Archive for October, 2003
33 items.
Today’s comic is the continuation of Monday’s comic – my retelling of one of THE WORST theater experiences I’ve ever had, trying to watch the sublime Bill Murray in Lost in Translation.
Granted, my anger has subsided somewhat since the event that took place last week. But it bears retelling.
Ever since last Friday, I was trying to figure out where all the employees went during the movie? Were they all out back smoking cigarettes like some kind of 50’s “no good kids” cliche?
** THE REST OF THIS POST WAS LOST WHEN THEATER HOPPER MOVED TO WORDPRESS IN 2009 **
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If any of you came to the site first thing yesterday, you may have noticed it wasn’t here.
The reasoning for that is pretty simple. It’s because I recently moved hosting over to Futaidnet.com and my domain started pointing to their servers on Wednesday.
Recovery time should be minimal. There were some issues with the comic and news display scripts that needed attention. Many thanks to ComradeF and Futaid himself for helping set things straight!
The only other problem the site is having right now is that the forum is down. This is partially due to having no database behind it on the new server and partially because I’m so swamped with other things, I don’t have time to get it up and running just yet.
Fortunately, I made a back up of the forum on Tuesday, so those of you who visit there should be in good shape when it comes back.
If any of you have had the experience of moving servers and tring to resussitate a forum let me know. I’d be interested in your input.
Last bit of site news I’ll mention – we have a new advertiser! Everyone say hello to Comic Stack! It’s a great web site that covers EVERYTHING comics. All the way from Marvel to the tinest web offering. I love combing through their articles for the latest news. Check it out. It’s a great site.
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Oct03
And so concludes the retelling of the hellish experience I had watching Lost in Translation at the Varsity Theater.
Was it worth sacrificing a week’s worth of zippy one-liners and taking pot-shots at The Rock in The Rundown? Maybe. I got to flex a few different narrative muscles than before. I felt this was a story better told than read. I was curious to see if I could trump that notion.
If anything, it spurred from great debate. I received on e-mail suggesting that the inclusion of all the bomb mics was intentional – as if to enhance the surreal environment the two leads found themselves in while wandering around Tokyo.
It’s a fascinating thought, but one I reject. Lost in Translation is too quiet and intimate a movie to have the director constantly winking at us, saying, “See? See? It’s not told.”
Also, the cinematography by Lance Acord is too beautiful to wreck with poor composition.
The answer to my situation, I believe came from Abraham Brezo when he wrote:
“My guess about the boom mics is, that the film was shot open matte, and the projectionist forgot to matte the film. Leaving the film at an open matte will give it a smaller aspect ratio, thus including
everything that was supposed to be hidden behind the matte. This type of filmmaking is supposed to be more cost efficient.”
Judging by what I saw and comparing my experience against others who had gone to see the film, I’d say this was right on the head. It helps to aid my righteous indignation. Thanks, Abraham!
I’m doing a final flight-check for all things FallCon related at the moment. I’m leaving straight from my job this afternoon and I want to make sure I’m not forgetting anything. It’d be quite a shame to drive all that way to Minnesota to forget the posters I’m trying to sell.
…or my contact lens solution.
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Greetings! I am pumped for the convention this weekend. I have prepared copies of the Theater Hopper documentary for this event, with special cover art by Tom. I hope to see as many of you as possible this weekend.
To increase production in the “special projects” area, I have been slacking in the “tell you about some movie I saw and tell you how I found it to be ‘enjoyable’” area. Sorry. I have watched several movies, but I’ll have to talk about them later. Or, since I’m heading up north, I’ll tell you aboot them later.
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I was gathering up all of my materials today to take up to FallCon and it occured to me that I didn’t thank some of you for helping me choose which Theater Hopper comics would be included in a sample binder I was taking with me.
A lot of you responded and I apologize for not thanking you personally. But, as you can imagine, things are hectic.
It was really interesting to get your feedback and find out what strips struck a chord with which readers. I noticed a definate “old school” vs. “new school” vibe in the e-mails – if that’s even possible for a comic that’s been around a little over a year.
But, yeah. Some of you picked the older comics while some of you were picking the most recent material. A lot of you picked comics that followed a story line – which is making me think that I need to be doing more story-telling rather than hit and miss one-liners.
Either way, I really appreciate the feedback. Thanks!
I think FallCon is going to be a blast. I’m nervous as hell, but it’s going to be a great learning experience.
Be sure to check back here on Monday for the full recap. There’ll even be a new comic to boot! I plan on taking a lot of photos, so once I get those back, I’ll post them to the site.
Have a great weeekend, everyone!
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Today is the day of the big California recall election. If you’ve been watching the news, maybe you’ve heard about it.
I don’t know how much I can add to the cacophony of opinions on the matter, but I will say this: Only in California could a candidate like Arnold Schwarzenegger run for governor and be taken seriously. If he tried to pull something like that in, oh, Nebraska, they’d laugh him right back to Austria.
It’s a scary thought that Kindergarten Cop could be in charge of the 5th largest economy in the world. The decisions he makes in office could potentially affect us all.
I think Ah-nold has a pretty good shot at winning this thing. They say name-recognition is the largest deciding factor at the polls come Election Day. Whose name is more recognizable than Schwarzenegger? Well, if you can spell it, that is.
So what if the man has some skeletons in his closet. I think all of us can agree that a man who (as an actor) has performed scenes disposing enemies in some of the most gruesome ways captured on film might have a misogynist streak in him.
And don’t forget this is California we’re talking about. The state that insists on giving Robert Downey Jr. work no matter how many times he turns up stoned and passed out in the backyards of complete strangers. Arnold’s misadventures in groping look like me parking in a handicapped spot by comparison.
I’ll be monitoring the election tonight. You should too. It’ll be a fascinating and wholly terrifying examination of the democratic process.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this fun fact that I found on the Internet Movie Database:
Did you know that the Mattel Toy Company started to make some Conan the Barbarian action figures, but after viewing the film, the executives realized that they couldn’t afford to be associated with a film with such graphic sex and violence. They gave their doll blonde hair, called him “He-man”, and thus created He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Who ended up with the better deal? The world may never know.
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In my rush to post a comic today for the one I missed on Monday, I totally neglected to post a blog recapping my experience at the Minnesota FallCon comic book convention this weekend.
I had been geared up for the event all last week. As I was making final preparations, I could hardly contain myself. I started having trouble sleeping Thursday night before we were to make the 4 hour drive to Minneapolis on Friday. By the time the first day of the convention rolled around on Saturday, I couldn’t sit down.
Being as amped up as I was (and also trying to navigation an unfamiliar city), I decided to head out to the convention center early. I was there to greet everyone when the doors opened. I met Zach from No Pants Tuesday first, then Mitch from Nothing Nice to Say arrive and finally, Carrington from Movie Punks . Suffice to say, they were all really cool.
It was weird to meet these guys in person after corresponding with all of them in one form or another over the last year. I knew what they looked like, I knew their sense of humor, but it’s like they weren’t real people until they were right there in front of you.
Conversation flowed like wine and we were all getting along great. Sometimes, we’d be so deep in conversation, we’d ignore people checking out our booth! Whoops!
But I’m glad things turned out that way and not the other. It would have really sucked if we were all just sitting there, staring off into space with nothing to say to one another.
In terms of people who came to check us out, I’d say the turn out was pretty good. True, the majority of people who stopped by didn’t know who we were or what our comics were about. And when we told them they were on the web and that we update multiple times a week, we got some interesting reactions.
But I’d say most of those reactions were positive! A lot of people promised to check out the site. And if you’re one of those people and you’re reading this right now – I love you!
Carrington and I would sometimes have some odd overlap when were explaining our sites to people. People would ask one of us what it was about, and we would say “Well, it’s a comic that makes fun of movies and it’s updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.” Then they would turn to the other and we’d say “Ditto.” We had fun playing around with people and charge that one was ripping off the other. Good times.
The biggest treat of the convention was meeting the people who were already familiar with the site. The crew from Still Untitled came to visit and we chatted them up for a good while. They were really cool. BobaBen from the forums also said hello and it was good to see him.
All in all, it was a great experience and it was great to sit around and talk shop with the other creators. I had so much fun, I’m thinking about heading out to another convention in Kansas City this November. Theater Hopper Tour ’03!
Be sure to keep checking the site because I’ll be offering TWO posters that were on sale at the convention. I have a new one for Theater Hopper and a SPECIAL EDITION poster created by the four of us who shared a booth together. It’ll be a trip!
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This weekend is shaping up to be mighty fine in the movie department, and I’m chomping at the bit to see Kill Bill.
I came from the era when Pulp Fiction was a revelation and was part of the generation to whom the movie was marketed specifically for. There wasn’t a dorm room in sight that didn’t have a Jules Winnfield poster hanging in it when I went to college. Trust me.
There are rumblings that the first volume of Kill Bill is light on Quentin Tarantino’s trademark dialogue, but that volume two makes up for it in spades.
There’s also talk that the finale of the first installment is outrageously violent. Over the TOP violent. Wile E. Coyote violent. Blood doesn’t seep from wounds, it gushes. And Uma Thurman is finding a hundred and one ways to slice a man to ribbons – probably even inventing some techniques along the way – as Quentin pays homage to all the grind house kung-fu flicks of the 70’s.
I think Kill Bill will prove to be an interesting experience. I mean, when you think of all the watered down copycats that flooded theaters in the wake of Pulp Fiction, what direction can an auteur go when his voice has been co-opted by the masses?
Kill Bill looks like a full-frontal assault on our expectations. A jarring stab to the kidneys to wake us from our slumber and erase and shades of doubt in a sea of red.
By the way, everyone. I’m toying with some new site designs. But before I can implement them, I need to get a couple of other things up and running again. The server movie last week kind of laid me up and I’m still recovering.
At the top of my list is bringing the forum back online. I created a backup right before the switch, but am kind of lost in terms of reinstalling everything. If anyone has experience with this, contact me the usual way.
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So, Arnold Schwarzenegger is now the new governor of California. Good work, left-coasters. You’ve now supplanted Florida and that whole “hanging chad” debacle as our nations greatest embarassment.
I think voting a former Austrian bodybuilder into the highest office of your state probably wasn’t the wisest move, but it’ll make for some great late-nite fodder for the rest of us.
Some might view the Schwarzenegger election as a triumph of the openness of American politics. I view it for what it is – a big, freaky circus greased with the money of special interests who thought they could win over the worlds 5th largest economy with a little star power. Looks like their bet paid off.
In less scandalous news, Cami and I are finally getting around to seeing School of Rock tonight after work. I missed it over the weekend since I was at that convention, but I’ve heard nothing but good things.
Frankly, I don’t see how it could fail. I’m a big Jack Black fan and you know that director Richard Linklater will do it right. I’ve enjoyed all of his movies immensely.
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Greetings all.
I think you’ll all be interested to know that the forums are now up and running.
Unfortunately, if we signed up before, you’ll have to sign up again. Oh, and I lost all the previous threads. Sorry.
I’m still trying to figure out where I screwed up, but it looks like they’re lost of good.
But hey. All the special features I included like the Quick Reply box and the Statistics mod are still there – so I guess there’s a silver lining!
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