Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Ballad of G.I. Joe

This Funny-or-Die video was circulating on Facebook this morning. It is full of win on many levels, whether you're a fan of the 1980s-era animated G.I. Joe, or just love playing spot-the-celebrity. And, yes, that's Alan Tudyk as Shipwreck.


Slow-Mo Dogs

Great use of ultra slow-mo in advertising.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Ass Whuppin' = 1, TD = 0

Specifically, work and family have been whuppin' it.

Last weekend was Emerald City Comicon (or ECC for us geeks in the know), and it was packed.  On Saturday, you couldn't move, the floors were so crowded with attendees.  I heard rumors of close to 30,000, which is a lot for a venue of this size.  Leonard Nimoy was charging $65 a pop for an autograph, and Stan Lee was at the $40 mark (which is the going rate for a lot of celebs these days).  I heard from one of the convention workers that between the autographs and photo ops, Stan did about nine grand for less than an hour's work.  Not too freakin' shabby.


We went for a couple hours on Saturday to get the lay of the land and place our rally markers: the Kirby Krackle booth and the island at the center of Artists Alley where JD, Brian & Steve were set up.  With the time change on Sunday and less foot traffic overall, it was a bit easier to get around.  I shot the Kirby Krackle set, which included a guest appearance by Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada.  The man plays a mean axe and can actually sing - who knew??  I'm just sorry I missed Wil Wheaton singing "Don't Fear the Reaper" in Rock Band.
 
Since Raechelle already posted a recap several days ago, I'll spare you the play-by-play.  It was an excellent convention and every year I am proud of my friends for putting it on.  I ended up re-establishing some stale contacts and making new ones, and am happy to have walked away with a music video gig for Kirby Krackle (but that's all I will say at this point).

This week has been a nose-to-the-grindstone experience combined with one day down with a bad back - probably from standing on concrete all weekend.  By the time I was done with my Arrowflight Second Edition layout for the day (or got any kind of break during), I was too drained to want to write anything.  Missed a badly needed massage appointment too.  I apologize, dear readers, and will redouble my efforts.

This weekend is a family one; next week we shoot the last of the Duo shorts.  Tomorrow we are going to Alice in Wonderland, and I intend to get some wedding thank you cards finished and some last-minute tax stuff done (we have the majority of it in to the accountant, and just need to dig out a few records).

Monday, March 8, 2010

Oscar Post-Mortem

And I don't mean the green Muppet on a slab at the morgue.

As with most Academy Awards shows, I watch out of a morbid sense of curiosity at the politics and shenanigans surrounding the crop of films each year, wondering if the films I thought warranted accolades would be the ones the Academy chose.  Last night, I was actually not disappointed.  

As much as I loved The Hurt Locker, as much as I love Kathryn Bigelow's work, I didn't give her or her best film to date a snowball's chance in hell, going up against her ex-husband's sci-fi epic Avatar (which is currently the 20th highest-grossing film of all time and climbing, adjusted for inflation) and the more socially-relevant Precious (which I would have pegged as more of an Academy-endearing project).  I'd been saying for weeks that I thought Bigelow was more worthy of the Best Director award for The Hurt Locker than James Cameron was for Avatar, and that The Hurt Locker was more suited to winning the Best Picture Oscar.  But I held little hope that that would be the case.

Imagine my surprise when she won.  And her film won.  It's kind of vindicating when you've liked an artist for many years and they are suddenly honored.  Good for you, Ms. Bigelow.  And good for the rest of us wwho have watched and enjoyed your work for the past couple decades.  And congratulations for being the first woman to win in the Directing category.  About friggin' time.

The format of the show itself was more about the jokes and less about the spectacle, which is fine by me.  The one exception was the break-dancing-to-film-scores-number (take note, producers - that was unnecessary and completely silly).  And notably absent from the memorial reel was Farrah Fawcett.  Whaddupwiddat?

But those quibbles aside, I'm pretty happy with the way the awards turned out, and happy my dark horse took the big two.  Now everyone go add The Hurt Locker to your Netflix queue.  You can thank me later.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Summer Movie Season

It's starting early this year (thank you, Tim Burton).  Here is a small sampling of the films I'm excited about:

Once again, it looks to be a good year to be a film geek... and a geek in general.