All Your Booty Are Belong To Us

Before I say anything else, hear this:
ALEX: "I don't know calculus. I don't think that's erotic."
Bet you really want to know what we talk about, don't you?

Now, on to the SPACE PIRATES.

So I just rewatched Alien Resurrection, and I think it's a strong candidate for "Best Scifi Movie Ever". Consider these convincing points.
WARNING: serious spoilers. If you want to be surprised by one of my favorite movies, watch it RIGHT NOW, and then continue reading.

• It features SPACE PIRATES, as the good guys.


• Their ship is named the Betty.


• Ripley 8 finds the lab where they keep the horrific failed experiments that are Ripleys 1-7. Few things in movies have creeped me out more than hearing #7 gurgle "kill me". I'm all a-shiver. Wooah.


• The lab gets torched.


• They throw the usual scifi order-of-death to hell. The pirate captain (also the only one with a romantic interest!) hacks it right at the start. The random security guard with no character development (his name is Distefano! Cool!) is the last to go.


• The cripple, and the hired muscle(Ron Perlman): awesome.
  JOHNER: "If we wanna make any decent time, I say we ditch the cripple. No offense, buddy."
  VRIESS: [flips Johner the bird] "None taken!"
  
  JOHNER: "What's burning?"
  VRIESS: "Us!"
  JOHNER: "Shit! You're right!"


• The alien getting sucked out the viewport through a hole one inch in diameter: best movie death ever?


• The civilian going ape on the evil doctor, and the alien fetus busting out of his chest into the doctor's skull: second best movie death ever?


• An underwater fight scene where you could actually tell what was going on!


• A fight scene on a ladder above a tank of coolant.


• "You are...a beautiful, beautiful BUTTERFLY!"


• The general was hilarious. I don't even know why.

The only other movie vying for first place at the moment is, of course, Serenity. Is it coincidence that the two best movies of all time prominently feature space pirates? I THINK NOT.

SPACE PIRATES RULE!

WOOHOO!

Sweet Jesus!

I don't think I've mentioned this here before, but I firmly believe that a man must have his heroes.
My personal heroes come in two varieties: major and minor. A minor hero is someone who does some pretty awesome stuff, but who has not necessarily led a life worthy of awe. Examples include Richard Dean Anderson (as much as I love MacGuyver and Colonel O'Neil, and that he was in Fallout, I've yet to be suitably impressed) , Justin Long (I loved Live Free or Die Hard, and Dodgeball, and he does an awesome job of making geeks look cool), and Jeremy Bullock (yes, he was Fett, but we need a little something more).

A step above these are my major heroes. While I can (and do) add people to the minor hero list all the time, I am far more particular when it comes to picking my major heroes. Only those who have lived the most awesomely of all, and who have ventured where no sane man dare venture, can make this elite list. For this reason, only three men to this day have earned this prestigious standing:

• Bruce Campbell


• Bill Nye


• James Cromwell

Bruce Campbell is a B-movie actor who awesome beyond belief. He has been friends with the Raimi brothers (Sam, the director of Spiderman; Ivan, a writer for Spiderman; Ted, who played Hoffman in Spiderman) since childhood, when they all started out making movies together. DESTINY! Bruce is "famous" for his roles in the Evil Dead trilogy, the glorious Bubba Ho-Tep, and his self-produced film The Man With the Screaming Brain (among various campy scifi movies such as Alien Apocalypse and Terminal Invasion. Glorious). He had a TV show back in the late 90's called Jack of All Trades, which was hilarious; he was in a comedic western, Brisco Country Jr.; and was a recurring character in Hercules/Xena as the King of Thieves. He has a unique acting style that is there in all his roles, which is simultaneously why he's a B-actor, and why he's got such a devoted fan base.

Bill Nye the Science Guy is probably the reason I'm a physics major. Was it his bow-tied goodness that led to my predisposition towards math and science altogether? Debatable. But he's just so damn awesome, besides my history with PBS. Who else gets married at a scientific convention to a world-renowned oboist, and exchanges watches instead of rings to "symbolize man's eternal struggle with time", while a mathematician plays the wedding march on the piano? Nobody does, that's who. Only the Nye. I plan on being him for Halloween, once I dye a lab coat and find a bow tie.

James Cromwell is the most recent addition to this list: I added him after staring in awe at his IMDB record. You will know him best as the farmer in Babe, but he has appeared in "I, Robot" as Dr. Lanning, in that horse-based Disney movie as The Colonel, in "The Longest Yard" and "The Green Mile" as prison wardens, and in "Rudy" and "'Salem's Lot" as priests. He was in "Revenge of the Nerds" 1-4. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Name pretty much every show ever, he's in it. He appeared in every Star Trek series except the latest one (remember the clip I posted last night? SWEET JESUS? That was him in "First Contact"). He was Jack Bauer's father in 24. The West Wing. 6 Feet Under. ER. Home Improvement. Magnum PI. The Twilight Zone. Knight Rider. Diff'rent Strokes. Barney Miller. A Little House on the Prairie. Three's Company. M*A*S*H. All In The Family. The man is a MACHINE. He is also an active member of PETA, appears in some of their commercials, is a vegan, and is(was?) the treasurer for the Screen Actors' Guild.

The reason I bring this up is I was talking with Alex tonight, and James Cromwell came up in conversation. I believe it went something like this:

ME: SWEET JESUS!
ALEX: Haha, is that your new thing now?
ME: Thank you, James Cromwell!
ALEX: Want to put him in the movie?

When people choose their heroes (or when I do, anyway) they don't generally plan on meeting them in person. They plan on living out their lives, worshipping the hero in secret, and letting him or her die blissfully unaware of their existence. Never did the thought of actually HIRING James Cromwell enter my mind. It sounds far too good to be true.

This is only the most hypothetical of plans, of course. There's no way to know if we can get James for even a day at the time when we're going to film. There's no way of knowing if we'll even be able to afford a single day of filming with the man. All I know for sure is that my producers instinct (save money!) and my fanboy instinct (pay a million dollars, if you have to, just get the man close enough to smell!) are in serious conflict right now.

More on this as it develops. Meaning, you probably won't hear anything more for another year or so. Doesn't matter to me; even having entertained this idea is enough to make me light-headed. Now I need to see Bill Nye give a lecture, and I have no idea where to find Bruce Campbell. Oh well.

I CAN'T STOP MY BRAIN FROM SCREAMING

So, yes, third post in a night, but I can't help it. This memory was repressed until JUST NOW and I need to get it out, lest I explode.

So I was helping out at the Agents show on Tuesday night. The performers were warming up, so I was sitting just outside the theater, chatting it up with our campus newspaper's head photographer. All was going fine until two venerable men hobbled on past us.

We did not give the occurrence a second thought until one of the elderlies, deftly spying the camera in my companion's hand, thought it amusing to drop his pants and give us a full-throttle Old Man Moon. "Take a picture of this! he says, before hiking the pants up again and continuing on as though nothing had happened.

In terror, the photographer and I looked at each other, exchanged glances of mutual internal hemorrhaging, and fell mute for the longest time.

They wonder why I hate old people.

(In other news, I just now discovered that they have icons on the posting window for ordered and unordered lists. I'll still do it manually, but it won't seem as cool anymore.)

It just owns SO MUCH!

Whenever I get the feeling that a band may supplant Breaking Benjamin as my all-time favorite, I watch this video and my fears are dispelled.



Hot damn, Ben Burnley. Hot damn.

So, how about that Ebola?

It's been a week, technically, since the last post (which is bullshit; it should not become a new day until it's light out! It is NOT Friday yet, dammit!), so I figured I should say something about other things.

We've (Aneta, Alex and myself) come up with a name for our production company: Miniature Carousel Productions. Doesn't it just summon up all kinds of images of tiny plastic horses, tiny tinkling music, and tiny screaming children throwing up everywhere? Love it.

"An Orange For William" is coming along nicely. We've only got the first drafts of a few pages so far, but it's already hilarious. This is going to be something you will want, let there doubt about it.

That's it for us news. Now to me news.

The beginning of this week was less than ideal, since I was up through entire nights doing work. Not cool. It was all made up for, though, by a 10-hour powernap today. I have been in an indefatigable mood ever since; I'm so content it almost hurts.

I discovered about a week ago that the entire guy's wing of our floor plays Starcraft. (It's curious; most of them aren't what people would normally consider to be geeks or anything, so banish the thought from your head. BANISH IT.) Since then, we've been doing little else. Really, the other people in the building are wondering what the hell happened to the entire 6th floor; "Where is the 6th floor?" they say as they sit around doing nothing in the lobby all day. "We've got people here from every floor but that one." It's because our women are busy baking (seriously) and all the guys are playing Starcraft over the school network. My whiteboard is currently inhabited by a running scoreboard, and every other board in the hall is covered in scrawled drawings of futuristic war machines and alien terrors.

Glorious.

In other news, I'm getting a little more into improv. I joined the Agents just because someone approached me with a mailing list, and since I "have laughed in the past, are laughing now, or plan to laugh in the future", I qualified to sign up. I didn;t go to any meetings since improv? Not my thing. But I happened to run into someone on their way to a meeting, tagged along, and laughed harder than I ever have in my life.

So I kept going to meetings, participated a little, and really enjoyed myself. So people ask if any new people want to learn some basics? of course I go. I could see myself getting at least good enough to perform in the free shows we put on monthly. I find it a little weird that I tend to get on better with these theater-type people than with the video game geeks. I felt a little threatened when with the VGA, as though I constantly had to prove my geekiness lest I be shunned as an outsider. Maybe I'm not quite as geeky as I thought. Oh well.

Last news: Dimitri Martin is a very funny guy. He performed here tonight, and it was an enjoyable experience. He made a song about one of the Agents members who was working the show. Pretty great.

EDIT:
An important note:
If I got a million dollars, I would probably spend most of it on geeky tee-shirts. Only then would I remember that rather expensive movie we're making. DAMMIT.

EDIT #2

Handlebar Moustaches!

Okay, dig it. I like to write, Alex likes to write. We've been trying, off and on, to pull something together for probably 6 years now. It started with Nowhere, which was a delightfully hilarious fantasy story, but it was a premise made for middle schoolers. Which we were, so it was ok. Now that we're big bad college students, we're got a new one going, and it
is
Fucking
AMAZING.

Here's the deal.

An Orange For William is the story of an extremely British expedition of olden days to an uncharted island. I don't want to say much more, other than that we love olden-times British people, and we have faith in their potential for hilarity. The characters are something only two crazy people with a fondness for off-beat humor and access to psychotropic drugs could create. Combine that with our idea of adventurous encounters with the unknown, and you've got something amazing.

The best part is, it's really happening. We've got the whole story planned out (Nowhere has nothing but the most primitive of a plotline, which would be one reason it died), and we've already begun writing this, our crowning achievement (or was that Bleach? hard to keep track these days).

You know what's even better? Publishing companies be damned! Why go through all the bother of getting signed when you can just publish it yourself? We hope to have this mother available for purchase online in only three months, but don't hold us to it. Still, the odds are good that you can have it in your hands before Bleach. Funny how that works.

And there's one thing that just takes the cake: since we just happen to have all this fancy sound equipment lying around from Bleach, why not create a book on CD? Narrated by none other than Alex and Myself, and perhaps a few actors from Bleach for their stellar voices. Excited yet?!?!

If not, just you wait.

Flicker flicker, intermission is at an end

Lots of stuff happened this past weekend. Very little of it was Bleach-related, but you should still care. Believe me, you should care. I shall explain why...in a bit.

First off: Played Halo 3, at long, long last. Hot damn! An amazing ending (or IS IT?!) to a classic scifi series. And that's all I have to say about that.

Next: Saturday evening found us (Alex, Aneta and myself) once again in Barnes and Noble, about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Woohoo!

With Bleach in the wrapping-up stage, we've begun to move on to a new project. We're doing it correctly this time. Be afraid.

Bleach was a spur of the moment thing: conceived in June of this year, Alex and Aneta's twisted love-child of a film was entirely written, filmed, and edited in 4 months (June-September is 4 months. I learned that in school!). We filmed when the actors had days off from work. It did not have a script. It did not have a budget. It had a cast made of our closest high school friends. Fun, yes, and effective, but decidedly unprofessional. It's a film by high school students.

Our new film (yet untitled) is slated to be filmed in 2010. Aneta has two years to write/rewrite/rerewrite/perfect the script; filming will take three weeks (working all day, every day, for those 3 weeks); editing will go on through our senior year in college. It WILL have a script. It WILL have a budget of approximately $50,000 (more on this later- keep in mind that you're reading the producer's blog. Much bitching will undoubtedly occur). It will have a cast of paid actors (with actual acting experience!). The bottom line is that we're being very, very professional here. It's a film by college students, directed by a genuine film major.

Holy crap, it's gonna be big!

Of course, that means we actually have to do shit now.

• I was given the title of producer in Bleach because I drove people around, bought lunch once, and was around a lot of the time. Now, I have to manage a budget (of a lot of money). I have to manage a goddamn production company to keep us from getting sued and losing all the money we don't, as college students, have. I have to come up with a way of getting us $50,000 to start with. So much for the Physics degree.


• Aneta has to write a script. Bleach had no script; Aneta was given the title of writer because it was her twisted fantasies that gave way to Bleach's story. There's a big difference between telling someone your ideas and writing a whole script. Is this gonna work? Aneta says it won't be a problem, and Alex has faith, so I guess that's good enough for me.


• Alex is filling in our gaps. A good film, apparently, has 4 people at the top: 2 creative ones, and 2 money-minded ones. Since Aneta and I are one each (take a stab at which ones), he has to be two drastically different people. I think the purchase of several hats is in order: a beret and a bowler hat. He could wear them one at a time, or perhaps both at once (assuming, of course, that the effects don't cancel each other out. If that is the case, a new beret-bowler hybrid may need to be created. I don't want to play God).

So back to my part as producer. Our estimated required budget is $50,000, split up roughly into:

NEW EQUIPMENT: $10,000 (The low-quality look worked well for Bleach, but it won't for this one)
CAST: $10,000 (according to Aneta, it'll be a big cast. I just wish I could instill the fear of god into her)
EDITING: $20,000 (since we're filming in digital, Alex assures me that much converting must be done to get it festival- and DVD release-ready. This could easily go up)
OTHER: $10,000 (such as food, festival entry fees, gas, location fees, costumes, makeup, etc.)

Our supposed plan of gaining this money:
Profits from Bleach: $100
Donations: The rest of it

I spy, with my eye, something that is ENTIRELY IMPLAUSIBLE!

We have a few alternative, if not entirely dependable, methods to reduce the amount of donations needed.

1. Grants: Alex is a film major, and colleges love giving kids money to make themsleves look good. Hope?


2. Book: Alex and I came up with a FANTASTIC idea for an easy-to-write book that only we could possibly ever write. It has a great amount of appeal, so we're optimistic about raising a few hundred by selling it online. This project will serve the dual purpose of making us money and keeping us busy while we wait for Aneta to do her thang. I'll be talking about this later, I know it. (Here's a little something for the present: our title is "An Orange for William". It will be the stuff of legends)


3. Various illegal activities: proposed fundraisers have included muggings, burglary, bank robberies, and illegally collecting on property insurance. This is perhaps the most reliable source of income.

That's everything for now. Will post more as these budding projects take a little more shape.

When the world gets in his face, Bon Jovi says:

Today was totally awesome. Seriously.

Have you ever had a day where everything just went right? That was totally today for me. I would hesitate to call it the best day of my life, because nothing extraordinary happened. It's just that everything went right. Spot on.

Started right away:

1. I woke up in time to finish my homework. It was very easy to complete. There was zero frustration involved.


2. Found my watch which has been missing for weeks. Woohoo!


3. Got my physics exam back. I have been sucking at physics this year, so I had low expectations, especially after talking with Blue Haired Kid. But you know what? ACED IT, BABY. Totally awesome.


4. Got out of physics with enough time to get to bio. I walked a little slow, so I didn't quite make it, but they were only three mins or so into our weekly quiz. I step into the classroom and go to my usual (late) desk, and lo and behold, there's already a paper! I look around in confusion and the grad student TA catches my eye. He gives me a nod, and I understand. We had a moment. It was a nice moment. Also the quiz was exceedingly easy this time around.


5. Got my bio lab assignment done right away. Normally I start on Monday and don't finish until Wednesday, but today breezing occurred and the whole thing was done (before the engineering lab closed. Sweet, sweet BLAST-database and global base pair alignment. (NOTE: I totally had to do work on the Eyeless gene today. And you know what? It was the eyeless gene in FLIES. That's messed up, man.)


6. I was heading to dinner when I was SWALLOWED UP, Jonas-style, into a group of people from the 5th floor. The experience was both hilarious and life-threatening (do not, under any circumstances, try to laugh while eating rice. You will die). Met several people and good times were had by all.


7. Our wing of the 6th floor ordered pizza, which was exceedingly delicious. Win!


8. Alex and I have come up with an outstanding idea for a new movie (don't worry, Bleach is still happening. It is now entirely impossible to stop it now. It's out of our hands), one that is too fabulous for words. It won't actually happen, of course; it's entirely implausible for us to film it. But a screenplay is both a possibility and an inevitability! It's being written right now! Here's an example of us brainstorming names:
   
   ME: Bruce?
   ALEX: Too homagey.
   ME: Kyle?
   ALEX: Too metrosexual.
   ME: Ralph?
   ALEX: Gay.
   ME:Derek?
   ALEX: Gay.
   ME: Max?
   ALEX: Fat.
   ME: Ernie?
   ALEX: Stupid.
   ME: Owen? Zack? Austin? Tyler? Mason? Clitoris?
   ALEX: WHAT!?
   ME: Nothing.
   
   It'll be great. You can already tell.

So, yes. Best day ever? Strong candidate! (Ron Paul? What?)