A Piece From The Collection: Pleasantville (1998)

Alo Party Peoples.

Money has been tight again, so I'm doing something from my DVD collection that you probably have never heard of.

Pleasantville was the brainchild of one Gary Ross, who hasn't done much since. The only significant thing he's done in fact was the Hunger Games movie. That is a real step down, because Pleasantville is incredible.

I love this movie, let's not waste any time.

Story: This film about a couple of teenagers that get trapped in a 1950s sitcom and their antics force it into color with the social turbulence of the sixties, would appear on the surface to just be a silly comedy, and comedy is certainly present, but it also goes for serious drama about how these people react to serious social change when Pleasantville has only ever been pleasant. And it does so with, well, flying colors.

Gary Ross creates a fantastic work that manages to juggle comedy, drama, and an actual relevant message, all at the same time.

Visuals: At the time this was made having color and black and white onscreen at the same time was a big deal. This was actually one of the first films to be shot digitally, they shot it in color and shaded the footage into monochrome where they didn't want color.

I'm sure it was impressive at the time, but in 2013 it's something anybody with moderate skill in Photoshop could do.

Acting: The actors are fantastic. Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon do a great job as our leads, William.H.Macy and Joan Allen do a wonderful job as the sitcom parents, and special note goes to Jeff Daniels as the owner of the soda shop that discovers art.

Music: I usually don't talk about soundtracks, because I just don't know music, but this film has an amazing one. Ranging from music from the actual fifties, to emotional heartstring pulling original work by Randy Newman.

In Conclusion: This movie is absolutely fantastic and I recommend it wholeheartedly, since you probably missed it on the big screen, go hunt it down for the small one. 

Greg.B

Sidenote- How does the director of this end up making the serviceable, but not very good Hunger Games movie?

Blog Report: Maya

Alo Party Peoples.

This isn't actually Mayan. It's Aztec and I'm not even sure its a calander.

I'm doing another one of these.

I was told by a teacher to write an essay on what makes a thing remarkable in regards to the Mayans. That is a hard thing to do because the Mayans were quite remarkable.

They had incredible architecture, the only known complete pre-contact writing system in the New World, amazingly accurate calanders that figured out the 365 day year. (Sidenote: the 2012 thing was wrong. The Mayan calander didn't have much to say about 2012 it just kind of stops there.) Amazingly good astrology without the aid of telescopes.

They made those temples without the wheel, and the only beast of burden in Classical Age Mesoamerica was Mayans. But they also practiced human sacrifice, and slavery. 

You could say that about many, many  other civilizations. 

For example, the Greeks created democracy, but they also practiced eugenics, the Romans created a republic, and unified Western Europe, a feat unmatched since. But they still had slavery. Egypt built the inexplicable Pyramids, and still had slavery. 

Even when the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, women couldn't vote. Even now, when we can send people to the moon, and robots to Mars, there are still 27 states where someone can be fired for not being straight, and it's completely legal.

And many things that we consider great works, didn't have that big of an impact.

The Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel are certainly pretty, but let's be honest, would Europe still have dominated the world without them? Yes, yes they would have.

So, is mankind impressive? Certainly. But it's also kind of terrible. 

Hats off to all and have a nice day.

Greg.B

Internet Weirdness 3

Alo Party Peoples.

I didn't want to do another one of these so soon, but there has been a gap in films to cover, and I've decided to hold off on SHIELD until they wrap up the season.

So in order to hold you over until Enders Game, more weird things on the internets.

First off, we have the European equivalent of America's Got Talent:

http://youtu.be/NvS351QKFV4

I assume that, being on the Internet, you have heard of Minecraft. Well somebody made this short movie with it, and it's amazing. Take a look.

http://youtu.be/q_eH_HnHSpQ

Here's a two puppets teaching you about the heroes journey.

http://youtu.be/yZxs_jGN7Pg

Hopefully I have satisfied.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B

The Internet Is Still Weird

Alo Party Peoples.

As you all know, the Internet is a very weird place. That's what happens when anybody can say anything in relative anonymity. 

Here are some notable examples of Internet weirdness.

A YouTube channel that entirely consists of a text to speech program that narrates Wikipedia articles.

http://www.youtube.com/user/wikispeak4

This website only exists to provide GIFs of Bill Cosby.

http://www.instantcosby.com/

Did you know that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" can be a grammaticaly correct sentence in English?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

These people use Pokemon to explain the theories of Charles Darwin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF2mRcAoXLQ

This thing is odd. WARNING: DO NOT LOOK IF SUCEPTABLE TO SEIZURES BECAUSE SOME HAVE FLASHING LIGHTS.


http://www.theuselessweb.com/

That's all I have for you today. Hats off to you.

If you think something on the internet is weird, let me know what it is on Twitter @GregB00

Greg.B

Archivist Update

UPDATE: Hobbit 2 is being released on December 14. It will be covered then.

ORIGINAL POST IS AS FOLLOWS:

Alo Party Peoples.

Here are some things that I plan to do for the remainder of 2013.

For October I have plans to go over at least one horror movie. Because it's October and that seems to fit. I have yet to decide what. I also will do Nightmare Before Christmas because it is a Halloween movie and I can easily find it on Netflix. As well as covering anything I happen to see in theaters, and a mystery review for October 31.

November will be a quite crowded month for this blog. I have three movies I plan to see and cover. In particular Enders Game, The Hobbit: Desalation Of Smaug, and Thor: The Dark World. As well as the fact that the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who is airing on November 23. 

I have debated if I should cover it, because the last three seasons of the show have been building up to it, and therefore to fully enjoy it would require familiarity with said show. But since it is movie length, I plan to cover it anyway.

December will have some holiday stuff, a review of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and a history of depictions of Saint Nicholas. 

All of which will be peppered by giving my opinion on Agents of Shield as it airs.

That's what you can expect to see for the next few months.

Hats off to all, have a nice day, and keep the Web weird.

Greg.B

Let's Go Out To The Movies: Gravity

WARNING: IF YOU EASILY SUBCUMB TO MOTION SICKNESS. I STILL RECOMMEND YOU SEE THE MOVIE BUT DON'T EAT FOR TWO HOURS BEFOREHAND. AND NOW ON WITH OUR SHOW.

Alo Party Peoples.

is a fundamental force of the universe.

This film is a little different from my usual material. There are no more than three actors on screen at any given time, for one thing. I usually don't cover serious award season stuff either. But, when I saw the trailers I was intruiged, so I went and saw it. I recommend you do so as well.

No time to waste so let's get to the bullet points.

Story-The film is the story of two astronauts*, played by George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, working on the Hubble Telescope when a Russain sattelite explodes. Cutting off communication with the surface and surrounding them in a field of lethal shrapnel. Forcing them to drift from one sattelite to the next for hundreds of miles or die alone in the blackness of the void. It is engaging as all hell, the actors are absolutley fantastic, and it illustrates the unbreakable nature of the human spirit rather well. Although one scene towards the end is a bit of a moodbreaker, which I will not spoil.

Visuals-This movie is absolutley beautiful to behold. It is very hard to make space not look pretty. Several scenes consist of single unbroken shots, that work very well. But the warning up top is quite accurate. Many of those unbroken shots consist of a lot of spinning and sattelite debris flying at the audience. However that does not subtract from how beautiful it is and it looks even better in 3D, although if you have a weak stomach I reccomend opting for 2D instead.

Acting- Like I said the cast is very small, Mostly consisting of just Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Even then Clooney exits near the halfway mark, sort of. Leaving Bullock to do an absolutley wonderful job. Several minutes of the film is just her talking to herself while drifting and I bought every second of it. And a particular point is one of the few occasions that a film has gotten me to nearly shed a tear.

She deserves to get an Oscar nomination for this, and I will be very surprised if she doesn't. Clooney also does a very good job.

In conclusion, Gravity is a spectacular experience, and you will want to see it just to say you did. It's an experience that you just have to see.

Hats off to all, and have a nice day.

Greg.B

*Funnily enough, the government shutdown has a couple astronauts stuck up on the ISS.

The Internet Is Weird.

Alo Party Peoples.




The Internet is an amazing thing. We now have all human knowledge constantly at our fingertips. We have the ability to communicate almost instantaneously across entire continents. And, for good or ill, people can say practically anything and someone is sure to hear it.

But when anybody can publish anything, some very odd things will exist or come to light as a result.

I would like to make those things known to you. 

First off Teleporting Fat Guy: http://youtu.be/Ejc9GrooSKg

Here's Spock singing about hobbits. For some reason no clip of this I could find will work on mobile devices so no YouTube link. Here's a substitute.

http://touch.dailymotion.com/video/x2fb22_leonard-nimoy-ballad-of-bilbo-baggi_music

These ads have been popping up recently: http://youtu.be/KX4rxY94MC

http://youtu.be/fKv3pqU3ei0

And of course. Crazy Rainbow Sprinkler Conspiracy Lady. I wonder at how she doesn't call the camera witchcraft; http://youtu.be/aIYZvr3ueGw

Guys, I don't run the Internet. I just work in it. 

Hats off to all. Have a nice day. And let's keep the Web weird, or at least as weird as all of that. 

Greg.B

My Government Just Shut Down.

Alo Party Peoples.

So in case you hadn't heard. On October 1st 2013 the U.S. Government shut down over Obamacare. If you would like to know why, essentially the House of Represenatives and the Senate couldn't agree to extend the budget. I don't have time to go into more detail. Watch this if you want more. http://youtu.be/PTJubcZFA78

I'm not here to discuss Obamacare itself, which for the record went into effect anyway because healthcare is funded seperatley from the national budget. I'm here because the idea of the government shutting down sounds like a bit of a problem. After all, 800,000 people are suddenly out of a job. What else is gone that we all take for granted? Who's checking bags at airports? Who's patrolling the border? Who, dear readers, is inspecting our meats?

Let's find out.

First off things such as defense, border patrol, airport security, food inspection, Socail Security, and the postal service are exempt because they have been deemed essential. Those people get to go to work today.

Emergency services, waste management, law enforcement, hospitals, and education tend to be run on the state level, and will thus function as normal

So what is closed? Things like national parks and monuments, museums, and NASA, which have been deemed non essential to keeping the country alive.

So the Smithsonian is closed, your eBay should arrive on time, and the only thing that right wing has accomplished with this is the temporary unemployment of over half a million people.

Hats off to all, and I hope we can all get through this relatively unscathed.

Greg.B