Were it not for Slowdive’s Just for a Day, I wouldn’t being doing these Shoegazer Sunday posts in the first place. Poking around YouTube, there seems to be a lot more Slowdive songs that never made it onto their three studio albums than I realized. “Losing Today,” a sad, echoey, moody piece perfect for teenage girls to mope around to on cold, rainy days, is off their Blue Day compilation album.
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s “Losing Today”
November 25th, 2012Movie Review: Vampire Effect
November 24th, 2012Vampire Effect
Directed by Dante Lam and Donnie Yen
Written by Hing-Ka Chan and Wai Lun Ng
Starring Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Edison Chen, Jackie Chan, Mickey Hardt
If you like Hong Kong supernatural martial arts films, you’ll probably enjoy Vampire Effect (AKA Twins Effect, since the two female leads are evidently in the same pop band). Modern-day vampire hunter gets cute new partner who clashes with his cute sister, who just happens to be dating an Emo vampire prince whose essence a vampire king wants to eat to unlock a vampire grimoire. Martial arts ensue.
You know, the usual.
Jackie Chan has an extended supporting role that’s pretty much unnecessary, except you get to see Jackie Chan fight vampires. He’s third-billed and gets about 15 minutes of screen time, so it doesn’t even make Top Ten Most Dishonest Uses of Jackie Chan’s Name on the DVD Cover list. (I’m looking at you, Drunken Fist Boxing.)
This hasn’t gotten great reviews, and it’s not a patch on the best work in the genre by the late, great Ching-Ying Lam. The romance subplot drags a bit. The pace and style of the film does rip off the Blade movies…which in turn were ripping off Hong Kong action films, which ripped off everything they could lay their hands on, so par for the course. But it’s funny, and the action scenes work, which is pretty much all I ask as a threshold for enjoyment for this kind of film.
The “sequel” Twins Effect II is evidently a historical martial arts epic with much of the same cast, but none of the same characters.
Supposedly the American DVD (I saw it on-demand) has some scenes chopped that hinder the continuity. When it comes to Hong Kong action films, continuity does not rank high on my list of requirements. I saw the version with lots of martial arts.
Disasters of Event Planning
November 21st, 2012November 16 next year, there will be a UT home football game (against OSU) and a Formula One race in Austin on the same weekend.
What could possibly go wrong?
The biggest winner? Hotel and motel owners in Bastrop.
If you plan on attending either of these events, you might want to make your reservations now…
Mythbusters Public Service Announcement: Avoid Dropping Frozen Turkeys
November 21st, 2012Another Thanksgiving-related Public Service announcement: Try to avoid dropping a frozen turkey on your foot or your pets. You know, just in case you were planning on doing that for grins. At the very least you might want to wear shoes when you pull that sucker out of the freezer.
From the title, I was hoping they would recreate the turkey drop episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, but no such luck.
William Shatner Would STILL Like You To Avoid Setting Yourself on Fire
November 20th, 2012Just as I did last year, I bring you a public service announcement from William Shatner: try not to set yourself on fire while frying a turkey:
For those with low Shatner thresholds, the advice is:
If you’re going to fry a turkey, this is pretty sound advice.
And now, new for this year: The remix!
And remember: It can even happen to professionals, as last year Sambet’s Cajun Cafe managed to burn themselves down frying turkeys.
Shoegazer Sunday: The Emerald Down’s “Sometime the Sun Shines”
November 18th, 2012Here’s The Emerald Down’s “Sometime the Sun Shines” off their Aquarium album. It starts out sounding a bit like Nirvana’s “All Apologies” (no bad thing), but then shifts more firmly into Shoegaze territory.
The Cthulhu Mythos, Played for Laughs
November 17th, 2012Dwight and I were watching episodes of Night Gallery, and in addition to the extremely good “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar” (with a fine turn by the late William Windom), we also watched “The Last Lecture of Mr. Peabody,” in which a professor of comparative religion lectures on The Great Old Ones, including reading aloud from the Necronomicon, with somewhat predictable results. The Mythos is mostly played for laughs and in-jokes (including students named Lovecraft, Bloch and Derleth), but it may be the first time the name Cthulhu was ever mentioned on network television.
It’s a little broad, but it does have its charms:
The episode was written by Jack Laird, who seems to have adapted a number of Lovecraft stories for Night Gallery.
A deeper appreciation (and the nifty following screen grab) can be found here.
Ruin: A Cool Looking (And Completely Stupid) SF Short Film
November 17th, 2012So I stumbled across this short, very professional looking CGI animated science fiction film on YouTube:
What a rich, zesty collection of illogical stupidity!
- You want to loot possibly valuable artifacts. What’s the best way to do that? Toss containers out of tall buildings!
- Why? To open them up? Why not just use the cuts anything electric sword you whip out later in the film?
- Why did you park your motorcycle out in the open where you had to run a long distance to it when the scary twin turbo fan hunting craft comes flying in? Shouldn’t you have tried to hide it nearby in the first place?
- If that thing just wants to kill you, why doesn’t it fire its machine gun or drones at you when it first sees you, rather than waiting until you get on your motorcycle?
- How come those futuristic seeker drones can’t travel any faster than a motorcycle?
- Why doesn’t a craft with expensive, ineffective drones not have cheaper, simpler, much faster and more-effective surface-to-ground missiles?
- If you’re flying along on your motorcycle at top speed, how come your gimme cap never flies off?
- You know that scene when you jump off your motorcycle and jab the craft with your electric sword? Unless you’ve got a cyborg body, you just broke a whole mess of bones. Momentum doesn’t just stop working so you can pull off a deeply improbable, cool-looking stunt.
To quote the South Park episode with Michael Bay: “Those aren’t ideas, those are special effects!” “I can’t tell the difference.” “We know.”
Hey Wes Ball: Your animation rocks, but you suck as a screenwriter. Maybe in addition to all those animation and sound guys you credit, you might want to hire an actual writer.
They’re supposedly making this into a feature film. Hopefully they’ll remove some of the stupidity.
Armadillocon 2011 Pictures Redux
November 16th, 2012Poking around some old posts, I noticed that some pictures from more than a year ago weren’t showing up. Turns out it’s because Facebook likes to completely change the name for pictures every now and then.
My process for putting up con pictures is:
- Take pictures.
- Upload to Mac.
- Do a quick edit in iPhoto.
- Bulk upload to Facebook.
- Copy URLs for JPEG’s from Facebook and reference them from the blog post.
This method is quick, easy, and hosts pics on Facebook’s dime. The downside is the Facebook rejiggering, and having to go back every now and then and redo the links.
Anyway, I’ve gone in and changed all the URLs for my Armadillocon 2011 pictures:
I’m sure there are some other blog posts with pics that need updating, and I’ll get to those in My Copious Free Time.
John Picacio Launches 2013 Calendar Kickstarter
November 14th, 2012Newly Hugo-minted artist and all-around good guy John Picacio has launched a Kickstarter for his 2013 art calendar. Actually, he launched it October 29, and it’s already met the initial goal, I’ve just been too backlogged with Other Stuff to put up a note until now.
Anyway, I’m sure it will be a swell calendar, and you still have until November 28 to get in before the Kickstarter closes.