Scott’s Great Expectations: True Grit
As a huge fan of Westerns, I am eagerly awaiting the general release of True Grit in theaters December 22. True Grit has all the elements needed to make it a great film: the Coen Bros., Jeff Bridges, the American West, the themes of justice and vengeance. The last great Western produced, Unforgiven, dealt with similar issues. So we will see where the Coen Bros. take this story. I expect great things from this film even if I fear a possible No Country for Old Men ending. Follow this link to view the trailers.
Farewell Blake Edwards
I was saddened this morning to read of the passing of my favorite comedic director, Blake Edwards. Edwards, a prolific screen writer, director, and producer, made major contributions to over 100 films throughout his career. The highlight of his career, in my humble opinion, is The Great Race. Yes, the Pink Panther series is incredibly funny and Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a particularly endearing, making them great films. But The Great Race, with an amazing cast of Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn as the led characters, is a movie I watch and immensely enjoy year after year. The perfectly untouchable Leslie the Great, the constantly scheming Professor Fate, and the beautiful Maggie DuBois have helped my family celebrate the New Year for the past 25 years. After more than 25 viewings, we now repeat the movie line by line, break out in anticipatory laughter before each punch line, have used its music, The Sweetheart Tree, at weddings, and reference the film in our everyday lives. The Great Race has become a source of joy and laughter for us year after year. It is one of the many strings tying my family together. So thank you, Blake Edwards, for your small gift to us.
Facebook Announces New “Email” Feature
Facebook today announced a new feature of the social networking site that will allow users to send and receive traditional email. However, Facebook is looking to extend the normal email experience and create what is essentially an a-synchronous messaging service. All of your email messages will be presented as conversations (much like how many current email services and clients organize emails) with a special social inbox that collects messages from your fellow Facebookers. Many analysts were expecting Facebook to try and compete with other web-mail providers such as Gmail and Hotmail. But, according to Mark Zuckerberg at todays announcement, they are positioning this new feature as a way to complement your existing email rather than replace it. The new service is currently in beta and is by invitation only.
Source -> Facebook Blog
The Social Network
I had reservations about seeing The Social Network. Based on the trailers, I perceived the film to be a two-hour dramatization of code writing, which excited me about as much as watching a film about the writing of Haynes automotive repair manuals. However, I went to see it partly out of curiosity and partly to socialize with friends who wanted to see it. In many ways, the film fulfilled my expectations as it focused on the creation of Facebook and the litigation that almost immediately followed, but it also reminded me that certain human characteristics, characteristics that society tends to frown upon and tries to change, tend to be the exact characteristics that are needed to flourish and succeed in capitalism. Overall, I found the plot to be predictable and boring, all of the characters disagreeable (and therefore I was unable to empathize with any of them), the dialogue well written, and the acting stellar.
Jesse Eisenberg turns in a brilliant performance as Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard undergraduate who created the basic foundation for Facebook in his dorm room late one night in 2003. From the first scene to the last, Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg drips with selfishness, contempt, entitlement, insecurity, and arrogance, thus creating a truly despicable character. The film begins with Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) dumping Zuckerberg in a Cambridge pub after a taxing conversation throughout which Zuckerberg constantly insults her. As she leaves, Albright prophetically tells him that women won’t like him, not because he is a nerd, but because he is an extremely unpleasant person. Unfortunately, Zuckerberg remains an extremely unpleasant person throughout the rest of the film and drives away almost everyone who comes into contact with him. Even the audience, allegorically represented by the assistant lawyer Marylin Delpy (Rashida Jones), struggles to like Zuckerberg.
The rest of the cast successfully follows Eisenberg’s lead in making almost all of the characters as disagreeable as possible. Justin Timberlake’s manipulative, womanizing, drug-using, party-addicted Sean Parker gives the film the most despicable of its characters. The most sympathetic character is Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Zuckerberg’s best friend and initial funder of the infant Facebook. However, sympathy, or perhaps pity, is only generated as the story moves forward and results in Zuckerberg, enamored with Parker, allowing others to defraud Saverin of his 30% share in Facebook. Filled with such an array of arrogant, petty, and utterly repulsive characters, the film lacks any characters to draw in the viewer.
The film is a two-hour marathon of relational sabotage concluding with the amazing fact that Facebook is somehow worth over $25 billion. It is certainly not an engaging drama. Being loosely based on the petty squabbles of privileged Harvard students, the plot is predictable to the point of boredom. Fortunately, Fincher mitigated the damage of a predictable plot by flashing between deposition scenes in a conference room and the past “action” of history. There is one brilliant use of trick film technology with which Fincher advances the plot in the middle of the film. Set to a techno version of Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King is a tilt-shifted scene of a rowing competition in England, where the Winklevoss are competing for Harvard. It is perhaps the most memorable scene in the entire film.
Overall The Social Network highlights that greed, arrogance, narcissism, selfishness, and hard work thrive in the culture of American capitalism. When the goal is to dominate markets and the production of product, or in this case ideas, only those willing to do anything to stamp out any form of competition will succeed. And this is what makes America great?
A couple of interesting articles to read about the writing of the book this film is based on: The book that Facebook doesn’t want you to read and ‘Accidental Billionaires’ is deliberately careful.
Comic Con International is reporting that as of 3 p.m. on Sunday the 25th of July, all 4-Day badges for Comic 2011 WITH preview night has been sold out. Regular four day badges WITHOUT preview night will go on sale sometime during August. As expected, this convention just keeps getting more and more popular. Comic Con 2009 preview night didn’t sell out until sometime in May of that year. Comic Con 2010, even with a cap that reduced the number of available preview night badges to 2008 numbers, didn’t sell out until October of 2009. Now, preview night has sold out BEFORE the current convention itself is even over. Needless to say, there will be lots of sad geeks out there…at least this one already got his.
Ok, so days three and four ended up being so exhausting that I didn’t get a chance to write up my report until today. In fact, I was so drained that I wasn’t even able to get to it on Monday. It’s a good thing Comic Con only happens once a year. Trying to make it on four hours of sleep per day just doesn’t cut it. Anywho….on to my impressions.
On Saturday we made it into Hall H to catch the Warner Brothers panel. WB started the late morning right with the “Green Lantern” presentation. All the major players were there including Ryan Reynolds who has been cast to play the Green Lantern. It was also nice to see Geoff Johns up on stage which says that Warner Brothers is finally taking Marvel’s lead and is getting the actual comic book people involved in the making of these movies (for those that don’t know, Geoff Johns is DC’s chief creative officer and is responsible for making Hal Jordan/Green Lantern cool again). The brief amount of footage that was shown (the movie is actually still being filmed down in New Orleans) gave the audience the very first peak at the movie itself. And boy, what a movie it will be. As a huge Green Lantern fan myself, I was extremely pleased to see that they are going with the hard Sci-Fi look that the Green Lantern universe needs. We got a brief look at some of the other members of the Green Lantern Corps, such as Tomar, and there was even a super quick shot of Oa itself. After seeing these clips, pretty much all concern towards how this movie would play out were completely dispelled. The cutest moment of the panel happened during the Q&A session when a young boy asked Ryan Reynolds what the Green Lantern pledge sounds like in the movie. Reynolds then preceded to recite the pledge from memory and held up his fist, brandishing the Green Lantern ring. Afterwards, he signed a Green Lantern book and gave it to the young lad. Definitely one of the most memorable moments of the convention. Now the question is, will Warner Brothers reboot Superman and make a Wonder Woman movie in time for us to have a Justice League movie to complete with Marvel’s “The Avengers”?
Next, Warner Brothers did a quick session for the final two Harry Potter movies. Nothing really new here, but they did show some extended clips from the movies and it would appear that Harry Potter is going to be wrapped up in grand style. The Warner Brothers panel ended with Zak Snyder and his new movie “Sucker Punch.” I didn’t really know a whole lot about this movie, but from what I have seen, it looks to be quite unique. This movie has just the right blend of stylish action and a retro sci-fi setting to get me interested. The trailer has been released on the interwebs and I would encourage all my fellow geeks to check it out.
After the Warner Brothers panel, we were forced to leave Hall H in order to fulfill other obligations. After hearing what went down in Hall H I am sad we missed all the action. From nerds attacking each other with pens to the entire “Avengers” cast assembling on stage, it sounds like it was pretty epic….oh well, the first lesson of Comic Con is that you can’t see EVERYTHING at Comic Con. Besides, there is always next year…
As usual, on Sunday things start to wind down and we took the opportunity to roam the Exhibit Hall in a relatively relaxed manner (still tons of people there). We were able to catch up with quite a few comic book writers and artists which is always a treat. By about noon on Sunday, the full weight of the previous 3 (or 4) days starts to bear down on you and by that time you are ready to pack it up and head home.
So, what were the stand out moments of Comic Con 2010? Here is my final run-down list of the most memorable moments:
Best Movie Panel: TRON
Best Hall H Moment: Green Lantern kid
Best TV Show Panel: The Walking Dead
Worst Experience worth repeating: Having to get up at 4am on Thursday to get good seats in Hall H.
Most Geek-tastic Experience: Randomly running into Geoff Johns in the Exhibit Hall. He signed my copy of Brightest Day #1 and was happy to hear that I enjoyed the Green Lantern panel. As a side note, Geoff Johns is probably the nicest guy working in the comics industry today and I am glad that he is now the main creative force behind DC.
Comic Con 2010: Day 2 Highlights
So after the day 1 madness in Hall H it was time to switch gears to some of the smaller panels. We caught a glimpse of the new Hawaii Five-O which might actually be worth watching. At least they kept the iconic theme song intact and in original form.
Next we checked out the upcoming “Walking Dead” TV show from Frank Darabont and Gale Ann Hurd. From the footage that they showed it is obvious that this show is not going to hold back and sticks pretty close to the source material. It was nice to know that Robert Kirkman (the creator of the comic book series that the show is based on ) is very involved in the development of the show. Can’t wait for this show to start up in the fall.
After wandering the hall for a couple of hours we checked out Flynn’s Arcade. You start out in the iconic arcade complete with free to play classic arcade machines. You then move into the back of the arcade through a door hidden behind one of the arcade machines. After walking through Flynn’s lab you get “digitized” and enter into a bar set in the wold of TRON. It was all very cool.
We ended the day with a real treat: a screening of Scott Pilgrim vs The World. From the moment the movie started with a 8-bit rendition of the Universal Theme we knew that this movie was going to be geektastic. Every geek must see this movie when it comes out on August 13th.
And…time to get ready for Saturday…the busiest day of the Con!
Comic Con 2010: Day 1 Highlights
Once again the first day of Comic Con finds us spending the entire day within the cavernous Hall H. And once again, this was THE place to be for the best of what Comic Con has to offer. First up was “Megamind” and as soon as Will Ferrell came out DRESSED as Megamind we knew we were in for quite a fun panel. Fellow actors Tiny Fey and Jonah Hill joined Ferrell on stage along with Cardboard Brad Pitt (the real Brad Pitt had to stay home to watch the kids so that Angelina could come).
Next up was arguably one of the most anticipated panels of the entire Con: “TRON: Legacy”. Not only was the Dude there along with most of the cast, but those in attendance were treated to over 10 minutes of footage from the movie. In 3D. They also did a live recording of the audience to be used as background audio in the final movie. Neat-o. Disney also surprised us with a video taped appearance from Jack Sparrow aka Johnny Depp on the set of the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie and an on stage appearance from Guillermo del Toro who announced that he was making a new film based on the “Haunted Mansion” and promised that this time it would be “scary”.
After “Tron” was the Sony Pictures panel for “Salt” and “Battle: Los Angeles”. While Angelina Jolie might have been the reason to attend this panel, the footage shown for “Battle: Los Angeles” stole the show. The move looks very intense with a very realistic depiction of humans battling an alien invasion. Think “Black Hawk Down” meets “War of the World” and you have a pretty good approximation as to the style of this movie.
Next was the panel for “RED” which is based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis. I knew next to nothing about this movie going into the panel, but from what I saw, it looks like a fun movie. It reminded me of “Losers” but with an older cast. Helen Mirren is in the movie and she showed up along with Bruce Willis…who seemed sort of out of it.
Then we had a real treat with a panel that featured J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon on stage together sharing their thoughts and answering audience question. Whedon took the opportunity to officially announce that he was directing the “The Avengers”, but I think we all knew that was a forgone conclusion.
It was then back to showing off new movies with the “Expendables” panel. Sly Stallone and the majority of the cast (sans Li, Statham, and Rourke) were present and never before has so many action stars been assembled in a single room. Stallone was very funny and finally answered the pressing questions such as why the movie is missing Van Damme, Segal and Norris, who he said couldn’t find time because they were either busy or “insane”. Oh, and the movie looks REALLY violent. Like, more violent then Rambo 4 violent.
Day 1 in Hall H was capped off by the “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” panel and it was the perfect close to the day. Director Edgar Wright introduced each of the cast members who were present with special intro vids cut from the movie. Chris Evans couldn’t make it because he is filming “Captain America” so Michael Cera came out dressed as the Cap. Edgar Wright also brought out pals Simon Pegg and Nick Frost but promptly kicked them off the stage because they are not in the movie. Footage from the movie was shown and this movie is going to be quite a lot of fun.
Well, it was an amazing start to Comic Con and if all I came for was just today I would have gone home a very happy geek. But this is only day 1 and we are just getting started.
XBOX 360…Now *Slightly* Slimmer
As was long rumored, Microsoft has introduced a new, slightly slimmed down sku of the XBOX 360. It’s still the same console, but besides having a new form fact, it comes packed with built in WiFi N, a 250GB HDD and a special AUX port that will allow you to hook up the Kinect accessory without having to use a separate power supply. There are also now 5 USB ports: 3 in the back, 2 in the front. The new HDD slips into a recessed bay that is hidden behind a plate on the bottom of the console and will not be backwards compatible with previous XBOX 36os. The new version is shipping now and will be in stores later this week for $299. Microsoft gave one away free to everyone that attended their E3 briefing today. How nice of them…
Good Bye Project Natal, hello…Kinect?
Project Natal has a final name and, taking a bit of a vibe form Microsoft’s new “social” phones, that name is Kinect. Along with the new name, Microsoft has also demonstrated a handful of launch titles that range from the obvious casual “sports” games to a dance simulator and a racing game. Those of us who are waiting to see how Kinect can be used to interact with more traditional (read, “hardcore”) games are still…well, waiting.
