January 2007 Archives

The Mouse and His Child

I love kids' movies. Especially when tehy don't speak down to kids and are spirnkled with little bits of evil. Even when they don't have unicorns. Speaking of that, I just got real high quality versions of two Unico movies, Sam.

The animation is by Sanrio of herro kitty fame, but it's animated in a traditional 'western' style. The opening theme song is freaky. The ordeals are sad. And the turtle explaing infinity and The Last Visible dog is borderline pyscedelic. It's based on a book of the same title that some math teachers note as a good book to get kids into math.... I dunno.

Sam, can I get a cover of the title song?

So, imagine it's the Sixties. You're NASA. You want to get to space, but you're worried about what happens when you get there. Suppose there's Commie Reds! Guns--you got guns. Okay, now suppose there's aliens! Same diff.

But now suppose that your astronaut (Gre. astrum nautilos, "space dude") falls out. Or that the ship has an engine malfunction (Lat. "bad function")! What do you do--think fast.

Answer? You hire General Electric to build you this.

That's right, long before the current glory days of "satisfectellent" (sp?), the marketing people at GE were ahead of the game, thinking up dumb names for dumb shit. In space.

First off watch the first 30 seconds of this:

Now looky here at the blog for Castlevania: Dracula's Curse the blog for the movie based on Castlevania III (Sorry Sam, #2 is still left in obscurity.) So it seems Warren Ellis is writing it and James Jean is doing the art direction. It's going to be animated, but the above makes me think probably not in an Eastern/Anime style, but who knows. I really like the quaity of the animation in the trailer above, but I'm sure Mr. James Jean (which sounds really funny when said aloud. Well kinda funny) will be able to do a great job.

Eric, Sam, care to fill anyone in on the Ellis and the Fables?

One of the questions I am frequently asked by people who have been reading comics for some time is "Do you remember a comic called Scud the Disposable Assassin?" To which I am always happy to reply thusly: "Oh totally! That book was great! What ever happened to it? I remember collecting every issue until one day, they just stopped coming." At which point the conversation dissolves into nitpicking nerdery about how it had ended. The reality was that Scud was set to end on issue 21, but after issue 20 was released, creator Rob Schrab's small Fireman Press went under due to rights conflicts. Then Schrab got caught up in TV and the rest is unwritten history. Unfortunately that left us readers wondering what would become of Scud, Drywall, Sussudio, Jeff, Voodoo Ben Franklin, and La Cosa Nostroid just to name few of the absolutely bizarre cast. Well our prayers have been answered by Rob Schrab himself who recently announced that he will be releasing the long awaited Scud finale! While no official release date has been announced, he has said on his website that he will try to include it in a huge collection of the entire series that will be available for the San Diego Comic-Con this year. I love shit like this, even if it is ten years late.

For all their whining and complaining, and despite profits being up, the entertainment industry may ultimately be responsible for its own demise.

Apparently, according to one study, this year, today (the 22nd of January) is statistically the worst day of the year. There's some nonsense study involving weather and debt etc. but I laugh in the face of their so-called depression, because, today folks, is the best day of the year so far.
1.I am still not smoking (as per my new year's resolution).
2.I am still not eating meat (see above).
3.I Completed a painting last night and made 15 drawings today at work.
4. Most exciting, a box of my belongings (paint, photos of my grandparents etc.) that has been lost in the Italian mail for over a year arrived in front of my door today, and was waiting for me when I got off of work.
Yes, today is a day of miracles.
How about you? Any unusually polar days for anyone else in internet land?

It's got fairy tales, violence, the woods, fresh milk, spanish women, antique vials, fairies, pocket watches, enough fantasy to make a LARPer blush, monsters, blood, creepy paintings, long slender keys, bedtime stories, religious imagery, knives, post-civil war Spain (what's a movie without it?), a princess, underground caves, lullabies, mandrake root, afternoon sun streaming through the trees, dangerous tasks, grapes, a faun, chalk, the waxing moon, magic stones, and ambiguous lines between fantasy and reality.

It's dark, and it's beautiful, and it's violent.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it 97%!

I highly recommend The Official Website, which is streaming the beautiful soundtrack. You can browse through Guillermo del Toro's sketchbook, and you can also check out the entries for the sketchbook contest where one can submit their own fantasy drawings, the prize being winner's sketches will be included on the DVD.

So I'm going to ruin a surprise. About a month and a half ago, I posted about something stupid I had won in a raffle. I had said that anyone who sent me their mailing address would receive some stupid material. Well, the stupid thing I won in a raffle was a set of American Politics Quotable Notables Notecards. It contained two each of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Hillary Clinton. Also included was a set of stickers for each pair of cards. Examples include, for the Bill Clinton card, a cigar sticker and one that says "Good luck on your INTERNSHIP!" (Internship takes up as much space as the entire rest of the text and is in bright blue.)

Dick Cheney's got a pink triangle sticker, and one that says "Just a pretzel away from the presidency!"

Haw!

After writing little notes for the two people who sent me their addresses, I decided to write one to the company, "The Unemployed Philosophers Guild", which is based right here in Brooklyn.

The letter spans three of their ridiculous, stupid cards.

We'll see if they write back. Full text after the jump.

See the amazing videos of a prospective Ghostbusters video game for the XBOX 360.  It looks good enough to make me want one of those those systems.   Let the right people know.

*Edit by Stephen - According to the creator's website, the game, like the third movie in the series, is being held up by intellectual property issues. In other words, they can't get the rights to release the game. So don't hold your collective breath.

One year, I had breakfast with Dylan and Sam.  We tried to think of the worst band names.  I remember Dylan saying Hoobastank sounds like the word for sucking a fart.  I also remember Finger Gazebo, which sounds like a 22 year old guy (with a truck) that likes to date 14 year old girls.

    Those witty wits at the AV Club have published their findings of worst band names.

 May I introduce Clit Ripper?

  Guns and Rosa Parks may actually be brilliant.

Grill Party 

Zombies at the Beach

Twenty-three is the new five and a half.

Look at Liam's Flickr page to see the rest.

Brains. 

i got this in the mail. i like it out of context.

context below....

I was trying to only post about things I like on this site, but this...  Okay.  So House of M sucked.  I can understand a failed attempt at an epic storyline under the editorial pressures of Marvel to compete with DC's Infinite Crisis (no comment, not the place).  But this, just posted, cover to an upcoming issue of Ultimate Spider-Man is too much.  You see that person in the green and black?  Yeah, that's a character named Ronin who debuted less than five months ago in New Avengers, in a storyline that was not only boring but masterbatory in the extreme.   Spoiler-alert!  Ronin was a girl in New Avengers!  Not only that, but a girl character named Echo, created by Bendis-friend David Mack in an old, crappy Daredevil storyline (this is nothing to say of David Mack's talent, but Echo's origin tale and the subsequent stories just seemed like filler [This is also not meant to present any sort of misogeny, but a guy being a girl is what counts as a BIG REVEAL in mainstream comics.  Again, no comment.]).  So, not only did nobody care about the character in the  Daredevil or Avengers titles, but now Bendis is going to butt-plug the character into the Ultimate universe?  What a dick.  For a guy who got his start based on internet and fan buzz, he sure seems deaf to everyone nowadays.  Christ.  I thought Bendis was out of line when he shoved Ms. Marvel and Spider-Woman down our throats, but I thought that was just a guy trying to revive some characters he liked as a kid.  I get that.  But now we are looking at a writer creating an unsuccessful character in one universe and using his venues to pretty much shop it around like a carpet salesman.  Will Ronin work better in the Ultimate universe?  Maybe.  Bendis seems to write better over there anyway.  But then, he's leaving the title soon, so what the fuck does he care?  God, this really just grates on my eyes and standards...

Plus, apparently, a bit of a sissy. I got a 70 on their little test. Ordinarily I don't post shit like this - even if it's just for fun and done by the kids. But this one has a great pictoral test and an introduction starring a true man among men, Mr. Bruce Campbell.

So what if it's just advertising for old spice. I had fun, dammit. What did you score?

Rumormille:

First up is a new entry in the Guitar Hero series. According to EGM, Guitar Hero: 1980s Edition is in production and will ship sometime in the Spring (presumably alongside Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360). With the game only three to four months away (and still unannounced), EGM could only say "trust us; it's coming."

 Woah strikeout I love Stephen.

So what 80s songs do you want?  

((Alan Parson's Project)) 

Inspiration after the jump.

The blog is back to normal. Better than normal! We have a new WYSIWYG editor for entry creation, I suggest you check it out!

If you don't like it, you can switch back to old-style editing at the bottom of the form by switching from WYSIWYG to Convert Line Breaks.

Enjoy the new That's Plenty!

And a special thank you to David Phillips at movable type who helped me find my ass, a feat which I could not perform even with the aid of both hands and an electric torch device.

Here they are for GH2 for the 360:

I've gotten my pantleg tugged on several times by pretty much everyone on here for a new banner. Which is fair; I've had sole possesion of all the pictures we took together at that party at Josh's house for a new banner.

But no more!

I am releasing them into the wild internet.

So I say to you now: You want a new banner?

MAKE ONE.

Huzzah! We have successfully upgraded Movable Type on the blog... as well as the delightfully bot-blocking Comment Challenge plugin by Jay Allen.

So... this means no more spam! EVER!

I hope.

Anyway, I tested it and I've been watching the comments and sure enough the spam is disappearing into the junk folder where it should have been all along.

Rejoice!

Now I just have to fix this entry page bug...

As part of the continuing struggle against SPAM (we've been hit by increasingly larger waves as we stick around), I will be upgrading Movable Type (our blog engine) and making a few other changes.

There may be a little turbulence. I appreciate your cooperation.

Dear That's Plenty,

I'm drunk. I could add an "a" between those words to better convey why I have not posted in a great long while, but really, who cares? This should not be about me. Because as an avid blog reader, I don't care. Let's just read a blog and go to bed, or take a shit, or do whatever one does when they are checking blogs.
Hey!
Links!
Y is the last man on Lost!
Heroes makes Supers amazing!
The Spirit lives on!

and finally, this is the best blog I've read in Ever. Read Goodbye to Comics and tell me you don't want to either cry, or write a screenplay about it. Her ordeals aside, the style is big enough to choke addicts. All praise the coming of the glasses!

Signed,

eric

The NY Times printed a great obit about Iwao Takamoto, the man who made Scooby-Doo. He learned illustration during WWII while imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp.

Check it out.

Movie called Black Sheep from New Zealand.

The story so far:
Stephen: Hello!
Stephen: So, I encountered something strange this evening.
Stephen: I tried to go to a website, www.serials.ws
Valeria K: Hello, let me know how can I help you?
Stephen: and I recieved a message saying that the website could not be found
Stephen: not my ordinary browser message, but an earthlink page that told me the site couldn' be found
Stephen: I entered the same URL into a proxy website, like anonymizer
Stephen: and the webpage loaded fine
Stephen: responded to search queries, etc.
Stephen: So, clearly, the page is live and on the internet but earthlink will not let me access it.
Stephen: Which means that the page is 'censored' or blocked from me by earthlink
Valeria K: Please give me a moment while I go through the issue.
Stephen: I'd like to know if I can get taken off this filtering, and if I can't, I'd like to know what web pages are blocked/censored by earthlink.

My cell phone is crippled and unusable in so many ways it's hard to count them. Even the camera, one of the main features of the phone, is nigh unusable. The camera interface is easy enough, but it's such a pain in the ass to get the pictures off the phone that it's not even worth it to bother. You can send the pictures to a Verizon website, then after finding the website (the URL changed a couple times in the time I've had my phone, plus it's not easy to find even if you're on Verizon Wireless' page) you have to enter a username and password, different from your regular verizon account, and then eventually you can right click and save the thing to your computer. Only recently did I discover that I could use SMS to e-mail the pictures to myself, which is an undocumented method. And still a bit of a pain.

This is what it's like for a lot of the technology in my life. Commercial-level technology that is effectively broken due to poor design or the selfish dependency on undersupported proprietary technology.

I bought my Apple laptop so that I could do editing and sound work from home. Now it's my primary computer for everything, doing everything I ask quickly and flawlessly.

The short and simple reason I love my Mac so much more than I love my PC is this: I spend more time doing stuff and less time constructing hacks and workarounds.

As of last week, my PC spits out error after error when I perform tasks as simple as *opening folders on my desktop.* I'm not some computer n00b, haplessly banging away on a keyboard, either. I'm a lifelong veteran of these electronic disasters, and my first tour of duty was on DOS 3.0.

But now. Now! Here comes the iPhone.

Check out features after the jump...

If you haven't been yet, or even if you have, now is a great time to visit the Brooklyn Museum. I frequented the museum when I lived in Park Slope, but never did it have so many great special exhibitions.

The reason I went to the Museum this time around was the Ron Mueck exhibition. If you're not familiar with his work, you can check out Washington Post's collection of images to get an idea of how incredibly life-like his either larger scale or smaller scale sculptures are. A Scottish artist with no formal art training, Mueck creates silicone replicas of people, like the tiny 3-foot old ladies at the left, an enormous woman in bed, and a lightly smaller than scale replica of his dead, naked father, plus lots of others. Each hair on each model is implanted by hand. Seriously, they are unreal. The detail in these things blows my mind.

Stolen from somewhere.

Like knowing how stuff works? Science? British People? Animation? Like tv shows from 1988-1993?

Yes? You do? Yeah, who doesn't. Then The Secret Life of Machines, which you may be able to deduce is a British programme from '88-'93, which explains how ordinary things work through experiments, diagrams, history and animation, might just be for you.

Some subjects you have to look forward to are fax machines, vaccum cleaners, elevators, quartz watches, and refridgerators. But that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, my friends (Don't you hate and preversely kind of love the douche bags who says proverbial like that?)

The tv series was created by and stars Tim Hunkin (who has an extensive site of his work Here. He has done all kinds of awesome stuff, including mechanical animated piggy banks, simulator rides, arcade machines, interactive exhibits, and lots of other neato stuff, worth your browse), and the show was based on a comic strip that he drew for the Observer newspaper for 19 years. He also wrote and illustrated a book of science experiments for children 8-80 called Hunkin's Experiments.

To watch, simply type The Secret Life of Machines into your friendly neighborhood Google Video, and you're on your way. Also visit the secret life of machines website to see all of the orginal comics.

And just because I know you're lazy, I'll start you off. Here's The Secret Life of Machines...THE CENTRAL HEATING SYSTEM!

Justin alerted us to this one. I'm sure he's a great guy, but Christ, could you think of a worse name to run for office with? Seriously, can you?

I know Sam was begging everyone to see “Children of Men”, but I propose another movie that should be viewed at equal haste: “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”. It was released in 1970, with a screenplay by a young Roger Ebert, and was rated X when it hit the theaters. While the film was written as a comedy, what makes it better in a joke-within-a-joke kind of way, is that, the director pretended he thought it was serious, forcing his actors to play the roles straight, even though they could sense that something was off.
When all is said and done, by watching this movie you will be rewarded with some of the best 70’s tits-and-ass you’ve ever seen, painfully lame dialogue, transvestites, decapitations, orgies, role-playing, girl bands, and much, much more. Also, the fact that it was written by the fat-half of Ebert and Roeper (R.I.P. Gene Siskel) might give you some insight into what kind of films this leviathan of movie reviews really gives his thumbs up to.

Apples to apples is a very simple game. It takes about 30 seconds to learn. Basically, there is a stack of red cards, which are nouns, and a stack of green cards, which are adjectives. This is a group game, and players take turns being the judge. Each player holds a bunch of random noun cards in their hand, and the "judge" puts down an adjective card, for example, "sexy". The other players then have ten seconds to put down the card in their hand that they think best represents sexy. The judge then decides which card is the best match and the person who played it wins that round. Sounds sort of lame, right? I thought so.

But it isn't. Because the judge goes through each card that is layed down, eliminating them with explanations, "Clearly the least sexy of these cards is "creamed corn". Who the hell put down creamed corn?" And then the putter downer of creamed corn shouts, "Creamed corn is ridiculously sexy! It's all warm and smooth and creamy!" and then there is a burst of argument over whether creamed corn is sexy or no. And this repeats for every card put down. It is the groupiest group game I've ever played. Everyone is involved and even meek game playing personalities become brazen. And as you start to learn what certain people like, what their humors lean towards, you start to playing to the judge, which actually tends to complicate things.

On Thursday night, I played this game for 5 hours with 8 people. On Saturday, about 4, with 9 people. It is by far one of the best group activites in the world. No one can feel left out with Apples to apples. Or feel bored. It is group gaming perfection.

bwahaha, are we migrating from a guitar hero 2 centric bloggy?
01. Black Mirror
02. Keep The Car Running
03. Neon Bible
04. Intervention
05. Black Wave Bad Vibrations
06. Ocean of Noise
07. The Well & The Lighthouse
08. Antichrist Television Blues
09. Windowsill
10. No Cars Go
11. My Body is a Cage

editoh crap, anyone going to call 1-866-neonbible? Ext 7777.

ObGH:

Remember that little composer dude who was f'ing the japanese piano teacher? Previously married to Jamaica Kinkaid? He wrote a lil something that's a lil close to home.

Inconceivable! Oh, wait, that's his brother.

Hey, first google image search for "inconceivable" is this:

They put a new song on their website. Forget anything I said earlier this week. It's amazing. Way to go guys.

It is hot today. I don't mean unseasonably hot. I mean regular old no long sleeves hot. In New York. In January. Al Gore is right. What are we going to do without Cold Miser?

China's most wanted painting.

During my ever so brief tenure in nyc, I had the good fortune to be sheparded by one Goodie Monster. After proving ourselves as non-entities in the quest for bagels, it was decided to catch a flick.

Twas Curse of the Golden Flower or One Crazy Day in Feudal China, by that Hero/Flying Daggers guy. I think its a very eastern movie. duh. But the fly by wires stuff is actually kept to visible wires with scythe weilding ninja like dudes who want to party. The movie is actually fairly slow and gorgeous during the half, with a multitude of busty servants following around the high court.

What's remarkable is how much stuff happens in the movie, all the intertwined, delicate plots getting snuffed, erant assassinations with vague sucess, betrayls, poison, bla bla, and most of it doesn't even matter. My sense of story was offended, but you can't be an occidental asshole about everything, and I'd have to say I like the movie because it does piss me off a tad.

Also, the relationship between royality and everyone else is insane. The game of catch with the Prince, and the saving of his life are pretty weird.

Pan's Labyrinth soon. Best movie of 2006 is still up in the air for me, but everyone should watch Cache and then immediatly go to sleep so yr subcon can chew it up.

Tickets to the FIVE Arcade Fire shows in New York City at Judson Memorial Church went on sale this morning at 9:00am in an online-only sale. The tickets sold out in minutes, but Miss Lanyi and I were lucky enough to grab a pair. Many people, however, were not so fortunate and you can find them ranting and whining over in BrooklynVegan comments section.

An ebay sale started, strangely enough, the night BEFORE the tickets went on sale and ending shortly after the tickets were sold out, closed out this morning at over $2,000 for a pair of tickets.

Another pair of tickets has just recently gone up for sale on ebay. The bidding started at one penny for the pair and, at the time of this writing, has risen to $255 in just 40 minutes.

While it is tempting to sell my own tickets for a king's ransom, I am reluctant because the tickets are will-call only *and* non-transferable. I'm aware that in normal will-call situations you could simply go up to the ticket window with your two buyers, show your ID and credit card, and then hand the tickets off to your buyers. But if the tickets are non-transferable, can you still do that? I think I may just hold on to my tickets to avoid risking the fallout of a botched sale.

Anyway, with all these angry scenesters having now failed to get tickets, this may be an ebay auction to watch. It ends tomorrow. How fast will the music fans out-money each other to buy the tickets they may not even be able to purchase? See you tomorrow!

** UPDATE ** Bowery Presents has updated their website with a newsflash about tickets and scalpers.

*ALL 5 ARCADE FIRE SHOWS ARE SOLD OUT*
TICKETS ARE NON-TRANSFERABLE. The ticket purchaser must enter
the venue. Copies of ID, Credit Card or Confirmation email
WILL NOT be accepted for entry. Only complete parties will be
admitted. No exceptions. Please DO NOT buy tickets on eBay,
Craig's List, etc. YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED!

So much for getting two thousand dollars just for being lucky on the internet.

Arcade Fire "Intervention" 2007
So Arcade Fire, the biggest indie band of 2005, is about to embark on the release of their sophomore album, a journey that blog-fav bands these days find to be on the same level of difficulty as destroying the Ring of Power in Mt Doom or playing Miserlou on expert in GH 2. I'm sure if you Google the phrase "Arcade Fire" and "Intervention" you'll come across plenty of belly-aching about this track. I don't want to add to the freak out, but I will say this: a)Pipe Organ +1 b)Production -1 c)Arrangement +1 d)"The Boss" style delivery -3. I'd bet 50 bucks McCool is all about this track.

King Crimson "In the Court of the Crimson King" 1969
I heard this track for the first time since high school in Children of Men and I can't stop listening to it. So awesome.

In a message dated 1/3/07 9:50:30 PM, xxxxxxxxx@somebigcosmeticscompany.com writes:

Can we use more pc language for the talent... Caucasian, african american etc.... Don't want to create more work but it will be an oficial document for somebigcosmeticscompany and distributed around.
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Hello! My name is Stephen Bruckert.

I have been building your casting website and I just got a note re: political correctness on the casting website.

While I recognize that you may be pursuing alternate language for the website simply to avoid offending anyone who may see it, your request is somewhat problematic.

None of the dark-skinned women on the website are African-American. They have dark skin and features that we, as Americans, may identify as African-American or 'black', but none of the women are from America. Model 1 is half-Moroccan and has a Moroccan passport and may therefore be considered fully African. Model 2 has African ancestors but is a French citizen. Model 3 self-identifies as being from Martinique (an island in the Caribbean Sea which is a part of France and the European Union) and Egypt.

None of them are from America making them, by definition, not African-American. Two of the women are African-French (French-African?) and one is African.

So, ironically, in adopting language designed to return a full sense of identity to marginalized groups, you have actually robbed these women of their correct and actual identities.

Unless, of course, in the context of the advertisements, the women are 'playing' Americans, in which case your nomenclature would be acceptable.

If I actually hit the 'send' button on this e-mail, I'll probably get fired, so I'll just post it to my blog instead.

- Stephen

Is great. Really great. I would put this movie on the highest of high tiers of film making. Perfect acting, music selection, casting, and above all cinematography. it's all perfect. I guess the highest complement I can pay this movie is that it makes 99% of every film ever made seem amateurish. Please That's Plenty, go see it in theaters; the small screen isn't going to cut it. I unfortunately had to sit about 5 inches from the screen and it was still totally awesome. I think I'm going to have to see it again, there is alot of small details all over the place. Also big points for use of King Crimson. Go see it. Take off work if you have to.

spoiler to follow