Movie catch-up

Saw "The Smartest Guys in the Room" a coupla weeks ago. Or maybe it was one week ago. Anyway, enjoyed. It's a smart, straightforward and brutal documentary about the Enron scandal. Learned a lot. Go see it. I caught it at the Kendall but it'll be out on video soon, surely.

Reminded that I never got around to seeing "The Corporation" so I rented it later. Liked, though not nearly as much. It makes no bones about being a piece with an agenda, and as such it the message feels forced, in places. The best parts speak for themselves, like the time spent with the guy who helps raise advocacy about the plight of third-world sweatshop workers (who make first-world clothes).

At the same time, I rented the 1992 David Lynch flick "Fire Walk with Me", the "Twin Peaks" prequel, because it was there, and I've never seen it, even though I was a TP fanboy back in the day. (Well, given my situation at the time, I guess it's no shocker I missed it in the theater, and I suppose I just hadn't thought on it much since then.)

I just finished watching it. I'm glad I did; it was a treat, though the chocolate was poisonous, and perhaps hollow. On a visual level, a delightfully malevolent phantasmagoria. And, nice to see some old TV friends, unexpectedly, one last time. I'm not certain it worked as a stand-alone movie. No, I'm pretty sure it didn't.

Surprised to discover that The Man From Another Place (a.k.a. The Dwarf) has appeared on the boob tube more recently as Samson from Carnivále. Now I'm sad about that show all over again.

I liked that the entire FBI office that Cooper worked in was portrayed as a bunch of whackjobs, like it was their Special Kooky Investigation Whee Whee Unit.

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Sadly, two more ubiquitous 20th century voice actors have left us, this time the voices of Disney's Tigger and Piglet. http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/06/27/Arts/TiggerPiglet_0506.html

But I want to note this because I take heart to learn that one of them leaves an unexpected inspirational legacy for us multi-interest spazmos:

Winchell also held 30 patents, including one for an artificial heart, a disposable razor and a flameless cigarette lighter. He donated his early artificial heart to the University of Utah for research. Dr. Robert Jarvik and other researchers at the university went on to construct the first artificial heart implanted into humans.

That's awesome!

Another casting call

I need one more person for another sub-feature of the pilot episode. It will involve playing the old arcade game "Rampart" (as emulated on a PS2 in my house). You don't have to know anything about the game, just be willing to play it against a couple other people and be recorded for TV while doing so.

I don't have a date set, but it's a technically easy shoot and will involve only three people, so we'll just pick an agreeable time once I know who my talent is.

Gimme a yelly-dell if you're interested.

King Kong trailer is out

http://www.kingkongmovie.com/ef239524432ba87f1ca8f70eed4b1fa7/en_splash.html

I would like to see a recent action/adventure film trailer that doesn't end with:

drawn-out orchestral crescendo over rapid cuts of action scenes, followed by a beat of silence, followed by a (monster roar | big explosion), followed by the title on black background

I know nothing about the film other than who is directing it, and what's in that trailer. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's period, and noted that the initial premise seems reminiscent of "Shadow of the Vampire". We'll see how well that-all works.

Oh, rserocki just told me that Kong is portrayed by Andy Serkis (as much as is possible). This delights me.

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The more I dwell on missing Origins. the more pissed off at myself I become. I mean, what the hell. It's a great time. I should have started planning months ago, and started trying to push other friends of mine around the country to join me... I remember thinking after last year's Origins that I'd do exactly that in 2005. Feh!

It occurs to me that a real factor in my failing to start thinking about it is that at no point in the last year did rikchik bring up the topic, as has been his role for the previous three Originses. No doubt he'll fall on his flimsy excuse about "needing to pay for" his "new" "house" or whatever that is he's doing. Insert standard gamer where-are-your-priorities-man joke here.

Well. Next year for sure.