My Next Video Project Teaser

So I started working on a new video project. I can't give a lot of detail right now because Collin (the video subject) is going for his third Guinness World Record and wants to keep it quiet until the summer. What's really fascinating, and what I hope the final project will reflect is what he is going to DO with the record, and how it will help a really good Faith-based organization called Broken Voices.

Anywho, here is the "teaser" of the video...Collin wheel drumming....hmmm what this has to do with the record, time will tell....but you're intrigued, right?

Check out the vid:

Everybody Video Contest

Really wish I had an earlier start at this, but Ingrid Michaelson (one of my favorite artists) has this contest to make a video to her song "Everybody" and it ends Wednesday! So To get into the final round, we need to rack up a TON of views....so please watch, and share it with friends and then watch it again and again and again.



Thanks to Katie who helped me make the video, and Dylan who stole the show with his cuteness!

And the winners are...

**Incorrect prediction on my part.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year: Up (2009) - Pete Docter

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song: Crazy Heart (2009) - T-Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham("The Weary Kind")

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Mark Boal
**Really thought they might give Tarentino this one, but hey, Congrats to Mark Boal

Best Short Film, Animated: Logorama (2009) - Nicolas Schmerkin
**Took a guess here, was wrong. This actually looks like an interesting concept for a short film.

Best Documentary, Short Subjects: Music by Prudence (2010) - Roger Ross Williams, Elinor Burkett
**Also guessed wrong.

Best Short Film, Live Action: The New Tenants (2009) - Joachim Back, Tivi Magnusson
**Three for three, I did not guess correctly on the short films!

Best Achievement in Makeup: Star Trek (2009) - Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009) - Geoffrey Fletcher
**Wrong again! But happy for Fletcher, he seemed very appreciative.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Mo'Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)

Best Achievement in Art Direction: Avatar (2009) - Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair

Best Achievement in Costume Design: The Young Victoria (2009) - Sandy Powell

Best Achievement in Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Paul N.J. Ottosson
Best Achievement in Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Paul N.J. Ottosson, Ray Beckett
**Alot of the time, this award goes to the loudest, so I guessed Avatar, but the bomb scenes in Hurt Locker were very good.

Best Achievement in Cinematography: Avatar (2009) - Mauro Fiore
**Don't really understand how Avatar had better cinematography, best visual graphics, yes.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score: Up (2009) - Michael Giacchino

Best Achievement in Visual Effects: Avatar (2009) - Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andy Jones

Best Documentary, Features: The Cove (2009) - Louie Psihoyos, Fisher Stevens

Best Achievement in Editing: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Bob Murawski, Chris Innis

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year: El secreto de sus ojos (2009)(Argentina)
**Shocked! Really thought the Academy would vote for The White Ribbon...German film has been so strong in recent years.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart (2009)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side (2009)

Best Achievement in Directing: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2008)

Best Motion Picture of the Year: The Hurt Locker (2008) - Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro

Grand Total: 15/24 correct. Meh, alright. Still think (500) Days of Summer should have had a screenplay and best picture nod!! Alas...

My Oscar Predictions 2010: The Complete List

Also look-out for a blog about the show itself.

I’m pretty livid that (500) Days of Summer got shut-out. One of the 5 best films of the year!! Stupid Academy...













And these are getting way too easy to predict...takes the fun out of it....

24. Visual Effects: Avatar
23. Live Action Short Film: Kavi
22. Animated Short Film: A Matter of Loaf and Death
21. Makeup: Star Trek
20. Film Editing: The Hurt Locker
19. Documentary (short subject): The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
18. Documentary Feature: The Cove
17. Costume: The Young Victoria
16. Original Song: “The Weary Kind (Theme from ‘Crazy Heart’). Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett
15. Original Score: “Up,” Michael Giacchino
14. Sound Editing: Avatar
13. Sound Mixing: Avatar
12. Cinematography: The Hurt Locker
11. Art Direction: Avatar
10. Animated Feature Film: Up
9. Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, “Inglorious Basterds”
8. Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”
7. Foreign Language Film: The White Ribbon, Germany
6. Directing: Katheryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
5. Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
4. Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
3. Actress: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
2. Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
1. Best Picture: The Hurt Locker

See ya’ next year!!

Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps: A Review

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest, maybe arguably the greatest, filmmakers of all time. Monty Python is a comedic genius. The play The 39 Steps brilliantly combines the two. Two of these are true, one is not false.

(get it?)


So a friend told me about the play, The 39 Steps, which she saw in New York City. When I found out is was touring, and coming to The Majestic in Dallas, I snatched up some tickets! Wonderful decision. As their site describes, “Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have THE 39 STEPS, a fast-paced whodunit for anyone who loves the magic of theatre!”

This is a perfect description. It is thrilling, mysterious, fast-paced, and absolutely hilarious!

The plot is essentially the same between the film and the play. Richard Hannay is a Canadian in London, goes to a show entitled “Mr. Memory” one night and meets a girl on the run. He agrees to help her by letting her stay in his apartment for the night, where she rambles about a man missing part of his pinky, and a group (The 39 Steps). She is killed that same night and Hannay is forced to go on the run as the prime murder suspect. While on the run he makes his way to Scotland to find out what is going on with this mysterious 39 Steps in order to prove his innocence.

What’s interesting about the play, and which I think is an important concept to address about the theater, is how it constantly reinforces to its audience that they are watching a play. One of the ideas I’ve learned in school is described in the book Remediation by Bolter & Grusin, and it’s the idea of immediacy vs. hypermediacy. Immediacy is best characterized by arguments about developing virtual reality, that there will be a moment when the viewer forgets that they are viewing media, and thus it is the best experience because they are completely immersed in the media. Hypermediacy is the opposite of that. It is when the viewer is completely aware of what they are experiencing in media. A football game, or any televised sport is a good example of this. There you are bombarded by reminders that you’re watching TV, through the announcers, the text rolling by about other games, the scoreboard, the timer clock, the replays, etc. Now, Bolter and Grusin argue in the book that there is never a moment of media where neither immediacy or hypermediacy exists. There is always both working together, in other words.

The hypermediacy of The 39 Steps, is much clearer to spot than the immediacy. Plays in general are difficult to experience without the awareness that you’re watching a play. It’s hard to hide the stage and the lights, the moving of props, and all the elements of theater. Still though, plays try to hide these things. They dim the lights so that you don’t see the moving of props, or they have curtains hiding the backstage. Not so in the case of The 39 Steps. Here there are four actors total. They do things like change a hat on stage to change into another character. They wheel around a mobile-door to show that they are moving through a house. They make no effort to hide that they have to move props, even sometimes making a joke out of it. And it’s hilarious! Sometimes it seems as though the actors are doing this for the first time and there are mistakes made. And even though in the back of the mind, you’re pretty sure that they’ve rehearsed these mistakes and they are not in fact happenstance, you still laugh at them fumbling around with props and hats. There are other moments in the play when the actors draw attention to the limitations of the stage. Such a moment occurs when there is a chase on a train. Clearly a fast moving train can not be brought out onto the stage for many reasons. To compensate for this the actors run and stumble and balance themselves as if they are on a train, even going to the effort to shake their coats behind them and hold their hats on their head, as if they were actually blowing in the wind atop the moving train. This is a kind of Monty-Python-type-humor as well, much like the horsemen in The Holy Grail who clap coconuts together to imitate the sound of horse hooves galloping, probably to save cost on renting real horses in the film, and to get a laugh.

This hypermediated theater experience is great-fun, and they manage to pay tribute to a great filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, and also create a unique experience only possible in the theater. It is a play that can only work as a play. This could never be a movie, because the humor lies in the fact that it is a play, you are in the balcony of an old theater, staring down at four actors running around on a stage having a grand old time. So don’t get excited for a film version, just find out where The 39 Steps is playing near you and get your butt to the theater!

A Wordle of my Blog as of January 26, 2010, 4:35 PM

http://www.wordle.net/. Images of Wordles are licensed

Favorite Films of 2009

***EDIT -- HOW did I forget Sherlock Holmes?!?! I think my brain put it in 2010, but it definitely came out Christmas 2009....***

So, 2009 is gone, a new decade has begun, the beginnings of the "down season" for movies has begun, the Golden Globes have been handed out, and that Oscars are soon to be as well...

Thus I will give MY two cents about the best movies of 2009:

First let me say that this is a list of movies I actually like, not movies that I think are critical successes, are necessarily pushing boundaries (though some are), or sure to win awards -- that list is to come later (probably a week or so before the Oscars, which is like my personal little Super Bowl). I don't like depressing movies. I like happy endings - I'll butcher a quote from one of my favorite directors, Tom Tykwer, who said that if a character works really hard for something, it's depressing if they don't get it in the end of the film. (a.k.a. Happy-endings are a good thing. This is why Up in the Air does not make my list...) So basically, this is a list of films I liked that were released in 2009. If you think they were the best, than you’re cool; if you don’t, well then I hope you have better taste in music. :)

OK, so, let's begin...

Movies that I LOVED (basically in order of Loveness):

Up ~ Could there be a better movie? You laugh, you cry, it’s beautiful! Pixar is the best thing that
has happened to Disney since The Lion King. Yup. They never cease to make quality films that speak to all ages. The animation is brilliant also, and they will win the Oscar for best animation. That has pretty much become their category and award. They should just rename it the “Oscar for Best Pixar Animated Film.”

(500) Days of Summer ~ The narrator in the beginning tells you flat out, “This is not a love story.” Yet it is! Love the look of the film. Love the soundtrack. Love the story. Love the characters and all their flaws. Love the actors, Joseph and Zooey. The nonlinear storyline is brilliant and refreshing. And it has closure, even though small, it’s enough.

Fantastic Mr. Fox ~ This was a good year for animation. I love stop motion. They did an amazingly detailed job of building this little fox world. You could see the detail in every scene and know that this is one of those movies that was really crafted, not just put together.

It Might Get Loud ~ The Edge, Jimmy Page, and (my fav) Jack White, making music together, in one movie....what’s not to love?

Sherlock Holmes ~ Wonderful casting. Exciting film. Guy Ritchie is a fantastic director, and they stuck with the rationale of Holmes, which I was afraid they would get supernatural on him, but nope, he explains everything in the end. Very enjoyable popcorn movie.

Julie & Julia ~ Memorable performance by Meryl Streep (yet again). It combines food and film, two wonderful topics, what else do you need?

The Blind Side ~ Another memorable performance by Sandra Bullock. Could the film have been better overall? Sure, but it was still enjoyable with a nice family-based message.

The Princess and the Frog ~ I thought animation was dead for Disney now that they acquired Pixar, but this changed my mind. I look forward to any future Disney 2-D animated films.

Whip It ~ I don’t know anyone who saw this. I haven’t heard any buzz about it, although I think they tried to create some with the marketing back when it came out. That aside, I really enjoyed this directorial debut from Drew Barrymore!

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Movies that were good, but I really don’t have much to say:
Where the Wild Things Are - good soundtrack/art direction
The Hurt Locker - the bomb scenes are thrilling! Katheryn Bigelow for best director Oscar!
Star Trek - Wow did that really come out this year? - Entertaining popcorn blockbuster.
Invictus - Could watch Morgan Freeman do just about anything.
Night at the Museum 2 - Amy Adams was highly entertaining (though not accurate) as Amelia

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Movies that DISSAPOINTED:
Up in the Air - started out ok, ended depressed
Amelia - needed better direction (as in what did the filmmakers want to accomplish?) See my previous post regarding Amelia and celebrity.

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That’s all for now, folks! Overall I thought this year was slim pickins, so I hope that 2010 can change that and that there is a stream of quality films! We’re almost one month in and I haven’t seen a thing. Looking forward to that changing.