Because I live where I live, sometimes I randomly catch some awesome events. Tonight for example at the Chinese Theatre I saw a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark done over 7 years in the mid-80’s by a couple of kids in Mississippi (max age 17ish). Presented by Eli Roth (as in, he was there and talking at length about this film’s journey) Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation was kitsch gold. I wished that all of the Dead Lantern/Grand Horror crew was there to see this DIY masterpiece. It probably won’t ever make it to DVD because of the obvious copyright restrictions but it has been making the indie-theatre circuit for 5 years with the blessing of Mr. Roth who hooked the filmmakers up with a renewed career in film and even a meeting with Stephen Speilberg himself.
Spinning from this amazing backstory is a Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) screenplay and Paramount project in the works based on the kids who made it (now in their late 30s).
When I get to catch things like this, it’s pretty fucking rad to live here.
I was at Sundance last year a few people we all atwitter about the movie “Teeth“, so i’m watching it now and its kinda boring, a little slow, but only half way through. At the part I’m at now she’s doing a web search for Vagina Dentata so I figured I’d do the same (at the least there will be some crazy tentacle hentai or something as a consolation prize). The first and last thing I found was a page selling The RapeX which is A BARBED FEMALE CONDOM TO THWART AND IDENTIFY RAPISTS. I guess you just put the thing in your hoo-hah and let your short skirt and a bad neighborhood do the rest. (Just make sure you don’t have it on inside out)
The next time I have consensual sex even, I will be checking. Nothing personal ladies, safety first.
Show of hands, how many people expect “Speed Racer” to suck? Come on, be honest, I read message boards, I’ve heard your podcast, you aren’t thrilled at all, are you? The print campaign with the cars on the track is messy and the trailer was lukewarm. It’s not nearly the campaign of say, Iron Man, which is already a sure thing summer blockbuster to be. But maybe all of this bad publicity could have let you down again; because there may be a lot of very satisfied uber-nerds on May 9th when the Wachowski brothers’ “Speed Racer” live-action living comic book candy fireball sensory orgy hits theatres. I expected to be underwhelmed by this movie, writing it off as effects laden fluff but I might have found a bit more in it than the rest of the public.
The story is sparse and plays 2nd fiddle to the technically awe-inspiring visual effects, but I should hope you didn’t expect a repeat of the depth of the Matrix from this Manga-to-Anime-to-Live Action film. I appreciated that the storytelling was delivered at times in a liquid form with visuals co-mingling with the narrators as the timelines wrapped and coiled into themselves. The film centers around the Racer family: Pops, played by John Goodman - a racecar builder devoted to his family; His wife, referred to only as Mom, played with beautiful sentiment by Susan Sarandon; Rex, the eldest brother who dies in a shady racing accident; Emile Hirsch’s Speed, the prodigal son; Christina Ricci as Trixie, Speed’s love interest and best friend; and of course the comic relief, Speed’s Kid Brother Spritle and his monkey Chim-Chim. During the story Speed shuns the corporate sponsors who have corrupted racing to stay in business with his family and has to race to save their reputation and the very sport of racing.
Casting was spot on as the actors held this movie together wonderfully through the effects. The females that I saw this movie with admitted to misting up during a scene between Sarandon and Hirsch. Christina Ricci seemed to get hotter in the grimier moments of the film and although the dialogue like everything else becomes saccharine to the point of aspartame, the perfomances are true and warm. Adding emotion to a primarily green screen movie can’t be an easy task but each of the characters indeed has their opportunity to shine. And Oh how this movie shines. Us designers had conferred that the movie was more of an animated film than live action. Stylistically the exact polar opposite of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I mentioned that this movie is eye candy right? Can I maybe repeat that a thousand more times? Maybe thats not decadent or bright enough to describe its seizure-inducing effects and Japanese inspired hyper surrealism. Think of having neon injected straight into your brain through your eyeballs. Maybe if you just lined your skill with an OLED TV above your Pineal gland. You know that feeling the morning after you’ve been tripping balls and know you are still kinda tripping because stuff is still kinda melty and the walls are still breathing a little bit? I kinda got a little of that going right now after seeing “Speed Racer” this afternoon. This is the exact movie that IMAX was made for. Not so coincidentally, it will be released in said format as well. I recommend that venue but only if you want your brain to turn to a happy pile of overstimulated nerd mush.
My proper introduction to Speed Racer happened sometime around 1996 when a pre-Adult Swim Cartoon Network had a sort of marathon one stormy Saturday night. I’d only seen a couple scattered episodes but when I sat down in front of the TV that night I expected to see 1 episode but what happened was them showing literally hours and hours of the show, in sequence and seemingly without commercial interruption. I was pretty immersed in the story. And what I saw today was a pretty faithful translation of that. Sure the characters are simple, sure the production designers have blown everything out of proportions; but you will learn within the first 10 minutes of this movie is that the filmmakers consciously decided that if they were going to make an over-the-top living cartoon, then the only way to do it is to go WAAAAAAAY over the top. There are some disgustingly kiddie moments in this film. I have an aversion to the use of chimps in films anyway but to summarize (like i never do), there was monkey poo. And unfortunately it was in the middle of a pretty good 60’s Batman style “Bank! Crash! Ka-Pow!” fight scene.
Assuredly there will be doomsayers next week saying the movie is “unfocused”, “simple” and “confused about it’s demographic” but it’s just because most film reviewers think they should squash a movie that doesn’t appeal to them, well, news flash, IT’S PROBABLY JUST NOT FOR THEM! This isn’t a movie that you have to bring any more of your brain to than the part that WANTS TO HAVE FUN …And maybe the part that controls bladder function, cause this movie is 2 hours long and there aren’t many places you can safely wizz without missing something.
Some people have said that they are put off by the video game-like graphics of the trailers, well then maybe you won’t like the movie. But there is a much better chance that you will get totally sucked in by the ultra-saturated seizure inducting shininess of this movie that simply never lets up. Half of this film is on par in action with the Pod Race scene in Episode 1 with the inevitable final race that will surely rival its excitement. Remember how you gasped the first time you saw the 18 Wheeler-collision scene in the Matrix Reloaded? There are a couple of those moments in this movie for sure. And isn’t that what an overblown summer blockbuster is all about?
On the DeadLantern.com 10 point rating scale I give “Speed Racer” a 7.5 overall with a 9.75 for the effects.
Tomorrow afternoon I get to head over to Warner Bros. in Burbank and check out the new Speed Racer pic. They usually make us sign a shhhhhh form or ask that we not give away too much of the plot but I figure it’s my duty to let you know whether its good or not. I know the hopes on it being good are pretty low compared to Iron Man. A lot of people have already said it’s going to be a flop and it isn’t even out yet. So check back tomorrow night or probably friday and see.
Also, there will be some contests coming up soon where you can win CDs, Lightey Discoball things and T-Shirts soon. So pay attention! I mean look at us lately, posting all regular and shit. C’mon!
How is it that I’ve been in Los Angeles for more than a year and have never been to the Vista Theater, I must have passed it a thousand times? The Vista in Los Feliz is a lovely place that normally shows some pretty good movies bordering on indie and/or typically the most watchable thing that you’d find in the Arclight down the street. The exterior resembles a Spanish mission with the interior more along the lines of Cleopatra’s bedroom. (inside joke: Joan in the north and Cleo in the south.)
So to fill this movie theater with concert-going patrons, a few of the rows of seats were removed and replaced with folding chairs. I guess that spaceland promotions figured that 2 rows of folding chairs could fit into 1 row of theater seats. This would have been all well and good if it didn’t mean that a certain percentage of said concert-going patrons wouldn’t be stuck in the seats right behind renegade rows of the aforementioned folding chairs. Needless to say, some of us instantly became very close friends with the strangers sitting next to us. (My neighbor was Anthony) The folding chairs were also at least an inch and a half taller, drag for me.
Obstructions and obstacles aside, The show was quite pleasant, very cute, but musically a bit under par. The venue’s sound seemed poorly mixed and hard to control. Neither those in charge of lighting nor live sound had much to work with as all of the sound came from a pair of speaker stacks on each side of the stage at the front of the house. The makeshift stage didn’t so much elevate the band as turn them into pinball machine bumpers for the PA and stage sound.
The openers Lavender Diamond bantered nicely with the crowd and were a complementary warm-up for She & Him; but the songs were far too simple to warrant the 6+ minutes that they seemed to drag on. Zooey joined the band for a song, but like I said lasted waaay too long.
To get it out of the way Zooey Deschanel is adorable. Quite literally one of the most beautiful people to walk the earth. M. Ward is nearly equally fantastic. But the show was very ok to pretty good in the grand scheme of things. It had some nicer moments, like the vocal breakdown in “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” and of course their beautiful cover of Smokey’s “You Really Gotta Hold On Me” but really, how could you fuck that up? Still the show fell very short in comparison to either the previous time i’d seen M.Ward perform or the maybe 2 dozen female fronted bands/singer-songwriters I saw last year working in the same style. The band seemed very loose. But to their defense the problem was probably that they couldn’t hear each other because of the room’s acoustics; which seemed to pit the bass and drums against each other in Mortal Kombat. Rough spots showed through especially in an uncomfortably hurried version of “I Was Made For You” which left Zooey stumbling on what should have been a very strong melody.
To toot my Nebraska horn I recognized the bassist as Stefanie Drootin from Tim Kasher’s Cursive side-project The Good Life. To my own credit, i knew who the bassist would be before she even took the stage when I saw Ward sound-checking her instrument. I’m that good.
Ultimately I feel a show like She & Him would have translated much better at a smaller venue such as Spaceland. That also would have spared me the pain of dishing out 8 bucks for a tiny whiskey drink. I know it’s L.A. but give me a break! I honestly didn’t think that the act as a whole had the confidence to pull of a show of that size, perhaps after a run of smaller shows they will be a much better live act. Not many bands in L.A. have paid their dues and on occasions like this, it shows. I don’t recommend paying $25 to see anything at the Vista, either.
I admit it, I enjoy porn. I don’t buy it, I don’t rent it, I don’t keep a stash of it, but I watch it. I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff. Mostly because one of my former roommates (you know who you are) used to ask us, “Hey wanna see something fucked up…” And whether we wanted to or not, our curiosity would get the better of us and we would watch. And what would usually follow would indeed be very fucked up depending on how JAPANESE or GERMAN it was. The kind of thing that you wish you could CNTL + Z and UNDO out of your brain. What is it about the axis powers anyway that makes their porn so crazy now? Is it maybe that after seeing the Holocaust and Atomic Bombs that everything else is completely tame and harmless in comparison? Well it seems that it has taken the British to trump them both with THIS EXCERPT from “A Girl’s Guide to 21st Century Sex” where apparently when thinking outside of the box they did the opposite. I warn you now, THIS VIDEO is Very Educational and VERY NSFW.
Its sad that using these words is going to spike my daily visitors. I’ll throw in another one for good measure, Bukakke. Good luck erasing this from your brain, suckers.
The dude who runs pixeloo says untooned but I guess being around music forever makes me think that someone saying untuned is just trying to say detuned. So the 3rd in his series after Mario and Homer is Jessica Rabbit. I already know 2 girls in L.A. who, minus the disproportionately large tits, look exactly like Jessica Rabbit. I think he should have done a full body shot in this case. The people commenting on his site seem to think that Stewie from Family Guy is his next victim. I think he should do something a bit more expressive, like someone evil.
And perhaps a bit more interesting is watching him do it. Can you imagine having to work on photoshop like that everyday for like 10 hours? Man that would be hell…oh wait.
I haven’t been posting all that much lately because I’ve been really busy at work. Lame I know. We worked through last weekend and I nearly went crazy on Monday but we finished the 2nd round of Comps (Different proposed versions of the artwork used for COMParison) for the complete boxed set of HBO’s Amazing Series The Wire.
At the beginning of this week it felt as if I was going stir-crazy from work; time had slowed to a crawl and each moment was complete agony. I just wanted a big womb to crawl into and sleep for a week. But I trudged through and we finished it and sent it off to New York last night so we’ll hear back next week sometime on who’s comp they are going with. But mine fucking rules. We also sent in comps for a movie produced by Tyrannasaurus Banks called The Clique. Its about vapid, conniving, spoiled rich tweenage lobotomies on the east coast who get anything they want. Its almost exactly like Heathers and Mean Girls… but its 15-17 year old melodrama for 13 year olds. Kinda weird how we can go from designing for THE ABSOLUTE BEST POLICE DRAMA EVER to total fluff.
Speaking of fluff, we have been doing a lot of work for a gay network. At first we were only designing their ads but another company we do work for bought a bunch of their movies to distribute (its a gaynopoly I tell ya) now we are designing their key art (the original artwork for posters and dvd covers) for something like 10 films. All of the movies are like PG-13 gay. Whats the point? It might as well be straight if you aren’t swinging wieners around. All thats left of these movies are ridiculous plots, bad acting and obviously very tiny budgets. I think they should just start making porn. The movie I had to screen today “starred” Tracey Gold from Growing Pains and a hot straight girl who played a lesbian on The L Word (and she was in Jason Goes to Hell I think). The plot was ludicrous and involved a boy genius who predicts sunspots that will wipe out technology and break down life as we know it… and his hot lesbian strip club bouncer mom. And Tracey Gold kisses a girl at the end, a slight peck, no tongue, less than a second. It was so not gay that it was gay. The biggest plot hole was how a single parent who worked at a strip club could afford a brand new Ford Explorer and own her own home in Los Angeles. And a full sized train passing Hollywood and Highland and crashing into Union Station. Sunspots. The last one we worked on was actually worse. It was based on an Edgar Allan Poe story (none that I’d ever heard of though), it was about a house that was alive and claimed buff manservants in order to stay in one piece. And of course it only had man-kissing, sensuous rubbing nowhere erogenous and the dudes would undo their pants and leave their wangs in… but they’d pull down the back of their underwear! Are there really dudes out there getting hot to this stuff? Being queer must give you an amazing imagination! It must be like drinking a bottle of cough syrup or something. No wonder all of those trannies on Santa Monica Blvd look like they are having such a good time.
Congrats to Jay-Z. Way to barely step up to the marriage thing. Barely claiming to be in a relationship? Yeah, I’ve been there. I can understand if you want to keep it private because it isn’t anyones business but your own. I dig. But dude, you’re 11 years older than your girlfriend. She makes as much, if not more than you. She has dumps like a truck and is the least trashy hooch you will ever find. Suck it up buddy, you’re almost 40 and she’s almost talented. You can tell us if you’re together. It’s ok, we already know.
So yeah this is kind of a bullshit post (the 99th bullshit post yall!). I’m just gonna start venting cause I’ve been looking really hard at my situation lately and things seem really great but at the same time I’m feeling completely strangled. This kind of thing is really dangerous to say considering anyone could read this (like co-workers and bosses) but oh well. I’m not dropping names.
I know we’ve been slacking on the posts. Mostly my fault. I blame general busy-ness and malaise after a criminally way too long day at work. After I get done I just don’t want to do anything. Seriously, am i a fucking immigrant here? I work 9am-8pm regularly. Past that even. Sure sometimes i wander in closer to 9:30 am but so what. I deserve that extra snooze mashing. I figured it out and that 55 hours a week (+/- 5 or so) is only paying me $9.30 an hour after taxes! I have a college degree goddamnit! I have great fucking ideas! I can write clever copylines like a motherfucker! My concepts are fucking tight!
And because I live in Hollywood half of my income goes to Rent. I know, that’s my fault. Its like buying cable when you aren’t at home to use it. I don’t even get to see all the fun things going on around here because I am working too hard to afford it. I figured it out and I’m losing. The whole winning vs. losing thing I mean. And I figured out that I’m really losing my self-esteem. I’m learning a lot doing this work but its just so fucking thankless. Its like the whole time I’m there it’s over my head that I SHOULD BE DOING MORE; or that THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO COULD DO YOUR JOB AND YOU ARE LUCKY TO HAVE IT. But sometimes like today when I’m cutting elf bodies apart to make DVD sleeves for Fred Claus and frankenstein-ing a cover together I have to stop for a second and just stare at a few pixels on the screen and think that the arm of the little person in Fred Claus is probably doing better than I am.
The other thing I worked on this week was a Gay ad. No really, it was an ad for a gay soap opera that might or might not go in a gay magazine. Actually it will go in like a half-dozen if they choose mine (1-in-3 chance). And a lot of my crap has been getting chosen at work lately. And when I brag about that kind of thing people ask me, “Do you get paid more if your work sells a lot?” Um, no… it doesn’t work that way. -or- “If they pick your thing do you get some kind of bonus?” Well no, sometimes its kind of a group effort or sometimes they don’t pick my stuff. But i’ve been keeping an unofficial total lately and i’m at about 60-80%. Which is a very good average for this kind of thing. So… I’m losing.
I was fucking around on April Fool’s when I said it was time for a change but sometimes I don’t know how much I was joking about that. If this is how everyone’s career works in Graphic Design, then maybe I don’t want to do Graphic Design. I have friends at other studios now who have better pay, more perks, slightly better hours and are in nicer parts of town (closer to where I live at least). But I know my situation could be A LOT worse. I know people who drive 2 hours a day to get to and from work. I can usually get to work in 10 minutes. Which is amazing. And it could be worse if I would have taken the first job I interviewed for at Liquid Generation where I wouldnt even be making what I do now. (and strangely my job would be doing what i kinda do with this blog).
Despite what I am grateful for, I REFUSE to spend the best years of my life in an office. Is that where inspiration comes from? Are all of my talents being utilized? Is my creativity being rewarded? No, unfortunately not.
I’ve almost been at my job a year. I’m not getting paid much more than when I started and I can honestly say that my hours have on a regular basis kept me from having/making/spending time with friends (what few friends I’ve had time to make here). I’ve missed too many gorgeous sunny southern California days to meet ridiculous deadlines so studios can turn enough of a profit screwing us creatives in the ass to afford to pay over-stroked egos like Tom Cruise multi-million dollar salaries to make shitty uncreative films.
So yeah, I’m stuck. Last night there was an Earthquake in my dream. Maybe that means that the Axe is going to fall and everything I enjoy about life is going to break down. Well maybe in the long run it will be for the better. Or maybe money will start pouring from the San Andreas Fault by way of a life-changing opportunity. This is still the land of dreams right?
BTW, stop having kids, stop sending them to Los Angeles. We’re full, go somewhere else. You’ve got nothing to contribute. We have enough actors, thank you.
Now if you’ll excuse me there is a bum fight going on somewhere behind my apartment. I have to go to the balcony and watch. Might as well get my money’s worth in this neighborhood.
Be sure to cut this one’s head off. Because if 2-gun Chuck ever comes back from the grave he’ll be armed; and that would make a very dangerous zombie.
I’ve seen websites eulogizing the 84-year-old actor as a beacon of “liberty” but I think thats pretty fucked up. I’m all for us as a society having guns, but there are fucking limits. Most Republicans SHOULDN’T have the right to own guns, they aren’t going to use them if their government needs to be taken down anyway. And isn’t that the reason its in the Bill of Rights anyway? These NRA psychos are the assholes who put the current government into power. Thanks a lot Charlton Heston. douche. I’m going to start the Guns for Liberals™ program. Our motto, “The Left To Bear Arms”. Fuck I’m Clever.
So he was a good actor up until 30 years ago, its sad that we can’t remember that because him being a soulless looney gun homo has overshadowed any achievement in film… except in Bowling For Columbine. Oh sweet nectar, if you haven’t seen this movie then go out now and rent it, download it, borrow it from a liberal friend because it is amazing portrait of our gun crazed society and American hypocrisies in general. At the end Charlton Heston is confronted by Michael Moore with a photo of a kid that died in direct result of the gun-douchery that Heston promotes. There is no answer for what you say in that situation so old Moses-balls gets up and walks away. Good thing he was too stupid to know who Michael Moore was. He was probably just happy that someone was talking to him.
It’s been a while since I freed the beast and I’ve been asked whats up a few times lately so here is a drop on some new shizzle thats been buzzing in my ear&brain lately.
Word from SXSW this year is that ex-Test Icicle contributor’s Devonte Hynes project Lightspeed Champion is set to explode. This kid is talented and right in line with all of that sloppy britindie (i’m sure this word has been used before but i havent heard it so i’m claiming it in the name of the queen.) coming out lately. He is also uber-linked to Omaha-Saddle Creek which instantly wins points in my book. (Unless you are only on the label because your brother is talented.)
By boy Brady introduced me to his friends in The Devil’s Orchestra sometime in the middle of last year. I caught a couple shows and some rehearsals and recently I saw them at Cinespace here in the ‘hood and the audience response was kinda nuts. Beyond blaming Cocaine which is a distinct possibility I think these kids are something for the metal motherfuckers to check out. It’s a little bit Rush, a little bit of the Sword/Dragonforce thing and some of that Dog Fashion Disco random circus/jazz breakdown thing. All 3 band members are pretty killer players. Warning: Instrumental.
I tried to buy She & Him tickets this week but April 29th @ the Vista in Los Feliz show was already sold out. Thankfully they booked a 2nd date. She & Him consists of 1 parts Zooey Deschanel on Vocals and some piano and 1 part My Morning Jacket slinger M.Ward on guitars and arrangements. Zooey’s voice is adorable and holds up pretty well but at times pushes a little too heavily on the Billie Holliday sound. I won’t hold it against her because the songs are pretty good in comparison to Rilo Kiley’s most recent effort. The album is a bit schizophrenic much as Coconaut Records was but M.Ward totally gives this record the cred and sophistication it needed. I caught M.Ward last year opening for Bright Eyes at the Hollywood Bowl and was floored. His show the blew old farts Yo La Tengo back to the grunge revivalist carpool they belong in. Besides, Is there anything hotter than a blue-eyed brunette?
Ok maybe one thing hotter, Kate Micucci. She is a one woman Renaissance festival. Very creative, maybe…too creative. As in, so creative it would make the world jealous to listen to all that she can do (Art, Music, Acting, Being Nice). I saw and met her in a Barbeque Joint in Chinatown during a no-audience stand up show. Besides the performers there were 2 people there, who eventually left when they finished their meal. So i guess for a little while the employees and I were the whole audience. But SHE WAS AMAZING! She played ukulele and with her diminutive yet powerful voice she sang these adorable, and funny, yet deep and endearing songs. Wait, I mentioned she played Ukulele right? Write this name down.
Priscilla Ahn: clean, pure like irish spring. I caught her show last year at a benefit for a private school for overly believed in children and she was great. She layered her sound with the aid of a Boss loop station (a la KT Tunstall) and was so lovely. She has since been signed, made an album, and will be destroying America’s hearts with the Hotel Cafe tour. I will drop another Hotel Cafe name and tell you about Jim Bianco. This guy is like Tom Waits for the DMB/Jack Johnson set. but dont mishear me, he is really like neither of them, he is the kind of music that you need to hand a copy of to fans of mom-rock to steer them over to more dangerous sounds. I saw him at the Hotel Cafe with Butch Walker, Cary Brothers and Pink guest and he blew everyone away, for real. His music will molest your ears. Butch is still beyond amazing and has a new project called 1969.
So now you have a ton of shit to download and get your spring started right. And I have to go to bed because I’ve been getting to work 15 minutes late everyday for the last 3 months and everyday try to not do so. *sigh* Futility.
AliUptown is now technically AliHumboldtPark. Doesn’t roll off the tongue quite like the former. Anywho, I’ve since moved into my new apartment, and am “borrowing” internet. My arms are too
tired to even type, so this’ll be a short one.
The movie “Humboldt Park” is finishing up production in Chicago. In case you didn’t know, everyone is in that damn movie. Freddy Rodriquez was totally in Neiman Marcus a few weeks ago, and yes, he’s quite lucky I didn’t club him and drag him back to a fitting room to have my way with his petite self. I’m still mad I didn’t catch any filming of “The Dark Knight” here this summer.
Here are some rejected Star Wars products from the dawn of Episode 1 way back in 1998. Its a wonder that some of these didn’t make it into production because they are fucking brilliance! I personally would take the Death Star grill and Han Solo in carbonite mini fridge combo. Once again you have been one-upped, douchebag from Casting Crowns.
Thats kind of weird right? Last night I met Bobby Lee at the Comedy Store. I knew he would probably be there though so thats kind of cheating (but not the reason for going there). A new friend (she still has that new friend smell) introduced me to him and he either said I was pretty or handsome, i can’t remember, i tee-hee’d. A few minutes later he grabbed my man-boob and asked if that was ok. Of course it’s ok. You’re semi-famous, you’re allowed.
Ok Michael McDonald, you’re next. (not the one from the Doobie Brothers.)
Today I was working on an Ad that might make it into Playboy. If you’ll remember, this happened a month ago when I had a Sex in the City DVD Ad that was chosen by their art directors, went through revisions, approved to release, went all the way to Mechanical (which means it was prepped to deliver to the printer) and just as I was going to upload it, HBO killed it. They don’t give us a reason when they do that stuff beyond our estimation that they don’t have it in their budget to do so. Wack. So I was bummed because of course I told everyone to watch for it and counted my chickens before they were hatched and also because I would have actually been proud of the Ad. I received all of these messages saying, “Congratulations!” and all for nothing. The Ad I was working on today is up against 5 other ones and I don’t think I have a real shot. The concept is pretty good but I actually hope it doesn’t make it because tagline they gave us is a lie. Their tagline is, “It’s Juno for the horror set”. Some asshole in marketing came up with it. Its not true because the movie we are making the ad for sucks, a lot. Piece of shit. Seriously. They had us read the script before they even started filming and i nearly pissed myself being incredulous. I thought, “There’s no way a script this bad will actually get made!” But sure enough, I screened the movie yesterday and it was verbatim. Christ. So many good horror scripts out there (Hello, Ali and I struck gold with Dormstalker?) and they have to make that piece of dung.
I’m not going to tell you what the movie is or which studio is putting it out (Straight to DVD of course) because I’d probably get in trouble. But needless to say it is NOT in any way, shape or form “Juno for the Horror set”. There are no pregnant teenagers in it, there are no A-List Actors in it, It is not an Academy Award-winning script written by a former stripper in Minnesota, it will never play in an arthouse theatre, it will never play in a multi-plex, the female star is not the next big thing (she was on Growing Pains) and it will not lead to the rise in sales of orange tic tacs. If this film were reviewed on a Horror site such as DeadLantern.com, it would recieve a 3 out of 10 for looking semi-professionally done for a horror movie on DV Cam with massive points deducted for not being bloody enough nor giving the audience nearly enough of an interesting plot to suspend their bloody disbelief. (And Deejay would deduct points for not showing tits)
Gah. If they pick my design and keep ANY of that Tagline then I am going to barf on my keyboard for knowing that the first large circulation consumer Ad of mine to be released would be for a movie that bad. And so you know, the tagline from the Sex in the City Ad beat out 4 designs was all mine. It was certainly better than “It’s Juno for the Horror Set”.
The other terrible thing that happened today is that I just now finished the screener for Fred Claus. Thats right. I’m working on the DVD design for Fred Claus. I hate working on Christmas films. ESPECIALLY IN MARCH! Can’t I enjoy my Lenten season without Jesus or Santa Claus?
(Hey Ali, I think they filmed some of Fred Claus by where you work. I’m totally sneaking your apartment into the design.)
“Hey Vader, How are things? I’ve been good, a bounty here, some rebel surveillance there. I’ve been pretty busy lately so I decided to treat myself. I bought this great desk from a chubby Mediterranean stereotype at the Crate&Blaster on Tattooine. It’s really nice. Mostly carbonite. It has sort of a cloud city vibe. Oh yeah and it holds the frozen body of Han Solo, which I think really says, “this guy is the bounty hunter for you”, ya know what I mean? Well I’ve got a couple clones running around the office that I said I’d take to Ice Cream so I’d better wrap this up. Good luck with that kid of yours, yikes! Rebel Alliance, huh? Damn Hippies. Next thing you know he’ll be voting for Nader! Well you take care, buddy. I’ll see you at the company picnic!
-Bob”
I found this tasty thing on The Stylephile. The HAN SOLO IN CARBONITE DESK is almost on par with the Kiss Coffin for overly-obsessive memorabilia. It was made for some douchelicious god-twat from the band (barf) Casting Crowns. It mentioned they are Grammy-Winning but really if its for Christian Rock thats like winning the gold medal in curling. Nobody gives a shit. (See, you don’t even know what curling is.) Its good to see he isn’t using that money to help the poor or anything.
My Christian Rock band is called Soulgasm. Our latest release “Come On, Jesus!” is out now in Chapel Bookstores Everywhere. But back to this sweet desk! There are a few areas where it could be sweeter, like if the slab looked more like the movie for example. I’m assuming the Harrison Ford relief sculpture is the hard part of the design but that thing looks like they took apart a bunch of Jeeps from the Korean War. And the glass looks way too high to be functional. Sweet concept though. The Carbonite room/Empire battle scene inspired legs are rockin’. It might be even better if it looked like it was levitating.
I’m leaving you with the quote from the site I snagged this link from– Han Solo: “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Warning! I think this video is pretty stupid and not all that funny. However, i chuckled a couple times and its FULL of Harry Potter references. So try to enjoy.
Priscilla Ahn
