Movie Poster Motifs

I was looking at some current and upcoming movie posters, and I noticed a reoccurring layout used by several of them. See if you can spot it among these three posters... it's pretty easy to see:

Yes folks, it's the silhouette of a character centered against the background of the movie's primary location. I shall call this motif: "center silhouette". This is the second reoccurring movie poster layout I've identified, the first being what I call, "big heads in the sky". This is exactly what it sounds like: the poster depicts some smaller characters or location at the bottom, and above it you have a huge disembodied head floating above it all. Here's a recent example from a Turkish movie called Ice Cream, I Scream:

Here's another one from the new movie Freedom Writers:


See? Little people at the bottom, big Swank head above them. Yikes!

As a bonus, here's one the combines both the Center Silhouette and the Big Head in the Sky:


Score! Two Points!

Football Fugly

Remember the kid in School of Rock that designed the fruity costumes that he wanted the band to wear? I think that kid grew up and went to the University of Oregon.

I was flipping channels the other night, and I came across the Las Vegas Bowl, which matched up Brigham Young University against the University of Oregon. At first I didn't recognize Oregon, because they were wearing these new uniforms which can only be summed up in three words:

Hid. Dee. Us.

They weren't wearing their classic green helmets with the yellow "O". Instead, they were wearing these bright, metallic yellow helmets which had kind of a sickly green tint to them. They also wore these dark green and black uniforms, which maybe weren't that bad, except for what look liked some kind of raised diamond plate pattern on the shoulder pads and knees.

Holy cow, they looked awful. What purpose could the diamond plate pattern possibly have? Wouldn't it give the opposing team a better grip on your uniform? Did Oregon lose a bet and were forced to wear these uniforms?

When you combine the bright yellow helmets with the non-slip uniforms, it makes for a pretty embarrassing combination. No wonder the Ducks got blown out 38-8.

Stand proud, boys

Archie, Say It Ain't So

I haven't read an Archie comic book since I was little, but it pains me a little that Archie and the gang will be undergoing a makeover to achieve a more "realistic" look. Here's the way I remember Archie and friends:


You remember these guys, right? Archie... his arch-nemesis Reggie... look, there's that grouchy principal, Mr. Weatherbee, screaming into Archie's ear. Well, throw that all out the window, because pretty soon they're going to look like this:

Betty? Veronica? Is that you?

Oh for Pete's sake. What really concerns me though, is what the new Jughead is going to look like. How can you improve a mug like this?

All hail Jughead!

Hotel Hell

If you happen to be traveling through Amsterdam and you're low on euro, you might want to check out the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. Their whole shtick is how bad their facility is - sort of a "bad is good" marketing scheme. Either that, the hotel is really, really bad.


I've never been to Amsterdam myself, so I don't really know the truth of the matter. In the meantime, check out their intentionally jacked-up website...it's pretty amusing.

Look At The Pretty Colors

Here's the poster for an upcoming movie called Smokin' Aces. All I know about it is that it's got Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, and Alicia Keys in it. It looks like it has a lot of people shooting guns at each other. Swell - I'll probably want to see this when it comes out.

Doesn't the design of this poster kind of remind you of the poster from Rent?

Coincidence, homage, or swipe? You decide...

Black Days

Black Friday, the opening of the holiday shopping season, has come and gone. This year we had a Black Weekend, because from Thursday to Sunday, there are deals to be had, and we didn't have time to fool around. Here's the breakdown of what went on:

Black Thursday (or as some call it, Thanksgiving)
Objective: Buy an Xbox 360 from Amazon

At 11 am on Thursday, Amazon was selling 1000 Xbox 360's for $100 each. For most people, there wasn't a prayer of getting a PS3 or Wii anytime soon, so this was the next best opportunity. Millions of people waited with white-knuckled anticipation for this moment to arrive.

The problem was that millions of people were waiting for this moment to arrive. Amazon's servers promptly got bogged down, which meant that 99.9% of people weren't going to get their greedy hands on the Xbox 360. About five minutes before 11 am, it was taking my computer about 45 seconds to refresh. Not a good sign. At 11 am, I refreshed my page once more, and twenty minutes later the page reloaded with the "sold out" message. Phooey!

Not me with not my Xbox 360

It was pretty funny to see the angry posts from people who didn't get an Xbox 360. Some said it was just a big scam, some cursed Amazon and swore never to come back, some called out for everyone to report Amazon to the Better Business Bureau for such treachery. A lot of people seemed to feel entitled to get a cheap Xbox 360, and didn't to the math about how slim their chances really were. Kind of sad, really.

Mission Result: TOTAL FAILURE, BUT I STILL LOVE YOU AMAZON

Black Friday
Objective: Get deals at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Home Depot

We woke about at 3 am on Friday morning, and got to our local Best Buy at 4 am. There were about 500 - 600 people already there, and the lined wrapped around the entire building. When they finally opened at 5 am, it was not unlike a cattle stampede inside the store. The store staff did their best to keep the checkout lines orderly, but there were too many frenzied people inside the store.

My fiance had to catch a $20 printer with her face. I got disgusted trying to find the stuff I was looking for, and wanted to leave. We ended up getting most of the items we wanted, but this was the most unpleasant Best Buy Black Friday I've ever been to.

Mission Result: PARTIAL SUCCESS, BUT NO FREE KRISPY KREMES OR COFFEE. PAH!

Plasma flatscreens on sale? Run, fellow buffalo, run!

The Circuit City in our area is kind of like the snot-nosed little brother to Best Buy: dirtier and an unappealing & unorganized mess. The store was filled to the brim with the same variety of delirious bargain-hunters. It didn't help that the store was uncomfortably warm. We got most of what we were looking for, but we're glad we only go to Circuit City only once a year.

Mission Result: SUCCESSFUL FOR THE MOST PART, BUT BLECH

I managed to take a little side trip to Home Depot to get a cheap wet/dry vacuum and to check out a deal for a flatscreen tv. When I got to the store, I parked right in front and was greeted by a friendly and helpful store employee. He told me where to find the vacuum and the tv. I walked right up to the flatscreen tv's, picked one up and put in on my cart. I got a vacuum, paid for both items, and waltzed back to my car. It was a breath of fresh air. No fighting with other people, no crowds, no catching tv's with my face. Ha!

Mission Result: COMPLETE DOMINATION. YOU ROCK MY WORLD, HOME DEPOT

Black Saturday
Objective: Sleep


Mission Result: ZZZZZ

Black Sunday
Objective: Get deals at Costco

I love Costco. I love to walk up and down the aisles, and we love buying things that we really don't need. Did you know Costco sells a five-gallon bucket of food and supplies, just in case there's an emergency? We really wanted to buy one, but I'd probably open it and start eating the food, disaster or not.

We got the deals we were looking for, and found some new ones along the way. It was a fitting end to our Black Weekend; we got a great start on our Christmas shopping.

Now we just need to buy some stuff that's not just for us! Ha ha ha ha!

Mission Result: TOTAL SUCCESS - PLUS, WE GOT A COPY OF THE FREE COSTCO COOKBOOK, WHICH IS ALL WE REALLY WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

The Colonel Gets A Makeover

Aw geez, I haven't posted anything in over two weeks. I wish I could be more prolific and write something every day, but that's not going to happen. Nope, not unless someone throws a handful of change at me and pays me to do this. Anyways...

KFC recently changed their logo, and it isn't that bad. This is what they had about twenty years ago:


Colonel Sanders eyes and lips looked kind of funny back then. He also looked a lot like a disembodied head with a little stick figure body. The more I look at it, the more his whole head seems kind of misshapen. I didn't eat a whole lot of fried chicken back then.

Some time in the eighties (I think), they changed their logo and made the Colonel into a more realistic jolly old man:

The expression on his face and the angle of his body makes him look like he's always chuckling about something. He's just a grandpa kicking back in his rocking chair. You have a problem? Don't worry about it, sonny. Here - have some chicken.

Just this month, they unveiled the new logo:


Pretty snazzy, huh? It's interesting to see that by just removing some of the detail from the Colonel's face and thickening up the line weights, he looks much more youthful. He even looks like he lost some weight.

I like the fact that the Colonel now stands up straight and wears an apron. I know he created the secret eleven herb & spice chicken recipe, but I could never imagine him actually cooking. Before he just looked like an old southern guy in a white suit who probably had his kitchen staff whip him up a bucket of fried chicken whenever he wanted.

But the new KFC Colonel isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He's going to roll up his sleeves, skin some chickens, and be splattered with hot oil from the fryer. Go Colonel, go!

The Departed

We finally went to see The Departed the other day. I had some trepidation about this movie for two reasons:

1. We had to sit in the third row of theater. Sure, it was a Saturday night showing, but the theater was surprisingly packed considering the movie had been out for almost a month already (I guess Borat must have been sold out). If there was going to be a lot of shaky handheld camera work, then it would probably make me nauseous and I wouldn't make it through the movie.

2. The movie was a remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. Usually, these kinds of movies tend to stick in my craw because I don't believe they are completely necessary. Why do you need to remake a perfectly good movie? Does westernizing a story with bigger movie stars really improve on the original? Why can't the movie studios just come up with their own new stories?

I could just go on and on about this; but I won't. The Departed was a really, really good movie. We don't watch a ton of them, but this was probably the best movie we've seen this year besides V for Vendetta. The story moved along at a nice pace and all the actors did a good job.


I used to have little respect for Leonardo DiCaprio. To me, he was always the scrawny little kid with the squeaky voice from "Growing Pains". In The Departed, it seems he's filled out a little and matured into a real actor. He was really convincing as the undercover cop infiltrating Jack Nicholson's Irish mob. His voice still squeaks sometimes, but he was perfect for this role.

Besides a gripping story with a lot of tension, you've got guys from Boston cussing at each other. You've got Jed Bartlett/Martin Sheen speaking with a Boston accent. You've got Jack Nicholson doing his crazy Jack Nicholson thing. You've got Alec Baldwin doing his nutty boss character from "30 Rock". What more can you ask for? This movie deserves some kind of award. It's definitely worth seeing more than once.

A New Case Of Crabs

No, not those type of crabs. Real crabs. I get a kick out of hearing about new species of things being discovered, and here's the latest: there was a big expedition that took place in the waters outside of Hawaiian, where they found over one hundred potentially new species of crabs, corals, sea cucumbers, sea stars, snails, clams, and the like.

The new Hawaiian pom-pom crab. Go team!

Not quite as sexy as the furry lobster, but pretty cool nonetheless.

New sea cucumber. Delicious with a little salt.

Scary Pictures

Now that Halloween is rapidly approaching, I'd better post something Halloweenish. I always like this time of year - not for the costumes and the trick or treating, but rather for all the horror movies they show on TV. It's like Christmas in October.

Here are some scary pictures for today: over at a blog called The Knight Shift (courtesy of Neatorama), they list their 10 Best Ghost Photographs Ever Taken.


All the stories behind the pictures are pretty interesting, but if you think skeptically about all of them, you can say that they are either faked, just someone who walked into the exposure, or incorrectly dated. Too bad they didn't have digital time stamps in the early 1900's.

Still, if you buy into what they are selling, then they're pretty neat. Woooo!

Xbox RIP

After over six years of service, my faithful Xbox has breathed its last breath (the thing just won't turn on anymore). As a tribute to my dearly departed console, let's reminisce about the best of times (and worst) with the Xbox:

My Top 5 Favorite Games I've Played On The Xb0x:

Halo - One of my all-time favorites of any system, period. Usually, first-person shooters make me nauseous and queasy if they zoom around too much, but this game doesn't do that. Add in some massive environments and a top-notch story, and you've got a winner. This is one of the games that you can play through multiple times, and it's always a lot of fun. I've played Halo 2, but the original remains my favorite. Hopefully Halo 3 will be a huge step forward.


Burnout 3: Takedown - If you like racing games and nothing pleases you more than side-swiping your opponent off a cliff or into a wall, look no further. If you like to cause multi-car collisions, fiery explosions, and lots of property damage, this is the game for you. Nothing is more satisfying that causing a major pile-up at an intersection, then watch the replay in slow motion as you pile up the rewards. I have the sequel Burnout: Revenge for Xbox, but now I can't play it. Aaarrggh!


Black - My other favorite first-person shooter, besides Halo. It's great to look at and even more fun to play, with it's numerous weapons and destructible environments. Sure it didn't have much of a story, but who cares? The only thing it was missing was online play. However, this is one of those rare games that I can just load up at any time, jump into any level and have lots of fun shooting things up. I guess I just like shooting things.


Fatal Frame - This is got to be the creepiest game I've ever played. Snooping around an old Japanese house as a little Japanese girl taking pictures of ghosts with your magic camera can be a fun but chilling experience. As you get deeper into the story, things get more twisted and the ghosts get a lot meaner. Someday, I'll play Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented...after I've fully recovered from the first one.


Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - I'm not really a big Star Wars (or Lego) fan, but when the reviews I read said this game was "short" and "easy", I knew this game was right up my alley. The game turned out to be a lot of fun. The game mimics the violence of the movies, but on the other hand it's really cute to see a Lego figure bust apart into a lot piece when they've been shot. Unfortunately, this was the last game I played before my Xbox went kaput, and now the disc is stuck in its lifeless jaws.


The Thing I Disliked Most About Xbox

Xbox Live - I had a trial subscription for a year, and I probably only used it for a few days out of the year. I liked playing games like Rainbow Six 3 with people I knew. However, I hated playing with little foul-mouthed kids. I once was waiting for a game of Crimson Skies, and this kid literally spazzed out because the game didn't start fast enough. Hopefully his voice will change soon and he'll learn to like girls.


I also didn't like playing with people who were too good at the games, which really spoiled it for people like me who generally suck and are just playing for fun. For a beginner at Halo 2, I got tired really fast of getting killed by players who knew the maps by heart, knew where all the weapons were, and knew exactly where I would respawn after just getting killed. I hope their voices change soon and girls avoid them because they smell bad.


You might think that this is the perfect opportunity to get a Xbox 360, but you'd be wrong. Sorry man, not in my budget. However, if someone would like to take pity on me and give me one, hey- let me know.

Comic Art Issue 8

Here's my plug for today: Comic Art was a magazine that published seven issues from around 2002 to 2005. Each issue was nicely put together - nice production values, full-color layouts, and deep intellectual analysis of the comics medium. No other comics-related magazine really matched its style or quality.

However, after seven issues, it vanished. It was disappointing to see something so good go away.

But just a few months ago, Comic Art number 8 was released! Back from the dead, the magazine is bigger and better than ever. It's now published by Buenaventura Press on an annual basis, which is great since it will take me about a year to make my way through this sucker.

There's articles on Richard McGuire, Drew Friedman, Jim Starlin, and much more. There's even a long essay on the historical origins of the speech balloon.

As a bonus, there's even a small booklet that comes with the magazine called Forty Cartoon Books of Interest, written and drawn by Seth. It's a revealing look at Seth's favorite books that he's collected over the years from thrift stores and rummage sales.


Comic Art number 8 is available from Amazon. Try it, you'll like it.

So Long, Tower Records

Tower Records is shutting down, and its assets have been sold to a liquidation company (story here) . This bums me out a little bit. When I was in school, I spent a lot of time going to the Tower Records on Durant Avenue in Berkeley and scouring the aisles for records, tapes, and CD's. In those days, I found a lot of great new music beyond whatever was being played on the radio.

I must admit that I am one of the many that contributed to Tower's demise. I haven't stepped inside a record store and bought something for ages, since I buy all my music online. Hey, it's hard to beat cheaper prices, and you get to listen to samples of the albums from the comfort of your own computer. Plus, you never have to wait for the guy who's slowly browsing through the CD's that you want to look at to get out of your way.

However, I still kind of miss going to the store and seeing what's new. Ah well... in Berkeley, at least we still have Rasputin and Amoeba (for now).

Penguin By Design

I never realized how cool Penguin Books were until I read Penguin By Design by Phil Baines. It's a fascinating look at the evolution of the Penguin Book covers from the 1930's to the present.

In the early days, the goal was to establish the brand by maintaining consistency across the company's various imprints and subject matter. The approach was very systematic: Penguin for fiction, Puffin for children's books, and Pelican for original works on current topics. They also had color coding for their covers, with orange for fiction, green for crime, and blue for biography. The early covers had set guidelines and used restrained fonts.

Eventually, Penguin saw the need to compete with other paperback publishers and allowed various forms of photography and illustration onto their covers. However, their covers always maintained some form of consistency in their design format that was part of the brand's identity.


The thing about these covers is that individually, they may not always be the most eye-catching design, but put a series of them together in context with their history, then the graphic impact really comes through. Someone should put out a book showing the entire Penguin catalog - I'd buy it.

M & M's Movie Quiz

Here's a fun time-waster: the M&M's Dark movie quiz. Click on the visual clues, and type in your guess of the "dark"-themed movie. The answers are the more popular horror, science fiction, and thriller movies. It took a little bit of work, but we managed to get all 50 movies!

Go ahead, try it. If you get stumped, scroll down a little for the answers...


Give up? Starting at the top & middle, and working around mostly clockwise...

1. Twin Peaks
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Fly
4. Friday the 13^th
5. Rear Window
6. Children of the Corn
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street
8. The Howling
9. Alien
10. The Crow
11. Seven
12. The Butterfly Effect
13. Scream
14. Piranha
15. The Omen
16. Rosemary’s Baby
17. Candyman
18. The Wicker Man
19. Pitch Black
20. Eraserhead
21. The Invisible Man
22. A Clockwork Orange
23. Psycho
24. The Shining
25. The Lost Boys
26. The Ring
27. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
28. Halloween
29. The Grudge
30. Jaws
31. Blue Velvet
32. The 39 Steps
33. The Mummy
34. Dark Water
35. Child’s Play
36. Beetlejuice
37. Creature from the Black Lagoon
38. Leprechan
39. Saw
40. 12 Monkeys
41. The Sixth Sense
42. Blade
43. Silence of the Lambs
44. The Dead Zone
45. House of Wax
46. The Birds
47. The Village
48. The Hills Have Eyes
49. Pumpkinhead
50. Signs

The Camera Takes Away Ten Pounds

There's a new feature on HP digital cameras which allows people to appear slimmer in pictures. Just snap the picture and use the convenient sliding scale to determine how wide or svelte you want to be.


I am both appalled, yet fascinated. Photo manipulation is nothing new. Heck, when I was in high school you could pay extra to have the acne removed from your yearbook portraits. However, something seems wrong when anyone can alter a photo so easily. It's just another sign that you simply can't believe everything you see anymore.

Hollywoodland

Hollywoodland bummed me out. George Reeves' death may have been murder instead of suicide, but he had plenty to be depressed about: he was an aging actor who was hopelessly typecast into the Superman role. He had a gold-digging harpy for a fiance. He was an alcoholic. According to his Wikipedia entry, he ended up doing wrestling matches in his costume. He also was in negotiations to reprise his Superman role for another television series.

It's easy to see how a guy can get down about these things. On the other hand, he could do a lot worse. He had a house, he had Diane Lane for a sugar mommy, and he was worshipped by kids all over the country. A lot of people don't even get half that far.

All the actors in this movie did a good job (although Ben Affleck should stop singing and put down the guitar). The 50's costumes & sets looked good. I always like the way men dressed in those days. Suits & ties everywhere. You can't go wrong with a good suit.


There's a scene in the movie where they reveal the face of Diane Lane's character, who's been mourning the death of George Reeves nonstop. It was the makeup and the lighting, but yikes - she looked really old. Luckily, they showed Under the Tuscan Sun on TV last night, and my Diane Lane palate was clean again. Ah!

I Pity The Fool!

I took Professor T's Culture Fool Test over at Comcast, and I have a Culture IQ of 137. I even have a diploma to prove it:



Does that mean I can join Mensa now? Bring it on, suckahs!