Ultra slow ultra runner; Election loser; Eating contest winner; Doting father; Sometime: Podcaster; Filmmaker; Biz starter.
* UPDATE: The video was taken down by YouTube, I’ll see if I have it cached in the office – if so, I’ll put up a copy somewhere that isn’t run by damn fools.
Spore hasn’t been released yet, but a Spore creature creator has, and people are being delightfully creative. This one, entitled “WHAT THE HELL OH GOD” is my favourite one so far.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aJY9iAD1rw[/youtube]
The Zohan is Mossad, Ben Brown is the Internet Rockstar. But which is which? I suspect not even their own mothers know anymore. (Ben is the hot one.)
A cheapskate little gutter philosopher is having a hard time getting $20 out of an ATM, so he stumbles into a bank where he gets caught up in a heist.
Apart from the horrible writing, bad acting, and dreadful direction, this is an awful movie that should be avoided at all costs.
Oh I said “apart from”? No, that’s really all there is to this one.
We did.
The first feature film from New Zealand writer/actor/director Andy Conlan.
We meet and follow sympathetic and tragically flawed Ronny Roman (Conlan) — a magician so badly hurt by the infidelity of his former partner and stage assistant, that he weaves a world of magical make-believe around himself – as long as he believes he’s a magician with eerie dark powers, he doesn’t have to face up to the pain of betrayal — while he tries to get his life back on track.
Unfortunately his scumbag manager (a convincingly slimy Michael Hurst) isn’t doing much to help, but his scumbagness does have the accidental benefit of tricking our Ronny into an unpaid gig in a hospice where we meet our delightfully quirky love interest, in the beguiling form of Nurse Sarah (newcomer Georgie Hill), a girl with serious germ issues – she boils bottled water, “just in case” – and a heart with a Ronny Roman shaped hole in it.
Of course while life and love happen around him, Ronny is so distracted by his efforts to make a come-back TV magic show appearance – and his own hidden pain – that he might miss his chance at happiness and love. And lots of games of night time mini golf, if you know what I mean. (I mean mini golf played at night.)
Featuring one of the most surreal umbrella fight scenes between a fry cook in a wifebeater and a dapper gentleman in a top hat ever to be caught on film.
There’s a lot of wonderful weirdness to be had here, which makes for some great laughs and an enjoyable film. Support our fledgling local independent film industry, go see it tonight – at Rialto cinemas nationwide.
I got an email from my bank, only it’s a bank I’ve never been a customer of, and the To: address was one of my old business contact addresses (and never used to register for anything). So in that second before succumbing to the inevitability of hitting the ‘Report phishing’ button, I took the time to roll over the link.
I know some of the Kiwibank branches aren’t exactly flash, but they’re running them out of car washes now? So, seriously, what is it with these people? And how can this sort of inept scam still work?
Question mark.
People stupid enough to fall for trickery this transparent could be weeded out by a simple 3 step test and … steps taken.
Step 1 – Instructions: “If you click the link below we will forward your details to terrorists. If you wish to proceed without being exploded to death by an Irishman, do anything other than clicking the link below.”
Step 2 – Provide a link: “Click here if you want to be murdered using haphazardly constructed explosives.”
Step 3 – Murder anyone who clicks the link. (Or if you’re feeling generous switch the ‘CustomerIsAnIdiot’ field of the database to True.)
On the set of our 48Hours short film. That camera was a hell of a thing.
Photo by Dylan Reeve, used without permission.
Robert Redford’s piercing blue eyes are piercing. And blue. (Damn but that’s a hot man right there.)
Tom Cruise plays the very special brand of crazy he’s so gosh darned good at. (See his clever take-off of religious psychos in the form of the recently released $cientology parody video for another example – what do you mean that wasn’t a parody? — Fine, but he’s playing the same kind of crazy-eyed role here. He really is a very good actor, braincrazy or not.)
Michael Peña, though, helped make this movie much more appealing to me. He has such warmth about his screen presence. I reckon he helped make Shooter as well.
The story is two angles of the same story (and two threads of one of those angles), with a political science prof (Redford) talking to a promising but underachieving young student, while two former students of his (Peña & the very good Derek Luke) are on a mission in Waronterroristan, and at the same time a Senator (Cruise) dishes about his new military strategy to a longserving journalist (Meryl Streep), the same military strategy that has dictated the mission the boys are on.
The movie felt short, like it wasn’t even really a movie at all. Like it was a one shot TV special or something. These hour and a half movies just don’t taste right to me.
And yet, it was still very good. (Even if the ending left something to be desired.)
(Parenthesis.)
Indy is back after a hiatus roughly as long as Battlestar Galactica’s mid-season break.
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? More like Indiana Jones – Fight the Future, am I right?
By the way, if you don’t get that reference, don’t look it up – it’s a bit of a spoiler. Which I don’t think matters too terribly, because the whole movie stunk of foreshadowing. Indy’s enemy packs a sword, so when Indy’s sidekick The Kid mentions studying fencing at school, what were we meant to guess was coming? Here’s a hint, The Kid has a sword fight with her. Even with your eyes squeezed tight shut you’ll see them coming.
It was a fun movie and given the reviews, better than I expected. I think the reviews are mostly bad because it’s just so incredibly weird. But there you go.
I(ndy) Want to Believe.