Today’s listen to this an 80’s cover by a man who ironically does one of the best 80’s superstar impressions. Miles Fisher who many of you probably know as Tom Cruise in Superhero Movie (that clip can be seen here) or in Mad Men, is actually a great singer, and his cover of Talking Heads – This is The Place is catchy as hell and I guarantee even if you don’t like it first listen.. it will stick in your head.
Slashfilm ran a piece about Fisher not too long ago praising him as the best Tom Cruise impressionist ever, I hope he can losethe stereotype though because he is a talented artist.
Here is the song:
Miles Fisher – This Must Be The Place
And here is the brilliant video, Miles Fisher as Christian Bale who is impersonating Tom Cruise in a parody of American Psycho.
I saw This Is It last night which I will be reviewing soon, but before the film played there was a new trailer for Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic tale, 2012. While watching the trailer the hair on the back of my neck stood up.. not because it was amazingly good, but because it was horribly embarrassing. The trailer has one of the most ill suited musical compositions I have ever heard. The song is Time for Miracles by Adam Lambert (of american idol fame), which on it’s own may be a decent song, but given the prior marketing for 2012 it just does not flow at all, you can’t suddenly change your marketing tactic and expect everyone to stay on board, I for one have jumped ship on 2012 after seeing this. The video is coupled with Lambert talking BS about the song, the theatrical version does not include the interview scenes.
The worst part is, it doesn’t even show any new footage aside from the cliche title scenes. What was once portrayed as a disaster movie is now being marketed as a human triumph struggle? Get over it, we wanna see stuff blow up.
This recent internet social media revolution has got me thinking about what it must be like to be a kid discovering the internet now.. I was 10 or 11 when I first discovered 56kbps, and it was magical. I remember the first thing I downloaded – ICQ. It took over 30 minutes for a 3mb file, and that felt normal. I remember the first time a banner popped up on my screen stating I was the 1 millionth visitor and I had won a trip to Disney Land, I got excited and told my mom! At that age spam was nothing more than dog food for humans. ICQ was the shit in grade 5, little did we know we were part of a fundamental turning point in communication. ICQ was the birth of instant messaging in my generation, and the parallels to todays technology are astounding. ICQ used a pin system similar to the new BB messenger, it was a 9 digit pin that was impossible to remember, we would hand them around on sticky notes and hope we didn’t lose them on the way home. Looking back.. it was the beginning of the end for personal contact. Instead of hanging out after school playing and having fun, we would rush home so we could chat it up online. I am not saying I regret my childhood because of the internet, but it shaped my personality in more ways than any other factor. I love the internet, and I love social media – but I also have a phobia of making extremely important phone calls, I deny calls from friends and then proceed to txt back asking what they needed. I feel scared without the buffer of being able to wait to hit send.. the ability to think about what you’re saying multiple times before making it fact. Ask any of my friends and they will tell you I can bullshit the best of them, but it doesn’t mean I am not afraid too. I firmly believe that if I wasn’t so dependent on the internet in those early years, I would be a much more confident speaker.
This brings me to my point.. at what age should children be allowed to communicate on the internet? I have a 6-year-old brother that just learned to read the word Cat, but somehow he can google search his favorite show Bakugon without any aid. This isn’t right, this generation will be even more affected than mine. Cell phones were not used for texting until I was in high school, they were used for emergencies, but at the daycare I used to work for, 7 and 8 year olds would ask me for my number so they could txt if they were going to be late. You can’t call me biased either, because I am the first person to jump onto a new social platform (iPhone, Google Wave etc), but I am scared for this generation, and deep down I think I am afraid of what our society may become. Our PC, cell phone, laptop.. these are our surrogates, we hide behind them every day, dreading the time we have to “un-mask” ourselves. Be it meeting’s via webcam, seeing family over Skype, it really is the death of human relationships.
I mean Is a friend on the internet truly a friend? Are they someone who has your back when the kid’s tease you at school? Someone that will be there for you when your life gets tough? Ask yourself that question when you browse your contact list. Try this experiment; Look at your Facebook friend list, count how many of them you have seen in person in the last year, some people could count them on one hand out of hundreds of “friends”. My girlfriend met a girl on MySpace years ago, and they talk to each other daily, she only lives 30 minutes away but they have only seen each other 3 or 4 times in person, and when they do my girlfriend calls the encounters “awkward and weird”, apparently they have nothing to talk about. In reality it’s because that buffer is gone, your no longer looking at a display picture, you’re looking at a real person with all the flaws, and all the human characteristics of a real personality.
Do not get the idea that I have given up on humanity’s capacity to have true emotional relationships, but if we do not act quickly they will diminish, and they have diminished. How can we act? Limit your online activity, even something as simple as asking your friend to go for a coffee when you see them at work or at school is enough. Do not let you children who are at an age of discovery spend hours on the computer, monitor what they are doing, they will get mad, and they will not like you for it, but trust me they will benefit from it. I know I would have.
We are reaching the pinnacle of online social platforms, each one trying to mimic real world confrontations, but at what point did we decide the real thing wasn’t good enough? You can call it irony that it I had to use a blog to convey my emotions on this subject matter, hell you could even say I am an enabler, and although depressing it does show one of the benefits of social media, the ability to share an idea with millions of people simply by pressing publish. Where’s the danger in that?
SPOILER WARNING! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN PARANORMAL ACTIVITY DO NOT CONTINUE READING!
So we all know the story about Oren Peli’s road to hollywood, and how Dreamworks originally wanted to re-shoot PA as a big budget glossy flick, but after seeing how well it was screening they decided to keep at as is, except for one thing… the ending. Dreamworks had Peli re-shoot the ending to be more “crowd pleasing” and in tune with Hollywoods obession with BOO! style scares. In the theatrical ending, Katie is compelled to go downstairs, and out of view she begins screaming hysterically, Michah awakens runs down stairs and we assume she stabs him to death, because after some time passes Katie re-appears holding Micah and she throws him directly at the camera, Katie who is covered in blood walks toward the camera sniffs Micha and swipes at the camera. Its a fairly terrifying scene, and one the sticks in my mind. I liked the ending I thought it was a highlight of the film, but it wasn’t what Oren Peli originally filmed.
According to Peli there are two alternate endings, one which you can see below involving the police, and another in which after killing Micah downstairs, Katie walks towards the camera and slits her own throat. Between the two of them I prefer the throat slitting, that would of been quite disturbing. Anyways check out the ending that has surfaced online, I really don’t like it, the creepiest part is just how she doesn’t stop rocking back and forth – but tell me what you think.
NOTE ALL VIDEOS OF THE ALTERNATE ENDING HAVE BEEN REMOVED BY THE STUDIO.. AS SOON AS ONE BECOMES AVAILABLE I WILL POST IT. THANKS!
I have recently become fascinated by Craigslist’s “best of” section, I know a lot of it is fake, but as a means of keeping me entertained (which doesn’t take much) I love it. I just found this cartoon a young man named “Brian” posted outlining his failures with women, and the social hurdles he tries to overcome daily. It reminded me of my myself a few years ago and it really struck a chord for me, I think it’s quite inspiring because I know a lot of guys/girls that have this exact mentality, but just know there is always light at the end of the tunnel.. unless your Ryan Seacrest or Nancy Grace – you both deserve to be alone forever.
Anyways here is the cartoon, and next time you see that potential fling life partner.. think of Brian.
I’ve discovered something amazing. I can blog whilst taking a shit.
Now my mornings have more meaning and purpose other than a time to cleanse myself (and my colon). Ew I know.. but do thoughts and opinions loose value if you know they were said by somebody who stated them while creating sewage waste? I don’t know, but we will find out. Thanks to wordpress for iPhone I can blog pretty much anywhere now which is awesome, I plan to use this feature to the fullest as I am not always at a computer.
Universal have released a new The Wolfman trailer which starts Benicio Del Toro and the great Anthony Hopkins, it’s been up for a couple days now and I’ve been watching the Internet comments about it and thus I have to come to a conclusion, movie studios are finally starting to realize just how important music selection is in trailers. The only problem is Universal clearly ripped of Marilyn Manson and Mark Wahlberg at the same time, a feat only Matt Damon could pull off.
How you may ask? I will show you, below you will see the trailer for Mark Wahlberg’s 2008 flop Max Payne, now while watching take notes on the music and its pacing.
Now watch the new Wolfman trailer and you will instantly notice the music/pacing similarities.
Now let’s just hope the Wolfman doesn’t have the same fate as Max, a good trailer that led to a crappy movie.
i am patman! 