HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! Last day of 2011 and everything's fine!
So Danielle Fricke released "Hello Little World",
her first indie album, this morning and I've listened to it several
times throughout the day. Her music is so beautiful and vulnerable - as
though each verse were spun of spiderwebs and blown glass and other
fragile things like hearts - I'm IN LOVE with her songs. The
whole album is a story and each song is a chapter. Crafting an album is
practically a lost art but here we have an excellent example. Join me after the jump to learn more!!
Click through the jump for his whole series of Toyota Yaris commercials. There's a whole bunch, at 15-30 seconds each, and all filled with signature Showalter goodness.
Since I came on board a little late in the year here, I didn't keep track of a lot of the stuff I normally would have. One thing I have done, however, for 11 years running, is keep track of my favorite music of the year. I'm one of the dozen people left who still purchases music legally, I went to college for music, etc., so it's a big, erm, fruitless pursuit in my own life. With that said, if you're looking for something new or different to listen to, this might be a good starting place for you. If you only listen to nerdcore or 8-bit reimaginings, this list might not be for you, and you'll find some quick hits on movies and books on the bottom. For the rest, my top of the year is beyond the jump:
Here's a promo of a new app that comes from the Japanese beatmakers, Hifana called "Fresh Push Play"
It comes with some already recorded samples from Hifana. It has a little turntable section that you can do your "wika-wika" plus another section where you can do your left, rights, tempos and some large orange thing that I'm not sure what it does but it makes the sound cwwazy (technical term). You definitely need some lighting reflexes to play live like these guys but you can also create a loop by viewing the overall pattern and choosing at what point the samples come in.
It is definitely going to take some time to get used to it as turns out the skills don't come with the app but it does have a sort of guitar hero section where you hit the buttons when they flash. THIS IS WAY HARD!!! I assume if you can master it (and it allows you to tweet how well you did for bragging rights) you'll feel like you are this rad
I'm not sure if this is the best of this type of app out there. I do know that I would probably use the Garageband app more than this but I do really like the Hifana guys and honestly they can make anything sound cool even a few pairs of Nikes
Oh what?!?! Now I just bought a pair of Nikes. Dam you Hifana and your beats
They have been rolling out some stunning cinematic trailers for this Streetfighter Tekken crossover.
Check out this one
I love where they went with these games in not going super realistic (mortal kombat) and just making it over the top with cartoony/anime sensibilities. I'll be honest I'm rubbish at fighting games so I don't really enjoy them but I do love me some cool trailers
IGN had the guys from RiffTrax (headed up by Mystery Science Theater 3000's Mike Nelson) do some riffing on the cut scenes from Gears of War 3. The end result is honestly funnier than I had anticipated, and is worth a few minutes of your time.
If you haven't seen/heard RiffTrax before, they offer downloadable mp3s to act as MST3K commentary tracks to recent movies. I recommend the ones for Twilight in particular - it's the only way to make that hot mess watchable.
Hat tip to Topless Robot.
Forget movies! Forget video games! It's time for the Top Ten Lego Minifigures of 2011!
Lego took things to a new level once again in 2011, with Series 4 and 5 of the Lego Minifigures Series, old favorites like Star Wars, and new licenses like Pirates of the Caribbean and DC Super Heroes. Click through the jump to see the best of the best.
One of my favorite weird mysteries (and I have many) are the weird "Toynbee Tiles" that are all over the place in major cities worldwide. It's tough to say exactly what's going on with these, but here's what we know:
All indications are that the first sightings of these happened in the early 1990s. On a street in Philadelphia, a tile was inserted into the street with the text "Toynbee Idea in Kubrick's '2001' Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter." The statement itself has some logic to it - Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey implies rebirth on Jupiter, there are some cultural connections between the religious historian Arnold Toynbee and 2001, but the tiles are more of a mystery because of what they are - tiles applied to busy streets without anyone noticing, often with crazy conspiracy theories attached to them.
Obviously, there's not a ton more to say about them. A lot of people have tried to figure out authorship, and a documentary was released this year about them, but for a holiday week, it's a good diversion. More at Wired, Damn Interesting, and NPR.
2011 was a huge year for sequels and blockbusters but not a whole lot of it lived up to the hype. I adore shallow, pop culture, genre junk, but not even I was sated with many of the year's offerings. Green Lantern, Transformers 3, Cowboys and Aliens and Battle LA were all pretty godawful. Captain America was meh, and I couldn't even bear to sit through Pirates of the Carribean 4. Your Highness was like Danny McBride took a shit in my brain. 2011 was a year where not even the geniuses at Pixar could get it right! Cars 2? WTF was that all about? How did those cars build a city when they have wheels instead of hands?
So an odd year calls for an odd list with some odd choices. These are the movies I enjoyed the most. Not the best made, or the best written, or most likely to win an award - just my personal favourites. I didn't see Tree of Life if that's what you're wondering. I only saw films where the major characters were invited to join S.H.I.E.L.D. by Samuel L. Jackson at the end. Although I did see Jane Eyre. And no, it's not on the list.
Join me after the jump to read all about my Top Ten Films of 2011...
And that's that! After a making a Comics Face strip every week this year I'm going to give it a bit of a rest. There'll still be a monthly one (at least) starting from February. If there's any other news i'll be sure to post about it here.
Ladies and Gentlemen, break out your formal finery because I am here to heartily welcome you to Obligatory Online Faux Awards Season (OOFAS)! The shiftless team here at Fruitless Pursuits are dangerously dedicated to bombarding you with our ill-educated, frustrating, and sometimes controversial opinions on the bestest pop entertainment of 2011. Many of us will be posting our own Top Ten (or thereabouts) lists, and that will culminate at the end of the month with the inaugural Fruitless Pursuits Awards where we will be picking the very best of the best as a site.
Well, I am going to kick things off with my biggest and most important list - my Top Ten Video Games of 2011. I played A LOT of stuff, much of which I enjoyed so this was a really tough one to whittle down. I have put far too much time and thought into this, so you are both a bounder and a vagabond if you do not join me after the jump to read my iron-clad judgements of the year!
If you're anything like me, you're probably already burned out on your holiday parties. You know you have Skyrim sitting at home, the warm embrace of an arrow to your knee. Perhaps that new tablet you've always wanted is still charging, and you're listening to your grandmother chastise your cousin for the outfit he wore to the dinner table, and you're saying to yourself "man, I wish I had some funny and/or disturbing content on the internet to watch." Well, never fear, because I'm happy to help. Merry Christmas to all, the videos beyond the jump are there due to language and suggestive papercraft:
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 12: Til' Next Christmas Eve by Jon Montague
"Christmas comes just once a year, I know this much is true. But only once a year to be with you my dear is just too hard to do."
Jon Montague created the show, and sadly he was only here for the first two years. His perfectly written, closing of the Christmas season song was the one to start it all off in 1999. Without him and this song, the Arbor Christmas show and compilation wouldn't be what it is today. The bar was set high, right from the start. Check out both versions of the song below.
Merry Christmas everybody!!! All the best to you and yours!
Great! Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about something important, like THIS WEEK'S COMICS!!!
Justice League #4 - Aquaman shows up and wants to be the boss! Green Lantern makes a fool out of himself twice! Batman has the last laugh! Flash continues to be the worlds fastest AND nicest man! Superman does almost nothing! And at LAST...the BAD GUY shows up!!!
Oh yeah, Cyborg is there too, and very likely is going to be the one to save the day. At least, that's MY guess. I have to hand it to the good folks at DC Comics, they know how to stretch a story for all it's worth. With Jim Lee drawing, I am not complaining! It's worth the wait for every panel, since it's all just so pretty. If you want a book where lots of alien robot/mutant things get their asses handed to them by the DC universe's best and brightest, all while looking cool and exchanging witty banter, well, look no further my friend!
It's funny though, with all the Earth-shaking events happening in this comic, the back and forth dialogue between our heroes is really what gets me coming back for more each week. Green Lantern has a line in this issue (said while accidentally touching Wonder Woman's magic lasso) that makes this my favourite comic of the week! Good work League!
I call him 'Merks' as if he is my best friend and I have known him all my life. I have never met Timothy, have no idea who he is really, and I'm sure he's very cool, I hear good things about him, his posts are great, but we don't know each other at all.
That's the nature of being a 'contributor' on a site like this. You are part of a whole, and on this here Internet, it can often be a whole lotta strangers. Funky, right? Not as funky as this.
I had planned to make this blog about LOST, but when I was pretty much done writing the blog, something came up before I could go in and spell-check it and put the finishing touches on it. So I took a break from what I was doing and hit the showers.
As I was soaping up, NAKED, thinking of Timothy, Luke and all the other GUYS on this site, I decided to totally change it up. I'll say what I wanted about LOST another time.
Especially since if I write that a post about Battlestar Galactica got me thinking, um...shouldn't it stand to reason that I be writing about BATTLESTAR GALACTICA?!?
So instead, I think I'll just point out that we should all take a moment on this Christmas Eve, this OH SO HOLY time of year, to remember that horrifying bullet that, thanks to Ronald Moore, we all, thankfully, dodged.
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 11: Lucky Wooden Nickels by It's A King Thing
I thought the first line of this song was "The Leatherman's got my attention". I was so sure that I emailed Brian, (the little one in the middle) right after hearing the demo of the song. I just wrote: "Leatherman!"
After listening a bunch more times, I realize I was way off and he was probably super confused. But the Leatherman always has my attention. Seriously, one would be an awesome Christmas gift.
We're wrapping up Popmas with the greatest pop band Christmas song of all time. Of. All. Time. No one else had Gary Coleman in their video did they? NO. You know who did? NSYNC. Just as the Wham video had hilarious 80s clothing, this one is so 90s it just about makes my eyes bleed. Kids, back in the 90s we all wore clothes two sizes too big. And in many bright colours.
Please enjoy this final serving of Christmas cheese, and have a very Merry Christmas tomorrow. I have asked Santa for Justin Timberlake, but I suspect I'll just end up watching this video by myself eating cold turkey instead.
There were a few things that lead me to picking up Discworld: Ankh-Morpork tonight.
1. There was a huge sale at my local game store.
2. Our ex-contributor Grug has been raving about Martin Wallace games lately.
3. Everyone else has been raving about Martin Wallace games lately.
4. It looks really funny, and like it's going to be loads of fun.
Read the next paragraph if this makes no sense to you.
A little history on the source material:
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and William Shakespeare, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with current cultural, political and scientific issues.
Click through the jump to see what's inside the box.
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 10: Christmas In July In December by The New Anxiety
One of the most serious Christmas songs on the list, but seriously... it's like 60 degrees here this week. It's way too hot for sweaters. Listen to the song and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Christmas just isn't Christmas for me until I've heard this song, and I ADORE this filmclip. The hair! The clothes! George Michael being super emo in a furry hood! Absolutely killer.
In a sea of teasers for next year, the newest big fish is the trailer to Sir Ridley Scott's "It's an Alien prequel" "No it's not an Alien prequel", "Well, it's kind of an Alien prequel", "But not really", "But it is", "Well, there's a Space Jockey in it", "Uh.... ", "May or may not contain actual Aliens" movie Prometheus!
Wow. Not since the Inception trailer have I heard such an effective use of BRRRRRAAAAM! BRRRRRAAAAM!! BRAAAAAAAM!!! BRAAAAAAM! Personally, I'd be pretty satisfied if that sound went all the way through the movie. Maybe Fassbender could be an android who can only communicate by shouting BRRAAAAAM! BRAAAAAAAM!!! BRAAAAAAM! a couple of inches away from people's faces.
Got to say though, it does have a really nice, vintage, hard sci-fi look and feel to it. I'm excited about this one. 2012 is shaping up to be huge.
Pitman, NJ is kind of a weird place all year round (it's a town of tiny hobbit sized cottages from the late 1800's), but this time of year the weirdness is off the charts. The center of town becomes a massive gathering of anamatronic dioramas featuring slightly-off versions of the hottest cartoon characters from 10-15 years ago. It's a sight to be seen, very "roadside America"-ish, and now one of my yearly holiday rituals.
...and I'm going to make an assumption that there may be some interest in what's good and bad about it. I'm an avid reader, and I received a Kindle DX for Christmas last year - it's one of the greatest gadgets I own. It's fun to use, it's easy to get books, and the thing works perfectly fine as a Wi-Fi only device simply because of the sheer number of books you can load onto the thing.
So yeah, I'm an Amazon/Kindle fanboy, and when I saw they were launching a tablet, I was intrigued. I still use desktop computers, so this would just be for tabletop roleplaying/travel purposes, unlike someone like my wife who uses her iPad as her main computer. I know the iPad is the head of the class, and nearly every Android tablet I've read about has some significant reservations. I've been holding off until my wife handed me a box with my Kindle Fire in it. I guess I'm a tablet owner! So, now that I'm spending some time blogging for you folks, I figure a device breakdown is in order:
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 9: Winter Vivos/Somewhere In My Memory by The Castle Arms
I've contributed a song to the Arbor Christmas compilation 10 out of the last 12 years. Depending on who performed along with me, the songs were either billed as The Castle Arms, J. Tagmire Plays The Hits, or The Tagmire's Play The Hits. This one from 2004 will always be a favorite. We mixed our original song Winter Vivos with Somewhere In My Memory from Home Alone.
There are zero things that are not amazing about this video. Side note, I'd like a double-necked Gibson for Christmas thanks. And maybe a pair of those pants Justin is wearing.
The fact he has a tattoo of flames coming out of his groin never fails to impress/disgust me.
Yep... we've all been there. I think I watched the first season in one sitting in front of my computer haha. I watched up to the last few episodes but before I finished the series I introduced my partner to it and started again. I think we used to watch up to 4 eps a night after work. We would come home, cook dinner, have a shower then sit down on the couch to eat and watch BSG. I always wondered if the neighbours would get sick of hearing the intro "DUM DUM DUM DUM BRRR BRAHHHH" at 1 o'clock at night.
Oh and the hole left inside people when they finish the series! It's funny every now and then someone gets around to watching the show and you see their facebook status update to "I'm having Battlestar Galatica withdrawals are there any more eps?" and all you can reply is "Well there's Caprica... but it's not the same"
I'm not sure what Portlandia is about though but this was a pretty good sketch
Here's something new from the IMOV guys. An intense hospital drama!
"While playing a friendly hole golf in France, John, a great American actor, is shot in the face and loses an eye. However, he can count on the excellence of European medicine and the emergence of the Chinese economy"
The film is based on caricatures and stereotypes of American TV soaps and looks amazing!
You can buy the film here it's in both French and English
Here's an older work that's a favourite of mine, "I Forgive You"
Here's some German made tv spots for MTV, "Sex is no accident".
Although these videos quite clearly prove that sex can be an accident. Those are all things that I'm sure have happened and happen on a regular basis. What's with the mixed messages MTV?
Forget the recent announcement of Lego landing Lord of the Rings! Those ingenious Danish creative building bastards have just announced a new series of sets aimed point-blank at one of nature's most alluring and baffling mysteries.... girls!
Friends, meet Lego Friends...
Girls like science and Wall-E. Great film, but falls apart at towards the end.
With a generous spattering of girl-approved pink bricks, Lego introduces friends such as Mia, Stephanie and that bitch Olivia, all of which utilise the new Lego "mini-doll" figure. My prayers have been answered! A Lego minifig with tits.
But what's of second most interest to me is that these sets all focus on real world environs and activities, preparing young women for the practical, unavoidable drudgery of real-life. Whereas sets aimed at boys are outrageous, violent, escapist fantasies which prepare them for the blissfully ignorant pleasures of avoiding real life!
So tell me, Girls! Has Lego hit the nail on the head? And then manicured those nails in a buildable salon? IS THIS WHAT GIRLS WANT?
(I read about all this right here! And by the way, if you don't think Lego is Danish and awesome enough, the CEO of the Lego group is called Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. Respect!)
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 8: Shovel by By Surprise
By Surprise's Mountain Smashers is popping up on lots of top albums this year, and we totally should have expected it after hearing their contribution to last year's Arbor Christmas compilation.
I've tried really really hard to like Justin Bieber, but just...no. The kid is a twerp. But I had to include this video, if only for Mariah Carey's incredible pins. She's looking pretty good for her age. Also, there's a puppy at the end. Also also, there's HILARIOUS Nintendo 3DS product placement. If you weren't convinced that their sales were THAT poor, well, you can't really deny it now.
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 7: Playing Christmas by The Classic Brown
The Classic Brown's songs have been better and better each year (this year it was REALLY awesome) but this will always be a favorite of mine.
If you bought the 3DS on launch day, or even launch month.. Nintendo has a sweet Christmas gift for you! Not only do they consider you a 3DS Ambassador, but the second wave of free games came out this week. It's 10 games, that are 10 times better than the first batch.
So. It’s three weeks
in, and I’m still putting these out. I’m
not sure how many people are actually reading, but I’m putting them out. But this week, there’s a problem. You see, This is a really crappy week for new
releases. And next week isn’t great
either. I get it. Everybody wants to release their stuff ahead
of Christmas so it can be bought as presents, or after Christmas so people can
use the money they got…nobody wants to release stuff when nobody’s paying
attention. Still, it doesn’t exactly
make for a very interesting article.
And so, I decided to do something I’m very good at: pad the
hell out of what I’m writing. In
addition to the normal stuff I pull from Amazon’s new release list, I’ve
decided to add a few movies that I think are almost “required viewing” for the
geek set. They are all in desperate need
of a really super-keen cleanup and release as a badass Blu-Ray, and one of them
I don’t think has had legitimate release in the US at all, yet.
Join me after the break, and we’ll go over the stuff I DID
find. As usual, I’ve linked each to
Amazon, where they can be bought…but that’s just because it’s convenient. Feel free to support your local store.
Imagine a world where people, organizations, probably even the government, are communicating with each other in plain sight right under our noses. Communication that is so clear, so overt, that someone with $50, electricity, and a little luck can listen in on these communications.
That world is ours, and we live here now. Welcome to the weird world of numbers stations. Join me beyond the jump for some shortwave fun:
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
This is the first cover on our list of 12 days of Arbor Christmas, and for me it's one of those covers that tops the original. And it's hard to top Archers of Loaf. But this is soooo good.
Evan has also written some amazing original songs for the compilations, as both Into It Over It and The Progress. If I could stop listening to this one, I'd be able to pick a favorite. But if I had to, it might be last years song, "For Agnes".
It's too late for Christmas, but if you keep wrapping paper on hand all year round just for that time you need it... this will be great for next Christmas! Or all of the birthdays in between.
Click through the jump for more details and photos.
My favourite part of Christmas (apart from the presents of course) are the seasonal albums released by artists wanting to milk a little bit of extra cash out of their adoring public. In that spirit I'll be featuring one Christmas tie-in video per day up to Christmas Eve.
First up, one of my favourite boy bands of the 90s. 98 Degrees (aka The band with the guy that married Jessica Simpson for a while) with 'This Gift'.
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 5: I Don't Wanna Know What's Under Your Tree by Young Statues
Young Statues have been on the past two Arbor Christmas compilations, and some of the members contributed previously under their old name, Makeout Party. This song was one of my most anticipated this year, and definitely lived up to my expectations. It's also currently streaming at AlternativePress.com.
So another week has passed and another batch of comics has been released! Let's get right to it, shall we?
Batgirl #4 - Batgirl was one of those comics that started a little weak but
quickly became quite good.Issue 4 has
wrapped up the story of "Mirror", a serial killer with a remarkably
cool costume and slightly less cool M.O. of killing people he believes miraculously
survived incidents where they should have died.Fixing God's mistakes, I believe he calls it.In any case, he's been leading Batgirl
through the wringer for the last few issues and she finally confronts him in
this issue.We also get to delve a lot
more deeply into Barbara's feelings about being able to walk again, as well as
her family and her insecurities, with the help of her new roommate.All in all, a strong issue, almost as good as
#3.My only complaint is that it seemed
slightly anti-climactic since issue #3 was SOOO good.Still, my favourite comic this week!Good work Gordon Barbara Gordon! See what other comics I've bought this week after the jump!
Welcome back for another week of Games For the Rest of Us, the segment for people looking for a game to just keep them occupied during family Christmas dinner, not the whole of the Christmas holidays. This week we're looking at the appropriately festive OvenBreak Infinity from Devsisters Corp.
"In a country strangely similar to Japan, there is an island floating on the middle of a lake. It is said that monsters have been living there from the ancient time so that people feared the island calling it "the Monster Island." But in reality, the monsters living there are sweet and are in fact living their lives fearing the humans.
One day, a human child named Kotake wanders off into the island. Surprisingly, Naki, a red ogre who is difficult to please and therefore unpopular among others, ends up taking care of him. Naki hates other ogres as well as humans, and has been living a lonely life, but starts living together with his only friend Gunjo, who is a blue ogre, and the human child Kotake. Through the life with Gunjo and Kotake, Naki gradually opens up his heart and gets to know the meaning of tenderness. However, the merry living together doesn't last long. Since Kotake comes to miss his parents, Naki sends him back to his village. But when the villagers see Naki, they beat him off, and Naki is stripped away from Kotake.
Naki gets depressed after losing Kotake. Seeing his discouraged friend, Gunjo makes up his mind to do a certain thing, which separates Gunjo and Naki forever."
This is a different sort of film from Japan. There's only been a small handful of 3d kids cartoons that have been produced that I know of (Yona Yona Penguin being one of them that I want to see). They can defiantly compete with the pixars and the dreamworks on a creative/imagination level. It's so great seeing the Japanese styled monsters and some other nice touches with the background design.
The film is being directed by Takashi Yamazaki and Ryuichi Yagi. Takashi Yamazaki directed the latest live action version of Space battleship Yamoto which wasn't that great. The acting and emotional scenes were so over the top that it almost felt like a parody of the old cartoon mashed together with scenes and styling stolen from the Battlestar Galatica remake. Hopefully this film is played a little less dramatic than Yamoto and the acting isn't as forced. It will be interesting to see if this film gets internationally distributed.
For the past 12 years, musicians from South Jersey, Philadelphia, and beyond.. have gathered to record a compilation album and live play called the Arbor Christmas Show. It's inspired by "the old Christmas TV specials that had the celebrity host "at home" and all of their celebrity friends would stop by and hang out and maybe perform a song." The songs have been amazing year after year, so I wanted to share my top 12. But feel free to explore for yourself! All of the compilations are available for downloaded/stream at http://www.arborchristmas.com.
Day 4: Christmas Is Here (Right When We Need It To Be) by Santa's Little Helper
Santa's Little Helper is one of the bands that get together just for the yearly Christmas show. Led by Mike Maier (one of the writers of the show), they'll usually close out the night with a live performance of their song. And since the songs usually directly coincide with the story, it's always really cool to have their songs as a memory of all of the live shows. This one goes all the way back to 2007.
I would suggest Rory's Story Cubes as a gift for anybody on your list. It's a set of nine dice with images on each side. The images range from environments (bridge, earth, tree, pyramid) to items (cell phone, flower, fish) and much more (key hole, little baby with a shadow that looks like a goblin, a question mark, etc). Some are vague enough that they can be a few different things, depending on the player.
You can do whatever you want with these dice. Most commonly, people will make up stories. Starting with "Once Upon A Time..." you roll the dice and continue the story. My 4 year old daughter plays with them, and my gaming group (ages 18-50) plays with them. They sell for around $7-9 US, and can be found in Walmart, game stores, and even in our Wegmans grocery stores. You can also buy them online at http://www.storycubes.com.
The older versions come in a little box that seals magnetically, and the newer version (seen above) has bigger dice and comes with a cool carrying bag. I have two copies already (one for home and I keep the other in my car for emergencies), but I'll be buying one of the new versions for my daughter's stocking, so she can have her own. She will usually roll the dice, tell a story, and then start over. The second time around she will change all of her rolls so they match the first rolls and then tell the same story all over again.
Click through the jump for the quick rules for our Story Cubes variant called Directors Cut.
The LEGO THE LORD OF THE RINGS collection will translate into LEGO form the epic locations, scenes and characters of Middle-earth as depicted in all three films, including The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
In late 2012, LEGO THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY will give fans of all ages a chance to build and play out the fantastical story and new characters of the legendary Middle-earth adventures depicted in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journeyfrom Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson, slated to premiere December 14, 2012.
So, what are your dream Lord Of The Rings Lego sets?
I am most excited about one word in the paragraphs above.. LOCATIONS. I want Hobbit houses, Moria, Helm's Deep. The Prancing Pony Inn. All of Rivendell. Shelob's lair and Shelob, and Treebeard and Balrog... THE MOUTH OF SAURON.
There will be a goddamn Gollum minifigure. I can't take this excitement.
