Kung Fu Baby

Superman Returns in IMAX 3-D

Just a quick note that I went back to see Superman Returns in Chicago at the 3-D IMAX on Navy Pier. I went in wanting not to like it and was ready to pick it apart. So many people hated it, i thought maybe I missed something. And guess what, I liked it again. I even liked it better the second time. I think you either roll with this flick or not. I know its not the down and dirty Superman people wanted, but the message of the film is still very pure. It's not the popcorn movie wanted, it's a very character oriented film about a dude that flies. The 3-D was awesome. I can see a day coming real soon, where this format totally replaces traditional 2-D films. Its coming. And it may be a good thing economically for theater owners wanting to combat DVD's, and HD sets. It may bring the theater experience back for generations to come. And that's a good thing. It seems like every time I go to the movies now, when I step out of the theater I am wondering why am I not here more often?


Speaking of good movies, I also saw Little Miss Sunshine a few weeks back. I thought it was really good solid movie. I thought it felt very real in terms of how families really are. The ending was kinda blah for me, but that was a minor misstep in an otherwise funny movie about so called dis-functional families.

See ya Sam

Sam Vincent the head coach of the Fort Worth Flyers is leaving his position to be an assistant coach on the Dallas Mavericks. Great for Sam, but sad for Flyer fans. He will be missed, but says he still plans on working with the Flyers while he is with the Mavs. He says he has grown to love Funky Town while living here.

Late Message from Chicago

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Originally uploaded by genzod.

Well this picture arrived 5 days late after i sent it on Amy's phone. So I guess the days of instant picture blogging could be dark. My phone won't even send photos anymore. We should have some new photos of Chicago posted soon. We didn't have a computer at our disposal in the city except at the Mac store down the street. Plus Amy took about 350 photos with her new camera. So it may take us a while to decide what to put up.

And We're Back

This is how we feel about being back to work today....

Happy Birthday Amy!!!!

Today is Amy's 21st Birthday today! Hooray! I love me some Amy. Tonight we will go out and celebrate on the town in Chicago. Amy has been using her new camera a lot, so I think she likes it. We may not be back with more pictures, unless they are phone images, cause we are not sure what our computer situation is at the hotel. Happy Birthday Amy, you look better than ever, I love you. Time to hit the streets of Chicago.

Chicago Day 2 part 3

Chicago Day 2 part 2

Chicago Day 2 part one

Video Clips are down

Hey just a quick note to anyone trying to access video from the blog. Most of my links are down at the moment. Streamload my video host is changing to MediaMax, and they officially suck because they can't seem to keep the links working from the old site, so I'll have to go in and fix them later. So sorry if you are trying to see something. I'll work on it when I get back home.

Chicago Day one

Seventy-8 Screening

Thanks to all the people that showed up for the screening of Seventy-8. I had no idea that many people would show up. It was a great night for the return of independent locally produced films in Funky Town again. I am off for vacation in Chicago. Check the blog for some exciting pictures from the wonderful Amy...

Seventy-8 Screening 2Night

I am a bad blogger. There is a special screening of my movie, Seventy-8 tonight at the Rose Marine Theater in Ft. Worth at 6:30 pm. This is part of the Lone Star Film Society's Indie series. There will be short films begining at 630 and Seventy-8 will be at 7:30pm. Bobbie Wygant will be introducing the film tonight, so thats going to be exciting. If you want to hang out and catch up, I'll be in the lobby hanging out with Jason and Amy probably. Click HERE for info on the event and other Lone Star Film Society goings on. Hope to see some peeps out tonight, and I'm sorry for being a bad blogger...

Bobbie's Emmy Story

Sorry I have not blogged in a while. Been busy doing busy work. I'll get to blogging again soon. Here are two stories that ran on my friend and best ex-boss ever, Bobbie Wygant. She is awesome. The first story is an article that talks about her recent Emmy win for her work on TV for NBC 5. The next is a video of the news story that ran on her in October of 2004. Click HERE for the article, and click HERE for the video news story on NBC 5. (You must have Quicktime installed to see the news story.)

Uncle George

My Uncle George from Planet Houston passed away this Wednesday after battling Cancer for a while. He was a great uncle to me, and always the nicest man. I would always brag about my uncle George who worked on the Space Shuttles for NASA. He was influential in me being interested in space and space travel. I took Astronomy in High School and College, and would still talk about my Uncle George to whoever would listen. His work at NASA on all the space shuttle missions will be missed.

Every time I look up into space or see the space shuttle I think of my Uncle George. An avid movie fan who bought all the new releases on every Tuesday. That's dedication. I looked up to my Uncle George and will never forget all the space photos he would send me from Planet Houston as a kid. And let us not forget he was also a huge Rockets fan! George may have never got to actually ride into space, but I bet he's up there right now talking to the baby from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and lighting one up even though there is no oxygen in space.... I'll always remember my Rocketman, Uncle George when I look up to the stars.

The New Guy

Amy and I went to TCU last night to see the new Maverick play in the Summer league game against Nigeria. Can you say "Excited"? Maurice Ager was great, he was the high scorer on both teams with 23 and took over the game when it was tied late in the fourth, had two key drives, hit a big 3, and had a huge rebound and big time assit to clinch the game in the final 3 minutes. At the autograph session later, it was all Ager. I think he's going to improve and become a valuable player on the Mavs roster next year. The dude can play the game plain and simple. Props to the Mavs for getting Jason Terry resigned. I am hoping the Mavs can get Sam Cassell to sign here, but I don't think he will cause of the money situation. Sucks. Although I hear Avery is trying to get Mike James to sign. James is cool, but he can be real distraction to a team at times. Help us Sam...

Buddha Sam

This is our cat Sam and how he sits Buddha style...

REVIEW: Superman Returns

Bobbie hooked me and Amy up with a sneek peek screening of Superman Returns on Friday at 2pm, a full 5 days early before it comes out on Wed. Can you say excited? Well here we go. After 15 years of trying to get this movie off the ground, it is finally here. I am a huge Superman fan as most of you know. My grandfather took me to see Superman: the Movie in 1978 at the Ridglea Theater on Camp Bowie. I still remember where I sat, what it smelled like, how I felt. All of that. It's all very vivid to me what Richard Donner's movie did for my generation a year after Star Wars came out. We believed a man could fly. It was after this movie and the sequel that I started watching Superfriends, then started reading Superman comics. My favorite was Batman and Superman teaming together. I was real hesitant about this movie, because Warners was intent to capitalize on the Death of Superman comics that had been so successful. I read Kevin Smith's draft and liked it as a story, but a s a movie it was too talkie in that Kevin Smith kind of way. Then Tim Burton was gonna do it with Nick Cage in a black and blue Superman suit. Istar. Then McG was gonna direct, then Brett Ratner. They were all gonna do a total remake of the character. In the back of your mind you were always fantazing about a "what if" they did a sequel to the originals. But you always thought that was so long ago, who would have the balls to do that? Well they found someone, named Bryan Singer. I thought his X2 was a perfect Superhero movie, and when they fired Brett Ratner and offered it to Singer I was so happy. Sad for the X-peeps though. So Singer decided to rock it out and do a sequel to Superman 1 and 2, but kind of ignore 3 and 4. Sounded great to me.

Superman Returns is not just another superhero action piece. It is a grand loving tribute to the first two films, and surprisingly touching character study of someone who has every power in the world, but not the one thing he wants, love. Yes it's a love story, but its also not a bad guy vs. good guy story so much as it is a story about Superman vs. his past and himself. He can stop a plane from crashing, a bullet, and all that stuff, but the moral of this movie is you can't stop life, so make the best of it, and don't take it for granted. Anyone can screw it up including Superman. I knew going in that this was a part of the story but I was really stunned at how well Singer was able to keep that theme throughout the 2 and ahalf hour running time. The film is beautiful to watch. The flying scenes don't come close to artist Alex Ross' comics but they are pretty damn good. The story is Superman has returned to Krypton to see if he is indeed the only person remaining from his planet. By the time he returns five years later, Lois has moved on with a kid and fiance. Supes/Clark has a hard time with this. Upon returning to Earth the only survivor of his kind he looks to find solace in Lois. But even that is gone, and that triggers one of the best scenes in the movie to me, where Superman bordering on stalker sees Lois with her new family at home professing to her fiance that she never loved Superman. Superman flies into space above the Earth holding back his tears and hovers over the Earth as the most powerful being, but emotionally the size of a flea.

The action in this film is big. Its not as crazy as you might think, but the Space Shuttle sequences are jaw dropping. Lex Luthor returns to muck up the proceedings as he returns to the Fortress of Solitude to figure out what makes Superman tick and how he can create a world in which Superman can never live. This part of the movie is maybe the weakest and the big surprise of the movie will either make you love it or hate it. I liked it, but Im scared of where it may lead to in the sequel. Parker Posey steals the movie from Kevin Spacey though. Her part is almost identical to Valerie Perines in the original, but with much more humor than sex appeal. Jimmy Olsen is OK, but not my fave. Brandon Routh is a great Superman but not so great as Clark Kent. Chris Reeve owns Clark Kent in my book. Lois by Kate Bosworth is serviceable but weak overall.

Overall this is a great Superhero movie told with character development over action. I am going to see it again in Imax 3-D this week, so I'll have some more time to digest this sucker in full. But at first glance it was a grand epic and another great chapter in what hopes to be more in a tradition of wonderful character over hero movies by Singer and co. Oh and the music is good when it's John Williams original theme, and lacking with Ottman's original score. I thought the Ottman parts were way too over the top in spots. But not even in the ballpark of John Williams greatness. More later....

One and not done....

Well with the Dallas Mavericks season now over for another year, it must be noted that this was a hard pill to swallow sports fans. I did not write on my blog about the Mavs in the playoffs cause I did not feel the need to jinx them, but after all the changing jerseys at halftime to help, flip flops instead of shoes, etc, etc. it didn't seem to help much at the end. Here are my thoughts on each series in the playoffs:

Grizzlies: The Grizz are a good team. I think defensively they are tremendous. And I was really nervous playing them in the first round. How the Mavs swept them is hard to see, but I think it just came down to one thing, not enough weapons offense wise to stop the Mavs. There were some close games, and I think without this series as prep the mavs would not have defeated...

The Spurs: Amazing team the Spurs are. Tim Duncan was incredible. However, he is now without doubt the honest bitch in the NBA when he does not get a foul, and it hurts his team a lot. With all the complaining he did as we were fast breaking he may have been able to get back and stop a bucket or two. And this series really was that, a bucket here and you win. What a series, easily the best of the playoffs. And to dethrone the World Champions was a big step up for the little Mavs. I felt horrible for my Fin as he walked off the court with his head down. But hey Fin look up, you can go wherever you want, just don't go here...

The Suns: I now officially hate this team. I like the way they play at times, but that's why they will never win a championship. The coach of this team is really nuts. I mean I know he only has 5 players on his team, but Raja Bell can't defend every person on the court. He tries and does a good job, but give him some help if you ever want to go deeper. You can shoot all day long, but at some point your gonna have a bad night, and when the Suns have an off night, they have nothing else to bring to the table really. And that's why they lost this series. Love the Steve, but gotta keep moving. And Raja you need to get over yourself...

The Heat: I watched this team all year, and saw nothing I was afraid of. The only thing I worried about was Dwayne Wade. But Josh said before the series started that he could cover him, he did it in college, yada yada, yada. Well that didn't happen Josh. But you can't blame on just Joshua. The first two games were easy, and the third looked like a lock, then something happened. Someone on the sidelines put on a pair of slippers and we turned into the old Mavs from 2003. The next few games we settled for 3's instead of drives. Dirk decided to take jumpers instead of going into the lane. The refs decided to help out the NBA commissioners dream of never giving Mark Cuban a trophy. (For the record the calls in this years playoffs were at an all time low) And as we dropped 3 straight in Miami, we came home hopeful. I felt great about game 6, then with a double digit lead, the Heat chipped away at the lead by going to the hole. And what did we do shoot 4 three pointers in a row to get back in the game, including the final one at the end of the game to clang off the rim to become the death call and ultimate choke in Dallas sports history. A season wasted perhaps, only next year will tell.

A few things I learned from this season: Defense is a great thing. Avery rules. 3 pointers are good when they are going down, but stay in dating stage, don't ever get married to it. TNT is officially the biggest piece of shit biased network covering the NBA. ESPN is a close second. I lost most of my respect for Charles Barkley. Kenny Smith is beginning to ware on me. But Ernie Johnson still has some class thank God. Tim Thomas is pinhead from the movie freaks. Dwayne Wade is the second coming of Christ apparently. Shaq is the Heats new Mascot, cause he can't play much anymore. Pat Riley is playing Skeletor in the new He-Man movie. Stackhouse is a tank. Dirk went from God back to Dirk. Randy Galloway proves he is an absolute moron. Laura Miller needs to plan parades in her head only. The Ticket still rules. Dan Patrick wears more makeup than Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Cuban needs to relax and take a back seat during the games. All said, Mavs rule.

REVIEW: X-Men III:The Last Stand

I must say I never read Marvel Comics as a kid, so my back knowledge of the X-Peeps is limited. (I was heavy into DC Comics) Having said that my enjoyment of this series lies solely on what I know from the movies and a few episodes of the cartoon series I've seen here and there as a kid. I did have a yellow Wolverine action figure when I was a kid. I don't think he had claws though.... Onto the the review... I really liked the first X-Men movie. When I first saw it, it really didn't do much for me, but the second and third times I viewed it, it kind grew on me as a character piece instead of a blowhard superhero flick. Then I saw the 2nd one, X2: X-Men United and I was floored with what director Bryan Singer did. I consider X2 to be almost a perfect Superhero movie, and he did it by having restraint with the he first film and letting the characters breath and develop beyond a 30 second scene. Thus leads us to the main problem inherit within X-Men 3. In this adventure the good mutants are up against a cure made by humans from a special mutant that will turn them back to normal. Some are for it and some are against. Magneto and Captain Picard discover that the thought dead Dr. Jean Grey has come back but this time as Dark Phoenix, a hidden personality hidden within Grey's brain. Anyway she joins the dark side and whacks a few good mutants including two key characters. The mutants all fight each other at the end on Ellis Island and fun times ensue. I have heard from X-Men fans that the Dark Pheonix saga is a huge deal in the comics, and that it as handled wrong here in more ways than one. But not knowing Adam from Eve in the Marvel universe, it didn't bother me so much.

X3 is by all means a cool summer action movie with flying peeps and shit, but the characters are weak and the character scenes are so quick that you never get the chance to live with these mutants for too long before you are rushed away to the next scene. The action is great and I'm not dissing the movie by any means but the character development and the respect Singer had for the characters is pretty much gone. I missed that touch very much. There are new mutants introduced but never discovered and explored. The new characters just show up, blow some shit up and leave. So what director Ratner held over from Singers previous two still proves entertaining it just lacks the heart and soul of the first two movies.

Here Comes the Boom...One to go!

2 Teams Down, 2 to Go....

Assorted thoughts on things...

Summer is heating up. Just collecting my thoughts here on the blog before we get into the thick of the summer. The NBA Playoffs have rendered me useless for the most part during the evening hours. The Mavs have swept the Grizz with no problem. They await the winner of the Spurs/Kings series. Personally I don't really care who we play as long as we make it to the Finals. It would be nice to get that 100 pound monkey called the Spurs off the back, but the Kings are kinda crazy this year. They are scrappy bastards that have flat out played the world champions. That could prove good or bad for the Mavs. I probably won't go to the playoff games this year to save some money, but if they make the Finals consider me there! I can't miss that.

Speaking of the round ball, I really have not talked much about Fort Worth's minor league NBA team here much. The Fort Worth Flyers had an awesome season. I had the great pleasure of working with them in doing player interviews and other video work for them that plays on the jumbotron during the game. I got to meet, work, and hang out with some incredible NBA players, and hopefully next season I will get to do it again. Thanks to Erin, Tommy, and Courtney over at the Flyers office for all the help and opportunities they gave this year, and the great seats too! The Flyers finished in 1st place but fell in the playoffs to the Thunderbirds. I did discover that every time Amy goes to a Flyers game they lose. She may not be going next year...

Here are a few mini reviews of some movies I've seen recently...

AEON FLUX: Not a bad movie. I had no expectations, and it kinda surprised me that it's not a totally dumb movie, but actually had something to say. A decent sci-fi movie with some really interesting action sequences. It ultimately falls short at the end, but I would love to see a sequel to see where the story goes. Not happening I bet. Great sets though and beautiful to watch.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 4: The Return of the Living Dead flicks have always been cool little tribute sequels to George Romero's Dead quadrillogy. This one is a step back I'm afraid. It has some good zombie action, but the rules of the dead are seriously redefined here and not in a good way. For instance I do not want a zombie fist fight in a movie. Period. The second thing that bothered me more than anything else was Peter Coyote. A really great actor who apparently had some bad work at the plastic peeps in 90210. He has a permanent smile on his face for the entire film. He can't change expressions. It's so distracting that I can't even tell you if this movie is as bad as I thought. I guess Part 5 comes out soon. Ishtar.

KING KONG: Re-watched this to see if I missed something. I didn't. It's still a big bloated idol worship tribute to the original with nothing new to offer. Beautiful to watch, but you can skip the entire middle of the film on the boat and not miss a thing. The ending scene is amazing to watch on the Empire State building though.

If you have not seen the new Superman Returns trailer, head over to bluetights.net and check it out. I have mixed feelings about it now. The acting looks WAY over the top. But the flying scenes look amazing.

DVD REVIEW: Izo

Wow. Where to begin. I don't know how to say anything about this movie. But I'll give it a shot. First off let me say something about the director Takashi Miike. I love this sick mother f'er. If you have never seen a Miike film, then you are missing out on the most insane imaginative director working since Fellini. He was cranking out 5 to 6 films a year. I still can't keep up with the guy, and I'm only watching them. Check out Audition or the Dead or Alive trilogy for starters. And that's the normal stuff. I finally got around to watching his '04 film Izo. Oh my God.

I have never seen anything like this in my life, and I've seen a lot film. I don't even know if I understood it. In fact I'm pretty sure I didn't, but I couldn't stop watching this thing. The story is as much as I can tell is about Izo Okada (1832-1865), the historical samurai and assassin in 19th century Japan who met a tragic end: he was tortured and crucified. Miike's portrayal of the character (or rather his spirit) transcends reality (and time and space) and is more of a surrealist expose of Izo's exceedingly bloody yet philosophical encounters in an afterlife heavy on symbolism, occasionally interrupted by stock footage of World War II accompanied by acid-folk singer Kazuki Tomokawa on guitar. Kazuya Nakayama plays Izo, and the countless characters he encounters on his journey include for instance Takeshi Kitano and Bob Sapp.

My interpretation of it was this, Izo is trapped in this infinite hell loop of time and space for all his crimes. He is a killing machine that would make Jason or Freddy Kruger run for cover man. He cannot be stopped. I don't think I'm kidding here, but he must kill at least 300 people in this movie one by one. His punishment in hell is to just keep killing and killing to the point where he can't think of anything but killing to where he's mad at himself for not being able to stop. Along the way he starts wearing a batman type mask, has sex with his mom, and chops off a chicks head who shot an arrow in his eye, and as her decapitateded head lies on the ground butterflys fly out of her head and through a door up to the moon. Oh it's that kind of special folks. This is a very surreal movie that I defy anyone to explain to me. These types of movies are not always a good thing mind you, but Miike is so far out there and unafraid to do anything, that it's almost like jumping off cliffs. I found this film strangely invigorating.

Miike did a short film for Showtime Channel's Master of Horror series called, Imprint. They screen all the episodes to the Showtime execs before they air them. Apparently the execs freaked out to the point where they said that this cannot air even on pay cable. So it's supposed to come out on DVD sometime this year. I watched this in two parts over two nights, and Towards the end I thought i might be smart and make a huge leap of faith in my opinion of the film. Maybe Miike is trying to say, look I am capable of making other types of film, but all anyone pays me to make are these violent films, that I am so sick of making but for some compulsive reason I can't stop. Maybe Izo represents him in some way. I don't know but it bears further investigation. So go check this one out. It kicks from another planet.

My Own Personal Film Festival

Good Friday was indeed good for me. I had the day off from work and a chance to get caught up on some movies in "the stack". Here are some quick hits on some flicks I watched:

THE WEATHERMAN:

This film surprised me. I was not expecting such an honest depressing movie about life from Hollywood. It was not over the top, and not very sugar coated. I guess that's why it never came out for so long and why ultimately no one saw it. I think that over time this will become a nice little cult flick that people will discover and latch onto. The film is about Nic Cage who is a successful weatherman in wintry Chicago who while dealing with his divorce finds his kids in all sorts of deviant trouble. His father played by Michael Caine is hilarious as a man who is even more successful than he is, and although he doesn't shove it in his son's face, you can feel the tension when they are together. Nothing ever goes right for Cage's character, and it's primarily because nothing in his life is real. He is not really a "weatherman" per se. He just reads what the teleprompter says from the meterologist. And that is pretty much the way he spends his life and people take advantage of that making his life less than bearable. But by listening and interacting with his kids he finds himself and his confidence again. For a a Hollywood movie this is a rare kind of film. Check it out if you get a chance.

DOMINO:

Well this is maybe the opposite of the above mentioned film. A good attempt, but considering the subject matter a failed one I think. Domino is a Tony Scott film that tries for over the top greatness, but just never quite makes it. This is a violent almost comic book style film about actor Lawrence Harvey's model turned bounty hunter daughter named Domino Harvey. The focus here is about her times with the bounty hunters, and their adventures. But where this movie lost me was its attempt to bring reality into the mix with making it a reality TV show and bringing in people from 90210 playing themselves. I was really into Mickey Rourke's character and that just got shelved for a Lifetime movie subplot to be honest. I fast forwarded through the Jerry Springer part. It added nothing. And for all the cool shots and quick editing I was all but pretty much disappointed. I think the Domino character was fascinating as well but she gets lost in the subplots. What a shame. I have heard that she was quite upset about the movie before she died last year. I think that reason may have made the better flick.

CRY_WOLF

Hommie Jon recommended this to me, so I gave a spin. I think I saw the Unrated version, but I'm not entirely sure. And I must concur with Jon that although I don't know if I liked it as much, it was not half bad. As far as low-budget Scream-esque teen stalker flicks go, this was pretty decent. I'm not going to spend too much time on it, just check out Jon's review here.

RUNNING TIME

A friend at work gave me this to check out a few months ago. It's a film shot in real time about a guy Bruce Campbell who gets out jail and immediately goes to rob a bank. Then of course things go bad and Bruce has to sort things out. I liked the concept and the Black and White photography. It reminded me of a Sam Fuller movie with the dialog. It's short running time at about 63 minutes I think is what ultimately hurts it. I wish they had tried to go all in one take like Figgis did in Timeode and Hotel. They give you the illusion it is, but there are cuts to be found as you would expect in film. Overall its a nice little flick and kudos to Ash Campbell for doing it. At times it has the charm of a student film, and its nice to see Bruce helping out the little guys again. So I would recommend this only if you are looking to watch some good experimental old school heist flicks. And who isn't!

THE WARRIORS: DIRECTOR'S CUT

Never seen this before in my life. And I am a major fan of director Walter Hill's work. I dug this movie, and I am kicking myself for not seeing it earlier. This is about a bunch of gangs that all band together in New York to take over the city. However the main leader is assassinated during the gang rally as it were, and in all the hoopla following the gang known as The Warriors are blamed. So now with not only the cops after them they have 60,000 gang members on their tail as they make there way home to Coney Island. Considering when this was made, its a pretty bold film. Hill chose to do it in a slightly futuristic over the top style. It feels like a graphic novel, and in the new directors cut he ups that feel substantially by transistioning the scenes with comic book panels. Fluid move that felt like Death Wish apocalypse. I really feel in love with this classic, and I can see why it has stood the test of time.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Ah new Terry Gilliam! Rejoice. I think like The Weatherman above that this film over time will indeed find it's audience. It's not true Gilliam I guess, but it's a nice little film. Gilliam feels a little restrained here as he tackles all the Grimm fairy tales and tries to tie them all together. Maybe not the best idea, but a good attempt at best. Matt Damon and Heath "Bar" Ledger play the Grimm brothers who run the country scheming local villagers as real life Ghostbusters if you will that will writes down in his story book as a potential book of tales. One day they come across a real life haunting and have to utilize all there skills that have to this point been only for show. The effects here are a mix of traditional and CG. Some of the CG effects leave a lot to be desired. Monica Belucci plays the evil witch they do battle with at the end. And in the Gilliam world it's hard to see where this one fits in. At times I would say Damon is horribly miscast. Ledger is fine, but they both seem out of place in the usual ugly world of Gilliam. Jonathan Pryce is great a French general in occupied Germany. And look for Garreth from the BBC version of The Office as the Grimm's assistant. There are some classic Gilliam visuals here, but it feels like half a Gilliam movie. There is a commentary track on the disc, that I flipped on here and there. It might be more interesting to watch this movie again with his commentary to get his take on it. Overall if you are Gilliam fan or Grimm fan go for it!

INITIAL-D

This is a Hong Kong flick I've had laying around for a while. It's based on the popular manga from Japan of the same name. For all of you that don't know what Initial D is, the D stands for drifting. Drifting is a popular form of street racing in Asia, and will probably be here too after Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift comes out. In the meantime we have the greatness of Initial D to keep us company. You see Drifting is when you take a sharp turn at say 100mph and slide successfully through the turn. Brilliant. But hey the kids are all doing it, why can't we? So Inital D is about a kid who works at a gas station and delivers Soy at night down this long twisty mountain favored by kids in street cars into drifting. His dad a former racer hooks him up with this great car for drifting and he begins to race pro drifters. I think you know the rest. Although the Adrian of the "Rocky" formula here turns out to be a prostitute for reasons beyond my comprehension. So if you are into "drfting" get this movie now. Seriously though themovie does have some incredible race sequences. Cars were not meant for this, but somehow they are. McQueen would be a fan.

Post Novus Ortus

Sometimes in life you take a chance, like getting out of bed in the morning. I took a chance in leaving MMI and signing with VNR1. However things did not work the way I would have liked. So as luck would have it, I am back with MMI. It's a long long story. One too long even for this blog! Ask me next time you see me...

amyanderikwedding.com

I created a website for the big wedding day. It's www.amyanderikwedding.com.
I'm still working on it, so it's not all done. But you can preview it here:

Click here for the site

How to Lose Money in 30 Days....

Now this is a great story. I haven't updated the blog lately, because I've been busy with adjusting to the new gig and everything. But this story is pure greatness. Now I love my Amy, but this is so her luck, I can't help but laugh. OK, so every other week Amy and I go to the library to get some new books, music and movies, because they are FOC, and that's OK with me. So Amy is looking through the books and finds this book she had heard about by Suze Orman called "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke". She checked it out with hopes of finding some tips on how to save a little money here and there. Good intentions right? I though so. So Amy has a history of having horrible luck with cars. Trust me she is cursed. So we go to Houston in my truck over the weekend. This particular weekend was the weekend it rained for 3 days straight. (We missed all of it) So now Amy's car, has a leak somehow where if it rains, there will be standing water in the back seat floorboard. Guess where she left the book, "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke". That's right, in the only floorboard that leaves standing water after it rains... So now we get home and find the book floating in a lovely puddle. The book is ruined.

We go to the library and they tell her that not only must she buy a new book called, "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke", but also the late fees as it was late, and return the soaked version of "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke". So we went to Barnes and Nobles and got the book, and she returned it the next day but this library didn't make her pay the fine or return the "enhanced" version thank goodness. So now we have a mildew enhanced version of "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke" by Suze Orman if anyone would like to check it out from our library. Its a reasonable rate and will go to the Amy's Bad Luck Fund that in turn goes to #1 New York Times Bestselling Author, Suze Orman of The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke fame.

MINI REVIEW: The Island

Watched this on my first day off from work. Wow. I didn't know you could make a 2 and half hour Noxema commercial into an action movie, but by golly they did. What a literal piece of shit this pile of dung is. This movie confirmed everything about Michael Bay I was afraid of. He can't tell a story. He can make it look smooth and polished all he wants, but its still a turd floating in the bowl. There are a few decent action sequences, but the story is done dude. Seen it. I was going to mention Gattaca, but that would be doing that film a disservice. Oh you know what this is my blog, and I can say what I want. THIS MOVIE EATS ASS!!!! I did get through it after stopping a few times to measure the grass in my yard, and on a moronic level it's entertaining on some level. But after the credits rolled, I felt so empty. Director Bay made The Rock which I walked out on, and Asteroids: The Movie, which I never saw, and the one movie he made I actually liked was Bad Boys 2 because it was so over the top, I couldn't help but like it. This is steaming folks. I stood in line with Scarlet Johansen once in LA and she said more dialog there than in this entire film. She is beautiful, but give her something to do besides say "Run" and my favorite, "Come on we gotta get out of here". (Ok I admit I think that line is in my film, "Seventy-8." ) Avoid "The Island" at all costs.

Novus Ortus

The blogging lately has been tough to keep up with. After my last posting I came down with the Flu. Luckily I was already on the antibiotics from a sinus infection, so the fix was quick. During that sick period I was given an opportunity to advance my career forward as an editor. I never really saw myself as an editor to be honest. I am somewhat self taught in non-linear editing. When I graduated school the old way of editing from machine to machine was pretty much gone. So as I entered the workforce I had to learn this new thing called The Avid. Now what is the Avid you ask? It's an editing system, but a non-linear one. In school we used one of these things in my last semester, after the previous semesters of learning the old linear way with both film and video. Now, I have been editing ever since I was 13 and figured out how to do it with two VCR's tied together. But it was always so time consuming and frustrating once you finished something that you couldn't go back and re-edit a new idea you had. So I stuck with writing, cause you could always use the word processor to change your ideas quickly. Then I answered a job in the paper for a position as a graphic designer for a company called Marketing Management Inc. (MMI) Graphic design was part of my major, and they liked my portfolio. They took me on a tour of the building and told me they were beginning a video/multimedia department. Bingo. They had even bought an Avid and had a commercial produced on it that in all honesty was lame. I told them I would take the position but that I wanted that Avid. I wrote a whole new script and shot a bunch of new footage and learned the Avid inside and out. And it was on that commercial that for the first time I actually enjoyed the process of editing. In fact I loved it. It was a new way for me to communicate a story without words. I was hooked. Sure I went upstairs and designed when there was nothing to cut, but I couldn't wait to get back down there and slice something up into a story.

MMI is where I met pretty much everything that's in my life today. I met my beautiful fiance, Amy there. I met all these amazing artists including Kevin Flach, a guy who taught me things I use every day in my job. I brought my college buddy, Shawn Kelly in to start the internet division of MMI. I even designed the logo and came up with the name Immotion Studios for our multimedia department. We were young and determined to make a splash in the DFW area. We had all the talent and all the resources of MMI. But more than anything we had the support of The Pease family who owned MMI and Herb Pease Sr. was a guy who built the business from the trunk of his car door to door. I admired that to no end. I could only hope to be as successful as he was. As time wore on in the late 90's to 2000, things were pretty good. We had new bosses, and we even separated into two groups. One Internet and one Multimedia. Then we got a new boss, then another, and another. It was getting ridiculous. And after a while I was starting to realize that maybe I was in a rut creatively and so I decided to turn back to art. I finished a short film that Shawn and I had never finished in college. Then this awesome thing happened. Final Cut Pro. Changed my life. Now I could edit at home and cheaply. I started making short films again and editing them at home after hours. I premiered them at work and on the internet. I was in a zone cranking these little comedies out. Then the bottom fell out.

9/11. I walked into work after just finishing a new short film, and saw the crowd around the TV near my edit suite. That one morning really changed the course of everyone's lives in my department. Management panicked and begin laying off people. But then there was a ray of hope. My shorts began to generate some heat around the office as I started selling a compilation of them to raise some money for 9/11. This all got back to Herb Pease Sr. and he asked me how can you make money on these things and I said well you really can't unless you make a feature film. And from that a little script called Seventy-8 was born. I think maybe Herb saw some of himself in me as I did of myself in him. As Seventy-8 grew closer I began to get more and more involved with Amy and my life was taking a turn both emotionally and creatively. It was a rollercoster of emotions. Then just before Seventy-8 was about to roll, MMI layed off even more people. And Kevin was among them. I was fucking pissed. I was told by my now 8th boss that I was seen as the future and that Kevin was not. How nice. Now I was very conflicted at this point. I mean I was so enamored with Sr. for trusting me with this film, but I was also angry that they would let Kevin go. If they only knew what he could do and accomplish. Sure I was the 'golden boy' at the moment, but I wasn't the glue guy. When I helped Kevin take his things out to his car I felt as if my heart was ripped out of my chest. I was clearly divided but dedicated to making this movie. Kevin even told me to forget about it and go make my dream. It hurt but I marched on.

After the movie was shot I moved back to my day job and juggled editing a feature film and commercials quite nicely. Now that Kevin was gone I worked with this amazing lady named Lesha. We bonded quickly and established a great one-two punch. We did great for over a year, then Lesha left for greener pastures. When she left I felt totally alone. Who would sell my services now? As the move kept rolling along, we finished. Did the festival thing and all that. And again I settled back into my job as a video producer/editor. Then Marija came into the fold and at first I was skeptical of her I must say. I was real fond of Lesh and I didn't know if she could pick up where she left off. I was wrong. She fit in great and after a few shaky first projects we worked great together. Then Shawn left for a new place and then Amy left. And the way she was treated by boss number whatever was evil and uncalled for. I took it very personally and it felt even worse than Kevin leaving. But I was happy for Amy, and we soon got engaged over the holidays.

Then at the beginning of this year we got another new boss and were dislocated from Creative Services to be a team of two. Which was fine really. But I have to say I was skeptical of where we were headed for the future and really tired of re-explaining what we do again. We had a great year for just two people, but I don't think anyone really sat down and saw that. I could be wrong, but we made money. I am and always will be 100 percent dedicated to where I work. But the halls of MMI were getting lonely. Herb Sr. was rarely around anymore and it just seemed cold to me. The energy was gone, and it was starting to affect my spirits. Then I got a call and opportunity knocked for me at a new place called VNR1 Communications in Arlington. It is a chance for me to find myself again and to again work with others like Kevin that do and think like I do. For the past 2 years its been me in a room talking to myself. Sure I discovered new things and all that but I was missing the communication with others in my field. My learning was beginning to become stunted. VNR has asked me to come in and teach them new things and also learn from them. I'm excited and looking forward to working with new people and sharing new ideas. Something I've lacked for several years now.

I am now no longer with MMI, but the parting was good, and the hope is I can continue to work with them on a contract basis with several clients. I will continue my business with Herb on the film "Seventy-8" to its completion. I have no hard feelings toward MMI, and I left with a sense of sadness and a sense of wonder of where my future lies. I owe much of my life to MMI, and will always be greatful and sad that things could not have turned out better than they did.