Post 1,001: Must-See Deadpool Clip

I was only half-assed watching this yesterday because the title kind of cheesed me off, but I had to re-watch it again and again.

So far I have no doubts that the Deadpool movie will be great!

Enjoy...

...and I just realized that this is post 1,001 on this blog. Wow....

Michael Moore & American Sniper

Image courtesy of http://mackaycartoons.net

Carolyn took me to go see American Sniper yesterday and as much as I would like to talk about it, I cannot.

Great film, for the most part felt "right" to me, based on my experiences.  Now I'm no sniper and I'm definitely no SEAL, but I have served and have had to point a loaded gun at another human being knowing full well I might have to take that other person's life.

It isn't something to relish or brag about, just something that had to be done and I was the one who had to do it.

American Sniper hit me far harder than I had expected, which is why I won't divulge anymore about the film. I think people should experience it in their own way, unless that way is to chatter during, or even after, the film. Those people can go fuck themselves. Nothing like being pulled out of the moment by a couple of jackasses.

Speaking of jackasses that can go fuck themselves. A couple of "celebrities" have tried to get their name spoken by normal people by saying truly fucked up things. No doubt you've heard of Michael Moore's calling snipers, in general, "cowards". I'm sure that he simply wasn't man enough to say he thought Chris Kyle was a coward directly.

First of all, and this is 110% MY OPINION, Michael Moore is dead wrong. For anyone with any amount of education and compassion for their fellow man, absent a mental defect, taking another person's life is extremely difficult. Normally the enemy needs to be demonized and the soldier conditioned to be able to pull the trigger. We shoot at vaguely man-sized & shaped targets for a reason....at a distance, like common engagements, there isn't as much of a difference.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the physical act of taking another's life can be easy. Trigger pull on any firearm isn't a difficult obstacle to overcome. The adrenaline in the heat of the moment is a boon for this act. The real difficulty, and one I thank God I haven't had to deal with personally, is what happens afterwards. That is when the true measure of courage occurs.

I think American Sniper showed this aspect well.

There are two things that deeply disturb me about Michael Moore's "cowardly" tweet and both are huge "WTFO" moments for me. First off, if anyone would know what a cowards is I would expect it to be Michael Moore. Here is a man who obviously thinks that no-one should have a gun, but employees armed bodyguards. I'll just leave it at that.

Secondly, we know that Michael Moore is so far in left field his middle name should simply be "7". I wouldn't expect such a level of "racism", for the lack of a better word, from that end of the spectrum. Racist? Yes...well, something-ist. The whole basis for Michael Moore's cowardly statement is information handed down to him by his father concerning an uncle that was killed a decade before he was born. Now I don't know what theater of operations this occurred in, but let's look at his original statement:

My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders r worse

wow....so his uncle was killed by a sniper on American soil? Wasn't his uncle an invader? Ok, done with that aside...let's make a substitution:

My uncle killed by german in WW2. We were taught germans were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Germans aren't heroes. And invaders r worse

that sounds racist to me.....not enough?

My uncle killed by nip in WW2. We were taught nips were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Nips aren't heroes. And invaders r worse

Now THAT sounds racist as fuck. Yes, the emphasis was mine and I didn't like doing that, but I think it was important to make a point, largely with being that Michael Moore is a bigot of some type. Honestly, I'm not even sure he saw the film. Has he not ever heard of a ROE, or does he honestly think that our military, specifically our snipers, shoot people indiscriminately as a matter of course?

Does he not realize that his uncle, in a very real sense, represent the exact people he's calling a coward? 

Just Saw Guardians of the Galaxy...Loved It!

Just saw Guardians of the Galaxy this morning and it was awesome! I will not post any spoilers, but I will say I was disappointed in one super-minor (and highly personal) thing. I'm normally not that observant, but I spotted a hilarious Easter-egg that was only on the screen and in-focus for a split-second....short enough for me to question if I saw what I saw. My suspicions were confirmed in the after-credits scene.

Also, this is what, the 10th modern Marvel movie? Who the hell bothers to get up and leave the theater when the credits start to roll? Evidently some folks in Boise, that's who.

A Million Ways to Die in the West RED BAND Trailer

These days when you see a trailer you can probably guess that all the "good stuff" from the movie is in the trailer, especially if it is a "Red Band" trailer....

...but in my experience you'd be wrong. I have never laughed so damned hard at a movie in the theater as I did with This is the End, and I totally saw (and shared) that movie's Red Band trailer.

I just, as in a minute-or-two-ago saw the Red Band trailer for Seth McFarlane's new movie "A Million Ways to Die in the West". I so want to see that movie. Since, pretty much by definition, Red Band trailers are NSFW, I'll put it after the break.....

Am I Getting Too Old for this Shit? Nope!

Courtesy of Gizmodo comes the revelation that out of all the movies I've ever seen, nothing will compare to the glory that is, or more precisely, will be, Kung Fury.

I've always been a big fan of B-Movies, but there is a fine line to walk when you making a B-Movie, especially when you know you are making a "bad" movie. I've seen plenty of movies that are awesome because they don't know they are bad and but rarer is the "good" B-Movie that is good because the people making the film knew it was bad. It is all-too rare for a cognizant group of folks to put out a bad movie worth watching.

I think the folks over at Laser Unicorn know what they are doing and are going to do a delightfully terrible job doing it. Don't take my word for it, see for yourself:



If you want to help out, this is their Kickstarter. I want to see this movie get made.

We Went to See Red 2 Today

Today Carolyn and I went to go see Red 2. We both enjoyed the first one and neither of us had really seen anything regarding this second one.

Now to be fair, neither of us watches regular TV and we don't get the local paper, but still....to have a comic-based movie come out an to NOT have heard anything.....just doesn't seem right.

Of course as soon as the movie rolls you find out it is a DC property, so maybe it really wasn't advertised worth a crap. This is a shame because outside of some of the last few Batman movies DC hasn't done well with regard to comic book movies. When they do a good job, like they did with Red (and I dare say Red 2), they should get off their duff and let everyone know.

Aside from one specific detail, which I shall not divulge, I found most of the movie quite unpredictable. I laughed more than I expected and there were quite a few little tongue-in-cheek surprises that were tie-ins from the 1st movie.

Another surprise is to look up the movie online and see that Rotten Tomatoes has given it a 42%, which is odd because the audience gave it a 72%. I think the 72% rating is much more appropriate.


In short, if you liked Red you should enjoy Red 2.

Geekgasm: Spyfall

There are some pretty decent fan-films floating about, but few of them are as well polished as Spyfall.

It has been quite a while since I've played Team Fortress 2, but after watching this I'd like to fire up the 'ol Xbox.

I would pay to see the movie this trailer is for.....

This is the End with NSFW Trailer

Today is a my birthday and to celebrate the occasion my wife took me to see a movie of my choice, and my choice was to see This is the End. It will be hard to not toss out any spoilers when talking about this movie, but I will endeavor to do just that...

.....because this movie was fricken awesome.

In many ways this was a terrible movie. Pretty crappy even. Going through the credits are a bunch of actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves. I think going into the movie you are to believe that these actors are actually playing themselves and that is where you initially get sucked in.

This movie has tons of stupid, cheap, and gross humor. Most of the film seems like low-hanging fruit, but Seth Rogan & gang simply pull it off. I don't think I've laughed and snickered so damn much at a movie since maybe History of the World, Part I, and then that was when I was an actual juvenile. This isn't a fake serious film that pretends to be funny (sorry Mr. Brooks), but an actual "serious" film that is funny.

Unless you are the type that gets offended easily, you will probably find this movie funny...hilarious
even. I was surprised several times during the film, minor surprises, but surprises nonetheless, and I don't get surprised at the movies that often.

This red-band trailer is definitely NSFW and is a LOT more of a spoiler than the regular "for all audiences" green band trailer, so I'm going to put it after the break.

Grabbers

I'm a bit of a wuss in that there are certain movies I have a hard time watching. Gory slasher or monster films is way up on the list. At first glance Grabbers is a movie I wouldn't want to see.....

....until I read a bit more about the film. While it does seem to be one of those monster films meant to keep you on your toes, it also seems to be one that is intended to be funny. I've liked all the horror/comedy blends I've seen so far, which at best would be Shaun of the Dead, Zombie Strippers, and FIDO. Come to think of it, a change of pace away from Zombies might be worthwhile and those other movies weren't really scary.

The trailer for Grabbers makes it seem funny and possibly scary:

Melting Point

I realize I've been all over the place when it comes to Kickstarter, but this local project is pretty fricken cool.

Melting Point is going to be a long stop-motion animated movie with Legos, also called a Brick Movie. For me, the cool thing is the fact that the Kickstarter Appeal itself is a small brick movie, so right off the bat you get to see this guy's talent in making the very product he wants help funding.

I'm impressed not only by the quality of the appeal (which should in itself be so revealing), but the fact that he isn't asking for a butt-load of money, just what he needs for actual materials/capital to get the project completed....not "pay me to work on the project".

 I really hope he gets this movie made with the help of Kickstarter.

Major Munchkin Reporting for Duty at Monsters University

A couple years ago at GenCon I was helping out at the KenzerCo Booth  tearing it down after the show was over. Across the way the guys from Steve Jackson Games were tearing down their booth and they hadn't put away the Munchkin costume yet. A good buddy of mine is one of the Men In Black and demos a lot of Munchking(he actually introduced us to the game). I so wanted to have a picture of me wearing the Munchkin head.

I was warned, several times in fact, that the inside of the head would be quite nasty because it hadn't been cleaned, but I just had to do it.

Fast-forward a couple of years and I'm looking for a picture to use to make a "fake" ID card. The new Monsters University movie comes out in a couple of weeks and the advertising is up in the theaters. One thing they had was this big blank Monsters University ID card on the window. The idea was you could stand behind it and get your photo taken, but the placement of the window sticker was such that you couldn't actually get a picture taken.

Something tells me he is a PE Teacher

I thought it was a funny idea and assumed there would have to be something online to do the same Monsters University ID maker. It is a simple website and it took me a while of tweaking the Munchkin head photo to make it work, but it came out the way I envisioned it.
thing. Sure enough, they have a

Now to just get it printed and laminated.

Go See Iron Man 3

Carolyn took me to see Iron Man 3 this morning. We ended up seeing it in 3D, which is usually a no-no for me, but this time I didn't have a single issue. The 3D work was great and for the most part it just simply worked, sliding into the background so I could focus on the movie and not the effects. The only times it really hit me were on some of the close-up conversation bits where it became really obvious.

This movie didn't feel like the culmination of a 3-part series, but really the culmination of a beginning chapter for one character that took four movies to tell.

I really liked this movie and expect it to do well because everything comes together so nicely, and there were enough surprises for me to enjoy the film. I don't like completely formulaic films and there was really only one thing I completely expected to happen which did happen, but that was telegraphed enough that it didn't feel like a ruined surprise, just part of a scene which worked out the most likely way.

Obviously I'm trying to avoid any spoilers, so you won't get any real ones here. There were two things I really noted about the film, with one being a cool that-never-happens kind of thing and the other a WTF moment:

• In one scene a bad guy basically does the, "screw this, I'm out of here" bit and leaves. All too often we see the army of bad guys, most likely mercenaries of some sort, fight to the death when they are so far over their head. I wouldn't expect everyone to have such a fatalistic drive for the cause as the main villain, but 99.999999999% sure seem to.
• We watched the credits because you know there would be a scene at the end of them. As we watched the credits roll by I noticed that Don Cheadle didn't have a stylist or make-up assistant like everyone else. Instead he had a "groomer". That struck me as odd and archaic. Did this guy (I don't remember the name) actually "groom" Mr. Cheadle like he was an animal of some sort, or was he a manservant like the gentry of old had. Just seemed really weird.

In short: awesome move, you need to go see it.

Geekgasm: The Big Whobowski

I like the mashups.

Mashups are labors of love usually combining two geeky things.  This Dr. Who and The Big Lebowski mashup is no different.  Awesome just scratches the surface on this one.

I have no idea how people even come up with the idea, much less manage to keep at it until there is a finished video.  I'm sure I could probably come up with an idea.....hell I'm sure I have before, but managing to execute on an idea is what separates geeks like me from the übergeeks like Bob Mitsch (if that is his real name!)

ASDF

As far as I know, ASDF stands for something, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

What I do know is that ASDF seems to be the brain-child of Thomas "TomSka" Ridgewell (if that is his real name) and is a series of small clips strung together to form a small YouTube "movie"

Think Monty Python with ADD and an even smaller budget.

The clips are funny and I think ASDF is up to movie #6.

While I know that someone has put all the clips together to form one big movie, that someone isn't TomSka and that isn't cool.  Here are all the clips, after the break, in order.  TomSka still gets any ad revenue from your watching it here.....so there's that.

A Little Entertainment For All You Bruces and Shielas

I've always had an affinity for Monty Python.  In high school I probably watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail far too many times.  I've owned it on VHS, Laser Disc, and now on DVD.

Recently I got to see it again on the big screen and realized that I've never seen it in that format and really....I've never seen it.

Anyway, I digress.  The whole point of this post is that I found a video of my favorite Monty Python song, which is the "Philosopher's Song".  I think most people like the "Lumberjack Song" the best.  "Every Sperm is Sacred" and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" are pretty good too, but the seldom-heard song for Bruces & Shielas is the one I like the best.

Of course I get the words wrong all the time when I try to sing along, which is one of the reasons I like this video so much.

Live Action Toy Story

Holy crap, talk about a labor of love.  JonasonsMovies is a YouTube creator that took the unprecedented step of re-creating the entire Toy Story movie shot by shot in "live" action.

I cannot image how long it took just to frame up each shot, much less shoot and edit everything.

If you've got two hours to kill, or just want to see Toy Story again but with a twist, go see Live Action Toy Story.

I was surprised to find that Joss Whedon was one of the screenplay writers.  I only learned this because the Live Action version did such a good job showing the credits.

Cool Fan-Made Movie Trailer

I hope you all are opening some great gifts, or at least being able to spend some quality time with family.

This morning during a lull in the frenzy that is opening and checking out Christmas gifts I checked out a tweet from a friend regarding a new Xbox app.  That will be a post for another day....

I did, however, find a link that interested me regarding a short fan-made
Deus Ex film.  From what I gather there is a "big budget" film in the works, but this is a trailer of sorts for an indy production.

Looks pretty cool.....

Deadpool: The Merc with a Mouth

With the new Deadpool video game coming out, I've been a bit eager for December 31st to come around.

It is my hope that the game does extremely well and maybe we'll get the Deadpool movie we deserve.  Not the abomination that was Deadpool in the last Wolverine movie.

Saw Wreck-it Ralph on Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving Carolyn and I went out to see a movie.  Our original intention was to go see the new Red Dawn movie, but I did a bad, bad thing I generally do not recommend doing before going out for a movie.

Yep....I read the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.  Eleven percent of critics liked it and only 64% of the participating audience reviewers liked it.  Those "positive" reviews....if you go and look at them they aren't all that positive either.

Because I didn't want to gamble on seeing a "rent instead" movie, I asked we change our plans to go see Wreck-it Ralph, which had 86% and 92% for professional/public reviews.

Skyfall

Carolyn and I went to see the new James Bond flick Skyfall today.  As much as I'd love to tell you about this movie I don't want to spoil anything for you.  In several ways it was both a typical and atypical Bond film.

All I feel comfortable saying boils down to a few brief statements.