre #1. I need to get busy and get a review done for Cobra; I’ve been ridiculously bad about finding time to get my reviews written the last couple of weeks.

I had intended to write last week about Minutemen #1, DC’s first shot out of the cannon for its Before Watchmen prequel event, which is about as controversial a thing as there is going in comics right now. Ultimately, there wasn’t much to write about, so I just didn’t; Darwyn Cooke’s art has a retro feel that fits the feel of the series rather perfectly, but the story had no meat to it at all. It was basically a collection of two-page introductions to each of the members of the Minutemen and a brief origin story to explain where their base came from. If you’ve read Watchmen you probably know who these characters are already, and it’s difficult to believe that very many readers of the Before Watchmen event will have not read Watchmen. So beyond the art, this was easy to dismiss. I’m dipping another toe into the Before Watchmen pool with this week’s Silk Spectre launch, mostly because Amanda Conner did the art; after this, there’s a decent chance I’ll just wait for the inevitable omnibus collecting the entire thing in one gimangous hardcover.

What I’m Watching
Melissa and I have been trying to carve out a Date Night to go to the movies for just about a week now, and tonight we finally made it. We hit up Prometheus, and somehow Melissa had no clue going in what the movie was even about. So that was kindof awesome. I, on the other hand, have known full well what it was for many months, and have been excited about seeing it for quite awhile. It didn’t remotely disappoint.

I loved about every second of this movie. It’s not perfect — there’s one action scene in particular that makes absolutely not one shred of sense — but it’s damn, damn good. Michael Fassbender’s “Evil Data” resident cyborg was fantastic; he had a key role in the majority of the movie’s major scenes and he was great throughout. There were a few grossout scenes that were amazing and impossible to look away from. And it fills in a couple of very compelling blanks in the Alien universe while leaving the largest two questions raised in the film completely unanswered, opening the door wide open for further exploration in sequels.

Finally, the last 90 seconds or so were pure, ear-to-ear grin, edge-of-my-seat fantasticness. As a friend said on Facebook, it was Ridley Scott “reminding people why they took a chance on Prometheus.”

New social media toys
I’ve been playing around with Storify this week, both for work and for play. It’s a pretty neat tool, although it seems like it’s got potential to be a lot better (it’s search functionality is basically useless — some Facebook posts can be found easily, some never show up regardless of how I’d search for them); it’s one of those things that I’ll get a better handle on how to use the more I use it, I think. Hopefully they continue to revise it and fix some of the things that don’t quite work the way they should. I could see this becoming something I use for work a few times a year to cover events or other activities.

Posted in: comics, Events of the Day, Music and Movies, Social Media, work \ Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,
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