April Fool's 2011 Roundup

April 1st is the best day of the year to be on the Internet. The only thing better than the ridiculous pranks that news sites put up the the legion of indignant hipsters that make a huge deal about hating April Fools' Day. So here's a list of my favorite gags from this year's April Fools.

Minecraft Store - A parody of Steam's Team Fortress 2 store, the Minecraft store's best moment was when you hit the checkout button.

Believability Level: Low. It used the same font as Team Fortress 2.
Production Value: Medium. Wasn't expecting the clever girl to jump out like that.

Mass Effect: Thoughts and Reflection

Warning: Mass Effect 2 spoilers all up in here!

On March 29th we get the (presumably) last bit of downloadable content for Mass Effect 2. In honour of that, I would like to add my voice to the millions of angry nerds on the Internet to decree what I would like to see happen in the last installment of the Mass Effect trilogy.

Back-Issue Alphabet: L is for Legends of the DC Universe #41

Legends of the DC Universe #41 Lessons in Time Part Two of Two (Todd Dezargo, Rich Faber, Drew Johnson)

I love this cover. I have no idea what’s supposed to be going on, but I love it. I’m guessing that The Atom teams up with a temporally displaced World War 2 velociraptor battalion. The cover was so radical that I bent the rules of Back-Issue Alphabet and checked the box I randomly pulled #41 out of for #40. It was right next to it, so I picked it up. It takes a bit out of the randomness of the Back Issue Alphabet project, but the way I see it is if a reader randomly took this book of the self in 2001, he would be smart enough to see “part one of two” on the cover and check if part one was on the shelf beside it, which is what I did. Because I’m smart enough. 

Merry Christmas!

My Gift to you: The best Christmas 5 Second Films of 2010 and 2009. Enjoy!

Worst Toy Ever

Evolution of the Modern Movie Poster

Dale from Marketing: Okay folks, we need to sell this movie! You know what we need? A kick-ass movie poster! Get me Simmons from the art department!

Simmons from the Art Department: You asked for me, sir?

Dale: Simmons, we need you to make a poster for a movie. It’s called “Unstoppable,” it’s inspired by true events, and it stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine.

Simmons: Okay, what’s it about?

Dale: Hell if I know, Simmons. I think there’s a train involved.

Simmons: A train? What’s it doing?

Dale: I don’t know, but whatever it’s doing you can’t stop it. That sounds kind of boring, though. Maybe I could get the director to change it. Maybe instead of an unstoppable train it could be some sort of out-of-control robot with an angle grinder.

Simmons: Angle grinder?

Dale: It could be...I don’t know... grinding to the center of the earth, or something. Either way, make sure this poster clearly represents either an unstoppable train or an unstoppable angle grinder in case I can get Tony Scott to change it to an out-of-control robot with an angle grinder. Get on it, Simmons!

5 Second Films

“5-Second Films” produces a new short movie every weekday. There are two seconds of title, five seconds of movie, and one second of credits. I’ve been following it for more than a year now and it still amazes me that they haven’t lost steam.

Potential Movies Based on Social Networking

On Monday I spotted a link for Untitled Teen Social Networking Thriller when I was doing my “The Social Network” review. I couldn’t get the idea of some sort terrible Facebook movies out of my head, so I now I’m sharing them with you, suckers. There are two ways you could go with this, either a movie based on people that use Facebook or a movie based on the features in Facebook.



A Friendly Face

Socially awkward Stan Bergowitz is a college freshman who wants to impress his new friends by showing off his hot, but completely fabricated, girlfriend on Facebook. It’s easy make a fake account, but where could he get pictures that aren’t on Google images? In the college library he finds a school yearbook from the 80s and, with a scanner and photoshop, creates a girlfriend. Stan’s friends don’t believe him and call him an idiot, until she starts instant-messaging. Problem is, Stan has no idea who got into this account, and his fake girlfriends starts making very strange demands. When his friends start turning up dead, Stan realizes his new girlfriend just may be a bit too high maintenance for his liking.

What Does The Incredible Hulk Have in Common With a Shrimp?

So you’ve got the Incredible Hulk, right? Scrawny scientist guy that turns into a huge monster when he gets angry. So what are the Hulk’s powers? He’s super strong, has super healing (sometimes), can jump across continents, and for those pesky villains that are smart enough to stay just out of reach, he’s got his super clap. 

McDonald's - The Bad Kind of Good

Over the course of the last summer, I had a job that involved getting up at five, driving a lot, and working outdoors. Working ten to twelve hour days is great for saving up money for school, but after months of this your desire to cook your own food falls at approximately the same rate as your standard of what constitutes “food”. At the beginning of summer I only ate fast food every other week or so, but three months in I was eating it three or four times a week. Once I realized how expensive that was, I started looking for cheaper fast food, and that led me to McDonald's. I hadn’t purchased McDonald's food for myself since high school, but laziness eventually wins over quality.

Now, McDonald's isn’t very good. In fact, it’s probably the lowest grade fast food you can possibly buy. But it’s the cheapest, bar none. So even though I was full of the shame of eating this food substitute, I at least knew that I wasn’t spending as much as I could have been. Sort of like if you’re going to drink anti-freeze, just buy the no-name brand because you’re drinking anti-freeze. Why are you drinking no-name anti-freeze? Probably a series of bad decisions, but you had to drink SOMETHING and at least you’re saving a buck.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m thankful for:

• Comic books
• The internal combustion engine
• Family
• Canada’s World Ranking on The United Nations “Intentional Homicides Per 100,000 People: 2000-2004” (48th lowest)
• Perimineralization
• Ironic t-shirts
• HP Lovecraft fanfiction
• Unironic T-shirts
• The Star Wars Extended Universe
• Digital distribution of video games
• Isotretinoin
• Webcomics
• Books with dragons on the cover
• Vulcanized rubber
• The petroleum industry
• 100% Cotton socks
• Chocolate milk
• Raisin bran
• Australian accents
• And finally, this picture:

EIFF Week: Wrap Up and Reflections

I don’t normally watch six movies in six days, so immersing myself in cinema gave me a bit more appreciation for what I like in a film and what I don’t. To be honest, I had pretty low expectations going into the Canadian films, and I saw an example of one that works (The Academy) and one that doesn’t (The Corrupted). So what were the major differences between these two films?

The Audio

“The Corrupted” has a lot less action than “The Academy,” but the short lived gun rampage in “The Corrupted” is marred by downright embarrassing gunshot sound effects. Nothing takes me out of a movie experience faster than poor audio; it’s the difference between “independent film” and “home movie.”

Continuity

The characters in “The Corrupted” only have a few scenes where they are splattered with blood or injured, and even then it’s inconsistent from scene to scene. One character is sprayed with monster barf, is writhing in pain while his arms have an chemical-burn special-effect on them, and in the next scene his arms are fine. And the blood splatters on his shirt are way off. I can understand the difficulty of reproducing a blood splatter from a take where the splatter on his shirt is randomly applied by practical effects. Simple solution? Drench him in the crap. If he’s covered in one scene, he’s covered in the next. The characters in “The Academy” get beaten worse and worse as the film progresses, and they still managed to have dried blood patterns and bruises on their faces that are both escalating and consistent.

The Energy

“The Corrupted” starts out like you typical horror movie and stays that way. There exists “using subtlety to create tension” and then there’s “boring.” You could cut half an hour out of the beginning of “The Corrupted” and not lose anything. “The Academy” has a clunky opening; it’s five minutes of exposition served on a plate, but it’s interrupted by a guy crashing through a wall and beating the snot out of another guy while bagpipe music plays. Why break through the wall? Walls are meant to be broken, obviously. Why bagpipe music? Why the hell not?

The Ending - Spoiler Alert! Highlight to reveal

Taking a brief trip to bizzaro world, I actually liked the ending to “The Corrupted” a lot more than “The Academy.” The ending of “The Corrupted” is both unsettling and ambiguous, which is fitting for a horror movie. The danger presented by the monsters is still out there, and we’re not sure if the heroes have really escaped. Meanwhile, the ending to “The Academy” should have been bittersweet, but instead feels like the directed fell in love with the characters and wanted them to have the happiest, sugariest, candy-coated, jelly-filled ending ever at the expense of all logic. I should have have got choked up at the ending. Instead I got type 2 diabetes.

And there we have it. So if you are an aspiring filmmaker looking to create a film catered exactly to my tastes, make it ridiculously violent, kill all the main characters in the end, and invest in good audio equipment. And put robots in there somewhere.