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Kelvin and I went to watch Up at the Camera 7 in Campbell with Ravi, Jess, and Avery last Friday night. Ravi helped us get tickets, we had dinner in the Pruneyard, and went straight to the theater right after we finished. We still had a good 45 minutes until our 9:15PM showing. There was a short rope line by the door, and we were told by staff to form a line by this rope. Originally, we were the only ones standing there, but as time passed, a formidable line formed behind us. For the entire wait, people would ask us what we were waiting for, since we were at the front of the line.

I was trying to get a pic of the line, but instead I get this blindingly white pasty
face on the bottom. At least the lady behind us has a decent pic :P

I thought it was a little ridiculous to make us wait in line for a movie when it wasn’t opening weekend. Even tho it was a June evening, it got cool quickly. Jess was getting cold, because she didn’t want to bother with a jacket, as we were expecting to go in any minute. 15 minutes prior to movie start, we still weren’t let in. At this point, even I was getting cold in my hoodie. 10 minutes before, everybody in line was getting antsy. I saw a couple people go inside and ask if they were in the right place. We kept waiting and waiting until showtime passed. We STILL weren’t let in. We made plans to take the center of center seats. The staff finally let us in a few minutes after showtime, and even tho we were at the front of the line, we rushed to the theater just in case.

We walked in, and there were already 10-15 people in the theater. WHAT THE F*CK, CAMERA 7? You make us wait in line for no reason, and you let people who sneaked in the theater stay before folks who waited in line. F*cking asinine. Of course, all the center rows, center seats are taken. We went to an optimal row, where some jerkwad was saving two seats aside from his own in the center and keep us from taking them. I said something stern/irked along the lines of “No way! We waited in line!”, while Kelvin was more chill/obnoxious, like “It’s cool, we waited in line” and sat in one of the seats he was saving. I’m glad this guy wasn’t feeling particularly entitled to argue with us as he let Kelvin take the seat, tho I think he later realized he was being a dick, as he asked Kelvin if the staff had really told us to wait in line. I’m willing to bet he saw the line, but chose to not inquire about it to feign ignorance when sneaking into the theater and taking seats early. I was still pissed; because of this guy who cut the line, Ravi and Jess and Avery weren’t particularly centered. Kelvin and I tried to give our seats to Ravi, who got us the tickets in the first place, but he wouldn’t take them. Whether or not that guy is a jerk, this stupidness is totally Camera 7’s fault. They should have just cleared the theater before letting people in. Seriously, what was point of the damn line??? I feel a complaint letter coming on…

Eventually, everything settled, and they finally started showing stuff on the screen. We were watching a 3D showing, so the ticket office had given us these dorky sunglasses-looking 3D specs to wear. The 3D took some time to adjust to; most of the trailers looked kinda blurry to me. I guess it’s good to let your eyes adjust during crappy trailers instead of the actual movie. The animated short shown before Up was Partly Cloudy. It’s a cute short film, with an interesting spin on creationism. Then it was finally time for Up.

Prior to seeing the Up, I had only seen the teaser trailer, its RottenTomatoes rating, and comments from my friends about how sad it was, so I knew Up was a really good film about a guy who’s house floats away in balloons with emotional moments. And that’s pretty much what it was… except I had no idea the movie had talking dogs! Talking dogs automatically make this movie awesome. I loved how they made them talk while maintaining their doggy mannerisms. Dug is, by far, my favorite character; he’s so adorable and hilarious! Actually, I really liked all the protagonists in the film. I think Pixar did a good job developing the characters and making us feel attached to them.

The things that happen in the film are pretty ridiculous, especially when you consider you have an elderly man and an 8-year-old as the main characters in an action adventure. And *slight spoiler alert on the antagonist* the bad guy has to be at least 90 something years old! All the crazy things they do, somebody should have broken a hip. And Carl (the main character) spends most of the movie dragging a house around! The movie lives up to its name, with many action sequences taking place up in the air. Pixar did a pretty decent job giving the viewer a sense of height. As a person who’s afraid of falling, I found myself a little anxious during some of the high altitude scenes. Watching the film in 3D was neat (reminds me of pop-up books), but I think about halfway through the movie I forgot about it because I was too enthralled with the flim. Ravi later told me it made his eyes hurt. The trailers showed the next Toy Story movie is going to be in 3D; I hope this isn’t a gimmick that Pixar is going to bank on.

Despite all its goofiness (house flying to South America using balloons, talking dogs, fistfighting elderly men), the film is surprisingly poignant. Like many other people, I did tear up a few times. Carl’s backstory is particularly touching and relatable, assuming you are (or were at some point) in a long term monogamous relationship. The film really takes you on an emotional roller coast, and I think it’s because of this, Up is definitely one of my top Pixar films. My favorite is currently The Incredibles. I haven’t figured out if I like Up more than The Incredibles, but it’s sure awful close.

New thing I learned today: Dug is voiced by the co-director of the film, Bob Peterson.

Last week, I used up my freebie Watchmen tickets with Ted, since Kelvin saw the movie on opening day with his coworkers. It was kind of nice to watch it over a week after opening day on a weeknight. Space in the theater was plentiful, and only a handful of people meant we probably weren’t going to have annoying people with us, which was the case (thank goodness). We both chowed down on super nachos and giant Icees, so the theater basically made its ticket money off us anyway.

The movie was pretty decent. I read the graphic novel before (if you haven’t come borrow my copy!), and I felt the movie was good truncation of the graphic novel. There’s no way they could have put all the stuff from the book into a movie, and they picked and chose their scenes well. I also approve of most of the changes they decided to do. The ending, in particular, was probably a lot more palatable for general audiences than the book ending, yet the movie ending still made the same point as the book. I liked most of the casting, with the exception of Adrian Veidt; I don’t get what his inconsistent accent was supposed be. I am SO glad they didn’t mess up casting for Rorschach. Rorschach was the best character in the book, and he was definitely the best character in the movie. Jackie Earle Haley rocked the role. Like 300, the movie is visually spectacular.

It’s not perfect tho. Laurie’s character is underdeveloped compared to the graphic novel, so when her personal conflicts come to a turning point, it’s not particularly compelling. Dr. Manhattan’s CG weirded me out, but maybe that’s intentional. Veidt’s cat definitely didn’t look right. The movie was more graphic than the book, both in violence and sex. And speaking of sex, WHAT A TERRIBLE SEX SCENE. Unnecessarily long, awkward, and what the f*ck was with the background music?

Is this song better porn music or intimate love scene music? The answer is: IT SUCKS EQUALLY FOR BOTH. I don’t know what emotions Zack Snyder is trying to convey. Passion? Love? Sadness? They’re going at it like horny rabbits with this somber music in the background. IT MAKES NO SENSE. The sex scene was also my biggest beef in 300, so I’m guessing “crappy sex scene” is a Zack Snyder signature. Kelvin suspects that he’s watched too many Showtime softcore pornos.

Anyway, I still feel the book is better, just because it goes into things in so much detail. The movie was a good summary of the book, with some changes that I preferred over what was in the book. I give it an 8 outta 10.

New thing I learned today: Those inkblot tests are called Rorschach tests. (Okay, I didn’t learn this today; I learned about it when I read the book, but whatever.) The Rorschach test uses a set of 10 inkblot images, always the same 10 images and always in the same order.

I’m pretty sure this is my “Best Movie of 2008″. Thankfully, it was so good, morons at the theater didn’t have time heckle, so watching it with an opening night crowd (even 3 rows from the screen… we showed up an hour before 12:20AM showtime, but I guess we needed to show up 3 hours early or something) was still incredibly enjoyable.

Christian Bale was hot. (He was looking pretty good as John Connor, too.) Heath Ledger was an amazing Joker. The movie was action-packed, wonderfully dark and sickly humorous. The only thing I didn’t like about it: even with a runtime of over 150 minutes, it could have used another half hour. I wanted another half hour.

I think that’s all I can talk about at this hour and without spoiling stuff.
Rating: 9.7/10… at least until I see it again whenever it comes out on Blu-Ray. We’ll see how it holds up to rewatch.

I really need to go to bed now.

I don’t feel like writing a massively long post today, so I figured instead I’d show everybody Kelvin’s latest dabbling in editing. A few years back, I think around the time they were working on Nescaflowne, Kelvin and Andrew were messing around with footage from the Fatal Fury: Double Impact DVD. The anime is absolutely terrible; I’m not even sure why Kelvin owns Double Impact. They came up with some concepts and characters, even going so far as making a trailer, an intro, and doing some voice work. I guess they were just bored cuz nothing ever came of it. From what I witnessed, it seemed pretty funny. It was mostly Kelvin’s idea (you can tell by how crude everything is), so I bugged him over the years to do it. I even went so far as to buy him the second Fatal Fury DVD, Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture. (You know, I paid $20 off eBay for that DVD in 2005 and was annoyed I couldn’t get a better deal. Now both DVDs are out of print, and sellers are trying to hawk that crap for $50+ a pop on Amazon and Half.com. Shyeah, good luck with that!) Anyway, Kelvin blew it off until a couple weeks ago, when he treated himself to Final Cut Pro. He tried out his new toy by redoing the trailer quickly, and here it is:

*snicker* Just so you know, no voice recording was done for that trailer; it’s all original audio footage from the DVD. And what the hell is that kid wearing?? I hope KoF’69 eventually gets made. I wants me some Krauser…

New thing I learned today: Krauser is one of the bosses in the Fatal Fury video games. His full name is Wolfgang Krauser von Stroheim.

The makers of the movie Watchmen recently had a Youtube contest, asking fans of the comic book series to make advertisements for products of “Veidt Enterprises”, a company in the fictional world of Watchmen. (btw, I haven’t read the series yet, but people keep telling me to read it, so I assume it’s really good.) One of these hopeful contest participants is my buddy Sandra, who worked very hard on a commercial with her friend Bryan Newton. Here is their most excellent final product:

I think it fulfills the contest objectives quite nicely while is still very clearly a Sandra work. Unfortunately, the story does not end with just a sweet commercial…

Hey everyone,

I don’t email huge groups of people at a time usually, but I wanted to share a story/some work with everyone.

Recently, a contest was started by Warner Bros for the new Watchmen movie (based on the comic book by Alan Moore – guy who also wrote From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, amongst others) that will be coming out next year. The contest was to make a commercial, highlighting a fake product by “Veidt Enterprises” (Adrien Veidt is the alter ego of Ozymandias, in the book.) (www.youtube.com/watchmenmovie) Bryan and I chose to make a commercial about their shoe, under the title, “Veidt Sport”.

The timeline was severe – they only gave us from April 22nd to June 2nd, 11:59 pm Eastern time. Not a lot of days. However, Bryan and I took on the challenge, coming up with a concept and even challenging ourselves to animate the ad, in flash. I asked my coworker, Bruce, to do sound – and as always, we were down to the wire. We were feverishly spending all our free time working on this thing, outside of our full time jobs.

The ad was due at 11:59 EST – 8:59 for us west-coast-ers. I frantically tried to upload the ad at 8:30pm, and youtube kept spinning its’ wheels. After 15 minutes of this, it gave me an error message. I nervously tried to upload it again…and it posted at 9:02pm. Unfortunately, to “submit” the ad, I had to be able to select it from my group of youtube videos, through the Watchmen youtube page (for an “official” submission), which added an extra step. Since my ad was “processing” (i.e. encoding, whatever’s going on over at youtube), I could not select my ad, to submit it. Reloading the page over and over again for half an hour, I finally was able to submit it. However, the last step – a confirmation through email – led to our downfall. I got the confirmation email, clicked on the link – which led me to a blank web page with only this on the page:

:(

Yes. A sad face. Which was what was reflected in my face. Along with a lot of other facial expressions, I’m sure.

In any case, this is where the story goes from me to you. I really believe in our ad – it is one of the best things I’ve worked on, I feel. All the reaction I’ve been getting from people is positive. So, if you could take a moment to check out the ad, (It’s only 30 seconds long!) rate it, and pass this along to other people to check out – I want to at least get some attention to this ad to get these contest guys to understand our plight, and at least get it seen and judged like all the other ads.

Without further ado, here’s the link to the ad:

Please, send the link and this email along, and you’d be doing me a huge favor. Please, comment on it, good or bad.
Thanks in advance!

Sandra Leong
heysandra.com

and
Bryan Newton

So yeah, their entry didn’t get submitted. Which is really sad, considering how much work they put into this and how many other crap entries there are. Sandra and Bryan have contacted watchmenmovie through Youtube, but they haven’t gotten a response yet. The contest just ended last night though, so it’s still early. Anyway, click the video and check it out on Youtube, rate it, leave a comment, and help a couple great artists out. They deserve it.