Since it’s Christmas Eve, here’s some Christmas stuff I like without comment and in no particular order:

Here’s some more soundtrack goodness…

If you’ve never seen it, Punch Drunk Love is Paul Thomas Anderson’s offbeat love story involving Adam Sandler and Emily Watson. Anderson has made a few really good movies and this is one of them if you don’t mind movies with a slower pace…. Anyway, Anderson makes use of some quirky music in this one; especially Shelly Duvall’s rendition of ‘He Needs Me’ from Popeye (the musical).

First the trailer (“I have so much strength in me, you have no idea”):

A scene from the movie featuring ‘He Needs Me’ sung by Shelly Duvall (from the Robin Williams Popeye movie). Sandler at the 3:18 minute mark of this is disturbingly hilarious. The 4:55 mark is great, too, for some reason.

And here’s Shelly Duvall singing the song without the movie:

Now I need to go crank up some Pantera…

Here are a couple of Jon Brion Tunes that I like. I don’t know much about him. I just know his music from the soundtracks that I have like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. He does really good stuff, though.

Here’s one from an Adam Sandler movie that I really like:

Here’s another from Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut:

I think the movie was a bit depressing (Synecdoche, New York). I’ve read the original scripts by CK for movies like Eternal Sunshine and Kaufman ‘unfiltered’ usually are a lot less optimistic than how the film turns out. Since he wrote and directed ‘Synecdoche’, the movie ended up a bit too dreary. The final cut was a little too weird and unrelenting for me to enjoy. Great song, though (lyrics by Kaufman?).

I haven’t posted any music favorites in a while, so…

I came across this while looking for a scene from Trainspotting on Youtube…. Miller’s Crossing never has seemed to get a lot of hype and when people mention the Coen Brothers best movies they always mention Fargo, NCFOM, Raising Arizona, or even Barton Fink… I don’t think Miller’s crossing is their BEST movie, but I do think it’s one of the Best Gangster Flicks Ever Made. As far as Gangster Flicks go, I think this is my favorite (and it has a Sam Raimi cameo). The scene where Byrne takes Turturro into the woods, I think is one of the most beautifully haunting scenes ever set to film…

I also loved the score. It’s absolutely captures the odd tone of the movie. Here it is:

SPOILER ALERT! Nothing major, but this does contain a few small spoilers…. Now on with the show.Jim Cameron’s Avatar is SO overwhelmingly spectacular in its visuals and pacing that it more than made up for its story flaws. I’ve never been disappointed with any of his movies (But I’ve never seen his horror comedy masterpiece about flying fish: Piranha 2… at least not all of it). All of his films since ‘The Terminator’, have been innovative whether it be the ideas or the new technology employed.

The director with Avatar's lead Sam Worthington.

If you’ve read anything about Avatar, I’m sure you’ve heard about the story being ‘dismissed’ as ‘Dances With Wolves’ in space. That’s fair to a degree; there are a lot of elements in Avatar that seem to be borrowed from other movies (even from Cameron’s previous films). It was predictable throughout (such as the ‘Braveheart’ speech to rally the Na’Vi troops), but sometimes the way that a movie is told gives a little more weight to a flimsy story.

The film takes place on the hostile yet beautiful (rain forest on phosphorescent steroids) environment of Pandora. There are lots of dangerous creatures running around (created by Cameron and his army of artists) that are ready to trample or eat the human invaders.

The very air is toxic,also, and oxygen masks have to be worn by anyone visiting from Earth. I assume that Earth’s atmosphere is also toxic, since it’s noted in the film that ‘we’ve destroyed earth’s environment’ and earth ‘has been abandoned’.

The main story of Avatar is very heavy handed in its characterizations and a bit cliched with the exception (maybe) of the male and female leads. The ‘villains’ of the movie are 2 Hollywood standbys: the Evil Big Corporation and the Military. I won’t comment too much on that, but I get a little aggravated when Hollywood makes statements about Corporate Greed when one ticket to watch Avatar, one small popcorn and one soda costs almost 25 bucks and that’s not even at an Imax theater, but I digress ($11.50 per ticket?!)….

Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge and Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine

One of the earth visitors is Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-Marine, played by Sam Worthington.

Sam Worthington

He is recruited to replace his brother in the expensive Avatar program because his twin brother has just died tragically and they share the same DNA (each avatar is a ‘custom fit’ to the DNA of their user.

Joel Moore, Worthington, and Dileep Rao

Avatars are bodies created out of a combination of  human DNA and the Na’Vi (Pandora’s native inhabitants: giant blue catlike humanoids). The Evil Corporation wants a a valuable natural resource native to Pandora hilariously named Unobtanium (spelling?).

Apparently,  most of it is located below the Na’Vi’s Sacred Tree of Souls that  is a tree that looks like it’s about 10000 feet tall. The Evil Corporation wants to either use these Avatar’s to convince the Na’Vi to relocate or use the accompanying Marines to take the Unobtanium by force.

Jake takes to the Avatar experience with an enthusiasm that the others can’t relate to, since it gives him the ability to walk again.

While learning how to act as a Na’Vi, Jake becomes kind of a double agent. As an Avatar, he works closely with researchers who are mostly interested in learning about Pandora and its tribal populace.

Worthington, Rodriguez, Weaver, and Moore

Sigourney Weaver who seems to be reprising her Diane Fossey role from Gorillas In The Mist, plays  Dr. Grace Augustine, who is the head of the research scientists. She literally has written the book on Pandora and the Na’Vi and is one of the ‘ambassadors’ to the Na’Vi. For some reason her Avatar’s appearance was a little funnier to me than the rest of them.

Sgourney Weaver as a Na'Vi 'Dreamwalker'

Meanwhile, Jake is (secretly) giving information about the Na’Vi and their ways to Marine Colonel Quaritch who is preparing for the inevitability (he feels) for conflict. He promises Jake that if he does as Quaritch asks, he will ensure that Jake gets a very expensive operation to restore his ability to walk, which Jake agrees to. Naturally, this causes lots of conflict later on.

Lang and Worthington

Basically, the researchers are all good guys and the rest of the human race are bad guys, with 2 exceptions. Jake and Trudy, a Marine Pilot, played by Michelle Rodriguez.

Rodriguez

She’s kind of in the ‘Vasquez’ role (from Cameron’s ‘Aliens’), but she’s not  a musclehead like the rest of the Marines in the movie.

Luckily, for plot convenience, she’s the lone Marine sympathetic to the plight of the Na’Vi AND she happens to be the pilot assigned to the researchers. If she wasn’t this movie would’ve been a whole lot shorter  and would have ended on a sour note.

The movie really steps into high gear when Jake gets separated from the other Avatars while acting as an escort for Dr. Augustine. There is a search and rescue attempt that is called off and Jake is forced to try to survive the night in Pandora’s harsh terrain where everything wants to make a meal of him.

The lovingly rendered Neytiri

Enter Neytiri, one of the Na’Vi, who saves Jake from becoming lunch for some of the forest creatures in a not so meet-cute sort of way. Neytiri is given life by Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana via motion capture performance.

Saldana with Worthington

She’s not human, but has one of the strongest female leads of the year, IMO.

Saldana probably won’t get any nominations for her role, but she should. The character was a great example of the love interest being more than just the love interest. She was probably the most emotional character in Avatar.

It kind of saddens me, though, when you can use that ‘most animated character in the movie’ joke, as in Lord of The Rings (Gollum) or the lesser nonfunny Star Wars trilogy (Yoda).

Of course Sam Worthington also did a great job in the lead, first as the wheelchair bound human, but mostly as the Na’Vi avatar. He seems to be one of those actors that can play every role with believability.

At first viewing, I really wasn’t impressed by Stephen Lang’s character so much as by what Jim Cameron and the screenplay had him do:his actions….

Stephen Lang

After watching this again, I have to admit that I was wrong about that. For the most part, his performance was workmanlike, and he was most interesting in action sequences (his last scene is his best scene and one of the more memorable sequences of the film)… BUT…. I think he played the character as he should have. He was playing a no-nonsense Marine Officer and that’s how he played him. Understated even in some of the most spectacular scenes in the movie.

I also have to take back my first take on Giovanni Ribisi’s character. He wasn’t quite as one note as I thought on the first viewing. It still wasn’t the most 3-dimensional character, but I think Selfridge (Ribisi’s character) sidesteps cliche…. but just barely. He added a couple of laughs, too.

I won’t give anything else away. As I said, it’s a bit predictable in a way, but still highly enjoyable. Besides the beautifully rendered terrain (including the ‘floating mountains’), there were some incredibly well done action and war scenes. George Lucas should take note of these.

There were times where there were scores of things happening onscreen, but still didn’t seem like clutter. The CGI artists also got the issue of weight right. The thing that separates this movie’s FX from CRAP movie FX like those in GI Joe or the Incredible Hulk, is that the creatures and objects in Avatar move as though they have some weight to them. On top of that Cameron knows to not speed the camera movement to that of a hummingbird, so that the audience can follow the action.

I have to take a moment to comment on the vegetation  and terrain of Pandora for a moment. Very early on in the movie, I had to remind myself  that I was looking at an entirely computer generated landscape.

The night scenes, not as much because of the many phosphorescent plants and animals, but I knew going in how they did this and was still somewhat fooled.

Cameron paid attention to the smaller details in the movie, also, such as shots of Jake Sully’s atrophied legs. There is much in Avatar that he doesn’t point out to the viewer, but it’s there if you’re paying attention. Another detail I recall was the idea of Dr. Augustine’s book Na’Vi. Instead of some future version of the Kendall, they’re still a paperbound indication by Cameron that, even after we’ve destroyed all of Earth’s forests, we still have the need to cut down trees and make paper products for our amusement.

The behaviors of the Na’Vi tribes borrowed heavily from various human cultures. There was a mishmash of  customs that were borrowed from Native Americans, African and Indian cultures that I recognized.

Most of the major Na’Vi characters were played by people of color (other than the human avatar characters) like Saldana and the great Wes Studi which either lends creedence or takes away from some of New York movie critic Armond White’s assertions of this film, depending how you look at it  (I won’t get into that, though).

This scene and others reminded me of old National Geographic photos.

I think the major drawback of the movie was that Cameron was so eager to preach his eco-message and his political slant that it distracted greatly from the film. I have no problem with having any particular point that the director is trying to make, but in this case it came off as Cameron preaching. Each obvious shot that he took at the Bush administration took you right out of the experience of the film and some of his terrorist theories in this film that he proposed as intelligent thought sounded ignorant and uninformed. A little subtlety would have been advisable. Despite this and the weakness in characterization/story, the movie can still be enjoyed to a GREAT degree.

I hope I haven’t sounded too sour about Avatar. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Truly, Avatar seems tailor made for me. I read that Roger Ebert commented that “I felt sort of the same as when I saw “Star Wars” in 1977″. I kind of share that sentiment.

I was personally trying to think of a movie that was as awe-inspiringly impressive (at the time) as this one…. But, Star Wars may be the right comparison. Not saying this one as good as Star Wars was (and will be the cultural phenomena that that was), but FX wise, it was an amazing movie to behold. 4.5 out of 5 whatevers. Now I have to go back and see it again.

And one last thing. I have to commend Jim Cameron for caring how his movies turn out. He does have that rare ability (it seems to be rare, anyway), of being able to make a quality artistic endeavor that is accessible and commercially viable. Very few directors outside of Stephen Spielberg have that particular talent.

But, I think that it comes down to caring about how his art turns out and not just about having fun on an expensive set or winning awards. Sam Raimi said once that he makes movies to ‘uplift’ the audience (and has failed in that endeavor on occasion… Sorry Sam, I had to say it). I think Cameron’s movies continue to do that. They’re always enjoyable.

No pictures… No real explanations… Just the picks…

Fresno State Over Wyoming

Rutgers over UCF

Southern Miss over Middle tennessee State

Oregon State over BYU

Utah over California

Nevada over SMU

Ohio over Marshall

North Carolina over Pitt in an upset…

BC over USC

Clemson over Kentucky

Georgia over Texas A&M

Temple over UCLA

Miami over Wisconsin

Bowling Green Over Idaho

‘Zona over Nebraska in an upset of mild proportions….

Houston over Air Force

Oklahoma over Stanford

Missouri over Navy

Minnesota over Iowa State

Va. Tech over Tennessee (Against The Gut)

Auburn over Northwestern

Saint Bobby and the ‘Noles over West Virginia!!!!

LSU over Penn State

Ohio State over Oregon

Florida over ‘Nati

Soth Florida over Northern Illinois

South Carolina over UConn

Ole Miss over Okie State

Arkansas over East Carolina

Texas Tech over Michigan State

TCU over Boise again

Ga. tech over Iowa

Central Michigan over Troy

AND….

Texas over ‘Bama in a monumental upset… I picked Texas at the beginning of the year. I’m stickin’ with ‘em… Texas wins the National Championship over the Tide!

It’s like Christmas on Crash! Site…. That just makes me happy for some reason: simulated snow…

Almost saw a movie earlier, but my interest waned and I backed out. Went to a bookstore and read a book instead (I know. I’m a wild man.)… I didn’t like the book, but I won’t talk about it. Nothing negative to say tonight.

Less than a week before I’m severely disappointed and  about a full week to recover watching the BIG movie… then Christmas. What an awesome month. It’s like I’m on Pandora already!

And here’s a tiny sliver of a panel from something (comic book art) that I’ve been working on besides the competition thing…..

#1 Alabama (13-0)
#2 Texas (13-0)
#3 Cincinatti (12-0)
#4 TCU (12-0)
#5 Florida (12-1)
#6 Boise State (13-0)
#7 Oregon (10-2)
#8 Ohio State (10-2)
#9 Iowa (10-2)
#10 Georgia Tech (11-2)
#11 BYU (10-2)
#12 Penn State (10-2)
#13 Miami (9-3)
#14 LSU (9-3)
#15 West Virginia (9-3)
#16 Virginia Tech (9-3)
#17 Pittsburgh (9-3)
#18 Rutgers (9-3)
#19 Houston (10-3)
#20 Oklahoma State (9-3)
#21 Oregon State (8-4)
#22 Nebraska (9-4)
#23 Utah (9-3)
#24 Stanford (8-4)
#25 Arizona(8-4)
I moved Alabama into the top spot (jumping Texas). They were definitely more impressive and should be the favorite over Texas when (if) they meet in Pasadena. Haven’t made the Bowl picks yet (BCS hasn’t come down with their verdicts yet), but I picked Texas to win it all at the beginning of the year, soooo…. They’ll have to play a great game, though, to beat ‘Bama…The only team I moved out of the Top 25 was USC and replaced them with the team that beat them. I dropped Florida to 5 even though they’d probably beat #3 and 4. They lost, they other 2 won their conferences. Boise didn’t play what I would call a legitimate schedule… They did a good job against Oregon, but Florida would beat Oregon. Now we all wait for the BCS BS…

Oregon/Oregon State set the tone for the weekend  I guess. That one went back and forth all night and had some interesting subplots… The Cincinatti/Pittsburgh game was an absolute instant classic with Tony Pike throwing a long TD with about  30 seconds to go. The worst part of that one was for the Pitt holder that flubbed the hold on Pittsburgh’s extra point about a minute before the Cincinnati TD. That missed extra point allowed the Bearcats to go undefeated…

Meyer was outcoached by Saban.

The biggest game of the year thus far was without a doubt, Florida and ‘Bama… ‘Bama came out with a lot of determination right from the beginning. I think you have to start quick to beat an Urban Meyer team. It seemed that Urban panicked early in this game (4 carries by Florida running backs ALL GAME!!!! Alabama ran the ball 53 times BTW).

Panic setting in...

A dropped pass by (Jeff Demps?) on Florida’s first series cost the Gators a first down and maybe Big Mo for the game. Alabama got ahead with a quick field goal, built on their lead and never trailed…. Florida seemed to abandon the running game (at least with their running backs) and from then on it was Tebow scrambling and throwing passes.

McElroy is 29-0 since Junior High...

Florida looked completely unprepared and Nick Saban’s Tide were nearly error free. It ended up being a very ugly game for Florida fans.

Somewhat strangely, I felt a little sympathy for Tim tebow (C’mon, I’m a ‘Nole fan. I should be happy). Despite being very upset after the game (being almost unable to speak initially in a post game interview), he regained his composure and proved yet again, that he’s a class act.

I’m happy to see him finally move on so that Florida State may have a chance to beat Florida again (heh), but I think he’s a big loss for college football.

They say (because of the ’slow release’) that Tebow won’t be very successful in the pros, but I think the ‘experts’ are all wrong. They said the same kind of thing about Emmitt Smith (a Pensacola product) coming out of Florida… He wasn’t fast enough… Wasn’t big enough… Whatever. Tebow can play at the next level and will play at the next level.

Ingram will win the Heisman...

This game, combined with how Colt McCoy and Texas performed on Saturday, all but assures Alabama’s Mark Ingram will win the Heisman. He’ll have a chance to win another one next year, too. As good as Alabama is this year, they’ll be even better next year and I predict they’ll be the Preseason Favorite to win it all next year, regardless of what happens in the title game.

Texas and Nebraska was an UGLY game. Wow. I think I would call it a great game, had Nebraska won, but Texas won ugly… I don’t think they expected the kind of game that they got. Nebraska looked like the Cornhuskers of yore.Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska’s star D-Lineman was an absolute monster… Bo Pellini (Nebraska’s defensive minded head coach) did a great job with a team that was all world on the defensive side, but inept on offense. I loved his ‘whatever’ reaction when Texas kicker Hunter Lawrence made the last second 46 yard field goal.

I wonder now, will this give the sportswriters an excuse to vote TCU over Texas and try to cheat Colt McCoy out of playing in the national championship game? TCU beat a mediocre Clemson team(barely), Utah (with a 2nd string QB) and BYU (who a bad FSU team rolled over). They DO NOT DESERVE to be in the championship game. Alabama-Texas has a way better ring than Alabama-TCU. TCU has NO CHANCE to beat the tide. Sure, utah beat them last year, but they weren’t playing for what they’ll be playing for this year. Cincinnati is a better team than TCU… BUT… Journalists love to insert themselves into the story, so Texas will have to sweat it out knowing TCU may jump them in the polls.

#1 Florida13  vs #2 Alabama32 Crash Picked: ‘BAMA
#3 Texas 13 vs #2 Nebraska 12  Crash Picked: Texas (Big… Boy, was I wrong…)
#5 Cincinnati 45 @ #15 Pittsburgh 44 Crash Picked: Cincinnati
#6 BSU 42 vs New Mexico State 7 Crash Picked: BSU
#7 Oregon 37 vs #16 Oregon State 33 Crash Picked: Oregon
#10 Georgia Tech 39 vs Clemson 34 Crash Picked: Georgia Tech
#18 USC 21 vs Arizona 17 Crash Picked: ‘Zona (Against The Gut)
#19 California 10 @ Washington 42 Crash Picked: Cal (The wacky, wacky Pac-10)
#21 Houston 32 @ East Carolina 38 Crash Picked:Houston
#23 West Virginia 24 @ Rutgers 21 Crash Picked: Rutgers

Other Noteable Games:
South Florida 27 @ UConn 29 Crash Picked: UConn
Wisconsin 51 @ Hawaii 10 Crash Picked: Wisconsin

How I did in Championship Week Top 25: 7-3 (picked 2 upsets)  In ‘Other Notable Games: 2-0  (picked the upset) Against Evil FSU Hatin’ ACC Blogger Heather Dinich (in ACC picks) I picked Tech, the Evil One picked Clemson (hahahahahah)

1-0 vs ‘The Gut’ (First time ever, which makes my prediction for my Zuda entry not so appealing since THAT’s coming up).

Grand Totals:201-48… In ‘Other Games:52-33…  Combined:253-81…  5-15 vs ‘The Gut’. Against Evil FSU Hatin’ ACC Blogger Heather Dinich I’m 69-27 to her 63-33

Wow… It’s beehe season has blown by very quickly. Beano Cook always says you wait forever for it to get here then it just blows by when you blink. Such is life. The ARmy-Navy game is next week(which is always fun) and tomorrow we find out who plays who in the bowls… Go ‘Noles! Go Bobby!

After finishing the ‘30 Characters In 30 Days’ Challenge I got an email from Tyler James with a congratulatory ‘award’ drawing which was funny (I think everyone who completed the 30 got one…). I don’t get awards often (ever), so I’ll take it. It may not be an  Eisner, but it’ll be a reminder of setting a goal and completing it, so it does have a good bit of value to me.

He also sent a short story PDF where he did the words and art (Ty Tyner and Jesse Frank did the coloring). It’s a 9 pager /horror story called ‘Friend Request‘ that will appear in an upcoming Arcana Comics anthology (graphic novel). The anthology is entitled Velvet Rope (I believe) and will be out in 2010. I liked it and think if you’re a fan of  horror shorts then you might like it also. I for one grew up reading all of my babysitter’s 70s horror anthologies like House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Baron Wierwulf Presents, Tales From the Crypt, and others like Swamp Thing (Len and Bernie’s and even Nestor Redondo’s version), Tomb of Dracula,Seduction of the Innocent (not the book, the comics anthology with Wrightson covers), etc… Sorry, I was rambling there, but I loved all that stuff. Still do…. Anyway, this was like those old stories, but updated with a contemporary twist/slant.

A panel from 'Friend Request'

As far as my own work  (Zuda)… Even though, I haven’t heard from Ron and Co. (Zuda editors), I’ve been thinking about the submission that I sent them. I finally decided if I do get rejected in the next few days, I might continue the story on my own. The only question would be whether I wanted to change back to the ‘normal’ comic book format (from Zuda’s 4:3 aspect ratio).

I was working on the logo for it, when my power went out at 2 AM last night. Naturally, I hadn’t saved from almost the beginning, so I ended up having to (just about) start over. This morning,  I showed the somewhat unfinished logo to a friend of mine and his reaction was “I can’t read it”. Being a graphic artist I can’t tell you how many times a logo that I have had to recreate is unreadable because of font (or other) issues. It aggravates me to the core, so when I create something that I know may cause problems, even if I’m intending to cause the problem.

Looks like a 'W' doesn't it? No, wait... An X! That's what it is!

To explain myself, I think this logo will hopefully be okay for 3 reasons. One, the fact that you can’t read part of the title will be an issue in the story (Part of the title is a logo in the comic… and is unreadable to some in the story). Two, sometimes when someone has trouble reading something they linger on it a little longer which is important since the logo itself is (again) part of the story. I want people to pay attention. And three. Well, I can read it, dang it! It’s not THAT hard to read…

More character designs! THIRTY WASN'T ENOUGH!!!

I’m going to do a good bit of drawing this weekend on character design. designing monsters is always fun. I’ve already been roughing out pages for the next sequence of events in the story. I’ll be settled in to watch the SEC championship game (and the Big 12 championship game… and the ACC championship game… and… but I digress), so I’ll be drawing/sketching to make sure that I’m not completely wasting time. The writer likes what I’ve been doing, so maybe someone else will like what I’ve been drawing, too.

And since I mentioned the SEC game….  The Ducks and Beavers played a very entertaining game yesterday (The Civil War). The Rodgers brothers for O State were fun to watch. Oregon has a great back named James that put on a show also, but all eyes were on Lagarette Blount. He finally got to get a carry in a game and he made the most of it.He got a few carries in the second half actually, running over an O-State Linebacker and then scoring a TD. I think he played last week but didn’t get to handle the ball. It seems like a long time since the ‘Punch Heard ‘Round the World’. We’ll see if he truly learned from it. Hopefully the games on Saturday will half as entertaining as that one was. Of course, I’m picking Texas to win (since I picked them to win the National Title), and Colt McCoy should have a BIG game despite Nebraska playing ‘better’ this year under Bo Pellinni…They can’t screw him out of a Heisman and a shot at the National Championship TWO years in a row, can they?  The creme de la creme though will be ‘Bama and the Gators… My heart’s with ‘Bama being a ‘Noles fan and all (and I’ve always liked Alabama anyway).  My head says that they’ll win, too.