i'm off

yeah, a few minutes after i write this i'll be off to salem, then portland, then, eventually, orange. i'm glad i got to see those of you who i did, and rather sad i didn't get to see those of you that i didn't. but i'll be back around may 22nd, so we won't have to be apart for too long. goodbye all.

watch, as ben talks about movies and compulsively links to things!

no, you don't care, but i'm doing it anyway.

first off on the roster is, of course, sin city. for those of you who may not know (which, i'm guessing, is alot of you), this film is based off of a frank miller comic book of the same name. i had the pleasure of reading an entire sin city book once, and since then have taken a few moments of my time to peruse the ones i found lying on comic store shelves. the stories tend to be "hard boiled," and involve grotesque deaths, blood, gore, and sex; clearly this movie will be rated "r" - as well it should be. although my favorite part of these comics - the stark, high-contrast, black and white art - will clearly not be a part of the films in any literal way, i am quite hopeful that it will have an influence on the general look and feel of the picture. especially as good old mr. robert rodriguez, of el mariachi\desperado\once upon a time in mexico fame is directing. and who, you might ask, having not already perused the link i began this section with, might he be directing? well, i'll tell you, but only because it pleases me to do so: mickey rourke, bruce willis, johnny depp, leonardo dicaprio, maria bello, kate bosworth, steve buscemi, enicio del toro, michael douglas, carla gugino, josh hartnett, jaime king, brittany murphy, marley shelton, christopher walken and elijah wood. that's right - bruce willis, johnny depp, and christopher walken IN THE SAME MOVIE. it's like god said "hey, rob, i'd like to see these people in a movie," and robert was like "sure thing man." i mean DAMN. as much as i hate to say it since it clearly lables me a shallow corporate whore, i would honestly go see this movie just because those three guys are in it. well, and elijah wood, becuase he is just he cutest thing EVER.

next on the list we've got batman begins, aiming, sadly, for a release a little over a year from now. i'd like my batman fix NOW, but i guess i'll wait for chris, cause i trust him. he DID make memento, after all. i bring this, up, however, for two reasons. one, ken wantanabe has been signed to play ra's al-ghul - who, honestly, i don't know, but ken is a badass and i love him in last samurai, so i can't wait to see him again - and two, warner bros has recently released some photos of the new batmobile. or as it perhaps should be called, the bat-tank, as it is massive and almost monster-truck like. i will admit to being skeptical, but it's batman, and christopher nolan, so i will give them the benefit of the doubt.

the remake of charlie and the chocolate factory is, yes, officialy directed by tim burton and staring johnny depp. the original scared the CRAP out of me - i think if i ever met gene wilder ANYWHERE i would run away in terror - so i was none too thrilled to hear it was being remade. however, that it is going to come from the team that gave us all the greatest movie ever...well, let's just say that my excitement is starting to get the better of my bald-faced fear.

i was also happy to discover that jack black would be staring in lord jackson's remake of king kong, along with adrien brody and naomi watts. although i admit to haveing a bit of a "what the fuck" moment when i first discovered jack's comming involvement in this film, after a bit of thought, i decided i liked it. jack black is, in my opion, a great actor and a hilarious man, but he always plays the same roles - chiefly because i think that, much like jim carrey, he tends to get typecast as the crazy funny man. although he will undoubtedly be somewhat crazy, as well as funny, in king kong - i'm not familiar with the orignal film, or the character, but greg says that apparently he'll be a somewhat harold ziddler-esque ringleader sort of man - it's nice to see him making a film that won't be classified as comedy. it took jim along time to break out of the typecasting, and it's good to see that it might not take jack quite so long.

while technically this is not an upcomming movie, as the film is, i believe, already out or is, at any rate, finished, i wanted to mention garden state. why should you go see this movie? it has zach braff in it. who is zach braff? go fuck yourself, you uncultured moron. he is, in fact, argueably the star of scrubs, probably one of the best new shows (and by new, i mean they are still making new episodes) on television. honestly, i haven't seen this movie yet myself - only read about it in the premiere sundance article and seen previews for it preceeding...um, probably eternal sunshine, but it could have been hellboy.

speaking of which!

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
is this the best movie i've seen this year? is it? hmmm...let's see...yes. yes it is.
jim carrey has been one of my favorite actors for a long time. partly (ok, a large part) because of dorky, stupid movies like ace ventura, but also because i've alway known, deep in my heart of hearts, that he can actually do other stuff too. previous exibit a: the truman show, and exibit b: man on the moon. so of couse it did my heart good to learn that he was working with charlie kaufman, the mad genius, and michel gondry, the...um...other man genius, i guess. this film delivered in such a way that i have difficulty describing it. i'll put it this way: there have been only two films in the past...year or so, that i've been jumping-in-my-seat-as-they-started excited about that have acutally paid off in such a way that i left the theatre going "wow, that was ever better than i'd hoped." one of these films was return of the king. the other one was eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. why did i like this film so much, and why was it so good? several reasons. i'll begin with love.

it seems like hollywood has two general attitudes toward love: a) love is pretty, nice, and always works out, in the totally unrealistic way. b) love is something that we have to suffer through, in order to get to the Good Stuff (sex). the first one is nice, but we all know, down in our heart of hearts, that it's total bullcrap, and the second one is just, well, depressing. eternal sunshine breaks the love mold here. you certianly can't catagorize the love between joel and clementine as a). it is nice alot of the time, and pretty in its own way, and i know that i watched them and was like "wow, that's pretty cool. i wouldn't mind have a relationship like theirs." at least some of the time. on the other hand, although they're got their problems - including erasing one another from their memories - they still never seem to act like they are suffer through love - they are suffering becasue love is something worth suffering FOR. an important distinction. i won't go into too much detail, becuase i don't want to give away too much, but kaufman managed to write in a sense of the transcendance of love. not in the sense the it "transcends social boundries", or some shit like that, but that it is something that it is, in a way, greater than ourselves, only in a warming and comforting sort of way. it made me feel good about life.

from the filmmaker's perspective, there is certianly alot to love here as well. some of this i, perhaps, only notice because i recall reading of it in premiere, but the fact the gondry does nearly all the "special effects" on set, rather than in post, lends a certian sense of reality to the film. for instance, when joel and clemintine are running around in his mind, trying to hide from the erasing technitians, a bright spotlight follows them, as if someone is looking in. or, how joel can't go past where his memories end; he tries to follow clemintine down a street, but keeps ending up back in the same place in such a way that it isn't gimmiky but rather surreal and dream-like. the use of sound is also quiet well-done here; i think my favorite had to be as joel's memory of watching a drive-in movie from the other side of a fence is erased - the noises from the car and fence as they are taken apart make the scene that much more immersive. the subtleties also added a great deal to the film - the blank books in the bookstore as it's erased, the massive size of the cookies to baby joel, etc, etc. all in all, masterfully done.

so, if you haven't gone out to see this film, you now have no excuse, as i've told you it's the best movie out right now. there's no reason to spend your money on anything else, so just go see it, NOW. you won't regret it.


hellboy
the best part of the movie was ron perlman.
that's not to say the rest of it sucked total balls, but without him...well, it would have been a sad, sad shame.
to be honest, however, this movie was not quite a mind-numbing great as i was hoping. there are probably many reasons for this. one, i was hoping for quite a godamn lot, and this movie probably would have been, literally, the greatest movie of all time had it lived up to my somewhat high expectations. two, it was adapted from a comic book, and not only that, but a comic book known for it's good short stories, not it's long, character-building story arcs. that's not to say it doesn't have character building, just that to attempt to sqeeze in so much of said developement into one story arc is...difficult. there are loads of characters whom we get the feeling we should know more abou; ilsa, kronen, and even rasputin and professor broom gave me the feeling that there was alot more to know about them, and that i probably won't get to find out about it, because they all died. which brings me to point three, which is too much death. not that i have a particular problem with death in movies, per se, just that too many important people died, and too quickly. they were given half-developed characters, and then killed off. it's like asking to borrow the car to drive to the movies, and having your parents say "ok, but you can only drive half-way there. then you've got to come back." even just saying "no, you can't go" would have been better. and of course point number four, the cheese. some of the lines in this movie made even me, one of the three co-writers of chiaman, blush. i mean, you'd think they'd be able to come up with something less generic that "remeber who you are!" i can, and do, write better things with my ass on a regular basis. this, however, is where the ron perlman factor comes into effect. some of the lines given to hellboy are so cheesy i was surprised to find them outside of the dairy section, but ron is able to infuse them with that special charm, and make me only twinge a little at their utterance, instead of going into convulstions. some lines cannot be saved - "second date, no tounge" - but others manage to squeak by, given the special perlman touch.

by far the best thing about this film was the settings, and the color. in fact, if i watched this movie with the dialouge off, i'd probably love it to death. the colors, especially the red of hellboy, which is richer than really badass fudge. the settings are, literally, like something out of a comic book, and all the more beautiful for it. rasputin's graveyard is especially delightful, with the thick snowflakes and ancient massive russian tombs and gavemarkers. if there is one reason to see this movie, this is it. screw eye candy - this is fucking eye lindor truffles.

sadly, the plot, like the dialogue which carries it, is somewhat lacking. it builds decently, but the climax is more of, well, an anti-climax. it seems far too easy, and then it just ends. honestly, it's this movie's plot developement was rather similar to what i imagine sex with me to be like. and, of course, there is the huge, jaring cut, which you will most certianly notice if you go. which, in fact, i reccomend you do. despite the fact that i've ripped it a new cornhole, hellboy is really not that bad of a film. it's certianly better than some of the other action movies that have come out lately, and it has a delicious occult flavor that is rather hard to find in this day and age.

that's all for now.

a god among men

every so often, i have dreams. or perhaps "fantasies" might be a better term: imaginings of a world, or things, beyond the norm. a brighter world. usually, this are merely the products of my wandering mind, never to be realized in any concrete form. not so for jiøí jirout. not so at all.
this man is, i daresay, Living The Dream. motivated by a reasonably simple desire - to have a piece of hardware in his car that would both play MP3s and provide navigation data - he has created a thing of beauty. this merging of machine and...um...ok, of machine and machine, is truely a wonder to behold. i can only hope that someday i can live up to this man's shinning example. i take heart from the fact that he has an alliterative name, as do i.
(i found the link to this article on gizmodo.)

BEST. SONG. TITLE. EVER.

The Palestinians Are Not the Same Thing as the Rebel Alliance, Jackass

thank atom. thank you, and your package. you truely have brought a light into my life that i thought only sex could bring. but this...this is like sex, only without the burning.

more from allison, our own little news feed

here.
be not afraid that this link comes from the ominous steak and cheese. neither should you fear when you see the title of this piece. for i assure you that is is of a most benign quality, and, indeed, warms the heart in a way that only men covered in bicycle horns can.

film at 11

several stories, courtesy of allison. not for the faint of heart.

woman performs own caesarean, without proper tools, anesthetic, etc.

for the girl who has everything.

this one's not quite so bad...well, ok, not really bad at all.
two year old works restaurant register. also, the credit card machine.

x versus y

this was originally a lowly comment, but it grew to such proportions that i felt i deserved to become a fully realized post. it pertains to several of the hypothetical arguments kyle has raised as a proxy for this "nick." our ongoing discussion on, specifically, pirates v ninjas can be found in the comments on his post. my addressing of the other possible pairings follows:

(in respose to pike's comment that mario would own sonic's ass, which is BLATANTLY STUPID)
maybe mario can throw fireballs, but they travel at a speed of Too Damn Slow, which will never catch sonic, and he can travel faster than the speed of Holy Fucking Shit That's Fast.
plus, sonic is a HEDGEHOG, eats chili dogs, and routinely fights ROBOTS. ROBOTS, man!
while i'm at it, i'll just give my take on the rest of these match-up:

zombies v. vampires:
although to accurately anwser this one, one would need to know what kind of vampires we were talking about - i.e., anne rice-style, nosferatu-style, etc - and what kind of zombies - speedy, day of the dead-type or shambling, classical-type - were concerned, i agree with you, kyle, that this would be awfully close. zombies have the clear advantage of numbers, and, generally, some somewhat faster turn-around in conversion that vampires do. also, they just have to bite and move on, while the process for vampires is generally somewhat more involved. vampires are indeed more intelligent, but have several weaknesses that do not plauge the shambling undead - most importantly, a universal allergy to sunligh. therefore, should the zombie manage to hold out for the night, once the day broke, victory would be easy: march into the vampire hideout and bring the filthy bloodsuckers out into the sunlight. so, zombies win, but the events of the preceeding night could change the course of this battle.

mogols v. viking
i pretty much go with kyle here. the vikings are pretty damn cool, but they just can't compete with the mogols VERY inpressive track record. so the win goes to the mongols, but the vikings get bonus points for having a cool way to dispose of their dead.

eagle v. bear
again, i go with kyle. the eagle clearly has the advantage, especially assuming we are talking about the bald variety. i believe their wingspan is something like ten of fifteen feet. for those of you who don't quite grasp how big that is, it's godamn HUGE. they are BIGASS birds, you just don't realize it becuase they're always far away. and of course, as kyle pointed out, they can fly. bears are notoriously earthbound.

sonic v. mario
i've already discussed this, but i'll recap: faster than fireballs, hedgehog, chili dogs, robots. so i go with kyle here. sonic by a mile.

crips v. al-quaeda
i think i'd have to go with kyle again here, unless it came down to a rumble, or a dance-fight, in which case the crips will be ALL OVER THE PLACE, and al-queada will be toast.

a naked man v. a adult female deer
this is an interesting one, but i would have to go with the female deer, for several reasons.
for one, most men, unless they are rob, or similarly confertable with their annoying perfect bodies, or are like old man crenshaw, and just don't fucking care, nakedness makes one feel vulnerable. this would be a drawback in a fight.
second, in this day and age, a naked man is really pretty close to defenseless, unless he knows some sort of martial art, streetfighting, or just works out - none of which have been provided for in this situation. therefore, the advantage, again, goes to the deer.
thirdly, deer are really pretty big animals, especially when they have digivolved to their final form: Adult. this, of course, gives the deer the obvious advantage of size.
lastly, but most importantly, the deer has something most humans do not: CLOVEN HOOVES. this gives the deer a built-in, reasonably powerful weapon in the battle against Naked Man. his soft, yielding flesh would be easily pierced by deadly deer-feet.
therefore, i would have to go with adult female deer as the final and ultimate victor is this fight, by a large margin.

this link is a conversation between myself and the esteemable pike, on the subjects of sonic v. mario, sony v. nintentdo, and knuckles v. EVERYONE, amoung other things. i felt it pertinent. you can decide for yourself if you think there were winners and loosers here, but really, we both won and lost, since neither one chanced his opinion on anything.

yes, it's a cake

i rather hope my wedding is something like this.

penny arcade, but from japan

those of you who read PA on a regular basis have undoubtedly seen this already, but for those of you who don't, you certianly deserve to be exposed to it. basically, some guy (or possibly girl, i supose - i didn't check. i guess i just kind of assumed a girl wouldn't do this sort of thing...) who teaches in japan decided to blank out the word bubbles on select penny arcade comics, and then get their japanese highschool students to fill in the bubbles with their own broken but endearing english. as for the inadvertant - or perhaps intentional - humor created by these kids...let's just say that it's a good thing i have masterful bowel control, or my family would be looking into a new computer chair.

blogger is on its way out

it's about quarter to four, or four depending on whether you ask the computer of my cell phone, and i've spent the last six hours or so tweaking php code to prepare for a massive moving-over of the program we use to update this site. you can expect the acutal change around the time i get back to school, and consequently back to my good equipment. i have this hagging feeling there was something specific i meant to convey in this post, but i'm tired enough right now that my thought are having difficult remaining continuous. so i appologize.
one thing, though: one of the new features viewable to the public with be a sidebar with links. if you have a site you think we should link to (i.e., yours), post it in the comments, and you can leech off some of the tremendous traffic bens pants.

the boy from HELL

topher and i have just made plans to go see hellboy friday night at 12:45 at ninth strett cinemas. anyone who wants to is welcome to join us. it will be excellent.

and speaking of hellish, allison just sent me this. jesus.

it only rains twice

gloating it may seem, but i can assume that i gloat not when i tell you that i have had a simply wonderful day today. there is nothing in particular that stands out about it, but as hank scorpio once said, "it's the little things that make up life."
how true.
i began my day with the customary indescision: i had five hours of sleep. did i want to go to german, and perhaps dance as well? fortunatly for myself and my academic future, the anwser today was a "yes." german went as normal, but in dance, i discovered myself not sucking quite as hard as usual and our new combination (of moves). heartened, i then actually INITIATED conversation with another memember of my class, a quite strapping young lad with nice shoulders and freckles. a conversation, even, about KUNG FU, which lead to shaolin soccer, and a few good words exchanged with my dance instructor, who also happened into the room whilst my athletic companion and i were conversing. hearted by this sucessful breaking of my shell, i proceeded to return home, and finagle php script into the begining stages of a (somewhat) major bens pants update/change, comming sometime in the future. however, the crowning moment of this day of days, the coup de grace, if you will, was the discovery upon leaving cinematography that it was RAINING, thus affording me a fifteen minute walk home in that most delightful of airbourne waters. this can only get better, as in a little bit i am going to a dinner hosted by the gay/lesbian/bisexual/straight alliance with the truly teriffic marina, and then to anime club.
i tell you about this day of mine that you may, someday, have one of your own, and share the joy i now know. rejoyce, for even though last night's south park sucked, there is yet good in the universe.