Slangards! Now, More Bored Than Ever Before!

Originally posted on Oct 23, '07, at slangards.multiply.com

Photo by Benjamin Padero

   1. In the 8 facts about [name], you share 8 things that your readers don't know about you. At the end, you tag 8 other bloggers to keep the fun going. Each blogger must post these rules first.
   2. Each blogger starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
   3. At the end of the post, a blogger needs to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
   4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog

1)
I'm a nerd. My favorite subjects in school were history and science. I was a NJHS member in Hawaii, was on my school quiz bee team in Guam. Was even on TV (albeit local Guam TV which all of three people probably watch). I spent my recess with my nose in a book while my classmates played tetherball or basketball or dodgeball.

Anyone else think sports is kinda gay?

2)
I'm a geek. The obsessive, pack rat kind. My room is filled with pocket books (mostly genre books), DVDs (mostly genre DVDs), toys (mostly Comic book toys), and magazines (mostly FHM - I mean SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN! SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN). I've emptied my closet of clothes so I could stuff more things in there. I've written fan fic, played D&D, and ranted on blogs in geekspeak. I only get really engaged in a conversation if it's in that certain elitist vernacular that geeks love to perpetuate.

Geeks love elitism.

3)
I'm a dork. I don't like socializing for the sake of socializing much. It takes me eons to open up to people. I hate parties and social crowds. Plain crowds are fine. The kind you can lose yourself in. I like to stare at people around me with a scowl on my face.

Security guards tend to think I'm a terrorist

4)
I 'm a loner. I like doing things alone. Commuting alone. Walking the mall alone. Watching movies alone. I didn't attend my prom, my graduation, attended only one reunion and am AWOL from most social functions if I can give even a half decent excuse. People are noisy and I like the quiet. I like the dark.

I hear the voices in my head better that way.

5)
I'm an impatient bastard. I don't like to stay in one place for a long time. That's why I'm such a bad shopper. I don't like standing in front of a store haggling with the barkers. If I need something, I zone in on it, drop the cash, and I'm out of there. I don't take the same way home all the time, I don't hang around the same malls and I don't like waiting around for anything.

Contrarily, I was in UP for a decade.

6)
I'm a pop head. I listen to the most sacharine, sugary pop music you can imagine and like it. Shut up with your grunge and your punk and your "alternative". Alternative is common. Pop is the new alternative.

Baduy is the new cool.

7)
I'm totally blocked. I've got the mother of all artist's block. I can't draw anymore. It has something to do with my depression. I just don't have the passion anymore. Every time I sit down in front of a blank page I just stop and stare at it. One of these days I'm going to have to work through that.

But only after my serial killing spree.

8)
I'm a closet optimist. Though it's well covered by my guise of a pessimistic realist. I think the best of everyone, all the time. I like to think that the human race isn't a bunch of fucking wankers who are out to get me, take my money, and piss on my head, then knife me in the back.

But I'm pretty sure I'm wrong.

A Cinephile's Grimoire

Originally posted on Oct 18, '07, at slangards.multiply.com

These are magical, mystical, absolute mouth-watering movies that I am mad about.

They cover basically everything I've seen since around 1985, movies I used to have in my old VHS collection, before DVD made those beloved, delicate black plastic space wasters obsolete. I actually still have a lot of them, stuffed in a box, in my closet, gathering dust. Even have some Betamax tapes. Ahhh, Betamax.

These are mostly Hollywood films because the site I use, www.impawards.com, doesn't have a lot of the stuff I saw in college. When I find posters for that stuff I'll probably add it in.

I love these films for different reasons. Some of the reasons don't involve the rational thought processes of normal people so do not leave replies saying "this movie sucks so hard I use it to vacuum my carpet!".

I know it sucks. That's probably why I like it.

Philistine.


See the gallery HERE.

Stardust

Originally posted on Oct 8, '07, at slangards.multiply.com

Stardust is another one of those movies that is destined for my all-time favorites list. I literally couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Like Labyrinth, Sunshine and Before Sunrise, it's one of those movies that had me leaving the theater with a sense of wonder of what MIGHT be out there.

I haven't read Gaiman's graphic novel, but I've been told it reads like an adult fairytale. The movie is much the same. Stardust evokes the same kind of awe and wonder I got as a kid listening to the Brother's Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson, staring intently at my mom as she read, imagining mermaids and fairies and pirates and neer-do-wells and thieves and princes. Heroes with swords and evil witches with magic spells glowing with green malice.

This is the film I was hoping for when I first saw Shymalan's trailer for Lady in the Water. What I wanted from Adamson's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Those films just didn't engage my imagination at all. Lady was so pretentious that it collapsed under it's own weight and Lion's director just didn't have the technical know how to really get that epic feel of adventure that a journey through Narnia should have had.

Stardust comes very close to that other great fantasy adventure, Jackson's Lord of the Rings, though it's tone is very different. It's more like a light-hearted comedy, full of high adventure and whirlwind romance. Pirates, Witches, Princes, and Rouges. When you're there in your seat, you feel like part of the world of Stormhold and you don't want to go back to your dreary life in wall either.

Like Aronofsky's The Fountain, this film really made me want to go out and find the graphic novel. I'm definitely going to watch it again. A lot of people will tell you not to see it because Claire Danes is in it, but you tell 'em to fuck off and see it anyway.

Strings

Originally posted on Oct 3, '07, at slangards.multiply.com

Aside from the obvious, there is another reason I love shopping for DVDs in dark little corners of the metropolis rather than in the cool comfort of the record bars inside the malls. Every now and then you'll run into a little known gem of a film that hasn't gotten any hype and isn't likely to make any of the bestsellers lists. You'll look over the cover, likely say something along the lines of, "hmm... this looks interesting..." and fork over the 60-70 bucks without the apprehension you might suffer from if you were buying an original.

That's exactly what happened when I picked up Anders Rønnow Klarlund's "Strings". I'd never heard of the film, (though it was released back in 2005 apparently) but it was one of those packages that just caught my attention and begged me to pick it up. According to the card, this is the"world's first fully integrated puppet feature film". In layman's terms, that means the principles are all marionettes; the same creepy puppets they used to have in shows like Thunderbirds. Karlund was said to have wanted to come up with a commentary on 9/11 and the US views on terrorism. What we got was an amazing deep fantasy film that reminds me of nothing less than Henson's The Dark Crystal.

Klarlund and his team of puppeteers, designers, and voice actors have come up with a world so rich in detail that it's rife with it's own mythology and feels as real as anything life-sized. It's a world where even a king can die if his headstring is cut. A world where puppets are made, not born, carved of wood by their fathers' hand, and connected to heaven by parts of their mother's lifelines. A world of castes, where slaves are kept to supply the royals with spare parts.

The expert handling of the marionettes lends the characters an eerie reflection of life, while the excellent voice work by the English cast (including Children of Dune's James McAvoy and Catherine McCormack) gives them a humanity you begin to believe in as the film goes on. By the end, you may actually find yourself rooting for Hal Kara and loathing Nezo and Ghrak as if you were a loyal subject of the dead Kharo yourself.

As I watched Strings, I felt it would have been an amazing live show, staged with live actors playing living puppets. It would have been an amazing thing to watch this classic story play out with life size strings coming from the top of actors heads leading to heaven. I'd gladly pay for a ticket to a play like that.