Frank Miller's SIN CITY: Below are screenshots from the full theatrical trailer. Can't wait to watch this movie on Friday!

Okay, so I watched The Ring DVD for the first time on Monday, and a stupid credit card company had to call right when I was watching the movie. The person hung up when I answered the phone, and being tripped out by the film as I was, I looked to see who called by checking the caller ID. If you've seen the movie, you'd know that getting a phone call while viewing that VHS video is a very bad thing. Haha. Damn you, Discover Card! Now I'm paranoid. For 7 days. Just kidding...that was retarded. Pieces of crap like The Boogeyman have nothing on this film, though I heard the original Japanese version Ringu is a tad bit better. By the way, I have no idea (other than the most obvious reasons) why I posted up that shot of the girl Samara below. She freaks me out. Naomi Watts is hot. Reminds me of Kim Basinger, who I had a crush on 16 years ago...when the first Tim Burton Batman film came out in 1989, hahaha.




UPDATE: I found this humorous post on an IMDb message board. It's in a thread titled: "Samara only has a limited window of opportunity to kill..."

playinfb4ku said:

"We all know VHS will be obsolete by 2022 or so. If she can't make the switch over to DVD she is screwed!!!! Maybe that's what the ring is....her light at the end of the tunnel is crossing over to DVD..."

Medium1-toppingpizza replied:

"She'll trick some poor dumb idiot into burning it on a disc."

"WHAT! JUST A FLESH WOUND." This weekend, I watched the movie Se7en and one of the funniest parodies of all time... Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Se7en was pretty good (yea, I know I know... You can't believe I saw this film just now), though for some odd reason having Kevin Spacey as the John Doe killer kinda took away from the story—to me, at least. I didn't know he was in the film till I saw him in it, and then checked his name on IMDb.com's Se7en page (though there's something about the way I worded this that sounds...odd). Perhaps the reason why I was thrown off is because Spacey always seems to play mastermind criminals (Se7en, The Usual Suspects) or weirdos (American Beauty, K-PAX) in his films. Though I do believe he was an alien in K-PAX. Dunno, never saw that film, haha. But Se7en was good. I think it was a wise decision not to show Gwyneth Paltrow's head in that cardboard box at the end. ... Oh wait, did I spoil the conclusion for you?



In terms of Monty Python and the Holy Grail... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That is one of the stupidest and most hilarious movies of all time!! I like it!! Highlights from this film: The Knights of the Round Table "riding horses" (Do you like coconuts?), the Killer Rabbit who mauls most of King Arthur's men near a cave, the black-suited Knight who fights to the last limb (literally... See the two pics I posted in this journal entry), and the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch." And this is barely scratching the surface! I forgot to mention the cartoon Monster who chases after the Knights inside another cave, only to perish when the Monster's animator dies of a heart attack, and one of Sir Robin's men singing a song that pretty much calls Robin a pansy when he refuses to fight a 3-headed knight. You'd have to watch those scenes to appreciate their hilarity... And don't forget the Knights' musical number about Camelot! Yep, Monty Python cracks me up! I just might buy it on DVD. But not now. I have to pay for a new set of contact lenses tomorrow. "We want a shrubbery! Ni!"



" 'Tis but a scratch."



"I don't want to talk to you, no more, you empty-headed animal, food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."



"Ha ha! Hello! Smelly English K...niggets ... and Monsieur Arthur King, who has the brain of a duck, you know."



"I wave my private parts at your aunties, you brightly-coloured, mealy-templed, cranberry-smelling, electric donkey-bottom biters."



"No chance, English bed-wetting types. We burst our pimples at you, and call your door-opening request a silly thing. You tiny-brained wipers of other people's bottoms!"



"Yes, depart a lot at this time, and cut the approaching any more or we fire arrows into the tops of your heads and make castanets of your testicles already."


Script excerpts courtesy of Monty Python's Completely Useless Web Site.

Last Friday, I watched Hitch at Paramount Studios in Hollywood...and thought the film was good. The bad thing is, I could relate to it, since Will Smith’s character chooses to be a player (though I definitely wouldn’t call myself that. If you’re about to agree, then shut up! LOL) instead of actually falling in love because—this is where I could relate to his character, haha—he got dissed (a.k.a. broken-hearted, but this term is a bit too sappy for my tastes here) by a girl in the past. I obviously wouldn’t call myself a playa', but it’s a lot easier getting touchy-feely with beautiful import models I don't know than a girl I could actually get to know personally. If you need proof, check out the March 5 journal entry below!

Anyways, if you want to know the name of the girl who I’m talking about specifically, here’s a hint: I’ve been talking about her for the past 5 years. If you’ve been reading my journal entries since November of 2000 (not freakin’, bloody likely), you’d know who I’m talking about. Yep, Duyen. Seems like whatever I watch, wherever I’ll go (sounds like the lyrics to a cheesy love song), I’ll be reminded of her, when I'm trying not to. If I actually followed Hitch’s advice, I’d go to Garden Grove, find the house where she lives—err, I mean the office where she works... Yea, that’s it, work—and go up to Duyen and let her know how I feel about her up close (as opposed to telling her through crappy e-mails. Don’t ask). And a happy ending would dictate that Duyen runs up to me and gives me a hug, and we leave her work to get "lovey-dovey" somewhere in Orange County. Of course, in reality Duyen will be extremely weirded out and probably get her boyfriend to come after me. (Bring it on! Even though I don’t know how he looks or what his name is, her bf is the only dude I’d be willing to go to jail for...insert the term for a deliberate act of violence here. Though in hindsight, I wouldn't want Duyen to read this part!) Either that, or seek a restraining order so I won’t go nowhere near 20-30 miles of her. So basically, the distance from my house to Garden Grove, haha!

As I said, Hitch was good. But contrary to what one of my friends told me, that is not a film to look up to as a way to learn to get chicks. "Be yourself?" You don’t say! The reason why this is not a film to look up to is because this is a typical Hollywood film. It’s contrived! Of course Will Smith and Kevin James' characters get with the girls at the end!! If Hitch was a European movie (specfically, a neorealist Italian film), Hitch and Albert (James' character) would be rejected by Eva Mendes and Amber Valletta's characters respectively, and Hitch would start a life of drugs and alcohol (oh wait, he already does the latter) and swear off women while Albert would take his own life by leaping off the Brooklyn Bridge. Speaking of Kevin James, the actress (Leah Remini) who played his wife on the TV sitcom The King of Queens is hot. ‘Nuff said.



UPDATE: Speaking of Paramount Studios, yesterday's episode of 24 (which is such an awesome show) featured the night scene that was shot when Sarina, two of her co-workers and I walked to the set and saw the action sequence being filmed (go to the December 18, 2004 entry for more details). In this sequence, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) and the ex-husband of Bauer's girlfriend must hide in a sporting goods store near an aerospace company where Jack and Paul Raines (the ex-husband, who also works for the Counter Terrorist Unit, or CTU) printed out a piece of data that could incriminate the aerospace firm in the terrorist attacks that took place earlier in the day. The aerospace company dispatches a commando team to hunt down Bauer and Raines, and Bauer—who is helped by two other guys who are owners of the store—engage in a gunfight with the commando team to force it to break radio silence and reveal their location to CTU, which is trying to locate Bauer and Raines through satellite coverage (since radio communications and electricty are down in the city after the aerospace company detonates an electromagnetic pulse device in a vain attempt to destroy all incriminating data before Jack could get to it. Hope I'm not losing you guys, haha). Bauer and Raines are eventually located, and the CTU's commando team arrive to take out the remaining attackers sent by the aerospace firm.

But things aren't over yet as Quintus, err Dave Conlon (played by Tomas Arana, who was Quintus in the movie Gladiator)—still alive even after a CTU commando shot him—puts a bullet in Paul Raines' stomach before Conlon is gunned down by Bauer. So next week's episode will be about Raines fighting for survival and Bauer in the midst of finding Habib Marwan (played by The Mummy's Arnold Vosloo), who was the mastermind behind that day's terrorist attacks. Can't wait!

Posted above and below are screenshots from the Revenge of the Sith theatrical trailer. I saw it when I watched Robots on Saturday (in case you're wondering about my choice of films to watch at the cineplex, I saw Hitch on Friday...but more on that tomorrow), and needless to say, it looked a lot better on the big screen! The only nitpick was that the Sith trailer is presented in anamorphic size (a.k.a. the 2.35:1 aspect ratio...if you know anything about film technicalities, haha) when it is downloaded from the Internet, and Robots was shown in the 1.85:1 ratio, so the trailer images were cut off on the left and right side of the screen. Oh well, only a die-hard fan would obviously notice that! Robots was okay...though I wouldn't put it on the same level as The Incredibles (since this film obviously won the Oscar for Best Animated Picture last month). But the Ice Age 2 short film was pretty funny. That squirrel cracks me up.

So I was watching the TV show House on FOX last night, and they showed a Victoria's Secret commercial that used a clip from the music score of Gladiator (the track "The Might of Rome", to be exact...if you have the soundtrack CD). The point of this journal entry: Who would've thought the soundtrack to an epic, Oscar-winning film could be used for a lingerie commercial? Nice! I always knew Hans Zimmer's music was good enough to be used for other things (like the Crimson Tide score being used for trailers to other movies such as 1996's Independence Day, and the main theme of Gladiator being used in the NBC promo of one game during the 2000 NBA Finals), I just didn't know it could be used to sell bras and thongs.

Revenge of the Sith theatrical release poster revealed:



Click here for more details. By the way, I'm well aware that every other journal entry on this page talks about Episode III. Expect that to continue till May 19...or 20.

Darn it, I hate it when that happens! I was called by the company I work at today, and was asked if I could do a screening that will be in Pasadena next Thursday. I said yea, I could work...and only when I turned my cell phone off (I was working at a press screening, for the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher comedy Guess Who, in Westwood when I was called) did I remember that I called the company two days ago and told them I wouldn't be available that day! Well, that surely defeats the purpose of letting my work know in advance what days I'm available! Of course, it's my fault. Last time this happened, I said I was available to work a screening on November 11 of last year, when the film department at Cal State Long Beach (my alma mater) was holding a screening that night for all the student films, which were done during the Spring and Fall 2003 semesters, at the Director's Guild of America headquarters in Hollywood. Some of the films being screened were by my classmates when I was in film school at CSULB, and that was probably the last time I'd see them again. Bah!

So why was I unavailable for next Thursday, you ask? Here's the moronic, lame-ass reason: To watch that night's episode of The OC, that's why...hahaha! Why did I want to watch The OC, you ask? It's because Fox is gonna air the full theatrical trailer to Revenge of the Sith during that show, that's why! Sure, when I come home from work that night it'll already be officially posted online, but I want to see it on TV too! And of course, I'll get to see the trailer in front of the animated film Robots when it gets released the next day, but I want to see it on TV too! So that's my stupid, geeky reason. But that's beside the point. (I bet most of you are thinking, "Why don't you just call up your company and tell them you won't be available to work that day, you dumbass?? It's because the powers-that-be over there don't take screening cancellations lightly, that's why.)



I set Saturday aside so I could, um, watch Robots that day (I really shouldn't be telling you this)... Let's hope I don't forget to let my work know that I'd be unavailable that day if I'm called! Of course, considering the fact the test screening this Thursday is the only one currently scheduled for next week, I just might change my mind...since I need the $$$. Why? I do not know. Yep- I need a girlfriend, haha. Speaking of girls, I'm attending Hot Import Nights at the L.A. Convention Center tomorrow. Hopefully, Cora Linn (the hottie I still haven't met in person yet) will finally show up at an event that she said in her Yahoo! club she was gonna go to. If not, there's always Masuimi Max, another hot model I haven't met yet...who is also scheduled to show up at tomorrow's car show. Oh, and celebrity Brooke Burke is also scheduled to be in attendance. Click on those links at your own risk.