Blog Movies Archive

A few months ago I posted a video of a cryptic trailer that was playing in theaters before Transformers. It’s a new super-secret project by JJ Abrams, the guy who created LOST. It’s still hard to tell exactly what’s going on but this new trailer sheds a little more light on what you can expect when the movie hits theaters in January.

As you would expect with something from the creator of LOST, there’s a ton of speculation as to what this movie is actually about. It’s most likely very inaccurate, but still kind of interesting to read.

Jack Black is kind of hit or miss with me. Sometimes I think he’s really good (School of Rock) and other times he can be kind of annoying (mostly everything else). But his new movie (or at least this new movie that he’s in), Be Kind, Rewind, looks really good. It’s directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), which probably has a lot to do with it, but I think Jack Black as actually a really good fit for this part. I probably would have seen this movie based on the concept alone, without even seeing the trailer:

A man becomes accidentally magnetized and erases all the tapes in the video store where his best friend works. To save the store, the duo re-enact and re-film every movie that its single loyal customer, an elderly woman, rents.

In case that isn’t enough for you, here’s the trailer:

“The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” one of the most well known books on the 60s drug culture, is finally being made into a movie. The book follows author Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters on a cross-country bus trip and documents the early “acid tests” which were basically Greatful Dead shows where the drinks were all spiked with LSD.

Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Last Days) is now attached to the project as the director, however, no one has been cast in the roles of the Merry Pranksters, which included beat generation icon, Neal Cassady and LSD chemist/Greatful Dead soundman, Owsley Stanley, among others.

Variety: Van Sant in the ‘Kool-Aid’ mix

Apparently this trailer is playing before the new Transformers movie. The whole thing is filmed with home movie cameras from the perspective of the people in the city during some kind of “monster” attack on NYC. Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla or something. Looks pretty awesome.

Update: OK, the original video I posted got taken down for some reason. I’m guessing because it was filmed on a cell phone in the theater. Here’s another one that’s even worse quality, but you can still get an idea of what’s going on:

Also, here are some sites that apparently have something to do with the movie:

http://www.ethanhaaswasright.com
http://ethanhaaswaswrong.blogspot.com

Update: For the record, I saw this movie and thought it sucked balls.

The first couple trailers for the new Transformers live-action movie didn’t really do anything for me. I figured it was just another case of a childhood memory being turned into a crappy movie to try to appeal to a younger generation (and sell toys, obviously).

I have to admit, this latest trailer looks pretty awesome. I’m still not expecting a whole lot from the story and dialogue. But seeing Optimus Prime transform in that last part of the trailer kinda brought back something for me. They even use a similar “transforming” sound from the old cartoons. The transformers themselves look a lot different than the original versions, but there’s just enough still there that I think it might work for me.

And here’s another clip of Optimus Prime fighting some other big ass robot:

I could watch that shit for hours. Hopefully most of the movie is scenes like that.

And the award for Most Brutal Film Watching Experience of Recent Memory goes to:

United 93

Watching this movie was like being at a funeral. But in a good way, if that makes any sense. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for the families to see this film for the first time. It’s almost like a documentary in it’s reality… you don’t feel like you’re watching a “movie.” You feel like you’re somehow reliving that day and able to see into all these different locations and get a real sense of what it might have been like.

For some people it might still be too soon, but if you’re up for it I highly recommend the film. It was hard to watch at certain points, but I’m glad I did. Regardless of what you think of our government, how they handled things on 9/11, whether they were involved in some way, or could have possibly prevented it from happening, this is as close as we’re ever gonna get to seeing what these people went through. I’m not exactly sure why but I feel like that’s important. This really happened, and it could have happened to anyone.

Check out the video for Bitmap, now on SinchTV!

This video was edited in real-time with the Ocular Noise Machine. If you’ve ever seen us live you should recognize this as being similar to how the song is performed live. And if you haven’t seen us live, well, this is what you’re missing.

Also just added to SinchTV: Plasma

First of all, let me say that there will be very little music on these lists. (Actually none.) 2006 was a pretty bad year for finding new music (for me at least). I’m sure there was some really good stuff put out last year, but I didn’t come across it and I didn’t spend a whole lot of time looking.

Having said that, I am not restricting any of my lists to things that were actually released in 2006. If I saw/heard/read them for the first time in 2006 (or late 2005 in some cases) they are eligible for my list. I make the rules around here and that’s how I’m gonna roll.

With that said, here are my “Best of 2006″ lists (in no particular order). Feel free to add your own or make fun of mine in the comments. I was gonna comment on each thing, but this is already way late as it is. There are a few things that I’ll probably devote an entire post to, but for now here’s the full list. Everything here is highly recommended so check it out if you have the time.

Best Movies/DVDs That I Saw in 2006

• Children of Men
• The Devil and Daniel Johnston
• Idiocracy
• Safe Men
• Munich
• Borat
• Beerfest
• Jackass 2
• District B13
• Art School Confidential
• Lucky Number Slevin
• 11:14
• Gunner Palace
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Downfall
• Thank You For Smoking
• A Scanner Darkly

Best Television That I Saw in 2006

• LOST
• Heroes
• Arrested Development
• The Wire
• Lucky Louie
• Comedians of Comedy
• Iconoclasts
• Dinner for Five

Best Radio/Podcasts That I Heard in 2006

• The Best Show on WFMU
• The Sound of Young America
• The Ricky Gervais Show

Best Video Games That I Played in 2006

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii/GC)
• Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC)
• Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
• Guitar Hero 2 (PS2)
• God of War (PS2)
• Burnout Revenge (PS2)
• Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion (PC/360)
• New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
• Brain Age (DS)
• The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA)
• Prey (PC)

Best New Food That I Ate in 2006

• Jules Thin Crust Pizza
• Stuffed Olives

Best Web Applications I Used in 2006

• Backpack
• Flickr
• Google Calendar
• Google Reader
• YouTube
• Wordpress 2.0
• CD Baby

Stuff I Wanted in 2006 But Didn’t Get

• Nintendo Wii (Video Game Console)
• Okami (PS2)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (Movie)

Longtime fans and visitors to this site will recall the promise of something called “Sinch TV” that was said to be “coming soon” about a year and a half ago. This is actually pretty typical for us. We say something is happening soon and then it either takes years or it just never happens. We do have good intentions. We just can’t keep up with what the voices in our heads are telling us to do.

So, anyway, we finally decided rather than wait until we can build SinchTV how we actually want to, with tons of cool features and a slick Flash interface, better to get in on this “new” video sharing thing while the shit’s still hot. This is a work in progress. More will be added…. uhh, soon. In the meantime, enjoy what we’ve posted so far, and let us know what you think.

Here it is, your SinchTV.

OK, so this supposed onslaught of blogging that I promised has produced a whopping 3 new posts in the past couple weeks. Not exactly something you would describe as an “o-Rama” type of situation. “Blog-o-Slightly-More-Frequently-Than-Usual” would be more accurate.

As far as I can tell only like 5 people read this anyway, so I doubt there was a huge wave of disappointment rippling its way through the “blogosphere” when I failed to live up to that promise. If I’m wrong, please let me know. I’d be way more motivated to post new stuff if there was more of a response when I did. I do appreciate those of you who do comment, though, so keep it up if you’re enjoying the blog. Hopefully, something I post will incite a comment riot and we’ll all be better people for it.

In the meantime, (as I finally get to the god damned point) I thought it might be interesting to list some of the sites/blogs I read on a daily basis. If I’m not getting something done, these sites are most likely to blame. All of them have RSS feeds that I subscribe to with Bloglines.

» Digg
Back when there was a channel called TechTV, I used to watch this show called The Screen Savers. In one episode the host at the time, Kevin Rose, mentioned a new site he was working on called Digg. It was supposedly similar to Slashdot, which I was reading on a daily basis, so I checked it out. It was pretty minimal at the time, but seemed like a cool idea. Instead of having the people who run the site pick the news stories that get published, they let the users of the site do it themselves.

Since then Digg has become one of the most influential “social” news sites on the web. Appearing on the front page even for just 30 minutes can send 10s of thousands of people to your site, which more often than not will be crushed under the weight of the incoming traffic.

The main focus is on “tech” related news stories, but they’ve since brached out into other areas like entertainment, sports and world news.

» Boing Boing
One of the most (if not the most) popular blogs on the planet, it’s maintained by Cory Doctorow (author, activist, public speaker), Xeni Jardin (WIRED magazine), and some other people with impressive resumes who still somehow have time to post to their blog all day, every day.

» Signal vs. Noise
A design and usuability blog by 37 Signals, the creators of incredibly simple, yet useful products like Basecamp, Backpack and Writeboard.

» Coolfer
A New York City based blog about music and the music industry.

» Kottke.org
The weblog of Jason Kottke. Or as he puts it: “My wunderkammer. Wunderkammer is a German word meaning, roughly, ‘cabinet of wonders’ or ‘cabinet of curiousities’.” Another one of the most widely read blogs around. Generally there’s some really good stuff here, although not updated as frequently as some others.

» 43 Folders
A blog about personal productivity, focusing on the “Getting Things Done” methods of organization. I seem to have adopted the “Not Getting Things Done” method, although if I follow some of his advice, I might be able to turn things around.

» A List Apart
Explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices. If you make websites, you should be reading this site. Conveniently, the latest article is perfect for those who are new to ALA - The ALA Primer: A Guide for New Readers

» Apartment Therapy
A blog about apartment living. Even if you live in a house, a garage or even an underground missle silo, you’ll probably find something useful here.

» Copyranter
An advertising copywriter who apparently hates everything. Watch as he tears into all your favorite (and probably not so favorite) ad campaigns.

» Ars Technica
Tech news, product reviews and forums.

» Aurgasm
“Aurgasm brings to you an eclectic menagerie of aural pleasures. I scout out music you’ve never heard and deliver only the finest. Expect music curiously different, yet simply enjoyable.”

» Mike Davidson
Personal blog of the CEO of Newsvine.

» Bob Donlon’s Digital Video Blog
Not the catchiest of titles, but if you do any work with Adobe Premiere or After Effects there’s some good stuff here.

» Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools
“Cool tools really work. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. I am chiefly interested in stuff that is extraordinary, better than similar products, little-known, and reliably useful for an individual or small group.”

» IndieHQ
A forum for bands, record labels and everyone else who is interested in independent music.

» Cool Hunting
Cool Hunting: finding things in the intersection of design, culture and technology that excite the imagination and inspire creativity.

» Giantmonster
One of the more random blogs I subscribe too. There doesn’t seem to be an overarching theme to the kinds of stuff they post… it’s all usually pretty weird though.

» FlickrBlog
The companion blog to Flickr, almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.

» Idolatr
“When the internet came, we overthrew the pasty white tastemakers, the duplicitious music marketers and the manufactured pop idols. And then they all came back. This is Idolator. We’re so disappointed.”

» Michael Showalter’s Web Log
Do you know who Michael Showalter is? If you do, check out his “web log”. You’ll like it. If you don’t… well, you probably do, you just don’t know it. Most recently you may have seen him on the Comedy Central show Stella. That’s pretty unlikely though, since (apparently) not a lot of people watched that show. You might also know him from underappreciated films like Wet Hot American Summer and The Baxter. And if all else fails, you probably know him from the MTV show The State that aired for a couple years back in the early 90’s.

I’ll just stop there for now. That’s only a small part of my ridiculous list, but it’s mostly the good ones.

What sites do you check on a daily basis?