Simply Marvelous

Still animating, still making progress. After doing that action scene, I've realized that, though relatively much simpler, animating dialogue-heavy scenes is painfully tedious and pretty boring. Just gotta get them done and get to the meat.
Our internet is finally up and running again, though I'm thinking I may continue to lay low with my online activities a bit longer to keep focused on Fan Film.

Mom and I went and saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls on Thursday night. I was surprised that there was nobody else in that theater when the movie's still so new, but it's always nice to have a whole theater to yourself.
As I mentioned before, I'm not the hugest Indy fan. I only saw the movies a couple times when I was younger, so I guess the nostalgia factor most people have with the movies isn't quite there for me. I recently rewatched the original trilogy and though I enjoyed them, they didn't fully do the trick for me. I get and appreciate that they're a big nod to the old serials, but the cheese level kept getting pretty high at times (especially in Temple of Doom) and that always tends to bug me. I think without Harrison Ford's performance, I probably wouldn't have liked them much at all, but that's just me.
That said, I really enjoyed Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Sure, there were things I didn't like (the nuke scene, all the CGI animals, the killer ants, and everything between the Tarzan bit and the waterfalls), but I did end up really liking it. I won't give any details incase anyone reading hasn't seen it yet, but it was fun.
It amazed me how it was such a big gathering of sci-fi/fantasy movie stars. I mean, not only do you have Ford, who is both Indy and Han Solo, you've got people representing Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Transformers, Beowulf, Hellboy, and possibly my personal favorite brief appearance, though not sci-fi or fantasy, was the Janitor from Scrubs himself, Neil Flynn. That cracked me up.

Yesterday we went and saw The Incredible Hulk. I was nervous, I didn't like any of the trailers for the movie, I thought they were terrible. To my surprise, I loved the movie. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it. I thought the effects were great, but I'm worried how they'll look on DVD. CGI almost always looks better on film, but then looks really fake on DVD, in my opinion at least.
I even had a nerdy moment during the final fight when I realized I was sitting there slackjawed.
I'm surprised I'm saying this, but The Incredible Hulk is right up there with Iron Man. The movies share the feeling of a deeper world by acknowledging the existence of other superheroes and even appearing in each other's movies. It opens thing up SO much. Before this, the closest thing I can recall is a mention of Metropolis in one of the Batman movies and a mention of Gotham in Superman Returns. The result is that instead of just having Marvel movies, we now have a series of movies taking place in the Marvel Universe. I can't wait for The Avengers.
It's time for DC to step it up. I loved Superman Returns and Batman Begins and The Dark Knight looks amazing, but it's time to open up the Universe.

I got a surprising and awesome note on MySpace the other day. It turns out I was the 20,000th friend added to Stan Lee's MySpace page and will be receiving a personalized autographed prize signed by Stan Lee himself. How insanely cool is that? Expect pictures when it arrives.

A Day of Many Returns

It was considerably chillier than it was supposed to be today, so I had to bundle up a bit more than I wanted to while running errands with Mom.

As I was getting out of the van at WalMart, I heard a voice say "Jacob?" It turned out to be my old friend, Jackie, who I haven't seen in probably about 7 years. We caught up with each other a little in the parking lot. She seems to be doing quite well for herself, working a good job downtown and recently engaged. It was a nice surprise bumping into her.

I'm wondering if a bus full of people I haven't seen in ages recently pulled into town and unloaded, as that's the second random bump-into this week.

After there, Mom and I had a quick bite at Schlotzsky's and headed to the movie theater to behold the anticipated return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or, as they're now more hiply called, TMNT.

When I first heard the movie was going to be completely CGI, I was honestly a bit miffed.
When I saw the first trailer, I was a bit more optimistic.
When more clips were revealed over the last few weeks, I got excited.
When I saw the movie tonight, I felt a childhood enthusiasm return.

It was just excellent. Though the villain plot was lacking a bit, the theme of family was outstanding, the action scenes were truly impressive, and the CGI was done nicely and surprisingly beautiful at times. The best (spoiler free) scene in the movie is when tensions reach a boiling point and two brothers battle it out, it was executed perfectly.

I really loved the movie and look forward to seeing it again.

Almost as fun as watching the movie, was watching the audience arrive. It seemed funny seeing so many people over twenty showing up for a PG animated film, but it was the original Turtles Generation reuniting after all these years. Even cooler was seeing members of that generation bringing their kids with them.

After the movie, I kicked back and visited with Corey, who's back in town for the weekend. We just chit chatted a bit and talked about his new dog, Wizard. It was nice.

Tomorrow night? Game night.

"They mostly come at night...mostly"

As of early this morning, Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives is being featured on iFilm's front page. If you haven't checked it out yet, what are you waiting for??

Things are pretty slow around here. The weather's ridiculous, we have between one and two feet of snow on the ground and some pretty hefty icicles hanging around. I'm ready for summer. Cabin fever's a pain.

I've been writing a little bit lately, but nothing too intensive, just playing with some ideas.

Mostly, I've been doing my best to whittle down my Netflix queue a bit. I've watched quite a few movies lately, but almost none have left an impression. That's not to say they're bad, I've enjoyed watching them, but so many lack that "wow" factor and I end up forgetting what I watched within a few days. Though last night was good. I watched Aliens.

I'm sure I've seen the whole movie over the years, but in bits and pieces spread out over God knows how long. This was my first time watching it all at once. I saw the wow factor. The movie's just awesome. Period.
It ended up leaving me mad at current movies. With all the advanced technology out there, these aliens from 20 years ago look better than most of the creature effects we see today. And not only do they look amazing, but they're actually scary. Sure, CGI creatures can look great, but more often than not, it's blatantly obvious that they're CGI and that's a problem. It's so much more effective when the monster's actually tangible. Tell me the alien queen wasn't terrifying.
Movies need a resurgence of animatronic creatures.

My nerdiness is showing, I better quit while I'm ahead.