Daniel85

I remember seeing this trailer on my Hanna-Barbera videos, and thinking it was going to be the most awesome cinematic masterpiece of all time. Seriously, that is one awesome trailer. Remember a time when trailers actually made you want to see a movie?

80s rock ballads? Little Ewok creatures? Yes, please!

Watch this, it’s pretty cool.

(Pic from Blog@Newsarama.)

Nice to see that Steven Spielberg can even manage to incorporate product placement into a candid on-set photo. Still got it!

Just kidding!

I like how the kids have Indy and Toht refer to that one figure as “Cairo Swordsman” as if that’s his actual name.

And the shot with the mother setting a picnic table in the background is a nice touch. Very thoughtful for a standard 30-second “these kids are playing with our toys, you should too” 80s toy commercial.

I’m sure you’ve all seen this by now, but if not: 

Fantastic. It’s gonna be great to actually see a decent movie poster in theatres for a change, as opposed to the dodgy photomanipulation crap that spackles the lobbies these days. Drew Struzan straight up rocks.

Why didn’t I think of this?!

John! Paul! George! Ringo! Zombies!

Okay, now I wanna see someone run with this and do a Zombeatles cartoon or comic, a la “Marvel Zombies”.

And just ’cause I’m a huge nerd…

While My Dismembered Leg Gently Seeps
A Taste Of Brains.
Fixing A Hole (In My Chest)
Everybody’s Trying To Eat My Baby
All You Need Is Napalm
Mmmmm…. Mr. Mustard

And of course…

Help!

Come on then, out with ‘em…

Just thought I’d pop up again for a quick entry. I feel kinda bad about not updating more often, but then again it’s not like anyone cares.

So… Laura and I were at the mall last night, just bumming around, and figured we’d see a movie. There isn’t much exciting cinematic fare playing at the moment, but we had both expressed a modicum of interest in seeing Juno, so we decided to catch that.

Should’ve known better.

Warning sign #1: It has the kid from Superbad (Michael Cera, he was also the kid on Arrested Development). Superbad sucked. Everything Judd Apatow has done since Freaks And Geeks (the epitome of awesomeness) sucks. I hate how he’s trying to be the new John Hughes. That Michael Cera kid is annoying and relies on his spaced-out, blank-faced expression and pre-pubescent cracking voice instead of any visible acting talent.

Warning sign #2: the TV spot for Juno relied upon the most cliched, unoriginal movie marketing concept ever, namely (bad pun, I’m sorry) a rapid-fire montage of characters from the movie saying the main character’s name. “Juno. Juno! Juno? Juuuno…” It’s not clever. It’s not funny. It’s not even original.

So we went in to see it. The theatre was packed. I guess because Juno is this year’s “little indie that could” everyone is going to see it so they can rave about it on their MySpace pages and prove just how trendy they are.

We only lasted fifteen minutes before we decided to walk out and sneak into another show. Right from the get-go the movie was intolerable. The opening titles had that oh-so-2000s faux-indie trope of the rotoscoped (wiki it up if you’re not an animation aficionado) main character walking through a notebook/sketch cartoony world while some crappy 2000s iPod rock plays over the credits. The movie looked like a MySpace page layout.

The main character (Juno, of course) was like some mish-mash of Napoleon Dynamite and Rory Gilmore from The Gilmore Girls. She finds out she’s pregnant, but this doesn’t shift her disaffected, hip demeanour too much. I think she actually said something like ‘I’m pregnant fo shizz’, in an ‘I’m gonna use Ebonics trendy-ironically’ way.

By that time it was all just too much, so we grabbed our coats and walked out. Lucky for us, Alvin & The Chipmunks was just about to start in the adjacent theatre, so we ducked in there and got to watch Jason Lee and some CG chipmunks. A far better way to spend nine bucks and a couple of hours than that faux-indie Fox Searchlight crap.

I’m done. Don’t see Juno.

This is pretty awesome. Well, right up until the part where the beatbox guy joins in. The dude in the passenger seat is clearly loving it, but I wouldn’t put up with that shit.

I think I’m gonna have to track down this movie based solely on that little clip. I do love me some Magnificent Seven.

Hey. How ya been? I’m back for now. It’s summer/winter movie season, which means crass promotions galore, and y’all know I’m all over that shit.

So… apparently there’s a third Shrek movie coming out, as a quick trip to any supermarket will confirm. I don’t even like the Shrek movies that much (gutter humour, reliance on celebrities whose cachet faded at some point in the 90s, etc), but I do have to respect a marketing campaign based on turning stuff green. It appeals to me on some deep level, what can I say?

Shrek’s got his disgusting, slimy mitts on everything at the moment, including Arnott’s Royals. If you’ll allow me to chase down a bit of a tangent for a moment… what’s up with Royals? No-one ever buys them. I have this weird thing about snack products that no-one seems to buy. No-one buys those “Cheds” savoury biscuits either, but they’ve been around forever.

Royals are good, I guess, although I probably couldn’t eat more than two without passing out from a sugar overload. It’s just that I never go to someone’s house and they’re like ‘Arnott’s Royal?’ to which I respond heartily ‘Yes, please!’ No-one buys em. Just an observation.

Check out that smug look on Shrek’s face. I can just imagine him with his pseudo-Scottish accent… “I’m tarning all your favourite looxury foods green, and there’s nowt you can do aboot it!’ (Okay, that was more like a mix of Irish and Liverpudlian and other random tongues of the British Isles. I apologise to our colonial forebears.)

What I like to do when I eat a Royal (on the rare occasion that I do, because as I’ve stressed, no-one ever buys them) is kind of break the chocolate shell to reveal the undulating mass of marshmallow beneath. It’s fun, try it.

Even more fun when the marshmallow is a sickly Nineties green. Lovely.

Remember this little ditty?

It’s not the actual video clip for the song, and the guy wrongly credited it to MC Hammer (who did the similar “Addams Groove” for the Addams Family movie). It’s by Partners In Kryme.

Such an awesome song. It was everywhere in 1990.

Ironic props to the Partners In Kryme for coming up with some ridiculous, overwrought rhymes. (’They didn’t say we’d be there in half an hour!’)

Whatever happened to blockbuster movies getting rap track tie-ins? This, The Addams Family, Men In Black… it was great! And to think it all started with Prince’s song for Batman.