Spin Earth.

Spin Earth is a new site launched by Spin Magazine that is essentially a new, "Web 2.0" way of being able to find out about what's going on in music scenes around the world. Somehow, I am one of the correspondents and I'm going to be making videos and basically reporting in about different shows and artists and events and whatever else I can think of that will be interesting, the point is I will be able to invade your lives in a new, fun, and exciting way.

Hooray.

I'm actually not even sure if I'm allowed to post this, but here's my first video I did for Spin Earth anyways, I made it last weekend when I went to see Fucked Up.

Just so you know, I say 'Spin Magazine' at the beginning because when I made this I still didn't know what to say. I will get it right from now on.

classical shredding

An unfortunately overlooked form of shredding, especially when it's two dudes rocking some Mozart on one guitar.

my reactions to the Lost season 5 premiere as they occured in real time.

I have been following Lost intently since its first season, and it is really remarkable looking back just how far the storyline has progressed since it first started 5 years ago. My Lost fanatacism hit its peak during the show's 2nd season: that's when I was actively seeking out Lost message boards, and spending several hours a day working out different theories in an attempt to explain the show's mysteries, which were rapidly piling up largely unexplained with no end in sight. At some point during the 3rd season, I realized that it is much easier to enjoy Lost without becoming so obsessed with trying to explain it. That's what is frustrating when people complain so much about the show's aversion to answering some of the big glaring questions that it has asked over the last 5 years: if the writers explained all the mysteries that drew fans into the show in the first place, then people wouldn't watch the show. The confusion and frustration that comes with not knowing what the fuck is going on is what makes Lost so great.

So since I stopped worrying so much and learned to just enjoy the episodes as they happened, I have discovered a newfound appreciation for this show. Ever since they decided on a definite end to the story, and shortened the seasons a few episodes, thus elimating any of the pointless and frustrating "here's what happened when Jack got a tattoo" episodes, it has been on a serious roll. I think by the time this series finishes after its 6th and last season next year, it is going to be very difficult to dispute the fact that Lost is one of the most sprawling, epic, and unimaginably complex pieces of work in all of popular fiction. It's really a miracle that this show ever became a hit on network television.

Anyways I finally got around to watching all of the amazing season 5 premiere last night. Here are my thoughts on the episode as they occured in real time. If you haven't seen the episode than there is a definite spoiler alert. There is also a strong language alert, because I take this shit seriously, son.

HOUR I


00:45 - another alarm and record player season opening.


1:20 - Who the fuck is this guy??


2:15 - CANDLE!!! WTF???


5:10 - Farraday is back in time! Fuck!


6:25 - I will miss bearded Jack.


14:00 - Kate's going back on the run. that sounds about right.


17:20 - Locke witnessing the place crash, ahhh!!!


19:20 - Ethan! Holy shit!!


20:20 - this time travel stuff is actually blowing my mind.


25:10 - Sayid is one bad motherfucker.


25:53 - Fucking fuck! I wrote that previous entry before 10 other crazy things happened!


33:30 - You're gonna have to die John. AAAh! Fuck!


35:20 - the hatch is back!


35:30 - I just realized shirtless Sawyer is travelling through time.


37:15 - No shirt for you Sawyer.


39:15 - old crazy Desmond!


39:40 - the rules don't apply to Desmond!!


41:40 - Ahhh! this is crazy!! fuck!!

HOUR II


2:00 - Hurley is the voice of reason.


3:45 - Ana Lucia! Fuck!!


4:30 - DO NOT get arrested. If only someone had told me that on that one cold, lonely evening.


5:35 - Lost randoms! Neil Frogurt.


12:33 - Locke is dead isnt he? ISN'T HE??


13:14 - Cheech! and hes watching expose, that show with whats her name!


18:30 - "Take a time out Neil you frogurt loving bastard."


20:30 - Flaming arrowwwfuck holy shit fuck


21:30 - "if I survive this flaming arrow attack, I'm totally going to have sex with Juliette this season."


28:11 - hurley on sayid: he does crazy ninja moves and spy stuff.


30:00 - Hurley telling the story of the show = hilarious.


34:00 - NEVER shine a flashlight in Sayid's eyes


35:00 - "did you just throw a burrito at me?" Hurley is en fuego.


37:45 - fuck! who are these people??


38:15 - Locke! Fuck!!!


39:00 - WTF??


40:00 - Its that old lady!!! WHAT THE FUCK???

Hope you enjoyed my extremely insightful comments. If I can convince myself to go through the process of capturing all those screenshots again maybe I will record my thoughts in real time to other pop culture events. I'm going to go outside for a walk now, as I have just learned the hard way that I have too much free time on my hands these days.

well done academy. you suck.

Well the list of Oscar nominations was released this morning. The Academy got a few things right but mostly just exposed themselves as being a bunch of shameless dumbasses, which is pretty much par for the course for this increasingly irrelevant organization that will happily hand over best picture honours to any condescending drivel whose main thematic message is that "racism = bad." I could continue to rant about this, but I would pretty much be repeating every argument verbatim from this AV Club piece, so just read that instead. Actually no, fuck it, I'm going to rant just a little bit. In short, it just seems logical to me to give a Best Picture and Best Director nod to the film and director that united critics and audiences unlike anyone had ever really done before, even if said film was ostensibly about a dude who dresses up like a bat. I haven't seen The Reader, the Kate Winslet "sexy illiterate Nazi movie" that ended up getting the nomination, so I guess I'm not in too much of a position to criticize it, but I think The Dark Knight or Wall-E deserved a little more recognition for what they accomplished, even if they do happen to be big pop culture movies and not quiet character studies. If they absolutely had to go the usual Academy route, I would have gladly given The Wrestler (which I will say one final time was my favourite film of last year,) or Gran Torino (which was also fucking amazing) the nomination. But hey, who asked me right? Also, despite my endorsement only yesterday, both the Boss and Clint got snubbed in the best song category! I'm not even going to say anything about that, I'm too angry.

Anyways here's the list of the major nominations and my picks for who is going to win.

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost / Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Bobbo pick: Rourke better win this or else...I will write something angry about it in this blog, so watch out, Academy.

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - The Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Bobbo pick: to be honest I haven't seen any of these. Fuck it, give it to Winslet, she's been nominated like 8,000 times.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Bobbo pick: I'm shocked that RDJ was nominated, and I certainly loved that performance, but this one goes to Heath.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicki Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Bobbo pick: Tomei's performance in The Wrestler was outstanding. So was her nudity.

BEST DIRECTOR
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost / Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

Bobbo pick: I would give it to Ron Howard but Danny Boyle will probably win.

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost / Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Bobbo pick: I would rather this went to The Dark Knight, Wall-E, The Wrestler, or Gran Torino, but of the films that were actually nominated, again I think Frost / Nixon should win but it will most likely be Slumdog Millionaire.

Dr Manhattan lives.

Now that the Watchmen legal battle has been resolved, I have gone back to just longing desperately to see this movie. It really appears that Zack Snyder has done the unthinkable and made a Watchmen adaptation which is not entirely, 100% faithful to the original graphic novel (no interdimensional squid,) but has captured the look and feel of the incredibly complex world that Alan Moore created in a way that I just didn't think was possible. Like this new viral 70s news piece? Come on. This is amazing.

n-hole it was your birthday.

So it was my friend Nichole's birthday on Monday. Now, I went to see Fucked Up with her and her sister / my old stalker Michelle this weekend and it was kind of an official birthday hangout, but yet when Monday rolled around I don't think I gave her a call. I'm not sure why exactly this was, I think I got confused as to when the actual date of the birthday was. How did I manage that? I have no idea. But anyways I just realized this tonight and I felt like a dick so I made this sweet belated birthday card, so happy birthday Nichole.

must. have. this.

I'm sure I will eventually write something meaningful about the Presidential inauguration yesterday...but for now check out these sweet-ass President Obama action figures from Gamu-Toys! (via Gizmodo and GusNYC)







My action figure collection is still in its infant stages, but this guy would look great alongside Jack from Lost, Walter from the Big Lebowski and Captain Sisko from DS9!

one trick pony.

I can't believe I haven't posted this already but I have been obsessed with Bruce Springsteen's original title track for The Wrestler ever since I first heard it in the trailer. It is a beautiful, haunting song that perfectly compliments this powerful film.



The Boss is a shoe-in to win the Oscar for best original song, but don't count out the Gran Torino song either, which is also kind of amazing. Particularly the Clint-sung first part!

a new day begins.

It has certainly been a bit of a strange feeling to wake up today, just as the world finally somersaults the last few inches into a new era of peace, prosperity and happiness. War. Famine. Slavery. The global financial crisis. These things no longer concern us. Because finally, the celebrities have come to save us all.

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge


Listen, if you are a celebrity and are thinking about enlightening the world on how to be a good and decent person and are considering starring in one of these videos, I have some advice for you: if you want to go ahead and be a responsible citizen by being fiscally responsible, or environmentally conscious, or even politically active, then just do it, good for you. But please, please stop this sanctimonious preaching, it does nothing but expose you as the the shameless, self-aggrandizing egomaniac that you are. Thank you.

we're watching watchmen.

Just as a follow up to my post last week about the brewing Watchmen legal stalemate, I'm happy to say that somehow, common sense and decency has prevailed, Fox and Warner Brothers have resolved their issues, and we're going to be seeing the film in its entirety on March 6th. (via AICN) One can only speculate as to why the two companies are asking for the case to be dropped, but I think the most likely scenario is that it was largely due to my fine investigative reporting on the subject. So, you know...you're welcome.

get money, get paid.

This is an older video but I was trying to explain how good it is to some friends recently and I couldn't find the adequate words so I'm going to post it. Apologies to everyone who has already seen this. I don't really know what the deal is with the guy that made this, and I don't care. His fridge is fully stocked and he probably gets more ass than...actually I'm no good at those clever analogies. He probably gets a lot of ass though.

new Kelly Clarkson.

After the whole fiasco 2 years ago when Clarkson insisted on writing her album My December almost entirely on her own, despite the protests of label boss Clive Davis (and that album predictably didn't sell nearly as much as her ridiculously massive hit, Breakaway,) she has gone the safe route here and gone back to hitmakers Dr. Luke and Max Martin for her new single, My Life Would Suck Without You. It pretty much sounds exactly like Since U Been Gone, but thats not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I kind of love this song and it's almost certain to be another huge hit for Kelly. Good for her.

i love Japan.

There are a number of reasons I wish I lived in Japan. The fact that at any given time you could turn on your TV and see the following video is one of them.

this just in: Man on Wire is a good movie.

I know I already published my top 10 films of 2008, but there were several critically acclaimed films that got left off my list not because they weren't any good, but because I just haven't seen them. Films like Frost-Nixon, Revolutionary Road and Gran Torino for example. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was also left off for this reason, but I did end up seeing it and here's my short review: it looks fantastic, the acting is great and David Fincher is one of the best directors working today. But it was fucking boring. So it doesn't make the top 10 list anyways.

Man on Wire was another one of the films that I didn't include, but I just saw this today and I am still stunned. It is a wildly entertaining documentary. I have a pretty severe fear of heights so I was having heart palpitations just looking at photos taken from the top of the World Trade Center, so it goes without saying that I still can barely fathom what Phillip Petit did on that day (if you haven't heard of this movie, it is about Petit and a group of accomplices who illegally string a cable across the two towers of the WTC. And then Petit walks back and forth between them. 8 times.) Needless to say, this effeminate little Frenchman is much more manly than I could ever hope to be. I will also say that it was very refreshing to see this film, about a group of men who spent months carefully planning an intricate illegal plot involving the World Trade Center - and have the final result be so beautiful and awe-inspiring, rather than...actually lets not go there.

Anyways I'm not going to change my lists or any bullshit like that, but if you have the chance to see Man on Wire, please do it, because it is really good.

bunch of stupid fox.

In case you aren't familiar with the legal fiasco that has erupted in regards to Zack Snyder's adaptation of Watchmen, here's the basic gist of it. Though Watchmen is pretty widely regarded as the best graphic novel ever made, the movie project has been stuck in development hell for decades. And with good cause, as a faithful movie adaptation would be rated R for language, graphic violence and sexuality, would be close to three hours long, and would take place in an alternate 1980's America where Richard Nixon is President for life of a bleak, dystopian USA. So, pretty much the exact opposite of the sort of movie that a big studio would ever want to finance. Yet remarkably, Warner Brothers has done the unthinkable and actually made a Watchmen movie that, at least on the surface, appears to be doggedly faithful to the source material, and has whipped up the fan community into a frothing, crazed frenzy (sort of like what would happen if you dropped a 1993-era Marina Sirtis into a pit of girlfriendless, mother's basement-dwelling Star Trek fans.) My point is that Watchmen has somehow become one of the most highly anticipated films of 2009, and is poised to make an absolute fuck-ton of money in a few short months.

The important thing to remember here is that this movie has been in development at Warner Brothers for over two years at this point. And yet it is now, a few months before the release of the movie, after Warner Brothers has spent untold millions on filming and promoting the film, that 20th Century Fox (otherwise known as the company that cancelled Firefly, Futurama, and Arrested Development, irreparably fucked up the Alien franchise and countless other great movies, pays millions of dollars to Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, and is owned by Rupert Murdoch, one of the biggest dicks in the entire universe,) decided to file a legal injunction against Warner Brothers, claiming that they own the rights to Watchmen, and have indicated that they will attempt to stop the release of the movie. I can only assume that their endgame is that they recieve a big settlement in order to make this lawsuit go away, or the unthinkable scenario is that they gain ownership of the movie and would be free to market, distribute and even (shudder) alter or re-edit it.

Anyways I could rant about how insane and ridiculous the whole lawsuit is, but I am a simple, uninformed Canadian - I have never, nor do I now work in the movie industry, and although I may feel strongly about these things, I am in no way qualified to give an opinion or comment on the legality of what Fox is doing, or whether or not Fox is comprised a bunch of giant douches (they are.) What I will do is link to this open letter from Lloyd Levin (via AICN and Hitfix.) Levin is one of the film's producers who has been trying for years to get this project off the ground, so it's safe to say that he has a decent amount of insider knowledge on the process, and he describes the entire scenario much more eloquently than I ever could.

Here it is.

If you have any interest at all in the Watchmen movie than you should check it out, but even if you don't care at all you should still read it, because as many people as possible need to understand that what Fox is doing is really not cool, and that the entire company is made up of a bunch of soulless monsters who require the blood of innocent children for sustenance.

crazy little kid excitement dance.

I wish I could get this excited about anything, ever.



via Videogum

Actually, now that I think about it, the new season of Battlestar Galactica starts in only 8 days! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! *does crazy little kid excitement dance*

old and rejected.

Happy New Years everyone. I'm back in Montreal and preparing myself what is shaping up to be quite a hectic year. For my first post of 2009 (God is it really 2009? I'm starting to feel ridiculously old. Hey remember that stuff that happened in 1999, ten fucking years ago?? While I may be rapidly transforming into an old geezer, I can still take solace in the fact that we are inching ever closer to the age of the space elevator. Also, the age when I can have myself cryogenically frozen before death like Mel Gibson in Forever Young and then be revived in a Star Trek-esque social utopia. Or something to that effect.)

Err, as I was saying, for my first post of 2009 I thought I would share this short film by brilliant animator Don Hertzfeldt, Rejected.