Stop Frame

Happy Halloween!

I grew up in a household of animation. By that I mean that animation was never "cartoons" and never just for kids. My dad worked in film in the San Francisco. For a brief while he owned and operated a small production company. His notable productions were a series of ads for Rice-a-Roni -- which meant we ate lots and lots of Rice-a-Roni for a while -- and a multi-part syndicated history of California. But his first love was animation. His closest friends and colleagues all worked in animation, either as producers, artists, or animators. I worked with him for close to 10 years and was a very crackerjack animation stand operator. Given a little more ambition and willingness to travel (i.e., to Los Angeles) I might have made it a career. Alas, it was not to be. I mention all that by way of preface. Because of all that, I love a good animated show. In the United States, unfortunately, this almost always means kids' flicks. In this country we maintain the prejudice that if i...

Dirty Harry asks What Happened To The Prestige Picture? and has an answer: When you look at the best Picture nominees of the last three years it’s astounding to realize that of the 15 nominations, only three cracked the $100 million mark — two by a whisker. The average box office gross of the 2006 nominees was $59 million ; in 2005 it was $49 million . Another way to look at it is that 98% of the population just wasn’t interested.  While there’s still plenty of prestige films left to be released in 2007, as of now things are looking even worse: Michael Clayton, In The Valley of Elah, Lust Caution, Sicko, The Brave One, Eastern Promises, Into The Wild, The Darjeeling Limited , and Elizabeth : The Golden Age , have each been, or are looking to be, very expensive flops… Or, are they? To call these films failures is fair in the sense that audience indifference is quite spectacular, but not when you take into account that audience reaction had little or nothing to do ...

This is how the speech is reported : ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday. Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency - such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled. But that's not the opening subject of Sanchez's speech , this is (original in all-caps, changed here for clarity): On the other hand, unfortunately, I have issued ultimatums to some of you for unscrupulous reporting that was solely focused on supporting your agenda and preconcieved notions of what our military had done. I also refused to ...

From Ain't It Cool News , comes this : Fucking Yippee, Harry Here!!! Ok - I'm in. Simon Pegg as Scotty is as wonderful as an Asian Girl Sandwich night. I'm fucking deliriously happy. This is the first piece of STAR TREK casting that JJ has done that has made me drool with anticipation. The word is that the budget has gotten bigger and bigger and that for the first time in the history of the franchise, STAR TREK is being given a truly epic budget to recreate, conceive and explore Gene's universe. That news and SIMON "fucking" PEGG - make this the happiest day in Trek geek life, other than the day STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN was released. Sorry, had to leave all the F-bombs and R-spikes in there because it's obvious that Harry is ecstatic, and so am I. The rest of the casting for this film has left me cowering in a corner in fear. This single move, even if of a secondary character, might just save the day. Yes, I think Simon Pegg is that good.

I put it in those terms because while my Treo 650 is beginning to show its age, it still (mostly) works. It does randomly stupid things, such as resetting while sitting on the table not being touched, and sometimes the call volume is ridiculously low (though that could just be my ancient and aging ears). My needs are relatively simple. Anything I buy must do a desktop sync with Outlook. (Don't give me any grief, Outlook works just perfect for me.) I make this demand because I don't want to rekey all my contacts into a new phone, let alone my to-do's and calendar. If it syncs with Outlook then, voila , the phone just populates itself from my existing data. After this comes my wish list. I'd like to be able to write and edit on any new device. This might be something as simple as entering a note and syncing it into the aforementioned Outlook, or something more complex like Documents-to-Go on the Treo (though Documents-to-Go frankly sucks and was the source of 99% of my ...

I confess, I am a Paul Verhoeven fan. Even when he stumbles, I'm still entertained. All right, I've never seen Showgirls , so it's possible, even probable, that he's made at least one totally irredeemable film. That said, I'm still a fan. I discovered this wholly by accident. I saw Robocop , was surprised how much I enjoyed it, and saw that Verhoeven not only directed Robo but had also directed one of my favorite war films, A Soldier of Orange . I hadn't paid attention to who directed Soldier , and so this all came as a pleasant surprise. From then on, I kept a watchful eye for the next Verhoeven film, carefully avoiding Showgirls (which may or may not suck, though I am given to believe that it sucks pretty damn hard, pun possibly intended). And so I got a little depressed when he left the US in search of his cinematic roots. I heard about his next big thing, but until the DVD I wasn't able to at last catch up with Black Book (Dutch title, Zwartboek ). ...

Iowahawk , Sewer Side Chat : Questioner Hi, I'm Josh Markin of the ESU Progressive Student Alliance, and I'd just like to say that as a campus activist for peace and justice, that I am totally down with how you have stood up against the fascist neo-Jew GPA thugs at A E Pi, and their plans for busting every grade curve on this campus. Gromulak Moje vznášadlo je plné úhorov Gromulak! Pun jegulja loma-làn! Interpreter These words please Gromulak! Continue your tribute, Hu-Man! Questioner Awesome! But I do have one problem. Warren continues to blame you and the mutant community for the sewage explosion that destroyed Baxter Hall in 2005, even though all the evidence points to an inside job! For example, did you know that sewage doesn't burn? Why did A E Pi have advanced warning? And what about the damage to Rec Building 7? All the facts are in this pamphlet! Why won't you come out and tell the truth that you are innocent, and that Warren's thugs blew up Baxter so ...