What's wrong with this picture?

This Summer really sucks for movies. Not that all these movies are bad (I loved Toy Story 3) but it says something a bit disturbing that of the top 10 movies of the Summer, only 1 is not a sequel/reboot/adaptation. Come on guys, original ideas please?

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Someone needs to send David Yates a copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating A Suspenseful Action Sequence. After all, the director who, unfortunately, will helm the Harry Potter series to its very end, is a master of the anti climax. Last time, he ruined one of the most exciting, imaginative, and unique sequences by reducing the department of mysteries sequence to a disappointing shell of its former grandeur in his disappointing adaptation of one of the best books in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now Yates has been given a smaller-scale book to deal with, and has slowed down the frantic, rushing pace he set on Order of the Pheonix to the brisk but uneventful filler that is Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. The film moves by quickly enough, filling the first two hours with the entertaining and humorous teen drama that Rowling used to form the backdrop for her epic series finale. However, unlike Rowling, Yates doesn't reward his audiences for their trek through the melodrama with an intense and powerful finale, but with another weak, rushed effort at emotion that falls flat. Its exceedingly frustrating to watch Yates's adaptations as he is handed increasingly interesting material and continues to make it uninteresting. He managed to get the pacing right for most of the movie, making it entertaining, but when it comes to a scene of real weight and tension he disappoints due to his utter failure to create suspense. His action scenes are so briskly paced that they are over before audiences can feel any of the atmosphere he creates. His visual prowess is apparent in his construction of the final action scene, but unfortunately this impressive yet fairly detached light show is over all too fast, only rewarding us with a few seconds of special effects. The emotional climax of the film is likewise rushed, and while the reactions of the students of Hogwarts to this latest blow they are dealt is touching, he doesn't give us time to feel it. Overall, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a fairly entertaining comedy that fails to convey the urgency and emotion that gave the book a scope that was far grander than its melodramatic setup.

The short version:

|Score: |||||- 5.4/10|

Coming up, a Harry Potter recap? And my long awaited (or not) account of my vacation to Kaua'i.

I just died a little inside.

http://nerdarmada.blogspot.com/2009/07/welcome-to-new-cn.html

Words cannot describe how much I hate CN Real.  Not only does it betray everything the channel is for, but it betrays all the animation fans who still care about quality 2D animation. I'd heard about this and raged about it before, but Greenblatt's few words and the video are so sad that it really shows the whole thing. 

BOYCOTT CN REAL. The shows are not worth your time, and I hope to make it so they're not worth the network's while. 

Old Trailers

I watched The Maltese Falcon last night, and one of the most interesting features on it was "Warner Night at the Movies" which showed the trailer, newsreel, and cartoons shown before the film. Despite all the love for Looney Tunes, there are certainly some bad ones, and this obscure WWII spoof certainly was one of them. The humor and advertising used back then was so strange and different. The original trailer for the film is included and is funnier than the cartoon, with weird transitions from scene to scene and dramatic and repetitive narration. Its funny how things were advertised back then. The question is, is advertising now any less ridiculous? Sure, seeing special effects or jokes from the most exciting and funny scenes of the film whiz by in 30 seconds may seem more exciting than the slow ads of years long passed, but whether its an abundance of information or almost none at all, ads still don't usually give an accurate sense of what the film is like.

It Sorta Occurred To Me

I'm on break right now, and when I'm on break, I don't have to get up. But even when I get out of bed my mind doesn't really wake up. I don't really think I've been awake all day today.

The Air CN Shows in Widescreen Petition

Oh, and be sure to grab the Chowder vol 1 DVD! It has the first five produced half-hours on it (10 stories total), each presented in their original wide-screen format. You'll see more picture than was shown on broadcast, plus an animatic for Chowder's Girlfirend.

That's from C.H Greenblatts blog. according to this, Chowder was originally made in widescreen. However, I have yet to see a single episode in widescreen, and the iTunes episodes are in pan and scan as well. This makes me angry at CN and it makes me wonder if there are other shows that are being made in widescreen and aired in fullscreen.

So, post a comment and I'll add your name to the petition to get chowder and possibly other shows like it shown on CN in their original state

signatures

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James Sutton

Soap Opera vs. Nature Show: Human Stories vs HUMAN Stories

Has anyone out there ever put two spiders in a jar, hoping to see them fight to the death. I sure know I have. Now, I like TV just as much as the next man, but when you turn on the tube you're essentially paying people to do the same thing, an in my future, I'd sure love to see those things. TV shows are like nature shows focused on the animal we find most fascinating: ourselves. Basically, what is the key to the story of any TV show: battles or relationships. Isn't that basically what nature shows are after. I loved to watch nature shows when I was from around 8 to 10. Maybe its because watching animals fight and mate is a less sophisticated version of humanity. Eventually, we move on to watching people do it, and that's how our media works. The more actual day to day life is in a show, the less popular it becomes, with a few exceptions. Maybe the same children who dreamed of wrestling with crocodiles are watching TV staring with great anticipation into what their adult lives could be. And maybe a decade or so later they'll be sitting in front of the tube looking back at what they think their life could have been, or desperately scrambling to salvage it before the onset of aging. Of course what most of them don't realize is that TV is an incredibly condensed version of the interesting parts of life, which is why I sometimes enjoy episodes of a a show where almost nothing happens. Its refreshing. Of course, on a nature show, probably 75% of the time they're shooting is just walking through the jungle looking. But we don't have to look anywhere but the screen. Lucky us!

New Potter Trailer and Movie News

I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but here it is anyways I usually find that movies strip books down to their action only, ignoring important dialogue. However, for this particular Potter story, I strongly hope that most of the awful sappy teen drama is taken out. The trailer definitely seems to be focusing mostly on the pensive and not on the drama stories. There are some interesting stories in this week's weekly ketchup from ROTTEN TOMATOES, as well as some really dumb ideas (Why wont WB learn Looney Tunes + live action = crappy movie) oh yeah, spoiler alert...Sony, Venom is dead, like, as in deceased in one of the most wasteful deaths in any Superhero movie EVER. Of course, now that I think about it, Spider Man 3 is pretty bad. Ok, really bad (I love the first two) but anyways, time to stop ranting and let you read the article. click here

Viacom Sucks, This Video Rocks

This is incredibly wrong, and I'm sure glad I didn't waste my ticket money on Indiana Jones 4 and Kung-Fu Panda. Check out this video at its source and be sure to add your comment to the growing list on YouTube. As for this video, it's a well crafted argument, and I'll be curious as to what Viacom has to say for themselves. Until then, let the boycott begin.

An Update From the World of Film Featuring 10 Years of Rotten Tomatoes and a new Trailer

First off, here's a video from the 10th anniversary of Rotten Tomatoes. It really shows how crappy movies attract audiences. See how many times someone's response to a film is "I liked it"

Secondly, here's a really interesting trailer, it looks amazing, I just hope they don't turn it into a Brad Pitt showcase instead of an awesome film. It's directed by David Fincher, who made the abomination of Alien 3, however, I don't blame him for it. I've heard through the web that he was brought on late into the project, and his work was constantly interfered with by the studio. Heres the trailer.

Finally, last night, I saw a new film, Fitzgaraldo ( I am certain that is not how it is spelled but I really couldn't spell it since the title is almost as strange as the film) although I found it to be too long with the style featuring minimal editing, the story was intriguing, about a man who wants to bring opera to the Amazon, but needs money, and in earning it, ends up using natives to haul a steamboat over a mountain. Weird huh?

Maturity, religeon, and control.

I am a control freak, non-religeous, and insanely immature. What do these things have to do with each other? Well, if you want control over your life, how can you believe that everything you know is under the control of a supreme diety, and that you have no say in the matter of who you are. Man, that's depressing. Now maturity goes back to our mothers, and our manners. I'm sure we've all had parents tell us to clean our rooms, say "excuse me" when you burp, and not swear. This is why, as a control freak, I am immature: if our entire social code is based on an arbitrary, pre-determined set of inconvenient conditions that have gradually been ground into our collective conscience, than you are constantly in combat with a code of etiquitte ( I think I misspelled that, but who cares) which limits your social possibilities to be in control of your life with a constant need to conform to a basic code. (whew, that was a long sentence) Which brings me back to religeon. Religeon has its own code of manners and obligations, like going to Church on Sundays, and not saying the lord's name in vain, which in turn is forced upon us due to our social conscience of respecting other's religeons, thereby meaning that the people who run the religeons have control over who we respect. However, some of these religeous laws are so uptight that even the people who practice the religeon don't follow them. It goes on and on in a never-ending cycle. One that I'm trying to break, which is why I love cartoons, and movies like "Big Trouble in Little China" "Tremors" and so on. This cycle of maturity is also one of the reasons I don't want to get married. First of all, there's the obvious part: when you are married, everything you own you share with your spouse. As a control freak, how am I supposed to handle forking over my hard-earned crap for such a petty inconsistant thing such as love. Also, when a man marries a woman, one of the terms is to "make an honest woman out of her" nowadays, it seems more like the woman makes an honest man out of her husband, making him into, hopefully for their kids, a responsible father. If the man has kids, and he wants to treat them well, he has very little choice but to comply. And from there on, both him and his wife, who once enjoyed a free, young life, are locked into an endless cycle of ever increasing responsibilities that niether of them have any control over. I understand that there must be some magic in getting married and raising a family, otherwise people wouldn't do it. But as a control freak, I don't see how I could.

Man... this ranting business is fun.

Mornings: I Know What I'm Missing

On weekdays, five days a week, I hate getting up. I wake up and go back to sleep. On weekends, I wake up, and I go back to sleep, only I don't eventually have to haul myself out of the comforts of my bed and go face the day. Which is one of the reasons I love traveling. I don't sleep well, I'm too wired to want to sleep, and so I get out of bed before everyone else wakes up, and see the city just before rush hour. The air is cold and energising, and when I'm in a different place, the morning air makes it feel and taste just that more different. Its definately cool. The other thing I enjoy about trip mornings goes back to when I stayed at my Aunt Peggy's house. I was on a family trip with my parents and grandparents, and, while at home I was used to either waking up and having everyone be ready to leave, or waking up and nobody being awake, my entire family suffered Jetlag and was on the same clock. So I'd wake up and everyone would just be arriving for breakfast. I didn't even have to get out my own cereal.

This is an uncharacteristic and totally non-angry rant courtesy of the still DAILY and still CYNICAL Daily Cynic.

P.S, I'm going traveling for the next two days, so no updates.

Selling reality, and selling image: the Frito Lay campaign.

Frito Lay has a new ad campaign: "We grow the best snacks on earth." Some of the main points of this campaign are:
1. Frito Lay chips are made with potatoes and corn.
2. Corn and Potatoes are grown on farms

NO DUH

Oh thank goodness that the chips I eat are grown on a FARM! AMAZING! ITS LIKE I'M GOING BACK TO NATURE! No longer shall I settle for factory manufactured corn. No longer shall I eat styrofoam chips. Hooray! Frito Lay is growing plants!

OK, now that the sarcastic rant is over, time to look at the facts. I went over to the Frito Lay website, which states that Frito Lay has stopped using hydrogenated oils, and is decreasing their waste. They are doing good things. My question, what does this have to do with their campaign? Although there are some very solid facts, there are also some weak ones. What's weak about their campaign, is that they mix in solid facts with total crap. The following text is from the Frito Lay website, and I give them credit for writing this, so please don't sue me.

"Our snack chips are made in healthier oils like corn and sunflower oil. These oils are low in saturated fats and are higher in polyunsaturated fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids, which can help to support a healthy heart as part of a healthy lifestyle." (Frito Lay)
OK, so they've stopped using those bad oils. Good. Now check this out. This is on the same page as the oil blurb.
"Portion Control
To help you in choosing your portion size, Frito-Lay offers our snacks in Single serve and 100-Calorie Packs."
So basically, what they're saying here is: to help you eat less, they offer their chips in small bags. However, a couple years ago, they released, mega grab, which is a bigger small bag than the big grab small bag. (What a mouthful.)

But deconstructing these chip ads isn't the point. Why? Because I LOVE DORITOS. I LOVE THE ARTIFICIAL CHEESE. I DON'T CARE IF THEY ARENT ORGANIC, I JUST LIKE THEM BECAUSE THEY TASTE GOOD!

Remember when cereals used to actually include the word sugar (pardon my french) in their name? Back then ads probably made a lot more sense. Like this: "you should buy this cereal because it has sugar in it and sugar tastes good" (sorry, I sure used the "S" word a lot in that ad.)

It doesn't matter to me, or probably a lot of other people if Doritos or Funyuns are grown on a farm, or if they come in bags with pictures of Sunflowers on them. We're going to buy these chips because they are REALLY FREAKING GOOD! If you are munching on a bag of Doritos and thinking to yourself "boy, these sure are healthy" then, I'm sorry, you are a moron.

Because people are so aware of their health nowadays (That's a good thing) advertisers don't think people will buy something that doesn't pretend to be healthy. But, even if Lays were made with organic potatoes, they would still be potatoes fried in a huge vat of fat.

What I'm saying is, whatever way you look at it, potato chips just arent good for you, and so Frito Lay shouldn't try to sell them like they are.

It is good that people are becoming more aware of their health, but every good thing has a dark side. Mabey that's how it is for fatty chips and sugary cereals. The fact is, that since people care so much about healthy stuff, Frito Lay is promoting itself for something it isnt. So it's your choice, what is better(or worse): That Frito Lay has to adjust their image to the health trend, or that they have, but because of it are promoting their products as something they are not.

The Next Level of Republican Propaganda

To war..oops, I mean peace. More Samurai Jack coming soon.

Why I Hate Souveniers

A new "marketplace" opened up a few months ago, on the big island of Hawaii. It is called the queens marketplace, and, although designed to be cheaper than it's counterpart, the kings shops, seems almost completely devoted to selling useless trinkets. The only thing that makes the building's existance worthwhile, is an Arby's, which serves Bacon Beef n' Cheddar sammiches, and Tropicana Twister sodas. The worst thing about souveniers, is that they are synonimous with the tourist culture, and the tourist culture is synonimous with disconnect from reality. Take Victoria, Canada. Its streets are lined with stores selling shirts with mooses and the word "Eh" on them, yet while in Canada, I never once heard someone say eh, or saw a moose. Does that mean people don't say "eh" in Canada? Of course they do, but there is a lot more to Canada than a vacant statement of the word "eh", and the animal population of Canada is far more diverse than lots and lots of moose. It's the same thing in Hawaii. A hula dancing clock, absently swaying its hips, or a shirt saying "Look how much Hawaiian people eat, ha ha ha" are completely pointless. The Honolulu international marketplace seems devoted completely to selling necklaces, but I never saw anyone wearing one like the type sold by the thousands. Indeed, if you were to dig up some dirt from every place you ever went to, it would probably be much more meaningful than collecting a handful of crappy plastic racial steriotypes. In the past, my need to buy things has seduced me into buying souveniers that I will not ever use and promptly will lose or destroy. However, when next I go on a trip, I vow not to buy the things that don't actually represent the place, but represent what that place is supposed to represent.

More Samurai Jack reviews coming soon.

Micheal Moore

Whether you like him or not, Micheal Moore is a true patriot. He recognises the flaws in his country, but instead of moving to countries like Britain or Canada, which he so clearly views as way ahead of us, he uses his talents to help solve the problems in our society. P.S The Sicko review is still coming soon, just not that soon.

Please for the Love of God Rid the World of Terrible Cat Jokes!

Yeah, you know what I mean. Can we once have a single movie or cartoon featuring a cat without a purrrrrfect joke? And how about "The cat's out of the bag" or "A Cat-astrophe" come on entertainers, you can do better than that!