Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Titanic II: An Appropriate Title


















Back cover blurb: On the 100th anniversary of the original voyage, a modern luxury liner christened "TITANIC II", follows the path of its namesake. But when a tsunami hurls an iceberg into the new ship's path, the passengers and crew must fight to avoid a similar fate. 

Oh man, I was at Blockbuster the other night just skimming some titles when this straight-to-dvd beauty caught my eye. I started laughing out loud when I read the back cover. Ok OK! Let me just walk you through the logic of my back-of-the-video-store-hysterics. I don't know much about the sea-faring business, but I do know that they're a rowdy and superstitious bunch. For example sailors think having a woman on board is a bad luck good luck if she's naked, that's why so many Victorian era ships have a figure of a naked woman on the bow. Bananas are supposed to be a sign of disaster because in the early 1700s almost every documented ship carrying bananas as cargo sank (which is ironic since bananas float). There are a bunch of dates you're not supposed to sail at all since they were days of biblical disaster, and there are a bunch of other ones that include stolen pieces of wood, silver coins, dolphins, cutting your hair and nails, and avoiding flat-footed people and red-heads. 

With all of this in mind, I would imagine that the people in the fictional world of this movie would think to avoid naming their ship after the largest maritime disaster of them all! But then of course you don't get to use a sweet tagline like "100 years later, lightning strikes twice". Which is odd since it seems like the majority of their dilemma seems to be that darn tsunami that happened to smash an iceberg right up into them and nothing at all to do with a lighting. And if you were going to put an idiom in your title why wouldn't you pick something like "come hell or high water" or "a bunch of people get together and make bad decisions".  Not only do I love the fact the the fictional people of this movie decided it would be a good idea to name their new ship the "Titanic II", I love that the actual people of this world, responsible for this movie, decided it would be a good idea to name their move, "Titanic II". 

I realize that I've written too much about this and now I need to watch it before I say anything else, which is where my dilemma lies, I have no trouble judging a movie by its front and back cover because I've seen enough movies to know that this practice actually works wonders. My dilemma is that I really don't want to award any more film-makers for bad film-making by renting their work yet I want to watch them to witness the disaster. It can't be a luke-warm disaster though, I have little patience for that, it needs to be full on cringe-worthy embarrassment  like the opening night of the local middle-school thespian performance.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Toyota: Housewife Commercial Ft. Deb Oh

Deb Oh sings for the new Toyota Housewife commercial, the second TV spot for Sponsafier Round 3 campaign, which invites racing fans to design their own NASCAR car.



I love the part when that young girl screams, "you're not my dad!". It brings a little taste of how confusing a time it can be for young children when an iconic race car driver shows up at your doorstep and attempts to woo your mother.



Listen to more of Deb and her new EP at http://deboh.bandcamp.com/album/cold-glory

'Sponsafy' your own car on Toyota's Racing Site at http://www.sponsafier.com/#/home

Northern Lights

My friend Tyler was able to capture some of yesterday morning's northern lights when I could not. I won't exasperate you with any more words. Enjoy the pretty colors!



 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Closeup of Massive Solar Flare

 
Click here to watch the video: 

We've been getting some huge solar flares lately which explains the spectacular northern lights display we had in the valley this morning! I had to get off the highway and and onto an on ramp to watch for a few minutes on my way into Anchorage. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures but I'll keep the memory of those vibrant colors for years to come!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Lawrence Welk Goodness


I caught a few minutes of this yesterday and decided to shoot a couple snippets. This show brings me a homey type of joy. They did a lot of a silly campy things way back then but they did it with plenty of talent. The Lawrence Welk Show airs every Saturday evening just like it did when I was a kid growing up in Alaska and just like so many other kids (apparently elderly folks too?) for the past 40 years.

Grandma Reminisces

My grandma is coming to a wedding with me next week and while we were started on the subject, she asked me how to pronounce the word, "congratulations". It took her a few tries to get over pronouncing it as, "con-graduation" but she laughed with glee when I told her that she had finally gotten it right. She proceeded to tell me about how good an English student she was as a young mother in Korea. One particularly fond memory of her's was when her instructor one day called her up in front of the class, patted her on the back and said something along the lines of, "This young woman sets a table for her children every day and still managed to be the only one to get a hundred on this test. What have the rest of you done with your time?" She told me that she had found time to study while she ate and did other chores and when it came time to take the test, she realized she knew all the answers. At the time she was so poor that she wore an old pair of nylon shoes that had soles that would fall apart at the front, constantly threatening to make her trip or stumble but only just. She'd sew them back together to remedy the problem so as to walk another day. Eventually she had to stop going to school because she had to take care of her sick mother-in-law who loved her like she was her own daughter. Grandmother ends this story with, "but, oh, how good I could have been!". 

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A Face Fit to Advertise

I was at Fred Meyer today looking for a Bug's Life when I spotted this DVD with this dashing gentleman on it:

I haven't seen The Tailor of Panama, though I remember hearing about it when it first came out. So why then, did it look so very familiar? Yes, I have seen every James Bond flick except A License to Kill ( which I WILL find someday, watch and then be able to tell everyone I've seen them all!) but that wasn't it. There was something else... something even closer... and then it came to me!
The Thomas Crown Affair! Oh man, I was so proud of myself when I walked over to the T section and found this little number. It's almost the exact same image, with the exact same expression and formatted in the exact same manner with similar colors and tones as the other. Keep in mind that these two movies are in no way related or sequels/prequels of each other. Here's one more cover, although it's not quite a spitting image of the others it still has ol' Brosnan with the right half his face darkened. 
So good!

Now, for your viewing pleasure, here they are all lined up: