The incoherent bloggings of a die-hard Star Wars fan.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Take that, New Jersey! Yeah that's right, CHRISTmas, the day we observe the birth of Jesus Christ... and even if you're not a Christian, you can still enjoy this celebration of love and giving and not get offended by carolers not saying "Happy Holidays." :)
Everyone seems to be delaying their giftgiving this year, or I'm just not getting anything.
Anyways, my sister is home for Christmas (yay!) and now we're off to go have an Lord of the Rings: Extended Editions marathon. We should be done sometime tomorrow morning, lol.
145 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
Well ladies and gentlemen, The Return of the King: Special Extended DVD Edition is out, and that'll just about do it for Peter Jackson's Academy Award-sweeping epic trilogy (at least until The Hobbit releases who-knows-when). With 50 minutes of additional footage (half of a whole movie right there), this extended cut clocks in at a whopping four hours and ten minutes. Now that I've seen this behemoth of a feature film, I can honestly tell you that the movie flows quite excellently... and almost feels too short. You know a movie is really good when by the end you feel like you want to see more; it is definitely my favorite of the extended cuts.
I was afraid from seeing previews of scenes that seemed to reiterate prevalent themes that some of the new scenes would be redundant and ultimately unnecessary, but I was gravely mistaken; there are a lot of awesome, poignant character development scenes that are overlooked, not to mention some very critical scenes that make you wonder how they didn't even make the theatrical cut (Saruman's death, the Witch King attacks Gandalf, the Mouth of Sauron). While it still had its minor flaws (the added attack on the Corsairs kinda detracts from Aragorn's grand entrance at Pelennor Fields, Saruman's death was kinda slow, and Deagol is still too slapstick), the extended The Return of the King is definitely one of my favorite films of all time.
Sam and Jeremy both still think the movie was too long. But then again, Sam liked The Punisher and Jeremy's insane.
Those of you who've been buying the extended editions separately until now (the rest of you had better have a good excuse), I have good news: you can get the spiffy LOTR:EE slipcase for free here ($3 S&H). Trust me, buying the boxed set in stores now will not be a cheaper alternative if you already have any of the extended editions.
Alas, I have a couple movie recommendations:
House of Flying Daggers Another visually beautiful film by Zhang Yimou. Not as colorfully thematic as his Hero was, but the sound palette of this movie is exceptional. Aside from the cluttered plot twists and it being a tad overly melodramatic at times, I felt it was an awesome more emotional film that surpasses Hero. But IMHO, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger continues to reign supreme for its excellent all-encompassing genre.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Surprisingly darker yet at the same time funnier than what I had anticipated, this movie exceeded my expectations. The story is very clever, the characters are compelling, and the cinematography is beautiful. Meryl Streep's part, while small, was excellently performed. While the plot tends to get a little over the top and less charming towards the end, I found the movie very entertaining.
Well, it's now been exactly one year since I made my last post at Woohu and returned to Blogspot. I've gone through three sites for photo webspace and two for artwork since then, and I'm still sticking to Blogspot. Moreover, today is Liz' 19th birthday.
152 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
Ever been slapped in the face with a tortilla?
Until this evening I could have easily retorted to such a bizarre inquiry with a resounding negative, but unforunately my friends, I can no longer do such a thing. You see, we were all making tacos at the Adams residence when Tim decided it would be a entirely sane and welcoming experience to deliberately smack me across the face with the said flour tortilla. It of course was not that at all, but this did not stop him from doing so, and then repeating the action immediately thereafter on his younger brother Benjamin. What I can tell you about the sensation of having been slapped in the face with a flour tortilla is that it is in no way and by no means an exhilerating experience. In fact, it is very demeaning. Tim has calculatingly destroyed what was left of my personal dignity with something as trivial as a flattened piece of dough. I am forever haunted by this utterly horrifying and thoroughly humiliating act of absolute degradation. Let this be a warning to all of you, and please, I beg of you to heed it.
That being said, behold the cover artwork of the first two seasons of Genndy Tartakovsky's Emmy Award-winning animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars on DVD, releasing March 22, the day after the third and final season begins:
Well, finals are now over, so I thought I'd share a selection of the final projects people came up with in my 3D Design class. I don't consider these to be the best ones (some of these didn't even work right, and others I thought were fantastic weren't given justice in photograph form), but here they are anyway. Once again, the (vague) criteria for this project was that it had to be unstable and it had to actively react to its environment.
My project. I had gone with the idea to use the base of a music stand since the beginning, as when the legs are held up at a slight angle, the structure would rock in three directions thus fulfilling the criteria of instability. As for the environmental factor, I chose water, or rain. Each can is bottom-heavy when empty (there are four screws glued to the bottom of each), and top-heavy when full, much like those backyard Japanese water fountains. Due to the amalgamation of tiny imbalances (rain filling each cup at different rates, the axles of each cup being slightly different in distance from the bottom, faintly varying weights, wind), it is inevitable that each cup will fill and empty at different times. Thus, the weight constantly shifts, and the structure tilts in different directions. Of course, it did not rain, so I had to simulate this with a couple of volunteers and three buckets of water (which made it work even better since, try as we might, we could not pour at the same rate).
Another project. There are springs in between each board. The environmental factor for this one was undefined, although we were essentially that factor; people sat, stomped, and jumped on it. Someone eventually broke it by jumping on it a bit too hard.
This project, made of sheet metal and chains, hung from the ceiling. Wind was the environmental factor (as it was in most of the projects; probably half of the students made mobiles), but the guy who made this one manually spun it around to show how it worked.
This project went through a number of tests and prototypes that worked to a degree, but unfortunately the final version did not. Inside this foil-wrapped can is a rubber band stretched from bottom to lid with a heavy bolt attached to one of the strands; in theory, as the can rolls the rubber band twists, and once the can stops it unravels, sending the can back the other way. A last minute adjustment to this project was to add a brush that would paint a pattern on the wall as it rolled by, but that brush increased friction and slowed the can.
One of the more impressive projects (one of two that were electrical), this project consisted of a TV set that was activated by a motion sensor; the electric current ran through copper wires hooked to the suspended foil triangle, making it dance around. It worked momentarily, but then for some reason stopped working.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, the new Wes Anderson opus, releases tomorrow in only LA and New York. Another reason to love living near LA.
FIVE DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE RETURN OF THE KING: SPECIAL EXTENDED DVD EDITION! I meant to post this a lot earlier, but here it is, a six-minute preview of the extended edition. A lot of this we saw at Comic-Con, but not all of you were there (nor at the massive Lord of the Rings panel). ;)
161 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
Ran into Emil at the yogurt machine at Hometown Buffet. That was kinda weird; haven't seen him since graduation. He hasn't changed a bit.
Finals week is next week, but I've already taken a couple finals and have nothing daunting left, aside from having to complete my final 3D Design project, which I've already previously described. If I like how it turned out I might post a pic. As for the art classes I'm taking next semester, I'll be taking Photoshop and Illustrator as well as Introductory Graphic Design. Technically the first is a pre-req for the latter, but it's apparently ok for me to take them simultaneously, so I will.
There are a ton of movies lately that I keep intending to watch but never get around to actually watching. I wanted to see Collateral and Ray but those have probably left theaters, and now I'm lagging behind Spongebob Squarepants, A Very Long Engagement, and House of Flying Daggers. What with Ocean's Twelve, Lemony Snicket's, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Life Aquatic coming out this month, I'd better get on the ball really soon.
But you'd have to shoot me in the face and crush my legs to keep me from catching the opening showing of this movie. Warner Bros. has at last released the stylish new teaser poster for Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale (Equilibrium) and directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento):
Next year will be an enormous box office spectacle. First off, the five comic book adaptions Elektra, Constantine, Sin City, Batman Begins, and Fantastic Four, THE FINAL STAR WARS MOVIE, and the three movie remakes Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (which he's already claiming to be "the film of the decade"), Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Peter Jackson's King Kong. Should be interesting.
Spider-Man 2 and Hero released on DVD this week. I must say, seeing Spider-Man 2 a second time was far more enjoyable. I guess I was initially expecting so much out of the movie incarnation of Doc Ock that I was marginally disappointed by his underdevelopment; it wasn't until a second viewing that I realized the true genius of this movie, the stories of Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborn. Obviously Sam Raimi took his own liberties with it (some of those shots look like they're right out of Evil Dead), while remaining true to the comics (some of those shots look identical to famous Spidey covers, not to mention a lot of the dialogue is unchanged). Anyways, Spider-Man 2 rocks; best comic book movie to date.
As for Hero, it's a pity the DVD couldn't release with Sony Picture Classics. Instead, the DVD cover is slathered with Quentin Tarantino and Jet Li's names, not to mention the only people on the cover are Jet Li and Zhang Ziyi of Crouching Tiger fame, even though she isn't a principal character. Too bad her celebrity wasn't enough to get House of Flying Daggers to be a wide release. Seriously, sometimes I hate Hollywood for being so arrogant and close-minded.
I'm already starting to run out of webspace at Photobucket (maybe that's why I've been taking fewer pictures? lol), so I'm gonna migrate over to Imageshack. Although you can't create albums and it's a lot less organized like Photobucket is, Imageshack offers unlimited webspace and bandwidth for free (which comes in extremely handy when posting images at the insanely visited Fark.com).
166 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
