BAD ASS

You guys remember the video of the old guy with the beard that beat the shit out of the other guy on the bus in Oakland? The one that was filmed and spread around the Internet like wildfire?

You know, Epic Beard Man?



Apparently that needed the big screen treatment, with Danny Trejo as Epic Beard Man. No really. Here's the trailer.



I can't help but think this is a joke. I kind of hope that it is, too.

Hollywood makes enough stupid movies every year as it is, and now they're trolling YouTube for ideas? That means that the quality of films we actually get on a regular basis can only go down from here. I want the opposite. I want talented filmmakers to make original movies. I don't want directors of car commercials being asked to implement studio money-grab films, which is exactly what this looks like.

It's a shame.

Even worse, I kind of really want to see it.

YIPPIE KI YAY!

DIE HARD was based on a book by Roderick Thorp entitled “Nothing Lasts Forever” - a sequel to another book entitled “The Detective”, which in 1968 was made into a film starring Frank Sinatra.

Because of a clause in Sinatra’s contract for “The Detective” which gave him the right to reprise his role in a sequel, he was actually the first person offered the role of John McClane, even though he was 73 years old at the time.

Also, coincidentally, Bruce Willis made his movie debut in The First Deadly Sin walking out of a bar as Sinatra walks into it.

(source: Film Trivia)

APOLLO

Of course I made Brandon take my picture next to an Apollo spacesuit at the Planetarium.

BEHIND THE MYTHS

I don't care what anyone says. The Mythbusters are awesome. They're doing a live touring show early next year called 'Behind the Myths' that's coming to Kingsbury Hall in SLC.

Pretty sure it's just going to be them doing a FAQ type talk like the last time they did one of these tours—which means no crazy experiments or explosions. Still sounds really interesting and I'm all in.

ARSON

This is my man Makena. It's his song, and the video that he directed for it. He's got skills.

He's also a hell of a writer. I worked with him at the Chronicle and on Red Pulse. Big things ahead.

GODLAND

Picked up this little guy today at Dr. Volt's comics. I've been moving away from buying single issues and more towards awesome hardcovers and trades. There are single issues I still want to read, but I hate storing them all—luckily, most of them are in my parents basement. I've been trying to make the switch to digital on my iPad, but it's been difficult (more on that tomorrow, I hope).

Either way, I'm excited to get going on this. It's on the list right after Patton Oswalt's Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland and Greg Graffin's Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science and Bad Religion in a World Without God.

GODLAND

"See how the greatest cosmic superhero epic of the new century began! See Commander Adam Archer, Maxim, Basil Cronus, Nickelhead, IBOGA and more in all their oversized glory! What other book delivers the secret origin of the universe? What other book squeezes your guts like an angry Torture-Bot? Only Godland gives you everything you'll ever need!"

JAMES ELLROY HATES EVERYTHING

James Ellroy is hilarious—mostly because he doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks. He's been that way for years.

Every interview he gives he plays up a different angle. Sometimes he crass and awkward like he always was on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, other times he plays up the role of a callous, grumpy, bitter old man—like the video below. But he's not. He has a very dry, sarcastic sense of humor and he likes playing up that image as much as possible.

Also, make sure you watch that Conan video just to see Ellroy interact with Dave Chappelle because it's fantastic.

I found this video on Warren Ellis' site earlier today and loved it. Figured I'd share it, and Ellis' thoughts on it, with you. He's in on the joke, too.

Watch the videos and then immediately go out and get some of his novels, American Tabloid, L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia are some of his best.

WarrenEllis.com -- "A glorious routine by novelist James Ellroy. And I think he was reining himself in, too.

Interesting interstitial things happen when a writer devises a character to be, for interviews and the like. Especially if someone’s been doing it a long time, and has gone through the cycle and, I suspect in Ellroy’s case, gotten back to the point where he hopes someone somewhere is getting the joke. Listen to how Ellroy speaks, now: more than ever, he’s speaking for tv, and speaking to be transcribed. A lot of media training under the bridge, there. And the little wink to the audience, if not his interviewer, is there too. Slowed down, like a big bit of bait being trawled across still water."

HUGO

I don't like 3D movies. They hurt my eyes, the bridge of my nose and the top of my ears get sore and I just get generally annoyed with the entire spectacle.

I didn't like AVATAR very much for that reason alone. It looked great, but every twenty minutes or so, I had to take the glasses off and rest my eyes for a minute and that lessened my enjoyment of the movie, I think.

There are some movies that use it in a way that I enjoy, and those are movies like PIRANHA 3D and A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR CHRISTMAS. Those movies basically just poked fun at the 3D genre for an hour and twenty minutes and it was over. That kind of thing I can handle, but big epic, sweeping serious movies in 3D I can't.

That's what bothered me about HUGO so much. Normally, I love Martin Scorsese movies (with a few exceptions like BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, KUNDUN, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE) and there were aspects of HUGO that I loved, but it had a couple of huge problems that I just couldn't get past.

First of all, it didn't need to be 3D. He used it in a great way, but I didn't think it added anything to the story and when it comes on HBO in six months, some of the shot selections are just going to look strange and unnecessary. There were parts that were amazingly well done and the 3D technology was utilized well, but that's all. I just kept thinking about how much more I would have enjoyed it had I not had to keep taking my glasses off.

Second, it was too long. At 125 minutes, kids will (and definitely were in the screening I saw) start to get restless. I know it's an adaptation of a kids book (that I've never read), but from what I hear there were a lot of things added to it that extended the running time that maybe didn't need to be there. I don't know that for sure, but it was still too long.

That said, every actor in the film did an amazing job and the story is pretty good, but it's more like Martin Scorsese's love letter to film than a family/kids movie. I think that's where it lost a lot of casual viewers and why most critics were so kind to it.

There are A LOT of nods and references to the beginning of film, old movies and the growth of cinema. If you've spent years in film classes learning these kinds of things (like I have) or have just seen and are able to appreciate those early films (like most critics), you're in on it and it's fascinating. If you're not in on it, and you have no idea what they're talking about, it doesn't resonate. The people I saw it with, all of whom range in age from 19 up to 33 and have never seen any of the films referenced didn't care much for it.

The Film Stage did a nice job the other day of compiling a list of '10 Classic Films You Must Watch Before Seeing Martin Scorsese's HUGO.' It's a great, informative list and there are streaming copies of each film and a little write-up of what they are, what they meant and how they inspired the film. It's a really fascinating piece and if you have any interest in film history, they're all great to watch.

But it's also 10 films you need to watch in order to understand the importance of what HUGO is about for Scorsese. That's where the problem is.

I guess the bottom line is, if you're a film nerd like me and know what all of the movies on the Film Stage list are, check out HUGO and enjoy Scorsese's love letter to movies, because there's no one that does it better and there are very few filmmakers who have been able to stay at the top of their game for so long—seriously, Scorsese has been consistently great for nearly 40 years.

But if you're just an average filmgoer, this might not be for you.

RILL RILL

Even though those Heavy Metal Shop hoodies are ridiculously overpriced, I like the fact that so many bands still sport them.
Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill from momandpopmusic on Vimeo.

SO CLOSE...

I don't think anyone can comprehend how excited I am to see this movie. I just want Thanksgiving dinner to be over so I can be sitting in the theater already.

WE SOLD OUR SOUL FOR ROCK N ROLL

So, Collapse.

We started practicing again last weekend. We didn't want to try and get a practice space since we didn't know if we were going to keep playing beyond this show, so we had to look for an alternative. We found one.

Clint's boss is letting us practice in their shop. They build custom covers for boats and have room for us to set up and even extra space so we can leave our shit there. That's the best part, because I didn't want to have to pack up my cabinet every time we practiced.

The only problem is that we don't have a lot of equipment. Well, I do. No one else does.

Clint is missing half his drum hardware and his throne. He's using a chair from an old boat they had lying around. We have no P.A. so Richard is yelling through a road cone—which works surprisingly well. Adam doesn't have a bass amp at all, so he stands around and plays along with his bass not plugged in to anything. Nathan sold his head, so he's using a 12" practice amp turned up as loud as it will go. I still have all my stuff, so I just stand on the 4-wheeler that's next to my cabinet to make myself taller.

The good news is that we already know 5 songs.

Whatever works, right?

BRAVE

Pixar is still batting a thousand in my eyes (maybe because I've never seen CARS or CARS 2, and deliberately so) and their next movie looks like they're going to keep it up.

Pretty happy they finally found a way to have a female protagonist, too. Changes things up a bit.

THE TITLE DESIGNS OF SAUL BASS

If anyone ever says they're not really a fan of Saul Bass is either lying or an idiot.

In honor of the new book Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design, a really cool website called Art of the Title (which I've mentioned before) has put together a little video of a bunch of his best title designs for movies. Really, really good stuff.

And if you don't know who Saul Bass is, read up on him a bit. Then you'll know where your favorite artists steal most of their stuff from.

And if anyone is looking for Christmas presents for me, the book mentioned above is a great place to start.

Enjoy.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

It was the Sundance darling with the new IT girl of indie film—Elizabeth Olsen. It's haunting, riveting, disturbing, brilliant and 85% fantastic.

The last 15% percent is where I had a huge problem. I'm all for ambiguity and "art" films, but Jesus Christ  filmmakers, finish your fucking stories. If you're going to make me sit there for an hour and half, get me interested in these characters and invested in their lives at least have the decency to give me a little bit of closure. That's all I want and I don't feel that's too much to ask for.

I really, really liked this movie. Olsen did a fantastic job and John Hawkes, as the cult leader Patrick, has been great in pretty much everything he's ever been in, I was invested in what was going on and I didn't look at my phone to check the time through the whole thing. Those are all things that add up to a great cinematic experience for me.

But at the end of the movie, when the screen went black and the credits started rolling, I did mutter ever so quietly to myself "Are you fucking kidding me?"

I didn't need an explosive finale or anything like that but, like I said before, a little bit of closure would be nice.

Aside from that, first time writer/director Sean Durkin made a hell of a debut. He's able to switch back and forth between past and present convincingly, and Olsen kills it the entire time. I did want to know more about why she joined the cult in the first place, what exactly Patrick's end goal is, because as far as I can tell, it wasn't a religious cult. There are lots of unanswered questions on that front, which I was okay with. That was fine.

It's just that I think Durkin wanted the ending to be far more powerful than it was. It was so close to being great but right at the very end all the air went out when it shouldn't have.

So close.

MY FRIENDS OVER YOU - 108

Sometimes I need a little push—a little something to get me going on this blog. Granted, I'm doing way better than I was couple months ago, but I still only update a couple of times a week. The list I have next to my computer is starting to get longer again, so that's good, but I also wanted to throw out a new weekly feature.

Just like the title implies, it's called MY FRIENDS OVER YOU (and yes, it is named after the incredibly catchy, sort of cheesy guilty pleasure song by New Found Glory).

Every monday, I'm going to pick one of my friends that has a blog (and I have a lot) that I routinely check and enjoy and talk about how much I like them and why you should look at their stuff, too.

So, shall we?

This is my friend Colby. We met somewhere around the turn of the century (I've always wanted to use that phrase) and we quickly bonded over awesome things like veganism, Rage Against the Machine and our love of surface piercing. Okay, that last one is a total lie, but Colby is a fine piercer. He worked at Good Times Tattoo for a long, long time and managed a short lived vegan coffee shop down by Gateway called Under the Bridge (because he was/still is way in to Red Hot Chili Peppers, but he'll never admit it). He even came on tour with Cherem for a week, but then had to get back home to make sure everything at the coffee shop was okay.

Then, while we were still on tour, he packed his shit up and moved to New York City—and that's where he's been since summer of 2006. Well, mostly. He likes to take off a lot to random countries and wander around until he runs out of money and has to go back to piercing famous actors and beautiful models that come through New York Adorned.

He also has a weird obsession with the number 108. He sees it everywhere. So naturally, after we saw THE RING years ago, we were hanging out at his apartment and while he was in the bathroom, I set the sleep timer on his TV so that it would turn on at 1:08 AM to a channel that he didn't get. It was hilarious.

But anyway, he's a great dude and you should really be checking his blog on a pretty regular basis. It's got good stuff.

108 Manifestations - J. Colby Smith.