Back And Insane
Wow, I’m back, and it feels kinda’ weird. Since I’ve returned from the beach, I’ve been extremely busy. I hope you enjoyed our guest blogger. Visit this link for more information about guest bloggers on omigod.net.
The beach was fun and sort of boring. We stayed in a beautiful, incredibly rich community. When you drove through the gated entrance there was a frickin’ merry-go-round that was only for community members. Yah. We all did pretty much normal “beach stuff,” which includes board walk, beach, eating out too much, pool, incredibly bad sunburn (at least for me), seeing a horrible community theatre production (OK, that probably doesn’t happen to everyone when they go to the beach), etc. The whole “vacation” was full of awkward, scary, and sort of hilarious moments. We had a huge problem though - there was no internet. What the hells a vacation without internet? Most of the time I had to use Lindsay’s Blackberry just to Twitter, because my Palm Centro decided to commit suicide right before we left.
What is the Mainstream?
Howdy its me, Brent Weichsel, guest blogging again for you. As far as I know, Kyle and Lindsay are back, but I’m going to give you a little nugget of thought to chew over while they decompress, and recover from sunburn. Once again if you want to find more about me please feel free to visit The Underdevelopment Podcast. I assume no liability for anything you experience over there.
Recently I read a novel by Warren Ellis called Crooked Little Vein (It is not for the weak of heart and stomach, I mean this with all seriousness). In the book one of the things that comes again and again is the concept of the mainstream and what it is. In the book they present several options, the standard definition of the mainstream that more of less is what you hear about on the news everyday, the wide release films, billboard top 20 artists, and the things that everyone has no real issue talking about publicly. Another possibility for what the mainstream is what everyone knows about but really doesn’t talk about in regular chit-chat the sort of stuff that you talk about at two in the morning with a bunch of friends or driving around the woods late at night with the summer breeze filling the car with the smell of wood and leaves. But I digress.
Both of those I have heard before and I more or less agree with the second one. As long as it’s in a majority of people’s minds I consider it to be pop-culture. Weather it is accepted by the general populace, that it is a totally separate matter (i.e religion, politics, etc etc). but one of the options that the book gave me that I had never really thought about in depth was that the mainstream is what ever is accessible to you. Now that doesn’t sound so bad until you think about what that means in this day and age. With the Internet the amount of information that is accessible to us is purely astounding and I don’t mean necessarily the best way possible. I’m sure you know of certain areas of the Internet that you don’t go to if your not feeling that well or if you’ve just ate a big greasy cheese steak. Now if the mainstream is whatever that is accessible to us easily. Lets face it few things get easier then using the net. Then that means all the depraved things all those disgusting stories you may or may not have read. Are all part of the mainstream.
Madness eh? Maybe I just got to far to many weird places on the Internet. or I think to much that could be it to.
Movie Talk: The Spirit
Howdy everyone, hope you all are enjoying yourself this evening/day/night/any variation of that in the space time continuum. I shall be your guest blogger for a short bit while Kyle and Lindsay are gone. I probably should tell you who I am. Brent Weichsel is the name and I make films. If you want to check out my films, podcast, along with any other exploits, than visit The Underdevelopment Podcast. I assume no responsibility for brain damage from reading or watching anything I have created.
Woke up this morning and for some reason, Apple has been on a crazy binge period where they have been throwing up crazy amounts of trailers onto their website. So I have to check it mutiple times a day to keep up. One of the new trailers was for this little movie called The Spirit.
To get you all up to speed on what The Spirit is, here is a quick summary. Pretty much the character, The Spirit, is about as old school as you can get when it comes to comic book characters, being created in the 40’s. More than a few modern crime fighters can trace their lineage/inspiration back to him. I didn’t know of him before hearing about the movie, but he surely sounds interesting.
“The character has a terrifying side to him. This is a man who’s died and come back to life. So it twists into fantasy. And of course there are tons of women in it. There have to be — it’s The Spirit. They’re all in love with him, and he’s in love with all of them. You might say he’s a bit of a slut.” via EW.
A little strange, but Frank Miller was writing it so I had nothing to be afraid of. Miller was involved with both of the movies 300 and Sin City. Two movies that despite not being accepted on a more mainstream level, had under under appreciated dialogue, and were ingenious ways of telling a story whether it be via shifting perspectives (300) or non-linear story telling (Sin City).
What really makes this movie so interesting is that this film will be Millers debut as a director. His only other experience directing was co-directing Sin City with Robert Rodriguez. With Rodriguez being your pilot it’s hard to not make amazing movies, just look at his reel. Though I was excited that he was at the helm that was until the first trailer came out, and it was just not campy enough. I know that sounds strange, but it felt as though it was in a real world setting. Just doing things that look silly. Alright so you got your really nice rooftop shot, but he’s running on a telephone wire? Kind of made me think that Miller needed someone to hold his reins other wise he might end up like George Lucas, who once had free reign nothing good comes of it (I.E. Episode 1 Phantom Menace). Now true it could have also been that visual effects weren’t done and that was a teaser, but if that was the case call it a teaser. I wrote it the movie off completely.
Well this new trailer comes out the other day, and all that I just said? Forget about it, this movie is going to be what got me into films in the first place. The Spirit is going to be entertaining to a T. From what I can see they really have captured an old school, very campy, and not a self righteous comic book movie. Not that those are always bad, but it can get old. Think of it as Spy vs. Spy, but older and more mature. A cop back from the dead to fight crime. Who also just can’t help but falling in love with every gorgeous woman he meets. Insane maniacal mastermind villains that has to kill anyone who see his face. Did I mention that the villain is played by Samuel L. Jackson? What is there not to love? I get excited just thinking about it!
