V-day!

Well, I have a little bit of free time so I figure I should post a list of my favorite Valentine's Day movies.
Well first off is Casablanca/Out Cold. Casablanca is a classic 1942 film about a man torn between "love and virtue." It takes place in the Moroccan City of Casablanca during WWII. IT's quite enjoyable and stars Humphrey Bogart. Out Cold is a movie that follows the same basic plot of Casablanca but is set in Alaska on a skiing mountain. It is a hilarious comedy that stars a bunch of little known actors and Zach Galifinakis before he got popular. It is a very quotable, feel-good movie. If you haven't seen either of these, you should get on it.


P.S. I Love You is next. It's probably the most traditional/cliche/cheesy rom com on this list. It's not the best movie on this list, but it has several funny moments. The premise is a guy knows he's dying and plans a way to ease his wife off of him so she can move on. She realizes through the movie that their relationship wasn't perfect, but they did have things pretty good. Anyways, she ends up moving on. (Spoiler alert) and the movie ends bittersweetly ever after. Starring Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, and James Marsters.


The Beauty and the Beast-Tale as old as time. Need I say more?

Next up is Will Smith in Hitch. Hitch is an interesting movie about a guy who teaches awkward guys how to work with women and win them over. It has some nice shocking and painful truths about relationships and how men and women view relationships. It's quite an enjoyable movie. Also starring Kevin James and Eva Mendes.

War of the Roses. Ah the '80s. Ever been afraid of a rough divorce? This movie follows Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner through their (for lack of better term) horrendously awful divorce. The premise is their divorce attorney (Danny Devito) is telling this story to a younger married couple to make sure they are absolutely ready for divorce and they can't work it out. This movie escalates in absurdity quite quickly and has so many one-liners and other great quotes while still being intelligent, and fairly clean humored. Great movie!


The penultimate movie I have this evening is The Matrix. Yeah, yeah. I've heard it all before: "That's not a valentine's movie" "How is that a love story?" Well you are wrong! This movie is centered on the love between Neo and Trinity. Neo dies in the Matrix which means he's dead in real life.Trinity tells him he can't be dead because she loves him and the Oracle told her she would love The One. She brings him back to life because she loves him! How much more romantic can you get?

And of course, what list of great movies would be complete without The Princess Bride? Crazy awesome movie! I've seen it hundreds of times and still absolutely love it. It's got true love, revenge, sword fights, miracles. One of the funniest movies I have seen to date. It's clean, clever humor and beautiful deliveries by the great actors all around drive this movie to my absolute top ten!

Anyways, happy St. Hallmark day +1 everybody. Hope you have a good hump day.

It's been awhile.

Wow. What a week. Just one of those weeks where I've been slightly off my game all week. Forgetting books, grabbing the wrong book, sleeping through class due to an alarm mishap, forgetting my wallet at home, getting a mild cold. All in one week. It sure brings a lot of stress. On top of that, we've had sickness and guest speakers to interfere with our rehearsal schedule for Beyond Therapy. All in all, however, it's been a good week. Rehearsals are going great! When they actually happen. Characterizations are getting close, blocking is getting finalized, new ideas pop up and are executed. The show is evolving quite well. It's quite exciting. I finished writing a play for English class pitting the drive for getting ahead at work against family. I think it's interesting. It's the first dramatic piece that I've written. I think it turned out alright.

I finished my mashup! It took forever. iMovie is so counter-intuitive and absurd to use, but I got through it nonetheless. Here's the link. Check it out. Tell your friends.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yOwW4CPgZo

Anyways, I'm working on a website to put up a digital portfolio, while also working on a physical portfolio. Things are well. Watched Psycho in Film Analysis this week. Watched The Big Sleep and Megamind on Netflix. Megamind was fantastic! Great twist on a pretty familiar story. The Big Sleep was a pretty excellent Film Noir story that is what The Big Lebowski is loosely based on and named after.
Anyways, that's all I've got today. Hope things are well for everyone.

Wait for it...

Wow. Another week has flown by. Classes, rehearsal, work, sleep, food. The usual. Beyond Therapy is going well. Fully blocked. Characters are starting to come into shape, but they are quite tricky. The set design is solid. It’s going to be a good show as long as rehearsals continue to go well. Movies I’ve watched on Netflix this week: Cop Out, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Last Man Standing, and Witness for the Prosecution. In between these I’ve been watching season 3 of Fringe. Not the best season, but still a fun show.
A while back I was humming the track from the lobby scene in The Matrix, when the James Bond theme snuck it’s way in. This gave me an idea for a mashup. So I made the mashup. I was going to put that online, then thought: Why not make a video to go with it? So I did. I’m still finishing up the video part, but expect that some time this week.
I picked up The Sixth Gun #18 and The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #5 at Heroic Adventures this week. Both series’ are still going strong and are well written.
That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m going to work on that mashup. Farewell!

Waterlogged

Oh man. It’s been far too long since I’ve posted. School has been keeping me busy. So busy that I don’t have a lot of time to write this blog.
Beyond Therapy is going well so far. We’ve had a lot of great times while blocking and we are slowly but surely heading towards a great play. We have a great cast and a lot of great parts to the play right now.
In other news, I’m in four classes and they are all going well. They are all good classes for different reasons, whether they’re easy, fun, interesting, or just important information.
I’m also doing some good work at the Wildey Theater. I run lights and sound for live shows, or projectors for movies, or just grunt work loading in/out equipment. It’s a great job. Has easy days and not so easy days.
The new apartment is nice and quiet. I don’t see my roommates much, but that probably has more to do with the fact that I’m pretty much just there to sleep and on weekends. They’re pretty cool though. 
Enough about me, TV shows are back! They are either coming back from the winter break or starting new seasons, depending on the show. I just finished season 2 of Justified. Justified is a great detective show with a twist. It takes place in Harlan County, Kentucky and follows Raylan Givens on his duties as a Marshall. The series starts with him shooting a criminal after he refuses to leave within the 24 hours that Raylan has given him. To avoid legal issues with this situation he gets transferred back to his roots in Harlan County. We get to see his reunions with people he knows, like an ex-girlfriend and an ex-lover, as well as a childhood friend who turns into a sort of anti-hero/foil to Raylan. This series is a pretty common format with just enough freshness to it that it keeps it interesting and fun. The show just started its third season and airs at 9c on Tuesdays on FX. Check it out!
My other favorites right now are House, How I Met Your Mother, Castle, Once Upon a Time, Fringe, Burn Notice, and The Big Bang Theory. I believe these are all starting back up. Not sure about Burn Notice.
Older TV shows that I’m watching/catching up on are Fawlty Towers and Misfits. Fawlty Towers needs to be watched by anyone who likes funny stuff and/or John Cleese as it is a hilarious series that follows John Cleese as a hotel owner/manager. I’m also working through Misfits. Another British show, but this is more like if Heroes were only about teenagers who get powers while doing community service.
Well that’s good for now. See you next time!
Song for the day is Keelhauled by Alestorm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta-Z_psXODw

Back to School

Ahh. Back to school. We had a read through for Beyond Therapy last Wednesday. It went quite well and got me pretty excited for the show. As I am getting settled into my schedule and new apartment, I have been catching up on TV shows ad Movie news while getting back in touch with everyone. I am taking a film analysis class (so far we watched The Big Legowski) which is going to be excellent, a technical directing class which will be focusing on the business side of set building for shows, an intro to creative writing course and an intro to radio and television production to finish off my Mass Communications minor. It should be a fun semester with a bunch of work, but nothing too overwhelming. I had a couple days of working at the Wildey this week. Mostly just setup and changeover work, but Friday night I ran sound for the St. Louis Diva Kim Massie. It was a great night of excellent jazz and blues music. On Saturday we went into the city to hit up the City Museum. It's like a giant jungle gym for people of all ages.It was great to let go and enjoy it. Afterwards we went to get some Pi and some comics from Star Clipper.
I picked up some issues of The Sixth Gun and The Fury of Firestorm that I'm missing. These are my two books that I'm picking up in single issue format. The Sixth Gun follows a man in civil war times that possesses guns of mystical power. When the long lost sixth gun is found, Drake Sinclair goes to retrieve it in order to prevent the evil bastard General Hume from getting his hands on it and doing unspeakable evil with it. The book follows Drake through the old west on his journey. There's magic, voodoo, good vs. evil and so on. The writing is excellent and the artwork shows the raw gritty feel of the book perfectly. The story and art are by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt, two excellent creators local to the St. Louis area.
The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men follows two teenagers who get radioactive powers from a mysterious "firestorm protocol." This book is one of DC's New 52 books. They re-imagined their entire universe of comics and this book is a new look on the classic, not very popular hero of Firestorm. The story by Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone is incredibly intriguing and masterfully introduces classic pieces of Firestorm continuity in a fresh way without it being overwhelming or redundant. The art by Yildiray Cinar is beautiful and totally makes the nuclear reactions believable.
Well those are the comics I'm looking forward to this year. As for movies, there are far too many to look at all of them, so I'll just look at a few. I am looking forward to The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises, just like the rest of the world. I think Joss Whedon will do justice to the characters set up in the other movies Marvel's been putting out over the last several years. On the other end, I firmly believe that Christopher Nolan will again give us the best Batman movie to date. Haywire comes out soon and stars Gina Carano (Crush in the new American Gladiators series), Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas, and Antonio Banderas. This spy flick doesn't look like anything innovative or new, but still looks quite an enticing spy flick. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman are both movies taking different directions on the classic Grimm tale. They both look like they have merit. Cabin in the Woods is a Joss Whedon tale of the classic horror genre with a new twist. I've been looking forward to this movie since late 2009 when it was scheduled to be released in Feb 2010. It was originally postponed so they could convert it to 3D, then MGM went bankrupt , so Lionsgate got a hold of it and now have a release date.
Not only is Joseph Gordon-Levitt going to be in The Dark Knight Rises, but he will also be in Premium Rush (an indie film about a bicycle messenger in NY who has a package that a corrupt cop (Michael Shannon) wants. Gordon-Levitt is also going to be in Looper, a science fiction/time travel/mob movie that also stars Bruce Willis. Interesting concept. I hope it plays out alright. Warm bodies comes out in August, and is supposed to be the Twilight of zombies. This should be extremely interesting and probably hilarious. Hunger Games looks quite promising. The Woman in Black sets out to let us see if Radcliffe can act outside of Harry Potter. Jack the Giant Killer and Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter are new takes on fairy tales and history respectively. They should be interesting. And of course: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Peter Jackson takes us back to Middle Earth and then back in time to this epic looking prequel to the award winning trilogy.
Now onto sequels, since there are many of them. The first one being Underworld: Awakening. Another film in the epic vampire/lycan war franchise. This one looks alright. The release of Star Wars Episode 1 in 3D! Alright, this isn't a sequel. It's a re-release of a prequel, but it needs to be noted, even though I am ashamed by it. G.I.Joe Retribution looks quite excellent, despite the not so great first one. The Bourne Legacy stars Jeremy Renner as a new agent that's in a similar position as Jason Bourne. This will be another good spy movie for sure. The Expendables 2 looks to take everything in the first one and making it bigger and more of it. It should be a great action flick. Another Resident Evil movie (Retribution) will be pretty fun as usual. This is the most successful video game movie adaptation franchise, so another film is inevitable. Next we get Skyfall! Daniel Craig's third 007 movie. These movies are one of the longest running franchises ever. I haven't heard a whole lot about Skyfall yet, but my hopes are still pretty high. Finally, we get Breaking Dawn: Part II. I know, I know. I shouldn't be excited for this movie, but I am. You know why? This means that Twilight is done! For good! Until Stephanie Meyer writes a new book. This means we get to move on to the next really annoying Hysteria.
This is definitely an epic year for movies. I hope the world doesn't end before we get to see all of them. Well that's about it for now. See you all next time.

2012: New beginnings

New year = new beginnings. That's how the saying usually goes... This year I am directing Beyond Therapy, light designing Cinderella, graduating from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, (hopefully) finding a grown up job, and going where life takes me. Okay, I suppose there are some new beginnings there.


Other new beginnings are coming from Hollywood this year:
The Amazing Spiderman:

The reboot of the movie franchise has brought about quite a bit of hullabaloo. Why reboot the franchise so soon? Why hire a redhead to play the blond love interest? Why isn't Donald Glover going to play the title hero? (see http://tinyurl.com/76f232l) 
I'm really not sure why they're completely rebooting this series, but it probably has to do with some bureaucratic rights crap. I'm very happy with Emma Stone being cast, but I'm fairly indifferent at the choice of Gwen Stacy over Mary Jane. This is probably to distance this film further from the whiny Mary Jane portrayed by Kirsten Dunst. I think Andrew Garfield will be great as Peter Parker. I think Donald Glover would make an amazing spiderman. He is fantastic in "Community" (If you haven't watched it yet, stop reading this blog and go watch all of "Community" and then come back and finish reading.) 
In short here's my analysis of the film based on the trailer and premature judgement.
Good: The casting of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone will be an improvement on the previous trilogy, while I'm not sure Sally Field will be able to be as good an Aunt May as Rosemary Harris. It looks darker and more serious than the other films, and I love darker superhero movies. 
Bad: We get to see Spiderman's origin again!!!!! I'm not sure the Lizard will be a great villain for the realistic superhero villain approach, but I'm hoping to be proven wrong. There's a Mirror's Edge-esque first person scene shown in the trailer, and I'm not sure how that one's going to work out, but we will see on that one. 


As far as other reboots (of sorts) we also have an updated version of 21 Jump Street coming out, Three Stooges, Dark Shadows, Prometheus, Total Recall, Dredd, Red Dawn, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and The Great Gatsby. 

Well, I've never seen "21 Jump Street" or "Dark Shadows", but an undercover cop story in High school and a soap opera about werewolves, vampires, and other such creatures both sound quite intriguing. 21 Jump Street stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as undercover cops. While I'm not a huge fan of either of them, it does look pretty hilarious and Johnny Depp will be in the film adaptation of the TV show that gave him his start. Dark Shadows looks like a mystical/creepier "Addams family" meets "Beverly Hillbillies" kind of movie. I'm not sure how it will go, but Tim Burton  directs and Johnny Depp, Eva Green, and Michelle Pfeiffer star in this upcoming film. 


Let's step over to remakes of movies I've never seen. Total Recall is a Science Fiction film based on a work by Philip K. Dick. Dick wrote The base stories for Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Paycheck, Minority Repot, and The Adjustment Bureau. Total Recall has Colin Farrell playing Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man who begins to think he's a spy in a power struggle between 2 reigning nation-states, but he doesn't know which side. Also starring  Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel, this movie looks quite promising.


Dredd looks like an alternate take on the comic character rather than a direct remake of the original Stallone film. This movie, like the first, sounds interesting and stars Karl Urban (Bones in Star Trek) as Judge Dredd. It is a drug war film that takes place in a futuristic city. I'm sure I will go see this me as I like a good science fiction movie and Karl Urban. 


World War III is a scary possibility. Sure, it was a lot more prevalent at the time the original Red Dawn was made in 1984 while the country was still coming down off of the Vietnam War era. The movie follows a bunch of teenagers as they work to save their town from an invasion. It stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor in Thor) and Adrianne Palicki (Almost Wonder Woman in the "Wonder Woman") show, so how awesome will that be?


The Three Stooges looks like what you'd expect from a modern day three stooges movie. 


The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey looks like Peter Jackson really wants to make a great prequel to his amazing trilogy. So far, this looks like an excellent prequel.


Ridley Scott returns to the epic science fiction horror franchise that he created in Alien with his prequel Prometheus. This movie is so big, it had a trailer that was counting down to the day that the actual trailer was released. I'm not sure what to expect with this movie, but it should be good.


The Great Gatsby is looking to be a fresh adaptation of one of the greatest classic books about the American dream. A good way to end off the year, if we get to live long enough to see the opening on Dec. 25.


Well that's about it for fresh starts in Hollywood. I'll be back to look at all the other movies I want to see I'm sure, but I don't know when. Until then, cheers!

2011 in a nutshell

Well, it's post Christmas, almost New Years. Blogging is a challenge. I never really know what to post about. I'll stick with the title of the blog and talk about the blog. I'm thinking this blog will consist of reviews of many different forms of media that I consume and just kinda talk about random stuff. Why not?

So New Years is here. This year seemed to fly by. As is expected with me taking 5 classes in the spring while also assistant directing Colored Museum and Light Designing for the Student Dance Concert. Oh yeah, and applying for a job at the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville. I got a job as a theater technician in April and got to help with the grand re-opening of the theater by putting lighting cable together and whatever else they needed. After the end of the semester, I moved my stuff back north to Crystal Lake.

I spent the summer traveling between Crystal Lake and Edwardsville, doing work at the Wildey and doing odd jobs for friends around Crystal Lake. On July 23 I took off for Australia for 4 months (To read all about that experience, check out my aus-ome blog: http://danforth347.blogspot.com/).

After arriving home, I enjoyed some great Thanksgiving food then resumed by travelling back and forth from home to school. Not only to do some work at the Wildey, but also to do auditions for the Student Experimental Theater Organization's production of Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang. After a long weekend of watching people act, and several days of stressed induced mild insomnia, I arrived at a very excellent cast! Once home, I was able to start raiding the library for their graphic novel collection. This has been a great way to catch up on some fantastic comics that I normally wouldn't have the money to buy and read. 

On the 23rd of December, I hosted a party at Howl At The Moon in Chicago. We went and enjoyed a bunch of cheap drinks and some free bar food. This is a dueling piano bar where they have two pianists playing music for a couple hours before being joined by a few more musicians to do a full band set. Highlights from the night are when they played Time Warp, and Mnamna (on keytar)!

Anyways, I got to Christmas where my brother, sister-in-law, and their dogs came up to visit again. Had a good haul of presents: a 4D puzzle of Sydney, several books, a couple calendars, and so on. Following Christmas the rents and I went up to Minnesota to visit my sister and niece and nephews for a day. It was a nice short visit but it was really exhausting dealing with the three kids. They have so much energy!! Well for today, I'm not sure what I'm up to, but tomorrow I will be going to the city with Devon and her family in order to view the Dr. Seuss exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, then dinner at Jameson's Charhouse. 

It's hard to believe this year is over and that I only have one semester of undergrad left. Craziness!! I'm really excited for a bunch of things in 2012, but that's for another post I think. Anyway, thanks for reading, I'm off to bed.