Well looks like my time at Petro-Canada is coming to an end. I have mixed feelings but I guess that comes with change. I feel real good about going back to school. Something about learning is exciting to me, guess I’m a big nerd. Things should be good financially for us as I applied for more loans and I also received some pretty good scholarships.
I have also come to the conclusion that at this time in my life I can’t afford the things I have been accustomed to, like a lot of comics/movies/toys per month. Anyways looks like I better cut back and be more pragmatic when I decide to spend my much smaller amount of monthly money. So I decided to do more things that cost me less money.
Things that I want to do that costs less list.
• Trying out Guild Wars (because it’s basically free) this game is a couple of years old but I hear good things.
• Cut my comic spending by 2/3 =( (This ones going to hurt, but if I am smart I can still follow my current storyline, and I have a friend who almost buys the same comics as I)
• Download movies instead of renting (Granted I do this now but I shall continue)
• Go to less movies that I have to Pay for (I can’t wait for my friend Mike to come back from summer work)
• Organize a Board Game Night (BGN) A night for like minded people to get together and “geek out”
• Continue my quest for cool Web 2.0 apps and sites (Sites like Flickr and flixster)
That’s all the things I can think of right now. But more will most likely follow. Oh and I am listening to last.fm. This site is so consistently showing me great music you should check it out and be my friend.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
MOVIE REVIEW - BULLITT
Shoot Straight, Buckle up!
by Mark Hebert
One of my fondest memories as a child was the night my father, with a slight smile, came into my room while I was playing. He ushered me into the TV room and plopped me down in front of the television set. “You have to watch this son”, he said. “OK cool”, I thought. I was never aloud to watch TV at this time of night. I focused on the TV. I was shown a man in a big green car. He was sitting, calmly, in the driver’s seat. He was across the street from another vehicle. The other vehicle was a big and black, it had two stoned faced men inside that screamed “Bad Guys”. Now, I only was about ten at the time, but I think I knew what was to come. “See?” my dad said excitedly, “He just buckled his seat belt”. I looked on and smiled.
What came next, a car chase through the streets of 1968 San Francisco, is considered the best in movie history and wildly influenced the very definition of a “car chase” in all movies to follow. The movie was Bullitt, starring movie icon Steve McQueen. Throughout the story we were taken on the aforementioned car chase and… well … many other exciting chases. Steve McQueen played the role of Lieutenant Frank Bullitt. He was assigned to a case by politician Walter Chalmers, played by Robert Vaughn. We can safely say this didn’t work out well for Bullitt and an investigation ensued. Now, I want to point out the kind of character Bullitt was and how he got things done; he did things his way. One famous quote that Bullitt shares with Chalmers is “You work your side of the street, I’ll work mine” (Yates). Needless to say, they are not very fond of one another.
The chemistry that McQueen and Vaughn share together during their scenes is dynamite. This would be the second of three movies that they are in together. Steve McQueen can be considered one of the first action heroes of the mid twentieth century with many movies under his belt. He was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, but was also considered one of the toughest to work with, because he often had problems with directors and producers. In some ways, it seemed, McQueen was reflecting himself when playing the roll of Frank Bullitt.
The Director, Peter Yates, uses a lot of quiet scenes and close ups of Steve McQueen full of intense focus. This effect shows the dedication and intellect of the character. This is wildly different from the modern cop drama that actually has to tell us when they are playing “Good Cop, Bad Cop”. If you don’t know what I mean, go rent any 80’s-90’s cop buddy film to understand. Unlike these films, Bullitt assumes the audience is getting “it” without having to tell us, and for that it shows intelligence generally lost to the genre.
I do not want to harp too much on the films of today, but it seems that they lack the skill and the inventiveness of filming without post-production editing (i.e. Computer graphics) that characterized films in the 1960’s like Bullitt. Many times I hear that directors are not too worried about making the best shot as they assume the problems can be fixed in the editing room. The days of getting the right shot seem to be over. Bullitt shows us, magnificently, that this was not always the case. The film uses real muscle cars, not computer generated clones. I even heard that the actors, Steve McQueen and Bill Hickman, were in fact driving during the filming sequence which in itself shows the dedication the film has to authentically representing reality.
There was some pretty significant film techniques used in this film, primarily the use of wide angle shots. They seem to create a world that Frank is apart of, not just controlled sets with perfect lighting. Some pretty amazing shots were used to show the rolling hills of San Francisco and area. It made me want to go and take a tour. Some other techniques I found visual pleasing were the use of camera angles to give different visual perspectives.
Sound and music is often used in today’s movies to create drama, compared to the 60’s and 70’s, which have a minimalist approach to its use. In Bullitt there is no crazy techno or hard rock playing during action sequences, just a note here and there for added effect…oh yeah, least I forget, there is also the rumble of a couple of V-8’s with their gas peddles maxed and the sound of metal crunching as they land from ….well, you get the idea. The use of the sounds of the city is abundant. The sounds of the freeways and the people talking right after a gun shoot out are what we hear, instead of some song or beat. Often we are just seeing Bullitt contemplating his next move in silence and with dead focus. The mood that this creates is one of slow, deliberate, intensity. Stillness, like the calm before the storm, is the name of the game.
Also I should point out that there are very fine movies produced today and I don’t want to seem harsh or overly critical of all of them, but it also seems to me that many of them lack something…something that was lost with the advancement of filming technologies. Movies today seem to hand-feed us, like we don’t have to think about the plot or have any emotional response to the characters. This can also be a negative thing. In the case of Bullitt we must follow the story closely, sometimes with no dialogue, no music, just scenes of Frank walking. We assume he is investigating the case, and any intelligent person would think so. The movie wants us to figure things out for ourselves, not come up and drop the plot in our face and say “here, this is what’s happening and that’s the good guy and that’s the bad guy”. Bullitt is a film that’s better then that. It wants us to react, to feel the mood, to watch as the story unfolds before us.
I think that most modern movie enthusiasts would, at times, become bored with this slow story telling style. In my experience though, just when I was about to fall asleep I would hear the low purr of a V-8 about to punch it. I believe that, even after almost 40 years people will not remember the slow or “boring moments”, they will remember the slopes of San Francisco, as cars take flight.
Did I like this movie? Yes. Will you like this movie? Maybe, but you better buckle up when Frank does; else he will leave you behind.
Credits
Bullitt -Steve McQueen
Chalmers -Robert Vaughn
Cathy -Jacqueline Bisset
Credits
Directed by Peter Yates
Screenplay by Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner
1968 Warner Brothers
Works Cited
Bullitt. Dir. Peter Yates. Warner Brothers, 1968
by Mark Hebert
One of my fondest memories as a child was the night my father, with a slight smile, came into my room while I was playing. He ushered me into the TV room and plopped me down in front of the television set. “You have to watch this son”, he said. “OK cool”, I thought. I was never aloud to watch TV at this time of night. I focused on the TV. I was shown a man in a big green car. He was sitting, calmly, in the driver’s seat. He was across the street from another vehicle. The other vehicle was a big and black, it had two stoned faced men inside that screamed “Bad Guys”. Now, I only was about ten at the time, but I think I knew what was to come. “See?” my dad said excitedly, “He just buckled his seat belt”. I looked on and smiled.
What came next, a car chase through the streets of 1968 San Francisco, is considered the best in movie history and wildly influenced the very definition of a “car chase” in all movies to follow. The movie was Bullitt, starring movie icon Steve McQueen. Throughout the story we were taken on the aforementioned car chase and… well … many other exciting chases. Steve McQueen played the role of Lieutenant Frank Bullitt. He was assigned to a case by politician Walter Chalmers, played by Robert Vaughn. We can safely say this didn’t work out well for Bullitt and an investigation ensued. Now, I want to point out the kind of character Bullitt was and how he got things done; he did things his way. One famous quote that Bullitt shares with Chalmers is “You work your side of the street, I’ll work mine” (Yates). Needless to say, they are not very fond of one another.
The chemistry that McQueen and Vaughn share together during their scenes is dynamite. This would be the second of three movies that they are in together. Steve McQueen can be considered one of the first action heroes of the mid twentieth century with many movies under his belt. He was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, but was also considered one of the toughest to work with, because he often had problems with directors and producers. In some ways, it seemed, McQueen was reflecting himself when playing the roll of Frank Bullitt.
The Director, Peter Yates, uses a lot of quiet scenes and close ups of Steve McQueen full of intense focus. This effect shows the dedication and intellect of the character. This is wildly different from the modern cop drama that actually has to tell us when they are playing “Good Cop, Bad Cop”. If you don’t know what I mean, go rent any 80’s-90’s cop buddy film to understand. Unlike these films, Bullitt assumes the audience is getting “it” without having to tell us, and for that it shows intelligence generally lost to the genre.
I do not want to harp too much on the films of today, but it seems that they lack the skill and the inventiveness of filming without post-production editing (i.e. Computer graphics) that characterized films in the 1960’s like Bullitt. Many times I hear that directors are not too worried about making the best shot as they assume the problems can be fixed in the editing room. The days of getting the right shot seem to be over. Bullitt shows us, magnificently, that this was not always the case. The film uses real muscle cars, not computer generated clones. I even heard that the actors, Steve McQueen and Bill Hickman, were in fact driving during the filming sequence which in itself shows the dedication the film has to authentically representing reality.
There was some pretty significant film techniques used in this film, primarily the use of wide angle shots. They seem to create a world that Frank is apart of, not just controlled sets with perfect lighting. Some pretty amazing shots were used to show the rolling hills of San Francisco and area. It made me want to go and take a tour. Some other techniques I found visual pleasing were the use of camera angles to give different visual perspectives.
Sound and music is often used in today’s movies to create drama, compared to the 60’s and 70’s, which have a minimalist approach to its use. In Bullitt there is no crazy techno or hard rock playing during action sequences, just a note here and there for added effect…oh yeah, least I forget, there is also the rumble of a couple of V-8’s with their gas peddles maxed and the sound of metal crunching as they land from ….well, you get the idea. The use of the sounds of the city is abundant. The sounds of the freeways and the people talking right after a gun shoot out are what we hear, instead of some song or beat. Often we are just seeing Bullitt contemplating his next move in silence and with dead focus. The mood that this creates is one of slow, deliberate, intensity. Stillness, like the calm before the storm, is the name of the game.
Also I should point out that there are very fine movies produced today and I don’t want to seem harsh or overly critical of all of them, but it also seems to me that many of them lack something…something that was lost with the advancement of filming technologies. Movies today seem to hand-feed us, like we don’t have to think about the plot or have any emotional response to the characters. This can also be a negative thing. In the case of Bullitt we must follow the story closely, sometimes with no dialogue, no music, just scenes of Frank walking. We assume he is investigating the case, and any intelligent person would think so. The movie wants us to figure things out for ourselves, not come up and drop the plot in our face and say “here, this is what’s happening and that’s the good guy and that’s the bad guy”. Bullitt is a film that’s better then that. It wants us to react, to feel the mood, to watch as the story unfolds before us.
I think that most modern movie enthusiasts would, at times, become bored with this slow story telling style. In my experience though, just when I was about to fall asleep I would hear the low purr of a V-8 about to punch it. I believe that, even after almost 40 years people will not remember the slow or “boring moments”, they will remember the slopes of San Francisco, as cars take flight.
Did I like this movie? Yes. Will you like this movie? Maybe, but you better buckle up when Frank does; else he will leave you behind.
Credits
Bullitt -Steve McQueen
Chalmers -Robert Vaughn
Cathy -Jacqueline Bisset
Credits
Directed by Peter Yates
Screenplay by Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner
1968 Warner Brothers
Works Cited
Bullitt. Dir. Peter Yates. Warner Brothers, 1968
Friday, July 27, 2007
San Diego Comic Con
New iFanboy TSHIRTS!
Originally uploaded by ifanboy
Man I wish I was in San Diego right now! None of my friends are into what I am into. Sure I have a few friends that are into comics, but not like me. I wish I had friends, or even acquaintances like the Ifanboy guys, but alas deal with what I got. Anyways here is some photos that are on Flickr about the first day at the huge con. Enjoy! Maybe next year!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Pure pWnage ep.14 is out!
I was at the premiere of Episode 12 in Calgary last year. This is probably one the best IPTV show out there, although not regular, but getting better. I have been following these guys since episode 4 and you can see the quality get better, if not double, every show since. Do your self a favor and watch from the beginning, even if your not a gamer, you will appreciate the time and effort these guys put into these shows.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1119447012/bctid1124857757
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1119447012/bctid1124857757
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
