8 Points: Beowulf

Spoilers abound, especially for those of you not familiar with the original poem. Even if you are, I may ruin surprises.

So here goes.

1. See this in 3-D. Now. I mean it when I say that this is, bar none, the best 3-D work I have ever seen. Where the CG mocap animation has flaws, the 3-D smoothes them out and more than makes up for them.


2. I don't care what the rhetoric is; this is an animated film. Yes, it is in the direction of photo-real, but it stops short of traditional feature film effects trying to pass for real. It is stylized, especially when it comes to the light-like elements.


3. I wish they had pushed the style further. Early talk was of a moving Frank Frazetta painting; the final result is true to this in design, but is too polished for a real Frazetta feel. Maybe next time?


4. My three favorite moments: Beowulf digging through a sea-monster's eye, and being so worked up, he can only scream his name; Beowulf proclaiming his own legendary status to Grendel, just before ripping his arm off; the entire dragon fight.


5. This may be the best cinematic dragon yet. And certainly the best dragon battle yet. Eat your heart out Sean Connery. The bar has been raised for The Hobbit, if it ever gets made.


6. Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman have some serious credit due; they did one hell of an adaptation, that not only maintains the tone and feel of the epic poem, with its boastful braggarts and ritualized deeds, but feels energetic and exciting in a modern way. And the few additions they made tie the entire narrative together... Hrothgar fathering Grendel, and Beowulf fathering the dragon, make Beowulf's last stand, and the whole progression of the story, resonate in relation to the earlier confrontations. Balanced with the coming of Christianity (a contradiction in the original poem, as it is about Old English gods, but transcribed by Christian monks), and the (classic) death of the Old Ways, and you have a damn fine movie.


7. This is a truly mythic film; 300 wishes it could get you to care about its characters half this well, or get you invested in the battles a tenth what this film manages to do. Bravo.


8. James Cameron's Avatar is going to kick all of our asses.

Post-Thanksgiving

Well, that was a success.

The turkey came out well— came out great, if I do say so myself. Everyone brought a wonderful selection of food, from swiss chard to cranberry mousse. Will made his first cheesecake (pumpkin-flavored). We played some Wii games (Super Mario Galaxy is a solid console entry). We talked and went for a walk. We drink good wine, some Beaujolais Nouveau, some low-end blush sparkling white wine.

For those of you interested, I put my Nikon D80 to solid use tonight; once I finish developing the photos, I'll post and entry to new Flickr photos.

Coming home, unloading my equipment from the car, the cold air caught my attention. I was wearing my new hoodie jacket, hood on my head, carrying a large Rubbermaid tub full of cooking utensils and ingredients. I still smelled of brined and roasted turkey, a smell associated with the cooking my parents did. I had a pumpkin pie in my hands. I closed my eyes, just for a minute, and imaged I could smell frost on the cool air, and hear the wind in the woods back home.

Pretty damned close, for a minute there. Almost like home.

I hope all of your dinners were as good, and as fun, as mine. For those of you going shopping tomorrow, good luck. Will and I are heading out quite early... and, one way or another, I plan on ordering my HDTV. And who knows? Maybe I'll find some other things that spark my fancy... for either myself or others. The Apple Store is down as of right now; computers may be a cool $100 cheaper for tomorrow, both online and in person. And maybe Airport Base Stations and TVs will find themselves discounted. Who knows?

Sweet dreams to you, Dear Reader. I am off to bed to dream of the smells of home cooking, the chills of winter, and the feelings of home.

Goodnight.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Things are starting to get going back at the old digs in Century City...

More pictures as things progress... but I hope all of you have a happy Thanksgiving with great food, great times, and great company!

Amazonian Kindling

I was going to make a post regarding Amazon.com's new device, the "Kindle," but Fake Steve just does this stuff so much better than ever I could. Check it out.

I mean, really? This looks like bad sci-fi from 1987; it belongs on a shelf with old portable audio cassette recorders.

Hawaii Photos

I finally got some of my photographs from our Hawaii trip up on Flickr. These are the ones from my Canon point-and-shoot... I haven't finished developing any of my Nikon DSLR shots yet. But for the time being, here's a bunch for everyone to enjoy.

[UPDATED: Functional link posted.]

Waimalano Sunrise 1, originally uploaded by Hutson.

Paint Archaeology

This is one of the greatest photographs I have ever seen.

Not only is the subject matter fascinating, it's gorgeous. Excellent composition and color... and one hell of a found object.

I found it linked to over at kottke.org; it's a photo by Cassidy Curtis, which he explains better than I could back at the first link. Take a look at Kottke's second example for another cool application of paint-in-action.

Sherm the Star

Here's my good friend Sherman, starring in a music video back in his RISD days.



Some quick notes and observations:

• As a man with a beard, Sherman, please bring the beard back!


• But only if Meredith says it's okay.


• This RISD house looks pretty much exactly like the Senior Woodframe houses at Wesleyan, where most of the college films I myself participated in were shot. So that's funny.


• Speaking of my films, I should post some of them to YouTube...


• Just for reference, here is Sherman's IMDb page.

I Love The Daily Show... & Its Writers

Brilliant.


(courtesy of Daring Fireball.)

Twitter

I never "got" Twitter until this morning, when I was doing what I do every day: bemoaning my inability to get any regular posts up to TWGB these days.

I had two or three short things to throw on the blog, but they didn't seem to warrant full posts. Combining them into one didn't feel right— when I'm not going through three weeks of backlogs, I like things to be somewhat separated. So what to do?

Well, I guess, Twitter.

I'm not saying that I'm about to rush and make myself an account; I really do like the idea of having my internet presence being centralized, in respect to this blog. But the impulse that leads to Twittering (or is it tweeting?) makes a lot of sense.

What the solution is, I don't know. The "Linked List" approach that John Gruber uses over at Daring Fireball is a great model for what I'm thinking of; his longer posts have a different style and layout from his daily collection of links. So maybe, as I move to a fully Hutson-designed layout (someday!), I just need to implement something along those lines.

For now, though, I'll probably just end up being inconsistent about it, I'm sorry to say. I'll try and just make posts with my short thoughts/links/whatever; we'll just have to see.

We're Everywhere

On Sunday, Tracy and I went to Trader Joe's and came across this:

Doh!

Courtesy of Fake Steve Jobs, check out these stills from "The Bionic Woman." To add to iJustine's comments about the iPhone being upside down, I'd also like to point out that the screen is on, which doesn't happen during talk as the iPhone has "proximity sensors" or somesuch that kill the screen when it's against your cheek, to save on battery life.

Whoops!

Any "Bionic Woman" fans out there who can tell me if these pictures are of "Leoban" from "Battlestar Galactica?"

Simpsons Wars

Someone just sent this to me via Flickr, probably in response to my "Building the Falcon" photo set. It's pretty good.

Catsup, Ketchup... Catch up

Well, the week finally came to an end, and here we are. Remember earlier in the week when I said I had 11 web links I wanted to post and discuss?

Yeah, it's more like 20 now.

Now, posting them up individually would give us only a fine mess 'o blog clutter, so, in one fell swoop, here's the "HH Week In Review."

• Interesting article from Wired.com about the hidden cost of biofuels. Just goes to show how complicated the human relationship to the environment is. There truly is no easy answer...


• Sodium is awesome.


• The WGA (Writer's Guild of America) Strike is the big news in LA this week. Every day, riding my bike to work, I passed the picketers at the Universal Studios gate and gave my support—except for Friday, when 3500 (!) were picketing at the Fox lot, which is, of course, my old neighborhood. Here is an excellent look at what this strike is about, plus a great call to action regarding the studio heads of old. Corporate pros and marketing heads just aren't the same kind of mavericks. Also, as he so often does, Jon Stewart gets it right.


• Here's another bit of entertainment news I really hope is true. Not only is the idea of a new—and skilled—writer picking up the Spidey franchise exciting, but also the tease of a leaner, meaner story. Fingers crossed.


• I really want to get excited about J.J. Abrams Star Trek, as I'm a fan of "Alias," "Lost," and Mission: Impossible III. But the casting has been... to be generous, shall we say, uneven:
  
  
  
  • Zachary Quinto as Spock? Not too bad, as Quinto is one of the best (and most consistent) aspects of "Heroes." Still, I'd have preferred Cillian Murphy.
  
  
  • (Relative) unknowns as Uhura, Chehov, and Sulu? Not very exciting, but they'll probably be fine.
  
  
  • Eric Bana as the evil Romulan bad guy? Unexpected, but probably awesome. Of course, his character's name is Nero, showing once again that Star Trek is quite good at taking the Roman Empire metaphor very literally.¹
  
  
  • Simon Pegg as Scotty? Double-take worthy, totally weird, but Pegg is Pegg, so totally awesome. Or so, at least, I hope.
  
  
  • Chris Pine as Kirk? Meh. No, you haven't heard of him, and neither has anyone else. Might be good, but I want charisma and presence. Kirk's got to be exciting and infectious. There's a reason those Matt Damon rumors kept on swirling—he's got the right kind of energy. This is risky casting, but nothing compared to...
  
  
  • Karl Urban as McCoy! This is, simply put, wrong. Don't mistake me; I love Urban. His work as Eomer in The Lord of the Rings is excellent, and he played one hell of a gritty assassin in The Bourne Supremacy. Hell, I even dug him in Pathfinder, which is a truly terribly movie.² But as Bones?! Sorry, too meaty, too tough. Not enough of a thin, cranky old man, even as a fresh-out-of-the-Academy Star Fleet cadet. Ouch. Again, I'd rather see Cillian Murphy in the role.
  
  
  • Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike, the Enterprise's first commander. I love me my Greenwood, and he looks like an early-Starfleet era captain Right on.
  
  
  • Winona Ryder as Amanda, Spock's human mother. What?! Does she even work anymore? Last time I saw her was as the most dissapointing android ever in Alien: Resurrection. I'm not sure I buy her as anyone's mother, let alone a wise-beyond-his-years half Vulcan. Weak.
  
  
  • Rachel Nichols as... maybe Yeoman Rand, maybe Nurse Chapel? Either way, this gets classified as "awesome," because (A) She's charismatic and cool, and (B) She grew up in Augusta, Maine, and graduated from Cony High School a year or two before me. If she ran track, we were at meets together. Cool.
  
  
  • This is a picture from the set this week and that looks an awful lot like "House, M.D."'s Jennifer Morrison. Who is she? Is it her? Dunno and dunno, but if it is, she could be up for the same roles as Nichols, and it would also be awesome, as she is great on "House."
  
  See what I mean about uneven? Smaller roles are somewhat interesting, and then bigger ones range from "okay" to "Are they smoking crack?!" Here's hoping J.J. can really pull this together with a fantastic production... but given that Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are writing this, and they wrote this summer's abysmal Transformers adaptation, I'm starting to feel worried... But this teaser, done right, could do a lot to prove to the fans that this crew has got the right attitude, and is creating a film that has the right vibe. I can't wait to see this trailer.


• Speaking of Star Trek, here's a review of the outline for the Star Trek Prequel Rick Berman tried to make. Worth the read as a Trek-worthy glimpse at the alternate reality we could have had, had this film been made. Not that is sounds perfect, but a real Trek war story, written by one of the "Band of Brothers" guys, going back to the adventure and discovery roots of the original Star Trek? Count me in.


• NYTimes Deputy News Editor Philip B. Corbett talks the Times, language, grammar, and writing, all structured as a Q&A with readers. Great piece.


• Following the language thread, this is hilarious. For non-readers, Dinosaur Comics uses the exact same picture everyday, and just changes the words. It may take a while to get in the groove, but once you do, you may never stop laughing.


• With new Kubrick DVDs and HD discs coming out this week, people have been posting about his work. I followed a few links and came across this. Yes, it's 20 years old, but I'd never heard of this theory. You know what we call this in film school? Reaching.


• This is my morning bus stop when I take the bus to work, as I did the Monday this ad went up. That is the building I look at while I wait on the other side of the street. And I noticed this building before the article came up, I just took a full week to blog it myself.


• Tracy found this, and it's damn good.


• I've caught up on Heroes, and have been watching Season 2, which had mostly sucked. It fact, these 6 or so episodes are so bad, series creator Tim Kring is publically apologizing. Weak.
  
• These are wicked cool. And here you can see the real equipment Lucas used in 1977.


• Also, these pumpkins rule. I should have submitted this two years ago.


• I love wine, and I know some sommeliers, so I can attest that at least some of them know what they're doing. This is still hilarious, though.


• Tracy just discovered Katie Herzig, who's pretty cool. She really likes the song "Sweeter Than This," which you can listen to by going to the "Music" tab, and selecting the track.
• 
  
• Go see American Gangster. It's great.

Check out this editorial on the format war. This guy is very optimistic about the situation, and brings up many good points, especially regarding the general publics understanding of HD and how to optimize it. I think the format war is far more negative than he lets on, but he's still worth checking out.

• If you look at Amazon.com's page for Ocean's Thirteen, you can watch previews for two special features I onlined: "Masters of the Heist," and "Vegas: An Opulent Illusion." I even picked out the clips that play as the previews. So that's pretty cool!

Phew! So glad to get all of that out of the way! Maybe now you can see why, when it piles up and I get just a little behind, it starts to get much harder to even post a short bit. But, being all caught up, I intend to get back on schedule.



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1. Example: Romulus and Remus are twin planets; Romulans live on Romulus, and Remans live on Remus.[⇪]

2. Pathfinder isn't even terrible good, or funny. It doesn't have any good action. It's just terrible.[⇪]

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Roy Scheider! Today you can go slow ahead, while I will come down and chum some of that shit.

Extended Pause

Yes, I've been off the air for several days now... we've had a lot of late-notice work requests coming our way here at HCE, many of which have fallen in my lap these past two weeks. Getting home at 11pm does not make for easy blogging.

But, I keep meaning to, and I have 11 (!) Safari tabs I want to link to/discuss... hopefully, in the next two or three days, I'll start slogging through the backlog and get back on regular posting.

Quick thanks to Dad for A) Excellent pictures, and B) Such a nice letter. Response forthcoming soon...

As for the rest of you, comment to me about how desperate you are without regular updates, and maybe I'll find the motivation to get a few quickies in...

Tech Specs

Word.

The problem with home video: everybody's an expert, while things are as complicated as an engineering class. Moral of this story: do your research before you start jawing.

Go Jeanine!

Check out this New York Times article, which is all about Jeanine Basinger—my college professor, department head, and advisor—and her new book.

Excellent article about what promises to be a greta book. You may think that the stars of the first half of the century would be boring, but Jeanine is easily one of the smartest people I've had the privilege to know and work with.