Yo!
Please excuse my tardiness again with this Blog; I just got in from doing some serious yard work, and BOY are my legs tired! .............................Um, anyway, a FINAL addendum to my Pokemon rant from 2 weeks ago: I just found out that the big 10th anniversary special ("The Mastermind of Mirage Pokemon") that The Pokemon Company is using to pilot the new season 9 voice cast is airing on US airwaves THIS SATURDAY. Click HERE to get to Kids WB's Pokemon page to see the trailer. This means that now we finally get to see-- er, hear, exactly what these guys have up their sleeves to carry the show forward. Here's hoping they don't screw it up. ........too badly.
........Moving on, this week, I want to talk about a commercial I saw Friday night about this new butter spread by Shedd's Spread (I think that's how it's spelled), called "Country Crock Spreadable Butter." What they mean by "spreadable" is, even after you get it home from your grocer, you can refrigerate it for days on end, get it out, and it'll be perfectly spreadable on--- ah darn, what's an example of really weak bread for spreading newly solidified butter--- white Wonder bread, as if it had been sitting out in a room temperature environment for 25 minutes or so, but without those isolated areas of yellow goo that looks like someone cracked open a raw egg over the butter and didn't grab a spoon to dig the stuff out. I haven't had a chance to get to a supermarket this past weekend to find that stuff and check the ingredients, but if I had to guess, whatever alien mutagen is responsible for this culinary concoction, can't be good for regular human consumption.
Think about it: with the exception of good old fashioned milk (which is already liquid anyway, so it can't get softer than that), no dairy product is supposed to actually get (and stay!) soft in a very cold environment. This leads me to believe that whatever kind of stuff made that actually possible, needs FDA evaluation again, and this time, Shedd's Spread, no bribes to get it through. To me, a feat like this, while admittedly, looks great on TV, sounds like a good idea, and must've been astounding on paper, on second thought, just sounds kinda nasty to me. I can already imagine the different kinds of preservatives and additives they used to make that happen.
Plus, as far as those preservatives specifically, next time you get a chance, people, get to your grocer, go straight to the dairy section, pick up a spreadable butter (that's right, I said "A spreadable butter." After Googling Shedd's brand, I found out that, apparently, Land O'Lakes has a spreadable butter out too), and compare the listed ingredients with those on a regular, un-"mutated" brand, such as Smart Balance. I personally have a rule about ingredients like these: If I can't pronounce it, I won't eat it. Period. When you get your hands on this new butter, try reading aloud some of those ingredients (especially the ones that end in "-ose" or "-ame". Those are REALLY fun). Just ignore any awkward stares you may get from other shoppers. If any store staff asks you what you're doing, just tell them you're doing a public health study. I think you'll be surprised. Bottom line: Dairy (except milk) doesn't soften when it's cold, Weird crap that's modified, manipulated, manufactured and (insert 4th similar "m-word" here) does. That's not dairy, it shouldn't be passed off as dairy, and that kind of misleading product, I'm sure, can't be all that healthy for you anyway. ...............But that's just me. See ya next week!
-D.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Monday, April 17, 2006
Entry 6
Yo!
Okay, first of all, I want to correct something I found out about recently that goes against a recent Blog post of mine. Last week, I mentioned that "a couple weeks from now", the company doing the English voiceover dubs of Pokemon will be replacing all the voice actors with new soundalikes, because the 4Kids Entertainment guys are going to hand over total operation of the show to the guys handling... well, pretty much everything else Pokemon, The Pokemon Company (yes, that's seriously their name), but more specifically, Pokemon USA. I found out that they're going to let the current season ("Pokemon: Advanced Battle") run its course, thumb-tack the 10th anniversary special probably somewhere around the middle of the summer season, and then clean house with the recastings when season 9 starts in September. Yeah. They're not even at season 9 yet, but they're going to air the 10th anniversary special anyway. People! It's horse, THEN cart!!!! Well, in any case, I just had to correct myself there with the slight fact inaccuracy of the real timeframe for the voice recasting. That was terrible blogsmanship on my part, and I apologize. I really have to do a better fact-checking job before I post on here.
Now that that's out of the way, this week, I want to talk about the Fox action-drama show 24. I personally didn't start getting into this show until the start of season 2 back in 2002, but I did get season 1 on DVD a while back, just to bone up. It's since been sold at GameStop for store credit building up to a GameCube Action Replay code system, but that's beside the point. For those who don't know, 24 is one of those shows that's so out-there, it practically makes its own genre. These days, I guarantee you, you can't find a simple split-screen milti camera sequence without thinking of 24, even if it's not on television. That 2003 Hulk movie is a perfect example of how that stuff is used on the big screen, but even other networks manage to borrow that same visual style and still pull off the same dramatic effect. Denis Leary's FX show "Rescue Me", another great example. Sorely lacking in orange ticking clocks right before the commercials, though. Anyway, 24 is the story of this on-again, off-again government agent named Jack Bauer, who has 24 hours to stop various ripped-from-headlines national security threats, from presidential assassination plots and bioterrorism, to nuclear bombs and the good old fashioned wife-and-daughter kidnapping.
The thing is, everything, all 24 hours of the day, happens in real time (factoring in commercials), and is shown hour-by-hour over the course of a single season. This means, except for that one time in season 3, (and that episode from a couple weeks back), you never see anyone even walk NEAR a bathroom. Sure, the producers and writers make excuses, like "well, the characters take care of that stuff during their non-onscreen time or the commercials", but come on. Let's be Simon Cowell honest for a second here. Hey, Counter-Terrorist Unit agents!! Suggestion 1: Take that Aquafina commercial announcer's advice for once and drink more water. Suggestion 2: Metamucil. It's pretty obvious to anyone who really pays attention to the goings-on with this show that Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park is more regular than these guys. But I guess I'd have to be scared (literally) $#@%less too after enduring what these people go through apparently every 18 months on the dot (that's the time gap between all seasons, except 2 and 3. There was a 24 video game for Playstation 2 that released recently that took care of that 3-year gap by slicing it in half and doing a story that perfectly fits in with the usual 18-month gap structure).
In January, Fox started season 5. I'm not going to spoil anything here, you'll just have to get the DVDs to catch up (all 4 previous seasons are out now). But I will say this: Apparently, (the OTHER) "Jacko" will live to see a few more bathroomless days, since Fox just renewed 24 for another 3 seasons, meaning the show will continue at least until summer 2009, plus, a script for a 24 movie is in the works right now. Seriously. You know, if they really wanted to keep things realistic, they'd get Ford to do some more serious sponsorship going to run the 9-10pm episodes commercial-free every year, because that's the show's usual timeslot (except for the last 2 episodes of the season, which they always run back-to-back the same night, starting at 8). I believe they only did this with the season 2 and 3 premieres and all the finales, but it'd really amp things up (for me, at least) to see things LITERALLY happening in really-real-time. But, on second thought, I guess it'd get stupid quick, having every single CTU vehicle, terrorist car, bombed car, bystander vehicle, Jack's civilian ride, and the president's limousine all be Tauruses or Expeditions. But that's just me. Later.
-D.
Okay, first of all, I want to correct something I found out about recently that goes against a recent Blog post of mine. Last week, I mentioned that "a couple weeks from now", the company doing the English voiceover dubs of Pokemon will be replacing all the voice actors with new soundalikes, because the 4Kids Entertainment guys are going to hand over total operation of the show to the guys handling... well, pretty much everything else Pokemon, The Pokemon Company (yes, that's seriously their name), but more specifically, Pokemon USA. I found out that they're going to let the current season ("Pokemon: Advanced Battle") run its course, thumb-tack the 10th anniversary special probably somewhere around the middle of the summer season, and then clean house with the recastings when season 9 starts in September. Yeah. They're not even at season 9 yet, but they're going to air the 10th anniversary special anyway. People! It's horse, THEN cart!!!! Well, in any case, I just had to correct myself there with the slight fact inaccuracy of the real timeframe for the voice recasting. That was terrible blogsmanship on my part, and I apologize. I really have to do a better fact-checking job before I post on here.
Now that that's out of the way, this week, I want to talk about the Fox action-drama show 24. I personally didn't start getting into this show until the start of season 2 back in 2002, but I did get season 1 on DVD a while back, just to bone up. It's since been sold at GameStop for store credit building up to a GameCube Action Replay code system, but that's beside the point. For those who don't know, 24 is one of those shows that's so out-there, it practically makes its own genre. These days, I guarantee you, you can't find a simple split-screen milti camera sequence without thinking of 24, even if it's not on television. That 2003 Hulk movie is a perfect example of how that stuff is used on the big screen, but even other networks manage to borrow that same visual style and still pull off the same dramatic effect. Denis Leary's FX show "Rescue Me", another great example. Sorely lacking in orange ticking clocks right before the commercials, though. Anyway, 24 is the story of this on-again, off-again government agent named Jack Bauer, who has 24 hours to stop various ripped-from-headlines national security threats, from presidential assassination plots and bioterrorism, to nuclear bombs and the good old fashioned wife-and-daughter kidnapping.
The thing is, everything, all 24 hours of the day, happens in real time (factoring in commercials), and is shown hour-by-hour over the course of a single season. This means, except for that one time in season 3, (and that episode from a couple weeks back), you never see anyone even walk NEAR a bathroom. Sure, the producers and writers make excuses, like "well, the characters take care of that stuff during their non-onscreen time or the commercials", but come on. Let's be Simon Cowell honest for a second here. Hey, Counter-Terrorist Unit agents!! Suggestion 1: Take that Aquafina commercial announcer's advice for once and drink more water. Suggestion 2: Metamucil. It's pretty obvious to anyone who really pays attention to the goings-on with this show that Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park is more regular than these guys. But I guess I'd have to be scared (literally) $#@%less too after enduring what these people go through apparently every 18 months on the dot (that's the time gap between all seasons, except 2 and 3. There was a 24 video game for Playstation 2 that released recently that took care of that 3-year gap by slicing it in half and doing a story that perfectly fits in with the usual 18-month gap structure).
In January, Fox started season 5. I'm not going to spoil anything here, you'll just have to get the DVDs to catch up (all 4 previous seasons are out now). But I will say this: Apparently, (the OTHER) "Jacko" will live to see a few more bathroomless days, since Fox just renewed 24 for another 3 seasons, meaning the show will continue at least until summer 2009, plus, a script for a 24 movie is in the works right now. Seriously. You know, if they really wanted to keep things realistic, they'd get Ford to do some more serious sponsorship going to run the 9-10pm episodes commercial-free every year, because that's the show's usual timeslot (except for the last 2 episodes of the season, which they always run back-to-back the same night, starting at 8). I believe they only did this with the season 2 and 3 premieres and all the finales, but it'd really amp things up (for me, at least) to see things LITERALLY happening in really-real-time. But, on second thought, I guess it'd get stupid quick, having every single CTU vehicle, terrorist car, bombed car, bystander vehicle, Jack's civilian ride, and the president's limousine all be Tauruses or Expeditions. But that's just me. Later.
-D.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Entry 5
Yo!
Sorry I'm a little late this week. I almost forgot my own deadline. Anyway, now that I've gotten the hang of regular Blogging, it's time to for me to take off the proverbial kid gloves and go into a rant on something that's really ticking me off lately: The Pokemon craze. For those of you that don't know what Pokemon is, I'd probably better get you gradually up-to-date on a few things while I'm at it. (*gets a book out from a nearby bookcase) Ahem... Verse One: "At the first, God made the heaven and the earth." Verse Two: "And the earth was waste and without form; and it was dark on the face of the deep---" Um, you know what? I'd probably better skip a couple millennia here. Pokemon is the story of a (apparently, perpetually) ten year old boy named Ash Ketchum, who, on his tenth birthday, decides to leave home and go on a grand exodus to find a way to become the world's foremost leading Pokemon (an animal species with literally hundreds of variants, abilities and ways to use only repitition of their own names as speaking a language) trainer, a classification better known as a "Pokemon Master." This program premiered in syndication on U.S. airwaves in the Fall of 1998, and gained national fame after it joined the WB network's flagship Saturday-morning cartoon franchise, "Kids' WB" in the Spring of 1999, where it has stayed, cranking out new episodes nearly every week ever since. There is a seemingly limitless array of merchandise tie-ins to the show, including plush toys, trading cards, electronics (Ash's "Pokedex" Pokemon information database from the show was made into 3 different versions of real-life facsimiles) and, of course, video games.
Now, you may be asking yourself, "But Donn, if this show is so popular and enduring, what's wrong with it? Apparently, this cartoon has a very loyal fanbase to be on television as long as it has." What's wrong? Where do you want me to begin? There's too darn many characters now to keep track of (over 350 Pokemon creatures at last count with more rumored to be on the way), the writers have been recycling the same darn storylines time and again since 2000, they keep cranking out feature films, one per season (seriously. Movies 1-5 were theatrical, all since have been direct-to-DVD. I guess their regular moviegoing audience finally came to their senses), there's more video games alone out now than people who actually liked Kanye West's "Mission: Impossible 3" theme, which premiered today on Yahoo! Launchcast Radio (If you want to be bothered listening to the song that has no-- I repeat, NO business being a Mission Impossible theme, click HERE to go to Launchcast's radio channel selection page. They're putting the song in heavy rotation on the Today's Biggest Hits, Hip-Hop, R&B, New Releases, Adult Alternative, Quiet Storm, Spring Break, and The Big Jams stations). Not that I'm trying to bash Mr. West or anything, I'm just longing for the days when a "Mission" had a kick-@$$ soundtrack, and Metallica's theme ruled the charts. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Anyway, on top of all this, Ash's quest is driven by the collection of special badges, obtained by defeating special Pokemon trainers, "Gym Leaders", in competitions called "Gym Battles" so he can participate in special tournaments to rise up the ranks and become the Pokemon Master. To date, there have only been 4 of these championships that Ash has competed in (the Indigo League in 1999 [from the original Red, Blue and Yellow Nintendo Game Boy games], the Orange League in 2000 [the only league without a game set], the Johto League in 2003 [from Gold, Silver and Crystal], and, more recently, the Hoenn League [from Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald] from 2 weeks ago.), and of those championships, Ash has only won ONE: The Orange Championships in early September, 2000. Every other one has been a really close failure, not even cracking the top 3. It's as if the writers are just ramming into their young, impressionable fans, "Even if you fail miserably right when you most need a victory, there'll always be more opportunities to, well, fail miserably again." It's like watching a donkey pull one of those big farmland things that lossens up the grounds, I forget what it's called, and the only thing motivating it to pull the load is a carefully rigged carrot on a fishing pole, luring the donkey to keep walking, expecting to someday get that darn carrot if it keeps walking.
Furthermore, later this month, Ash will begin his 5th championship attempt in the "Battle Frontier" from the FireRed and LeafGreen Game Boy Advance games released, I believe, in 2004. Here's a prediction: after another 3-year run in this League, he'll fail yet again and 2 episodes later hear about another new League from a video game that is in desperate need of loser Trainers. To this day, I don't know why I bother watching anymore. I stopped playing the video games in 2002, but for some reason, I keep getting glued to the animated version, expecting a different outcome. It's like watching the final minutes of an episode of "24" that you just read an online spoiler on, but because the ending is so out of left-field, you tune in anyway, hoping the online report is wrong. Sorry about all this long speech this week, people. I'm just really peeved about the Hoenn failure earlier this month. check out this season's episode listings on TV.com by clicking HERE for an overview if you missed it, and chances are, you did.
One more thing I have to mention: in a couple of weeks, the production company doing the English dub of the episodes will pilot a new version of the show with new voice actors playing all the lead characters. Well, it's about time. 8 years and Ash is just NOW hitting puberty?! Took The Pokemon Company long enough. I don't know about you out there in cyberspace, but if you ask me, it's getting to the point where I'm starting to despise all things Pokemon!!!! ...But that's just me. More new rants next week, same time, same place.
-D.
Sorry I'm a little late this week. I almost forgot my own deadline. Anyway, now that I've gotten the hang of regular Blogging, it's time to for me to take off the proverbial kid gloves and go into a rant on something that's really ticking me off lately: The Pokemon craze. For those of you that don't know what Pokemon is, I'd probably better get you gradually up-to-date on a few things while I'm at it. (*gets a book out from a nearby bookcase) Ahem... Verse One: "At the first, God made the heaven and the earth." Verse Two: "And the earth was waste and without form; and it was dark on the face of the deep---" Um, you know what? I'd probably better skip a couple millennia here. Pokemon is the story of a (apparently, perpetually) ten year old boy named Ash Ketchum, who, on his tenth birthday, decides to leave home and go on a grand exodus to find a way to become the world's foremost leading Pokemon (an animal species with literally hundreds of variants, abilities and ways to use only repitition of their own names as speaking a language) trainer, a classification better known as a "Pokemon Master." This program premiered in syndication on U.S. airwaves in the Fall of 1998, and gained national fame after it joined the WB network's flagship Saturday-morning cartoon franchise, "Kids' WB" in the Spring of 1999, where it has stayed, cranking out new episodes nearly every week ever since. There is a seemingly limitless array of merchandise tie-ins to the show, including plush toys, trading cards, electronics (Ash's "Pokedex" Pokemon information database from the show was made into 3 different versions of real-life facsimiles) and, of course, video games.
Now, you may be asking yourself, "But Donn, if this show is so popular and enduring, what's wrong with it? Apparently, this cartoon has a very loyal fanbase to be on television as long as it has." What's wrong? Where do you want me to begin? There's too darn many characters now to keep track of (over 350 Pokemon creatures at last count with more rumored to be on the way), the writers have been recycling the same darn storylines time and again since 2000, they keep cranking out feature films, one per season (seriously. Movies 1-5 were theatrical, all since have been direct-to-DVD. I guess their regular moviegoing audience finally came to their senses), there's more video games alone out now than people who actually liked Kanye West's "Mission: Impossible 3" theme, which premiered today on Yahoo! Launchcast Radio (If you want to be bothered listening to the song that has no-- I repeat, NO business being a Mission Impossible theme, click HERE to go to Launchcast's radio channel selection page. They're putting the song in heavy rotation on the Today's Biggest Hits, Hip-Hop, R&B, New Releases, Adult Alternative, Quiet Storm, Spring Break, and The Big Jams stations). Not that I'm trying to bash Mr. West or anything, I'm just longing for the days when a "Mission" had a kick-@$$ soundtrack, and Metallica's theme ruled the charts. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Anyway, on top of all this, Ash's quest is driven by the collection of special badges, obtained by defeating special Pokemon trainers, "Gym Leaders", in competitions called "Gym Battles" so he can participate in special tournaments to rise up the ranks and become the Pokemon Master. To date, there have only been 4 of these championships that Ash has competed in (the Indigo League in 1999 [from the original Red, Blue and Yellow Nintendo Game Boy games], the Orange League in 2000 [the only league without a game set], the Johto League in 2003 [from Gold, Silver and Crystal], and, more recently, the Hoenn League [from Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald] from 2 weeks ago.), and of those championships, Ash has only won ONE: The Orange Championships in early September, 2000. Every other one has been a really close failure, not even cracking the top 3. It's as if the writers are just ramming into their young, impressionable fans, "Even if you fail miserably right when you most need a victory, there'll always be more opportunities to, well, fail miserably again." It's like watching a donkey pull one of those big farmland things that lossens up the grounds, I forget what it's called, and the only thing motivating it to pull the load is a carefully rigged carrot on a fishing pole, luring the donkey to keep walking, expecting to someday get that darn carrot if it keeps walking.
Furthermore, later this month, Ash will begin his 5th championship attempt in the "Battle Frontier" from the FireRed and LeafGreen Game Boy Advance games released, I believe, in 2004. Here's a prediction: after another 3-year run in this League, he'll fail yet again and 2 episodes later hear about another new League from a video game that is in desperate need of loser Trainers. To this day, I don't know why I bother watching anymore. I stopped playing the video games in 2002, but for some reason, I keep getting glued to the animated version, expecting a different outcome. It's like watching the final minutes of an episode of "24" that you just read an online spoiler on, but because the ending is so out of left-field, you tune in anyway, hoping the online report is wrong. Sorry about all this long speech this week, people. I'm just really peeved about the Hoenn failure earlier this month. check out this season's episode listings on TV.com by clicking HERE for an overview if you missed it, and chances are, you did.
One more thing I have to mention: in a couple of weeks, the production company doing the English dub of the episodes will pilot a new version of the show with new voice actors playing all the lead characters. Well, it's about time. 8 years and Ash is just NOW hitting puberty?! Took The Pokemon Company long enough. I don't know about you out there in cyberspace, but if you ask me, it's getting to the point where I'm starting to despise all things Pokemon!!!! ...But that's just me. More new rants next week, same time, same place.
-D.
Monday, April 3, 2006
Entry 4
Yo!
Ladies and gentlemen, it's official: There will-- I repeat, WILL be a Simpsons Movie. Not a direct-to-DVD flick, like Family Guy, but a full-fledged silver screen feature! It's about darn time, too! For those of you who haven't heard yet, 20th Century Fox's latest computer-animated movie, "Ice Age 2" (better known as "Ice Age: The Meltdown") opened over the weekend, and I personally saw it with a good friend of mine at my local multiplex on Saturday. During the opening trailers shown before the movie, a small 30-second teaser trailer for "The Simpsons Movie" was shown. Fortunately, those of you who haven't seen this trailer yet can check out a very recently released online stream, thanks to the guys at Apple.com. Click HERE to check it out. Nothing spectacular, but I just wanted to mention that several months ago, series producer David Mirkin hinted that they were doing something special with the animation for the movie. He didn't specify, but we do know it's not CG. Though it is going to be, supposedly, "special." Yeah. more like "special ed." You can't really tell when you look at the YouTube stream, but when you see this trailer on the big screen, it almost looks like it has the super-subtle, grainy tones of the first few seasons of the TV show. I'm not sure if this is because the Apple Trailers stream has the clip's true dimensions and when it's stretched out, it looks a little grainy, or maybe that's exactly what the animation's going to look like and the online version is compressed just right to not appear to have any "grainy-ness" in it, but if purposed grainy-ness is, in fact, what they mean by "special," to give the movie a throwback to the early seasons when rumors of the movie first started, read my text, Fox: I AM NOT AMUSED. Now, I don't know about all you other Simpsons fans out there, but I really hope that when the movie comes out they do something else "special" with the movie because if they want MY money, they'd better stick to the visual style they have now. Of course, if they REALLY expect to make significant money off this, they'd better come up with a decent story for a move like this. And please, Fox. For the love of God, don't go with something down the lines of any of those lame storyline ideas from the show. Since there's been way too many in recent seasons to list here, I'll use as a prime example the one that aired just last night. MATADOR GRANDPA?!?!? Come on, Tim Long. You can come up with a better story idea than that. Anyway, here's hoping when this finally comes out on 7/27/07, it doesn't suffer (too badly) from being too little, too late. Sure, it's gonna come out a bit after the 20th anniversary of the Simpsons' first ever TV appearance on Tracey Ullman's show on April 19, 1987, but it still stands to lose out big at the box office if for no other reason that its very, very special competition next summer: Evan Almighty (read: "Bruce Almighty 2"), The Bourne Ultimatum, Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Indiana Jones 4, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and the Transformers movie, to name some. Seriously, folks, if there's to be any hope at all of a significant post-movie future for the show, or a "The Simpsons Sequel" further down the line, 2007 is to be a VERY crucial year.
Anyway, as for Ice Age 2, unfortunately, since this is an animated PG-rated movie on opening weekend, the theater was practically full of pre-teens and the reject kids from Barney the Dinosaur, which meant the movie itself, while mildly enjoyable at least in getting an overdue Scrat fix (the first film came out in 2002), the overall moviegoing experience was slightly dampened by the aforementioned kids laughing their heads off at even the corniest jokes, and the whole story arc with the female mammoth thinking she's a possum? Come on, Fox. Was it really necessary to make this movie at all, in hindsight? I mean, seriously. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this, but instead of making a full movie, they should have made at least some web-only short films just about Scrat. no mammoths, sloths, tigers or poorly rendered human characters. Just Scrat. I don't know how, but there's something about that character and his perpetually elusive acorn that begs a regular, "special" series of some kind. But that's just me. More new Bloggage next Monday, 7pm EST/4pm PST sharp!
-D
Ladies and gentlemen, it's official: There will-- I repeat, WILL be a Simpsons Movie. Not a direct-to-DVD flick, like Family Guy, but a full-fledged silver screen feature! It's about darn time, too! For those of you who haven't heard yet, 20th Century Fox's latest computer-animated movie, "Ice Age 2" (better known as "Ice Age: The Meltdown") opened over the weekend, and I personally saw it with a good friend of mine at my local multiplex on Saturday. During the opening trailers shown before the movie, a small 30-second teaser trailer for "The Simpsons Movie" was shown. Fortunately, those of you who haven't seen this trailer yet can check out a very recently released online stream, thanks to the guys at Apple.com. Click HERE to check it out. Nothing spectacular, but I just wanted to mention that several months ago, series producer David Mirkin hinted that they were doing something special with the animation for the movie. He didn't specify, but we do know it's not CG. Though it is going to be, supposedly, "special." Yeah. more like "special ed." You can't really tell when you look at the YouTube stream, but when you see this trailer on the big screen, it almost looks like it has the super-subtle, grainy tones of the first few seasons of the TV show. I'm not sure if this is because the Apple Trailers stream has the clip's true dimensions and when it's stretched out, it looks a little grainy, or maybe that's exactly what the animation's going to look like and the online version is compressed just right to not appear to have any "grainy-ness" in it, but if purposed grainy-ness is, in fact, what they mean by "special," to give the movie a throwback to the early seasons when rumors of the movie first started, read my text, Fox: I AM NOT AMUSED. Now, I don't know about all you other Simpsons fans out there, but I really hope that when the movie comes out they do something else "special" with the movie because if they want MY money, they'd better stick to the visual style they have now. Of course, if they REALLY expect to make significant money off this, they'd better come up with a decent story for a move like this. And please, Fox. For the love of God, don't go with something down the lines of any of those lame storyline ideas from the show. Since there's been way too many in recent seasons to list here, I'll use as a prime example the one that aired just last night. MATADOR GRANDPA?!?!? Come on, Tim Long. You can come up with a better story idea than that. Anyway, here's hoping when this finally comes out on 7/27/07, it doesn't suffer (too badly) from being too little, too late. Sure, it's gonna come out a bit after the 20th anniversary of the Simpsons' first ever TV appearance on Tracey Ullman's show on April 19, 1987, but it still stands to lose out big at the box office if for no other reason that its very, very special competition next summer: Evan Almighty (read: "Bruce Almighty 2"), The Bourne Ultimatum, Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Indiana Jones 4, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and the Transformers movie, to name some. Seriously, folks, if there's to be any hope at all of a significant post-movie future for the show, or a "The Simpsons Sequel" further down the line, 2007 is to be a VERY crucial year.
Anyway, as for Ice Age 2, unfortunately, since this is an animated PG-rated movie on opening weekend, the theater was practically full of pre-teens and the reject kids from Barney the Dinosaur, which meant the movie itself, while mildly enjoyable at least in getting an overdue Scrat fix (the first film came out in 2002), the overall moviegoing experience was slightly dampened by the aforementioned kids laughing their heads off at even the corniest jokes, and the whole story arc with the female mammoth thinking she's a possum? Come on, Fox. Was it really necessary to make this movie at all, in hindsight? I mean, seriously. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this, but instead of making a full movie, they should have made at least some web-only short films just about Scrat. no mammoths, sloths, tigers or poorly rendered human characters. Just Scrat. I don't know how, but there's something about that character and his perpetually elusive acorn that begs a regular, "special" series of some kind. But that's just me. More new Bloggage next Monday, 7pm EST/4pm PST sharp!
-D
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