Vince Vaughn, typography, and Radiohead (unrelated)
Above is a great typography video rendering of Vince Vaughn from Wedding Crashers. GREAT.
Here is a really nice collection of typography posters I saw today.
top 10 favorite anti-heroes
In doing research on villains, i started thinking about another brand of character: the anti-hero. My list comes from literature, comics, and film.
10. Holden Caulfield – A very popular, angst-filled character from The Catcher in the Rye. I really enjoyed the book, even though it’s not my favorite writings by J.D. Salinger.
9. Beatrix Kiddo (the Bride) – Kill Bill – The sword fight from II alone is worth mentioning her.
8. Arthur Dent – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – I liked the movie ok (i really should see it again), but it’s one of my favorite books. Arthur Dent is something else.
7. Jack Sparrow – obviously played brilliantly by Johnny Depp.
6. Wolverine – comic, film, or cartoon. Especially Huge Jackman’s performance. Maybe one of the best nailed performances of a superhero we have on film.
5. Magneto – both a villain and an anti-hero. He seems to flip flop, but he doesn’t falter in his quest for equality for mutants. Wow. I totally geeked out there.
4. Jules Winnfield – Pulp Fiction – he’s just bad ass.
3. Han Solo – Star Wars – A hired hand, a smuggler, shot first, but ends up being one of our favorites from the entire Star Wars saga.
2. Severus Snape – played amazingly by Alan Rickman. Rickman shaped how i saw Snape as i read. His performance actually made the books better. Snape is a very complex character, maybe the most complex of the entire Harry Potter series.
1. Tyler Durdan – Fight Club – This may be the only movie that i actually liked better than the book, although the book is very good. Brad Pitt’s performance of Durdan is probably my favorite role of Pitt’s movie career. It’s also my favorite performance by Edward Norton. Durdan’s desire to positively impact the world through community and pseudo-terrorism is fascinating. You can almost look into the mind of a terrorist and see why they do things. Obviously, the amount of bad that Durdan does, or tells others to do, far outweighs the good, but the fact that he is so bad, yet you want to, in a way, be him, is so good.
top 10 favorite villains
In honor of today and politicians in general, here is a list for you. This is a list of my favorite villains.
10. Syler (Heroes) – Creepy, unpredictable, and kind of cool. The whole part in season 2 where he didn’t have his powers i try to forget.
9. Lord Voldemort (book and movie) – ominous is the best word to describe ‘You-Know-Who’ or ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’.
8. Venom (Spiderman) – just a really cool villain. Gooey and strong and powerful and some of the powers of Spiderman. I can play him in one of the video games I own. VERY fun.
7. Emperor Palpatine – mainly for this speech: “Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends, up there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was *I* who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator! It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them! Oh, I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.”
6. The Brain – Pinky and the Brain. No explanation needed.
5. Anton Chigurh – No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and made me uneasy in the process. Maybe one of my favorite performances in the past several years by a villain.
4. Agent Smith from the Matrix. Hugo Weaving nailed this role like he does most of his roles. Also, in my top 5 favorite movies of all time.
3. The Joker (Both Nicholson and Ledger) – hard to go wrong with demented homicidal maniacs as villains.
2. Magneto – I love the X-men movies, comics, cartoons, and video games. Magneto is a complex villain, one with a purpose that isn’t evil in the way that trying to take over the world is evil, but has more depth. His dry wit and calm power is truly impressive.
1. Darth Vader – Most evil bad-ass in any movie. You know he’s evil, yet, you want to be him for some reason. Or maybe you don’t. AND, he has a very cool name.
Honorable Mention – I like these guys too. In no particular order.
Boba Fett
Juggernaut (X-Men the cartoon and comics. not so much the film.)
Kaiser Soeze – The Usual Suspects
Hannibal Lector
Megatron (Transformers)
Cobra Commander/Storm Shadow/Destro
Bill from Kill Bill
Elijah Price – Unbreakable
Sheriff of Nottingham – Robin Hood Prince of Thieves
John Doe – Kevin Spacey – Se7en
Stuff, sometimes things.
Do you ever just feel incredibly busy but aren’t quite sure what it is that makes you so busy? i don’t read any blogs (for the most part) anymore. Unless someone says “hey, i just posted.” Obviously i don’t blog much anymore.
a. Watching Heroes and Fringe. Both are ok. The question is: are they worth 2 evenings of my time, or could i be doing something better with that time?
b. Going to see The Sword and Clutch tonight with Scott. I’ll have my chainsaw covered with fire ready.
c. Burn After Reading was meh. i think it’s probably worth seeing, but i wouldn’t see it in the theaters.
d. I’m close to bein all Mac now. Having some issues with the admin on the new computer (iMac), which is sad, but i’m sure i’ll push through it.
e. I’ve been with my current place of employment for 9 years now.
f. Leslie swept me away to Knoxville to have dinner with friends and then onto Asheville, NC this past weekend for my birthday. Asheville is a great city. The downtown is filled with great locally owned shops and restaurants and is striving to do everything in a Green way. Many organic clothing/linen/household items stores there. The food was amazing. Probably ate the best Indian food i’ve ever had there. Mela. I really liked Asheville.
g. Facebook is 1000 times better than MySpace (unless you’re a band). Of course, i’m not telling you anything you don’t know already.
h. i now ride a bike on occasion. i rode a bike to the mall last week to see a movie in the movie theater. It’s kind of fun.
i. like to ski.
j. i’m thinking about doing some top 10 lists again sometime. We’ll see. i’m open to suggestions if anyone has any.
Sunshine vs. Smart People
I’ve recently watched 2 films worth noting for different reasons. It’s pure coincidence that they both start with S. And that my name starts with S.
I had heard some good things about this one, but something about the concept didn’t immediately grab me, so it’s taken me a while to watch it. It’s directed by the same guy who did 28 Days Later, and stars Cillian Murphy, who was the main actor in 28 Days Later AND Dr. Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) in the 2 new Batman films. Another actor from a superhero film, Chris Evans, of Fantastic Four fame (his character was one of the only good performances of FF), also stared in Sunshine.
Basic premise: a group of astronauts pilot a mega bomb into the sun to try to help jumpstart the dying star. If they fail, the earth will die.
For those non-SciFi fans out there, this may seem sleepy or overdone, but they found a way to overcome that with good writing, good acting, nice cinamatography, and great special effects. It was more of a human drama rather than an over-the-top SciFi film. About half way through i was saying to myself “Wow, i really like this. I hope they don’t screw it up.” They didn’t. This, like most movies, had a few elements that i didn’t care for, but overall, it was a strong movie, and one that i recommend.
8.5 out of 10.
Meh. Meh.
I’m a fan of Ellen Page. Juno and Hard Candy are two of my favorite films of all time, and her performance of Kitty Pride in X-Men The Last Stand was very good. This movie does not even shake a stick at those films or those performances.
I wish i could tell you what it was about, but really, it wasn’t about much. Another “indie” film about a disfunctional family. I wish they’d keep making these. Wait. No i don’t. In theory, these types of films, at least in my mind, should be gold. But somehow people keep screwing them up. It tries to be quirky and original. FAIL. It tries to be smart. FAIL. I even had low expectations for the film.
The characters weren’t that believable, even though some of them had some interesting quirks. The acting wasn’t horrible, just wasn’t great. I pretty much blame the director, cinematographer, and producers.
I told Mark that i enjoyed the first 7 shots of the trailer for Blindness (which looks pretty great, btw) than i did the entire movie of Smart People. Oh well. To be fair, it’s a good trailer, which doesn’t always make for a good film.
Smart People did have a few descent moments, but overall, not worth seeing imho.
4 out of 10.
