After several years of trying, I finally was able to purchase a Bag of Crap from woot.com. For those unfamiliar with Woot, they are a daily deal site that normally posts one item for sale each day until it sells out. But sometimes they have a "Woot Off" where a new item will come up after each previous one sells out. During a Woot Off a "Bag of Crap" will occasionally come up.

These are basically mystery grab bag that are highly sought after, so they crash the Woot server and sell out in seconds; they are very hard to purchase. They only cost three dollars, and most of the time you get a bunch of junk, but you do have a chance of getting something worth a lot more than the three dollars you paid. Here is a video of me unboxing my first ever Bag of Crap from the March 22nd Woot Off.

 

I am the laziest blogger alive!! Okay so I figure I better start writing in this again since I have to for my Writing Comics and Graphic Novels class.

The only reason I'm even enrolled in said class is because the playwriting class I was going to take got the ax due to lack of enrollment (one person shy of making...drats!!) But I will spin this into the positive and accept the challenges that await me. For months my writing partner/roommate/heterosexual life mate have been developing the idea for a female assassin story. It could all end up very Kill Bill'ish and cliché, but my inclination is to make it not that. Certainly I cannot completely avoid the influences of action and martial arts cinema I have consumed, but I hope to create a somewhat original story.

To that end I plan of using this class as an opportunity to create a multi-dimensional character and a compelling story. I believe the graphic narrative will be a perfect fit for the genesis of the character. It involves an lots origin story told in flashbacks, something I believe the graphic novel does well.

Eventually I want to turn this idea into a screenplay and a motion picture, because well, making movies is what I want to do with my life. Last semester I made a short film that takes place inside the world of the my female assassin character. The female character in this film isn't the main character of the world, just someone who happens to live inside it. The film is embedded below. Please watch.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

Last weekend before the snowpocalypse hit, we decided to shoot a quick little martial arts action scene. While we were snowed in I edited it together, and added sound effects. It always amazes me the power sound and music have on the visual image. Before putting in the sound effects, the scene was dull and lifeless, but afterwards it became fun and action packed. Below is the result.

Oscar Predictions

The Oscar nominations came out this morning so I've decided to get a jump on my predictions this year. Not that my predictions, or the awards themselves matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's a decent way to kill time at work while I have nothing else to do. I'm only going to list my predictions for the winners. If you want the full list of nominees go here.

Best Picture - The King's Speech

Best Actor (Leading) - Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Best Actor (Supporting) - Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)

Best Actress (Leading) - Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Best Actress (Supporting) - Hailee Steinfield (True Grit) [my dark horse pick]

Best Animated Feature - Toy Story 3 [is there really any doubt?]

Art Direction - Inception

Cinematography - Inception

Costume Design - The Tempest

Director - Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)

Best Documentary Feature - Exit Through The Gift Shop [it's the only one I've seen]

Best Documentary Short Subject - The Warriors of Qiugang [a wild guess]

Editing - Black Swan

Best Foreign Language Film - Biutiful (Mexico) [only one I've heard of]

Makeup - The Wolfman

Original Score - The Social Network

Original Song - If I Rise (127 Hours) [another wild guess, but Dido wrote the lyrics and I like her]

Best Animated Short Film - Day & Night [only one I've seen]

Best Live Action Short Film - God of Love [wild guess]

Sound Editing - Inception

Sound Mixing - Inception

Visual Effects - Inception

Adapted Screenplay - Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)

Original Screenplay - Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg (The Kids Are Alright)

So if my predictions are right, it should be a big night for The King's Speech and Inception. We shall see.

The Social Network and Piranha

Recently I've been catching up on all the 2010 movies I missed that have made their way to DVD. I've been itching to see The Social Network, and since I never return movies back to Netflix (maybe I should switch to the streaming only plan), I headed to the closest Redbox to rent it. While I was there I noticed they also had Piranha, so I picked it up too since I've also been wanting to see it. The Social Network did a decent job of keeping me interested in a pretty boring subject. It's main strength is the dialog of Aaron Sorkin's screenplay. I also enjoyed Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's score, but that was no surprise since I'm a long time fan of Nine Inch Nails. 4 out of 5 stars.

Piranha was a complete one-eighty from ...Network's Oscar baiting pedigree. Shlocky, bloody madness from pretty much start to finish. I am a huge fan of this type of movie, but something about Piranha just didn't do it for me. There were cool cameos, lots of gratuitous T&A, and a ton of grisly deaths. This is normally a formula for success in my book, but something didn't click. Maybe it was the unlikeable characters, whose deaths I just shrugged off, or the blatant 3D gimmicks which I couldn't enjoy in the home setting. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

2009 Movies I've Seen

Just a little post to keep track of the movies released in 2009 that I've seen, and have yet to see.

Bride Wars

Hotel for Dogs

His Name Was Jason

He's Just Not That Into You

Friday the 13th

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Fast & Furious

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Star Trek

Drag Me to Hell

Up

The Hangover

(500) Days of Summer

District 9

Grace

Inglourious Basterds

Zombieland

Moon

Paranormal Activity

Trick 'r Treat

The House of the Devil

So wow, yeah. I haven't seen a lot of movies this year. There are A LOT I really want to see. Whenever I reinstate my Netflix account I've got quite a bit of catching up to do. It's that and probably a few trips to the dollar movies.

My Favorite Films of the Decade

My favorite films of the decade by year. I tried very hard to limit this to one film for each year, but as you can see I had to pick two a few times. It was just too tough of a decision.

2000:

Magnolia I still don't know what was up with the frogs. One time I watched this four times in the span of two days, so that should tell you how much I love this movie.

Requiem for a Dream 70% of why I love this film is for Clint Mansell's score.

2001:

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, I loved Kubrick, and I usually like what Spielberg does (except War of the Worlds, what a shite film), so this was amazing to me. I even liked the ending.

2002:

Catch Me if You Can, Another Spielberg movie. Who would have thunk it?

2003:

Finding Nemo, Pixar is amazing. Period.

Kill Bill, I consider this one movie. Screw that Vols. 1 & 2 split up. Epic revenge tale with amazing fight choreography, and that tracking shot in the House of Blue Leaves? Epic!

2004:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Easily my favorite movie of the decade. It captures love and hurt in a way that speaks to my soul perfectly.

2005:

Sin City, Can we please get a sequel to this already?

2006:

Pan's Labyrinth, Saw this in the theater twice. Hung out at Wal-Mart at midnight the day it came out on DVD so I could watch it again and again.

Children of Men, As far as dystopian future movies go, this is tops in my book.

2007:

Lake of Fire, A documentary on both sides of the abortion debate. The most objective look I've seen on the subject. Very powerful stuff. A MUST SEE!

2008:

Let the Right One In, In a year when everyone caught Twilight fever, this little foreign vampire flick showed what a true love story is. Forget Team Edward or Team Jacob, I'm on Team Eli!

2009:

Inglourious Basterds, This could change once I've seen more 2009 movies, but so far it is the front runner. If Christoph Waltz doesn't win an Oscar for his role as Colonel Hans Landa, there is no God.