Doctor Who love

I feel like a kid again whenever I think of Doctor Who. I am enamored by the new doctor and I think it's just because it's a change of pace from Tennant (who I also adored, don't get me wrong). The Christmas special is coming up in a little under two weeks and I'm bouncing off the walls on the inside, waiting for it to air. I know that I really shouldn't expect greatness from the Christmas specials, (I have yet to really like any of them), but yet seeing as how this is Matt Smith's 1st special with Moffatt in charge, I'm really hoping that it'll be something spectacular. Expectations are through the roof! And yet the show teases me by not releasing new promos. I see the same one on end when I flip on BBC America.  Although it is agonizing, I am uber-thrilled that finally it'll air the same day as over in the UK.  Now, whether I can wait those couple of hours is another story.

What happened to The Last Airbender (spoilers ahead)

I could care less about the casting choices in terms of race that so many people complained about. I thought it was fine and in terms of finding people who look like the cartoon versions and knew their martial arts, Shyamalan did a decent job. What he failed at doing when looking for actors was checking to see if they can actually act and react with one another. The actors looked like they were uncomfortable in their roles and in just about 90% of their dialogue came off wooden and strained. There was absolutely no chemistry between the characters. This is where the cartoon is successful. You feel these guys becoming a family. From the moment Aang opens his eyes, he has a crush on Katara. The movie does not go into any development with this. And Sokka is supposed to provide unintentional comedy to the group, but instead he is a serious older brother. The best acting came only from Shaun Toub (Uncle Iroh) and it’s a shame his lines were limited to only a dozen. The fluidity in the scenes and connections between the characters were seriously missing.

And this brings me to my second point, the script. It felt like Shyamalan wanted to tell as much of the cartoon story as he could in the short time frame, so he cut and added scenes from different episodes. I’ll give him props for trying to remain true to the cartoon, even if some of the scenes were a bit backwards, such as the Northern Air Temple having the room of statues…which turned out to have little significance other than to capture Aang. That’s three episodes there, wrapped into one. But for the most part, because he was trying to incorporate as much of the cartoon in the film, the fluidity between each scene was never made. It felt incredibly static and I think adding the subtitle of where the current locations as the travelers were making their way up to the Northern Water Tribe just reinforces this. Without them and without Katara narrating what they were doing, we would have very little clue as to what was going on. The scenes needed to be fleshed out and they needed to have some serious interaction between the actors. Most of the dialogue in each scene was left to just a couple of lines before moving on. The audience had no opportunity to connect to the characters, because we were not allowed to see their personalities and watch them develop.

One thing I’m incredibly surprised didn’t make it into the film was Suki. I know they casted her and even a version of the official site showed her with her fans. I must have blinked, because I could not find her. And fans of the show know that she is a strong and important character in the later books. My only guess is that Shyamalan wants to save her for book two, which focuses on the Earth Kingdom. But at this rate, I can’t imagine studios would make a second book.

I will say the two best aspects of the film for me were the special effects of the bending and the opening sequence which mimicked part of the opening credits of the tv show. That opening sequence got me so excited for the rest of the movie, but alas, it was the best scene of the entire film and I was incredibly let down for the remainder of the film.

Overall, I’m going to have to give this film a 3/10. And I think that’s being generous.

Oh Star Trek!

Got this from a friend on el-jay. Hilarious stuff, no doubt. Had to share.

The Incredible Hulk

Having just finished watching this movie for the first time. I ask myself, besides the awesome cameos, the best part of the Incredible Hulk? The last 2 minutes!

daaaaahhhhh! My brain must explode now with the awesome anticipation of what's to come.


btw, I never saw the first Hulk movie, maybe just snippits if even that, but I heard it was awful so I had steered clear. This one wasn't half bad. I'd give it 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

The A-Team

Tell me, what late 20-something year old didn't sit around and watch the A-team with their father, hmmm? Okay, am I really the only one? And I've honestly got to admit, I'm pretty excited to see this new remake coming out June 11th (btw, that's a day after my b-day).

Just caught the trailer for it on youtube and I'm waiting now for a crisper version (and one that can be embedded) to pop up so I can stick that on this entry instead. This film is already making me quite nostalgic. I wonder if the aim of the bad guys (and good guys?) will improve and they'll actually hit something. I have a feeling it might be a bad movie, but I'm still looking forward to seeing it.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra

I finally decided to let myself endure the horror that is the new wave of 80s cartoon show-movies. I cried to myself in a corner after watching both Transformers movies. (The viewing of the sequel wasn't really out of my own free will). I really expected to do the same with this new rendition of my childhood shows. And while I actually thought it wasn't that bad, (Bad=Transformers, Good=The Mummy...and that's my range, I'm not saying The Mummy was a work of art), I was actually more interested in playing "Spot the actors from Sommer's previous films" throughout this movie. No really, I half expected to see Rachel Weisz make an appearance somewhere.

Let's take a look at the reoccuring actors I was able to spot off the bat:
Actor: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Character: Heavy Duty
Previously in: The Mummy Returns (Lock-Nah)

Actor: Arnold Vosloo
Character: Zartan
Previously in: The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (Imhotep)

Actor: Kevin J. O'Conner
Character: Dr. Mindbender
Previously in: Van Helsing (Igor), The Mummy (Beni), Deep Rising (Joey)

Actor: Brendan Fraser
Character: Sgt. Stone
Previously in: The Mummy trilogy (Rick O'Connell)

Those are the ones I caught, were there any others?

But really though, I half expected this film to be complete trash and it surprised me. Now I'll have to preorder my tickets for the other 80s-cartoon transformations I expect to see in the near future. This includes: Rainbow Bright, Thundercats and Jem.

Iron Man 2

Trailer's out and you can watch it here. If it wasn't so first thing in the morning for me right now, I'd be able to articulate my utmost excitement for this movie. Instead I shall summarize it all and say, "Yippie!"

What the hell is this all about?

So the film industry must really be running out of ideas. We all know that they have no shame when it comes to remaking foreign films or tv shows, especially from the British genre. Re: Coupling, The Office, Kath and Kim, State of Play, Life on Mars...I really could go on, but then I'd forget my point.

Now they've really pissed me off taking a hilarious British film like "Death at a Funeral" and Americanized it.

First watch the trailer for the British version:



btw, if you haven't seen this film, please go rent it today. You'll laugh your socks off.

Here's the new version coming out in Spring 2010.



My soul is crying. How could they do this? My opinions of this film are already low. I'm already expecting great butchering to occur. Will I watch the remake? Most likely not. And if I do, it'd only be because of James Marsden.

Two fandoms colliding

What happens when one awesome fandom collides with another? Explosion of the mind!

Looks like Joss Whedon of the awesome Buffy series, Angel series, Dollhouse series and most totally awesome Dr. Horrible webisodes will be directing an episode of Glee. Hilarious director taking another crack at musicals. Lovely! I honestly cannot wait!!

The Aussiello Files has the scoop.

If I hadn’t been warming to Glee already, this for sure would’ve begun defrosting me: Dollhouse-keeper Joss Whedon has agreed to direct one of the back nine episodes that Fox just ordered.

Turns out, the genius who gave us not only the “Once More, With Feeling” musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but also Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a big fan of Ryan Murphy’s new phenom. So when Twentieth (the studio behind Glee) approached him about the gig, pretty much his only reservation was scheduling.

“Joss directed one of the great musical episodes in the history of television on Buffy,” gushes Murphy, “so this is a great, if unexpected, fit. I’m thrilled he’ll be loaning us his fantastic groundbreaking talent.”

And there’s no reason to panic, Dollhouse fans: I’m told the auteur’s moonlighting in no way, shape or form suggests that that show is a goner. He’d most likely tackle the side job after Eliza Dushku and Co. have wrapped their 13-episode order.

Confirmation from Joss himself comes from here.

I'm bouncing and clapping all at the same time.

Volunteering as an extra

I rarely get the opportunity to do anything pertaining to filming, so whenever I can, I make the most of it. I had an oportunity this past Saturday to be an extra in a tv pilot called Young Adult that's being shot here in Washington DC. Here's my scoop from the day.

I woke up at 5:45am yesterday, drove out to the set at 6:30am (got lost on the way there because the directions from googlemaps weren't right), but thankfully I was only 15 minutes late and they were still setting up. I was able to get my makeup touched up by the make-up artist, which was pretty cool. She had an air brush for the foundation and that gizmo was pretty tight. I had never seen one in person before. (The last film I did there wasn't any time for the extras to get touched up).

The story is about 5 guys in their 20s hanging out and learning about the real world. The guys have a meeting place where they get together at a bar for the trivia night. So yesterday was shooting the couple of scenes at the bar and I was an extra in those scenes, pretending to be another group at trivia night. I had to bring two sets of clothes because they were shooting the scenes that would encompass 2 days. (I learned that wearing red on camera is bad because the color bleeds on the film. Thankfully that red shirt was option number 3 that I brought just in case).

I only had to do a little bit of waiting around before we started shooting. (The last time, half of the day was waiting until I was needed on set). We started up with rehersals at around 8:30-9:00. The director wanted to run through the scene a few times with just the actors, and then they rehersed some more, but added the sound and lighting guys. It started out rough because this scene required a lot of movement and the cameraman was running into a lot of shadowing problems. So as an extra I did a lot of sitting on the set. There were four other people with me and we all were quietly chatting when we could. When they finally got around to shooting, they did about 14 takes of the guys walking into the bar and talking to the hostess. In between those takes they would go back and review the footage to see if any were doable. (But since there were 14 takes, I think it took them a while to get what they wanted). There'd normally be a "take 10" break and people would be getting leftover breakfast food that was provided by the production. Today's was bagels, donuts and coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. We finally broke for lunch at around 12 and got pizza ordered in.

The afternoon was a bit more rushed as they had to get a more scenes in a smaller amount of time. The extras got to change as along with playing people on different days, they wanted to make the bar look busier, so we also got to pretend we were different people in different parts of the bar. I don't know how well that'll be pulled off, but I guess we'll see. We got to chat a lot with the artistic staff. The props guy and the makeup artist chatted with us extras a lot and I was able to chat a bit with the sound guys whenever they weren't busy. I sketched a couple of pics of one of the sound guys during the down time.

I didn't get too far with the left image, basically it was the girl holding the boom mic for the scene and the second one was the same girl waiting in between takes. When the actors weren't needed we made small talk with a couple of them. One of the lead actors was the one who had been emailing the extras, so I got to chat with him for a bit.

We ran into a little dilemma in the afternoon with the managers at the bar, who double booked us with a party that was coming in to set up at 3:30. (They had told the production that we could be in the room until 4). So for the last hour, we were rushed to get everything done. We didn't have the luxury of doing many rehersals and they did only 3 or 4 takes at most before moving to a different shot.

I was out and heading home by 3:45. Exhausted! I get to go to the wrap party in November and my name will be in the credits. If I wanted, I can add this to my resume. The director commented that if the show gets picked up, in future episodes the five guys compete against a rival trivia group and suggested to us that it be the five of us extras since we're already here. So if things end up looking good for the show, I might be in it again.

Even though there was a lot of waiting to shoot the scenes, I still had a fantastic time. I loved being part of it.