Posts Tagged ‘Kat Dennings’
3 items.
The indifference Tom displays toward The House Bunny is not actually true-to-life. In fact, in real life, I am very excited to see this film. I personally believe that Anna Farris is hilarious, fearless and a great comedian. It’ll be a treat to see her starring in a feature like this.
Both Cami and I are big Faris fans. I think it was her turn in the woefully underrated Just Friends that sealed the deal. He character is at once both annoying and abrasive, but the screen is a little dimmer when she’s not there to grace it. Even though it’s kinda of supposed to be a holiday movie, we’ll watch it almost anytime we’re bored. It’s a lot of fun.
To that end, I don’t know that there is anything particularly revolutionary about The House Bunny from a plot standpoint. Faris’s character is thrown out of The Playboy Mansion and takes up residence in a sorority house full of losers. She teaches them life lessons and everyone feels good about themselves in the end. Beverly D’Angelo shows up as the uptight house mother of another sorority out to spoil their fun. It’s pretty much paint by numbers. But Farris has a knack for making patently unwatchable films interesting. So it’s not completely hopeless.
It’s kind of disingenuous to stock the sorority house with actresses like Emma Stone and Kat Dennings as "the ugly girls." You can see their "removing the glasses and let down your hair scene" a million miles away. Rumor Willis, on the other hand… genius casting for that role.
That’s mean. Sorry, Rumor. It’s just that… well, your jawline freaks me out.
Anyway, Cami and I are hoping to see this sometime this weekend. I’m down for it, but I have to find time to go out and see Tropic Thunder as well. I’m falling behind!
Things are probably going to get a little more difficult for me from an availability standpoint. Today is the day that I start pursuing my Master’s Degree in Communication Leadership offered by Drake University here in Des Moines. There’s a social gathering for all of the people in the program this evening – kind of a meet and greet – before a full-blown introduction to the program itself, class load and expectations for the semester that lasts all day Saturday. After that, it’s one class a week every Wednesday for the rest of the semester. I’m kicking things off with Mass Communications 101, natch.
It’s hard to say how much impact the pursuit of my Master’s will have on the comic. Between my 9 to 5 job, being a husband, being a father and finding time to work out — attending classes and finding time to study is just another thing to add to the pile. But I wouldn’t have bothered applying if I didn’t think I could handle it. Plus, you know what they say about busy people – they get more done.
Speaking of getting more done, I’m starting to fold in some of the custom art requests I’ve received through the donation drive into my regular drawing schedule. I have one in the can and I wanted to share it with you.
This was drawn for a donator who sent $25 and who asked for a simple cast portrait. I wanted to show it to you guys because I wanted to demonstrate how I’m serious about giving you what you pay for. I’m not just slapping something onto a piece of scratch paper and mailing it to you. These drawings are on professionally printed 4 x 6″; cardstock, inked and signed. In addition to the good feeling you get for helping out a brother in need, I want you to feel like you got something for your money.
So there it is. Do with it what you will.
Please keep in mind that in order for me to maintain a level of consistent quality for ALL of the people who donated, it may take me a little longer to get back to you with the finished product. In fact, right now, I haven’t been able to get in touch with all of the people who send donations the week of the 11th.
I have a lot of e-mails to sift through and I’m trying to keep them organized. The system I’m using right now is to contact a small batch of donators at a time and learn what it is they would like in their custom art. Once the art is completely and mailed away, I take on another batch of e-mails. So if I haven’t gotten to you yet, I’m not blowing you off. I’m just trying to keep the influx of e-mail manageable. I WILL get to you eventually!
I also wanted to give everyone an update in regard to the actual data recovery.
The wizards at Ontrack managed to pull together nearly EVERYTHING from the damaged drive. I’m talking, like 99.9% of it. The only thing they weren’t able to recover is a temporary Photoshop file and an MP3 that I’m not going to miss. All of the family photos, video, and, most importantly the archived original Theater Hopper artwork has been rescued.
They had to take the failed drive into a clean room and rebuild it from the ground up to do it… but they did it!
Ontrack delivered the content back to me on Wednesday and I am glad to report it’s home safe and sound. Oh, yeah… and I already backed up copies of it just in case!
Just to be clear, this doesn’t mean the donation drive is over. I paid Ontrack with a credit card so I could get the data back as soon as possible. The goal now is to pay off the card equally fast so I’m not carrying debt and getting tagged with finance charges!
I’m optimistic, though. I mean, you guys helped me raise over half of our goal in less than two weeks. That’s amazing. It really makes me feel good to know that there are people so sympathetic to my problems and willing to help. I already knew I had a great group of readers, but to see it in my e-mail inbox everyday in black and white has been a staggering and humbling validation.
Thanks again, you guys. I’ll talk to you soon. Have a great weekend!
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Oct06
Cami was legitimately against seeing Nick and Norah’s Infinitie Playlist (and yes I realize I left the “H” out of “Norah” in the comic – typo) because she thought it skewed outside of our demographic. She’s not exactly wrong. It’s pretty much for the Hollister and hoodie set, but I don’t care. I gotsta have me my Michael Cera and Kat Dennings. These two should be in movies together for the next 10 years.
Despite the fact that it’s pretty much pointless, not especially witty or insightful, I really enjoyed Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. It’s almost a documentary in a sense as you watch these two characters bounce around Manhattan, slowly falling in love with each other over the course of a night. I’m not so old that I don’t remember how that feels.
Both Cera and Dennings do their low-key thing here and most of the time it works. Of course, there can be too much of a good thing. There comes a point near the end where there is an opportunity for catharsis, but they let it slip by. That’s frustrating. Bbut by the time they get to the last line, you don’t care. The movie has wrapped you up in it’s spell. I highly suggest checking it out. It’s a good time at the theater with some good music to boot.
Incidentally, regarding the age issue, my self-consciousness about being a 30 year-old guy sitting in a theater by himself waiting for the movie about the young 20-something’s in love was erased when I saw a whole bunch of older couples – people in their 40’s and 50’s come in and watch this thing. Maybe Michael Cera reminds them of their son who is at college and doesn’t call them anymore? That’s my best guess.
At any rate, I’m sure we’ll be talking about the film along with Bevery Hills Chihuahu’s soul-draining first place, $30 million box office take this weekend during The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST. Be sure to listen live and call in with your questions!
If I could change gears for a minute, I wanted to talk to you guys about the donation drive that helped recover the data I lost when my external hard drive failed a couple of months back. But before I get into it, I want to share with you a piece of art I created for one of the people generous enough to donate. Check this out:
This is a fully-rendered original comic created for donator Oscar Velez. Oscar was married this weekend and wanted to do something special for his fiancee. So he took the opportunity offered by the donation drive to commission me to create a wedding gift for her. He was going to give this to her the day before their wedding.
Now, my first reaction to this request was “Wow! What an awesome compliment that you would ask me to do this!” My second reaction was “Wow! I hope I don’t screw this up!”
Oscar didn’t make this easy for me. Buildings, crowd scenes and animals aren’t my strong suit. I poured HOURS of my time into this because I was so afraid I was going to mess it up, I kept going back to tweak it. I worked up to the very last minute on this thing. I sent it overnight to Oscar a day before the wedding.
I sent Oscar the original art – the blue line with inks – and then a full-color print on glossy card stock. He received it in time (thank God) and ended up giving it to his fiancee at their rehersal dinner. According to Oscar, his fiancee was keeping it together during the rehersal, the rehersal dinner, the toasts from friends and family. But when he gave her the artwork, she completely lost it and started crying – which then made OTHER people cry!
So I guess it went over pretty well! And, with all seriousness, that’s the best compliment I could have ever received.
I asked Oscar if I could share the artwork on the site partially because I put a lot of time into it, was proud with the results and wanted to demonstrate to everyone who donated how seriously I take this and how I am committing myself to delivering something worthy of the support you’ve shown me. But I also wanted to share it because I thought it was a really cool story. I offered to post it without the text because, y’know… the message is kind of personal. But Oscar was totally up front and cool about it. “Post it with the text,” he said. “I want the world to know I love her!”
So, there you go buddy. The world knows.
Oscar and his wife are taking their honeymoon at Universal Studios (good man) and he said he’d have his laptop with him and would be checking the site. I hope you two are having fun and I wanted to send you my best wishes! Thanks for making me a part of your wedding. The honor was all mine.
So, to that end, let’s talk about the donation drive in the macro sense.
Similar to how I worked up until the last minute on Oscar’s commissioned piece, I’ve been putting off writting a summary on the donation drive. This has literally been one of the largest undertakings I’ve pursued since I’ve started the site and I was afraid that I would be unable to capture the enormity of the effort or express the etreme amount of gratitude I feel toward everyone that donated.
I think, in the life of a webcomic, you get one or MAYBE two “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards and I think I just used mine with this drive. I didn’t expect it to be as successful as it way. I never expected to meet goal. I figured a few kind people would donate and that would help me get a leg up on recovery costs.
The outpouring of support was amazing. Frankly, it’s been difficult for me to keep up. Not only in terms of responding to everyone who donated and thanking them personally. But also keeping up with the artwork and sending out a high-quality product in a reasonable amount of time.
I try to set expectations. I try to tell people that it might take a little while but that I WILL get to them. Everyone has been more than kind about it. “Don’t worry. I understand. Take your time.” Some people are even telling me that they don’t want anything in return. The just want to donate in appreciation of the comic they’ve come to enjoy.
You have no idea what a validation that is for me.
I feel like no matter what I do, I’m going to fail in articulating the sheer awe I’ve experienced spearheading this drive. That’s why It’s so important for me to get it right and not take your kindness for granted. The data that we sought to restore has been brought back to us with 99.8% completion. I’ve already burned copies of the original art by month and year onto CD-ROMs and have also backed things up onto new external drives. I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again and you guys have afforded me that second chance.
So what else can I say but “Thank you?” It’s such a simple expression, but it captures what I want to say so succinctly. Thank you. You guys are amazing. Thank you.
For those of you that donated, I’m still working on your art and you’ll be hearing from me over the course of the next few weeks. That’s it for me today. Thanks again and be sure to come back to the site tomorrow for a review of Allah Made Me Funny, a movie currently in limited release.
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Last night I had an opportunity to see Thor, which I was excited about because the last film I saw in the theater was Cedar Rapids and that’s kind of pathetic.
On the whole, I would say that I found Thor extremely entertaining and it was perhaps helped by my diminished expectations of the film.
I will say that at nearly 2 hours long, the film never dragged for me. And despite the final conflict feeling a little slapdash, I definitely wanted to see more!
I’ve talked with a few people in the comments section of the last two comics about my concerns the Thor is another set up for The Avengers in a similar vein to Iron Man 2. It is and it isn’t. The film tells a crafty origin story that is unfortunately a little light on Asgardian ass-kicking. A little too much time spend on Earth in civilian clothes is good for character development, but it didn’t exactly send my geek heart racing.
But, like I said, the film is entertaining and well-crafted. I can’t criticize it for what I wanted it to be. I can only criticize it for what it is. And I would say it’s pretty darn good!
The following are some random thoughts and observations about Thor. Let’s see if any of them ring true to you, shall we?
- It’s easy to see why Chris Hemsworth was cast as Thor. He is confident, likable and not at all the dumb jock that I kind of think of Thor as being.
- That said, whatever color they dyed Hemsworth’s beard and eyebrows was really distracting in close ups.
- I kind of wish they had Hemsworth wear Thor’s winged helmet for more than one scene.
- Director Kenneth Branagh did an admirable job with the direction, providing a few fake out moments and non-linear storytelling devices that kept me engaged throughout.
- Let it also be known that Kenneth Branagh never met a Dutch angle he didn’t like. This film is littered with them, but it works. It adds to the aura of comic book dramatics without going overboard like Ang Lee’s Hulk did.
- People credit Branagh for bringing “Shakespearean gravitas” to the movie. But the fatherly themes in the plot are so pronounced, I wonder if anyone would be making that observation if, say, Martin Campbell were directing.
- Natalie Portman is very, very pretty.
- Why the hell is Natalie Portman in this movie? I mean, I know she’s no stranger to big-budget science fiction and fantasy (Hello, Queen Amidala!) but at this point, a movie like Thor seems a little below her station, don’t you think?
- There is almost no need for Kat Dennings’ character except to provide comic relief, but she makes the most of every scene she’s in and damn near walks off with this movie. I was more interested in the things her character had to say than anything Natalie Portman’s character had to say.
- I love that Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson is running around in the background. Gregg plays him perfectly with a touch of playful impatience.
- Everyone caught Jeremy Renner’s cameo as the future Avenger Hawkeye during the scene where Thor first tries to reclaim his hammer, right?
- Jeremy Renner kind of looks like Daniel Craig’s younger brother to me. They both have a heavy brow.
- Even though I know Ray Stevenson (who most recently played The Punisher) was the actor who played Volstagg, every time I saw him on screen, I was convinced it was Chris Noth.
- Hey, is that Renee Russo as Thor’s mom? Long time, no see!
- Yes, Anthony Hopkins kills it as Odin. But he could do a role like this in his sleep.
- I feel like I’m supposed to say something about Tom Hiddleston as Loki. He did a good job making him a sympathetic villain at the outset, but kind of tipped over into cartoonish super-villainy at the end.
- The Destroyer is awesome and I want an action figure, please.
- RE: The Destroyer “Is that one of Stark’s?” “I don’t know. That guy never tells me anything.” The humor in Thor was pretty sharp.
- Bonus points for the Donald Blake reference – Thor’s mortal alter ego in the early comics. Kudos for the writers for not getting bogged down in that and telling a straightforward original story. Well, as straightforward a story about inter-dimensional warriors using weapons crafted with equal parts magic and science as you can.
- I was also very impressed with how the effects department brought Thor’s unique powers to the screen. They could have easily had him hitting stuff with his hammer or call down lightning and leave it at that. But having him take flight, carried behind Mjolnir was very well done. Similarly, Thor twirling Mjolnir around by the strap was something I didn’t think they’d be able to translate from the comics as well as they did.
- Production design for this movie is off the charts. From the costumes, to the Frost Giants, to the rich detail and rendering of Asgard – these images were truly otherworldly and God-like.
- With this in mind, the fictional town in New Mexico where Thor lands looks faker than fake. In fact, I’m not sure there were even any roads that lead to or from that town. It literally looks like it sprung up overnight by a Hollywood construction crew.
- Did anyone else find the use of the Foo Fighters song “Walk” over the end credits completely out of place?
- Stick around after the credits for a bonus scene. I probably don’t have to tell you that, but it doesn’t hurt to remind you.
That’s all I’ve got on Thor. It’s quite a bit, actually! What are your thoughts? Leave your comments below!
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