One of my many guilty pleasures is movies. I love ‘em in just about every variety from art house fare to good bad movies (Armies of Darkness for example). Thankfully where I live makes it very easy to feed that urge. Rochester has two great theatre for lovers of non-mainstream movies (and a bunch of great mainstream theatres too): The Little Theatre and The Dryden Theatre at the Eastman House. The Little is our local art house theatre. If you’re interested in seeing indy films here in town, it’s the place to go. And that’s cool…

But for the best selection of films, good and bad, new and old, you’ve got to go to the Dryden. The George Eastman House is both a museum and film preservation institute. They are responsible for salvaging, restoring and storing massive amounts of film. When the Wizard of Oz was re-released into theatres a few years back, they were showing a print that was restored at the Eastman House. Almost every night of the week you can go to the Dryden and catch a different film, with an introductory lecture, for about 7 bucks.

So where is this blog going you ask? Well August is a kick bootie month at the Dryden for Fan Boy’s like me. You can check the calendar yourself, but here are a couple highlights:

• 8/2 Godzilla (1954) - the original Japanese print, subtitles, no Raymond Burr
• 8/3 Oceans 11 (1960) - see the brat pack movie before the star studded remake is release this December
• 8/7 The Valiant Ones (1975) - Old School good Kung Fu cinema
• 8/8 Annie Hall (1977) - Arguably Woody Allen’s most mainstream film and one of his best
• 8/9 Destroy All Monsters (1968) - More rubber suit goodness than you can handle. 11 Monsters and Godzilla throwing a drop kick. What more could you want in a film
• 8/10 La Femme Nikita (1991) - forget the crappy American Remake or the bad TV series, this is the good stuff
• 8/12 Touch of Evil (1958) - Only Orson Wells could figure out a way for Charlton Heston to play a convincing Mexican
• 8/14 Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) - Before Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon there was The Bride with White Hair. And before the Bride there was Zu. This was one of Hong Kong first big Kung Fu/Fantasy/Wire Work/Sword Play films and still one of the best (thanks to the presence of talent like Yuen Bao and Summo Hung). Also a lot funnier too
• fingers are getting tired… to many good movies… one last
• 8/21 Swordsman II (1991) - Before Jet Li came to the US he made his name in period Kung Fu films. This is regarded as one of his best.

Fact is, just about every movie in August is a good one. Check the calendar for yourself And if you’re in the area and want to take in a flick, drop me a note.

sigh. I was so close. Unfortunately before I could update my other pages to the new look, trouble struck and blogger is having problems accepting template changes. I’ll try to fix ‘em up tomorrow. For now it’s off to Toronto….

Ok, finally got this design to a point I’m happy with. Dig it, this is the finished look for my blog. At least for right now….

Wow. It’s been three days since I returned from the Martial Arts conference and I’m still grappling with the lessons learned there. Within the course of two days my world suddenly became a much bigger place. More about that on the Martial Arts Page.

One of the other projects I’m involved in when I’m not at work is setting up a Theatre Company. I’ve been involved in theatre for a number of years on a college basis. Basically, the theatre scene here is Rochester, well… kinda sucks. We have one major professional theatre here in town that stages good stuff from time to time. But the majority of their stuff is way too safe. The rest of the professional and semi pro groups in town are a pretty mixed bag at best. Any hoo, I’m documenting our progress in the creation of the company on my Theatre Page. I’ll have a report up later today on our meeting with the associate director of University of Rochester’s International Theatre Program.

Other than that I’ve been fighting exhaustion and a bit of depression. My body is trying to recover from the weekend. I’m feeling a lot better as I got more sleep last night. Night’s here have been very hot and I’m too cheap to get AC. Oh, check out the new look of Julia’s Blog! I need to get on the ball and add links to my friends blogs from this page. *Sigh* So much to do and such little time….

We had the work group picnic yesterday and everything went off without a hitch! Jenny, Abby, Tina, Jo, Sarah, and I were in charge. We had it at a Rochester Redwings game. Check out thier site and the cheezy flash animation that kicks it off. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I didn’t see very much of the game cause I was to busy playing with some of the kids there.

And with this I’m off to Super Summers. I managed to throw together a quick website for the school. Check it out here. It’s just brochure-ware now, but pretty soon I’ll get some pictures and more up there. Blog to you on Monday….

I’ve been working very hard to get in the habit of posting once a day. Unfortunately there is still a lot about blogger I don’t understand. For example can posts only be a certain length? I keep having issues posting my updates in the Martial Arts page. Thankfully, I can bring out the big guns on this problem and talk with Jenny. Check out her page for the gripping account of the rescue of Spiderman who had been lost between the walls of our partitions.

I’ve been practicing to get ready for this martial arts seminar coming up this weekend. As part of that I’ve been trying to spend a lot of time brushing up on my Monkey skills. Rolling is a big aspect of that. It’s an area where I’ve approved greatly. Watching me fall and roll in the past was not unlike seeing a sack o’ flour hit the floor. But even today I still sometimes hit the ground a little too hard. So I have a small silver dollar sized black and blue mark on my right shoulder blade. Which, along with a sore right shoulder, makes sleeping a little difficult. So the past few nights my trips to the magical land of dreams have been troubled at best. Needless to say I’m feelin’ a little sleepy.

Ok… I’m a fan boy. I admit it (that’s the first step right?). I watch cartoons. I read fantasy & sci-fi. I defend the validity of sequential art (i.e. comics) as a literary form. I can quote Monty Python. *Sigh* But I also have taste (I swear). So take all of that into consideration when I say: I really don’t like the Spiderman the movie trailer. As many folks may know Spiderman is being turned into a movie. And that’s cool. Especially because Sam Raimi is directing it. So like any fan boy I was excited at the prospect of seeing the trailer when it was released along with Final Fantasy. (This is a good opportunity to take a moment and check out the actual trailer)The trailer begins with a daring bank heist and a get away via copter. The crooks are eventually caught, snared in a giant web between the twin towers. Ok, this is a comic book movie, so suspending disbelief isn’t a problem. After you take that in Spidey pops up into the frame and then swings off to a techno beat with the usual coming soon interstitials. All good, right? So why was I disappoint when I finally saw it?

Well, let me break it down to a single point: it wasn’t fun. There are dark brooding superheroes and then there is Spiderman. He is a fun character. That doesn’t mean he’s lightweight. In fact this guy has been through tons of pain & guilt (considering that he is indirectly responsible for the death of his surrogate father and his first girlfriend). But his greatest strength is to meet all of it with a good attitude and an often-flip demeanor. And most importantly he’s a talker… no check that, he’s a wise-ass. It’s an endearing part of the character. It’s a core part of the character. Batman will slowly approach you and intimidate with silence. Spidey on the other hand will talk your ear off. He wields his wit like a weapon. There is no way that he wouldn’t throw off a on-liner, even a bad one, after that type of catch (i.e. “Thanks for dropping in”). It seems like a little thing, however it’s the small characterizations and details that really add reality to an artificial world. And it could have been pulled off without additional rendering. I only hope that this isn’t a sign of what is to come from the movie.

Also why techno? What is the obsession with Techno? It has a serious tone. We’ve just seen a helicopter trapped in a giant web and a man in pajamas swinging around New York City. The juxtaposition just doesn’t work for me. I understand that the creators want a certain amount of grit to their world. A great alternative would have been to use the Ramone’s cut of the famed Spiderman Saturday Morning Cartoon theme. It has edge but it maintains the level of fun at the same time.

In any case, in the tradition of The Phantom Edit, someone has recut the trailer. While I don’t care for the addition of the comic book beginning, the changes in music and new end editing makes the overall product much more enjoyable. Check it out HERE!

After a lot of tweaking I’ve finally settled on a page design that I like for my homepage/blog. I realize that I shouldn’t be this finicky, but when you work on the web you tend to want to put your best foot forward. There is still some tweaking that needs to go on. But it’s a big improvement.This weekend I’m going to be off at Super Summers, a weekend long Martial Arts seminar held at Colgate University in Hamilton NY (about an hour outside of Albany). I’ll be assisting my instructor, Sifu Mark Cardona, instructing 2 seminars. Over the two days (Saturday and Sunday) there will be roughly 40 seminars given in subjects ranging from nutrition to ground fighting. The majority of the material tends to be focused on Karate and other Japanese martial arts. We’re going to be doing a Monkey Kung Fu demo there that will be very different than a lot of the material covered. Because of that we’re expecting a large audience, as it will be a great chance for folks to get exposed to something that they’ve only seen in bad Kung Fu films.

Speaking of bad Kung Fu films, we’ve also been asked to present a demo on Saturday night. The typical demo usually is a form or Kata set to music. Or sometimes a short presentation. In our case, we’re opting for something a bit more original. Basically we’re staging a bad Kung Fu movie (like a Shaw Brother’s production). We’re still working on it, so I’ll have more tomorrow.

In the meantime I need to get the Theatre and Martial Arts pages up and running. But all and all this is a good start.