Aug
11

A Perfect Short

Posted in media at 11:58 am with tags: • • • •

Short films, like short stories or poems, don’t have the luxury of length and exposition. The necessity of brevity often creates the purest, simplest, and often the best stories. Witness, The Lunch Date, Oscar winner in 1990 for best short film.

Saw this sometime during my film school days and it always stuck with me. Thanks to YouTube and the net, gems like this no longer get lost in time.

Popularity: 58% [?]

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Jul
31

Pretty Fireplay Video

Posted in media at 5:14 pm with tags: • • • • •

This is pretty awesome.


Fireplays from Jon Thomas on Vimeo.

Popularity: 64% [?]

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Jul
29

What Would You Do for a Klondike Bar?

Posted in Challenge '08, media, politics at 3:26 pm with tags: • • • • • •

Would you vote for our video and enter yourself to win $25k? I hope so!

Watch here: http://tinyurl.com/59bcyk

Popularity: 79% [?]

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Jul
8

Good Stuff

Posted in media at 3:47 pm with tags: • • • •

Makes me want to travel again.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Popularity: 59% [?]

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Jun
12

The new Indiana Jones that could have been…

Posted in media at 9:21 pm with tags: • • • • •

Anyone that has followed the saga that was the lead up to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull probably already knows this, but for those that don’t. Frank Darabont (Writer of The Shawshank Redemption & The Green Mile, director of other films) wrote a complete script for the new film called Indiana Jones and the City of Gods. EVERYONE associated with the new film loved it and immediately signed off on it, except the one and only GEORGE LUCAS. In fact, Spielberg’s even quoting say it was “The best Indiana Jones screenplay since Raiders.”

Since seeing the film in May, I’ve thought it’s only going to be a matter of time before Darabont’s original script was leaked, and last weekend it apparently was! Sadly I missed it, but it’s getting really solid reviews.

So instead of what could have been the best indiana adventure ever, we get fucking monkeys, ants, and all the other crap that just didn’t work in the latest film. You fucked up again George Lucas. Always, always, always go with good writing over childish effects.

This almost pisses me off as much as Avi Arad ruining Spiderman 3 by forcing Raimi to put Venom in it thus turning it into an overcrowded shit fest.

Anyways, read Mystery Man’s excellent 50 Flaws of Indy IV and check back in monday for his 50 Strength’s of Darabont’s Draft next week.

Popularity: 73% [?]

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Jun
3

Slam! duuh duuh duuh, duuh duuh duuh

Posted in media at 4:54 pm with tags: • • •

Part 1

Part 2

Popularity: 56% [?]

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Jun
2

The Incredible Hulk

Posted in media at 8:15 am with tags: • • •

He’s totally my favorite superhero character, so needless to say I’m stoked for the new movie. Seems like it’s going to be a hybrid of the comics, Ang Lee’s Hulk, and the television show, which is wicked cool.

Popularity: 59% [?]

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May
23

Incredible Stop Motion

Posted in media at 5:02 pm with tags: • • • •

This is one of the most creative frame-by-frame animation I’ve ever seen. Wicked. Tip to Marco for the find.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Popularity: 62% [?]

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May
23

GTA IV

Posted in media at 4:16 pm with tags: •

I beat it at some point earlier this week, so I can put it to rest and give Halo the attention it so deserves.

Overall thoughts? Way, way over-hyped and far too inflated game scores. If not for the fact that this was the first GTA on the next gen consoles, I don’t think it would have gotten nearly the love it has.

It’s not as good as GTA: San Andreas, and in fact reminded me much more of Vice City. While I didn’t necessarily mind the smaller scope of being back in one city, it was the loss of variety that really killed it for me. San Andreas had some incredibly fun and diverse missions that varied form hijacking a plane and parachuting out, robbing a vegas casino, to piloting remote controlled helicopters.

GTA IV had nothing of the kind, they were overwhelmingly chase X or Kill X, or chase then kill X. And for the really annoying ones, chase X on a motorcycle then kill X.

The work that went into creating a living breathing city is fairly awesome in this one, but it just has no payoff. I kept waiting for a mission that involved riding on the roof of a subway, throwing someone off one of the skyscrapers (they TOTALLY missed opportunities here, other than the helicopter, you’re always at ground level), or anything original and fun. But they didn’t come.

And the story and acting? Please. The only reason anyone says anything about the “high quality voice dialogue” is because the bar is set soooooooo incredibly low in other games, that ok passes for amazing. Particularly bad are the lines/dialog of women you date, and the character of Packie. This is george lucas level dialog: terrible.

I found myself getting really bored playing this game. Yes, the sandbox style meant that at any given time I could do a variety of different missions, but that’s not nearly as interesting as it sounds since ALL the missions are basically the same, just with different cut scenes.

Cars and traffic are the other annoying thing in this one. There’s not enough cars for a city this big, the traffic patterns made no sense, and whether its a bug or a way to save some system resources, the fact that whatever car you’re driving appears suddenly starts appearing everywhere. Kinda takes the thrill outta finally scoring that Lamborghini, and makes the need to get repairs pointless…..just jack a fresh car!

The whole dating/friendship thing is just plain annoying. The time investment said relationships take are NOT worth the payoffs.

The last annoying thing……it didn’t really feel like my character went anywhere in the game. Compared to getting the sweet mansion in Vice City, and the sheer length of moving from the Hood through 3 cities in San Andreas…….IV just didn’t feel that special. I had a shit load of money, nothing to spend it on, and well thats it.

I’d give it a 7.5 of 10. Definitely nothing more. Will be giving multiplayer a spin soon..

Popularity: 48% [?]

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