the construct :: weblog

Last night I ventured out to south Pasadenda along with many friends to catch the midnight showing of The Big Lebowski arguably one of the best films ever made ever. It’s just brilliant and that’s all there is to it. We saw it at The Rialto which often plays old cult movies at midnight every Saturday. So far I’ve seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and just a few weeks ago Dr. Strangelove. In the next couple months there is a few good ones that I’ll head out to, for isntance - Fight Club and a couple others that I already forgot.

Today, I think I’m gonna head out to the horse races or maybe play some poker down at Commerce Casino in LA since it’s getting harder and harder to play poker online these days. Good ol laws and whatnot.

I have finished my first “real” (well sorta) short short film. I wrote, directed, filmed (with some help), and edited the whole thing. I submitted this as my final project for my digital media class, and I am pleased with the final product. Head over HERE to watch. I would suggest the direct download options.

Just so everyone knows, it’s just a story… and it’s easy to write sad stories, but the point is the turn around. It’s the cycle of life.

Everybody remember, it’s a film, I acted. That is that. I don’t even smoke, hahaha.

More film notes
I/We filmed everything in one day. I began editing that night, then it took me in total 3-4 days to get everything together. I went strictly Mac based on this project. I usually use Adobe Premiere yet decided to use the Powerbook and Final Cut in full force. It is a great editing environment, yet as any new complex program it took some time finding things I needed. Overall I really love creating on the Mac platform.. yet that’s a topic for another post.

If you read my notes on the site, you’ll notice I only had the first half of the film planned out. Basically for the second “positive” side I wanted to do everything opposite. Basically I ran out of time, thus the montage for the second half of the very short film.

My friend Lucas who I colaborate on projects frequently did the awesome animations of the circle and breaking of the circle.

Random problems: Audio not working on footage for opening monologue, uhhhh the black line on the right side of the frame in alot of shots.

Not adding in Brittany as “Light and Sound Engineer.” haha

Cutting a line of hair off my leg… and testing with flash.

Jarhead(2005)
Directed by: Sam Mendes [View Trailer]

Starring the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx who have all played in films that I have thoroughly enjoyed, in order: Donnie Darko, Garden State, and Collateral. yet where do I start with Jarhead? The beautiful cinematography, or the gripping storyline? Both excellent seperate, even better when fused together in this film based on Anthony Swofford’s best-selling 2003 book,Jarhead : A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles.

I’ll start with cinematics. Every slighly dimmed lighting shot to burning desert shot portrayed exactly what the feeling was supposed to be. That is what you get whenWalter Murch edits a film. He is best known for “Cold Mountain” (2003), “K-19: The Widowmaker” (2002), “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999), “The English Patient” (1996), and “Apocalypse Now” (1979). Alot of the shot and angles were hand held which makes you feel like you are standing right there, in the desert. I really liked the closeups. Watching grains of sand hit “Swoff’s” (Jake Gyllenhaal) face in his first minute of real combat. So many wonderful shots and cuts that show the story rather than telling. You can learn more about the technial side of the film making by reading the Apple Pro Spotlight: Apocalypse Then: A Second Look at the First Gulf War

Jarhead had less physical battle, and more of a war fought in their minds. The first 5 minutes reminded me of Stanley Kubricks Full Metal Jacket. [IMDB] You could compare these films easily as I think Jarhead will become a classic just as Full Metal Jacket has. In both films they are put in hell, to be trained for hell. They are stripped of their identity as a single person, and become a team, a core unit. They learn they cannot trust anyone but each other. As Jarhead shows, they couldn’t even trust their girlfriends or wives back home. Jarhead shows the real war in most combat zones, the psychological battle between going insane or staying as what they know as “sane.” There are many scenes where you see the Marines fall apart from the inside out. You feel the pain and desire to get a kill just as they have because that is what their life has been transformed into. Platoon is another great film showing the war fought inside soldiers heads, yet there is a bit more violence.

So what did I think? Amazing, I loved it, can’t you tell? The key to this whole film, this isn’t an action movie, this isn’t a Saving Private Ryan. Well Saving Private Ryan had a good story, but about 95% more violence than Jarhead. I enjoy movies that make you feel something, that make you think even after you are done watching. This “war film” is alot like others in that you are following one unit around, usually focusing on one guy in that unit. It makes for a good story. I especially like this one because it is based on Anthony Swoffords book and experience. It makes the film different because it actually happened, or at least parts of what they show us.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film.
My Rating: 9 of 10

Waiting…

I had been waiting… for a couple weeks for this to come out. Mainly because Ryan Reynolds was awesome in everything that I have seen him in. I was also looking forward to it because Dane Cook has a little small part in the film. I like this movie for a variety of reasons. One, it’s really funny. Two, it turns one day in a resturant into a whole movie, and it’s still funny. You may argue there is no clear story, who cares? It was entertaining and that’s what movies are supposed to do. For that I love it and I recommend you go watch it.

Fantastic Four was decent overall. I kept on hearing that it was bad, so I went into the movie thinking that it would be bad, yet it was not all that bad.

I was not expecting anything spectacular except for visual effects, and they delivered on that. The dialogue, well was not good, yet it was lots of fun to watch. Jessica Alba is the eye candy, which she does a great job at. Chris Evans was cool/funny as flameboy which I think made the whole movie. Ioan Gruffudd (crazy name by the way) was the kinda boring Mr. Stretch/Reed Richards but what can I say since he did get Jessica Alba/Sue Storm. Then there is “The Thing” Michael Chiklis who was funny in some ways, ridiculous in others. Like for instance you are made to feel sad for him, but he ends up choosing to be that way. Some kind of personal revelation that I thought was corny. And last but not least, the villain, Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom. I think that he was the best actor in the whole film besides the cool doorman in the Fantastic Fours penthouse building.

In the end, it’s your average story (very old story) of the good guys beating the bad guys, and how pretty the special effects people can do it. Fun movie if you feel like it.

Charlie and the Cholcolate Factory was quite the amazing film. Most of everybody knows the story, yet there were different things added in that added an extra goodness to the film. One of those things was the history of Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka in the original [Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory ] was a mysterious man. In this new film, Willy Wonka is still a little mysterious, but you find out more about why he is the way he is and how he started his chocolate empire.

Johnny Depp who played Willy Wonka was not as odd as I thought he would be. In the trailers they only showed him talking wierd and looking extrememly pale white and almost sickly. The good part was that he wasn’t like that throughout the whole film. One thing to note is that this is not a musical like the orginal. There is some very entertaining musical pieces of the singing Oompa Loompas.

Overall I really enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Tim Burton did an amazing job at directing and bringing a new version of the chocolate factory to theatres. I highly recommend this as a fun movie to watch this summer.

Put together two hot people, some action, along with some comedy, and you have yourself a good flick. I saw Mr & Mrs Smith on friday with Kristi, Raha, and Angela and really enjoyed it. At times it seemed like a overdid the action sequences a bit, but nothing too horrible in my opinion.

The acting was good, well because it’s Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Adam brody and Vince Vaughn are always fun to watch. I liked the house they lived in, and all the technology throughout the film. Overall I really liked the film and would recommend it.

What can I say except that it was an awesome movie? Not much. As far as I know from watching the original documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys and being a skateboarder for years it seemed to be right along with the story. I guess it should be since it was written by Stacy Peralta. The filming was really well done. All the angles while they were skateboarding were artistic and innovative like todays skateboard videos.(One of my favorites: Menikmati by es’ footwear)

I thought the actors did pretty well, especially the kid who played Jay Adams. I was not particularly fond of Tony Alva’s character… but you have to admit that he started the revolution in skateboarding for style, tricks, and branding skateboarders. Overall I really enjoyed the film and would tell you to go see it. For a couple of reasons: It’s a true story, heath ledger and johnny knoxville are cool actors, skateboarding and surfing is cool, the z boys are cool.

Here’s my very short story how I met Larry Gordan, or Gordan and Smith (G & S) a couple years ago…. so here it is. I was in a summer surf camp one summer (before I could drive myself to the beach) and one day we took a trip to the G & S factory in La Jolla. It was a pretty small shop, with surfboards being shaped in the back, a few offices and tons of surfboards all over the place. We were able to talk to him a little bit, take a mini tour and he signed cut offs of foam from shaping surfboards for us. So that’s my little claim to

I saw Sin City tonight with the girlfriend and a few other friends. It was awesome to say the least. I’ve been tracking and waiting for this movie since about September… at least that’s when I started sincity.adion44.com.Which is a little fan site/blog that I put together.

Seriously, it’s amazing in alot of ways. I’m curious as to what other people have to say. I think many will find it confusing, yet the effects and filming is amazing. Of course you can go over to my Sin City fan site for a little bit more info.