The Dark Knight Review

The Dark Knight is probably the longest (over two and a half hours), most violent, shocking, enthralling, fun and disturbing superhero movie I have probably ever seen. I had a wonderful time, but I was let down when I couldn’t get in to see the IMAX screening of the film, but I couldn’t wait any longer to see this film. I will definitely be going back next week to try and see it in IMAX and then buy the dvd.

A lot of people are talking about Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker and part of the reason that it has been so hard to get tickets for this film is because he died before the film was released, but I must say, he TAKES OVER in a way that only Jack Nicholson would be proud of.

I really can’t review this film, but it does show what a superhero movie could be and that our current efforts in CGI are so realistic that it is almost impossible to tell that we are being fooled by an effect. I am not going to give anything away, except to say that I don’t believe any young children should see this film, it is both too long and also the most violent and disturbing PG-13 ever, but even though I’m intimately familiar with the Batman comics, I believe in Harvey Dent and it was inspiring to see that Gotham did as well.

Thanks to The Telegram for the above pic.

Dany

*8-29-2008 Update* - I finally got in to see The Dark Knight in IMAX and it was totally worth the wait, but the only oddity I noticed this time around was that Gotham’s Mayor (Nestor Carbonell) wore eyeliner, I later found out through the great imdb, that this was to give the role a more Frank Miller comic feel.

Mamma Mia Review

I went along to see Mamma Mia today. I didn’t know what to expect from it since I had never seen the theatrical production and the only exposure I had to it was seeing the theater posters and the movie trailer itself. After watching Meryl’s last two movies (Lions for Lambs and Rendition) I was really hoping to see a GOOD movie from Meryl Streep and maybe even a film where she looks like she’s having some fun, especially since I don’t think the scripts of those last two movies gave her a whole lot to work with.

I can’t say that I liked this movie, but then again this really wasn’t a movie geared toward me, I must say though, the grown ups in the film (Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters and Christine Baranski) seem to be having all the fun in this film. Everyone else… including the young couple that is supposed to be getting married (Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper) just seem undeveloped and uninteresting.

Whenever the grownups were on screen, the story felt somewhat interesting and amusing, but once they were off camera, the story sagged with their absence. The script tried to show parallels between mother (Streep) and daughter (Seyfried), both had their two best friends come to meet them for the wedding, both groups had similar reactions to seeing each other for the first time and then later in the film they paralleled the scenes between both groups of friends after the bachelorette party, but there was no comparison, Streep and Baranksi far out shadow the younger generation in this film.

My biggest complaint about this film though, is that nobody seems to care about the Dominic Cooper’s character, not even the woman who is supposed to be marrying him! No matter what happens, he seems to love her unconditionally (not that that’s a bad thing, mind you), but in the one scene where there’s tension between him and his fiancee (where the whole fight is her fault, by the way) he gets mad and walks away, but instead of Seyfried running after him or at least making sure to mend fences, she just walks away assuming that he’ll get over the whole thing and because he is such a shallowly written character, she was right and there were no consequences. Then at the very end of the film, something similar happens to her on a boat in the shadows, but I don’t want to give away the end of the movie.

It was fun watching Brosnan, Firth and Skarsgård having a lot of fun and make fools of themselves throughout the film especially throughout the credit cookies, but I must say, Streep and Baranski were definitely having the most fun of anyone.

I would never recommend this film to any of my guy friends and I don’t know if I’d recommend it to my female friends either, but I did see a lot of women who left that enjoyed the film and if you are a big musical fan or just a big ABBA or Meryl Streep junkie, you might like it.

Thanks to The Theatre Addict for the above pic.

Dany

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog from Joss Whedon

Now, I don’t know how long this 3 part miniseries from Joss Whedon will remain online, but if you haven’t seen it, try and catch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog here.

Dr. Horrible is a 3 part miniseries starring Neil Patrick Harris (yes, Doogie Howser), Felicia Day (from The Guild [subscribe here]) and Joss Whedon regular, Nathon Fillion.

I don’t usually like musicals, but a Joss Whedon musical is different, just watch the Buffy musical, Once More with Feeling, to see what I mean,

For now at least, this miniseries is free via Hulu.com, but you can keep it by buying it off of iTunes by purchasing each individual episode for $1.99 or get the season pass for $4.99 and it will eventually be released on DVD, which I will buy in a heartbeat.

Thanks to Stuff.co.nz for the above pic.

Hope you all get to enjoy it

Dany

*8/2/2008 Update* As of right now, the entire 3 acts of Dr. Horrible have been combined into one 42 minute movie and are available to watch via the Official site and Hulu.

*8/9/2008 Update* Or watch it here:

*9/1/2008 Update* Thanks to Nathan Fillion for sharing Dr. Horrible’s iPhone remote van controls from Act I.

Watch Why America Rules, England Sucks and See the Family Guy Crew Record an Episode from The Digg Reel

This first clip is fitting since we celebrated America’s independence earlier this month, from Break.com, America Rules England Sucks.

The second clip is a behind the scenes look at a Family Guy taping. It is very strange watching Seth McFarland switching from one voice to another having a conversation with himself, but the whole thing is hilarious.

Enjoy these two clips I found from watching episodes of The Digg Reel (subscribe here).

Dany

Pixar’s First Short Film from 1984: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B

After reviewing Pixar’s most recent success in Wall-E, it’s only fitting that I present the very first Pixar short titled: The Adventures of Andre and Wally B. It’s hard to believe that Pixar’s origins go all the way back to 1984, since they burst onto the scene over a decade later with Toy Story. What’s also interesting is that along with presenting the short film, The Experience Project also chronicles the early history of Pixar.

Thanks to The Digg Reel (subscribe here) for highlighting this early work.

Enjoy

Dany

Jessica Rabbit and Stewie Griffin untooned by Pixeloo

After finding out what Homer Simpson and Mario Mario would look like if they weren’t cartoons by Pixeloo, I knew I’d have to see what was the next projects were.

I really enjoyed Pixeloo’s rendition of Jessica Rabbit:

and Stewie Griffin:

Also, here is the ~10 minute video going through the Jessica Rabbit untooning process.

Enjoy

Dany

Deleting Items from iTunes Smart Playlists

I download a LOT of podcasts daily (I currnently have 10 solid days of audio waiting for me to listen to and growing) and keep only a small percentage of them. I have so many, that the only way I can manage them and keeping sane is using the EXTREMELY useful iTunes smart playlist feature.

The only problem with this system was that I could not delete the smart playlist items I had already listened to directly from the smart playlist menu, I would still have to sift through iTunes‘ Podcast section and individually delete all the old podcasts…

I’ve FINALLY found a solution, all you need to do to fix this is to select all the smart playlist items that you want to delete and while holding the SHIFT button, hit DELETE. This brings up the regular iTunes deltetion dialog box and presto! Problem solved. This also works from any iTunes playlist, smart or otherwise by the way.

Now, I use Windows, so I don’t know if this fix works for Mac users, but if you run a Mac and have this problems, try this fix and let me know in the comments below.

Thanks to PhilMug.com for the above pic.

Dany

**UPDATE** AlisterComputeron commented that on a Mac, all you need to do is Option+Delete to get the same result.

IT Guy Vs Dumb Employees Video from Break.com

I’m usually the “tech guy” for our office, but lately I’ve had to try and get help from some much more seasoned tech people both at Dell and Microsoft, but up to now, my tech problems at work are still troubling me, even though I’ve had very helpful techs working on my case.

Now though, my friend Dan sent me this clip from Break.com and I thought it was so fitting considering what I’ve recently been going through. This is hilarious, especially once the IT guy wants to get himself a screen shot.

Dany

Texting on the Indian Super Highway

After watching this clip from Best of Youtube (subscribe here) of a guy texting while cruising down the highway on his motorcycle, I almost fell off my couch. Even though this guy could manage to lean back, text AND drive his bike at the same time without crashing into a wall or another car, I could barely manage sitting on my couch… truly sad, I know.

I think I know at least one person *cough* Tara *cough* who might just get a kick out of this video… or maybe hate me for sending this out. Either way this video is crazy.

Dany

Dan Carlin’s Common Sense About Political News

I know I’ve talked about Dan Carlin before, but after listening to his most recent episode

of his current events show called Common Sense (subscribe here), I had to bring him up again when he started talking about Barack Obama.

Ever since Tim Russert’s passing, I’ve noticed there aren’t that many interesting, exciting and original voices speaking out about politicals. The people that come to my mind that I enjoy listening to are Chris Matthews, Rachael Maddow, Tavis Smiley, Penn Jillette, John McLaughlin, John C. Dvorak (who is a technology writer, but who loves stirring it up interesting with interesting political views) and…. Dan Carlin.

Check out DanCarlin.com to get all his most recent updates. Thanks to MeFeedia for the above pic.

Dany

Plasma Blaster 3000 from Secret Pants

I know I usually provide funny videos from The Onion, but today I found a great video called Plasma Blaster 3000 from the troupe Secret Pants (subscribe here) and this one had me laughing the entire time. Check out their other videos if you enjoyed this.

Dany

WALL-E Review

Before Wall-E came out, I thought the robot was a ripoff of Johnny 5 for kids too young to remember Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2. After seeing the movie though, I can admit that I was wrong… the good thing is that I am not usually this glad to be wrong about something. There were also some great nods to classic science fiction and technology fans, with callbacks to 2001: A Space Oddyssey and the classic Mac startup chime,

to just name a couple.

I consider myself a jaded New Yorker and that’s why I was so surprised to be emotionally knocked on my ass for many scenes in this film. I even teared up during some of the scenes between Wall·E and Eve (the slick white robot that resembles ASIMO), which was the most surprising thing for me. I was NOT expecting to be hit so hard by the love story and the ability of Pixar’s animators to imbue that much emotion into robots that say less than 5 words to one another.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film though was the first 40 or so minutes of the film on Earth, first with WALL·E alone and then with Eve. This was some of the best pantomime since Charlie Chaplain and what really moved me was the interaction between WALL·E and Eve reminded me of Chaplain’s City Lights. I liked the juxtaposition between Fred Willard’s live action scenes from the past and the animated humans who are now blubberous blobs of laziness and a shell of their ancestors, played to a tee with voicework from Jeff Garlin John Ratzenberger and Kathy Najimy.

This movie is a definate must see, even the silent animated short with a hungry bunny and an obnoxious magician was entertaining to watch and I know I’m going to be looking for this movie when it is finally released on dvd. Thanks to MoviePatron for the above pic.

Dany

Hancock Review

I’ve been waiting a while to see Hancock, but I was very surprised with what I got with this movie. I HATE it when the trailers reveal too much about the plot of films, especially when they reveal the film’s final scene, battle or closing explosion.

It turned out that the trailers for Hancock really didn’t reveal anything about the plot and that was refreshing. I didn’t even realize, going into the film that Charlize Theron was in the cast. I don’t usually like her, but I loved her character in this film and I thought she gave a great performance that I didn’t expect at all. I’ve never really been attracted to her, but she has never been more beautiful than in this film in my opinion.

Jason Bateman plays a struggling public relations agent who has taken up the task of pitching an idea that no big company wants anything to do with and it was fun just watching Bateman pitching his absurd, yet hopeful ideas.

Then, there’s Will Smith as Hancock. The film opens with him being woken up by a little kid (Atticus Shaffer) who tries to get him to dispatch some criminals, only for Hancock to blow him off because of his hangover and the kid calls him an asshole, a name he really doesn’t enjoy being called. He ends up saving the day, but at a definite cost to the city. This paves the way for us, the audience to see what we’ve got in store for us.

It’s only after Hancock saves Jason Bateman and Bateman tries to pitch a new image for Hancock that things start to change… slowly. I’m not going to reveal any more of the plot, but I must say, this was a fun movie.

The problem is that there really wasn’t anything special about this film. It was a fun summer movie, but not so much so that it was memorable for anything in particular. This may have been director Peter Berg’s fault. The movie wasn’t filmed in a great way and there are some scenes and dialogue that could have been cut down a bit, but there aren’t many bad things to say about the film.

One thing I did notice from the trailers was that there was a lot of talk about Hancock, the hero that no one wants because he brings with him chaos and destruction along with his “help,” but there was never any mention of an enemy for him to grapple with… after watching the film, I can see why, there really were no interesting baddies in this film. There was a main villain, it is just that it wasn’t very satisfying watching Hancock face the film’s big bad… although, it was fun watching the irony in how the big bad was ultimately defeated.

This was definitely a fun summer movie, I just don’t think it will really even be remembered after this summer is over, partly because of all the other highly anticipated summer films. Iron Man came out weeks ago and was just a joy to watch and The Dark Night comes out in two weeks (and looks AMAZING from every trailer although, I did get to see the opening 6 minutes of the film before another Will Smith film and have been hooked ever since).

Thanks to HancockTrailer.com for the above pic.

Dany

Extreme Guns

I like guns and with all the news revolving around the recent Supreme Court case that struck down the unconstitutional DC gun ban, I thought I would provide a few videos on the gun topic.

First we have this video by Penn Jillette, where he talks about his views on Penn Says (subscribe here), which I find very compelling about guns and freedom and how freedom should reign over safety.

I also found these two videos from Attack of the Show, Gun Apocalypse and Gun Apocalypse 2, where we get to see some of the most extreme guns available. These are some crazy guns that go way beyond necessary, but they look like a lot of fun too.

Thanks to Mizzourah! for the above pic.

Enjoy

Dany

Top 10 Jackie Chan Stunts and Fights

I love watching Jackie Chan, especially when he seems to lose his mind and do some crazy stunt that you just can’t believe a person could survive, like falling over 50 feet from a clock tower. You also have to love watching his drunken boxing style in Drunken Master and Legend of Drunken Master.

Thanks to Best of YouTube (subscribe here), here’s 10 really amazing examples of why Jackie Chan is completely insane.

Enjoy

Dany

P.S. As an added bonus, I’ve also included 10 amazing Jackie Chan Fight Scenes:

The Onion - Bush Surveys His Damage of the USA

I almost feel bad promoting ANOTHER video from The Onion (subscribe here with iTunes), the problem is that they keep coming out with funny videos, which makes it very hard to resist.

The name is pretty self explanatory, watch as George Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency!

Enjoy

Dany

No More Styrofoam!

If you have a ton of Styrofoam that you don’t just want to throw out, maybe from packing peanuts or just some disposable plates or cups, you can melt them into seeming nothingness with just a bit of acetone (available at any hardware/paint/walmartesque store) or some nail polish remover… but I’d recommend going strait for the acetone, you get a much cooler (and faster) reaction.

I was reminded of this from, of all places, Attack of the Show (subscribe here), check out their video here to see just how fast you can get rid of that polystyrene.

Thanks to Alibaba for the above pic.

Dany