As an exercise, I did a Flash site for Charlie Hustle, my brother’s Atlanta-based band. The site is fully-functional except for the text on the News and Live pages (which is place holder as of this writing).
Monthly Archive for December, 2007
Disneyland: Secrets, Stories & Magic was worth it really just for the new documentary on Disneyland’s history as well as the amazing full-color time-lapse footage of the park being built back in ‘55. The three or four episodes of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color were just gravy, really. (When I was a kid, they were still airing these programs and watching them now is like a trippy throwback to my very early childhood).
![Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31NxsRva6sL.jpg)
You know, unless you’re Zucker, Zucker and Abrahams (the guys who did Airplane!) stay away from parody. It’s too hard and, most of the time, it’s just annoying when it doesn’t work. Sadly, that’s the case with Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Despite the presence of co-scripter Judd Apatow (he of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked-up), “Cox” just lays there stillborn. My hand to God, I don’t think I laughed once. The cast is good, but the script is just too obvious and self-aware for this to work as a comedy. Director Jake Kasdan should stay away from comedy all together and Apatow should stick with what he knows: raunchy comedies with heart.
Frank and Ollie is a documentary about two of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men”, the master animators who worked on all of his Golden Age feature films. Being ninety minutes of two (very) old men sitting around and reminiscing, “F & O” does occasionally veer into quaintness and inanity, but by and large this is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the history of American cartoons. These two guys (who were friends from the 1930s on up to Frank Thomas’ passing in 2004) created imagery which has been seen and embraced by a millions of people worldwide. Hearing them discuss their work (with salient examples shown) makes for an engaging time over all.
The Blade Runner: Final Cut 4-disc Special Edition is a thoroughly terrific DVD set for an inescapably flawed movie. The flick just fails to connect, it’s as simple as that. It’s cold and it’s off-putting and you can’t draw a coherent line through all of its narrative dots. So, why is it still worth our attention 25 years later? Because it’s an amazing view of a credible future and because, here and there, you see little glimmers of substantive storytelling. The stuff with Roy Batty is terrific. Rutger Hauer makes a fine scary/sympathetic villain. I hope I’m not sounding too dismissive in regards to the movie itself — “Blade” is worth your time, but I bet you’ll probably be feeling a little empty when the end credits roll.
Part of what makes this set so worthwhile is the extras. There’s a making-of documentary that clocks in at nearly four hours (you read that right: four hours). Nearly everyone who’s still alive is interviewed for the doc including Harrison Ford, and he’s always been vocal about not being particularly fond of the movie. Good stuff indeed.
Despite not exactly loving Blade Runner, I have to concede that the newly edited and restored print coupled with all the extras makes this twenty-five bones well-spent.
Update:
Here’s Roger Ebert’s write-up of Blade Runner from his Great Movies series.
Check out some serious baby action, peoples…
I Am Legend is a fairly solid action/horror flick with a fine performance by Will Smith (who’s completely alone for roughly half the movie and manages to carry it). Don’t go to this one if you’re expecting a holiday pick-me-up, however — “Legend” is bleak and depressing overall.
I’ll say it again: I like this thing that Judd Apatow’s got going — a comedy with a decent story and some likable characters mixed with supreme crassness. Anybody that knows me knows I do like me some crass. Superbad certainly maintains the streak begun by The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked-Up — it’s funny, it’s got heart, and it’s filthy as hell. The new one (Walk Hard) looks a little gimmicky by comparison but I’ll give it its day in court based on my enjoyment of the other three.
I hadn’t seen The Dark Crystal since it played in theaters roughly 25 years ago (yeah, I know I’m old — get over it). My reaction upon seeing it again last night was fairly similar to my recent Beowulf experience. I thought there was plenty of good stuff there, but the impact was blunted by the technique. Even though the story was at the very least servicable and the world was very engaging, I never once tricked myself into believing I was watching anything other than hand puppets. This problem was particularly bad in the case of the Gelfling characters and, since they were our heroes, this was a serious issue. All of that being said, I concede that there was some beautiful design work done on the movie (way to go, Brian Froud) and the nostalgia value made it time well-spent.
Surprisingly decent.
This film gets a lot of things right. The documentary-style camera work, the loose, improvisational style of its dialogue and –most importantly– the sheer beauty of its visuals. This is really an amazing film to look at. The water in particular is astonishing. But none of that really matters without a decent story, right? Well, Surf’s Up does a reasonable job with that too. Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing particularly new here, but the characters are likable and the narrative has a laid-back style that’s appropriate for its subject matter (ie surfing and beach culture).
All in all, this is a much better film than Sony’s earlier effort Open Season.
You know, there’s a good movie in here somewhere. Structurally speaking, the story’s not bad and the film’s central theme is a solid one. But somewhere between the voice acting, the writing and the direction, Meet the Robinsons simply fails to connect. Did I have a bad time watching it? Not exactly, no, but neither was I with it the way I wanted to be. A missed opportunity.
Surprisingly lousy.
I first discovered Steve Martin’s comedy around 1976 or ‘77. Even at that young age, Martin grabbed me on two levels. There was just the right dose of thought-provoking material to keep a budding bookworm’s interest. But mostly it was just good, stupid fun and I think that appealed to the kid in most everyone at that time. There’s just something oddly appealing about a man in a clean white suit playing the banjo while wearing fluffy bunny ears. You just can’t look away can you?
Martin’s new book Born Standing Up chronicles his rise to power (as Tenacious D. might say). In just a little over 200 pages and with a clean, accessible prose style, Martin takes us from his youth in Orange County to the early nineteen eighties when he walked away from being the most successful stand-up comedian of all time. People forget that Martin enjoyed the type of fame which is generally only bestowed upon rock stars. He was playing to twenty-thousand-plus people at a time. Something that’s hard to imagine in today’s day and age where comedians play small clubs and the true mark of success is a mediocre sitcom. The entire book is engaging, but “Standing Up” really earns its keep in the last couple of chapters where Martin shares some candid (and often poignant) insight into his personal life. The anecdotes about reconnecting with his parents in their twilight years were especially moving and unexpected for this type of show business biography.
In short, I’d recommend this book to anyone who grew up in the seventies and remembers the impact that Steve Martin had on the popular culture. Hell, I’d recommend it to any late-comers too. Anyone who wasn’t around then and is curious to discover what this whole “Wild and crazy guy” thing was all about. There’s just something timeless about a good fart joke and an arrow through the head.
I finished Mass Effect for the 360 last night and I think it’s perhaps Bioware’s strongest game to date — with a couple of caveats. “Effect” is highly derivative of their older titles both technologically and narratively. I often felt a strong sense of deja vu as I played through — like I’d suddenly been sent back to 2003 to replay Knights of the Old Republic yet again. But that didn’t hinder me from enjoying a well-told science fiction story with surprisingly adult themes.
I even got in a little hot girl-on-girl action along the way. Which is rad.
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