New Screenshots

Drove into Waltham with Richie today and finally bought the goddamn fake blood I've been meaning to buy for the last month as well as Ex Machina volume 4. Very productive trip.

Trailer won't be out for probably about a week. Sorry about the wait. We're waiting on a sound effects cd. Hopefully these new screen shots will help you pass the time.

Sometimes That's All You Need

Finished Y the Last Man. God, oh God... What an ending. What a series. I was hoping it would be happier, but in a strange way, it was fitting. I loved every page, every panel, every picture of it. A truly masterful work of literature, one for the ages. Does that sound overly dramatic? Its not. Read it and you'll see.

Started Watchmen as well. Not as good as Y but still very good. Much better than V For Vendetta, that's for sure.

Nickelback Sucks.

New trailer is almost ready. Yay, I guess.

Watched the Power Rangers movie today. Freaking epic.

Drove back at around midnight. How You Remind Me by generic and annoying rock band Nickleback came on. I had a flashback. Not one of those good ones that you see in cartoons, no. I had this really vivid memory of putting the lyrics of that stupid song into my aim profile after a girl turned me down. I can't even begin to tell you how embarrassed that made me. Seriously, read this and you'll see why. These are the actual word-for-word lyrics I used:

It's not like you didn't know that
I said I love you and I swear I still do
And it must have been so bad
Cause living with me must have damn near killed you

And this is how, you remind me
Of what I really am
This is how, you remind me
Of what I really am

It's not like you to say sorry
I was waiting on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
for handing you a heart worth breaking
and I've been wrong, i've been down,
been to the bottom of every bottle
these five words in my head
scream "are we having fun yet?"

Why the hell did I wonder why I was turned down? Kids, listen and listen well. Girls don't like lame guys. Girls don't like pussies. If you ask a girl out, and after being turned down post this where all of your friends can see it, it won't help your odds. At all. Like, she might've thought to herself for a second:

"Did I make the right call there? Yeah, Eddie is white and kind of a huge douche, but he's really nice to me and he's cute, so I'll give him a chance."

But then, just as she was going to tell me this, she reads my profile and changes her thoughts to:

"Oh fuck, this kid has terrible taste in music. And these lyrics indicate that he is a massive pussy. I am changing my mind"

That is probably what happened.

Even though its years later, thinking about something like that makes me want to build some kind of a time machine and go back and beat the shit out of my younger self for being such and angsty, loud-mouthed bitch. Then I'd beat up all of my friends who for some reason put up with me and never said "Hey Eddie, you're acting like a total pussy... Stop".

Their past selves would probably say something stupid like "What the hell, sexy and approachable Eddie from the future. Why'd you kick my ass." I'd assure them that in a few years they'd thank me. Then my flux capacitator would break and I would be stranded in the year 2003.

In retrospect, I haven't really changed that much from a superficial perspective. Only instead of Nickleback, I listen to The Killers. And instead of putting lyrics in my profile when a girl rejects me, I kick her in the face.

I am the best role model ever.

The Great American Salad Bowl Sounds Really Gay

Before you read this, you’ve gotta understand that I don’t intend to offend anyone. Race is a touchy subject for everyone, but once in a while, you hear or see something that makes you think "How can people be so fucking stupid about such an inconsequential thing?" And its with that apology that we’ll start. Enough of this crap.

I was given this magazine at orientation called "RealizASIAN" (get it) and in this magazine was an article about how Asian men are viewed in the media. So I read it and was kind of confused. The article reads:

"Asian Men are often portrayed as feminine, weak, and introvert. Too frequently, Asian men are portrayed as not being able to speak English, the immigrant with the strong accent, the "silent kung fu" master or the evil "fu manchu" monster. Even the Kung Fu master which may appear to be a positive role, relegates actors into a emasculated exotic Asian (not Asian American male) role who never gets the girl"

All right, now first of all I'm pretty sure this guy has never seen a Jet Li movie. Or a Bruce Lee movie, for that matter. Or even a freaking Jackie Chan movie. If he had, he'd have realized that those stereotypes have more or less been crushed. Lets take the movie "War" for instance, the most recent Jet Li movie I've seen. It features Li as quite possibly the biggest badass ever and Mighty Whitey Jason Statham as his sexy counterpart. The movie features Li happily married with a beautiful Asian wife and adorable daughter. Then they get murdered and he spends most of the movie kicking the shit out of everyone who looks at him funny and getting revenge. Now you might say "wait just a second! That's one movie. The majority of the time, Asian men are weak and effeminate." Well guess what, that's basically the premise of all of his movies. Romeo Must Die even ends with Jet Li and Aaliyah together. Never getting the girl, my ass!

And lets not forget Bruce Lee. In Enter the Dragon, the badass black guy who was banging no less than seven girls at once gets killed by the main bad guy. Bruce on the other hand, nails the chick and kills the bad guy. It should be worth noting that Bruce Lee is the epitome of manly. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruse may be sex symbols, but Asian action stars are basically just testosterone in human form.

As for the thing about Asians who can't speak English, or being portrayed as the "delivery boy". How many people have ordered out Chinese food? You know how you know if the restaurant is going to be terrible? The person who takes your order is white. I'm worried when my waiter doesn't have an accent. I don't even see how that qualifies as something negative. If anything its accurate. I have plenty of Asian friends who's parents are from another country. They speak decent enough English, but at home they speak whatever their native language is. That doesn't just go for Asian friends. It goes for the Russians and the Serbians and any other ethnic family you can think of. Its the way things are, quit bitching about it.

I'm curious what he means by "Fu-Manchu" villain. Does this mean that any Asian villain is a Fu Manchu? What does he consider the slimy accountant Lao, from the new Batman movie? Is this villain a Fu-Manchu? Seriously, are the only movies that this guy has ever seen pre-1960?

I tried imagining the guy who wrote this crap. I came up with this: Age 20, 1.5 Generation Asian-American. Virgin. Has mostly Asian friends and is a giant, whiny pussy who is just looking for an excuse for why he can't find a girlfriend. I can't think of any other reason for him to be writing this when its just not the case.

Anyway, moving on in the article, I started reading about Asian female stereotypes.

"Asian/Asian American women have been portrayed in the media as aggressive sexual beings. Western film and literature has promoted hyper sexualized stereotypes of Asian women as cunning "Dragon Ladies", as servile "Lotus Blossom", "China Dolls", "Geisha Girls", "War Brides" or "Prostitutes.""

I love the slang this guy uses. "Dragon Ladies"... That's a new one. What the fuck is a "Lotus Blossom"? This guy must not like David Bowie too much...

I think I figured out the problem with this guy. He doesn't watch any mainstream films. In fact the only movies he watches are pornos. It would explain a lot. Like the reason he somehow thinks Asian men are only shown as effeminate or that Asian women are hyper sexual. Yeah, in porn this is definitely the case, but that's only because porn is made to please the majority, and the majority of the United States is not Asian. They go with the most common dick color so that more of the viewers can relate to the owner of said dick... Or something like that. Since porn is entirely fantasy, it goes without saying that the Asian girls are either going to be these super filthy temptresses or these docile girls. Its like that for any girl of any nationality in them. Its about turning people on, not meaningful cinema.

I watch a lot of movies, and I find that Asian girls are very, very physically attractive so when I see them on screen, I tend to remember their parts. All this docile and overly sexual crap, I just don't understand. Take Kill Bill for instance. Lucy Liu's character is a total badass. She is Uma Thurman's most worth opponent. She uses her sexuality once to get the jump on the mob boss who killed her parents, but she was 12 years old at the time and the mob boss just happened to be a pedophile. Yeah, that's a real "Dragon Lady" right there.

Even her henchwoman Go-Go, who constantly dresses like a school girl doesn't really fit into the category. In her opening scene, she asks a creepy old man if he wants to screw her. When he says yes, she immediately impales him and tears open his stomach. Nothing subtle about it, nothing sexy. She was just drunk and sadistic. Later on she pounds Uma Thurman's pretty hard. With a mace.

I'm not saying that every movie is going to have Asian women in strong roles. The same goes for men too. The point is that for every movie with a negative stereotype, another one can be found with more positive aspects. And lets face it, everyone gets their share of stereotypes in movies. It doesn't matter what race, religion or gender you are, its gonna happen.

The name of the magazine, as previously stated is "RealizASIAN", so its pretty obvious who the audience is. I really can't stand stuff like this. Groups that are based entirely off race. I understand the appeal. Its your own culture so its only natural to gravitate towards the familiar. The thing I don't like about it is how much it goes against what I was raised to believe and I guess what I consider to be the "American Way".

There's a song from School House Rock called "The Great American Melting Pot" that my 7th grade social studies teacher played to our class. Its a real term that describes how Americans are essentially a blending of every culture. I think that's the way it should be. If we all simply take everyone and indiscriminately thrust them together, its a lot easier to accept their difference. My teacher disagreed. He thought that rather than a melting pot, it should be "The Great American Salad Bowl", every culture is still together, but they all keep their individual shapes and forms. Aside from sounding incredibly lame, its also not a very good concept. The reason for this is that we are Americans. America was founded by basically, Europe's rejects. Some of them were English, some of them were French, some of them were Irish, etc etc. The point is, that they gave up their culture when they came to the United States.

My Grandfather moved here in the 1920s from Vienna. After about ten years, he settled down with an American girl, had two kids and eventually retired very happy. He kept some things from the old country, but for the most part he was absorbed into the American culture. He never forbid his daughter from dating non-Jews, and he had a great deal of non-European friends. He certainly never based his opinion of someone based on their native origin.

We have freedom of speech in the States, which is why a magazine like this one can exist. It seems sort of like biting the hand that feeds you though. For the most part all of these kids were either born in America or moved to America at a young enough age that they were educated here. Rather than becoming part of the society, they self segregate by surrounding themselves with only those of a similar backgrounds and bitch and moan about how everyone perceives them a certain way, never really dealing with other races on a personal level and ignoring the fact that everyone is stereotyped inaccurately, especially in film, no exceptions. Its not just Asians. I know plenty of Jews like this and I'm sure its true for everyone that gets such a large part of their identity from something as trivial as race.

The Great American Melting Pot was a good idea because it supports mixing it up. If you go with the Salad Bowl idea, it really defeats the whole premise of America and the term "United We Stand" because that isn't unity. Its self regulated segregation. Rather than have a magazine that's specifically for Asians, or whatever the race, I'd rather see something broader and vague. Just take one big-ass magazine and entitle it "It sucks getting stereotyped in the media and here's why: A magazine for everyone".

And So We Wait

Dan's nose is quite broken. He may or may not need surgery. As a result of this and Kevin leaving the 13th, we may be a little screwed. Not to worry though. We're definitely finishing this thing. It just may take awhile.

So aside from this little disaster, it was a good weekend. Not that I really noticed it was the weekend what with not having a job and all. Started working on the new trailer. The new editing software is good, but a bitch and a half to learn. Should be done eventually though. Saw The Dark Knight again. Won't spoiler anything. Aaron Eckhart was just as good as Heath Ledger though. Show stopping. Brilliant. Its really one of those movies that comes out once every ten years that will go down in history as utterly fantastic. Like the Godfather or Silence of the Lambs. Yeah, that good. Will probably see it again.

I'm desperately trying to think of something else to write about here, but the truth is, my life is extremely boring right now. I love it.

Stunt Gone Horribly Wrong.

So Dan might've broken his nose.
And he might need facial reconstructive surgery.
Crap.

In other news, the new trailer will be out soon.

And The Dark Knight was really, really good.

Quick Movies

Hellboy II was really good. The Machinist was basically a lame Fight Club with a better ending.

Jackpot

Holy shit, I found Pokemon Silver. And some old crazy bones. And some legos.

Can't Let You Do That Star Fox!

Rob left a few days ago. Haven't really done much since, aside from get my phone ruined and act like a raging douche bag to telemarketers. Yeah, dropped it in a pool. It didn't work at all, so I took out the memory card and put it in my old phone, the one I used in high school. Works great, now I just need to find a charger.

Saw Hancock. First half hour was great. The rest was shit.
Wanted was better. Will probably see Hellboy II soon.
Still don't have a job. Haven't filmed in a while either. Being productive is overrated.

In 4th grade, I got an N64, two controller and two games of my choice. At the time, this was the greatest birthday present ever. The games I picked were Star Fox 64 and Wayne Gretsky's 3d hockey. Both were excellent, but Wayne Gretsky's 3d hockey was only good multiplayer. As a result, I played a lot of Star Fox. This got to the point that I was literally play the single player mode 5 times a week just because I had nothing better to do. Where were my parents? Lets just say without them, I never would've stopped. That's how much I loved this game. Hell, I can quote practically every level of it. Its both scary and pathetic at the same time.

The other day, Steff was over and in our immense collective boredom, we decided to pull out my N64. Initially we were going to play some Mario Kart, but I couldn't find the fucking cartridge anywhere so I popped in Star Fox. She plays the first level, dies twice, then finally kills the boss. This is the easy route boss mind you. The one with the AT-ST looking thing with the oh-so-explodable legs. While she managed to save Falco from getting shot down, she somehow didn't fly through all the arches so she couldn't fly through the waterfall since Falco didn't find it necessary to one up Fox by "finding the target". Anyway, I played through the asteroid belt, and somehow missed the warp before easily killing the boss. We took turns going through it up until Macbeth, the tank level with the huge-ass train and the incredibly queer southern sounding boss that never shuts up. At that point I turned into a douche and insisted on finishing it up. To make a long story short, the game time with Steff playing a few levels was about fifty minutes. After walking her back, I immediately got back on the console and did the quickest route I knew of. Forty minutes. Back in 6th grade I could play through it in half and hour. So I tried it again. Forty five minutes. Fuck. Finally, on my forth play through of the night, I got 32:16 for my time. It was three in the morning at this point so I rounded down and called it a night. Star Fox is serious business.

...
...
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Fuck. I need to get out more. This is getting fucking ridiculous.

Livin' On A Prayer

Half way done with the movie. Filming should end in early September. Victor's in Russia, which kind of puts a damper on some of the stuff, but its all good. Shot the rest of Rob's scenes today. Its pretty universally agreed that this has already vastly outperformed its predisesor.
Tomorrow/Today (technically) is the forth of July. Hopefully, there'll be a few people in Acton around this time. And no thunderstorms like we've been getting all damn week.

I Lied. There is Only Filming.

Hung out with Rob all yesterday/today. I'm really gonna miss him.
Have to wake up super early tomorrow to talk to school officials to set up filming in the high school for Thursday.
I also have a blister on me finger.