"I think the dog will respond to the stripes..."

This:

Got me threw my homework tonight.

My favorite scene is at 2:00.

"That's a bear in a bee costume"

Tonight:

I'll going to be watching the extended version of this:

Hopefully there is a little more to it than that...

Rant Alert: Dear Roland Emmerich:

You're an asshole.

Lemme rewind.

Ronland Emmerich is the director of the upcoming film 2012, which is claiming to be an accurate depiction of the events that are "going to happen" in December of 2012.

Now, I think all of this 2012 non sense is stupid and fanatic. The world is not going to end in 2012. Just like it didn't end in the year 2000, just like it didn't end on 6/6/06.

Propaganda.

I'm not worried about the actual world ending.

I am, however, worried about the affect all this non sense is beginning to have on the people around me.

One of the marketing campaigns of Emmerich's 2012 is an organization called the Institute for Human Continuity.

Basically, according to Assosiated Content the website is this:

"The Institute for Human Continuity (IHC) is a glossy looking website that one can access to pretend that the apocalyptic events predicted to occur in 2012 will in fact occur and that one can do something to secure one's survival. The Institute for Human Continuity (IHC) is the latest of the kind of Internet viral campaign that has become common to advertise things like upcoming films and TV shows."

Now let me explain.

Basically, the people who are making this movie are preying on people's fears about this upcoming date in order to make money on their film, by advertising this organization without explaining that it is in fact not a real company but in fact a piece from their film. Now, I will admit it is a smart campaign but it really irritates me. Here is why:

I guess I am just concerned about the crazy stuff people are going to do in preparation for this event. People do drastic things when they are scared, and I don't like the fact that this film is aiding in hyping up this event even more than it already is.

So bottom line: If you see commercials for the Institute for Human Continuity, don't worry, its just hollywood.

I just don't want people to stress.

Also, if God was going to end the world, I don't think he would want to tip everyone off with such a specific date. Mark 13 anyone?

"But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come." (Mark 13:32-33)

Now I know I am not the epitamy of the christian faith, but maybe someone who is concerned about this stuff will take some solace.

Just be be happy today and love the people in your life.

I love you all.

Sorry for the rant.

xoxo?

Beauty & Das Beasten

Last night we watched Beauty and the Beast as we ate dinner.

I was jonesin' for it all day and I knew that Erin had a copy of

it. She got it off of Ebay and when she received it, it was in mandarin, but thankfully there was an english option.

So after watching the first five minutes in chinese we switched to english and continued to criticize it up and down as if it were one of our good

friends that had just left the room.

Things I came to realize about this movie:

1. Honestly, at its core, not a lot of it makes sense. I know its a cartoon but really. Example: In the whole wolf chase scene: A: Belle and that horse fall into a frozen river and emerge completely fine. B: The Beast arrives and is taken down by four wolves when later in the movie, he takes an arrow to the spine and it doesn't phase him. C: When all is said and done Belle, who should be dying of hypothermia, somehow gets the beast onto the horse by herself and gets him back to the castle. It just doesn't make sense.
2. If you pause the movie while Belle is talking, chances are she will be making the most hideous facial expression. My favorite one: When she enters the west wing, even though she has been told repeatedly not to do so, and finds the rose. After the Beast appears and covers the rose, he looks at her and her face turns to utter disgust. Actually, I think I have a picture of it somewhere around here. One sec. AH here it is: Ooo and another good one is when she sees the Beast as a human for the first time. She makes this face like she is a little disappointed on the way he turned out. Amazing right? Happens all the time so take note of it
3. I made this point last night during the whole "Lets get together as a quaint little french town and storm the castle to kill the beast-man" scene and I still stand by it. In my opinion, all things aside, the most ridiculous and far fetched thing about this entire movie is not the giant beast man, the talking furniture or the hideous expressions on Belle's face, its the fact that the french care enough to actually do anything.

PS I make fun of this movie but I really do love it. However, do you wanna see something really worth making fun of? Watch this clip from the Beauty and the Beast show here at the Hollywood studios. This is the transformation scene and it is pretty redic:

The five things every hipster should buy right now...

Five things I love right now and you should too my panda bears:

1. RENT on stage

2. The Script by the Script

3. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid

4. These ready to bake Easter Cookies from Pillsbury

5. This Shirt from Armani

Why are you still reading? You have some shopping to do.

Movie of the Day...

I saw this last night and it was amazing. I loved it so so so much. Go see it. It is kinda like a male version of Juno with a dash of New York underground. It is so cute and romantic. Totally a date movie if you for some reason wanted to put yourself through that sort of thing. Anywho it is so awesome and the girl who plays Norah, Kat Dennings, is memorizing. I couldn't take my eyes off her the whole movie. She is one of those people that you see in a movie and think "I wish she were my best friend". And I do.

P.S. For all you Twilight fans out there: Apparently Kat was one of the potential Bellas when they first started talking the movie. But in the end we got someone else, but I can't imagine it any other way.

Quote of the Day

I used to blog in my myspace blog a lot but I then I got tired of how concrete it requires you to be. It was constricting my artistic spirit! Jk...but seriously I hate it.

Anywho the other day I was contemplating erasing it cause it is pointless space that is being used and it messes up the look of my profile. So I started looking at the blogs to see if there was anything desirable to keep. I found a quote from the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It is kind of an obscure movie but it is really good. Anyway I identify with this quote for some reason so I thought I would share it with you as the quote of the day.

"It is clear that I must find my other half, but is it a he, or a she? What does this person look like? Identical to me? Or somehow complementary? Does my other half have what I don't? Did this person get the looks? The luck? The love? Were we really separated forcibly or did he just run off with the good stuff? Or did I? Will this person embarrass me? What about sex? Is that how we put ourselves back together again? Or can two people actually become one… again?"

High School Musical 3...

So yesterday at work we got the news that our show (High School Musical 2: School's Out) will be closing on September 13th of this year to make way for a new show based on the third movie that comes to theaters October 24th. We are all pretty sad because we love the show we have now but after hearing this next little clip I am about to post, this third show is gonna be awesome. Tell me what you think.

I Blame YOU Little Nemo!

Tonight, as I was cooking some dinner I randomly thought of this movie that I used to watch constantly when I was little. Ya know how little kids get a movie they like then put it on loop for the next five years? That was me. It's called "Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland". Now we didn't actually own this movie but the older woman that lived next to us did. So whenever her grandkids, who were our age, would come over we would go knock on her door and ask if we could watch the Nemo movie. She would bring us into her living room, give us a bag of gingersnaps (which I never really liked but they were free so of course I ate the entire bag), and popped the movie into the VCR.

This happened a lot and I loved it but, as I think back, this movie seriously freaked me out. Even now, looking back on it, I get the heebies. First of all it is an anime, so it is totally not meant for small children. Cartoon doesn't always equal kid friendly. But I don't blame the old woman cause we would ask for it and she liked the company. Anywho. It is about this kid named Nemo, who lives in London with his neglectful parents. Well On night he is in his bed and it takes flight, out his window and into Slumberland. Now I am a little fuzzy on the details but from what I remember is this:

• He arrives at Slumberland and meets the king (I think his name is Morpheus)
• For some reason, they make him the prince of Slumberland (why not?)
  
• They give him a key to the city that opens any door, but of course there is one he is never to open
• I am gonna let you guess what he does now
• During a grand celebration the Nightmare King, that he just released from the door he wasn't suppose to open attacks
  
• He kidnaps the king
• Nemo has a grand battle and saves him
• It was all a dream...or was it?

Now the whole thing is a little one to many magic mushrooms for me but the thing that really freaked me out was the nightmare king himself. Lets see a screen shot:

















Yikes. It's funny to look at what kids watch now as opposed to what we watched growing up. Maybe thats the reason things are so screwed up now. Thanks a lot Little Nemo. The war in Iraq is your fault!

The Hunchback of Notre Dame...

So the other day at High School someone brought a bunch of movies for us to watch in our free time. Of the nine hours we are on the clock we are only performing for about two of those hours, so needless to say we have a lot of free time. Anywho one of the movies they brought in was Disney's interpretation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was ecstatic because it had been years since I had seen it and, from what I could remember, it was a really good film. So they popped it in and we started watching it. Luckily for us, our one o'clock show was down do to an awesome thunderstorm (reducing our actual work time to an hour and 25 minuets) so we were able to watch the whole thing in one sitting.

So here's the thing. Ya know when you watch a movie when you are a little kid, then ten years later you watch it again and you are amazed at how little of the movie you actually understood. This was totally the case for me with this movie. Frankly I was shocked. Not really in a bad way, just in a shocked way. First of all, for a children's movie, this thing is dark. It is no Little Mermaid that's for sure. It deals with, in my opinion, some of the most intense and adult themes than in any other Disney cartoon. The whole thing is about religious beliefs, lust, obsession, acceptance, prejudice, jealousy, and greed. It is really intense. I'm gonna be honest, I had to take a break every once in a while to let my emotions rest. Plus the villan, Frollo, is SO much scarier than any other Disney villan, because, unlike most of the others, there is nothing magical about him. He isn't half octopus or have magical powers. He is just straight up evil. You can see the darkness in the way they drew his eyes. He really freaked me out.

I loved it though. The illustrations are stunning and the characters are so deep. They have layer upon layer of emotions and scars. I was so enveloped in the movie that I had to remind myself that I was watching a cartoon and that they weren't real. Lemme tell you though, if it weren't for those damn singing gargoyles and their comic relief I dunno what I would have done.

Bottom line: go pick it up off the shelf, blow the dust off of it and pop it in. It is beautiful and I walked away from it really glad I got the chance to revisit Notre Dame.

The "Classics"

I have a question to pose to you writers out there. Do you ever feel like you need to write something but you just don't know what? I am overwhelmed with this feeling at the moment and I can't shake it. It is 1:25 am and let's be honest I am tired as hell. High School/Block Party is a long shift and I would love more than anything to lay in bed and sleep right now but I gotta write for just a sec and see what comes out ya know?

So today at High School, one of our singers had her last show. She was offered another contract on property and is leaving starting tomorrow. It was a sad day because I like the girl a lot. She is amazingly talented though so she does need to move on to bigger and better things, as we all do. Anywho. For our/her last show many of our peers came out to support her and show some love. This was great and touching and Disney magic and everything but it made me realize something: I hate performing in front of my peers. Everyday I shake my junk in front of literally hundreds of strangers. Doesn't phase me. But put me in front of three close friends and I choke! It is kinda ridiculous. They were all standing there, front and center and I was freaking out in my head. I ever started getting like nervous jitters. But they did give us energy to get through that last grueling show of the day so I guess it worked in the end.

Speaking of High School, today in the breakroom they turned on Mary Poppins. I know, ridiculous, as if we don't get enough Disney shoved in our face we watch the movies on our breaks. Beside the point. Anywho I was half watching it/half trying to take a nap. I couldn't follow the movie. One second there are abusive parents, the next some lady is flying around making toys dance around, then there were animated penguins, old men it was all over the place. Needless to say I haven't seen it before. Now before you start throwing chairs and yelling calm it down! I already got it from everyone in the break room today. You say one thing like:

"I've never seen Mary Poppins." and the whole room freaks out like I just said "I like to kill babies and small kittens". It's true I'll say it, I've never seen it! What are you gonna do about it!?

Anywho after the verbal assault I sat in my chair and realized there are a lot of "classic" movies that I haven't seen and, frankly, don't plan on seeing. Lets make a list shall we?

Movies Bry doesn't care that he hasn't seen:

1. Mary Poppins
2. Annie
3. Sound of Music
4. Pride & Prejudice
   
5. Oliver & Co.
6. The Black Cauldron
7. Dirty Dancing
8. Shindler's List
9. Singin' in the Rain
10. Breakfast at Tiffany's
11. Top Gun
12. Psycho
13. Any of the Godfathers
14. Pulp Fiction
15. Forest Gump
16. The Terminator
17. Jaws
18. Gone With The Wind
19. Some Like It Hot
20. It's a Wonderful Life

Just to name a few. Some of them I have seen parts of, other I saw more than ten years ago, all of them are too boring to actually sit down and watch. Who has time to watch old movies when there are so many new ones? I know it is blasphemy but I am going to keep living my life without the "classic" films listed above, and I have no intent to change that fact.

Quote of the Day

Tonight I watched Strictly Ballroom for the first time! I know weird right? It seems like a movie that I would love and quote and obsess over. It is a good movie. Very funny and the art direction was cool. You could tell that they didn't have a very big budget though. All things considered though, very good. I was a fan. The whole time I was watching it I could tell that Baz Lurman was trying to make Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, but he didn't have the story/budget. Every once in a while there would be a moment or shot that shined with artistic potential. You can tell the Moulin Rouge was the film that he always wanted to make. Anywho the quote of the day today is from his first attempt at epic film making.

"A life lived in fear is a life half lived."

Quote Of The Day

The two yes I said two quotes of the day today are from the movie "The Fountain" staring Hugh Jackman & Rachel Wiesz. I saw the movie back in '06 when in came out and I was really disappointed. I had been waiting for it for a while and I guess it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Well I watched it again last night and I was blown away. I just got it this time. I am reading "A New Earth" by Ekhart Tolle right now and this movie seriously goes hand in hand with his philosophies. I was seriously so inspired by it. It is all about letting go of form in order to obtain true peace. Hugh Jackman's character is resisting death the entire movie, but when he finally learns to accept it he dies physically but gains eternal life. It is so amazing how the same movie can look so different the second time around. I highly suggest it. Anywho here are the two quotes of the day:

"Death is the road to awe."

"For every shadow, no matter how deep is threatened by morning light"

Here is the trailer if you are interested: