Monthly Archive for August, 2008
This is the one-minute personal piece that I did for the film program I just completed. It was supposed to be non-fiction and represent some sort of idea or philosophy about who we are.
Okay. I saw the new Star Wars-ish movie yesterday. It’s not like the other Star Wars movie. It’s a cartoon. It takes place in between episodes 1 and 2. It’s not expected to live up to the other movies. It never could. It’s sort of a combination between the 2D animated Clone Wars TV series and the movies.
But everyone wants for it to be a Star Wars movie! It’s not! it’s a take-off of an upcoming animated Star Wars TV show. The original show was great, and I think that this movie sets the new series up to be just as good as the old one. No, it’s not a Star Wars movie but I still had a lot of fun. Everyone is expecting too much of it.
It was good, Saturday morning cartoon (or whatever you call it) fun. Not a Star Wars movie. Of course, being geared at kids it’s mostly just a bunch of battles and a lame story to go with it. But I enjoyed it and I think the TV series will be just as good. One of the main things people are saying is that the animation is terrible compared to Pixar. That’s true. But it’s not because of low budget or cutting corners. Lucas has all the money that he needs. It’s stylized. They’re not going for a natural look, they’re going for a stylized, exaggerated look.
And loved the look. The movie looks great and the cinematography is surprisingly good. Yes, I had low expectations but I seriously had fun during this movie. And it was funny in an incredibly cheesy way. Mostly it was just the battle droids being silly, but it worked. Oh, and the pink clone troopers were also pretty funny.
This isn’t Star Wars movie, it’s a Star Wars adventure for kids. And I think it serves it’s purpose well. There. I said it. Take that Rotten Tomatoes.
Okay. You know how there’s really good rock music that are much longer than any other regular rock song? Especially in classic rock, there are so many great songs that (luckily) go on for a long time. For instance:
Hey Jude (7:04)
Jungleland (9:35)
Layla (7:06)
She’s Gone (5:19)
They’re all awesome songs because - well, they’re awesome - and they also go on for a while and really rock out and do guitar solos and other awesome stuff. So now here’s my idea. What if they made versions of other great (although shorter) rocks songs that go on for that long? I’m talking 10-minute guitar solos - just an artist completely going crazy with their song.
Kind of like the live version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps* that was played during the concert for George by Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney. It’s 6 minutes and awesome. Couldn’t artists come in to a studio and play their songs - but 3 times as long and just be going crazy? Kind of like the TV show Abbey Road, except a more fine-tuned version, and also kind of like those “Unplugged” albums, except instead of mellowing down songs, they go crazy with it.
I’m saying this because there is so much good music that would be so much more awesome if they went on for more than 4 minutes. I’m sure there are a number of reasons why the 3-5 minute range is so popular - but wouldn’t it be awesome? So, what songs would you like to be awesome-fied?
*Click the play button to hear the song in a cool Yahoo flash player
I’ve written previously about why I blog, even though I have such a tiny audience. In that post, I estimated that I had less than 10 regular/casual readers. And then five people commented on the post, saying how much they liked my blog and wanted me to keep doing it! But, the way I see it, all of these people come to my blog for different reasons.
My family comes here to know what’s going on with me, but others may read because they like a specific topic that I write about - whether it be movies, music, links, or technology. And then I got to wonder, who likes what, and why? Should I write more about my life (what I’m doing this summer, pictures from trips, etc.), the newest iPhone, The Dark Knight, or my latest movie?
I don’t plan to completely change the focus of the blog, and I can guess pretty well who likes what. But I think it would be interesting for people to say what they like for me to write about the most and why. Again, I’m not going to do anything drastic - I’m just interested. I think that I’m still naturally going to write about whatever I feel like just because it is, after all, my blog.
Tell me in the comments.
