Ghostbusters by Improv Everywhere

It's been a while, check out lowcharismaparty.com for our latest endeavors. I think you should check this link out while you'r at it

ImprovEverywhere

Film and Podcast...

I came across a pretty cool podcast I thought you cellulose motherfuckers might like:

http://creativescreenwritingmagazine.blogspot.com/ check it out, interviews about the screen writing process and how the big boys do it. I haven't checked out the magazine yet, but I may give you guys an update later when I do.

:-D. Ahvakana

360 ways to X my BOX

The story:

I have an XBOX360. I play games on my XBOX360. I download game content on my XBOX360. I find the gaming experience of my XBOX360 coupled with my rear HD projector a fantastic joy. My room is a frick'n cinema, and I get to play gears of war in that cinema. after downloading the free game content for most of my games, as well as a couple moderatly priced Guitar Hero III packs, I decided to try out the HD aspect of my projector on somthing more than games, my first HD movie.

I am one of thoes guys that waits for the format wars to be over before commiting to any one format. Hell, I had a hard time switching to DVD until the price came WAY down. so I did not purchase the HD extention for my XBOX360. I figured the nature of an external player sugested that microsoft was keeping their options open, and that if BlueRay did indeed win-out that I'd have the option of buying a BlueRay player for my XBOX360 (Have you noticed i like typing XBOX360 :) alas it looks as tho I may be waiting a long time. So in the interrum I thought I'd try 'renting' an HD movie over Marketplace, XBOX360's online content store. What should be my first HD movie? It must take advantage of all the visual candy HD has to offer, I'VE GOT IT! Appleseed ExMachina!

So I don't have quite enough micro$oft to rent the movie, so I pump it up with my credit card and download the movie... It takes TWO DAYS! Yes, mostly because of my shitty WiFi. OK, so it's not really MS' fault. So I paitiently wait for the end of the weekend, sunday rolls along and I can Finally watch my movie, Only I can't watch my movie...

So I've sat and thought about this, in an effort not to jump to any hasty conclusions driven by emotion alone. My anger at the time was palpable, it tasted like bile and gingerbeer. And god help me, I think I pouted for about five seconds. Of course I wasn't going to take this sitting down on the couch, I went to take it sitting down in front my computer. After failing to find a contact number for assistance, I hit the forums, searched for my problem, couldn't find it, searched for an email address/help form to fill out, couldn't find THAT, then gave up and played with my microcontroller.

My conclusion/assumtion of the problem is that my wifi crapped out at some integral moment when my movie was downloading its last few bits, thus disallowing it to finish downloading the last few bits or play without thoes last few bits. so i have a heaping pile of useless data that i've payed money for (not for the first time, but at least my other heaping piles worked). I would dare say this should NOT happen, it should be allowed to finish downloading or at LEAST be allowed to re-download a broken file! But what does this really mean to you? Why blog about it? Am I just whining? no. I'm telling you this so you understand when I say:

XBOX360's HD content delivery is not robust enough to compete with solid state HD data storage (eg BlueRay).

So MS, I would reccomend you either license out a third party Blueray player for the XBOX360 or beef-up your 'Marketplace' a whole-fuck-of-a-lot . But i gotta warn you, once bitten twice shy; and that movie rental bit me in the ass.

8½ stars

Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) was a recent vidi from netflix. and I must say it's rather good. I have only seen three Fellini films, two within the last month. Notti di Cabiria, Le (1957) {the other film I saw this month by Fellini} seems to have a great deal in common with 8½, both are movies about people who feel helpless in their profession and life. Both struggle with the seeming chaotic events that sweep them up and with them to an ultimately life changing decision. While Le Notti di Cabiria takes a slightly religious turn, 8½ is humanistic in it's decisions and action. Marcello Mastroianni does an excellent job portraying a director faced with indecision from the film he is trying to make, to his love life. Financial, emotional and social forces are all evenly balanced so the story doesn't fall into being another film about the making of a movie (which i am TIRED of, and the industry seems to love, movies about movies and movie-stars, and plays about plays and actors) instead the movie is about a man faced with a series of tough decisions and circumstances that have been incubated in his indecision and have now come to fruition.

Fellini's dream sequences are famous, but I'm not a huge fan of dream seqences because to do them as Fellini does you must lie to the audience to make them believe, as the character does, that it is real until it becomes too fantastic and it revealed to be a dream. Fellini and other directors pull this off successfully because the dreams are so important to the character's experience it almost doesn't matter if it's a dream or reality, the situation effects the character's decisions. Michel Gondry takes this to the extreme, almost doing away with reality altogether but keeping a semblance of it around to poke fun at and structure his story around. Fellini leaves out the stuffed horses, but still makes the dreams in this film just as important to Guido (the main character) as his waking life.

Between the two films i've seen it seems Fellini has a wonderful grasp at portraying the human experience in all it's complexities. That is what makes 8½ a good movie, the complexity in not only the responses to the driving conflict but the complexity in the conflict itself. Making the disparate parts of the conflict work together to a common climax. I am an official Mastroianni fan after seeing his great preformance in this film, and am going to check out some more of his movies soon.

El Orfanato, a spoonful of sugar...

So just to warn you right off there may be a spoiler, and it may be a bit of a Guillermo fest.

The Orphanage, produced by Guillermo del Toro, directed by Juan Bayona. Right off you can surmise why Guillermo would produce a ghost story taking place in an orphanage. If Guillermo had directed this movie I would have started off skeptical because he's already coved that ground in Devil's Backbone. However I can see why he produced it and, if I'm not mistaken, can see his influence (either direct or otherwise) in this movie. Not that I am a Guillermo expert, I've only seen three of his fantastic movies. A definite style prevails in his movies tho, simple stories with complex intertwining themes that marry fantasy with reality. I will have to check out Bayona's other movies and see if his style is indeed that similar to Guillermo's.

El Orfanato seems to progress smoothly taking you through the story, not forcing you to assume the course of events to try to set up a surprise twist (Re. 6th sense) ending, but giving you both sides at the same time. You naturally assume the supernatural safe in you comfy seat, but if you were experiencing these things the storyline gives you and the supporting characters an 'out.' setting up the tension beautifully. The action progresses in an unpredictable but undeniable way, progressing in ways I didn't expect (eg typical horror tropes) but once there it seemed the natural progression of things.

all in all a great movie, one that makes me wish more new material would come out in broad release in the states.

Film Making

So among you readers, I'm sure there is at least one burgeoning
filmmaker out there (I know because the only other reader is max :-). I thought it would be cool to use this post as a seed for any comments or suggestions you readers (max) might have for other (hypothetical) readers out there as far as resources on the web for a beginning filmmaker. Pod casts, stock video sources, software recommendations, etc. Basically a place to start for those wide-eyed beginners that have yet to budget out their first script and saddle up to investors with the promise of stinking-rich money.

So to get the ball rolling i recommend you check out the filmmakingcentral podcast, it gives a kind of 'one mans perspective' to film making. I would recommend you go to the site except the podcast page says you have to sign in to get the podcast?! (Edit: He has the wimpy player on the front page that has all of the pod casts, why it's not on the podcast page... who knows.)I don't want to get into a web design tangent so we'll leave it at 'look for it on your podcast aggregator.'

A book that the Film Making Central guy (David Basulto) recommends that looks pretty cool is "The DV Rebel's Guide." I've picked it up but have yet to browse through it. Perhaps I'll do a more in-depth review later on, but the dust cover is pretty compelling provided your the type who likes jumping into the nitty-gritty of your projects. Another book "Make Your Own Damn Movie!: Secrets of a Renegade Director" By Lloyd Kaufman is an entertaining read, and provides some good tips on making low/no budget films (my favourite tip is never do a casting interview alone with an actor when there is nudity involved, unlike the B-movies your making - nothing good can come of it. learn from Lloyd's mistake :-)

So feel free to leave your comments with suggestions to the newbies (me included).

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

I have been catching up on my anime and animation in general for about two years now. Seeing movies and shows that are on 'must see' lists. Thank Krom for Netflix. Hopping back and forth through the time line of Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli's productions I've found that I love these guys. Their work trails often into the steampunk realm even includes blimps and airships, kickass! So going into this flick I was not pessimistic about the amount of entertainment i would receive from watching it, and I was not disappointed.

Setting: It has been a millennium since a global war known as the "Seven Days of Fire" destroyed human civilization. Only a tiny remnant of humanity survives, huddled in small enclaves across the continents. The Fukai, a thick jungle whose spores and plant life are poisonous to humans, covers much of the Earth's surface.

This early (cir. 1984 CE) Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli production is the fruit born of the sci-fi cartoons of the 1970's. It's a fantastic story that I found worthwhile, and the world shown to us is totally different from the world of 'today' and looks alien. It is evident that Miyazaki took full advantage of animations distinct ability to be totally alien from live action. You can see the early makings of the Miyazaki style in this film but it is distinctly it's own.The english dub (done in 2003) is great and I'm glad Disney got Patrick Stewart and Alison Lohman they did a great job, as did Luke Skywalker. Uma Thurman was ... well, Uma. (*Jumping the tracks*) I've never been a fan of Uma's acting I think she looks great, can certainly do action scenes and beauty shots but I have always thought her emoting has been at the level of Keanu Reeves. Which poses a problem when, in animation, all you have is your emotion. (*back on track*) Overall this is a great movie and, unlike some anime movies, didn't seem episodic; but a story unto itself.