Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Been a few days...

So, I figure it's time for a post. Lets see, for the most part I've just been working and applying for jobs. So far, I have one interview with the school I student taught at, just waiting for the principal to give me a time frame. I also applied at a high school in the same district. If it comes down to it I'd take the high school because I prefer teaching to that level.

I purchased a 120 gig portable hard-drive recently, and I've been on a download kick recently. I've got a list of 50 some odd movies I'd like to put on the hard drive, and I've downloaded about a third of em already.

I started reading Gunslinger book 1 of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. So far it's ok, I'm only about two chapters in so I can't really pass judgment yet. Once I get used to the way it's written I think I'll enjoy it a lot.

Before I started reading that I was reading a Star Wars novel. I used to read a ton of Star Wars books when I was younger, but I stopped for a long time, and I just recently picked them up again with this start of this new Legacy of the Force series.
So far it's good, but I'm a bit behind in the continuity of the Universe, so I constantly have to look things up on Wookieepedia about characters I'd never heard of and such. I kind of wish they would let the core cast of characters from the movies (Luke, Leia, and Han) step aside and retire already. I understand that Luke and Leia are both Jedi and therefore can fight and live well beyond that of normal men and women. Han, however, is a normal guy and he is like 80 now, but he is still running around and getting in fights and rolling it off his shoulders like its nothing. I honestly don't think He'd be able to keep up with Leia at this point in his life.

Give us some new characters... characters that AREN'T directly related to the Skywalker family. Thier kids are cool, but surely there could be a powerful influential Jedi that isn't a descendant of Anakin. Most Jedi other than Luke, Leia, Mara, Jacen Solo, Jania Solo, and Ben Skywalker always end up being bit or supporting characters. Maybe if I had read the New Jedi Order books there would have been more exciting non-Skywalker characters, but somehow I doubt it. Oh well.

*SPOILER ALERT*



I do, however, like that Jacen Solo is being made into a Sith.



*END SPOILER*

What they should do is start making books set BEFORE the movies. They could never really do that before the prequels because Lucas didn't want em to possibly screw up the stories for the movies (apparently he wanted to do that himself lawl). But,the movies have been out for a while now, lets see some Old Republic books! Darth Bane was a good start, but I want more! I'm greedy that way.

Speaking of an elderly Harrison Ford (kinda), The new Indiana Jones looks Awesomely amazing.

Well I think that's about all for now.
Coming Soon: More Photos and a review of Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Shoot Em Up

Shoot Em Up is what I call a good bad movie. The story is flimsy, the dialog is cheesy, and the action sequences are so over the top that they are just down right ridiculous. All this aside(or perhaps because of it), I can't help but like this movie. Lets face it, this film wasn't made to be taken seriously, I mean after all its a throw back/parody of films like Rambo or Die Hard where one bad ass of a man takes on hordes of enemies singlehandedly with little more than a 9mm pistol and a well sharpened tongue (one-liners aplenty people).

Just to give a sample of how wonderfully over the top this movie is, the first person to die in the movie is killed with a carrot. That's right a carrot. There are two instances of direct carrocide in this film. In the first our hero,who is known only as Smith, somehow manages to shove a carrot right through the back of a man's skull within the first five minutes of the film. There are also several other instances of indirect carrocide where a carrot is used to hold down the triggers of guns (thats right he does this more than once).

The films plot is pretty much strait forward action movie plot, I'll try not to spoil anything for anyone that hasn't seen it yet as I describe this. It starts out with our typical wrong place at the wrong time type scenario. Mr. Smith (played by Clive Owen) is for unknown reasons relaxing on a bench in a seedy looking area eating a carrot when a pregnant woman runs past him who is being pursued by a man with a gun. Mr. Smith saves the woman, and then after a shoot out while delivering the womans baby, he tires to help them escape. The mother is killed in the process, so now Mr. Smith is stuck with this baby who a man named Hertz (Paul Giamatti) is trying to kill (thats right they are trying to kill the baby). The rest of the movie is spent following Smith and his lactating prostitute/love intrerest/damsel in distress named Donna Quintano (Monica Bellucci) as they attempt to figure out why on earth anyone would want to kill this baby. All the while avoiding/duking it out with Hertz and his seemingly endless supply of henchmen. To find out the rest, go watch the movie.

Casting for Shoot 'Em Up is pretty spot on. Clive Owen's "Smith" is pretty much the same as the character he played in Sin City, a wise cracking cliche bad-ass who is both bitter and jaded, yet has a heart of gold. This role was pretty perfect for Owen, and I haven't really seen him play as anything but this type of character.

The Character that stole the show for me, however, was Hertz. Paul Giamatti makes a surprisingly good villain, he's twisted, intelligent, and a complete prick, and the constant phone calls from his wife about his son's birthday was a very nice touch and led to some of the funnier moments in the film.

Donna, Monica Bellucci's role, was really quite... blah. But, in action movies like this one female leads are generally there to be hot, not deep. So, I guess that doesn't really matter. The one nice character touch they did throw in for her was that she would swear in Italian when mad.

A note on the action. The action scenes are great, they are what you would expect from a film of this nature: bloody, long, and many. Also as the movie goes along each scene tries to out do the last. Smith fights while delivering a baby, having sex and while jumping from an airplane to name a few.

All in all, I'll say this it's not the best movie you'll ever see, and it's no masterpiece, but if you take it for what it is (a "shoot 'em up" action movie) you will enjoy it. But, if you are looking for a deeper level action type movie where thinking might actually be required, go rent Reservoir Dogs because Shoot 'Em Up will just disappoint you.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Photos Photos Photos... oh and some music and movie stuff.

There are a few new Photos to talk about, so I'll take em one at a time.

Subway
Subway
This photo was taken when I while I was on the subway in Shanghai, as you can probably tell from the photo, the car was pretty packed. I think this was sometime around lunch hourish so everyone and their mother were going somewhere. This was a rather cool shot I thought, if you follow the link and look at the bigger version on Flickr you can see that it's nice a grainy due to the high ISO used for the low lighting on the subway. Sometimes this is a curse, but in cases like this I find it a blessing. Grain + Black and White + a vivid lighting layer = cool looking. Very scientific. I guess we'll see if the Flicker community agrees or not.

There are two versions of the next photo.
Crosswalk
Crosswalk color version.
Crosswalk (black and white)
Crosswalk Black and White.
So, I am not sure which I like better, I'm leaning towards black and white, but if anyone actually reads this blog (which I highly doubt), and you want to toss an opinion my way about this (or anything else i post or say in here!) please comment. Be tactful and constructive though if you hate em both say you hate em but tell me why. Anyways this was one of a few photos I shot while crossing the road in Shanghai, there were so many people crossing. I'll eventually post a few more of the crossing photos so stay tuned. One of the reasons I chose this one is because of the sign. As Shelby noticed on flickr, there is a nice contrast between the three people crossing in the sign, and the horde of people that are actually crossing.

Thats all the photos for now, in other news I'll hopefully be hearing something about that job at Vogel soon. Waiting for schools to write you back is the worst part of applying for jobs.

Music: I just got into the band Hellogoodbye thanks to a recommendation from Amanda. They are a fun/happy synth-heavy group who are somewhat akin to Reggie and the Full Effect at times, and at other times seem more like Panic! at the Disco.

TV: I've started watching Lost, and I must say I'm hooked. The show really knows how to drag you in and keep you watching. So far I love it, I was almost really pissed at the show when I thought they had killed off Charlie, but he lived so everything was ok. Also, the more I watch My Name is Earl the more I like it.

Movies: I watched AvP 2,and now I'm wondering why I did. The first one sucked and I didn't even know there was a second one until I saw the DVD at Chi Sai... 5 yuan and an hour later I was turning the DVD off and looking for something more exciting to do. It's not even really worth giving a full fledged review of... The acting sucks, the story is nonexistent and full of holes, and I'd comment on the ending if I'd even made it that far. I also watched Flushed Away recently, which was good! I guess you could say it was Dreamwork's answer to Ratatouille which came out about the same time and was also about CGI animated rats/mice. The stories couldn't be more different though, and it was done by the Wallace & Gromit people. It was definitely fun, and French Frog Ninja's are always cool in my book.

I've had a request from my buddy Lance to do a review for Shoot Em Up, so I'll try and watch the movie again tomorrow and then do a write up for it afterwards. Look for more photos very soon as well.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

New stuff...

Mathew
New Photo just put up on Flickr... I'm not sure how I like it. It was too washed out to begin with and I tried to fix it a bit in photoshop, but I'm not sure how well I did. I'm going to attempt to upload a new photo every other day and then blog about it as well, but whether or not that will hold true is yet to be seen.

In other news Mrs. McDonald, the mentor art teacher I had a Vogel Intermediate is retiring. I might attempt to slide into her job since people at the school no me and I think it would pretty much be a sure thing. I'm slightly hesitant though because she filled the role of 3d teacher, and I am definitely more of a 2d guy. But, she said that her husband may be switching schools as well so I might be able to slip into the 2D role! More news on this as it develops.

My other mentor teacher, Jenny Pascualis running or helping run a gallery in Houston, she said something to be about putting together a show when I get back state side, might be fun. I have a few plans I'd like to go about putting into motion when I return, getting my masters being one of them, learning Flash is another, and I'd really like to drive from Texas to LA and take a ton of photos in route. Sort of a deserty photo tour. Hmm, thats all for now. More soon!

Monday, March 10, 2008

30 Days of Night

I just watched 30 Days of Night, and I really liked it. I'm glad it was good because this was like my 4th attempt to watch the thing. All the copies they seem to have here in Zibo seem to have a messed up sound track that is all crackley. Finally I just downloaded it (arrrr I'm a pirate!). The copy I got was really nice quality too.

The movie is based on a graphic novel/comic book that I'm going to have to pick up because the art looks pretty cool. It's a vampire story set in Alaska. The movie is set in a small isolated Alaskan town that receives no sunlight for a whole month (30 days), and has such harsh winters that for this month most of the towns folk leave (reducing the population from about 500 to 200) before the final sunset. The only communication with the outside world during this month is through phones/internet. There is a single chopper that can still leave in an emergency. Unfortunately for the town just before the winter someone steals and destroys all the cellphones, the helicopter is sabotaged, and all the sled dogs are killed. Eventually, as people start dying all power and phone lines are cut off. The movie then becomes a survival/hunt story following a small group of protagonist (which includes Josh Hartnett as the town sheriff and Melissa George as an ex-flame of Hartnett/fire marshal who gets conveniently stuck in the town before winter). The best part of the movie, however, is the vampires. They are rather different from your traditional vampire in that while they do have the thirst for blood, and seem to share the same strengths and weaknesses of normal vampires,they don't act like your classic Vampire. They aren't the traditional Gothic sex symbols you see them as in most vampire flicks,instead they are far more feral/instinctual and driven almost wholly by their thirst for blood. They seem to have lost most of their humanity with their curse (or affliction what ever you want to call it). They do still think,however,and talk. The main/older vampires seemed to speak Latin or some language like that, while the newly turned ones still spoke English. They also set traps and such for the protagonist further demonstrating that there was a method to their madness, making them that much scarier. The ending will probably be a point of debate to some people, I personally like how they did the final fight/ending, but I can see how some people will find it incredibly cheesy. Remember this was based on a comic book though and it IS a vampire movie at heart (two stereotypically cheezy things) before you get too disappointed.

Now, I'm not saying classic Vampires are lame, but it sure was a nice change of pace. Sometimes Vampires are over glorified in my opinion or made to seem too pretty and nice with some minor (or major) sadistic undertones. This sometimes makes them too human and relateable (well minus the whole blood drinking thing), and while this works for some movies such as underworld where the Vampires are the good guys, it falls short with others. It was good to see truly scary/monster type vampires in 30 days.

Friday, March 7, 2008

My top 5ive most interesting on Flickr.

I'm goin to post my top 5 most interesting photos on flickr and talk about em. This is according to my Flickr "DNA"

1. Forest of Shadows
Forest of Shadows
This is also my one image on Explore! The photo part was taken by the very talented Shelby Karns. I did the ninja stuffs... I really want to do more ninja photos I've specifically taken photos to be used as backgrounds for more ninja work, but I don't have a scanner right now. Maybe in the near future. Of the ninja ones I did this one is one of my favorites, I really like the sai he is holding, Raph was my favorite Ninja Turtle.

2.Language Barrier
Language Barrier
Sometimes in China you people will run up to you and try and talk to you and you have to keep repeating that you don't understand (Ting Budong or something like that) a million times before they finally get that you don't really speak Chinese. This guy was trying to tell us something that he seemed to think was really important, but we couldn't get it at all. He kept pointing across the street too. The photo itself was pretty good I thought. The DoF is really nice.

3.Forbidden Duracell
Forbidden Duracell 1
I'm glad this one made it in my top 5 most interesting because I like this one quite a bit actually. We found some batteries someone was throwing away (or maybe lance was throwing them away I don't remember), and they were sitting on top of this pillar in the forbidden city. So,I took a photo of em and I think it came out really well. It's fun to see the chinese on a duracell.

4. So... Can I Call You?
So... Can I call you?
I don't have too much to say about this other than lawl!(that's net Slang for LOL,which is net slang for Laugh Out Loud... ridiculous no?) I did this a long time ago back as a Graphic Design Final in Bob Conlon's class I got an A in that class. The kid in the picture is a younger Shelby Karns.

5. Flight Attendant 2
Flight Attendant 2
Probably one of the best photos on my stream. nuff said.

Ha Ha!

So, I found a way to get around the Great Fire-Wall of China, so I might start posting here again.

China is a very different place. I am not sure what my plans are for next year yet. I might go home I might stay another year. I think I'll only go home if I have a job lined up, otherwise I'll stay here.

Being a foreigner in China is interesting, especially when it comes to other foreigners. We all tend to stick together and there are so few of us that it's a close knit community and everyone seems to know everyone else's business within 5 minutes. It can be pretty nuts. Lets see... since my last post on here I am single now,My Flickr Has grown considerably, and one of my photomations has actually made it on explore! I'm busting out in the Flickr realm a little I guess. I haven't updated it in about a month and I still have a million photos to edit. I really wish I had a scanner here so I can make more photomations, those are fun. Maybe when I'm back in the states I'll put together a gallery show of Photomations. I wonder how well that would do.

Ok I'm going to talk a little bit about music now. I don't know if it's growing up, or getting old, or what it is, but my taste have been shifting alot lately from fast noisy poppy punk/ska to more mellow indie rockish stuff. Don't get me wrong I'll be a Reel Big Fish and LTJ fan till I die (although LTJ has disappointed me with their last album.), but I find it hard to just sit and listen to music like that for hours on end like I used to. I like it when I'm at the bar or in a party situation, but if I am just sitting around (like I am now) I'm far more likely to be listening to Cake or Death Cab for Cutie or Ben Folds. I've recently discovered a band called The New Pornographers and I love em. Same with a band called The Decemberist both of those bands along with Built to Spill have found their way into my regular rotation.

Anyways It's telling me that I may not be able to publish this... So, maybe I wont be posting to here again after all... but If I do I'll try and do so again soon and talk about photos again or something. Here goes nothing.....