CBS and ABC movie nights

Liam posted about HBO specials. Well, my memory was the iconic twirling CBS 'special' logo from their movie nights, and, of course, the ABC movie nights as well. Seeing that logo meant staying up late watching an "adult" movie like 'Star Wars' or 'Superman' on national TV for the first time.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was the last film project that Heath Ledger worked on. Still a work in progress. Director Terry Gilliam was forced to recast the roll mid-shoot, so three other actors, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell each make appearances to complete the project. Evidently the story was surreal enough to begin with that the change in appearance of the title character will be accepted by the audience. Any Terry Gilliam film promises to be entertaining or at least intriguing, but it will be fascinating to see this film.

Beautiful People - Dye Laughing

It's rare these days to discover a show that is laugh-out-loud funny. Simon Doonan, now a decorator living in New York, remembers his early teenage years in Reading, England. In this clip, Simon's mother takes him to see her deceased hairdresser at the funeral home so he can experience what it's like to see a dead person.

RIP David Carradine

Terminator Rebooted

Okay, so I was a bit skeptical that McG of all directors was the one to restart the Terminator franchise. But if I had any doubts about this film, this short clip sold me...



And here is an extended trailer from G4.

Angels and Demons

For those of you who are excited to see Angels and Demons, I would avoid reading the paper or browsing on the web. Not particularly interested in seeing the movie, I broke my usual rule of reading a few reviews and have been quite entertained.

The pope has died. Even as the Vatican is in the process of selecting a new pope, a group of ancient scientists, the Illuminati, kidnap the four top candidates and threaten to kill one each hour. They also steal an antimatter bomb from the supercollider in Sweden and plan to blow up the entire Vatican. "Rather than call the police..." – a phrase that I read in every review – they fly 3,000 miles to the U.S. to recruit Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), the very guy that threatened to destroy Christianity in the DaVinci Code by uncovering the secrets of Opus Dei. Makes sense (sic). As reviewed on Ain't it Cool, "Angels and Demons is like Batman and Robin, except that Batman is played by Tom Hanks." Ouch.

NPR review. Bob Mondello

Aint it Cool review. Massawyrm

Roger Ebert.

So the lesson here, folks, is if four of your cardinals are kidnapped and an antimatter device is about to go off somewhere in the city, call the police. Or a superhero. Guess I'll go see Star Trek a second time. Oh wait, I was planning on doing that anyway!

Announcements about career goals

According to Wray Herbert of Newsweek, a new study suggests that making public announcements/declarations about your career goals (or any goals, for that matter) can actually create a hinderance to accomplishing them. Making a statement that you are a good lawyer, for example, gives you the inflated opinion that you are better than you are, and don't need to work as hard... "a legend in your own mind." 

I think this is very true. I myself made that mistake in high school/college about going into animation and working for Disney. Although I worked very hard, I think having that vision in my head distracted me from being in the hear-and-now and taking full advantage of opportunities to learn new things about other disciplines. Also, when I fell short of my career goals, a lot of people were disappointed in me; a few even called me a failure, even though I have since gone on to be quite successful in the graphics field. 

You can read the article on Newsweek's site here.