Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
I think I just got stupider from watching this video. It was passed to me from my friend Kun in Japan. The guy in the film is a little badass, and it’s ridiculous. I guess it’s easy to say when a person is 3 feet tall, and doing something atypical, we think it’s funny. Watch it and laugh, then maybe feel a little bit bad.
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I think I just got stupider from watching this video. It was passed to me from my friend Kun in Japan. The guy in the film is a little badass, and it's ridiculous. I guess it's easy to say when a person is 3 feet tall, and doing something atypical, we think it's funny. Watch it and laugh, then maybe feel a little bit bad.
Continue reading
Since a big football game is coming up on sunday, I got geared up by watching Friday Night Lights-the movie. I didn’t have any expectations, and when it came out in theaters, I overlooked it as more of the “small town athletes do well in the big arena” type stories. Instead it was completely different than what I expected. Here’s a few reasons. First, I think the cinematics mostly in how the film looked, it’s color and feel, was far away from any typical film. It’s colors were at times saturated, and broken up a bit, gave this film an arty effect which was eye catchy.Second, the music. Explosions in the Sky. Right now, they’re my favorite group who has a new album coming out. The work in this film might be their best. Here’s a few songs, on their unofficial myspace page. It’s all instrumental and dreamy and casts a great background sound. The filmmaker could have used pop something high energy and that would have ruined it.Third, the story is about jocks, but unlike the heroism that jocks get to have, this one was weird. The jocks weren’t really jocks. The football scenes were bearable and fairly real.Fourth, it’s a story more about life in a small town and growing up. It’s also about how people see them, as mere high school kids. The film is pretty good for a sports picture, most of these fail. Maybe it works because it’s less about sports and more about how people are, and that’s something that actually doesn’t make it into film.
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Since a big football game is coming up on sunday, I got geared up by watching Friday Night Lights-the movie. I didn't have any expectations, and when it came out in theaters, I overlooked it as more of the "small town athletes do well in the big arena" type stories. Instead it was completely different than what I expected. Here's a few reasons.
First, I think the cinematics mostly in how the film...
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First, I think the cinematics mostly in how the film...
I had an epiphany while driving today and listening to this album. It’s Husking Bee from Japan and “Anthology” is their greatest hits. Let’s start by me telling you I’m a fan of this band, although I think their music videos give them no justice. They broke up in 2005 and the three videos I dropped in are from their three eras. Beginning, middle, and end. I was thinking about how in work, business, or whatever you want to call what I do, the best person for the job always works out the best. Here’s a super-round about way of explaining this. I popped in this CD which basically is a chronological greatest hits, it starts off with their pop punk songs. Imagine something akin to an older Green Day album (1ooo Hours), it was younger, high energy pop punk. Edging on the skate sound, they had an east bay punk thing going on, but from across the pacific. I remember reading an early album review and it said these guys rocked. But back to the story, I fast forwarded some of the early mid-90s songs and then got the later 90′s songs from Put on Fresh Paint, which got some distribution here, through Doghouse records (ironically, these guys owed us money for years for the advertisement they put in GR for this album!) The songs begin to shape up a little. They go from being youthful punk to being a bit more mature in punk. The songs begin to get organized. They do a key thing that I think changed them for the best, they had Mark Trombino engineer and produce them. To me, it’s a turning point that shaped them into a much different band. Track 16 comes on from a later album, and their sound become crystal clear. They’ve arrived. It’s about the time I got to interview them. It’s as if #23 was in his prime. Perhaps they trust Mark Trombino more (who drummed in Drive Like Jehu – one of the greatest bands of all time) and they add a guitar player to become a quartet (like Drive Like Jehu – btw, I took that photo that’s used on their myspace page and on many others!). The guitars now sound like brothers (much like Drive Like Jehu’s Rick Fork and John Reis), you can hear how they tandem, intro, weave, and harmonize together while they still work into punkish songs. It’s as if they grew up and their sound progressed. With as many similarities for just an album with DLJ, I wonder how much influence Mark T had on this band. Was it too much? Did they capture some of the DLJ magic? Mark T. produced them until their end in 2005, and their last album changed a bit again. Their sound goes a bit away from punk, and they’re turned into more of an emo/rock band, and now they’re legends. A covers album by Japanese bands is coming out later this month. I wish...
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