wall-e and vh1

i saw wall-e last night and loved it. it was adorable. it's another eco-film, but much more effective than m.night's the happening. also, the little short they show before the film is one of pixar's best shorts. i love the idea of short film as a medium. i wish more people did stuff in that realm.

the movie is very well paced, and manages to keep your attention despite the fact that there's very little dialog. it's a simple love story with lots of social undercurrents. somehow coming from pixar, none of it ever feels preachy. just cute.

the only thing i maybe didn't love was the use of real actors in the 'propaganda' footage. fred willard is in it, though, which is pretty rockin. i understand what they were going for by using real people for the old footage, and animated people for the future world. but it took me out of the world for a bit. felt inconsistent.

oh, in other news, i'm on vh1's 'i love the new millennium'. woohoo! so far, i only know for sure that i'm in the 2002 episode. but i'm hoping to pop up in more. who knows. lemme know if you see me =)

-pete

short nmk vegas video podcast

hello everyone.
this is just a quick video podcast i put together from some footage eric shot of us in vegas.
sorry it got all compressy. not sure why.
-pete


http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=37121391

tweaking

we just finished putting all the finishing touches on everything. so now everything is officially recorded, and the next step is to mix it all. neil’s going to come down to nashville monday to start that. i’m so excited; it’s so close to being done!

bgvs

sadly, i was on the road touring while neil recorded the background vocals. but i just got to hear them and they sound fantastic! we got this amazing singer, brooks ritter, to sing on a few tracks. and of course neil sang on most of the stuff too. everything has a great michael jackson vibe. i’m loving it! sounds great with headphones on.

what’s the buzz, tell me whatsa-Happening

hmm.. ok. so we're in vegas for a few days, and what do i do? i go see a bunch of movies.
the first one was m.night's 'the happening', which i had super high hopes for. i loved the trailers; the imagery was spookycool. it seemed like a darker direction for our old buddy.

let me interject here to say i hated 'the lady in the water', which i also had super high hopes for.


so, i've realized that m.night cannot direct humans. he suffers from lucas-disease methinks. he has great vision, super ideas, and great sense of building interesting, dynamic characters... but, he can't direct humans. i guess. in some cases, outstanding actors are able to bring it without his help. and in 'the happening' i think john leguizamo did just that.


now i love zooey deschanel and mark wahlberg. i really do. and this is why i must blame m.night. the script was awkward at points, which may account for some of the clumsy interactions. the overall premise is a bit of a letdown. not quite 'indianna jones 4' letdown. but still a heavy sigh.
all in all, this film seemed like m.night wanted to show these horrific scenes of people killing themselves, and decided to scribble a story to string them on. i give it a 55. it needs to repeat the semester. and bring in a signed note from mom.

in other news, 'hulk' was incredible (pun intended). seriously. a wonderful film. full review tomorrow.
-pete

i'd love to hear what you all think. maybe i'm just an cranky old man =)

resident wii-vil and the zohan

the past three nights in a row i've been up until 3am playing resident evil 4 on the wii. sooo awesome and creepy! i played it on the ps2 a while ago, but it's always so hard to aim and shoot when multiple zombie-people are trying to get you. but now, it's so much more fun! i feel like milla jovovich! (if i looked like her, i would make out with myself).

zohan: funny. not super funny, but funny. there are many moments where i was laughing out loud. embarassingly loud. and there were huge gaps in laughter. i think a lot of these formula-comedies have the same problem. they try to emulate the structure of a normal film. that is to say, they have a love relationship that misses and then finally gets it together. they have some sort of feel-good ending. some sort of character arc where our hero learns something. all the stuff that we expect from a real movie. but with a silly action-comedy like this, we don't need it. i think it actually gets in the way. i don't really care if zohan gets the girl. because he's not a real person to me. so i'd rather see more gags and moments.
napoleon dynomite works particularly well because it doesn't go for those moments. or if it does, it's in a severely downplayed way. it's more about funny/dysfunctional characters in situations, saying and doing funny things. sort of like my life.
-pete