Where The Wild Things Are.

Where the wild things are, is scheduled for release on 10/3/2008.
Here's your sneak peak at it.
It's a live action with some cgi as well.
Where the Wild Things Are is the classic children's story by Maurice Sendak.

Click for larger.

Surf's up! Er, maybe not.

I haven't seen the movie Surf's Up, because my kids are not young children, but my friend Kate has two young daughters, and she took her daughter Olivia to see it on June 20th.
This is her review of Surf's Up.
Parents, consider this before you take your little ones to see it.
It's not exactly appropriate language for them.

Olivia and I attended an afternoon movie show while Moira was at a birthday party. We stood in line for Shrek 3 but it sold out right before we could get the tickets. Man, I was so bummed. The only other show that was available was Surfs Up.

So, I grab two tickets, pick up a $4.50 small soda and we rush into the show. Let me tell you that we got the last two seats in the very back row. The theater was mobbed, humid, and smelled faintly of dirty diapers. Not the wet kind, if you know what I mean.

Eww.

Well, the show starts and it's a bit violent and dark. As the movie goes on, I am more and more dismayed at the language that was used through this movie.

There was a penguin says "it tastes like sh...,"
A chicken says "I can feel it in my nuggets,"
Name-calling (loser, cocky, jerk, snowflake, bum, blubber-ball, fish sticks, "dirty trash can full of "poop")and the winning phrase of pecker face. Pecker face!*

I was shocked. Here's the kicker: not only did the character clearly call another character a pecker face, the theater was running the closed captioning so everyone got to read the words "pecker face" as well as hearing it. I'm sitting in the theater with my seven year old, watching this movie. The theater is full of children of all ages, some even as young as four or five.

Lovely. Just lovely.

So all you readers out there looking to take your young children to this movie, I'd have to definitely suggest you stay home and save your money.

*All the other name calling didn't bother me too much. Olivia's heard them before but I still maintain that pecker face was over the top for a childrens movie.

I Am Legend

On December 14, 2007, Will Smith comes back to the screen with another adventure blockbuster movie.
In my opinion of course.

I Am Legend is the story of Robert Neville, a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable... and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City... and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by "the Infected" -- victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville’s every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind’s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time. Based on the novel by Richard Matheson.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, and put out by Warner Bros. Studios.
The cast stars, Will Smith, Alice Braga, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Willow Smith, Charlie Tahan.

You can get a sneak peek by watching the I Am Legend trailer.

Please go vote!!

My friend Christine really wants to win a soda maker.
It's a machine to make your own soda at home, and she really wants this.
Can you please go vote once a day?
It would mean a lot to me and her.
Thanks!

You can vote here.

Review of the movie, 1408.

I went to see 1408, the new movie starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, written by Stephen King, tonight at the Hollywood 20 on Main street in Sarasota.

Possible spoilers below.

The story;
Mike Enslin writes books on the paranormal. He visits so called haunted hotels and then writes his experiences down and rates them on a scale of 1-10 skulls. But only believes what he can see, but tries to keep each location on good standing so they can keep their tourists.

He plans on doing the same thing in the infamous room 1408, of the Dolphin Hotel for his latest project.
He gets the idea to go there when he checks his mail, and receives a postcard that says "Don't stay in room 1408."
That's it.

He calls the hotel to book a room, and they tell him it's not available.
Not Saturday, not next Tuesday, not next month, or next summer.
The manager of the hotel tries to discourage people from staying there and Enslin (Cusack) is no exception.
But Enslin's book manager finds an old law on the New York books, that if a hotel has any room technically available, they have to let a guest stay in it.

When Enslin arrives, the manager, Mr. Owen (Samuel L. Jackson) does everything he can to try and get Enslin to stay in another room. He tries the upgrade to a suite plan, he tries to bribe him with a bottle of really expensive liquor, he tries to tell him about all 56 people who died in that room in the history of the hotel.
Enslin thinks this is a great trick, keep the hype up on the room, it makes the hotel more popular, but Owen says that the hotel tries to keep the stories out of the papers, they don't want the publicity.
Why?
It's not a spirit or poltergeist, it's the room itself.
"It's a fucking evil room" says Owen.

Enslin finally gets the key and goes in, all is going great for awhile, he talks into his hand held recorder describing the room in detail.
Then, the clock radio turns on by itself, playing the Carpenters song, "We've only just begun".
And indeed, we have.

From that moment forward, the room does every thing it can to get Enslin to kill himself.
The room doesn't kill you, it gets you to do it in a variety of ways.
Every person who has died in that room, all ended themselves, or died of natural causes like heart attacks or a stroke, brought on by fear.
One guy even drowned in a bowl of chicken soup.
Enslin starts to snap after awhile, the same thing many of the rooms former guests did, but he keeps getting a grip on himself, and comes back to his senses.
The room is truly evil though, and it plays many heinous tricks on him, one was his young daughter who had died.
The room brings her back to him, he can feel her, hug her, smell her, talk to her.
Then the room takes her away.
It was a sad moment, the only sad moment in the entire movie.
The rest of it will have you jumping out of your seat, screaming, and clutching who ever is seated next to you.
The entire audience was freaking out.
This movie has some of the best "jump" moments I have seen in a long, long time.
Our hero finally finds a way to stay alive, beat the room's 1 hour countdown.
If you somehow manage to make it through the first hour, it makes you do it again.
It's torturous.
It plays on all of your thoughts and fears, it knows you and uses it against you.
I won't say any more, I don't want to ruin it for you.

Cusack, as always, does an awesome job. I think I have loved every character he has ever portrayed. Jackson's role is minimal, he really is just the hotel manager, a creepy one, but he played the role well.
I probably would have taken him up on his offer of the suite upgrade.

Definitely go see this, it's worth the cost of the ticket.

1408

Tonight I'm going to see the movie 1408.
It's opening day, I have tix already bought on Fandango for the 7:45pm showing.
I can't wait!

I love horror movies and thrillers, and I love Stephen King.
You can check out the trailer below, and when I get back, I'll be sure to post a full review on it..

Apocalypto

Mel Gibson's Apocalypto

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life. As the Mayan kingdom faces its decline, the rulers insist the key to prosperity is to build more temples and offer human sacrifices. Jaguar Paw (Youngblood), a young man captured for sacrifice, flees to avoid his fate.

The story is set in the pre-Columbian Maya population: one village is brutally overrun, its residents either slaughtered or abducted, by a ruling tribe that needs slaves and human sacrifices. We focus on the capable warrior Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), although Gibson skillfully sketches a whole population of characters--many of whom don't survive the early reels. Most of the film is set in the dense jungle, but the middle section, in a grand Mayan city, is a dazzling triumph of design, costuming, and sheer decadent terror. The movie itself is a triumph of brutality, as Gibson lets loose his well-established fascination with bodily mortification in a litany of assaults including impalement, evisceration, snakebite, and bee stings. It's a dark, disgusted vision, but Gibson doesn't forget to apply some very canny moviemaking instincts to the violence--including the creation of a tremendous pair of villains (strikingly played by Raoul Trujillo and Rodolfo Palacias). The film is in a Maya dialect, subtitled in English, and shot on digital video (which occasionally betrays itself in some blurry quick pans). Amidst all the mayhem, nothing in the film is more devastating than a final wordless exchange of looks between captured villager Blunted (Jonathan Brewer) and his wife's mother (Maria Isabel Diaz), a superb change in tone from their early relationship. Yes, this is an obsessive, crazed movie, but Gibson knows what he's doing. --Robert Horton

This is actually a very decent movie, it almost didn't need subtitles as through the actors very well done performances, you can clearly understand what each and every scene is about. I barely read any of the dialogue.

The images are beautiful, every thing looks impeccably authentic, the picture above of the Aztec priest looking at the eclipsing sun, looks exactly like that in the film, the colors are gorgeous, the costumes so ornate, and the actors just perfectly fit the decorative and stunning costumes and story line.

The movie is hard to watch in a few places, the brute killing rampage that the Aztecs went on, was horrific.
They slaughtered every one they came in contact with except for the people they wanted to capture as slaves or as sacrifices to their God's.
The impalements, neck slicing and be headings, were so real looking, I had to turn away a few times.
They killed who they wanted, kept alive who they wanted, but left the children alive in every village.
One of the most heartbreaking scenes was when one of the now captive mothers turns back as she is being forced to walk through treacherous waters, to see a small group of children on the shore who could not follow, and the oldest child of the group, a young girl looking no more than 10 years old, screams out to the mother;
"Do not worry, they are my children now, I will care for them all!" as all the children now left in her care from babies to kids just a bit younger than her, cry for their dead parents and the parents who are being carted away.
The mother says a small prayer to the God's to keep them safe from harm, but she knows they are not going to survive, you can see this realization in her eyes, on her face.

The main character is a joy to watch, he speaks volumes without uttering a single Mayan word.
Through a series of terrifying events and close calls, he manages to escape and find his way back to his pregnant wife and young son who are slowly going to be drowned in an underground cave where they hid when the invading Aztecs came.
It's raining and he knows he must get back.
He still has to fight off a group of Aztec warriors who are after him for escaping and killing the only son of the warriors leader.
He manages to kill them all and rescue his wife, but as our story ends, Cortez and his Spaniards are arriving on shore armed with guns.
We all know the story of the Aztec civilization from there.
Jaguar paw and his family go into the forest to start a new life and avoid the new invaders.

It is an excellent movie, but very bloody, lots of gore close up, so it's definitely not for the faint of heart.

Pink and Metal Skool do Skid Row

I'm a huge fan of Pink, there, I said it.
I totally dig this chics look, sound, voice, and attitude.
She's hard working and hard rocking.

There's a semi-famous L.A. band called Metal Skool, that covers a bunch of 80's hair metal songs, and always gets celebrities on stage with them (they've sang with the likes of Dennis Rodman and Mr. Belding in the past).

Recently, Pink joined the band for a rendition of Skid Row's "18 and Life."
It's totally awesome!
Check it out:

Don Herbert, 89; TV's 'Mr. Wizard' taught science to young baby boomers

Link to source

Don Herbert, who explained the wonderful world of science to millions of young baby boomers on television in the 1950s and '60s as "Mr. Wizard" and did the same for another generation of youngsters on the Nickelodeon cable TV channel in the 1980s, died Tuesday. He was 89.

Man, that's sad. I used to watch him all the time. I loved it when he blew up the toaster. That was awesome!

Herbert used basic experiments to teach scientific principles to his TV audience via an in-studio guest boy or girl who assisted in the experiments.

In explaining how he brought a sense of wonder to elementary scientific experiments, Herbert told the New York Times in 2004 that he "would perform the trick, as it were, to hook the kids, and then explain the science later.

"We thought we needed it to seem like magic to hook the audience, but then we realized that viewers would be engaged with just a simple scientific question, like, why do birds fly and not humans? A lot of scientists criticized us for using the words 'magic' and 'mystery' in the show's subtitle, but they came around eventually."

"Over the years, Don has been personally responsible for more people going into the sciences than any other single person in this country," George Tressel, a National Science Foundation official, said in 1989.

"I fully realize the number is virtually endless when I talk to scientists," he said. "They all say that Mr. Wizard taught them to think."

And that is a major life accomplishment.
He taught kids to think and use logic and reason.
May he rest in peace.

Tawn Mastrey Needs YOUR Help!

Tawn Mastrey is a veteran and Icon in the music industry. She has been a rock/heavy metal radio disc jockey since 1972.
She’s interviewed almost every rock star helping to launch their careers.
Tawn is now fighting to stay alive. She suffers from Hepatitis C. and is in need of a liver. She has recently quit her job at Sirius radio due to her health.
Her sister Cara is now going to do a major fundraising charity concert for Tawn’s operation, in conjunction with the American Transplant Foundation. The headliner has yet been decided. We also have plans to help many others who suffer from Hepatitis C.

You can read more about it and help out by simply spreading the word or getting involved with your time or if you have a band, by playing at the event.

You can read all about it at Calexxia's site.

F.E.A.R.

This is a truly kickass game.
F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon

The boys are playing it now, we just go it from Amazon, so I'll be back later on with a full review of this one.
But I should tell you, this is one scary game.
Holy crap.