Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Kick-Ass

[#] posted at 4:11 PM (GMT +1200)

I can't wait for this movie to come out... Watch Nicholas Cage shoot his daughter with a handgun for comedic affect? Check.

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Thursday, December 03, 2009

A bit of a mash up post here...

[#] posted at 6:10 PM (GMT +1200)

Am also approaching that 'need to get a haircut' point. Telling factor is after a shower my hair becomes this almost Beatles like bob cut. But anyways...

A pretty good list of what one man considers The 10 best long tracking shots ever filmed which I can wholeheartedly agree with.

An article and sample of Philip Glass's new opera can be found here.

A rather bizarre article on a Vietnamese man dug up wife's corpse 'so he could hug her'.

For Empire's 20th anniversary, they've gotten a whole slew of actors to recreate some of their more famous roles. It's pretty neat-o and can be found here.

And then lastly some science articles...

Why we shouldn't release all we know about the cosmos
A trio of astronomers have warned that, unless we use the information sparingly, we risk squandering a once-in-eternity opportunity. If the whole data set is released at once, as is planned, any new ideas that cosmologists come up with may have to remain untested because they will have no further data to test them with. [full article]

Death of rare giant star sheds light on cosmic past
An enormous explosion observed in 2007 was the death of one of the most massive stars known in the universe, new calculations suggest. Similar blasts may have polluted the early universe with heavy elements, altering its evolution. [full article]

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Who's Hungry For Shrimp?

[#] posted at 1:10 AM (GMT +1200)

Finally watched District 9 tonight and it was hella good indeed. Great fun story and kick-ass action, my only problem I kept thinking that the main actor was Spike Jonze. I mean, obviously it wasn't, but I just couldn't keep shaking off that thought. But that's just me. Also loved the many subtle science and sci-fi references. Along with Moon, District 9 is one of the greater sci-fi film to have come out in years. Go 2009 go! And there's still Avatar to look forward to.

Also set to check out Casablanca on the big screen this weekend and it's gonna be awesome. Next weekend has also got a screening of The Wizard of Oz and I'm so down for that too.

Ain't had much else to blog about this week, hence the rather quiet activity around. I keep trying to make use of twitter as an alternative, but its a service I'm not really getting that into at the moment.

Meanwhile I stumbled across this neat little article/entry and linking mostly for the first paragraph, but you can check the rest here.
My whole theory of beautiful language holds that it comes from nameless, groups of people looking for a more expressive way to say something. I'm always thankful to get a note where someone praises a sentence I wrote. But what I really want is the kind of genius that takes "I'm leaving" and turns it into "I'm ghost" and then takes "I'm ghost" and turns it into "I'm Swayze." Seriously, what kid decided to pull "Ducat" out of obscurity (at least obscurity for us 80s city kids) and use it as easy as bread, or ends, or greenbacks? Who decided that a gun should be called a "heater" and then a "toaster" and then finally a "biscuit"?

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Friday, September 04, 2009

Whoops...

[#] posted at 1:01 AM (GMT +1200)

Disappeared for a bit there. I've been watching a new movie pretty much whenever I'm not working and it's been great, but leaves little time for other things like blogging as one might notice. Been keeping close to the average set out in the last post though. About 10 movies watched in the last four days. Think I might take a break tonight, but that could change later.

Meanwhile, I've started up a twitter account which you might notice on the sidebar. Something of a tester just for September, but so far... meh. Find it fairly redundant to be posting about what I'm doing all the time and haven't even bothered to use the mobile phone feature cause honestly... who the hell wants to know that I'm at the supermarket or what movie I'm watching or how many cancers I've cured in an afternoon? I mean, asides from the obligatory stalker, but they've already got this blog. Mind you, if they wanna real time stalk, more power to them... the hell am I saying?

Pretty tired now, so a few links and then yeah, why not? Let's do one more movie tonight...

The Pixies have announced a one off gig next year and I'm pretty damn keen to get myself a ticket. [full article]

A website that gives recipes on how to transform your fast food takeaways into gourmet looking meals. Definitely worth checking out. A simple favourite is a KFC meal into a chicken corn chowder amongst many others. [http://www.fancyfastfood.com]

Good ol' New Scientist brings us 13 More Things That Don't Make Sense.

And finally a featurette for Wes Anderson's upcoming adaptation of The Fantastic Mr Fox. I can't wait. Apple HD options can be found here. Else embedded below.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Inception Teaser

[#] posted at 12:57 AM (GMT +1200)

Just a teaser and not much too it, but damn I'm excited. Announced this year, began filming only a month ago, teasers already out and it'll be released less than a year away. Christopher Nolan is efficient if not brilliant. (He's totally brilliant).

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Monday, August 24, 2009

This One is Mostly About Movies

[#] posted at 12:41 AM (GMT +1200)

Still fairly tired from the weekend out so this'll probably be brief.

Caught the 3D Avatar preview and I gotta say, it was pretty damn awesome. Well worth the hype and I so can't wait to see it in full at the end of the year.

Also watched Inglourious Basterds and that was most enjoyable for the most of it. Friends definitely liked it more than me, I just wish Mike Myers didn't have to be in it, or at least wish he had less screen time and a non speaking role.

Other damn fine movies watched this week were Coraline which was gorgeous and wonderfully terrifying, check it out and in 3D if you can. Ip Man was a brilliant martial arts bio-pic, think those kind of films like Walk the Line and Ray, but instead of music, it's kick-ass baddassery. Also, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was surprisingly good, but not great... watched some other films as well, but too tired to remember them anymore.

Was hoping to see the first trailer for Christopher Nolan's new film Inception in front of Inglourious Basterds, but I guess non-US countries or New Zealand at least, doesn't get that pleasure. Strangely not online yet, but apparently it will in a few days time. Found myself enjoying the simple nothingness of the official website for now.

Right, enough yabbering, gonna check out some of these Real Groovy purchases (still a consumer whore) and then sleep. Night.

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Friday, August 21, 2009

Shaped Exactly Like The Earth

[#] posted at 2:54 PM (GMT +1200)

Slow day. Trying to configure phone to be able to blog on the go and solve quantum physics equations. Having more success with the quantum physics.

Everyone watched the new Avatar teaser trailer yet? Half the internet already seems to have. Fin's got some nice screencaps from it on his blog here. There hasn't been much publicity about the 15 minute 3D previews this weekend which is kinda good, cause I don't want to risk not getting a ticket so shhhhhh!

Friend Rocky started up a blog this week where he plans to post a photo from around London once per day. He's already behind, but with his lifestyle sometimes, I'd understand why. [P365 - A Photo A Day]

And then this great article from stuff.co.nz had me gut laugh a bit:
Sting backfires as Aussie police PC hacked
An Australian police boast on TV about breaking up an underground hacker forum has backfired after hackers broke into a police computer system.

Security consultants say police appear to have been using the computer as a honeypot to collect information on members of the forum but the scheme came undone after the officers forgot to set a password. [full article]

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Cool Things About...

[#] posted at 1:00 AM (GMT +1200)

Copies of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and a Criterion of Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well arrived today and that was awesome. If you're not aware of the awesomeness that is Darkplace (a believable, yet fictitious 80's horror/drama by the well fictitious Garth Marenghi), then shame on you, or more likely shame on me for not spreading enough word on it.

Woke up with the modem and router completely missing from the house and the kitchen rearranged around and smelling of wet paint. Always hate being severed of a connection to the net. People wonder whether they'd survive living a hundred years ago. I wonder how I'd cope with twenty years ago before the internet boomed as we know it. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on the asshats who've now held my phone hostage for two weeks and still no real garuantee they've actually fixed it yet. Heads will soon roll.

Gonna be in Auckland this weekend for a mass screening of Tarantino's new film Inglorious Basterds and while I'm not holding my breath for it to be awesome, what I do hope to go to and experience awesomeness of is a sneak preview screening of the first 15 minutes from James Cameron's new film Avatar. For free and in 3D. Further details on the event and session times can be found at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0908/S00244.htm.

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Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Substance of Style, Pt 1

[#] posted at 5:41 AM (GMT +1200)

With just five features in 13 years, Wes Anderson has established himself as the most influential American filmmaker of the post-Baby Boom generation. Supremely confident in his knowledge of film history and technique, he's a classic example of the sort of filmmaker that the Cahiers du cinéma critics labeled an auteur—an artist who imprints his personality and preoccupations on each work so strongly that, whatever the contributions of his collaborators, he deserves to be considered the primary author of the film. This series examines some of Anderson's many cinematic influences and his attempt to meld them into a striking, uniquely personal sensibility.

Great series of videos, worth checking out for any fan. Posting just the first video, the rest are through this page here.

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Monday, May 04, 2009

Well how's this for consistent blogging?

[#] posted at 3:08 PM (GMT +1200)

Got back late last night/early this morning from Auckland having caught a few films at the World Cinema Festival. Coppola's Youth Without Youth is a prime example of the cop out critique of saying "it looked great" without having anything else nice to say about it.

JCVD was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly good, even though I've heard plenty of good things about it, I'd not known in what context 'good' actually meant. But it's a good film, not a masterpiece, but a damn film vehicle for Van Damme and who the hell knew he could act?

Genius Party Beyond was mildy disappointing. The first Genius Party is pretty damn awesome, displaying the multiple angles and methods of animation and storytelling. This follow up compilation was more about style than story. In saying that, there are some wicked animations going on in some of the shorts, but it's not something I'd be beating down peoples heads to go see immediately.

Meanwhile 48 Hours looms closer and closer. After the weekend of filming 48 Seconds stuff and testing out the equipment, we're feeling pretty confident and the biggest bonus of all is the fact that we've now got a damn decent mic that's (fingers crossed) won't crap out on us at the last minute, unlike issues we've had with sound every other year. Not much is being revealed about the competition this year and that's just fine with me. It's sure gonna be an interesting one this year.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ani*Kuri15

[#] posted at 3:51 PM (GMT +1200)

While I await the viewing of Geinus Party Beyond, a collection of anime shorts, I've discovered Ani*Kuri15, an awesome collection of 15 one minute anime shorts by an impressive line up of directors made for the NHK channel.

While the official website that hosted them seems to be down at the moment, you can find these videos on youtube quite easily, though almost all of them don't have english subtitles. But that doesn't matter much, cause these videos are in the hands of some damn fine directors. Here's a couple of my favourites...

A Gathering of Cat by Makoto Shinkai. I love this guy's films, check out Voices of a Distant Star and Places Promised in Our Early Years if you can.



Invasion from Space - Hiroshi's Castle by Shōjirō Nishimi. This guys a newcomer, but he was involved in the awesome Tekkonkinkreet and basically this short is a helluva lot of fun.



Project Omega by Shōji Kawamori. From the creator of one of my favourites The Visions of Escaflowne, this one is just fun.



Good Morning by Satoshi Kon. By far one of the best anime directors out there and one of my personal favourite filmmakers of all, this short is just... great.

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Sunday, March 08, 2009

General Movie Jibba Jabba

[#] posted at 4:06 PM (GMT +1200)

Not content with just the robots taking over the planet, I've been reading up a lot of articles on the big bang theory and the ultimate fate of the universe, which, though long after the robots have enslaved our planet, stripped it of all its resources and took to the stars, is the theory that the universe is actually expanding at an accelerating rate and eventually will be nothing but redshift to radiation. Gotta love science.

Anyway, been pretty shit still at keeping this constantly updated, which I still maintain is a robot conspiracy. Caught up with some friends over the weekend and managed to stay conscious through the most of a friend's Samurai movie marathon and got to watch a few films that I've been meaning to watch for a long time. In particular is Hari-Kiri by Masaki Kobayashi which was just great and something I've got to get my own copy of sometime. Wonderful lighting and intense performances from all, check out his other film Kwaidan if you can sometime.

Also caught Watchmen which left me at a loss for an opinion for a few days and even now I'm not as close to deciding if I liked it or hated it. On one hand, the adaptation of the comic in terms of visuals and dialogue have been done brilliantly well and the film looks amazing and lots of the scenes reminded me of bits exactly in the books, on the other hand, that's almost just saying that comics are nothing but movies that don't move and I think that's the growing attitude towards graphic novels which is stupid. While this worked in Sin City and 300 cause there was this macho attitude towards everything in the comics and that attitude was there on screen, Watchmen the comic is full of nuances and subtext and themes that just weren't there on the screen. It was like a hollow doppleganger or carbon copy of the general plot and no soul behind it.

In saying all that actually, I think I'm getting closer to not hating Watchmen. Other gripes I had were that the pacing of the film was very off, the soundtrack (apart from the wonderful use of Dylan in the opening credits) was awful, the changed ending was terrible, most of the action scenes were boring and unnecessary and what the hell was up with Nixon's nose? It was hard to pay attention to anything else when the damn thing was on screen.

I wanted to like the movie, I really did, and I admire Snyder for "staying true" to the comics, but in doing so, he's just made a hollow moving picture version that made me want to go back to the comic and stay there.

Really, I should have posted this semi-review separately, but meh. Here's a version of Watchmen I'm certainly glad they never did and yet strangely would have still watched it anyway...

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Well Hungover...

[#] posted at 2:44 PM (GMT +1200)

Can't post anything properly today. Drank too much last night.

A two faced kitten was born in Australia and I immediately thought of Transmetropolitan. Should really send the link to Warren Ellis, reckon he'd dig it.

There's a listing of 40 Exquisite Independent Film Posters and its a pretty good selection. Definitely a couple that I'd have on my list. There's also an ever changing list of 100 Greatest Movie Posters which is also pretty neat-o.

A great New Scientist write up of why the universe most likely is teaming with extra-terrestrial life here.

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Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Whoreboy

[#] posted at 10:25 PM (GMT +1200)

By request, more Hellboy promo videos merging the big red with series titled character Chuck.



And again...



Ghosthunters...



Some kinda weird PSA with kittens...



And something to do with something I have no idea about...



...Jaysis.

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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Hellboy Inside The Actor's Studio

[#] posted at 3:36 PM (GMT +1200)

Bored, but the Hellboy campaign entertains me greatly. Here he is on Inside The Actor's Studio.



Awesome.

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