Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving

So I intended to go on here and write a ridiculous satire about the first Thanksgiving full of date raping and murder of Indians during the meal; but I decided it's time for a sentimental post/rant.

Am I about to post my list of things I'm thankful for? What's the point? I've realized that while I'll celebrate Thanksgiving for the awesome food, I refuse to say what I'm thankful for; specificially in print on a blog, twitter account or facebook. It's all the same stuff every year, friends, family, job, money, future.

Yes, while things like Geekscape or having any job, family and friend is something that I can, could, would, should be thankful, why set a day apart from the rest for giving thanks? I'm thankful for all my friends and family; but I think we should be letting these people know how thankful with them EVERY DAY!

So fuck being thankful; just eat the shit out of some Turkey

I close with my favorite movie moment from my favorite Thanksgiving movie

Monday, November 22, 2010

Impossibly Bad Movies That I Love

Every once and a while I will watch a movie and I know it's bad. Critics hate it; most sensible people hate it; these films are so bad that they don't even have "ironic" cult followings, they're just generally considered garbage by any and everyone. But I have them on DVD without shame. Not shockingly they're all Horror movies; I want to draw attention to a five of these films:

American Psycho 2 - American Psycho is a brilliant novel by Bret Easton Ellis; despite the fact that director and writer of the film adaptation completely missed the point of the novel they were able to make a really good horror/thriller. *SPOILERS GALORE HERE* The Book implies that the murders all take place inside Patrick Bateman's head. The writer/director believes that Bateman DID murder the people but still left it slightly open-ended so if you wanted to, you could decide that he made it all up in his head. However this sequel tells the story about how a 10 year old girl managed to escape and murder Patrick Bateman when he was trying to kill her and her babysitter. *SPOILERS OVER* Now we follow this girl (Mila Kunos) as she murders most of her class mates in order to be the Teaching Assistant for her professor (Wiilliam Shatner). The film is complete garbage but I've watched this pile of shit at least 10 times; Is it William Shatner's over-acting? Mila Kunos Hot body? It's possible, it's certainly not for the script-writing or cinematography.

An American Werewolf in Paris - I can defend this pseduo-remake/sequel. It was one of the first horror movies I ever saw (just behind Frightners & Scream). I love this movie despite knowing it could have been even better. Tom Stern (writer/director of Freaked, the most under-appreciated movie of all time) was originally lined up to write and direct the film as a tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy, however after Fox hated Freaked he was fired from the film. To add insult to injury they still listed him as the writer of this movie despite not a single line of his original dialogue appearing in script. The film now shamelessly tries to be OVERLY extreme with "Bungee-Jumping" off the Effiel Tower (done extremely straight). Regardless I find the film charming and the characters extremely likable and it remains in my top 100 favorite films of all time despite all it's flaws.

Black X-mas - This movie should have been the worst remake of all time; but it's not. It is a remake of Black Christmas, one of the original slasher films (John Carpenter's Halloween was originally conceived as a sequel to it). The remake does a lot more wrong than it does right, but I think people had too high expectations for this film. I'd love to sit down and talk to the writers and director. I sincerely believe the film went the Sleepaway Camp route and aimed to just make the most over-the-top and bizarre death scenes ever. This is a film were a man gets stabbed to death by a Candy cane, another person decapitated by a Ice-Skate. Our killers origin story involves killing his family and cutting them into cookies and baking them. Stupid? Dumb? Yes, maybe... but I can't remember many other times I had more fun watching a movie in a theater (yes I saw this in theaters)

Dead Silence - There's not much to say about this one. I hate the Saw movies so I expected this film to be awful. Regardless I enjoyed it, I loved the completely ridiculous and impossible twist ending and let's face it...ventriloquist dummies are terrifying. I will say that this movie doesn't come close to being as great as Magic.

Jaws 3 - This is not me defending this film because it's still better than Jaws: The Revenge. This is me sincerely defending a movie considered one of the worst of all time. When I was a kid, my cousin and I used to spend a week at my grandfather's house. We'd play outside and at night watch movies. It was here that I discovered some of my favorite movies (including Alligator and the previously mentioned Freaked) but every single summer we'd watch the entire Jaws series, I learned to love the movies crap-tacular charm (yes even in Revenge), every single time I watch this movie I desperately wish that I could see the film in 3-D as it was filmed to be seen.

So I've said my peace, I don't expect any of my readers will jump to my defense on these films and I don't blame them. Regardless I still love these movies.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Yay Griffindor Knight!

After some terrible days at work and lots of stress I finally got to cut loose, foot loose; in fact I even kicked off sunday shoes. The weekend started off with me immediately going to catch an early showing of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 1 which is both my favorite Harry Potter movie and the one I think followed the book the closest (which isn't really saying much really) with Ed. After the party I discovered Geekscape published my article about Harry Potter Fandom (which you should totally read).


After the movie Ed and I met up with Mark, Lauralie and TP in order to get some Applebees; afterwards we went to Lauralie's house with Shrop and played some board games. To write about anything that was funny that night would be to example a lot of inside jokes. So I'll just post this picture from the night of TP




Today I was able to cross another thing off my list of my bucket list which was going to Medieval times. We got the Red/Yellow knight whom we (that is Ed, Shrop and I) referred to as the Gryffindor Knight (yes I know the ACTUAL colors are Gold and Scarlet but close enough).

It was a great and fun exciting GeekEnd.

In more news of awesome I only have 3 days of work this week and then a 4 day weekend (thank you Pilgrims for mercilessly murdering Indians).

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Matt Kelly IM Greatest Hits #1

Angela: yea i have to meet with my group for a project soon

Matt Kelly: whats the project on?

Angela: international business. Introducing a product to japan

Matt Kelly: how about the Fork?

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Return of the Saint Mort Show?

A few years ago I used to do my own podcast/call in radio show called the Saint Mort Show. We had a small but loyal fan-base and were much more vulgar than blogtalkradio was prepared for eventually having to make our show "Adults Only" which made it much harder for people to discover. Despite having up to 300 listens a week (which is admittedly nothing, but it was 298 more people than we expected) the show ended after just 11 episodes.

I'm proud to announce however is that in January when Power Down Productions is up and running I'll be bringing back the Saint Mort Show... sort of. It will have the regulars like Shrop and Graham and the same name but it won't be anything alike beyond that. If anything it'll be a little bit like the Pod F Thompkast, except more "variety-show"-ish.

Before the Saint Mort Show I used to do Below the Radar radio; the new Saint Mort Show will be a combination of both of those shows; Sketches, segments, interviews and musical guests. It'll be a monthly podcast, what I need/require are people who have things to promote/get interviewed and bands/musicians who would want to do an acoustic song/interview.

Hit me up and let me know who's interested and I can start scheduling recordings.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Mix for the Month of October (roughly 7 days late)

This is the mix for October; as noted in my last entry I haven't posted in a while: Some Stand-Out Tracks on this album include:

My Body's a Zombie for You - Dead Man Bones & Nightmare on My Street - DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince in honor of Halloween. Unlike songs like Monster Mash; both of these songs are enjoyable all year round. Specifically My Body's a Zombie for you which might be the ultimate horror love song. Fun fact if you don't know the band is actor Ryan Gosling and Flea's (of RHCP) Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir.

Passing Me By - Pharcyde is hip-hop at it's best. There's no bragging or boasting or gangster cliches, it's a song about failing at love that is 100% real, authentic and relatable.

Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants - This song is now 2 decades old and it's still one of the catchiest pop songs of all time (definitely one of the top 10 of the 90's)

Heart Songs - Weezer - People complain about Weezer post-Pinkerton but this track off the Red Album is one of their best; I love how relatable it is. The song is the ultimate love song to music lovers.

Love Hurts - Everly Brothers - While not the best known version of this song; this is the best version, hands down, if you disagree... you're wrong.

Full Track List:
1. Dear Friends - Queen
2. Ms. Jackson - Outkast
3. Sneakin' Up On You - The Fu-Schnickens
4. Waiting for the Bus - Violent Femmes
5. Revenge of the Nerds (f/Pigeon John) - KJ-52
6. My Body's a Zombie for You - Dead Man Bones
7. Passing Me By - Pharcyde
8. Louisiana 1927 - Randy Newman
9. Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
10. Heart Songs - Weezer
11. A Rising Tide - Fivepie
12. Vivian - Nerf Herder
13. Carry you - All
14. I Like the Way This is Going - Eels
15. Sea Monsters & Gargoyles - Soul-Junk
16. Airplanes Part 2 (f/Haley Williams & Eminem) - B.O.B.
17. Love Hurts - Everly Brothers
18. Nightmare on My Street - DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince
19. Awake - Letters to Cleo
20. Uncontrollable Urge - Devo
21. Fireworks - Drake
22. Good Old Days - "Weird Al" Yankovic

To Download use MediaFire

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Where have I been?

It's been a while since I've updated, my apologizes. There's a few things I wish to cover so this will be a pretty long blog.

PART 1: MOVING TO LA

A few months ago I posted a bucket list of 15 things I wanted to do before I left for LA in January. Well among other things, the trip has been pushed back to July. This is what I've accomplished so far:

1. Big Birthday Bash with Friends
My birthday was a few weeks ago. Friends came over, we watched movies and ate food and just hung out in general, it was a good time.

5. Risk Night with whoever wants to come
I wrote about Risk night, it was a good time despite a small amount of people attending

6. Get powerdownproductions.com looking like a website
While the site is still in the works, we currently have our logo and our "under construction" sign, take a peek for yourself!

7. Start pre-recording Celluloid Freaks
We plan to release the first episode of Celluloid Freaks Thanksgiving weekend. Chris has pre-recorded 5 episodes already and I'm sure he's going to continue the show going for months and years to come. I'm extremely happy to have him as part of the Power Down Productions family.

11. Get People from my D&D group to play Munchkin for a Night
Like Risk Night this was a small attendance but non the less was a good time. Sadly D&D is no more (for now) I'll discuss that more in a bit

12. Have an all night horror movie marathon on Halloween Night
I decided to have this the night PRIOR to Halloween. It was a good time. if you follow me on twitter then you saw my #TrickOrTweet posts.


PART 2: D&D NO MORE?

My D&D campaign has recently ended. Our Dungeon Master has given up on DMing. I understand his decision and am not the least bit angry at him, but i've decided to purchase a dungeon master guide and giving DMing a shot. I'll keep updated as this develops

PART 3: THE SITE AND THE FUTURE


As you know I haven't had any new videos or anything for quite a while. I'm working to get the power down productions site completely up and operational by January 1st. We will be producing 3 podcasts (2 weekly and one Monthly) Celluloid Freaks will be the first one, the 2nd one will be Movies and the Munchies (which I'll be a part of in the beginning but eventually phase myself out) and the 3rd will be a monthly show called the Saint Mort Show, I'll talk about this one more in my next blog entry but it will have a "variety/sketch" show type format much like the Pod F Thompkast but definitely not exactly like that particular podcast (which you should all check out).

PART 4: MATT ON THE WEB


There really hasn't been much that I've had published lately but here's a few of them:
Top 10 90's One-Hit Wonders Who Deserve More Credit
Movies You Might Not Know Are Coming: November

I am working on a Harry Potter article for hopefully next week or so though

That's all for tonight, time to take advantage of that extra hour for some extra masturbation (Joke Unintentionally Stolen from Brian Walton)