You remember "I am Legend" with Will Smith? Nice story, but a fucked up ending. Oh, and then there was the older movie with the same story - "Omega Man" with Charlton Heston (which, funny enough, had quite the "anti weapons and violence" message). But that wasn't the first time the story about the last survivor of mankind after an epidemic turned pretty much everybody else into vampire monsters was turned into a movie - the first was "The last Man on Earth", featuring the immortal Vincent Price!
After seeing Legacy myself now I'm a little bit torn apart - I guess I have to give it at least a second view to fully make up my mind. But still - here's some first thoughts on what has been one of the most awaited movies this year for me:
It's not bad.
So far so good.
On the other side it seems to me that it doesn't live up to it's full potential by far.
I'm not even talking about the story - which seems to have disappointed many people who already posted their reviews on the net, although they have some good points here and there. But to be frank: Even though I really *love* the original Tron I have no problem in admitting that it's story wasn't really Shakespeare either. ;) Actually it's truly silly when you think too much about it, but the way in which it is told makes you buy into it any way, if you let yourself go.
What after my first viewing of Legacy is mostly responsible for my opinion is the altogether atmosphere of the movie, most important the parts that take place inside the computer.
Tron had a very unique look that, to this day, is pretty much unique. I'm not talking about the computer graphics used in it which back then were a revolution. Actually many people today would be surprised how few of the scenes actually were done with the help of computers.
What is responsible for most of the look and feel of Tron's computerworld is a combination of techniques including painted backgrounds and perhaps most important the hand-coloured black and white footage shot of the actors.
This gave everything a grainy, unreal feeling which added a lot to making you belief that the story took place in a different kind of world.
Legacy - compared to that, looks *way* to clean and real for me in comparison.
Before you argue now that Legacy is taking place twenty years after Tron and that technology has advanced a lot since then - giving the grid better graphic-cards, perhaps... Remember that the Grid in Legacy is running on a computer that hasn't been touched since 1989 - pretty much a machine on the same level of development as the one in Tron.
They didn't even attempt to reproduce the original look, they simply changed it. Granted, there's still the glowing bits on the clothes, but that's pretty much it.
My advice is: If you're planning to see Tron Legacy you should have a look at the original movie first if you don't know it yet.
Take this as a little Christmas gift: Tron, the complete original movie - someone nice uploaded the complete movie in high quality to youtube and as long as it's there - enjoy! :)
As we're closing in on Christmas it's time for one of the funniest clips the guys over at thatguywiththeglasses.com have done in a while - in my opinion. It's a heart warming story about a man who has lost his will to live, but then gets visited by his guardian angel who shows him what the world would be like without him!
Wow. :) I did know already that Mr. Bartos wrote some songs for the band "Mobile Homes" from Sweden, and his solo album "Electric Music" is in a very similar style actually, although it's "guitar rock"-sounds are produced completely synthetic, but this is a new sight:
Seeing him behind a guitar instead of a keyboard is new. :D
Conspiracy nutters and creationists seldom disappoint when you're looking for the stupid out there. Sometimes you even get twice the stupid for the same price. As is the case with Nicholas here, also known as truth777alexjones, doctoranswers or theanswersofnwo. Since he left youtube crying about how it was censoring his "truther" videos (his accounts got closed after he broke the TermsOfService on a number of occasions: advertising pyramid scam schemes or youtube cheat-bots that could dramatically increase your views - so the claim - but basically just got your accounts closed down by youtube) he has opened up his own video webpage http://youruploadsite.com especially for all those who, like him, had enough of THEM censoring their revolutionary views here on youtube. :)
There he goes on repeating Alex Jones' bullshit while trying to sell advertising space and (once more) pyramid scheme nonsense ways that are guaranteed to "make you rich quick on teh interwebz"! (not).
Enjoy this clip of him commenting on the underwater-camera-view of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico and babbling about a fire under water... :D
Oh - and notice my high end very first attempt at some animation of sorts there in the Beginning? :D Classy!
Some time ago AngryAussie made a youtube video about Fapping. And for some reason this struck a chord with many of his male (I assume) viewers - some of them started making remixes of the video. Including me...
I dunno, I just had to join the general sillyness. :D
This is a live performance of "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite Discworld novels. It has been adapted for audio by David Benedict and got performed live at Dragon*Con 2001 by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company.
Featuring John Rhys-Davies as Lupine Wonse.
Photography by Ken Grimes and Caran Wilbanks.
It should be obvious by now from the contents of this blog that I'm a big fan of online movie reviews of shlocky movies - the ones I post here are just the best I find, I watch many more.
What makes a good crappy-movie-review for me? Well, for one it really helps when the reviewer actually knows stuff. Just saying "this sucks" I can do too, but to explain why something sucks so bad that it has an event horizon from which no braincells can ever return once they got into it's range - that is an art...
So let me introduce you to Mr.Plinkett. I have already posted movie reviews from his webpage redlettermedia.com before here - like the one he did about the Star Trek reboot. If you have seen them you don't need more information, you already know the phenomenon that is called Plinkett.
If you haven't: Mr.Plinkett has a unique insight into the movies he talks about, laying his fingers on the weak spots, giving credit where credit is due, pretty much all the time being spot on. That, and he also tortures & murders women in his basement.
Nice bloke, though.
What turned him from a funny act from some webpage into the internet celebrity he is today (with mentions at MTV or Entertainment Weekly) has got to be his review of Star Wars, the Phantom Menace - probably the best existing review of this disaster of a movie worldwide. Enjoy! :)