Posts Tagged ‘Pepsi’
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Cami and I were able to catch an early matinee of National Treasure this weekend. An enjoyable ride, but very much a by-the-book action adventure film. Rouge hero? Check. A villain who betrays his confidence? Check. Mousy techno-geek who interjects glib one-liners for comedic effect? Check. Hot girl who tags along mid-way through the action? Check.
There isn’t anything in National Treasure that you haven’t seen a million times before. The “clues imbedded in American history” approach was an interesting device, but they’re so transparently lifting their inspiration from The Da Vinci Code, you keep thinking the film version of THAT script would be so much better to watch.
Something else that was very transparent to me was the several awkward product placements crammed into this movie. A lot of them appear after the film’s main set piece – The abduction of The Declaration of Independence.
While on the run, Nicholas Cage’s character stops to see his father Jon Voight. With the FBI hot on their tail, they tie up Voight to make it look like there were there to steal something from him and protect him from any guilt-by-association. As the Feds are questioning him, they inform him that his car has been stolen. Voight laments “My Cadillac STS!” Cut to the next scene and a big close up of the Cadillac emblem on the hood of the car. “You’re Dad has a sweet ride,” says the mousy techno-geek.
Dressed in formal wear – gowns and tuxes – Cage’s character suggests they go buy some less conspicuous clothes. Cut to an external shot of an Urban Outfitters! Ooo! Look at all those cool clothes they’re trying on! Don’t forget to pay with your Visa card (which gets another prominent close-up.)
Later in the movie when Cage is caught by the authorities, he’s called by the villainous treasure hunter Sean Bean to arrange a transfer of a valuable artifact. Of course he attempts to reach him on his Motorola cell phone. Before handing it to him, make sure the logo is PLAINLY VISIBLE!
I don’t know if I’m off my rocker and I’m the only person who notices this, but these kinds of product placements were screamingly obvious to me at several points in the movie. It distracted me from what little story there was.
I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been addressed by more competent essayists, but the amount of advertising we’re subjected to at the movies is becoming increasingly alarming. If there aren’t commercials in front of the trailers before the movie, they’re on the packaging of the popcorn and soda we buy. Now they’re inserting sponsorship into the plots of the VERY FILM you’re watching! This kind of cross-promotion is what advertising executives call “penetration”. This is ironic since I get the distinct impression that someone on Madison Avenue is trying to bend me over and have their way with me.
Hey, I understand it must be difficult being an advertising executive. Audiences are savvier to your techniques now than they have ever been in history. You have to CONSTANTLY find new and interesting ways to get your message out there and cut through the clutter. Heck, if you could tattoo the inside of our eyelids while we were sleeping, I’m sure you’d give it a shot.
But to paraphrase the late comedian Bill Hicks… “If you’re in advertising, do me a favor. Just… kill yourself. Get it over with right now. Kill yourself.” Because I don’t think I can tolerate any more commercials when I’m paying to be entertained and to be transported to a realm where these kinds of daily annoyances shouldn’t exist.
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This is probably something I should have thought of sooner – because I’m ALL about abusing my “power” as an internet quasi-celebrity to advance my position – but the promotion is almost over, so I’m going to give it a shot.
Okay, you know how Pepsi and Mountain Dew have that thing going on where you have a 1 in 3 chance of winning a code you can input on iTunes for a free song?
Give me your codes.
I’m serious. If you don’t want them, I do. I’m an iTunes ADDICT and I can use all the free schwag I can get. If the whole digital music scene doesn’t trip your trigger but you’re a hard-core Mountain Dew drinker, then we need to talk.
Anyone willing to part with any of their codes can forward them to me at theaterhopper@hotmail.com. I wish I had something I could give you in the return, but a comic that’s updated three times a week in full color for free is a pretty good start, right?
Much obliged.
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I love Pepsi. It’s so much better than Coke. You can take that to the bank. You know, it does SO much more than just soften your teeth.
I don’t have a lot of blog in me this morning. I stayed up late last night trying to get the spraying cola effect right. Ugh!
Honestly, it’s starting to wear on me a little bit – doing 5 days of strips. Things at my 9 to 5 have been hectic so coming home and night to do strips without a day off is starting to wear on me a little. But that’s probably not what you’re interested in reading about, are you? I’ll get through it! Just one more comic before the arc is concluded!
I’ll say this. It’s been a hoot drawing Oscar’s sword and tring to figure out how to draw him swinging it like Casey Jones at bat (look it up, junior).
I’ll probably be back later. I need to talk to you guys about a couple of our new sponosrs and I want to dole out praise when I’ve put on a fresh head.
Also, I want to talk about Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. This has been the first movie in several weeks that I’ve been very interested in seeing!
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Johnny Rotten once asked his audience "Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?" I hope you don’t feel that way in response to the conclusion of this arc. Admittedly, the whole "It was only a dream!" plot device is as old as the hills, but I feel that it ties things up nicely and has a little fun referencing the previous comics. Actually, I would be proud to bundle this week’s strips together and give them to someone that I was trying to explain Theater Hopper to. In my mind, the arc just feels right.
I keep promising to come back and blog more, but I haven’t had the time. Work has been crazy and I come home at night exhausted.
Tell you what, a quick plug and it’s off to bed for me. Check out Multiplex and Banana Chips– two of our new monthly sponsors. They’re both great comics. I’ve been reading Multiplex for a while and love it. Banana Clips is something new for me, but I really dig the artwork.
I’ll try to come back later and give them the proper write-up they deserve. It would also be fun if I could give your my Oscar picks before the show this weekend. You’re maybe a little curious about that, right?
Talk to you soon. Keep your fingers crossed.
I hope you enjoyed this arc as much as I enjoyed creating it!
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Soda is precious nectar. Don’t waste a single solitary drop.
Well, the Oscars were last night. Maybe you heard about it? In case you missed it, I posted my picks for the winners about 20 minutes before the telecast aired. You can read them if you check Friday’s comic.
I was on the money for the most part. Of course, like most everyone else, I was shocked by Crash pulling an upset and winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain. I want to say more about it, but it’s actually going to be the subject of Wednesday comic, so I don’t want to ruin it.
I enjoyed this year’s show. I think Jon Stewart did a good job and set the right tone. All of those people who worried he would be to overtly political can go suck it. In a year where nearly all the nominated films contained political or social messages, he performed a tightrope act that should be applauded.
One thing the next telecast can do without – montages. Seriously. I’m all for celebrating the history of film, but these little clip shows slow everything down to a snail’s pace and really don’t add much value. I started to freak out a little bit when Lauren Bacall introducing the film noir segment. Leave the poor woman alone! Never would have happened if the producers came up with something better.
Still, if I had to choose montages or musical numbers… I’ll take the montages.
I thought George Clooney made the best acceptance speech of the night. Relaxed, confident-yet-humbled and funny.
Worst speech? AMPAS President Sid Ganis practically beating the audience over the head with his non-too-subtle plea for people to see movies as God! (TM) intended – in a movie theater (Re: Stop pirating our crap, you little snot-nosed suburbanites!)
Not much else to say about Oscar at the moment. Have to keep this short this morning. More thoughts if time.
Oh, two quick site-related things!
First, I’m almost finished with my book, Theater Hopper – Year One. All of the comics and commentary are laid out and proofed. I’ve got the introduction, guest strips and crossovers laid in as well. Pretty much all that is left is for me to finish coloring the cover and we’ll be good to go! I still have to get a few bids from printers, but I’m hoping to start offering it for pre-sale by the time I come back from my upcoming vacation. I’ll be gone between the 16 and the 21, incidentally.
Also, you only have three more days to buy a Theater Hopper shirt! Pre-sale on these items end Wendesday and then I will be sending on the orders to my printer. Get yours now! Once I put the gears in motion on the book, it might be a while before I sell shirts again!
That’s all for now! Talk to you soon!
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So here it is! The comic that was meant to go up on Friday, but was delayed by the Thanksgiving holiday and a vomiting 2 year-old. Then meant to go up on Monday and delayed because of a wonky scanner and Bill Gates making Vista impossible to use. Was it worth the wait? Was it everything you ever hoped for?
I don’t remember where the idea for mixing Pepsi with champagne came from, but I recall that it cropped up in an actual conversation between Cami and I last week. Probably before I went to see Transporter 3 on Wednesday night. That’s slummin’ it, cinematic ally speaking. Meanwhile, while we were still optimistic about Australia, it sat on the other end of the spectrum looking like a million bucks.
Oh, how wrong we were.
I gave my rundown on these two films in Monday’s blog, so go back one page in the archive if you want the details on that. Or, you could download last night’s recording of The Triple Feature. We had a great time talking about Australia, Transporter 3 and Four Christmases as well. I think we were really on fire last night. Lots of funny exchanges.
As evident by the presence of the comic, I bought a new scanner last night. I was disappointed that I couldn’t purchase a simple flatbed scanner. They don’t appear to be stocked in big box retail stores anymore. I had to buy an all-in-one printer. I went to Best Buy and Office Max before I gave up and bought a new HP printer, scanner, photo printer.
I was kind of upset about it at first, but it’s actually pretty nice. It took me a while to figure out the scanner settings and it’s still a little too sensitive for my liking, but I’m sure it’ll balance out before long.
Some people were confused with the graphic I posted on the site yesterday of the scanner with the smoke coming out of it. My old scanner didn’t catch fire, or anything. It was basically a problem with Vista recognizing the peripheral. HP no longer provided support to the device and there was not an updated driver for it. When I upgraded to Vista and ran into this problem, I combed the web for work-arounds and found one that tricked Vista into thinking there was a driver for the device. But those instructions warned that the scanner could still crash out in the future depending on how Vista was feeling on any given day. I think that’s what happened here.
Truthfully, the all-in-one is a good solution because my printer was HP as well and I had to perform the same work-around for it to work as well. It was only a matter of time before it crapped out on me, too.
Why HP refuses to support their devices with updated drivers, I’ll never know. Why I continue to give them my money for the inconvenience is equally mysterious. I guess I just like their products. They’ve never broken down on me and I like their interface. Their stuff is easy to use when Microsoft isn’t gumming up the works with a new operating system.
Bonus feature of the new scanner? It’s wireless! That’s pretty slick.
Anyway, that’s it for today. Thanks to everyone for their patience. I’ll see you here tomorrow with a new comic about Punisher: War Zone. Be here!
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Oh my goodness! Two comics in a week? THE PROPHECY IS COMING TRUE!
As promised, here’s this week’s second comic. The goal is to publish one more this week – and it’s an important one because it will be the LAST APPEARANCE of Charlie and Jimmy. Get your tissues ready, true believers. It’s gonna be a weeper!
Originally, there wasn’t going to be much of a punchline to this comic. As I conceived it, the passage of time and the parking lot getting darker was going to be the joke. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought how thirsty Tom was probably getting as he meticulously poured out the contents of a giant beverage. So I’m glad I took the extra 43 seconds to think it through. I believe the comic is better for it.
Not much else to tell at this time except to expect a third comic this week and hopefully two next week. My birthday is this Friday and that kicks off a five-day stretch of social commitments (I also think there’s some kind of holiday in there?) But one of the comics is Christmas themed, so I’d really like that to go live next Tuesday.
For the moment, it looks like the very last Theater Hopper comic will land smack-dab on Monday, December 31.
Thanks again for checking in on these last few comics as I scramble toward the finish line. I’ve you’d like to share it with your friends on your Facebooks or ya’ Twittahz, that would be cool.
Take it easy. See you in a couple of days!
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