Baby Kleiber and Baby Schultz

Congratulations to Aaron Kleiber (Daryl) and his wife Wendy who became new parents today with the birth of their daughter Rebecca.

Also, a belated congratulations to Alan Schultz (technical producer) and his wife Melissa who also have a new daughter, Amelia, now only ten days old.

Extra Life

If you've got a moment I suggest you take a look over at myextralife.com. Extra Life is a comic, a radio podcast, and a blog all rolled into one great site. Not only are the comics great, but they've also been big supporters of Blasto.

The Best Picture Ever Taken

Ben sent me this today. Can you imagine being the store teller that rings up Harrison Ford buying Indiana Jones toys?

Review: Speed Racer

I haven't kept my reservations and apprehensions towards the Speed Racer movie secret. Just a few posts ago I wrote that it looked a little too "Spy Kids" for me. Saw the movie on an opening day matinée and I have to admit, it's fantastic! Much better than Iron Man, which is the buzz movie at the moment. It was so good I had to see it again the very next day, and I'm sure they'll be at least another viewing before this ducks out of theaters. Very few films have surprised me like that.

I often complain about filmmakers taking cartoons/comics and changing them to the point where it doesn't resemble the original cartoon in any way shape or form (Transformers or the upcoming G.I. Joe for example.) This film is literally a translation of the cartoon to the screen, down to the tiniest detail. It's not the cartoon adapted into a real world. It's an original universe with races that seem born out of Mario Kart rather than Nascar.

The producers have been marketing this film completely wrong. They continuously show all these candy coated trailers of cars flying around, and while those scenes are INFINITELY better on screen (and in context) than they appear in the trailers, there's a lot more to this movie then CGI cars. I was shocked by the strong theme of family throughout this film, especially scenes between Speed, Rex, and their father Pops.

I have to warn you though, while this movie gets my highest recommendation (something I don't do too often on here) I don't think everyone will like this movie. But there's an easy test. The first 7 minutes of the film is online (embedded below.) These opening scenes capture the film perfectly. If you like what you see, you'll love the film.
Click here to watch.

UPDATE: I've been getting lots of e-mails asking, "Are you seriously recommending this movie?" The short answer: absolutely. The long answer: while this movie does have it's problems (especially a rather slow second act), the first act, the third act, and lots of great scenes peppered throughout the second act overcome all it's faults.

Never Again

This morning I got up early to get alot of work done on a current project. After 6.5 hours of work, without a single break, my computer froze for the fifteenth time. The project file became corrupted and everything I had done was lost.

I will NEVER do another film project on a Windows computer again. Never.

My apologies to the basket of blankets in the corner of our bedroom which suffered the wrath of Microsoft's incompetence.

"On the other hand..."

Lucas and Spielberg Interview

Okay I lied. One more bit of geeky news.

Caught this interview in Entertainment Weekly and the opening question sets things off wonderfully. I can't imagine an answer to a question capturing George Lucas any better.

EW: So why resurrect Indy after all these years?

GEORGE LUCAS: We're doing it to have fun. We're not doing it to say, Oh, we're gonna get an Academy Award, everybody's gonna love us.... We don't need the money. We're only going to get aggravation. The fans think it's gonna be the Second Coming. And it's not the Second Coming. They've already written the story [in their heads], and lemme tell ya, it's not that story. So they're going to be very disappointed. I went through this with Phantom Menace. Believe me, I've been there, I've done it, I know exactly the way they react. And they're very vocal about these things. We're not gonna have adoring fans sending us e-mails saying how much they loved the movie. We're gonna have a bunch of angry people saying, ''You're a bunch of a--holes, you should never have done this. You've ruined my life forever. I loved Indiana Jones so much and now it's ruined.'' And all that kind of stuff.

STEVEN SPIELBERG: Uh, he needs to speak for himself here. [Laughter all around] You need to put in parentheses ''George Lucas is totally speaking for himself.'' And I absolve myself of any connection with that last statement about fans not liking it.

Speed Racer

I am a big fan of the 60's Speed Racer cartoon. It used to play back-to-back with Johnny Quest (another CP favorite) when I was kid. While the show was cheaply made by constantly reusing shots and backgrounds in a different order, it had a good concept, unique style, and a fantastic show intro and theme song. I loved that each race took place in some perilous location like the inside of a volcano. On top of that, Speed was just in it to win, while EVERY OTHER racer was there to kill him. No wonder his car needed giant hidden buzz saws. Just look at that terrified expression on his face. I'd look like that while driving too, only without the scarf.

Since the cartoon holds a special place in my DVD collection, I'm a little apprehensive about the upcoming Speed Racer movie, which I'm sure you don't find too shocking. First what I like:

Michael Giacchino's soundtrack. He's the composer responsible for the Incredibles (one of the best soundtracks in the last 10 years). I got to sample some of his score today and it's FANTASTIC. To hear the theme music with a full roaring orchestra is already worth the ticket price.

The car. No doubt about it, that's the Mach 5. Forget Knight Rider, Connery's Aston Martin, or the Batmobile, the Mach 5 is the only car I'd ever plunk down millions for.

John Goodman as Pops Racer. Not only does he look spot on, but Goodman will always hold a special place in my heart after that episode of Roseanne where he throws everything out of the house.

And now the bad. While I love the fact they're going "cartooney" with the look of the film, it just all looks a little too Spy Kids for me. Each frame of this movie is so "busy" it's just a hair away from being a Magic Eye picture. As opposed to cramming the screen with as many CG elements as possible I'd think a simpler, colorful, 60's cartoon look would fit the film. The entire cartoon was about simplicity. They couldn't afford to load up the screen with tons of elements they didn't have the time or manpower to animate.

All that being said I'll reserve judgment until I've actually seen the film. And I am pulling for it. I really want it to be fun. In the meantime, there's always this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScF_ZGdg6ik

Henry Jones Jr.

Dr. Jones on the Big Screen
I saw the trailer to the new Indiana Jones film on the big screen for the first time last week. While watching it I had a sad realization. I have never seen an Indiana Jones film in a theater. I was alive for all three films, but for some reason or another my grandfather or mother never took me to see them. I absolutely loved the films as a kid, but that came by television as the movie of the week. (I clearly remember struggling to watch the dinner scene in Temple of Doom which is terrifying to a 7 year old.) The only times I've ever seen Indy on the big screen was the Last Crusade trailer back in early '89 and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls last week.

While that is a sad confession to make, it also brought to light something very exciting. On May 22nd, like many children born post-1989, I will get to see an Indiana Jones film in theaters for the very first time.

"When I'm hanging from the back of a truck I like to eat..."
This morning I discovered that my box of Cocoa Krispies were covered with images of a fedora clad Harrison Ford swinging the whip. Inside was a spoon that looks like a temple column complete with snakes, vines, and cracked stone skulls. Isn't it fantastic that rather than talking trucks, teenage wizards, or CGI animals we get new Harrison Ford merchandise for a while? It's good to have him back.

Short Round
My 7 year old brother Peter got an Indiana Jones Lego set for Christmas which has sparked a new interest in the old grave robber. It follows Indy through the temple in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark and includes every single booby trap from the film. (It even comes with the bi-plane complete with Jock the pilot and his pet snake Reggie, which sounds perverted when typed out like that.) In preparation for the new film we watched the three originals this past weekend. It was fantastic to see him experience them for the first time. He would hide his face as the Ark melted the Nazi faces. He couldn't wait to see the chilled monkey brains. And the questions he would ask were fantastic. "Why are the bad guys trying to get Jesus' cup?"

Tomorrowland

As part of my recent obsession with space I've been watching some old Disney Tomorrowland films. Tonight there was a great film about Walt's original design for EPCOT (embedded below), which was light years away from what it is today. Walt envisioned it as a city of the future, home to over 24,000 people. EPCOT is actually an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

While in hindsight it's easy to look back on such an idea as a bit grandiose and out of reach, but I was shocked to discover just how much time, passion, and especially resources were devoted to the project. This was an endeavor that utilized many of America's largest corporations working together and would have cost billions of dollars. Billions, on some grand dream of a city of the future? Can you imagine? Unfortunately Walt died in the early planning stages and what resulted is the place you see today, some lame "science" park with rides about the body or fossil fuels.

There seemed to be a lot of grand ideas like EPCOT in the first half of the twentieth century. There were World Fair's highlighting the great dreams of the world's future which have left us little more than the Eiffel Tower. Even the films of the time seemed to be so incredibly hopeful and optimistic of where mankind would find itself in the later half of the century. Not only did we dream big, we actually devoted ourselves to achieving them. Hell, we made it to the moon in under a decade. I can't help but wonder, where has that gone? No, I don't expect us to have flying cars, rocket packs, pill dinners, or any of the other outlandish predictions, but has our ability to dream on that scale died? Could a place like Tomorrowland be built today? I sure wish it were so.

In closing, a fantastic quote from Ray Bradbury.

“I came back from Paris one time about ten years ago, went to Disneyland, and I looked at the side of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, and I called John Hench over at Imagineering, and I said, ‘I noticed something about Sleeping Beauty’s Castle: there’s a spire there that I saw last on top of Notre Dame in Paris! I said, ‘How long’s that been there, on Sleeping Beauty’s Castle?’ He said, ‘20 years.’ I said, ‘Who put it there?’ He said, ‘Walt did.’ And I said, ‘Why?’ ‘Because he loved it.’

I said, ‘Ah! That’s why I love Walt Disney.’ It cost $100,000 to build a spire you didn’t need! That’s the secret of [Walt] Disney, is doing things you don’t need and doing them well, and then you realize you needed ‘em all along."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBNfauF6IHc

Happy St. Patrick's Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU

Heinz Contest Article

Mike Holohan sent me a link to this article about the Heinz contest. Thought you might enjoy the read.

Accepted

I got an e-mail that our Heinz entry was accepted this time around. So now we know that if we don't make it's because they just didn't like it. But let's be honest here folks, there's thousands of entries. Winning this would be pretty close to winning the lottery.

Heinz - Take 2

Several months ago we submitted a film into the Heinz Top This TV Challenge. For reasons unknown to this day it was never accepted. Apparently that happened to a lot of people because only 1/3 of the films submitted were accepted into the contest. To make up for their mistake, Heinz is running the contest for a second time. Therefore we're submitting again. For those of you that missed it the first time around, here she is again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR6ycZfS9r8

80's TV Bumpers

Found this music video this morning which pays homage to classic "futuristic" 80's TV bumpers, much like the old HBO Feature Presentation video I posted here months back. No comment on the song itself, but you oughta enjoy the animation.

Hilarious

Japan's National Anthem

Apparently Japan's national anthem, "Kimigayo," is often criticized much like our own. It's originally a poem dedicated to the Emperor, which is now just a figurehead in Japan. And what song has been suggested as a popular replacement...?

The Super Mario Bros. theme.

Nobuo Uematsu, composer of much of the Final Fantasy games, had this to say about it:

I'm sure everyone in the world -- no borderlines or age limit -- everyone in the world who's come across Super Mario's music will never forget that melody... I think that the Super Mario song should be the national anthem for Japan. [Hums the death refrain] So when someone wins a gold medal at the Olympics, a Japanese athlete, the flag should go up with the theme song.

Can you imagine the Japanese flag at the Olympics being raised to Super Mario Bros? Or better yet, the flag being lowered to the level end music?

The Greatest Picture

From the Star Wars convention last year. I don't know if this was staged or not, but I love how each kid is vaguely posing in character.

(NOTE: I did not attend the convention. Just found this online.)

Indiana Jones

The new Indiana Jones trailer is up at:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/indianajones.html
Watching this has now become your highest priority.

A Real American Hero

From now on when I hear the word "America" I will think of this clip. If only the movie could capture a fraction of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN034sBeF4c