cup-o-robots

Apple’s new iMac, announced at Apple Expo Paris which is going on through September 4th. This thing just reeks of industrial design craziness. Thinnest desktop computer, sporting a G5 processor and coming in 17″ and 20″-inch screens. Not a bad looking computer at all, though the front is pretty crazee; the bottom part with the Apple logo is pretty big, but i guess you can’t get around it with a widescreen and having it as an all-in-one. New college students, rejoice. Finally, an iMac that you don’t have to be “awww… that’s cute” when you see it. Actually, I think the way the ports are setup in the back of the ‘puter is pretty awesome. Especially if you have no use for them with going all Bluetooth devices. I don’t know, it looks cool - and that’s all that matters with an iMac. Hehe.

Perhaps the coolest thing to ever grace a kaiju film. The next (and supposedly last) Godzilla film, entitled Godzilla: Final Wars, comes out in Japan on December 4. The film will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Godzilla and is directed by Ryuhei Kitamura. The film will feature Godzilla facing off at least 10 monsters from the previous films, including a lizard-type monster resembling the Godzilla from Sony Pictures’ 1998 film. This monster, called “Zilla,” will be all CGI, unlike the other monsters which will be dudes in good ol’ rubber suits (which is the way it outta be!). This has to be an awesome movie; there’s so much riding on it! It’s directed by Kitamura who has been getting more recognition in the West, it’s gonna have hella crazy monsters, and who doesn’t want to see the Japanese Godzilla kick some American Godzilla ass?!? Only drawback, at least for me, is that I didn’t see Mecha-Godzilla on the roster of monsters (hey, it’s a robot!).. grr.. but that’s okay, since the last two Godzilla films (Godzilla X Mecha-Godzilla and Godzilla: SOS Tokyo) had Mecha and they were pretty darn good. Like I said, Godzilla: Final Wars should be something big, Toho and Sony are even thinking of doing a wide release of the film by the year’s end, hopefully something like that can work out. Bring it on!

Aaaaaaaaah (no I did not just take a dump…err). Clerks. I remember when I first saw this in junior high. So innocent back then. This film and Mallrats pretty much fashioned the way I would talked for the next 5 years; using the terms “cock-smokers” and “nootch” all the time. Yup yup! So ten years later, Mr. Smith is giving the people a sequel! Currently named The Passion of Clerks it continues the story of Dante and Randal as they experience their “thirtysomethings.” It’s funny how this can be compared - in some sort of degree - to what I mentioned earlier about Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Both films deal with two characters with the former film set in their 20s and the latter in their 30s. Also, Clerks came out in 1994 and Before Sunrise in 1995, with their sequels appearing around a decade later, haha. I’m a big fan of the View Askewniverse, and especially Clerks. I even bought the Clerks animated series DVD and it has some awesome moments (my favorite, like many, has to be the “Omigod, BEAR is driving!” line, haha). But overall, I can’t help but wonder if Kevin Smith got inspired by Linklater. The two are friends, and before that Smith’s drive to make Clerks came from the success of Linklater’s own indie hit Slacker. Both directors have really great pacing in terms of dialogue and how to really utilize their characters in film. So sometime in 2005 (filming is set to start in January and I can’t imagine it taking more than a few months to complete), Smith will reopen the View Askewniverse and we get to kick it with Jay and Silent Bob once again. Hells, Smith and Linklater should make a film together, with all their characters from their past movies.. uhh yeah. Haha. Snootch to the nootch.

September 21st, baby. Cannot wait. Seriously the most anticipated DVD release since Invader Zim Vol. 2 (err.. which is coming out next week). Yeah it’s great that the DVD market is booming and we get to see so many movies and television shows in a great home video format, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up with collecting all the DVDs you want to get - they are coming out faster and more featured-filled. With the Star Wars Original Trilogy DVD, we’re getting the first official DVD release of the movies, some cool extra features (that documentary on the films sounds cool and will make its way onto TV on A&E in some edited format), but also.. it’s ANOTHER version of the trilogy. What I mean by this, is there are some changes in this new release. Besides a new transfer there are little cosmetic changes (tells you how finicky Lucas is, but pretty impressive from a technical/SFX standpoint) like labelling on control panels, fixing up costumes for consistency, and a new Jabba the Hut rendering for A New Hope. That’s like 4 different Jabbas in all the movies we’ve seen - whoa WHOA! I’m particularly interested in any CG frame recomposition that might be in the releases, something that Lucas is also doing with the new THX-1138 DVD release, and it looks awesome. What they do is take an original scene and then expand the surroundings and settings, giving a really neat depth and scope effect, making sets look larger and more detailed. There are some interesting takes as well. From footage that has been around the net, it shows a different ending to Return of the Jedi, with Hayden Christensen replacing Sebastian Shaw as the “ghost” image of Anakin Skywalker; it doesn’t make any sense to me (if someone can help me explain) but oh well. Man, Lucas loves his digital filmmaking and I’m impressed how busy he’s keeping everyone at Lucasfilm and ILM. Well anyways, we’ll see how it turns out and maybe someday there will be a super-dooper complete Star Wars set with all 6 episodes and 5 verisons of each or something (hmm.. it’s kinda scary what Lucas might do to the Trilogy when he starts using upcoming formats like Blu-ray, HD-DVD, or HVD, erf.). One drawback, it’s so sad that Greedo still, STILL shoots first. Grrr. (The images shown here are from Sam Davatchi’s Page, check them out.)

So I had this idea to go watch Garden State again, which is a friggin’ awesome movie (only second to Spidey 2 on my top movies of the summer) and it got me thinking of all these other movies that remind me of the kind of emotion I had while watching the film. I got so in the mood i decided to watch Before Sunset also. While a different type of film, it still gives that “you just want to sit there and absorb all the dialogue” feeling. I liked Before Sunrise a lot more than Sunset, but it’s probably because i can relate more easily to the former since i’m closer to that age. It’s really cool how we get to see these characters - played by quirky Ethan Hawke and damn-she’s-adorable Julie Delpy - grow older and how differently they have lived their lives than last we saw them; kinda like Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films. Delpy seemed to have really shown this growth well, being more mature yet also this sense of caution of being older. Hmmm.. yeah Sunrise is definitely more for me. Maybe when i reach my 30’s i’ll watch Sunset again and be able to really “absorb” it more.. So anyways it’s kinda weird that this post is less about Garden State, yet I have the poster to show (I like it a lot, thinking of buying it for my poster collection, woohoo)!