 |
|
November 12 2001 |
|
||||
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
 |
November 12 2001
It's been a while since I've seen a movie that I really enjoyed. I should rephrase. It's been a while since I've seen a movie that I didn't heckle. The best part of watching a movie in the theater is getting to yell at the screen when something horrendously stupid happens (which is usually every ten to twenty minutes depending on the genre of film, or in the case of these new $tar War$ films, every damn minute of film). So I was pleased beyond beleif when I went to see Monsters Inc. This is a great movie that you should go see right now. Go right now. Just put your computer in sleep mode, run out to your car, drive most verily to your nearest theater, buy yourself some popcorn and an overpriced drink, and go see this wonderful film. Go now! I'll still be here when you get back.
See, wasn't that a great movie!
Hmmm...for those who didn't go out the door just then, let me tell you a little bit about the film. You kow when you were growing up and every time you went to bed, you looked at your closet door with some amount of apprehension? You were afraid of some spooky monster coming out to snatch you away. Well, it turns out that there are indeed monsters in your closet and they work in a factory called Monsters,Inc.
The monsters work in pairs. The scarey monster that goes through your closet door is called a Scarer. The little guy who operates the door on the monster side doesn't really have a title, but most of them seem to be smaller monsters.
The bestest Scarer, Sulley, is played by John Goodman. Well, voiced really. He's a giant blue and purple monster. Sulley's right hand man is Mike Bersowski (sp?), voiced by Billy Crystal. I hate Billy Crystal for some reason. It's one of those dislikes that doesn't really make sense. I think my brother once said that Billy Crystal is an angry, bitter man after seeing a comedy special with him. That might be why I hate him. But in this film, I completely forgot the cute green one-eyed monster was Billy. Oh yeah, that stupid baseball movie he did didn't really impress me either.
It also turns out that the monsters are more afraid of humans than we are of them. Humans carry nasty diseases. If a human touched a monster, no one knows what horrible thing would happen. So somehow, a cute little human girl crosses over into the monster world and hijinks ensue.
That's all I'm going to say. Go see it now. Sure, it's a children's film. But really, a lot of the jokes are directed towards an older audience. The CG is wonderful. The textures and lighting are just fantastic. Lighting makes a world of difference when you're doing 3d stuff. It's actualy more important than the objects themselves. Let me take this opportunity to bitch about something lame. The term CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. These are scripts that allow a web page to talk to a database that is usually coded in PERL. CG stands for Computer Generated and refers to fully rendered three dimensional art as well as computer colored images like ¥ellow Peril and Titanium Moose. We were watching the making of the Buffy Musical and the producers were raving about the CGI that they used to create some of the images in the show. We all cringed (mostly cause we're all geeks). If you want to use something with an "i" in it say SGI. SGI stands for Silicon Graphics Inc or something like that (not too sure on the I one). These are highpowere workstations that are used to render a good deal of the CG stuff in movies these days. Actually, I think most movies use Windows NT boxes cause they're cheaper than SGI workstations, but for a while the standard high end machine was SGI. Since Alias/Wavefront ported Maya to the Windows platform, CG has become more affordable to studios.
This movie would rate nothing on the SH!T-O-METER were it not for the $tar War$ Epi$ode II: Attack of the Clone$ preview. Go to Apple's website and go to the Quicktime links to see the trailer. Okay, so it's supposed to be dramatic. But drama only works when you care about what's going on. Quite frankly, I wasn't impressed. So what that it's filmed entirely digitally. So what we get to see a young Boba Fett. So what we get to see Sam Jackson do some Jedi $hit in this next film. It's going to suck. It's going to saturate the market with so much merchandise that we'll have $tar War$ coming out of our ears as well as every Happy Meal, every soda can, every Lego toy, everything. The only solitary hope for this film is if they kill Jar Jar "Yessa' Issa be ooooootay!" Binks. This slap happy sanbo chould never have made it to film. How could George Lucas think that Jar Jar would be a hit. He should have just painted somebody up in black makeup to walk around saying "yessir massa sir." At least that would have been somewhat honest. Oh, and the sushi trade federation guys? Yeah, that didn't help endear that movie to me either. I don't think Lucas realized what bad ideas Jar Jar and the trade federation fish dudes were. But I'm sure he pissed off Blacks and Asians alike. I know I wanted Lucas's head on a pike. Episode II looks to be more of the same crap. I mean, "Attack of the Clones?" Geez, what a lousy title. Sue had to stop me from cursing at the top of my lungs in the theater (there were kiddies there). Yeah, I will be the first in line, too. Damn it.
So there you have it. Go see Monsters, Inc. multiple times. Sure, you'll be putting more money in the evil hands of the Walt Di$ney corporation. But it's a really good movie and you deserve to see a good movie at least once in this new millenium. Go see it now.
I don't know what's on the plate for next week. I don't think anything new is coming out that I want to see so I might try to get in that Bones movie or something else. Harry Potter is coming out this week, but with tickets being sold months and months in advance, I don't think I'll make it. So long and thanks for all the fish. See ya in the theater!
Got questions about this strip? Post them on our BBS.
The best place to find manga making stuff including
manga paper and G pen nibs (which I use to ink)
Titanium Moose
The title of this site and the main feature comic. This started out as sort of an anime parody strip. Now it's started into a weekly story line. I know it can be kinda tedious to see a page a week at a time so I'm collecting the pages here so you can click through them all at once if you wish.
What 'cha gonna do about it
Webcomics from my fiance. Grrls RUL3!
¥ellow Peril
I thought it'd be nice to collect all the Yellow Peril links on one page so you could find them easier.
Silver Screen Snob
Movie reviews from your's truly!
Other Fun Links ^_^
Jamihn Moose Shop
If you want a shirt or other art, check out our store.
The Moose's Mouth
Anime and webcomic BBS.
Jamihn.com
This is my portfolio. If you want to give me gobs of money to draw pretty pictures, please let me know.
Friends
These be folks who want to link up with us. Imagine that, folks actually wanna link up with us. ^_^
-
Machall
Forensic from the message board writes this webcomic. Mat introduced me to this webcomic and I dig it. Great artwork, clever lines, and a love of MACs! What could be better.
Dogmatist
Anime and Manga art from Jaki. Includes great tutorials and web doujinshi (fan comics).
Nuclear Stomach
Webcomic from our very own Torso Boy. He updates daily so check him out.
Fans!
This is a great web comic written by T Campbell and expertly drawn by Jason Waltrip (and assorted other artists). Don't forget to subscribe to the Webcomics Newsletter for the latest and greatest info on the web comics scene!
Henry Marx
A good friend of mine. His page is all text. It's an online journal. Some entertaining stuff so give it a look.
Archangel_XL99
A life form I met on the Dreamwave BBS. It also has a comic that it's starting, Kirin Blade. Go check it out.
That's all for now. Thanks for coming in.
^_^
