Day Two was a bit better. We got a late start and had a good breakfast at our local hotel diner/deli. Tony was not working today but we saw him later walking by. We made the trek out to Central Park which is massive in size. We also witnessed some real wild life. We saw bigfoot. A giant dude with more back hair than Chewbacca. We also saw a Japanese wedding near the fountain. They were all eating Ice cream bars... We next went to the Guggenheim and saw the Mapplethrope exhibit. It was an amazing piece of architecture. (The Gug that is) We next walked back to our hotel in the rain. But believe me it felt really good! Its kind of humid here. We got back here and switched to a nicer room, since our AC blew up last night. We then walked to a mall and saw CNN studios and a futuristic Samsung computer system which had a computer that you operate by waving your hand in the air in front of the screen. It was pretty crazy. We want one!
Next we went out to eat and could not find a place that didn't charge 30 bux for a burger and fires. So we finally went to Maxies in Times Square and had a good meal there. We then saw a cat that looks like Sam in Times Square. His owner was accepting tips for petting. He also had a dog companion too. We ended up getting a Jamba Juice in Times Square and then some awesome Carmel Chocolate Chunk popcorn for desert. Tomorrow is subway day as we make our way to Chinatown and Canal Street to find some knockoffs. Wish us luck!
later,
Amy and Erik.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
NYC: Day One: Pure Insanity!!!
Hello From NYC from E and Amy. We are having a good time so far. The first day was a bit chaotic at best. My first mistake was not realizing my drivers license had been expired since Feb. 05. My bad. So at first I didn't think we would make it on the plane. What a lonely birthday Amy would have had all alone in NYC. But after a full cavity search, all was well and I was allowed to travel. I'm not looking forward to the trip back through NY airport...
Our shuttle was a hour late. The ride over here in the cab/shuttle was like a rollercoaster ride with no wheels at Six Flags. Amy was seriously freaking out and even got stomach cramps from the ride I think. But she's cool. We had a good birthday lunch at a nearby deli. We made friends with a waiter named Tony. And we are going back there now for lunch again.
We went to Times Square first thing off and went back at night and went to Toys R us which you can see some of the photos below. We ate at a pizza place there and then walked ourselves to death. The Hotel is nice, although right b4 we went to bed a huge flame shot out of the air conditioner and we no longer have AC. But we are being upgraded to a nicer room this evening, so we'll see how that goes. Its not hot here at all, in fact to us its perfect.
Well that is all for now, we are on our way to Central Park and then to the Guggenheim. We will check in tomorrow. Hope all is well and keep checking the site for more photos!!!
Peace out! Brooklyn word.
Erik and Amy.
Our shuttle was a hour late. The ride over here in the cab/shuttle was like a rollercoaster ride with no wheels at Six Flags. Amy was seriously freaking out and even got stomach cramps from the ride I think. But she's cool. We had a good birthday lunch at a nearby deli. We made friends with a waiter named Tony. And we are going back there now for lunch again.
We went to Times Square first thing off and went back at night and went to Toys R us which you can see some of the photos below. We ate at a pizza place there and then walked ourselves to death. The Hotel is nice, although right b4 we went to bed a huge flame shot out of the air conditioner and we no longer have AC. But we are being upgraded to a nicer room this evening, so we'll see how that goes. Its not hot here at all, in fact to us its perfect.
Well that is all for now, we are on our way to Central Park and then to the Guggenheim. We will check in tomorrow. Hope all is well and keep checking the site for more photos!!!
Peace out! Brooklyn word.
Erik and Amy.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Review: The 40 Year Old Virgin
Steve Carrell and writer/director Judd Apatow finally have a big hit. The 40-Year Old Virgin is a lot of fun. I counted over a dozen laugh out loud moments in this film. And for the rest of the film you are left with a stupid grin on your face. Steve plays Andy Stitzer who has the aforementioned affliction of the films title. The film centers around his revelation and his friends attempt to get him over the hump. The film in the beginning is very crude (in a good way) but never feels totally unrealistic. The banter of his fellow co-workers at a Circuit City like electronics store feels like the banter you hear between male co-workers. And what I really enjoyed about this movie is its attempt to try all sorts of kinds of humor, yet had the sense to pull it back and keep it on track with reality. The film takes a nice totally unexpected turn when Andy meets Trish played Catherine Keener as a Ebay store owner. The film does a great balancing act of becoming a romantic comedy yet retains its dirty first half roots of sick humor. All in all it kind of reminded me of Howard Stern's Private Parts which was filled with dirty humor but had a true heart beating behind it.
I think to be honest you have to give total credit to writer/director Judd Apatow. I really didn't know who this guy was until several months ago, when I rented his TV show from the late 90's called Freaks and Geeks. I love this show. And after I consumed it I was so desperate for more that I started to see what else Mr. Apatow had on tap. I'm currently watching his other quickly cancelled but brilliant show about college called Undeclared on DVD. But back to Virgin, Apatow like Freaks and Geeks seems to have a real love for its characters. And that is writing 101 folks. That's what makes this film better than a lot of the other comedies or gross out comedies. And if the studios would someday figure that out, going to the movies would be more exciting than going to see the latest CGI plane crashing into a desolate Island of CG people trying to stop CG dinosaurs. But that's just me getting old, and that's my opinion for the day. Go see The 40-Year Old Virgin, and have a great time.
Monday, August 22, 2005
REVIEW: Godzilla: Final Wars
Yesterday at 3:30pm the longtime Kung-Fu night club of mine took a rare field trip to the movies and witnessed the greatness of the Big G, Godzilla at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas. This is Godzilla's latest flick. In fact this is Godzilla Part 28 for those of you keeping tabs at home. On Big G's 50th anniversary the producers decided to mix things up a bit and go for broke. They hired action director Ryuhei Kitamura who direced, Versus, Alive, and my fave thus far of his, Azumi. Ryuhei Kitamura is nuts. His films are like Michael Bay mixed with Oliver Stone on crack making Natural Born Killers 2 with Terry Gilliam shooting 2nd unit with Yuen Woo Ping at Craft Services. I know that last sentence didn't make any sense and neither does Ryuhei Kitamura's style. He is everywhere at once here as always. But now he has giant monsters to throw into his usual kinetic stew.
Many people know I'm a hugh G fan. So I went into this knowing what I like out of a Godzilla flick and what I like out of a Ryuhei Kitamura flick. I was not real sure I would like the combo plate this time. Well I was kinda right but also kinda wrong. After about an hour of kinda thinking about where this was going, I gave up to the madness of it all. This is Ryuhei Kitamura directing a Godzilla movie. That't the best way of describing it! Its fast, its too long, its insane, and I have not even talked about the movie's plot yet. I'll spare you the details and just say that its a cross between "Monster Zero" and "Destroy All Monsters" with a little Power Rangers and Star Blazers mixed in. I'm still kind of dazed by it really. I think I liked it. Because this morning I really wanted to see it again, to take all that in again.
In a nutshell Godzilla is frozen at the begining, these dudes called Xilens show up on Earth and bring out all of Godzilla's old nemesis' to help them dispose of us. So we have to travel across the earth to the South Pole and unfreeze the Big G and have a battle royale with kung-fu aliens and monsters. There are nice homages to previous films in the series and even a nod to Starblazers, the classic cartoon series. My final word on this is that if you like Godzilla movies then go see it. If you liked Versus or Azumi, then go see it. Then write me back and tell me what the hell is going on!
Monday, August 15, 2005
Fin
Most people that know me, know that I am a pretty die hard Houston Rockets fan. However about 8 years ago I started lighty treading in Dallas Mavericks water. The reason I started watching the Mavericks was because I used to be a closet Suns fan, and there was this rookie named Michael Finley that I really dug. Then all of a sudden he was traded to Dallas for Jason Kidd. I watched as Michael Finley put this entire franchise on his back for years and years. Then he got some help. Coach Don Nelson brought in some lanky German named Nowitski and some other little punk named Nash. Then things got better, then the best thing to hapen to Mavs in the team's history happened... Marc Cuban. The "Big 3" as they were called made it to within one game of the NBA Finals, but Dirk went down in the final game and the old Spurs were just too much. Every year since then the Mavs have been trying to get back there. The rookie Finley is like me now in his 30's. His body and speed were not what they used to be. (Oh how I used to love the violence of his slams. They were so sick.) So after getting a huge contract to thank him for all the lean years, he is now on the verge of being let go or traded, not due to his skills more so than his salary. The new Collective bargaining Agreement has a clause in it that allows a team to dump one contract that they will have to pay tax on. By waving Fin the Mavs save 51 million bux. Fin still gets paid his cash, but the team doesn't have to pay the additional 50 million in tax.Finley has long been one of my favorite players, and he will continue to be no matter what team he plays for next season. Personally I hope he returns to PHX to play alongside his buddy Steve Nash. Or if he really wants to make me happy then he can sign with the Rockets. (unless they can initiate a trade before midnight tonight) How awesome a Finley red Rockets jersey would be is beyond my wildest imagination... A lot of pro athletes are brash and unprofessional. Not Fin. You never hear him complain in the press. He is a very private and compassionate person who spends his summers helping out others less fortunate in Chicago and Dallas. He is the Mavericks captain and always will be. In two years the Mavs are allowed to re-sign him and I hope they make all attempts to do so. I look forward to the day I can look into the rafters at the AAC and see the number 4 jersey riding high. Mike made me a Mavs fan.
And also just as a side note, I give props to my lady Amy and the guy who two-way'd my friend Tahiti at a game once and told us that Billy Ocean needed to drive it to the hole more in the game we were watching. The image you see above is actually Billy Ocean not Fin. Amazing resemblence! And to all you local so called "sports critics", and in particular a large overweight one that I used to work with, you got your wish, now shut the F up, and grab some more donuts. I'll probably go to a lot less Mavs games than I used to, but count me in for Fin's return!!!
Good luck Fin, wherever you may end up!
Great article in the Dallas Morning News:
Finley Article
Friday, August 12, 2005
filmmusicradio.com
For all you film score lovers out there... There is a new internet radio station that I am currently addicted to called Filmmusicradio.com. If you love film scores, just click here and check out the site then click the link to start listening. They have full talk shows with film composers mixed with their compositions. I don't think it officially launches until Sept. 12th, but they have a limited program schedule you can listen to now. Check it.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Sam Wise
photo003%2ejpg
Originally uploaded by genzod.
This is our cat, Sam. He has three legs and a little sight problem... We are doing the best we can!
Thursday, July 28, 2005
ARTICLE: Jon Keeyes
Good friend and fellow filmmaker Jon Keeyes has a great article on him in the current issue of Ft. Worth Weekly on news stands now. Or you can read it by clicking on the link below.
Jon Keeyes article
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Seventy-8 Hook-ups...
Congrats to Seventy-8's Director of Photography Jason Todd Hampton and makeup artist Adrienne Hoverson. They are officially engaged!
Also Seventy-8's Producer Mark Mahlo and First Assistant Camera Sarah Bowman have already tied the knot a few months ago. Congrats to Mark and Sarah!
Also Seventy-8's Producer Mark Mahlo and First Assistant Camera Sarah Bowman have already tied the knot a few months ago. Congrats to Mark and Sarah!
Sunday, July 17, 2005
REVIEW: The Fantastic Four
I saw this movie for free. Otherwise I would not have seen it at all. I got a free ticket in the DVD for "Man on Fire" of all things. I'm a moderate comic fan at best. I know a lot more about DC comic's peeps than Marvel. So my knowledge of F4 is limited to the old cartoon series from way back in the day. So I can't really give much of a review from that perspective. What I can do is say that from a film point of view I was kinda torn with this movie. I'll start with the writing...
Michael France's script is great in that it invests time in the characters and the discovery of their powers and what they mean good and bad. What's kind of grey is the plot. There is none. This is a 2 hour character study with a threadbare plot driven climax as an after thought. At least that what's it felt like. The F4 is a disfunctional family of sorts that after an incredibly bad special effects mishap in outer space come back to earth with Super Duper powers. And for some reason they all have different kinds of powers. Then after about 2 hours of figuring out these powers, the bad decides to blow some shit up with a rocket launcher and they spring into action.
Now the direction from Tim Story is melba toast. He is Ok with dialog, but when it comes to action sequences, he needs to go back to school. The action scenes are flat and static. And I think he is what dragged this movie down the most. His style is just plain pedestrian and is fine in another movie but here you need someone with flair, say a James Cameron or Sam Raimi. You have to make the unbelievable believable as possible, and he didn't pull that off here. But enough of that. I also put blame on the studio for trying to insert all these pop culture references everywhere. Ads, Ads, and more product placement that you can shake a stick it. I know it pays for the movie, but use a tad more subtly. At least the Coke neon sign and Coke truck from Superman II didn't show up. ( I used Coke twice. Check please!)
The casting is so-so. Dr. Doom, I don't think so. And speaking of Doom, the mask sucked. Just because it looks cool in the comic means it looks like a Halloween mask on screen people. Mr. Shield himself as Ben The Thing was perfect. HE really captured him the best you can. The suit was iffy, but the performance carried it for me. Ms. Alba, who is at the moment the hottest thing on the planet is OK as Sue Storm. I'm not convinced she is a good actress yet. Then Johnny Storm is actually really good as the cocky punk Human Torch. Although the X-games scenes with him are annoying and a desperate attempt to sell more extreme sports merchandise, I enjoyed his performance. But the worst is saved for Mr. Fantastic. I don't know who this actor is, and I'm sure he is good, but not as Mr. Fantastic. Again he simply looked like Mr. Fantastic and added nothing new to him for the big screen. In my opinion they should have gotten a "name" and tried to reinvent this character a little bit. He's the leader of the 4 and really leaves you with no hint of leadership ability.
Well I have gone on too long on this one. All in all if you are bored and want to go see a superhero movie, check your expectations at the door and you might get a few jolts here and there. If you want to see a real Superhero movie go see Batman Begins, then rent the original Superman and X-Men 2.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
CD: Tahiti: The Birth of Whack
Listen up, Como Clapp here! My friend and fellow whack loser and Funky Town inhabitant Tahiti (aka Walter Archey III) has a new CD out called The Birth of Whack. Its a true Hip Hop throwback that I think anyone can get into. Its a really good EP that recently won Album of the Year at the Hip Hop Conspiracy Radio Music Awards. Its Hip Hop the way it used to be. If you like stuff like Pharcyde, Basehead, and Jurrassic 5, then you will dig this for real. Its not tricked out gangster rap, it is smooth hip hop with substance over style. My Amy did the album cover design, and its a sweet cover I must say. You can read a review of the album by clicking here
And you can read even more reviews and purchase the CD at
Tower Records
or
cdbaby.com
And don't forget to visit the official Tahiti website at:
Whack Loser
Monday, July 11, 2005
REVIEW: Asian DVD Marathon
BULLET BALLET: dir: Shinya Tsukamoto
Well I spent the weekend with numerous allergy attacks. So I was laid out for the majority of the weekend. However I did manage to view some DVDs from the stack. Being a huge Asian cinema fan, I decided to start there and didn't look back. The first movie I watched was BULLET BALLET from Tetsuo: The Iron Man director Shinya Tsukamoto. The director also takes on the lead acting role as Goda. This is a black and white highly stylized flick that really surprised me. I was expecting a John Woo esque bullet ballet, but instead got a really interesting and often times mediating look at violence. If you have seen Tetsuo and are looking for the same, you may be slightly disappointed here, but stay tuned cause it has moments of sheer greatness. The story concerns Japanese film editor, Goda who upon coming home one night finds his girlfriend dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound. Goda however does not believe that she would have committed suicide and begins a quest to find out if a local gang may have done it. In the process he becomes obsessed with buying a gun himself and killing those he "thinks" may be responsible. Through a series of misunderstandings he is forced to align himself with the gang because he is the only one that they know that owns a gun and can protect them from a hitman hired to kill them all. BULLET BALLET is a dark film that is edited with a fast paced highly visual style that moves well with the mind set of the lead character of Goda.
THREE EXTREMES: dirs: Takashi Miike, Fruit Chan, and Chan-wook Park
Well, this is one of those movies that may be better while watching drugged up as I was, but even sober you might have fun with this Asian horror experiment. Let me roll this out to you... This is a kind of Twilight Zone: the Movie but Asian style. They took one big time director from Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea and they each made a short horror film, hence the title, THREE EXTREMES. The first is Miike's BOX. Like most of his stuff, BOX is kind of all over the map, but it does have some moments of unforgettable imagery. The short kind of challenges you to keep up and is rather fractured in its structure, so if you leave and come back without hitting pause you may as well go to the next short. All in all I thought BOX was good Miike, but not "over the top holy fucking shit he didn't just do that" Miike. The next short is a cut down version of the feature length film by HK's Fruit Chan called DUMPLINGS. It stars Bai Ling as a magical ex-surgeon who puts chopped up fetus' in her magical age curing dumplings. I won't say too much about this, because after I watched it I then popped in the full length version, so I'll get to that review in a minute... The third short was Chan-wook Park's CUT. I found CUT to be somewhat flat. This has been done before and much better. This extra on the set of a director's film kidnaps his wife and and the director and makes them admit sins to each other while chopping off the wife's fingers while sitting at a piano. OLD BOY was my favorite film last year because of the energy that film had. This one has moments but most of it feels staged and flat. Let's move on to DUMPLINGS shall we...
DUMPLINGS: dir: Fruit Chan
I have not seen many Fruit Chan films before, but maybe I should start. This movie will freak you out. As I said before, this is the full version of the short included on THREE EXTREMES. In a nutshell, this lady wants to look young for her cheating husband and does so with the help of Bai Ling's age defying fetus filled tasty dumpling treats. Yes, you read it right. Age defying fetus filled tasty dumpling treats. Yum yum. That's about all I have to say about this flick. I liked it. The photography by Christopher Doyle is outstanding in every regard. Every single shot is a magazine cover. His color pallet is so sweet to feast your eyes upon. For such a terrible subject he paints the frame like its a masterpiece. Nice work. Of note, Doyle is Wong kar-wei's Cinematographer. And man is he good. I think THREE EXTREMES is coming out in the U.S. from Lions Gate sometime soon. Check it out. If you want to get the import DVD of DUMPLINGS, you can order it at the bottom link and THREE EXTREMES too.
HK FLIX
Friday, July 01, 2005
Superman Returns
supermanreturnslogo
Originally uploaded by genzod.
I don't know if anyone out there cares, or knows about this, but there is a new Superman movie coming out next year called, Superman Returns which is a sequel to the Christopher Reeve Superman I and II. Bryan Singer, the guy that directed The Usual Suspects and both X-Men movies is directing and is not trying to re-invent the wheel, but continue the legacy set forth by the original films. He's a big fan of the originals and wants to pay tribute to them with this film while starting over at the same time. Anyway if anyone is interested they are showing making of segments every week on the set as they go along on the The Blue Tights Network website. Check it out, it has some cool info on the film as it comes together.
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