Category Archives: Entertainment

Super Brawl

JLA - 2

Justice League seems to be in more hot water as WB execs have reportedly trashed Will Beall’s script with several sources claiming “it’s terrible”:

Quote1I’ve now heard from multiple sources that the Will Beall script for Justice League has been scrapped.  The story from each source is the same: it’s terrible.  Some sources seem to think the whole movie is going to fall apart and never happen, while some believe that Warner Bros will keep moving forward, unwilling to lose the superhero arms race.Quote2

WHOOPSY DAISIES.  I’m not a mathematician or anything but aren’t they already LOSING the “superhero arms race”? 

Seeing as The Avengers will assemble at the 85th Annual Academy Awards next week to present an award, while the Justice League doesn’t even exist yet?

Justice League’s saving grace may just be this film:

If Snyder dropped the ball however, WB is screwed.

While these superhero teams may be fictional, they express an extremely important idea: that people are fundamentally different from one another, and that that is a GOOD thing.  Let’s take a look.

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Systemic Threshold

Iron Man 3-4

The 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards evidently put Argo in front-running position to take home The Oscar’s coveted Best Picture.  After being Oscar snubbed as a directorAffleck and his film have since cleaned up on awards culminating in SAG’s top-honor ensemble award.  Daniel Day Lewis’ Oscar chances went from 95%  to 99% with a SAG win, while Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway are also now a “shoe-in” as well or so they say.

Disney purchased 3 TV spots for tonight’s BIG GAME (Superbowl XLVII) at about 4 mill a pop while Warner Bros. opted to sit out for it’s third year in a row.  Industry insider info indicates that Warner Bros. is strongly hinging on the commercial success of Man of Steel, before “moving forward” with it’s top-priority project:  Justice LeagueThe studio has every right to be nervous, banking it’s flag-ship character hopes on a director like Zack Snyder.  Snyder had early success with 300 (60%), and arguably Watchmen (64%), but his most recent film Sucker Punch (23%), was literally god awful.  Which explains why WB execs are hesitant.

AND SO while Warner Bros’ ensemble team-up film remains in limbo, Disney’s ensemble team-up film is well into it’s phase two, with Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World coming this year.  Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige says that the studio is going to “keep taking risks” creatively  in phase two and beyond.  One of such risks was casting Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire inventor Tony Stark.  But that seemed to work out for everybody:

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Intergalactic Synergy

Intergalactic Quaternity

Awards and Flu Seasons have commenced as the 2013 Golden Globes gave Bostonian Ben Affleck a pretty phatty sack including Best Director and Best Picture.  Daniel Day Lewis got best actor which let’s be honest isn’t very surprising to anyone.  So wash your hands and eat oranges as Oscar night approaches on February 24th.  Speaking of Oscar potential Star Wars Episode VII has officially hired director J.J. Abrams to helm the film.  The young director just finished his second Star Trek film and took the job reportedly after months of being courted by new Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy.  Abrams even publicly announced that he would NOT direct the film, which evidently he was just flat out lying about.  What a SILLY GOOSE!  Some would say.  Abrams’ credits include Star Trek and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, having also written and produced big name stuff like Lost and Alias.  Regardless, Disney’s newest branch seems pretty pumped to have him;

Quote1.pngIt’s very exciting to have J.J. aboard leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie,” said Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy in a press release Jan. 25. “J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture.”

Star Wars creator George Lucas also gave his blessing to the selection of Abrams. “I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller,” said Lucas. “He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.Quote2.png

Having just landed the biggest directing gig in Hollywood, let’s take a look at Abrams’ most recent project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mu07BaOx9c

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Oh, Come On

She would have been 70 years old today, January 19th, 2013.

pearl_janis_joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin, Performer Artisan, (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter. Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Janis Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career include “Down on Me”, “Summertime”, “Piece of My Heart“, “Ball ‘n’ Chain”, “Maybe”, “To Love Somebody”, “Kozmic Blues”, “Work Me, Lord”, “Cry Baby”, “Mercedes Benz”, and her only number one hit, “Me and Bobby McGee”.  Joplin was well known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as “electric”. At the height of her career, she was known as “The Queen of Rock and Roll” as well as “The Queen of Psychedelic Soul,” and became known as Pearl amongst her friends. She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. [Wikipedia, revised]

Like A Candle in the Wind, but burning at both ends, Janis Joplin died at the age of 27, from a drug overdose.

Performers also like to live in the fast lane, and seem up on the latest fashions of dress, food, drink, and music. Lively and uninhibited, Performers are the life of the party, always trying to create in those around them a mood of eat, drink, and be merry.

The Performers’ talent for enjoying life is healthy for the most part, though it also makes them more subject to temptations than the other types. Pleasure seems to be an end in itself for them, and variety is the spice of life. And so Performers are open to trying almost anything that promises them a good time, not always giving enough thought to the consequences. [Please Understand Me II]

She died young — to be forever young.

“I’m a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. I read a lot. I guess you’d say I was pretty intellectual. It’s odd, I can’t remember when it changed. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn’t know what to do with it. But now I’ve learned how to make feeling work for me. I’m full of emotion and I want a release, and if you’re on stage and if it’s really working and you’ve got the audience with you, it’s a oneness you feel. I’m into me, plus they’re into me, and everything comes together. You’re full of it. I don’t know, I just want to feel as much as I can, it’s what ‘soul’ is all about.”

“Don’t compromise yourself. It’s all you’ve got.”

openquoteFreedom just another word for nothing left to lose.closedquote — Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby Magee)

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Different Drummer

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. 
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. 
— Henry David Thoreau

Hope can be very foolish.  Parents can have hopes for their children, often these aren’t what the children can meet.

gene_krupa

Gene Krupa, Performer Artisan, was born in Chicago, the youngest of Anna (Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa’s nine children. Krupa’s father, Bartłomiej, was an immigrant from Poland, and his mother, Anna, was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, of Polish descent. His parents were very religious and had groomed Gene for the priesthood. He spent his grammar school days at various parochial schools and upon graduation, attended St Joseph’s College for a year, but later decided it was not his vocation. [Wikipedia, revised]

No, his parents had great plans for him, but Gene had a different drum to drum.

IT WAS THE DRUMS.

Performers have the special ability, even among the Artisans, to delight those around them with their warmth, their good humor, and with their often extraordinary skills in music, comedy, and drama. Whether on the job, with friends, or with their families, Performers are exciting and full of fun, and their great social interest lies in stimulating those around them to take a break from work and worry, to lighten up and enjoy life. [Please Understand Me II]

openquoteWhen I speak of natural drummers I’m talking about guys that are playing with the talent God gave ’em.closedquote — Gene Krupa

Other Performer Artisans: Louis Armstrong, Alex Karras, Kim Jong-un, Phyllis Diller, Jim Cramer, Josephine Baker, Whitney Houston, Marilyn Monroe

Tactician’s Allure

Tactician's Allure

The new year is upon us my dear friends and with it comes the 2013 awards season, and a whole new year in cinema.  And somehow all the stupid crap I pulled last year is dead and gone now and I have a whole year to pull an entirely new set of crap.  Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, Man of Steel, The Wolverine, Sin City 2, jOBS, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug are among those to look forward to in 2013.

Les Misérables and Argo are Golden Globe favorites alongside Lincoln and Zero Dark ThirtyBaz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby might give hip hip mogul Jay-Z his first Oscar, as he was recently hired to score the film.  Luhrmann is known for Moulin Rouge and Romeo & Juliet, two films in which he also used contemporary music in a period film.

Based on the classic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby takes us back to the roaring twenties, focusing on titular character Jay Gatsby (Leonardo Dicaprio): a legendary charming, confident, ambitious and lavish hero of the post World War I era.  Nobody is perfect as it turns out, as main character Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) starts to unravel Gatsby’s true nature.  Carraway’s obsession with Gatsby is representative of humanity’s attraction to fame, glamour, and the spectacle of the Artisan: Let’s take a look

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Celestial Foritude

Steel Logistics

Man of Steel released a new trailer this week and it looks like Zack Snyder is still bad at making movies:

Warner Bros. has high hopes for the project however as they reportedly may be throwing in a post-credit “team up” scene with Joseph Gordon Levitt tying in Nolan’s Batman Universe and opening the door for a Justice League of America.  Nothing is official of course and some fans are nerd-raging about JGL donning Batman’s threads in a JLA film, because it would disrupt the continuity of Nolan’s Trilogy.  Regardless, DC/Warner Bros. knows it is now losing an arms race against arch-nemesis Marvel/Disney in Hollywood, and is brainstorming furiously to even the playing field.  A key piece of this puzzle of course is Big Blue himself, as even Warner Bros. CEO Jeff Robinov called him a “flagship character”.

WHO IS the cornerstone of the Justice League, the #1 comicbook superhero of all time?   Let’s take a look.

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Chivalrous Frivolity

chivalrous frivolity

The Hobbit drops this week and is looking pretty solid:

Which is funny because Warner Bros. was just sued for 80$ million by the Tolkien Estate in regards to “merchandising” specifically some “gambling slots”.

Let’s not dampen the mood however as Jackson and crew seem to have put together another epic fantasy trilogy.  The films are, by subtitleAn Unexpected Journey, The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again, due for theatrical release in 2012, 2013 and 2014, respectively.

Early reviews of an An Unexpected Journey have it posted at about a 74%(rotten tomatoes), which let’s be honest is a lot better than I did in high schoolCriticisms of the film mainly dwell in the realm of overdrawn plot schemes, and not living up to it’s predecessor LOTR.  Meaning that those particular reviews came from people who obviously never even read any of Tolkien’s books.

Speaking of which: for those of you who do not know The Hobbit follows titular character Bilbo Baggins as he is bamboozled by his dear friend Gandalf into accompanying a pack of dwarves on a quest to reclaim their homeland.  The novel precedes the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in timeline and essentially tells the story of how Bilbo came into possession of the Ring of Power.

Though reluctant at first, Bilbo’s journey into unfamiliar territory strips him of his proverbial “shell”, and he ultimately finds a side of himself that he didn’t know existed.  Though Bilbo’s enlightening sojourn involved goblins, orcs, dragons, and elves, the experience draws parallels to experiences many of us have in life.  Perhaps the most endearing sentiment found in the novel however is the bond that forms between humble homely hobbit Bilbo and scholarly curmudgeon wizard Gandalf.  Let’s take a look.

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The Talent Scout

It was three o’clock in morning, a cold winter day in New York City, he had left the Jazz club, and turned on the radio in his car.

He scanned the radio stations, listening.  Then he heard it.

It was something new.

He knew natural talent when he heard it.

His ear was incomparable and he knew who and how to promote them.

From Billie Holiday to Bennie Goodman to Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen: generations of musicians. The Ultimate HIP.

But he looked like a square.

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Complicated Relations

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Leo Tolstoy — Anna Karenina

 It has been declared as the greatest novel of all time.

Tolstoy’s epic novel, Anna Karenina, set in czarist Russia is considered as a pinnacle in realist fiction.

It also can be seen as an interesting portrait of the pitfalls and joys of the Temperaments in the lively and deadly game of romance, or simply put: LOVE …

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