Juno

Would you rush to the theater if I recommended a sort of art-house (Fox Searchlight) movie that deals with teen pregnancy? Not really? Yeah, I don’t blame you.

What if I told you that said movie was written by an ex-stripper who adapted the name “Diablo Cody“, detailed her work experiences on a blog called “The Pussy Ranch” and later wrote a book about it? That this is her first screenplay and that it’s probably the best movie that Victoria and I have seen this year (which means something considering, you know, that it’s December 29)?

Not that her past job experience defines Diablo Cody in any shape or form, of course. It just demonstrates a relaxed and groovy outlook on life. And that shows in the movie, which is funny most of the time and emotionally moving when it needs to be. Slang and teen speak run rampant and could have badly derailed the movie, but somehow they didn’t.

Jason Reitman (Ivan Reitman’s son) directs, Ellen Page puts on a great performance as Juno, and Michael Cera will no longer be stuck in my head as “the guy from that Superbad movie”. Which is good, because I really didn’t like Superbad too much.

We watched the movie at the Lark Theater, a setting that certainly didn’t hurt the reception. But no matter where you watch it, Juno is a cool movie, and I urge you to see it. Films like these often rely on brilliantly orchestrated grassroot campaigns in which unsuspecting bloggers tout the virtues of the movie until everybody who wouldn’t have gone to the theater otherwise goes to see it after all. You know, people like me. Who have no idea how they’re doing what the marketing department was hoping they would do right now. Good thing that ignorance is bliss…

The Birds

Oh, also: Victoria does an ASB retreat for work each year, where she takes all her board members to a house in Bodega Bay. Alfred Hitchcock shot a lot of The Birds in Bodega Bay. I decided to visit Victoria for a bit on Saturday and then drive around the coast to see the different shooting locations used in that movie.

The thing you quickly notice is what a sham the “town” of Bodega Bay is as it was protrayed in the movie. Hitchcock created his own, fictional town layout because Bodega Bay, as it actually exists, is much more disjointed. The town center was built on a back lot in Hollywood, and that set was augmented with footage from several disparate locations around the Sonoma Coast. Aerial views of the town were created as matte paintings.

And what can I say, the movie had me fooled. I had looked at a few scenes on the DVD before driving to Bodega Bay, and even the 1963 aerial matte painting did not reveal itself as such until I read up on the movie’s making. The set of the town center was so convincing that I actually searched for it, and the other locations are masterfully blended to create the illusion of geographically correct city.

None of this is to say that you don’t feel The Birds when you visit the Bodega Bay area. The area oozes the atmosphere that generations of audiences have come to experience from the movie. There’s quite a few locations to see. And once you drive around to those different locations and realize how everything has been put together you appreciate the movie all the more.
Below are two pictures I took at the Potter School house. You’ll recognize this building as the “Bodega Bay School” in the movie. Annie Hayworth’s house (the school teacher, played by Suzanne Pleshette) doesn’t exist. It was a facade erected up the road.

Ridley Scott

As I was finishing the Paul M. Sammon’s book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner today I was shocked to realize that Ridley Scott is 70 years old! That is pretty amazing to me. It should have registered earlier, I guess – the writing is on the wall. But to me Scott had always been this ageless entity that had been making movies (some of which stood the test of time better than others – but all of which had the potential to do so) as long as I could remember – and who, in my mind, was going to do this until long after I might have stopped caring. The fact that he will only do this for another 15 years or so (thinking positively) is weirdly surprising (and shocking?) to me.

Ridley Scott made Blade Runner when he was 45 years old. That’s older than pretty much every major player in the video game industry. I can take comfort in this realization as I look at the future of my own medium. And at the body of work I have amassed in my 9 professional years. Maybe growing old and “peaking early” isn’t as important as I initially thought. Maybe that’s what being in your thirties is all about: coming to that exact realization.

TV on DVD on my TV

Now that I’m all done with season 2 of Battlestar Galactica, I can finally give the much touted Firefly a try. If there’s one good thing about long crunch hours on a game it’s that I get to get to watch all the TV series that I never have time for (or, frankly, don’t want to find time for) during regular work hours. I’m looking forward to getting hooked by Firefly – I just hope that it really happens. I know that Joss Whedon is many people’s master now, but when I initially bought Firefly on DVD (must have been three years ago) I never got further than part of the first episode.

As for Battlestar, it’s a great, great show. I understand now why the people who stay caught up with the SciFi channel complained that the ending of season 2 felt a bit rushed, and that maybe one or two filler episodes could have been cut in favor of a longer ending, but those are details. I’ll wait for season 3 to appear on DVD, and then I’ll be all over it – as soon as the next crunch hits the Factor 5 offices.

High-res LotR

We all kinda know that DVD resolutions and compression rates are crappy. But it’s astounding how quickly we forget just how crappy it is if we haven’t seen the theater version for a while. This week, TNT is showing 1080i versions of the three Lord of the Rings movies, so I streamed the 1080i signal to my laptop and took a few screen captures to compare them to the 480p version stored on DVD.

Nice.

It’s still not the kinda stuff that will turn me into an early adaptor for HD-DVD/BluRay players (I’ll wait for my PS3 instead). But for somebody who’s been referencing the DVDs very often and got used to the DVD quality, this is a neat little reminder of how much better the movie actually looks.
Here’s a couple of comparison shots. You thought that the title font of the three movies was just plain white? Look again. And it’s nice to see all the hard work the WETA artists put into Gollum’s skin shading in (most of) its glory again.

A few things to keep in mind:

• I used software decoders to take all shots, a hardware solution as found in BluRay players will produce a better picture.
• I saved the shots in JPEG to cut down on bandwidth. I used the highest quality setting, though, so it should look about as good as the originals.
• TNT zoomed in on the picture to fill out the 16:9 frame, so there’s some scaling going on.
• Finally, it’s an interlace signal, which looks better in motion than in stills.

After I did all of this I noticed that somebody else has already done a more comprehensive comparison here. Definitely worth visiting.

Poseidon

Unapologetically ludicrous. That’s the only way I can describe this movie. It was easy to stop empathizing with the characters because you know what, the movie wasn’t playing by any rules, anyway. “Here’s a group of movie clichees in ridiculous situations, and some of them will die along the way.” – “Okay… just get it over with for Christ’s sake!”
Still, if you’re making FPS levels you’ll have to rent this movie. It’s the ultimate Half-Life level. The environments, the situations could all come straight out of a shooter. Great visual FX too (I can only guess how many invisible effects I missed).

“It’s Alive!” – Animatronics Exhibit

Before we left Los Angeles to embark on our 7 hour drive home from E3, Victoria and I stopped by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the same guys that award the Oscars) for the animatronics exhibition that had opened just that day. There’s some real movie history on display there – from original King Kong illustrations to some of the D.I.D. devices used to animate Jurassic Park to recent endeavors like the Vogons from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Here’s a few images from the exhibition!
“It’s Alive!” runs until August 20 at the A.M.P.A.S. in Beverly Hills. Here’s the official webpage with more pictures and information.

“It’s Alive!” runs until August 20 at the A.M.P.A.S. in Beverly Hills. Here’s the official webpage with more pictures and information. I’ll try to post some more pictures later.

…

“That’s what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age.”

This random Dazed And Confused quote is dedicated to Charlie.