Baysplosions!!!

I love how Seth Green and Breckin Meyer in this clip are going "BOOM!""K-BOOM!""POWWW!""BA-BOOM!""BLAMMMMM!" like they're little kids acting it out.

For the record, I still think Transformers 2 was a blast. Forget the haters!

The Nuggets' Golden Fan

I'm not usually one to post stuff like this because they reek of pure public relations; I don't buy the "goodwill" of the companies who make sure that the whole world knows just how charitable they are. It just seems fake.

But this article is different. It's the story of a 23-year-old man named Nicholas Owens who was born with spina bifida. When he was 6 years old the Denver Nuggets' center, Dikembe Mutombo visited his hospital and instantly became friends with Nicholas. Already I knew that was a big deal because Dikembe Mutombo is an amazing guy--on top of being one of the best players in NBA history, the guy speaks 9 languages, adopted four children, and built a $29 million hospital in his homeland of the Congo. If Dikembe Mutombo is involved, I believe it's sincere.



Anyways, Dikembe's friendship expanded into the Denver Nuggets' organization, and the Nuggets have treated Nicholas as one of their own from that day forward. Nicholas is now an employee of the team, is in the locker room for every home game and serves as inspiration for the players and a reminder that it's only a game. Carmelo Anthony even wrote a $30,000 check for Nicholas' much-needed new motorized wheelchair, and Nicholas didn't even know about it until a reporter told him.

This is a must-read article if you want to smile a little. Very inspirational.

Vegan

Saw this online. It said it was found on "the office bulletin board at a super mega corp in Columbus, Ohio."

New art up!

I finally updated my art-only blog! Click on the link over at the right to go over there.

I've been ridiculously busy over the last 3 months, thankfully. The new art I just posted is probably only about 20% of what I've been doing--I can't really put up any of the images from the children's book I finished in late May because it doesn't hit stores until January, and other projects aren't able to be put up yet either.

Edit: Added a couple more images after initially posting this. Added the bumblebee and a posable vector cowboy.

Transformers

I liked it!

I read all of the reviews on the fan sites before I saw the movie and saw how every one of them hated the film. I also saw the film's pathetic 20% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Because of these things, I didn't see the movie on opening night, caught a matinee this afternoon, and went into it with no expectations whatsoever except for seeing really cool 50-ft. robots kick the crap out of each other. And because of that I had a great time.

Come on, this movie is the perfect example of the summer movie. Big, dumb, expensive, with amazing special effects and spectacle. I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane.

The supposed racist robots Mudflap and Skids? Much ado about nothing. Although I do agree that the movie was a little long at 2.5 hours and there was a lot of swearing in the movie (including 2 or 3 F-bombs), which I don't really understand why they put in the movie since they knew a massive portion of the audience were going to be kids.

It's kind of like this---do you enjoy watching fireworks on the 4th of July? There's no story for you to follow when you watch those fireworks in the night sky, but yet you're still dazzled and have a great time, right? That's what I would compare the experience of watching this movie to. Just turn your brain off, enjoy the spectacle and go have a good time.

Summer movie rankings:

1. Up
2. (tie) Star Trek & Transformers 2
4. Wolverine
5. The Hangover
6. Terminator: Salvation
7. Drag Me To Hell

Edit: After posting this, I read THIS review over at Filmonic that was nearly the same as mine, even throwing out the Citizen Kane reference. Judging by the film's weekend box office and this guy's review, this film was enjoyed by a lot of people--just not most film critics.

The Hangover

Yeah, I don't know, it was okay. I laughed at some of it, but it was really more amusing than hilarious. I'm sort of surprised that the movie is making so much money, but I know that there aren't a lot of great movies out there this summer so it's winning by default.

The director of this movie also made "Old School," which I think is a hilarious classic. But "The Hangover" isn't so much. I mean, it was okay--I was amused throughout--but I don't think you need to rush out to see it. Again, wait for DVD unless you've got nothing else to do.

Summer movie rankings:

1. Up
2. Star Trek
3. Wolverine
4. The Hangover
5. Terminator: Salvation
6. Drag Me To Hell

Drag Me to Hell

I was bored.

Critics loved it (93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) but I thought it was s-l-o-w and I was never involved in the movie at all. There were some sort of interesting special effects, but a lot of them were clearly CG and that made it not scary in any way.

The worst thing though was the leading acress, Allison Lohman. She was the heroine of the movie and she was neither someone I could love nor someone I could hate. She was just unexceptional and bland in every way. I didn't care if she got hurt and I didn't care if she survived. I just didn't care about her and therefore I didn't care about anything in this movie.

And it's such a shame---I LOVE Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness---Sam Raimi's classic horror comedies before he started making Spider-Man movies. But Drag Me To Hell has none of those movies' charms. I have no idea what all of the critics were gushing about pertaining to this movie.

Wait for DVD.

Summer movie rankings below. It hasn't been a very good summer for movies. Still need to see The Hangover. Mildly excited for Transformers on Wednesday, but definitely looking forward to Harry Potter.

1. Up
2. Star Trek
3. Wolverine
4. Terminator: Salvation
5. Drag Me To Hell

My new little niece!

Say hello to Charlotte Marie Hardin, born at 1:30 am this morning! She was 6 lbs., something ounces :)

More family fun: today is my nephew Andrew's 2nd birthday as well, which means that Nathan's first two kids have the same birthday! That's CRAZY! I mean, it's strange enough when you meet someone in day-to-day life who shares your birthday, but when siblings born two years apart share the same birthday, that's gotta be God or something.

Congratulations to Nathan and Jen!

It's a Bird...

Saw this over at Cracked.com and thought it was stupid/hilarious.

First look at GH: VH

I'm super psyched to play this game eventually, but there's one huge problem. Van Halen wouldn't allow Michael Anthony, the original bass player in the band, who played on every Van Halen album ever made and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band to be in the game. So instead they're putting Eddie's 17-year-old son Wolfgang into the 1980's era version of the band. I'm sorry, but that's lame and cheap. Just because Eddie Van Halen can't get along with anybody any more, that doesn't mean he should be rewriting history just because he's a jerk. What a low punch to Michael Anthony.

And it's not even the first time Eddie's done this. When they first announced the reformation of Van Halen a couple of years ago, they airbrushed Mike off of the first album cover from 1979 and put Wolfgang on there and then posted it on the official VH website. Fan reaction to that slight was brutal and they put back up the original cover.

Original:


Cheap shot Wolfgang version:


I love this band, I love the music...but Eddie Van Halen just might be the biggest drama queen I've ever seen. No wonder he can't keep any lead singers.

Breaking Bad finale

I took one hour off of my crazy work schedule right now to watch the season finale to Breaking Bad, and wow, was it worth it.

If you watch this show---can you believe that ending? The writers of this show have an INSANE sense of humor! What an ending!

Up

Loved it!

Much like Pixar's trailers for the film, I don't feel much need to explain the plot of the movie to you. You're going to want to see this movie purely because it's a Pixar film, and you should. It's great.

The movie is like a waking dream, with the floating house and the grandpa character and the talking dogs and the exotic bird and the waterfall and the zeppelin. The storytelling is great--no unexplained plot holes, no inconsistencies in logic, you really feel for the characters. and it's really funny.

I had a great time. Enthusiastically recommended!

Oh, and for some reason my theater didn't show Pixar's short film "Partly Cloudy" that was supposed to be attached to the front of this movie. What a rip! I guess I'll have to see Up again...

My ranking of 2009 summer movies:
1. Up
2. Star Trek
3. Wolverine
4. Terminator: Salvation


My ranking of Pixar movies:

1. The Incredibles
2. Monsters, Inc.
3. Up
4. Toy Story
5. Ratatouille
6 (tie). Finding Nemo
Toy Story 2
8. Cars
9. A Bug's Life
10. Wall-E

The Goode Family

Anybody see this on ABC tonight?

This is the new animated series from Mike Judge, the creator of "Beavis and Butthead," "Office Space," "King of the Hill," and "Idiocracy." It's about the most politically correct, left-wing, bleeding heart family imaginable. And it's hilarious.

They're so crucially worried about saving the earth that they unspool 2-ply toilet paper into separate rolls and they sweat bullets over even buying reusable shopping bags. The parents in the family crucify themselves for being judgmental about the slightest things, except for the Christians who are having an abstinence rally. At the health food store, one of the employees feels the need to get on the intercom and point out that "the man who drives the SUV is in the store-he's the guy in the baseball hat" and the shoppers gasp. The mom wears a "Meat is Murder" t-shirt and wants to be best friends with her daughter instead of her mother. The teenage girl in the family says "Mom, the pretty woman on 'The View' is saying weird things again." But my favorite line in the whole premiere episode was, "Since the election we can all wear flag pins now!"

And it's absolutely hilarious that the Goode family tries to make their dog (named Che, natch) eat vegan just like they do, so then the meat-starved dog has no choice but to eat all of the pets in the neighborhood. There's "missing" posters for all of the lost cats, birds, etc.

After years of everybody making fun of the Right, it's a breath of fresh air to finally see it turned back around. Thank you Mike Judge! Here's hoping that you have another huge hit!

The Vendor/Client relationship

Brilliant.

What Went Wrong With Terminator: Salvation

This morning I found this article over at CHUD, which is incredibly interesting reading. It basically explains why the Terminator movie in theaters now is so light on drama or things of interest, because of script changes demanded by Christian Bale when he came on board, as well as by director McG's chickening out on the original ending of the movie once it got leaked to Ain't It Cool News while still in production. The CHUD article explores the original structure of the script and reveals the movie that was meant to be. I think if that intended movie had been made, that there might have been some grumbling, but that overall audiences would be much more excited for future movies than they are now. But judging by the opening weekend box office for this movie, it looks like we won't be seeing another Terminator movie for a while.

I have a feeling that Hollywood is paying all kinds of attention to this Exhibit: A of how not to make a movie. Hopefully lessons will be learned.

Terminator: Salvation

I thought it was okay. Didn't love it, didn't hate it, just kind of thought it was a bit pointless.

The biggest thing I didn't like about this movie is that there was no suspense or surprise. Since it's a prequel, we already know who lives and who dies--it's the same problem the Star Wars prequels had. But even more than that, the movie's trailers gave away a huge surprise with the reveal that human resistance fighter Marcus was really a Terminator. What was left for the movie to entertain us with?

Also, it never really felt like a Terminator movie except for the last 10-15 minutes of the movie, and even then, only slightly. I missed the hunter/huntee aspect of the original films as well as the time travel. Terminator Salvation mostly just felt like a futuristic war movie.

Finally...Skynet had ample opportunity to kill off its chief enemies, but didn't. Why? From either programming Marcus to be a Manchurian Candidate to killing the guy they had in captivity--why didn't they do these things? And there were too many "movie moments" where the Terminator had important characters literally in its grasp but took too long to kill them and lost its chance. Logic tells me that those characters only survived because the movie needed them to. Also, Terminators are machines with targeting computers, right? So why did they keep missing their targets just as badly as a human would? They needed to find a better solution to those scenes. I had one more logic problem with the movie--I'll put that at the end of this so you can avoid the spoiler.

What did I like? I don't know...the action scenes were cool, and there's some nifty new Terminators (as well as one old one), the sound design was awesome...but that's about it.

Do I recommend it? Well, the guys I went with seemed to really like it. I think you could not see this movie and not miss anything important in the Terminator mythos though. Anyways, despite my misgivings it's a well-done summer popcorn movie and worth seeing--it's just not terribly important.

Time to do my summer movie rankings like I do each year.

1. Star Trek
2. Wolverine
3. Terminator: Salvation

SPOILER ALERT--below:


Okay, so in T2, Arnold was totally and completely killed by dropping him into a vat of molten metal. In Salvation, the same Terminator model that Arnold was gets a vat of molten metal dropped on top of him but yet the Terminator gets up and keeps going. Was he made out of Wolverine's adamantium? How come this Terminator could survive this?

"Kidney Now" vs. "We Are the World"

After seeing "30 Rock's" intentionally terrible spoof of "We Are the World," "Kidney Now," I checked out the original on YouTube.



Thoughts:

• It's amazing to realize just how little taste we all had back in 1985. Not that this song was ever any good, but to hear it today just makes my ears bleed. Actually, I guess we all still have terrible taste; this video has over 9 million views on YouTube and it's gotten over 21,000 ratings, for an aggregate 5 star rating. Amazing.

• I can remember changing the station in my mom's car and hearing this song on every. single. station. There was no escape. I think it was #1 on Kasey Casem's Top 40 Countdown for like a whole year. There was no way to get away from this song, so to cope you had fun mimicking every performer's singing style and really getting into it. Much like what I had to do years later every time I had to sit through that Celene Dion "Titanic" song.

• Dionne Warwick was a huge star back then! Now I only think of her as the "Psychic Friends Network" lady though instead of the "That's What Friends Are For" lady. Also an awful song. Did she have other hits?

• Bruce Springsteen going nuts...I just now tried doing his part of the duet with Stevie Wonder there at the end of the song--how does he sing like that? "So let's start givin'!" It tears up my throat and makes me cough. It's got to be easier to sing like Axl Rose than it is to sing like Bruce Springsteen!

• Speaking of Stevie Wonder: nice to see him influencing all future American Idol singers here.

• Michael Jackson gets all kinds of screen time on this and in the song--I guess he co-wrote it with Lionel Richie (Nicole Richie's dad if you have no idea who he is) which could be partially why, but it makes you remember how at one time he was the star amongst stars.

• The guy conducting the song? That's Quincy Jones, who fathered Jim Halpert's one-time girlfriend Karen (Rashida Jones) on "The Office."

• Cyndi Lauper makes an appearance in both videos!

• I like how Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson show up to represent country music, but were the Oak Ridge Boys not taking phone calls? Where was Dolly Parton? The sad/funny thing is, when I think of country music today Kenny and Willie are still the people who come to mind. I guess actually I think of Garth Brooks first maybe, but it's still those two old geezers who represent country music to me. Everything else is a blur of twangy dudes in Wranglers and cowboy hats. Though the other day I heard that Darius "Hootie and the Blowfish" Rucker has a #1 country song right now. Which is cool. Except, well, actually when I think of him I think of either "I'm such a baby, the dolphins make me cry," or "tender crisp bacon cheddar ranch." Speaking of:



• I remember having no idea who Bob Dylan was and mimicking his lines were some of the most fun parts of that song.

• Dan Ackroyd didn't warrant a solo? Like he wasn't a bigger star than Kim Carnes!

• I think I'm gonna say that Ray Charles is the only performer who didn't embarrass himself. He was actually pretty good.


Well, that was fun.

So dumb it's hilarious

Star Trek

I've seen most of the older Star Trek movies, but I never really got into that series. I've always been a Star Wars guy. That said, I enjoyed this new Star Trek movie more than any of the new Star Wars prequels George Lucas put out during the last decade.

What I always hated about Star Trek was that it was all talking and hanging out on the bridge of the Enterprise and blah blah blah, no action. What I always loved about the old Star Wars movies was that it was all action and space battles and it was exciting and funny and it created a real sense of wonder. I now find it interesting that the two franchises have completely switched places. The Star Wars prequels were all talky and full of political debate and were flat out boring, while this new Star Trek movie was all action and humor and full of space battles and excitement and fun characters.

Anyways, Star Trek is still kind of nerdy to me, but I really enjoyed this new movie. Thumbs up!

P.S. (SPOILER ALERT:) Speaking of nerdy, I'm pretty sure even light can't escape the pull of a black hole, much less a starship. But it was still fun to watch.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen

I'd been hearing rumors, but today it was confirmed that Activision is indeed developing a game that will be in stores in late 2009.

Holy crap. I might have to buy a game system for this game alone! (note to both of my brothers: buy this game so I can play it when I come home to visit :))