ranking attempt [Liam]

ALL
1. The Royal Tenenbaums

This movie has great aesthetic style, dry humor and a terrific cast. The narrative style is simple and original in a way that I don't think a lesser movie could replicate without falling flat. The conclusion is heartfelt and sincere for all the deadpan presentation of the story. A combination of these factors make Tenenbaums extremely rewatchable, something that sets it apart from many of the others towards the top of this list.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind


The clarity of execution they achieve in this movie for portraying dream logic and the inner workings of the mind is nothing short of amazing. I dare say just about the best and least intrusive CG I've seen in a movie of late. Jim Carrey is underrated as a serious actor, and I support this, for as long as he stays hungry for respect he's gonna keep acting his living ass off. Great look, engaging and meaningful story. In this movie, love is about the myriad of meaningless details, not big climactic events... it's romance for realistic, cynical people.

3. In the Mood for Love

Aka "Fa yeung nin wa," a romance set in 1962 Hong Kong. Another "unconventional romance," written and assembled largely on the fly by Wong Kar Wai. WKW's artistry really comes out in this film, which though skillfully shot and acted tends to defy summarization or any kind of synopsis. The story doesn't go much of anywhere, but just the same it's told in a way that you don't want it to end. Beatiful aesthetics and lazy pacing.

4. Donnie Darko


I'd call this a coming of age movie for people who usually hate coming of age movies. Gets deep without dragging... Explores themes of death, alienation and self-discovery, and really drives home what kinds of turds you have to deal with growing up (I think everyone wonders once in a while what they would change if they got a second crack at highschool, which in a way is exactly what happens in this movie). Artfully walks a line between science fiction and drama, and sticks some straight classic comedic moments to boot. Also features about the single best-acted "movie family" in human history.

5. Heat

I'd say that one of the things that most defines all of my picks to this point (including Heat) is that in addition to great characters and plot, all of these picks come with a great sense of setting. LA is Michael Mann's house, I don't care where he's actually from. He represents that town like no other in this movie, and it pays off tremendously in terms of credibility and atmosphere. It's a rare thing for a crime/action movie to play it as straight as this one does, and still stay engaging the whole way through (the opposite would be "Italian Job" which flounders and sucks). Powerfully acted, unflinchingly rugged, obsessively researched. As close as I can imagine to the perfect movie of its kind.

6. Saving Private Ryan

I don't even know where to start here. This movie re-wrote the book on the portrayal of combat in film. From this SPR's conception onward, all war movies are unavoidably divided into before and after Ryan. The filters and frame skipping capture perfectly the frenetic nature of the firefights, the cast nails the plurality of American GI's (in a way John Wayne flicks never did) and the overall presentation sets a new standard for a respectful but realistic war tribute.

7. The Usual Suspects
8. Collateral
9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
10. Ronin

ACTION
1. The Killer
2. The Fifth Element
3. Tombstone
4. Die Hard
5. Zatoichi(2003)
6. Bad Boys II
7. Hard Boiled
8. The Rock
9. A Few Dollars More
10. Gladiator



Ok so I already know as soon as I post this, I'm gonna remember some movies I forgot and have to redo the damn thing... consider it a draft. Honestly, I had a much harder time ranking the action movies b/c "quality" is so split between different attributes rather than the overall storytelling experience.

This person is from Union City, I guarantee. (popcorn, garbage bin basketball, cantaloupe popsicle = filipino)

Bay Area Nostalgia

i'm 23, but here's what i remember >>> MANCOW (107.7), JoJo mid-shift, HOTT 97.7, KMEL - DaZOOO CREW (Rick, REne') - oh my god they wuz funny! hollah!Chewy in the afternoons only, that filipino guy and white guy (Ern&Tre-dog?) on "CMC", LA GEAR tennis-shoes with the 2 color wavy slits and laces, Elises and Nike Cortezez, the fuckin Payless brands that for some reason everyone knew about "PRO-WINGS". I remember PotatoSack Hoodies and homemade bead crosses, or those multicolored plastic-straw keychains, those fuckin hella popular jolly-rancher pops (melted jollyranchers over blowpops) that kids would buy and sell. I remember break dancing CREWS, the "world-wars", i remember girls looking fly in the chokers, and baby-doll shirts, dark lipstick, and big belts and baggy cross-color, jean-co jeans and of course that one perfume, i fogot the name, but they were all wearing it. the fellas with the "mongol" or the hella long bangs, but shaved everywhere else, raiders and niner parkas, SAGGING started here... twirling pencils hella much in class and on breaks. i remember lighter shade of brown, TLC with "left-eye", SWV with that one remix or Micheal Jackson's song, we all knew the lyrics... E40 and his UGLY sista'? "ah-shoula-ah-shoula-shoula-SAAAAVEEE Huh? - I wanna be sssaavveed.", fucking biking or walking to the nearest thrifties, or lucky's or fuckin ALPHA BETA (you're hella local if u remember that) - for some ice-cream in the summer, going to the nearest local pizza joint, or liquor store, not for the shit they're selling, but for the whack ass ARCADE, street-fighter and mortal, the one basketball game where their heads get big and the balls catch fire. i remember fuckin.. boyz-II-men, BBD... the eastcoast family, ba-dum-dum-da-da, ba-dum-dum-da-da... ba-ya-ya-ya, ya-ya...yaa-yaaaah... i remember those fuckin car alarms because we hit it with the lightweight wavy twisty NERF football, orange and black... i remember watching those played out movies on KBHK44 or channel 20 when it was still independently owned, with that whack ass old-white-poeple dance show, and that skinny white guy host, or channel 36 tryin to be 44, channel 2 always came out whack when we tried to watch in living color, 7 and 9 were always better reception, fucking TGIF!!! oh my god, i was glued to those fucking 2 hours, immediately followed by 20/20... i remember "G-language", i remember "peace", i remember, "k.i.t.", "f.u.c.k.i.t.", .j.a.p.a.n." - i remember everyone had a cousin or a boyfriend who was a DJ, but none of them could mix well, i remember SLAM BOOKS, i remember the physical fitness test, i remember how fun it was to do the 100 meter dash, or flag football, my school was so ghetto, we played basketball with the garbage bins as the baskets, how everyone hated doing the line-dancing in PE, the fuckin "pop-corn", dun-dun-dun-dun-dunt-dunt-dun... but it was fun making our own routines... i remember graffiti on railroad tracks, i remember AC Slater and Zack Morris and his hella big ol'skool cell phone... i remember my family and my neighbors, i remember warm summer nights eating a frozen cantalope popsicles (whaaa???) - i remember times were better then...

left the phone at home [Liam]

drove to fortune chef by alvarado middle, had a roast duck & roast pork plate. for the record, it's all about eating the animals hanging in the window. there was an old guy there teaching two little girls how to play chess. he was like "you gotta protect the king jenny, you don't want the queen to cry..." which struck me as very sweet and clever and exactly the reason i'm only gonna sub teach 6th grade - 12th grade (I could never talk like that). i then turned around, went home, grabbed the dvd i'd been waiting on burning to return, drove PAST the same restaurant on my way to union landing hollywood video (i'd get yelled at for that if anyone was home, i have by far the lowest dead birds to stones ratio of anyone in my family), took some pictures of these cool cloud banks from the parking lot, searched for a book at border's that they didn't have, then went home.

i hope i'm always going to value the luxury of disposable time.

AIM SAYS: CONFORM [Liam]

ok so i took another crack at making the weirdest icon ever:

and i got it down to 11k... i was like that's unfortunate, still not small enough. (this is, of course, a ridiculous standard) then i go online to see if there's a way to circumvent their oppressive file size standard and see: aol pre-fab SUPERICONS! motherf*cking POLYGON HEADS with 20+ item menus dictating different expressions (WITH SOUND) that you can make them do. THANKS AOL DESIGNERS I HOPE YOU DON'T DIE OF BUBONIC PLAGUE FROM AN INFECTED RAT PENIS. No, not at all.

Woooo-sahhhhhh.... Woooooooo-saahhhhhhhh
(Bad Boys 2 reference)

robbed of raved-out goodness [Liam]

ok, so i made a new buddy icon tonight... realized i've been doing without one for as long as i've had this new comp (about the level of shock as when dane found out he was sporting the tubgirl for his icon, but that's another story).

anyway i decided to do an extreme offensive strobe motif, about my dancing skills. "LBO CAN'T DANCE," unfortunately, weighs in at a hefty 18.9 kb, far too much for AIM to accept. Before I neuter it to fit, here's the original version of my new buddy icon (seizures may occur):

*sniffle* it's... it's so true.

Hi. I'm new here. [matthew]

Hi everyone. I'm the new guy. It's nice to meet you..................................

So the other day I woke up covered in ants. The weird thing was, I hadn't left any perishables in my room to be eaten. I had cleaned quite thoroughly the night before, and had removed all of the cheezits and dried mangoes I could find. So where the hell was this feast of theirs?

To my disgust, this bastard army of thieves had been crawling in and out of my mouth throughout the night. It was a bit gross, but a quick hop in the shower and a glass of orange juice did the trick. I had to admit, I was a bit worried though. They hadn't eaten anything important, had they?

So after my shower, I did some calisthenics. My blood pressure seemed to be in the usual high normal category. I took some deep breaths and both lungs seemed to be working. Two shots of Stolichnaya attested to a healthy liver. So what were those damn ants eating?

I went through the rest of my day feeling strangely empty, but it was probably just nerves. I did take extra precautions before bed that night though. I rubberbanded my lips into a petrified fish lips position to keep those damn ants out of my person. I also found an old wine cork, and stuck that in the other end of me... on the off chance that fucking ants might be willing to go in through the out door. When I decided my stay-fresh seals were strong enough, I turned out the lights and went to bed.

To my dismay, I woke up with ants up my nose. Admittedly, it was a numbskull of a mistake to leave my nostrils unguarded, but honestly, breathing is a pretty good deal as far as I can see. So I blew my nose and all was well. Everything still seemed to be in fine working order. I had heard stories about the Egyptians going through the nose to get at the brain, but my mind worked fine. Just what the hell were those ants into?

Life went on like that for a while. They went through the tear ducts. Hair follicles. Between my toe nails. They were clever little bastards. Eventually they resorted to tearing small holes in my skin. It made life pretty scabby. But life seemed increasingly scabby anyway.

The ants had made me an asshole. I would cut people off on the freeway, push people out the door as the BART train was pulling out of the stop. I voted Republican. And then there was this lady who walked past me on the way to work one morning...

I stuck my foot out to trip her. It was nothing personal; just arbitrarily felt like it. Well, she starts screaming at me and grabbing my leg and fighting back. So I followed my first instinct: Pee on her. But just as I was about to whip it out, I realized something... The ants had eaten my soul!

All those nights, they had been slowly eating away at my own essence, my persona. They had whittled me down into a jerk of a human being. And so I realized this as I'm about to get my ass kicked by this woman who I'd tripped... but my conscience no longer existed. So I peed on her.

The ants don't bother me here in prison now, which is good, because I'm not allowed to have things like rubber bands and wine corks, or even bug spray. But it's just as well, I'd only use the aerosol can to torment the guy in the cell next to me; boy, is he a whiny bitch.

bad quiz binge [Liam]

Some of these quiz answers are ok... others are WTF...

for the record I DID NOT go back and re-take any quizzes to get the answer I wanted







theOtaku.com: What Soul Calibur 2 Character Are You?



theOtaku.com: What NERV Child Are You?



theOtaku.com: What Anime Stereotype Are You?
^ ok that last one especially, WAT TEH FUX rofl

(let's see how YOU do then before you clown me ppl :-P)
all images link back to associated surveys. dunno why the bebop link on top doesn't have text...

BEDHEAD

mini-portfolio and the range and stuff [Liam]

First off, I finally have an online mini-portfolio thing of my work... click on my mockup ad banner to check it out!



in other news, hit the range with Mowgli (Mike check out this 15-yard grouping)



(and detail)...

only four of twenty outside the orange, and all of those are in the 9-pt. ring...
w00t i'm becoming a full-fledged redneck at this stuff :)

Mowgli is a natural... working from the guess-and-check expeditions of me & Mike's previous expeditions he was hitting mostly dead center, and was pretty damn good with a glock (wouldn't expect anything less from a g'd up math major like him). Used a p226, usp9 (the one i hit that grouping with), and tried out a walther p99, some ruger .22 (easily the nicest .22 i've used), and a glock 18. Happy hour rental rates own btw. Glock is unbalanced but a solid performer nonetheless (liked the sights), p99 had a really nice grip and cool sights like the glock's but an annoyingly long trigger pull (you can see here where i jerked a couple times b/c it's so far back, and hit at the bottom of the target). P226 is, of course, the PWN.
that's it for now, probably posting some art later.