This has been a long-time coming, but I finally managed to wrangle Dylan Fields of Blog Cabins onto the show. We kick off with some feedback and then get into a "The Challenge" that is so outrageous, it was very difficult to edit. We were making ourselves laugh so hard we could barely get through the scene. I tried to edit out most of the laughing, but you might still hear tinges of it here and there.
From there, we get into our main topic. Dylan had us discussing films that aren't musicals but could be. Each of us came prepared with 3 films, gave them composers and songs--some titled--and explained where they would be in the film and who would sing them. Let's just say we start with The Room and True Romance, and it only gets better from there.
Then Dylan takes on The Tower. Not only does he have his eye on Rachel's #1 spot, much like many others, but he might just have the ability to pull it off. Does he do it? Listen and find out!
Current Leaderboard (The Demented Tower):
1) Rachel - 179 Points
2) James - 135 Points
3) Hatter - 131 Points
4) Jess - 95 Points
5) Tom - 92.5 Points
6) Jason - 33 Points
7) Travis - 32.5 Points
You can listen to this episode on the player below or by subscribing through iTunes.
That being said, enjoy! Thanks goes out to Kevin MacLeod's Incompetech website for great, royalty-free music. And thanks to Google for helping me find a website that will give me free video game audio samples.
Showing posts with label blog cabins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog cabins. Show all posts
9.17.2010
30 Days Of Crazy: Misery.
Over at Blog Cabins, Fletch has been running the 30 Days Of Crazy Blog-A-Thon that I decided to be a part of. I decided to write a little bit on one of my own personal favorite crazy people, Annie Wilkes.Misery tells us the story of famous author Paul Sheldon (James Caan). He takes some time at a cabin in the mountains to finish up his newest--and supposedly final--entry into his Misery series of novels. Unfortunately, Paul ends up having a wreck, breaking almost every bone in his body. Thankfully (or not), Paul is saved by Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), Paul's number 1 fan. However, things start getting a little worrisome when Annie realizes Paul has written the final book in her favorite series, as well as reads of the fate of the main character. With Paul restricted to the bed, he is at the mercy of Annie and has to do whatever she likes if he's going to make it out alive.
The movie is based on a Stephen King book, so you know right away it's going to be hit or miss. Fortunately, it's very much a hit. But take a look at who worked on it. This is a Stephen King thriller adapted to the screen by William Goldman--the guy who wrote The Princess Bride--and directed by Rob Reiner--the guy who directed films such as The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally... Though Reiner he had previous work with Stephen King material in Stand By Me (and Goldman, of course, having written some other great, serious films).
Anyway, on to the film. You know almost straight away that something isn't quite right with Annie. She seems harmless at first, helping Paul get better. But you just can't trust those people with overly sunny dispositions who don't cuss. And you slowly begin to realize there's so much more wrong with her than we've seen. It all pretty much culminates in the now-famous hobbling scene.
As a fiction writer, I find this movie doubly crazy and scary. This is pretty much any writer's worst fear (besides rejection). Somebody becoming overly obsessed with your work that they'll go to such extremes to keep you injured so that you can write a story how they want it to be written? Um, just stick with fan fiction, please kthxbai.
Of course, the acting in this film is phenomenal, particularly Kathy Bates (who walked away with a Leading Lady Oscar for her performance). I mean, everything is just so chilling. Even her standing there staring at him in the middle of the night is super creepy.
The only real downside to the story is poor Buster, the old, small-town sheriff who decides to take up the case. (SEMI-SPOILERS FOLLOW) His character was good, but at the end when he goes to check on Annie's house, everything just happens so suddenly. He's set up throughout the movie as a hero and then... yeah. Poor Buster. (SEMI-SPOILERS END)
Anywho, Annie Wilkes is definitely one of my favorite crazies (I actually gave a character the last name Wilkes in honor of her... he wasn't a crazy character, but he's attacked by one). Kathy Bates' performance is probably the best of her career, and one of the greatest in psychological horror cinema. Great movie... and if you haven't seen it, you need to!
5.15.2010
Podcast: The Demented Encyclopedia #10 - The One With That Guy.
For our tenth episode, we bring on guest host Dylan Fields of Blog Cabins and The Large Association of Movie Blogs. To compensate for such a long episode last week, we have a bit shorter of an episode this week.
After some quick plugs, in which Dylan plugs the LAMMY Awards, and I plug a scene from my movie-in-progress, we move on to the main topic. The topic this week is "That Guys." These are the actors and actresses who appear in numerous films and television shows, but usually as a secondary character and the common public can't really remember their names (hence "that guy"). We go over some of our favorites (actors and performances).
After that, we move on to Reality Round-Up and start off with our most detailed Survivor discussion yet, mostly because our guest host this week is actually a Survivor fan. From there we move on to a quick American Idol discussion where Travis and I actually have yet another debate and must agree to disagree.
Then, after a quick "Recommend A...", we get into our Mono-Dia-logues of the Week, where none of us are practiced/rehearsed--and you can tell, except for Dylan, who shows us up with a scene from True Romance.
And that's it for this week. Stay tuned after the closing theme for a bit extra!
Thanks goes out to Kevin MacLeod's Imcompetech Website for the music. As always, you can use the player above to listen to the podcast, or you can search iTunes, where we are also available for download. The earlier episodes are being removed from the player for space, but you can still always download them on iTunes. Also, please become a Fan on Facebook... then you can give us your input for the podcast and will probably end up on the show during the D-Bag segment. But as for now... enjoy!
After some quick plugs, in which Dylan plugs the LAMMY Awards, and I plug a scene from my movie-in-progress, we move on to the main topic. The topic this week is "That Guys." These are the actors and actresses who appear in numerous films and television shows, but usually as a secondary character and the common public can't really remember their names (hence "that guy"). We go over some of our favorites (actors and performances).
After that, we move on to Reality Round-Up and start off with our most detailed Survivor discussion yet, mostly because our guest host this week is actually a Survivor fan. From there we move on to a quick American Idol discussion where Travis and I actually have yet another debate and must agree to disagree.
Then, after a quick "Recommend A...", we get into our Mono-Dia-logues of the Week, where none of us are practiced/rehearsed--and you can tell, except for Dylan, who shows us up with a scene from True Romance.
And that's it for this week. Stay tuned after the closing theme for a bit extra!
Thanks goes out to Kevin MacLeod's Imcompetech Website for the music. As always, you can use the player above to listen to the podcast, or you can search iTunes, where we are also available for download. The earlier episodes are being removed from the player for space, but you can still always download them on iTunes. Also, please become a Fan on Facebook... then you can give us your input for the podcast and will probably end up on the show during the D-Bag segment. But as for now... enjoy!
7.06.2009
New, Exciting News: Collaborative Article At Movie Blips!
So guess what? Last week, Fletch from Blog Cabins recommended me to Robyn at Movie Blips for a collaborative article she was doing on turning animation into live action. So I gave her my thoughts, and the article is now up. Check it out!
12.02.2008
Can You Believe It? It's Been A Year!
About one year ago, I was browsing the IMDb homepage when I saw the daily poll about some guy known as Fletch from Blog Cabins who wrote an article on why old movies were basically overrated (at least according to him). So I checked out the article, then browsed the rest of the blog, as well. You see, I wasn't a big blog reader or anything (in fact, I never really did it at all). But I just wanted to check out what else this movie lover thought.
Then I found his weekly posts on what was then the current season of Survivor. They were absolutely hilarious and spot-on. Now, I don't know what went through my mind at that point, but something whispered in my ear (perhaps the voices... who knows) that I could start my very own movie blog! I knew nothing of blogging and never read blogs (outside MySpace)... but it seemed to be a fun idea.
On December 2, 2007, Boomstick Reviews was born. It was very basic, and my first post was a Top 10 that I had written before and posted on my MySpace. Five days later, I posted my very first movie review on Boomstick Reviews: The Golden Compass. From there, I began posting different movie reviews and articles and Top 10 lists, etc.
On December 9, 2007, Fletch inducted the blog into the Large Association of Movie Blogs (also known as the LAMB). I was just member number 17 back then, and now the LAMB has over 200 members. I'm glad to say I got in on the ground level and have been able to help out with it as much as I have.
Then, on January 15, 2008, I was really bored and made a post entitled "Random Ramblings of a
Demented Doorknob" (also known as R2D2... no relation), because I had a bunch of different things I wanted to talk about that wouldn't fit under a specific topic. I, along with Fletch over at that 'Blog Cabins' place, mentioned how we really loved that title. In fact, I liked it so much, I began pondering with the idea of changing Boomstick Reviews to this better-sounding title.
So on February 1, 2008, I figured I'd give the place a bit of a makeover. With some counsel from Fletch, I changed up the ratings system, the title, the color scheme, and basically everything else. The ratings system put in place was similar to the one used over at Blog Cabins, with pictures and movie quotes to symbolize the particular rating.
The next big event to occur was on my birthday, February 20, 2008, when R2D2 hit the IMDb Hit List with my quite popular yet controversial article "10 Years, 10 Great Screenplays" (mostly controversial because I can't count, and it was actually 11 Years/Screenplays... and also because I hadn't actually seen all of one of the films I chose). Regardless, this event shot up my readership from basically nothing to around 14-20 (after the IMDb linkage went away, that is).
Over the next few months, I would introduce different article/review styles, some of which stuck, some of which didn't. The more popular of which included Little Known Movies You Need To See (LKMYNTS), DVDs Or Death!, Thoughts On..., Short Review, A Week Of... Blog-A-Thons, 2 In 1 reviews, and Pre-Emptive Strike Thursdays (AKA P.E.S.T.).
But on June 12, 2008, my readers decided that they wouldn't mind if I included book reviews on the blog, as well. Also, around that same time, I joined Unheralded Reviews, as well, posting what was essentially the reviews I posted here over there. But anyway, on June 19, 2008, I posted my first book review, a review of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I continued posting book reviews every now and then, and I also added in a special article type about Page-To-Film adaptation reviews. The Twilight book reviews brought up my readership a little bit more.
Then, unfortunately for my enraptured readers, I began student teaching in August, which took away a lot of time for movie watching and reviewing. But to keep everybody updated as to how things were going with me, I began posting The Student Teacher Chronicles. The months continued tiringly, but I kept at it as best I could. And now, finally, it is once again December 2, but now a year later. My student teaching ends tomorrow, as well, so you will be getting the final Student Teacher Chronicles then.
So now this blog (for all intents and purposes, as everything from Boomstick Reviews is still here) is one year old! Over the past year, I have reviewed and scored numerous films (130, I believe). 99 of them have been given above-average scores, 13 have been given average scores, 15 have been given below-average scores, and 3 couldn't be given scores due to particular peculiarities (Those three being Sunshine, George Washington, and North). Needless to say, I apparently enjoy more movies than I dislike (either that, or I just watch films that I'm nearly positive I'll enjoy).
In conclusion, I would like to thank all of my readers who have stuck around this long or who are brand new and are just beginning to get use to the randomness. And I want to specifically thank Fletch over at Blog Cabins for helping me out so much in the beginning stages of my blogging adventure, for getting me into the LAMB and letting me do everything I have for the LAMB, and for just being a friend.
And now that the sappiness is overwith, let's eat some cake!... What? There's no cake? What the hell kind of party is this? Oh well. Anywho, happy one-year to the blog and a big thanks to everybody who constantly keeps up my readership count to around 30. Now let's try to at least double that for this next year!
(By the way, you might notice a couple new things on the sidebar... primarily, scroll-boxes that include all of the reviews I've done for both books and films in alphabetical order... they were a pain to put together, so you better enjoy them!).
Then I found his weekly posts on what was then the current season of Survivor. They were absolutely hilarious and spot-on. Now, I don't know what went through my mind at that point, but something whispered in my ear (perhaps the voices... who knows) that I could start my very own movie blog! I knew nothing of blogging and never read blogs (outside MySpace)... but it seemed to be a fun idea.
On December 2, 2007, Boomstick Reviews was born. It was very basic, and my first post was a Top 10 that I had written before and posted on my MySpace. Five days later, I posted my very first movie review on Boomstick Reviews: The Golden Compass. From there, I began posting different movie reviews and articles and Top 10 lists, etc.
On December 9, 2007, Fletch inducted the blog into the Large Association of Movie Blogs (also known as the LAMB). I was just member number 17 back then, and now the LAMB has over 200 members. I'm glad to say I got in on the ground level and have been able to help out with it as much as I have.
Then, on January 15, 2008, I was really bored and made a post entitled "Random Ramblings of a
Demented Doorknob" (also known as R2D2... no relation), because I had a bunch of different things I wanted to talk about that wouldn't fit under a specific topic. I, along with Fletch over at that 'Blog Cabins' place, mentioned how we really loved that title. In fact, I liked it so much, I began pondering with the idea of changing Boomstick Reviews to this better-sounding title.So on February 1, 2008, I figured I'd give the place a bit of a makeover. With some counsel from Fletch, I changed up the ratings system, the title, the color scheme, and basically everything else. The ratings system put in place was similar to the one used over at Blog Cabins, with pictures and movie quotes to symbolize the particular rating.
The next big event to occur was on my birthday, February 20, 2008, when R2D2 hit the IMDb Hit List with my quite popular yet controversial article "10 Years, 10 Great Screenplays" (mostly controversial because I can't count, and it was actually 11 Years/Screenplays... and also because I hadn't actually seen all of one of the films I chose). Regardless, this event shot up my readership from basically nothing to around 14-20 (after the IMDb linkage went away, that is).
Over the next few months, I would introduce different article/review styles, some of which stuck, some of which didn't. The more popular of which included Little Known Movies You Need To See (LKMYNTS), DVDs Or Death!, Thoughts On..., Short Review, A Week Of... Blog-A-Thons, 2 In 1 reviews, and Pre-Emptive Strike Thursdays (AKA P.E.S.T.).
But on June 12, 2008, my readers decided that they wouldn't mind if I included book reviews on the blog, as well. Also, around that same time, I joined Unheralded Reviews, as well, posting what was essentially the reviews I posted here over there. But anyway, on June 19, 2008, I posted my first book review, a review of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I continued posting book reviews every now and then, and I also added in a special article type about Page-To-Film adaptation reviews. The Twilight book reviews brought up my readership a little bit more.
Then, unfortunately for my enraptured readers, I began student teaching in August, which took away a lot of time for movie watching and reviewing. But to keep everybody updated as to how things were going with me, I began posting The Student Teacher Chronicles. The months continued tiringly, but I kept at it as best I could. And now, finally, it is once again December 2, but now a year later. My student teaching ends tomorrow, as well, so you will be getting the final Student Teacher Chronicles then.
So now this blog (for all intents and purposes, as everything from Boomstick Reviews is still here) is one year old! Over the past year, I have reviewed and scored numerous films (130, I believe). 99 of them have been given above-average scores, 13 have been given average scores, 15 have been given below-average scores, and 3 couldn't be given scores due to particular peculiarities (Those three being Sunshine, George Washington, and North). Needless to say, I apparently enjoy more movies than I dislike (either that, or I just watch films that I'm nearly positive I'll enjoy).
In conclusion, I would like to thank all of my readers who have stuck around this long or who are brand new and are just beginning to get use to the randomness. And I want to specifically thank Fletch over at Blog Cabins for helping me out so much in the beginning stages of my blogging adventure, for getting me into the LAMB and letting me do everything I have for the LAMB, and for just being a friend.
And now that the sappiness is overwith, let's eat some cake!... What? There's no cake? What the hell kind of party is this? Oh well. Anywho, happy one-year to the blog and a big thanks to everybody who constantly keeps up my readership count to around 30. Now let's try to at least double that for this next year!
(By the way, you might notice a couple new things on the sidebar... primarily, scroll-boxes that include all of the reviews I've done for both books and films in alphabetical order... they were a pain to put together, so you better enjoy them!).
11.04.2008
Alphabet MeMe.
In order to procrastinate writing my newest novel even more, I've decided to take Fletch's Alphabet Meme challenge (and then set the timer to post this tomorrow, which will be today by the time you read this), which is thus:
The Rules
1. Pick one film (your favorite film) to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.
Angel-A
Bang Bang You're Dead
Cube
Dawn of the Dead
Eleven:Fourteen (11:14)
Feast
Game, The
Hot Fuzz
Inside Man
Jacket, The
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Matrix, The
Napoleon Dynamite
Oldboy
Pitch Black
Quarantine (just because I've never seen another movie that starts with Q, apparently)
Rundown, The
Shaun of the Dead
Twenty-Eight Days Later...
Usual Suspects, The
V For Vendetta
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
X2: X-Men United
Ying Xiong (also known as "Hero" with Jet Li)
Zoolander
(Man, that was more difficult than I thought).
And now to tag some people:
Kano from Kano's Kogitation.
Al the Gal at His Gal Friday.
The guy over at Life (And Sandwiches).
And that's all I'm tagging, because Fletch basically tagged everybody else I probably would have tagged.
The Rules
1. Pick one film (your favorite film) to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.
Angel-A
Bang Bang You're Dead
Cube
Dawn of the Dead
Eleven:Fourteen (11:14)
Feast
Game, The
Hot Fuzz
Inside Man
Jacket, The
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Matrix, The
Napoleon Dynamite
Oldboy
Pitch Black
Quarantine (just because I've never seen another movie that starts with Q, apparently)
Rundown, The
Shaun of the Dead
Twenty-Eight Days Later...
Usual Suspects, The
V For Vendetta
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
X2: X-Men United
Ying Xiong (also known as "Hero" with Jet Li)
Zoolander
(Man, that was more difficult than I thought).
And now to tag some people:
Kano from Kano's Kogitation.
Al the Gal at His Gal Friday.
The guy over at Life (And Sandwiches).
And that's all I'm tagging, because Fletch basically tagged everybody else I probably would have tagged.
10.25.2008
My Current Top 50.
So Fletch over at Blog Cabins posted his Top 50 favorite films and challenged other movie blogs to do the same. So here we are. It's always difficult for me to create a Top List of my favorite films, mostly because it changes all the freakin time (either because I find a new great movie or my mood changes and I find I like one movie more than another at that current time). So anyway, I'm going to now attempt to list my CURRENT Top 50, which could probably change anytime in the near future, but here you go. I tend to call my favorite films those that I can re-watch over and over without getting tired of them, not necessarily films that are cinematic genius or classics. I might still really really like those films, but I don't watch them all the time, which is why they don't make the list (though there are a few on this list that I don't watch all the time, but I do believe are so amazing they have to be on the list... just to be contradictory).
By the way, these are not in numerical order from most favorite to least favorite. They're just the films in my Top 50 (getting a Top 50 was hard enough... I'm not gonna put them in order. In fact, they're going to be in alphabetical order instead). Anywho, here it is:
By the way, these are not in numerical order from most favorite to least favorite. They're just the films in my Top 50 (getting a Top 50 was hard enough... I'm not gonna put them in order. In fact, they're going to be in alphabetical order instead). Anywho, here it is:
12 Angry Men (either version)
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later...
28 Weeks Later...
Aladdin
Bang Bang You're Dead
Big Fish
Billy Madison
Chasing Amy
Clerks II.
Clue
Collateral
Cube
Dog Day Afternoon
Dogma
Equilibrium
EuroTrip
Feast
Harry Potter and the Order of the
Hot Fuzz
Inside Man
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Little Shop of Horrors (1986 musical)
MirrorMask
Moulin Rouge
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
Napoleon Dynamite
Office Space
Oldboy
Pan's Labyrinth
Pitch Black
Saw
Se7en
Shaun of the Dead
Spaceballs
Stranger Than Fiction
The Big Lebowski
The Faculty
The Fifth Element
The Last Samurai
The New Guy
The Princess Bride
The Rundown
The Truman Show
Tremors
Tremors 2
V For Vendetta
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
2.20.2008
Quick Update: IMDb Hit List!
Now THAT'S a birthday present! R2D2 has been featured on IMDb's Hit List for my 10 Years, 10 Great Screenplays article.
Also, fellow blogger Fletch over at Blog Cabins is up on the Hit List right along side me with his 20 Best Movie Characters in the Last 20 Years (Part II).
It seems there's a theme going along with that between the two of us. Anywho, just felt like sharing! Have a great day and all that.
Also, fellow blogger Fletch over at Blog Cabins is up on the Hit List right along side me with his 20 Best Movie Characters in the Last 20 Years (Part II).
It seems there's a theme going along with that between the two of us. Anywho, just felt like sharing! Have a great day and all that.
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