Married

I'm married to the love of my life and it rules and that's all for now except that those bearings I did art for finally came out but they changed the design a bit and I don't care for it as much but it's still pretty cool.

Kriegaffe! Damn you!

Mignola's work is engaging not only because of its graphic brilliance, but because of its wonderful sense of pulpy humor as well. Mezco Toys has been releasing some really nice action figures based on Mignola's Hellboy books, and I have two so far: Hellboy and Lobster Johnson. They're well sculpted and capture Mignola's art very well.

Wouldn't you know it, the coolest figure from the first wave is also the rarest. Behold Kriegaffe, with floating Nazi Overlord's head:

Recent movies

The Matador (2005) - I enjoyed watching Pierce Brosnan having fun acting. Though I know he regrets the studio's decision, I'm glad he's done with 007. Roles like this are (apparently) much better suited for him. He's a good comedic actor, and this script was just right for him.

There were a couple moments in the movie where I thought it was going to go somewhere darker, but to the film's credit it keeps the tone light throughout (as light as a movie about an aging assassin can be). I think going on a darker route later in the film would have been cheating.

The Hour of the Gun (1967) - I think I'll try to see all the Wyatt Earp interpretations now, because (as far as I know) there are only 1 or 2 left. I've seen Tombstone, Wyatt Earp, Warlock, My Darling Clementine, and now The Hour of the Gun. I think Gunfight at the OK Corral is the last big one.

Hour of the Gun says in white letters at the very beginning, "This is the real story. This is the way it happened." Well, from what I've read on the subject, it's one of the more accurate interpretations, but it still plays with the timeline and embellishes several events. One alteration in particular seems to be The Standard for Wyatt Earp movies: Virgil and Morgan getting shot on the same night. The assassination attempts were actually several months apart, but The Hour of the Gun, Tombstone, and Wyatt Earp all place them on the same night. It makes sense from a storytelling perspective, but it's funny that HotG would make such a bold claim about accuracy and still fudge a few months. I wonder if HotG set the precedent for this alteration?

I like Jason Robards a lot. He doesn't utilize a Southern dandy accent like Dennis Quaid or Val Kilmer, but he plays a great Doc regardless. James Garner plays Wyatt very straight. Robard's Doc serves as a good foil for him in this regard, often speaking to the emotions and true motivations that Garner's Wyatt never allows out.

HotG might be the first Wyatt Earp film to touch on Wyatt's darker side as well. It doesn't treat him like an outright bully, but it does call into question the righteousness of his crusade to avenge his brothers.

Look for a young John Voight as Curly Bill Brocious.


Adios Sabata (1971) - My first foray into non-Leone spaghetti westerns. I don't know why this one got sent first, since it's not the first Sabata movie. This one features Yule Brynner instead of Lee Van Cleef in the title role.

It's not a great film. But it does have some really cool bits of style and creativity that are hallmarks of the genre.

Gimmicky weapons: check. Sabata has a shortened rifle similar to Josh Randall's in Wanted: Dead or Alive, though this one is clip fed for some ridiculous reason. Honestly, it doesn't make a lick of sense. Allow me to nerd-out on the gun for a moment: Sabata has to use his other hand to push the clip through manually, and it doesn't appear to increase his magazine capacity by more than one or two rounds. What's more, it would make the gun even more inaccurate since he wouldn't be able to steady the gun with his fore hand. Of course, we still see Sabata making amazing shots from hundreds of yards away. This makes Blondie shooting Tuco's rope look like stark neo-realism.

Further weapons gimmicks: the Hungarian (right?) Colonel uses a model ship with working cannons to dispatch a dude he doesn't want to pay. One goofy mute guy who likes to flip around like a monkey is also a dead-eye with the ol' "iron ball on the toe of your shoe."

It features a very creative villain death: the Colonel has had a portrait painted of him, and at the end he is facing off against Sabata in the same room as the portrait. The Colonel ducks behind the portrait just as Sabata whips a knife at him, which stabs into the portrait and then is dragged diagonally down it as the Colonel falls behind it. Pretty cool.

There are some other elements (Sabata's costume, the "Dance of Death," and the fat revolutionary dude's speeches whenever someone dies) that are half cheesy/ half funny.

Payback: Director's Cut

A lot of the "Director's Cuts" I've seen don't do much to justify their existence. They have a few "cut" scenes dropped in, but most of the time they interrupt the pacing and offer no real change to the film. The term has become synonymous with "Unrated Cut" and comes off as a marketing gimmick to get people to shell out for the same movie again.

I haven't seen the original cut of Payback since probably 2000, but I remember enjoying it. It was a gritty crime film with a good dose of humor and Mel's trademark "I love being tortured" shtick. I rented this director's cut to see how it played, since it was apparently a dramatic difference rather than a few new scenes thrown in here and there.

I'd say the new cut is a much better movie than the old one. It eliminates Mel's narration, which I think greatly improves the way Mel's character is explored. We get to watch it rather than hear it, so he is now Porter rather than Mel Gibson. One of the strengths of this character is that we don't fully understand his motivations (see also Point Blank with Lee Marvin); we have the duration of the film to try and understand his code, his principles, and the original narration spoiled the process.

Another change is the filtering. The movie is no longer entirely washed out blue, it's full of warm tones as well as cool. I like this as well. It still fits the mood of the movie, and it's more visually pleasing.

As for new scenes, I couldn't really tell what was added in. I could tell what was removed, which was the kidnapping sub-plot, Kris Kristofferson's character, and the subsequent torture and escape. The new cut features a tidier finale, and the whole movie is actually shorter than the original cut. It clocks in at around 90 minutes, which works for this story. I remember liking Porter's escape scene in the original (clawing his way through the backseat), but I think the new cut keeps the pace consistently and serves the story better.

It's definitely worth checking out.

These always make me smile

Animated avatar: "Invincible Chunk."


omg i lovzzors corgis!.

Hee hee, giant seal.

Only 2 performances left

The last two showings of Fools are this Friday and Saturday at 8pm. If you don't come and you live in the area you were not really my friend ever and I would like to ask that you stop reading this blog for seriously.

I will be shaving my beard come Sunday, and auctioning off bits of it for charity. I'll post eBay links as soon as they're up.

Apartment

Amy and I found an apartment! It's behind Savers. Not too far from Biola, we trust the landlord, and it's pretty nice. Our landlord is this great old guy: ex-Marine, ex-cop, and a Christian to boot. He takes good care of his tenants. Plus we found out that we know a few of his tenants already, so that speaks well of the place.

It's weird having a place that's ours. I'm not used to the idea yet.

Brother Josh helped me pick up a fridge this Tuesday, and so far that's the only bit of furnishing we've done.

Showdown

Brother Ben and I had ourselves a Mexican stand-off sans Mexicans a few Sundays ago.

Oh yeah, did I mention I did end up getting one of those awesome HWS New Model Army airsoft pistols? Yeah, I got one and it's awesome.

We had two quick-draw showdowns and one back-to-back 10-pace count-off. He was armed with my New Model Army, and I used my Colt SAA. We only had safety glasses on, so he went down when I nailed him in the lip with a lucky shot. We stood pretty far apart because those things shoot so dang hard, but it was still nerve-wracking taking pot-shots without any cover.

He won two, I won one. It's pretty fun. I'll post pictures of the guns soon, they look sho shweet.

Leone SE box art

Looks rad. Can't wait for this one to come out.

I also found box-art to another Clint/Western release. Verr nahce.

While we're on the subject of beautiful Western-themed art, how about a few Dark Tower comic covers?

Issue #6 - by Jae Lee

Issue #3 - by Jae LeeIssue #2 (2nd print) - Joe Quesada (who can still draw, apparently)

Fools - Opening Night

Fools opens tomorrow night, Thursday the 19th! It will be playing for the next three weekends. Come out and see it, if you've a mind to. I don't have a Russian accent anymore, but it'll still be a good time.

From Dr. Lewis' Press Release:

Tickets are $8 for Biola students/staff/administrators/Board members/alumni and $10 for all others. The play runs April 19, 20, 21, 22; April 26, 27, 28, 29; May 4, 5. Thursday through Saturday night shows are at 8 PM (doors open at 7:30 PM) and Sunday matinees are at 2 PM (doors open at 1:30 PM). There are only 95 seats at Theatre 21; seats are on a first come/first serve basis.

Biola Theatre 21 is located on the McNally campus of Biola University. Parking is available off of Biola Avenue in Parking Lot C. Looking for the striped awning over our doors and come early to assure yourself of a seat. Order tickets @ theatre.tickets@biola.edu

The Man with No Name: SE

We were given a pretty good Special Edition DVD of The Good The Bad and The Ugly a couple years ago, but Europe got that and SE's of the rest of the trilogy. Not fair.

GBU SE DVD cover - excellent design

Fortunately, MGM is finally gracing us Yanks with not only SE's of A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More, but the never-seen-by-me Fistful of Dynamite as well! Color me pleased. Finally, a new DVD release to get excited about.

Oh yeah, this is kinda related: on the airsoft front, we are finally getting an alternative to Tanaka's excellent Colt Single Action Army replica.

Two customized Tanaka SAAs. So pretty.

HWS (which stands for something like Hartford, Japan) is a company that has been making excellent-but-non-firing replicas of sweet Western guns for years. Seeing as both airsoft and Cowboy Action Shooting are huge in Japan, you'd think they would have taken the logical step a long time ago, but nevertheless, they are just now releasing an airsoft version of the New Army Model revolver (I think Eastwood sports one in The Outlaw Josey Wales).

HWS New Model Army

Yep. Gonna have to sell some stuff and get it.

Biola Lacrosse FTW again

I forgot to mention: versus Pepperdine, brother Ben once again scored the game-winning goal in sudden-death overtime. Even cooler since he was scoreless otherwise the entire game. And he got hacked in the neck while shooting.

Way to go, Biola. This week they are on the road, visiting Santa Cruz for three games in as many days, I believe.

This article serves as a companion piece to this one.

Art to get

I decided last year that I'd like to start collecting comic art. I bought my first page (a great Sam & Max page that I'll scan and post eventually) at the San Diego Comic Con last summer.

Pages/Artists I'd like to get:

-Original Doug TenNapel page. I'd like one of the Solomon Fix pages, if they're available. Any of these would be great.
-Original Stan Sakai art. He doesn't sell pages, but he does do commissions. I'm thinking of requesting a samurai monkey, of course. My avatar!
-Original Mike Mignola page or art. From Hellboy, of course. This one might be the hardest/most expensive to get. How awesome would it be to have him do a pin-up for my Pooks book? Very awesome.
-Original Rob Schrab page.

Step-by-step Usagi cover

Stan Sakai posted a great step-by-step example of a painted cover to an issue of Usagi Yojimbo.

Just thought I'd share with y'all.

I'm looking forward to creating a color cover to my book. I know that's a bit premature, since my book has, what, 7 pages done? But still! Seeing eef's covers and his process, and then Stan's, makes me realize that a hot cover goes a long way towards selling a book. I get sold by covers all the time! That Eric Powell book (Billy the Kid's Old Timey Oddities) completely snookered me based on the cover. The interior stunk, but the point is the cover worked.

The Juggalo Response

I was going through old posts, deleting spam comments and adding tags, and discovered that my old post on Juggalos had somehow reached an outside (though very specific) audience.

Read the original post with comments here. Two of them posted in a fairly calm and rational manner, but the rest were reminiscent of certain Muslims protesting the Danish cartoon by torching a neighborhood. (For the benefit of those particular juggalos: I mean that your response supported my original claim, not that you committed arson.)

Also, for the record, to any juggalos who find this post now: I kid you not, I have Faygo in my fridge at this very moment. Please don't eff me up with your hatchet.

Howl's Moving Castle

Pretty darn enjoyable. I loved the castle design, Billy Crystal as Calcifer, and the goofy little dog. The movie's filled with Miyazaki's favorite things: weird flying machines, anti-war sentiments, black goopy people, magic, an old lady who looks like every other old lady he's ever drawn, and a plucky heroine.

Biola Lacrosse FTW

Biola's lacrosse team played long-time rival Occidental on Saturday night in what was easily the best game of the season, if not ever.

Biola and Occidental have a long history together. Occi was the first team Biola ever played in the regular season. The year was 2002 and the game was at Occi. If I recall correctly, that is the game where Tiffin scored three goals to much applause and kudos. We ultimately lost, but it wasn't a blow-out and the scores got closer and closer as the years went by. 2004, after I had graduated, was the year Josh had taken up the Agadoni banner with the quiet dignity befitting our humble name by scoring approximately 3 million goals per game. Unfortunately, Biola needed 3 million and 1, and the 2004 Occi game ended in a heart-breaking sudden-death loss. (Special note: reader J.Ol came all the way from LB for this game! My uncle Dave Stubbs was in attendance as well.) 2005 and 2006 ended similarly. It seemed we were doomed to forever be Occi's "almost."

All this was changed Saturday night. Under the bright lights of Biola's turf field, the Eagles squared off against their old foe at 7pm sharp. The beginning of the game was fairly even, but Occi found an early lead and kept high defensive pressure on the Eagles, which they didn't seem used to. However, the Eagles adapted quickly and brought the game up to a tie by applying the same sort of pressure. The forced a lot of turnovers which kept the ball on the offensive side for a good portion of the game. Also, Biola got this new kid as goalie and he did a phenomenal job. He made some great low saves, and though he let a few high ones slip by, he adapted and made some clutch saves towards the end as well. Biola was up by two going into the 4th quarter. The game was scoreless for quite a bit of the 4th, but Occi took some well-placed shots and managed to tie it up before the clock ran out.

Now it was sudden-death: 5 minutes of clock time and the first team to score gets the game. A situation we'd seen before. Nerves were strained almost to the breaking point.

Face-off: Occi wins it. Their coach calls time out. Crap. Now they're going to set up a play. All it takes is one opening and a decently placed shot and it's over. Please, not this again!

The game starts again, Occi is moving the ball around. There's a shot! It pings of the goalie's leg and then the pole! Biola recovers it, leading to a fast-break. Ryan Smith, long-pole middie, is wheeling the ball out of there as fast as he can. Ben Agadoni on attack is keeping an eye out for the pass. Smith crosses the mid-field line and snaps a nice pass to Ben, who turns, fires, and is leveled by Occi's goalie. But the shot was true, and ball was in. GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAL!!

Biola wins. Next week is against UCI, our other big rival. Man, good season. Way to go, guys.

Carney-4: Color Options

I convoited the image to Flaysh and threw some color around. Any favorites?


This one's the first option I made. The red kinda blends with the pink too much, now that I look at it.


Here's the next version. I remade it below with a dark green replacing the black stroke throughout.




I like the color contrasts in this one.


I like the colors, but some have pointed out that the creatures don't contrast enough.

With that in mind, I made this one:

I like the contrasts in this one much better now.

Muse: Black Holes and Revelations

I just picked up my first Muse album, based on a few songs I'd heard. So far I'm really digging it. I appreciate the keyboard/synth element. It adds a lot to the songs, especially the opening track. It reminds me of The Who's synth elements.

I'm pretty sure I have listened to an entire Muse album before (I don't remember which one it was, but it was a few years ago) and I remember dismissing them at the time because of the lead singer's style. The drawn out vibratto whine (which seems to be a trendy thing these last few years) was really annoying. I'm pleased to say it doesn't bother me on Black Holes very much. We'll see if it can stand the test of time.

I had also picked up and then got rid of Wolfmother recently. Same deal as Muse: singer grates. Some of the songs are great, but the vocals compete so much with the (very nice) instrumentals I just couldn't take it.

Russkie

Last night at rehearsal our director brought in her Russian neighbor, Rita. She was quite a character and an animated storyteller. Boy, she's seen a lot of stuff in her life. She grew up in Russia during Stalin's regime, and she remembers being brainwashed at school into thinking Stalin was a great man. She said she's almost 80, but you wouldn't know it watching her. She's very alive (something she attributes to the freedom she has in America).

Rita was brought in to help us with our accents. It was interesting taking notes in our scripts about how she pronounced different words. The funniest thing was that she didn't think she had an accent! She spoke of the people at her Assyrian church: "Now they have accents!"

One of the guys in our play, Stephen, used his Russian accent when he spoke to her, and she thought he really was a foreigner! He's got a really good accent, which he says he learned from two Russian guys in his gymnastics class.

We have to have all our lines memorized by next Tuesday! I think I'll be fine, since I don't really have that many, and most of them are just reaction bits of dialogue.