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Another First

September 25th, 2006

Last night marked a momentous first for me. I went to a movie theater that serves beer and wine and took full advantage of that perk. It was a silver lining in what was a bummer of an evening. My “sis” Lisa had given me Patriots tickets, which were given to her by Patriots legend Andre Tippett. Due to a series of mishaps consistent with the life and times of Cool Jesus, I didn’t make the Sunday night game, and coincidentally, probably ruined any chance of future tickets. I pictured myself in a Seinfeldian moment in which I was George and Lisa was Jerry. And instead of Keith Hernandez, the (less) famous athlete involved was Andre Tippett and he was pissed that his tickets went to waste.

Instead, Swedish Girl and I went to an ancient cinema (with unfortunately contemporary ticket prices) near our neighborhood and took in Little Miss Sunshine. The film was enjoyable and I was glad that Swedish Girl enjoyed it, since we rarely ever agree on movies. I sulked through the first half of the film, but soon enough the beer did its job and acted as the balm to my wounds. All in all, not a bad plan B.

2 comments »

Posted in Movies, Potent Potables

A Lonelygirl on the Internet

September 8th, 2006

It was only a few days ago that I first heard about , but I’ve already become fascinated by the concept. Let me explain.

In last week’s edition of , there was a piece talking about “The lonelygirl15 Phenomena” that has is this summer’s . To summarize, lonelygirl15 is a video blogger that uploads periodic posts to YouTube for the internet to watch. In her blog, she portrays herself as a normal 16 year old girl, who has typicaly teenage problems.. but something’s just not right. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but she doesn’t “seem” to be only 16 years old.

That’s where the plot begins to thicken. There are a number of clues and various tidbits of information that are slowly leaked throughout her many video posts, which takes on a “Lost”-esque appeal. Then, today, there was an article in the LA Times about the lonelygirl15 mystery. According to the LA Times:

No one has publicly come forward to lay claim to her work, but she is starting to look as connected in Hollywood as any starlet. Three lonelygirl15-obsessed amateur Web sleuths set up a sting using tracking software that appears to show that e-mails sent from a lonelygirl15 account came from inside the offices of the Beverly Hills-based talent agency Creative Artists Agency.

It’s an interesting concept that might develop, if this is in fact a movie in the making.. stemming out of a user-generated content idea, it created such a buzz and viral marketing effect, that it seems like a clever way to promote a new product or film.. though, it certainly does blur the lines between advertising and content.. it’ll be interesting to see what happens with our friend Lonelygirl15..

2 comments »

Posted in Internet, Marketing, Movies

Flix. NetFlix.

August 24th, 2006


For the past few years, I’ve had a number of people tell me how much they like . I’ve always been a fan of the service, and even Miss Possible was a subscriber back when we first had started dating. She cancelled the service, however, after we found that we weren’t really taking advantage of it because we would never be at one person’s house consistently enough to watch the movies all the time. Plus, when you first start dating someone, I think it’s difficult to immediately share a Netflix queue with them.

But, in that time, I’ve given a NetFlix membership to a number of people as birthday or holiday gifts. Each one of them enjoying it, after signing up and getting involved in the system. I had heard froma number of friends (The Captain and his lovely bride included) as well as a number of co-workers how great the service was. But.. It wasn’t until just recently that I started taking my own advice and signed up for the NetFlix service.

Since then, while we have not taken full advantage of our two-movie a month options, we’ve definitely watched more movies than usual. Being the summer, there’s a lot less new TV to DVR, so.. we’re more inclined to throw on a film or play an XBox 360 game.

Just today, though, I came across a very fascinating article in about the NetFlix service and how the facilities operate. It’s not one of those 6 page New Yorker articles, but rather a “Talk of the Town” segment that is roughly a page long or so. It goes into great detail about what is required to maintain the fast turnaround time.

Whether or not you’re a NetFlix subscriber, I recommend the article, it’s a fascinating read.

2 comments »

Posted in Life, Movies, Technology

Remember, remember the fifth of November

August 21st, 2006

A Historian I am not. Prior to viewing the excellent film “V for Vendetta” yesterday, I had no idea who Guy Fawkes was. I didn’t know that in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe there was such a thing as Guy Fawkes Night. Much to my delight, the Brothers’ Wachowski and James McTeigue illuminated this little slice of European history for me and peaked my interest. I flat out loved this movie.

This film is not about the Gunpowder Plot itself, which was a botched attempt by Guy Fawkes and other Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 London, while King James, a Protestant, was there. In Fawkes, however, our antihero V finds a personal connection and sets in motion an elaborate plan to create a modern day edition of that failed plot. It’s 400-plus years later but London is at the mercy of a totalitarian tyrant and V feels that a symphony of explosions-percussion instruments is how he refers to them-is just the answer. A happenstance encounter with Evey (Natalie Portman-luscious even without hair) ultimately alters V’s vision of the spectacle, but does not deter his plan. The character of V is a brilliant mix of Edmond Dantes, the Phantom of the Opera and a Shakespearean Bard.

The action in this flick is stylistic, without stepping on the toes of “The Matrix”. There are swords, blades and bullets galore but the bloodshed is minimal and also stylistic (think Kill Bill). In fact, V’s preferred method of murder—check that, justice—is poison, leaving a peaceful corpse decorated with a rose. His victims are not innocent bystanders to some delusional terrorist plot, but rather decorated society members with horrifying skeletons in their closet such as a lecherous priest and a Limbaugh-esque talk show pundit.

The overtones reek of political strife. The film blatantly references Hitler and Islam while also evoking post 9/11 fears of terrorism in the form of subway explosions and biological warfare. It is entertaining, eye-candy, thoughtful and exciting all at once. If you have Netflix, cue it. If you rent from Blockbuster run, don’t walk, to rent “V for Vendetta”. Sadly, the Guy Fawkes mask, cape and hat don’t come with the movie. But I know what I am going to be this Halloween. Or, perhaps on the eve of November the fifth…

11 comments »

Posted in Movies

Back in My Day…

August 17th, 2006

Am I getting old or is the world just changing faster than I can keep up? Last weekend, Swedish Girl and I went out for some drinks and appetizers and wanted to catch a movie – My Super Ex-Girlfriend, to be exact. I’m a fan of Luke Wilson, Rainn Wilson, and I don’t mind Uma Thurman. I had seen the trailer and I was game. It seemed like a decent 90-minute comedic diversion. I even had two free cinema passes given to my by my boss, so I was looking forward to a good night. Unfortunately, the mulitplex didn’t cooperate.

I was shocked and horrified to find out that, after lasting less than three weeks (JUST 3 WEEKS!), MSEG was pushed out of the theater. I stood there, incredulous, checking and double-checking both movie boards inside the cinema, as well as the big board outside. Gone. And later on, I checked on line and it’s only playing in two distant cinemas. And I’m not about to drive 30 to 45 minutes for a movie.

Is it just my rose-colored memory, or did movies used to stick around a lot longer years ago? Even really bad movies were guaranteed one or two months at the cinema. Guaranteed. And good movies stuck around for three months. Weren’t Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction around for half the year? What has happened over the last decade? I realize that this is a billion-dollar industry and cinemas want to have the hottest, latest movies, but this is ridiculous.

I’ve never felt pressured to hurry to the theater to see a movie within 10 or 12 days for fear that it will be pulled. Didn’t It’s Pat: The Movie even get a longer stay back in 1994? Maybe I’m just whining about nothing. Maybe this is yet another consequence of the fast-paced, attention deficit disorder, MTV generation. Maybe this is what we now get in the DVD era, where producers and movie studios don’t care about long box office runs and it’s only the opening weekend that really matters. However you define it, it makes me feel a bit old.

8 comments »

Posted in Movies, Reminiscing

Smith & Roeper?

August 14th, 2006

Let me preface this by saying that I made a conscious decision some years ago to stop watching Siskel & Ebert. I enjoyed the show and I found the hosts personable, engaging, intelligent, and thoughtful. I also enjoyed their chippy banter. These were award-winning journalists from rival Chicago newspapers and I got the feeling they only played nice for the camera. If it was an act, then I bought it. I never watched the show regularly, mostly because it was always on at the worst time, something like 11:30 pm on Sunday nights. I’d catch it now and then, but eventually found it affecting my movie fun. I had to cut Gene and Roger loose in order to walk into the cinema fresh and enjoy a movie on my terms.

I was flipping through the channels on Saturday afternoon and came across Ebert & Roeper . Hats off to Roger Ebert for being able to keep the franchise alive after the death of his co-host, Gene Siskel. However, Ebert has been in declining health over the last several years and the franchise is in doubt once more. I tuned into the show over the last couple of weekends and saw Ebert and Roeper reviewing movies and thought nothing was up. But when I tuned in on Saturday, I saw Kevin Smith sitting in Roger’s chair.

Now I love Kevin Smith. I still haven’t checked out Clerks II, but I do admire the guy. While I think it would be cool to have a different director sit in to co-host the show every so often, I missed Roger and I hope he’s back soon. Smith did a fine job, had a good rapport with Roeper, and appeared to be a TV natural. Nonetheless, seeing someone else sitting in Roger’s chair was sad. I know he won’t be around forever, and the franchise might continue, but it’s just not the same.

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Posted in Movies, Reminiscing

Some Weekend Fun

July 22nd, 2006

Looking for some fun this weekend? I’ve got just the thing.. I happened to find this post on Wired’s Table of Malcontents and had to share. It’s a collection of Big Lebowski Mashups. Not familiar with a Mashup? It’s a creature of the new Web 2.0′s information sharing, where two seperate types of content are combined to form a new one (Wikipedia definition).

In this particular case, it’s a list of cartoons or other videos that have been edited with the Big Lebowski soundtrack. If your familiar with the film, you’ll probably know that this is not safe for work if you don’t have headphones.. the vulgarities are plenty — and I’m not talking about what happens when you find a stranger in the alps.

I had no idea there were so many Big Lebowski mash-ups lurking out there on the Web, but a few intimate moments with YouTube have corrected my ignorance. A number of people have taken various animated icons, opened up their adorable little throats, and shoved the profane words of the movie's characters right in there. We've got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man, Eiken, My Little Pony, Rocko's Modern Life, Monsters Inc., and someone's homemade bunny version.

And for those who find all this animation childish, there's the version edited down to a single swear word, repeated over and over.

Enjoy!

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Posted in Internet, Movies, Nonsense