Another batch of opinions, hastily posted by somebody who wasn't all that invested in the game. (Dammit, Bill!) This may not be the most coherent post in the world, since it's almost quarter of two in the morning now, but here goes:
"The Last Airbender" teaser - Uh... eh. I think I've made my opinions on the prospects of a live-action "Avatar: the Last Airbender" movie perfectly clear by now and this teaser didn't really change anything. What strikes me as odd is the fact that, had I tuned in a minute later I would have missed it entirely.
Boostmobile Shuffle - OK, this one got a laugh out of me. For those of you who are to young to get the reference, enjoy the very first time I realized that athletes should never sing. Ever.
Doritoes and Budweiser - Man, their commercials this year were either just plane weird or boring. Doritoes in particular; it looked like they were using the ideas from their contest a while back that came in a distant second.
"Robin Hood: Prince of Some Stuff" - "Gee, Homer, that's a good idea but I think they've already made movies based on A Christmas Carol." "Yeah, well, what about Robin Hood?" On the other hand, I am hoping they make this movie into another "EXCITING cereal".
"Wolfman" - Team DelToro!!!
Monster.com Beaver - I like the puppetry, but this is a good example of an ad that is really elaborate but doesn't make any damn sense. The Budweiser Bridge ad was like this too. The ur-example of this kind of Superbowl ad comes from 1997. (Bonus: Two or three instantly-dated references for the price of one!)
GoDaddy.com - This may be the greatest and best web-hosting service in the entire Internet, and all most people associate them with are these "to hot for TV" ads. Good jarb ad execs.
Coke Simpsons - Yaaaay!!! I feel like I ought to comment more on this ad as it's the only memorable animated ad. It's wikkid late. I don't want to.
Career Builder and Dockers - To ads in a row with guys in their underwear. Good luck telling them apart.
Teleflora - Hey, I remember this from last year!
"Alice in Wonderland" and "Tru TV Groundhog Day" - I must have mentioned somewhere on this blog that the deepest depth of the Uncanny Valley is inhabited by those staples of Superbowl ads, CGI Babies Who Do Things Normal Babies Don't Do. Well, I was wrong. The real inhabitants are People With Giant CGI Heads (or Normal-Sized Heads On Little CGI Bodies, it's hard to tell).
Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter - And I've given so much attention to the history of the Disney/MGM or Hollywood or whatever they're calling it now Studios in Walt Disney World that I feel like I must have discussed the equally strange history of Universal Studios Florida as well. This ad reminds me of the seriously trippy ads used to introduce the park in the first place. I don't think Wizarding World will be open by the time I get to Florida next month (more on that later), but having visited the spot where I think it's going, it's a little hard to believe that this is going to be more elaborate than a retheming of the Lost Continent part of Islands of Adventure.
Dr. Pepper Little Kiss - Ugh. Just... ugh.
"Prince of Persia: the Color Orange!" - With the memory of what happened after "Pirates of the Caribbean" fresh in my head, let me say this: I don't want little girls and their moms suddenly saying they've "Always been a Jake Gyllenhaal fan!" You sit through "The Good Girl" and "The Day After Tomorrow" just for him and then maybe we'll let you in the fan club. Maybe.
HomeAway.com - Here's a depressing trend for you. Commercials for commercials. As in, you had to go online to watch the full version of this. Bah.
Dennys screaming chickens - And here's the most irritating and most impossible to like commercial this year.
"The Crazies" - Interesting and creepy ad for what appears to be an entirely unremarkable thriller. Funny thing is, I would have expected to see an "Iron Man 2" teaser instead.
Google Paris Romance - Awwwwww... See now, this is how you do it.
EDIT: Reviews of ads I have not mentioned can be found at the Onion AV Club. It's funny how the blatant misogyny and anti-intellectualism, especially of the Bud ads, didn't immediately register with me. Then again, I remember when every single beer ad felt like that Duff beer "down with sexism" ad from an early episode of "The Simpsons" (still brilliant but YouTube has sadly failed me).
I've recently involved myself in a project that is so far helping me fulfill two New Year's resolutions (how I hate those): Fill a Sketchbook page every day and get in on this ACEO thing. That project is "Phylomon". Essentially, this is an open-source free-for-all good-for-your-children trading-card game I can sum up in one phrase: "Pokemon" with real species. The website better explains the basis behind the concept. My one little caveat is this: I put the "kids these days don't know biodiversity from a hole in the ground" blame on standardized testing; "Pokemon" is largely innocent here (seriously, where else can you befriend parasitic fungi and Monkey Cups?) The tests put so much emphasis on arithmetic (that is, math problems with one right answer) and reading comprehension (ie, you can tell me that Jack fell down the hill first but keep your opinions about the story to yourself because we can't grade those with the system we use). Science falls by the wayside under this system. I could go on and on about this but you really only need to know that the MCAS is the reason why I am not working in a classroom right now. Aaaaanyway, the Phylomon project is constantly looking for submissions and I've been having a great deal of fun with it so far. I'm also periodically selling the ACEOs on Ebay, so check my seller page. ---- Feederwatch Friday! How's this for biodiversity? Red-tailed Hawk 2 (Coooooool!) Rock Pigeon 4 Mourning Dove 2 Downy Woodpecker 1 Blue Jay 1 Black-capped Chickadee 3 White-breasted Nuthatch 2 American Robin 1 European Starling 1 Northern Cardinal 1 House Finch 1 House Sparrow 20 ---- And this has absolutely nothing to do with anything but it's too fun not to share.
In which I describe the step-by-step* process by which I made a picture for the Therizinosaur Gallery, which will appear at the ART Evolved website in March. * - You're going to get the song in your head anyway, you might as well listen to it now. :)
Step One: Where we can have lots of fun. I can't show you the real Step One, coming up with an idea. I hit upon a concept that has to do with one of the reasons why Therizinosaurs are among my favorite animals: paleoartists had such a hard time trying to work out what these animals *were* -never mind what they looked like- throughout the years. So I sketched out a drawing of a modern, accurate-as-far-as-we-know Therizinosaur (on the bottom here) looking in confused disgust at some earlier interpretations. Then I scanned it. And here's the scan as it appeared when I opened it up in Photoshop.
Step Two: Where there's so much we can do! I rotated the image and saved it. Now the "Therizinosaur" on the far left is based on an old shame in Gregory S. Paul's otherwise excellent book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. He thought they were some kind of "predatory prosauropod", or even a mishmash of bones from random animals! The guy in the middle is a happy character from the video game "Dino Crisis" (shows up at the 6.50 mark) - though I know I've seen this "look" before. Seems to be based on the assumption, "well golly, they got big gigantic claws, they MUST have eaten meat!" Of course. Before inking the sketch, I got out my copy of Predatory Dinosaurs and looked for a drawing of an actual Therizinosaur skeleton online. Turns out the proportions were a little off - generally, these animals are more awkward than you think they are. So I sketched out their longer necks in blue. (I love my Wacom tablet.) I'll use this as a guide in the next step.
Step Three: Where it's just you an' me-e-ee!!! Here's the inking halfway finished. I do each figure on a different layer. That way, I can move them around and make sure they're all standing on the same "floor" when I'm done. I can also shift the two long-necks around so I can trace their original heads, then move them to where they should be according to the blue sketch. Since I got my Mac, I've fallen in love with some of the stranger brushes in Photoshop CS4. Now I usually ink with a calligraphy pen brush. This keeps the drawing from looking "too neat". Here's the inking all finished:
Step Four: Where I can give you more! The "Predatory Prosauropod" is now in glorious extra-color. Note the gray background, which helps me not forget to paint in the white areas. This step usually takes the longest depending on what coloring method I use. (This time, I used a variation on the method detailed by illustrator Tony Cliff in this tutorial.) This is most often the step where I say, "Thank God for layers".
Step Five: Doncha know that the time has arrived! And here is the final piece! Is the "Dino Crisis" guy too gory? Nah.
Now I know that a few readers probably don't care, so I won't let my fandom overtake this Art Blog (me talking about art I have made will resume Wednesday. Therizinosaurs will be involved.) I definitely can promise you that I am not and never will become one of these fans:
Warning: some Nerd Rage ahead. Tonight marks the end of Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse", a series that flew under the radar of nearly anyone who'd like it best. We've had a lot of excellent speculative fiction television series the past few years and this could have easily turned into a classic. Admittedly, the first five episodes or so were slow, slow, slow and it took several months for the show to find it's voice, but once it did (round about Episode ten I'd say), it did what only the ballsiest speculative fiction does: It explored every last disturbing implication of it's fantastic premise. Sadly, Whedon only had a few episodes, mostly in the second season, to fully explore that premise without having to keep the advertisers and network happy. The history of this series has been... interesting to say the least. Executive Meddling (take a shot) plagued the first half of the first season, but then Joss was allowed to do his own thing for the second half. Certainly, all the while the traumatic experience of Fox's treatment of "Firefly" was hanging over his head. So he came up with an episode called "Epitaph 1" that could act as an ending for the series as a whole *or* a good cliffhanger for the first season if the series miraculously didn't get canceled. Sure enough, the series miraculously did not get canceled -- but Fox decided not to air "Epitaph 1", opting to end the season on a comparatively cheerier note. So the second season went ahead business as usual as if that episode never existed. And then Fox decided to cancel "Dollhouse" anyway. That's hubris for you. So in the past month's worth of episodes or so, Joss Whedon has been doing an excellent job of building towards the events portrayed in "Epitaph 1" so that he can use it as the first half of a two-part final episode arc. Which would be awesome, except Fox *still* isn't going to air it, so good luck understanding what's going on in the series finale. In short, I get to post this again. Yay. By the way, "Dollhouse" gets canceled and yet Seth MacFarlane is apparently getting a fourthIllustrated Radio series. Oh yeah, I went there. Dammit, is it February 2nd yet?
---- In happier news, it is Draw a Dinosaur Day! I am probably drawing one right now and will post it here when I'm finished! Until then, here's the Singing Tyrannosaurus: EDIT: The Singing Tyrannosaurus stays but here is the link to my entry in the Draw A Dinosaur Day pool. I submitted today's Sketchbook page.
---- Feederwatch Friday! Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 (Just hung out in the neighbor's lilacs. Chickadees were not one bit happy about this.) Rock Pigeon 4 Mourning Dove 2 Downy Woodpecker 1 Black-capped Chickadee 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 2 House Sparrow 25
Another scary storm on Monday, this time of the soggier variety thanks to unseasonable warmth. I could hardly see the birds, much less count them. But count them I did. For the science!
Glad you asked. I'm not feeling so good so this will be a quick post. Basically...
1) It is essentially going to be a "Greatest Hits" kind of thing. I've been going through the Photoshop files I have handily on my desktop, tweaking them and saving them at a 300 dpi resolution on my laptop (once you use Photoshop CS4 on a Mac, you can't voluntarily go back), and posting three at a time. Most of the selected pieces will also be available as prints, and on that note...
2) At least a third of the reason why I joined DeviantArt is to sell prints. There. I was honest.
3) But the other two-thirds of the reason I joined is to communicate with other artists. Artists who may never even have heard of Flickr or the Comic Artist Guild. To that end, I've spent a lot of my recent time at DA favoriting pieces and friending artists. And I have left nice comments with everyone.
4) I have no intention of making my DA Gallery into my main online portfolio. I love the hell out of Flickr. Of the two art-sharing websites, Flickr is ridiculously easier to use both for me as the art-sharer and you as the art-viewer. There have already been times when DA's art submission features have given me psychic nosebleeds. (Has Saphira randomly vanished *again*? WTF?) I could make a drinking game out of the times I've seen art collections fail to load properly, leaving me staring either at a bunch of broken graphics or nothing at all. And above all else, I know you could argue the same for any "anyone can add content" website, but I still maintain that Sturgeon's Law affects DeviantArt like nothing else on God's green Earth.
But even so, as I said before, it behooves me (whatever that means*) to join the most popular art-sharing site. You never know where you could make a lucrative connection.
* - "It behooves me" means, "it puts myself at a great advantage". Not, as one would naturally assume, "it turns me into an ungulate, somehow". Let it never be said that American English isn't needlessly confusing. ---- Sketch of the Day!!! Drawn from observation, here's a little squirrel who likes tro live dangerously.
"Star Trek" - I'm not going to get to wordy here. It is an *awesome* odd-numbered "Star Trek" movie. Yeah, I know!
"Duel" - Steven Spielberg's first movie is terrific. Definitely worth a look if you've never seen it. Just don't watch it before a road trip...
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - I was curious as to how this would translate to film as the book is loads and loads of exposition mixed with loads and loads of relationship drama, topped off with a relentless bummer of an ending (and I still keep forgetting how damn sad it is). It doesn't translate well at all, in fact this is one of the weaker Harry Potter movies. It reminded me of "Goblet of Fire" in that it included about a third of what was in the book while also adding in new stuff that was just strange. That and the motives of a certain character are completely unambiguous (quite unlike the book), to the point where you just end up feeling sad for him. This is as good a place as any to mention that I enjoyed "Prisoner of Azkaban" the most out all the "Harry Potter" films. After reading Deathly Hallows, I was sad that we wouldn't get to see Alphonso Cuaron tackle the battle of Hogwarts, especially in light of "Children of Men". That could have been amazing.
"TimeCrimes" - Interesting indie science fiction thriller. Again, it's better if you don't know what it's about. Too bad the title's a bit of a give-away. NOTE: If you have seen "Primer" and now have a fear of indie time travel stories, know that "TimeCrimes" is far less likely to give you a psychic nosebleed.
"Inglourious Basterds" - It's the war movie that Quentin Tarantino's been wanting to make for ages and ages. It makes history teachers cry at night, but it gets away with it because it's also crazy awesome. Again, I didn't know much about it going in, just know that the commercials are very misleading.
"Moon" - The SECOND-best thought-provoking, low-budget indie sci-fi movie of the past summer! Seriously, though, Sam Rockwell deserves a Best Actor Oscar nomination and a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and it makes me sad that this film has been completely ignored by almost every award show I am aware of. (I don't want to spoil anything but trust me, the Best Actor and Best Supporting thing will make sense after you watch it.)
"It's a Wonderful Life" - Watched this before Christmas, naturally. Every time I watch this movie again, it hits me how blatantly depressing it is. My generation grew up with the impression that this was a merry holiday classic. I think what older people love, what they remember most, is the happy ending. What they forget is that George has to earn the f*** out of that happy ending...
"Harvey" - This is the second time I've tried to watch this movie and the second time I fell asleep. I just remember the first time, I was watching it with my grandmother and my younger cousins, and all through the whole thing they were asking, "where is the bunny? I was promised that there was a bunny in this movie!" And if you're wondering why I watched the last two movies...
"Donnie Darko" - Ha ha ha. I hadn't seen this movie in a long time and I'd forgotten how good it is. Definitely one of the best of the past decade. The 2000's will probably be most notable for the sheer amount of bad movies we got, but it was also a really good decade for weird and/or cult movies. One of the writers for my local newspaper even voted it his favorite movie of the 2000's! (This was probably not the same person who wrote this wallbanger.) Give it a rent if you haven't seen it yet.
"The Box" - I should mention that I did not rent the Director's Cut of "Donnie Darko". I have heard that they've changed quite a lot of the music, which is a worthy criticism in this particular film. But the other major criticism of the director's cut is far more interesting: people don't like it because it explains too much. "Donnie Darko" was more interesting when it was more ambiguous. Which brings us to "The Box". I definitely thought this was weird. Very, very weird. But I would have liked it a lot more if it had embraced that weirdness and flatly refused to explain what was really going on. But in light of all the terrible reviews this got, it certainly wasn't the worst movie I saw this year.
"Surf's Up" - It is at least a lot more fun than the other animated movie with penguins from around the same time. It's not very memorable, but it looks really pretty. Turns out that one of the technologies used to make "Avatar" was also used here. Crazy.
"Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" - I watched this? I did? You sure Netflix Rental Activity list? Because I don't remember anything about it. Yet, apparently, this is one of the best-reviewed animated films of the past year (85% on Rotten Tomatoes). What is it about "Meatballs" that I didn't get? Please tell me because I'm starting to worry.
"Point Break" - I made this the Swayze-est Christmas of them aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!!! Seriously, this was a lot better than I expected. You are going to say, "LOL what?!" at least once reading the opening credits.
"The Hurt Locker" - The best and also the most relentlessly stressful war movie I've seen since the criminally underrated "Jarhead".
"Fanboys" - An abject lesson in the horrors of executive meddling. The movie itself is okay, but it is also terribly obvious what scenes were demanded by the studio, who wanted to make a sweet story about friendship and fandom edgy and hip. You can listen to the director, Kyle Newman, describe the entire spectacular debacle in this episode of the wonderful /Film Podcast. ---- Imaginative Realism - James Gurney's art instruction book is, naturally, gorgeous. Better yet, like his excellent blog (see links list at right), it's also warm and very informative. My favorite art instruction books gave me ideas I never would have thought of myself, and having read this one I may need to build myself a Taboret. I only have one small nitpick: this books serves as a great collection of Gurney's artwork, so it is well worth purchasing even if you're just a fan and you hate oil painting. Unfortunately, some of the artwork included practically begs for longer explanations. (TV Tropes, of all places, has a good list of all the Dinotopia spinoffs. According to Imaginative Realism, there were originally meant to be more. Many more. Imagine an animated Dinotopia film that was made by people who actually bothered to stick to the books...) ---- Trailers I saw at the Movies: "Percy Jackson: The Olympians: The Lightning Thief: Colons!" - Nothing is funnier -NOTHING- than one of those "making of" trailers where the Newbie teenaged stars are asked to describe the plot of the book-based elaborate-backstory-heavy fantastic film that they have found themselves starring in. "Tooth Fairy" - Jeepers creepers, this thing's real?!? YouTube has sadly failed me here, but when Arnold Schwarzenegger was on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" ages and ages ago (possibly right around when "Terminator 2" was out), he described how he was going to be in this movie. Now here it is, more than a decade later, with The Rock. As a Tooth Fairy. With pretty sparkly Fairy wings. So this movie somehow survived being in development limbo for, let's guesstimate, fifteen years, and I already knew as a teen that the concept was hopelessly stupid. "Shrek 4: Let's Just Get This Over With*" - So wait, we're not getting seven Shrek sequels after all? This is really the last one ever? Yaaaaay!!! * - It was funny for the "Star Wars" prequels, it's funny here. "Alice in Wonderland" - M'eh. Well, you see, I'd already seen the trailer for "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus", and that is the only upcoming crazy-ass fantasy film for me. Now if only there was some assurance that my part of the world was ever going to get to see it! (Dammit, high-paid executives, some people like weird movies. Plus, this one has a built-in audience!) "Cats and Dogs 2" - I may never get to see Heath Ledger's final performance in the theater, but I'm going to be able to watch a "Cats and Dogs" sequel. This also means that we live in a world where "Cats and Dogs" can have a sequel. Also, "Tooth Fairy" exists now. This means that all bets are officially off. "Inception" - This OWNS! Thus far, this is the only movie I am 100% on board for this coming year and I want to stay totally clean. Don't tell me what it's about!!! ---- Sketch Finished Piece of the Day Remember that long-necked dragon from a few days ago? Well here he is in shiny finished form:
I am a freelance illustrator and I started drawing almost from the moment I could hold a crayon. I was -and still am- influenced by nature and the pop culture of the time period when I grew up. Recently, I have decided to pursue illustration and animation as a career and I have joined the Comicbook Artists Guild to network with other artists and talk about the field. I am currently involved in the "700 Things" project as well as several personal projects. I started this blog as a companion to my portfolio over at Flickr, so that I can share my thoughts about art, science, and whatever I want. So get a cup of coffee and a comfortable seat.
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