Toadsoup

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More hand drawn robots and dinosaurs than yesterday.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine… Did I really just watch that?

May 3rd, 2009

The latest Wolverine movie just came out.  This time they didn’t beat around the bush. After making three movies about him,the finally put his name in the title.

As the name implies, X-Men Origins Wolverine is all about his early days as a lovable young mutant with slight rage issues, wicked chops, and a strange set of values and morals.

XMen Origins: Wolverine  SNICK SNICK!

XMen Origins: Wolverine SNICK SNICK!

Wolverine IV wasn’t as good as Wolverine I. Which makes it not nearly as good as Wolverine II. I’m not quite sure how it compares to ‘Wolverine III: The Last Stand.’ I suppose it must have been better, considering that my eyes didn’t bleed in this one and aneurysms were kept to a minimum.

Admittedly my knowledge of comic books is quite limited. And if I tell you anything about anything, it’s clearly because I saw it in a movie. I am a total poser in this realm. Although I suppose posers pretend to care. I couldn’t care less about comic books. My knowledge on the subject can be easily surpassed by glancing over a page or two of Wikipedia.

That said, Wolverine is the next James Bond.

People care about the little guy. He doesn’t know who he is and he’s really mad about it. In Wolverine IV, you get to find out all about his past. To bad he won’t remember any of it.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Wolverine as a musical. These guys did a great job with this bit.

Wolverine The Musical

Go see the movie. It’s not the greatest Xmen movie, but it’s not a bad one.

Brandi Carlile… Did I really just watch that?

April 22nd, 2009

The singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is currently on tour and she stopped by the Wilma Theater here in Missoula Montana.  My fiance is a fan of her music and picked up a good number of tracks on iTunes.  Anyways we picked up a couple of tickets for the show.

For someone so small, she packs in a lot of rock.  I mean there is a LOT of nonstop rock.  I went into the show expecting a couple of girly/country tunes with some emotions strapped on.

Brandi Carlile band

Brandi Carlile band

While some of this music did exist Brandi, her twin brothers, and some funky little dude on the cello were on a mission to kick out the jams.  They certainly did.  The group also went into a cover of Radiohead’s Creep, and a couple of Johny Cash songs.  There was a ukulele brought out to rock for a song.  A song unplugged from the amps and microphones thrilled a cooperating audience.

It was a great show.  I recommend that you give the show a chance if you get a chance.  It was a really great live performance.  They did a better live show than when ‘They Might Be Giants’ came through town.

Monsters Vs. Aliens … did I really just watch that?

March 28th, 2009

The latest Dreamworks animation just came out “Monsters vs. Aliens”  and for some reason I decided to go.  If you are looking to waste a chunk of change, perhaps you should burn it before seeing this movie.  Perhaps it wasn’t THAT BAD.  I do remember going to the Simpsons Movie in theater as well.

Monsters Vs Aliens

The script was absolutely terrible.  The characters were flat.  Every single line in the movie was cheesy.  The story was boring.  There was no tension in the movie.    There were one or two good gags in the movie, but certainly not enough to justify an hour and a half.

And there were five people making the screenplay?  Furthermore there are two more people credited as story writers?  This goes to show two things.

  1. Committees cannot write good movies.
  2. Anyone can get a job as a screenwriter.  What recession?

The most disappointing part about this movie is how good DreamWorks did on Kung Fu Panda last year.  I really thought they were going to be setting the bar a little bit higher after seeing what a GOOD movie can do for them.

This movie is in 3d, which is cool because the theater gets to charge an extra 3 bucks per person for silly looking glasses.  If only the theater would be optimized for that technology.  I’m sure that the 3d picture is better in other places where they have a decent sized screen and actually turn down the sidelights during the movie.

In the very first scene of the movie there was a 3d gimmick done only to remind you that you were watching a 3d movie.  A paddleball was done into the camera.  How clever!  Good thing I have these stupid glasses.

I really hate getting ripped off from bad movies.  The best part of this movie was the trailer for the new Pixar movie.

Remember when the internet was fun?

March 5th, 2009

I stumbled across this little Youtube video, and it is fun.  It’s really weird, but that used to be what made the internet so different from real life.  Now there are so many weird things online and everything is trying to outweird everything else.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oscar Contender or Just Great Movie? Australia

December 7th, 2008
Australia directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman

Australia directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman

The epic feel good movie of they year… Well, that might not be exactly true, but it certainly was a great movie.  I hope it does well in the theaters. This movie deserves it.The movie is about a gal who goes down to Australia to get a little cattle outpost ‘Faraway Downs’ sold off.  Of course she finds corruption and tries to stamp it out along the way.  In doing so, she isolates her little community and is now stuck with a huge herd of cattle that are hundreds of miles from Darwin.  The town on to the north that needs cattle to feed the troops going into WWII.

She finds Hugh Jackman, and convinces his character to be the master drover and have one heck of a cattle drive.  As expected, they drink and kiss each other.  Ick!

At the town of Darwin, there is one hell of a bombing.  Japan decided that their little stunt at Pearl Harbor wasn’t good enough, so the fleet moves south and decimates this little one horse town.

In the interest of letting you watch the movie for yourself I won’t talk very much more about the details.

While the film was a big epic romance/adventure/drama/action/coming of age story, it didn’t take itself so seriously as I had expected.  There wasn’t needless drama just for the sake of having tension and the movie almost seemed to mock those moments.  But when the drama was needed, it certainly pulled it’s own weight.  In these respects I think it can be compared to ‘Gone With the Wind.’

Another similarity the two movies have is the effective use of swearing.  While most movies today curse left and right Australia refrained from any swearing until a very emotionally charged and appropriate moment.  It was nice to see it used for emphasis, rather than part of a regular vocabulary.

At points the cinematography was a little jarring as the camera moved around in unusual patterns, but once getting used to the style it really adds a unique feel to the flick.

But with all of that, the question still remains… Who is the real king?  King Carne or King George?

In the future…

April 23rd, 2008

In the future robots will bring you medicine.  Robots will tell you what is funny.  Robots will be programmed for love.  It’s always the humans who mess things up.  The technology is not stupid, you humans are.