18 posts tagged “movie”

i dont make many movies opening night, its usually got to be some kind of a big deal for me to do that. but few movies actually have midnight screenings on their release, and well, harry potter is kind of a big deal for me. abigail and i were really excited about order of the phoenix and we sort of sweet talked todd and wes into coming along. they were a little upset that we arrived at the theater an hour and a half prior to screening, but they appreciated it by the end of the night.

in preparation we stopped by starbucks and had coffee and then went directly to the theater around 10:30pm. we were second in line! i thought we would be first, i was sort of disappointed by that, but its ok. the mere fact that the two ladies in front of us were... unadmirable gave me a little relief.

the movie itself was pretty good. very fast paced, covered most of the big and small things from the book, well acted and decorated and all that, and nice special effects. a very high review from me, especially having a big book to compare it to. i didnt know how dark they were actually going to make the movie, but it was quite a stepping stone for childrens movies. i mean, on-screen death. not that the material is really all that suited for kids, but they seem to be the biggest demographic. anyways, since its pg13 rated, it had some decent previews attached to it. namely: golden compass, bourne3, stardust and some other one?

we saw transformers the day before, which was also really good. i was quite surprised.

ps. 30 days of night movie!

the swim team took a trip to baltimore, maryland this weekend. much to my delight, the past few weeks i have been training and entered myself into the meet. i did pretty well, got my AA in 100 free Long Course Meters, AAA time in 50 free LCM, 26.68 which isnt half bad. its actually fairly impressive, so the senior kids made up a new term, bbc: beat by curtis. its an honor, really.

besides the meet, there really wasnt much else this weekend. i got to drive another 15 passenger van. its quite fun, sometimes. and besides being stuck in so much traffic, the journey up and and around baltimore were pretty decent. i had to stay an extra 4 hours at the meet to watch one of our star swimmers, hes 12 so hes in a different session. i rode back with him and his father. THAT drive left a bit to be desired. but i slept most of it, as i had been up at 6 and spent all day in the sun. the one night we were able to get out fairly early, we headed into baltimore harbor and ate at espn zone. which was awful. the service there was horrendous. food was ok, but really, that was the worst service ive had from a upper mid-range restaurant ever. especially for being so empty and overstaffed.

on an unrelated note, i just watched the painted veil while typing this up. it was quite good. ive never read love in the time of cholera, but i would assume it is similar. even if its not, its a tensely emotional film that completely overwhelmed me with tone and period feeling.

also, i have a hard time uploading pictures from my external hard drive, so im forced to upload to flickr first, and then import them through vox. weird.

ive been spending a lot of time online during studio time, and rather than working on my projects, ive discovered some really great things (mostly through blogs). i thought id collect them all here and share them with you, so you also have a less productive day.

MUSIC: lately, ive been bringing headphones into the studio to listen to creative music rather than The Worlds Most Inane and Annoying Conversations. and while ive loaded some stuff into itunes, its a lab computer and im not super interested in filling up the hard drive resulting in latent work speeds; so i also use www.blogmusik.net (which is down) so then i found this live concert page in npr. its pretty amazing, you can even download some concerts whole.

MOVIES: so since its a mac lab, when you start up safari it automatically homepages to apple.com. so ive been pretty up to date with movie trailers. notable ones to see are ratatouille, close to home, the somewhat compelling balls of fury, the only interesting because of what i know about child psych wild tigers i have known, uh the nanny diaries, the estranged love almost like "in good company" in the land of women, julia roberts' daughter in nancy drew,  and coming to more theaters? the painted veil.

Mixed Media: have your cremation ashes turned into pencils! thats cool. expect to receive one soon after my death.
a short documentary on the dying art of lithographic typography. rea(e)l art in advertising over at vitamin. fun, vulgar typography of pulp fiction. and strange ad campaign for bright eyes new album cassadaga.

also, ive come to notice that lots of tshirt ideas are being copied and stolen, most to be imported to threadless as original designs which i think is highly inappropriate and just bad form. one more reason to dislike threadless. theres a difference between derivative work and creating a vector copy.

What are your top 5 movies/DVDs of 2006?

ill be in blacksburg from thursday till sunday. i should have plenty of time to waste thursday and friday while you all have classes (ha.) so if you dont have classes, or have a large break or something, let me know and we'll hang out. i also do not have plans for the weekend, so if you have suggestions on things i could be doing, you should drop a note.

i saw the prestige last night, it was spectacular. i loved it. well, i liked it. it was really reeaaaaally dark, but good. a little confusing at a few points (scene changes), but it all made sense by the end. i liked the character types, the acting was pretty good, and i thought the whole image of 19th century magic and such was pretty well drawn. and it includes mention of tesla, which boosts my thoughts about the movie as a whole through mere association.
also last night, i attended a marching band competition for high school. i was out there with kris and todd, in support of todds little brother and salem high. they put on a good show. i would have more to say about the event had i not been so cold and focused on staying alive. we had played football for the first time since... probably last thanksgiving; and it had been a nice 65 or so degrees which was plenty warm for us since we were running around. after rushing home to shower and make it back to todds in time to leave for the band competition, i was unaware that the night would drop the temperature to somewhere in the lower 40s. i was still wearing shorts and sandals, but had the foresight to at least bring a hoodie (and of course my awesome glow-in-the-dark skeleton gloves). i knew it was going to be cold, i just didnt know it was THAT cold. or that we'd end up staying for 3 hours. i suddenly realized what my parents had to sit through, and what it meant to be a sideline supporter for your children. and i made a mental note to remind my children that i will love them under every circumstance, but that they may not see me in the audience.

i went with some swimming kids to the Hunt Club Farm halloween scarything. i dont know the actual title, but the farm puts on three events, a haunted hayride, an undead walkthrough, and a cornfield walkthrough. it was ok.  it would have been better if there had been girls/screamers in the group. also, it would have helped if we were all younger (ie:13-15). but it wasnt bad. just... no longer scary. they relied on a lot of jump scares, which have basically no effect on me because i dont pay attention in addition to a history of slow reaction times. so in the dark, when i bumped into the actors all gored up, i kept saying "oh, im sorry" and then moved around them before realizing they were frightening looking. i know, its depressing that such mischevious fun is lost on me. also lost on me is how fun being lost in a completely dark shipping container can be. im not sure the entire purpose of it, other than perhaps adolescent opportunity for groping. in any case, the whole ordeal was not worth $15. i do not recommend it. i certainly dont see the point in buying the $20 wristband to do it as many times as you want. i suppose as a middle schooler, you might find this sort of thing as a perfect opportunity to do something with friends, without supervision; but other than that, id rather spend my money on food.

having an income is causing me to readily dispose of such an unusual bank account. at this rate, i will never move out of this house. ...and that also translates to: i will die alone.

i was perusing the nintendo site to see whether it was worth it to pick up a wii on release, and i stumbled across a nintendoDS cooking game. im pretty interested in it just because its about cooking. im pretty interested in dragon quest: slime because, well, you play as a slime. everybody remembers slimes from the first dq and even zelda2. theyve become cute, simple, staples of the videogame culture; and cause our nostalgia to pucker and be generous with our wallets.

i havent made much of a fuss over 300 here, and i feel guilty about it. we're going over greece in my art history class right now, and that made me think of it the other day. the trailer has been out for a week or two, and it played in front of the departed (which i still insist you go see). but yes, 300 looks good.

dark chocolate m&ms are back. stock up before they go away again. i currently have 4lbs.

+norml (reform of marajuana laws) is hacking grocery stores to put up clever signs.
+scroll down to bottom exhibit: michael gross lets you walks on water. thats pretty cool. i want to try it.
+combining both of my studies! autism and drawing in one cool video: photographic memory (studies show its usually synesthesia which aids in such accurate memorization)
+videos made for mobile media players at small carrot.

as soon as i get some of my drawing1 stuff back, ill post pictures. we've moved from pencil to charcoal, and ive decided that i dont like this medium. its messy. everyone else has problems keeping it off of their clothes and face, but i manage to only dirty up my hands. but i still dont like it.

i saw the departed. it was unbelievably awesome. just completely great. i dont know what else to say about it. you must go see it.  its the best movie to come out in a long long time.

i also saw employee of the month, which wasnt bad, but wasnt very good either. i feel it would have been worth seeing if it were rated R. as it was, dane cook was only partly funny, which left the slack to be picked up by physical humor.

its hard to believe how much work these classes require, but i dont really mind it all that much so i guess its ok. i do feel like a bum though. i have very little human interaction it feels like. however, thats all going to change soon. i started coaching again! the ol' swim team picked me up as a coach, and im running a late night practice. it would be better if i had more hours, but ... oh well. its not like i have tons of free time anyways.

saw the jet li movie "fearless" on sunday. it was good. not on the level of hero, but still pretty good. the fights were... also only pretty good. there wasnt much of anything super cool or special about the entire movie, but it was decent. it was kind of drawn out, but lacked the punch of real drama. mostly because the character just wasnt that interesting.

If you could watch any movie on the big screen right at this moment, what would it be?

you know what im in the mood for? a lotr marathon. i recently acquired the clerks2 soundtrack, and the dialogue from the "battle of the mega geeks" made me think of this yesterday.
i havent seen any of the trilogy in the past... year or so and i really want to just plop down in front a a giant tv and stare blankly/ be overwhelmed. so either all three extended edition lotr in a row, or clerks2 if that counts as 3 movies. because clerks2 was a pretty great movie as well.

Randal: Alright look, there's only one return, okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."
Hobbit Lover: Oh, Star Wars geek.
Randal: Oh, i'm the geek? Look at you two whipping out your preciouses.
Elias: You'll have to excuse him, he's not "down" with the trilogy.
Randal: Oh, what the fuck happened to this world. There's only one trilogy you fucking morons.
Hobbit Lover: You know what, maybe we should start calling your friend Padme, 'cause he loves Manakin Skywalker so much, right?
[in robot voice] Danger danger, my name is Anakin my shitty acting is ruining saga.
Elias: [chucking] Yeah, you're crazy Jar-Jar.
Randal: Oh, I'm crazy? Those fuckin' hobbit movies were boring as hell. All it was, was a bunch of people walking, three movies of people walking to a fucking volcano.

Who's your favorite movie villain?

anthony hopkins as hannibal lecter is a pretty good one. a little less deep, but still pretty twisted, that yellow bastard (nick stahl) from sin city.