In “The Empire Strikes Back,” Yoda utters a line which is memorable, quotable, cool and weird: “Luminous beings are we not this crude matter.”
He, and Lucas as the writer of that line, might have been onto something as it is being reported that the human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day.
Cool beans. Happy Friday.
Via Neu
Sometimes the title of a post says it all. In a true “Worlds Collide” type moment, two of my most beloved Sci-Fi universes meet as the Death Star destroys the USS Enterprise.
“Military force was authorized yesterday after the alleged time travelers and their craft ignored an ultimatum to stop whale poaching.” Gotta love the nod to ST4. Tres cool.
Little known fact – this is my 750th post – yay – which means my average is about 115 posts a year or one every third day overall since I started WGTCTIP2 back in Jan, 2003. This is not a bad habit that I’ve gotten into and while not all of the posts are Shakespearean, they have been entered into the record. I am significant screams the dust speck.
Film via Neu
A few months ago, after singing about the movie insessently over the years (there is a lyric about it in the Beastie Boys song “Sureshot”) without having even seen it, I finally got to watch “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” and I really, really enjoyed the movie.
I just love NYC movies and gritty 70’s ones are especially fun. There haven’t been very many good remakes of 70’s movies though so I was on the fence about the new remake. But, after hearing some positive reviews, I decided to check out the NYT Pelham review and could not stop laughing about its closing thought:
“It has intense violence and frequent repetition of every true New Yorker’s favorite word.”
Hmmm, I wonder what that could ever be…
Even more fun was that I could easily watch the original on my PC using NetFlix’s online VOD service. Sure, movies on a 17″ LCD screen aren’t as good as 42″ LCD screen but there is something to be said about the word “instant.” I am really looking forward to when everything is instant – we are probably 5 years away from that.
Last, since I am just obsessed with Phish lately, here is Phish playing the title of this post “Back on the Train” from Hampton back in March
Wired Mag turned me onto British photographer Nick Drummond’s site of Imperial Walker as family pet pictures which are artfully done and too much fun to look at as well. Now you know about it too. Enjoy the Flickr set.
When you have a movie whose premise is an all out battle between humanity and a mutant horde that stars Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman and John Malkovich, you know you best be watching out because it’s going to be sick. This is what life is going to be like if Wall Street does not recover…
After watching the trailer, I have high high hopes for the The Mutant Chronicles which is scheduled to hit theatres in limited release on April 24th. Living in NYC means limited release is not a problem. I just hope that I can find the time to actually get out and see it. Someone – please drag me away come the end of April…
Via Chris
2009 is shaping up to known as “Year of the Joe” as there will be a new animated series titled GI Joe: Resolute, a full length live action blockbuster movie titled GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and a new Hasbro toy line of GI Joe figures. Sweet. I have kept my VCR in large part so I can watch the tapes I have of the 80’s cartoon (I have the first 100 episodes and the Cobra-La movie on seven tapes that I bought off of eBay about a decade ago). Yes, I love GI Joe that much.
Regarding the cartoon, esteemed comic writer Warren Ellis is penning the script for the new Joe series which will all of one hour long – there will be 10 five minute episodes and one 10 minute concluding episode of this dark adult themed “Ghost in the Shell” inspired cartoon. The bootleg trailer of Snake Eyes slicing open Cobra Soldiers is pretty bad ass but no one knows yet if it will be released as webisodes, TV episodes or straight to DVD and I frankly do not care.
Regarding the movie, while the fanboy universe is currently panning it, I have to say that the Snake Eyes costume looks, to reuse a phrase, pretty bad ass and I’m keeping my finders crossed. The Wikipedia entry reports that the film is an origin story set 10 years in the future, showing the rise of the Cobra Organization. The director Stephen Sommers said, “For people who know nothing about it, it’ll make sense. And to people who love this stuff, it’ll show where they all came from.”
Know you know all about the cool Joe stuff coming and remember, as Duke, Flint, Lady Jay and others always said, “Knowing is half the battle” The other half I suppose is actually watching these goodies when they debut.
Coming five months after my “Too Many Summer Movies 2008” post, I am providing a list of the 12 movies that are being released in theatres before the end of the year that I hope to see. For the summer, I originally wanted to see 20 and thus far I’ve seen six (seeing a movie when you have a kid under one is t-o-u-g-h) but a few of the 20 are no longer on my list – for instance, Speed Racer and The Love Guru will only be watched if I’m on a plane and without a book or if I’m in some other pseudo-desperate state – so I’m hitting a respectable .333. If I was playing in MLB, that would earn me a few million dollars.
I’ve enjoyed my summer post as it has helped keep me focused regarding the movies I eventually watch. It also has helped me keep my Netflix queue up-to-date. So, why not start a trend and post quarterly the movies that I want to see. It doesn’t hurt that the NYT produces a special quarterly “This is what is coming to a theatre near you” section which means I basically circle what I want to see and then post it here.
So, without further ado, here are the 12 flicks I hope to view: The Changling, Rocknrolla, Zack and Mimi Make a Porno, Role Models, Quantum of Solace, Austrailia, Che, The Day The Earth Stood Still, What Doesn’t Kill You, The Wrestler, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Spirit. If there are more, I’ll post them and once I see what I see, I’ll post an update with a mini-review as well.
UPDATE: The Wrestler made me cry. Seriously. ‘Nuff said.
If the first thing you think of is “Ghostbusters!” when you read this post’s title, it means that either that you are a member of Ray Parker Jr.’s family or you are a huge fan of the Ghostbuster movies (or maybe just the first one as number two was just so-so).
It seems that a new GB movie is in the works and I am both very excited and very scared. While I think the premise is good, I’m not sure that having the 40 Year Old Virgin / Knocked Up / Superbad crew taking over for the “old guys” (aka Akroyd, Murray, Ramis and Hudson) as a sort of Ghostbusters: TNG will work out well.
As the latest Rocky, the latest Rambo, the latest Die Hard and the latest Indiana Jones all sucked donkey balls. I pray that the new Ghostbusters movie is at least as good as GB II, which isn’t saying that much mind you.
For your viewing pleasure, below is one of my favorite parts of the movie. I just have two words for you: mass hysteria!
Via Neu (once again)
Looks real to me (click on the thumbnail for the full image):
Via Neu
Have you ever seen a movie trailer, then seen the movie and wondered “how the hell did they cut the trailer because the movie is so friggen different from what I thought it was going to be?” I have, unfortunately more than once, and usually I’m pretty pissed.
Happily, I can tell you of two situations where I was pleasantly surprised when the movie was nothing like the trailer. Yesterday, my friend Steve sent me a remixed trailer that takes “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and mixes it with the “Requiem for a Dream” theme song so that one thinks that the movie is something that it is not: instead of the campy, super fun teen movie that Ferris Bueller is and that I, and so many others, love, if you never knew of the movie and just saw the trailer, you would think that it was one hell of a dark angst ridden film. Whoever did this deserves plenty of kudos – its is quite well done.
This trailer then made me remember another movie whose trailer was recut in the opposite way a few years back. Someone took “The Shining” and made the movie seem nothing like it was: the trailer promises a fun, uplifting comedy which, if you’ve seen or read “The Shining” could be nothing further from the truth. Red rum! Red rum! All work and no play makes Homer go something something…. (yes, I just worked in a Stephen King and Simpsons reference back-to-back – I could not resist).
My buddy Chris posted about this Shining trailer almost three years ago and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more remixed trailers since then. I guess you really need a lot of time on your hands in order to make this magic happen. My friend Joergen then linked to a NYT article about this Shining trailer in a post on Chris’s site which is an interesting read – I never saw it and only read it just now. Gotta love the memory jog – even years later something new pops up.
So, in the guise of a “Happy Friday” post, please see the two trailers below. One is a happy movie pretending to be dark movie and the other is reversed: it’s a dark movie pretending to be happy movie. Enjoy!
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” meets “Requiem For a Dream”
“The Shining” as comedy:
Via Steve (for FBDO) and others (for The Shining)