Sunday, July 31, 2005

 
Um. . .is it me, or do these guys seem crazy to y’all? I fell out laughing when I saw this. I urge you to view this website with the most open of minds. And ask yourself, “what if?”

I was asking myself, “WTF?”

 
Still working on Maya, still working on Flutemaster article. Nothing’s changed, except for my patience and stress levels.

I’ll update when I can, guys. I’m seriously behind on answering e-mail, but I guess that’s the price you pay for wanting to learn a new visual effects program.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

 
Thanks to Manganese for hooking me on Questionable Content.

I am officially hooked.

 

No Flutemaster yet, guys and gals. Sorry!

The gals on Jeph Jacques‘s Questionable Content are hot. I gotta say, they keep me coming back.

Yes, it’s another time-waster. However, I’m beginning to think that digital spelunking for info on Flutemaster is an equally useless endeavor. I can literally feel my life-force leaving me as I attempt to verify each and every single event.

Working with Maya, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, In Live), Macromedia Flash, 3D Max--now, all I have to do is get my hands on a copy of Combustion and Particle Illusion. I don’t give a shit what or which version.

Hopefully, I will be able to post some images of my progression later on, but for now--

I gotta, gotta learn more Maya and 3D Studios Max!

Friday, July 29, 2005

 

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

This is an urgent post that I had to make. I have just purchased and obtained Adobe Creative Suite Standard, Macromedia Studio MX (2004), Alias Maya 6.0 Unlimited, Discreet 3D Studio MAX 6.0 with Character Studio, Microsoft Office XP Professional and Adobe After Effects V 6.5 Professional. Got a sweet deal that saved me hundreds of dollars (please, no e-mails about the deal as it was a one-time only kind of arrangement). You will be seeing some test images later on, just keep checking back!

As if I haven’t had enough distractions from completing the Flutemaster article. . .

Much, much more to come!

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

 

Killing time softly.

Here’s Berardinelli’s Devil’s Rejects review. This is the review I expected Ebert to give.

The joy of reading movie reviews instantly, on the Internet.

 
The recent Rob Zombie film, The Devil’s Rejects, has attracted a cross-spectrum of reviews from major movie critics. Now, I personally consider James Berardinelli and Roger Ebert to be two of the finest critics writing, both online and in print. Their opinion of Zombie’s film represent one end of the spectrum (the beginning) and the other (the end).

Here’s the link to Ebert’s review. If you haven’t read it, I’m not saying shit.

 

Something that should have been here over 45 days ago. . .

This teevee.org entry is more than a month old, but I found it interesting for the fact that they endorsed Justice League Unlimited as a show worth watching. Had I caught this back when it was posted, you would’ve seen it here--in bold, loud, obnoxious and unavoidable colors.

Just kidding about that last one, actually.

More to come. . .

 

Look at what I found, guys!

Killed some time over at Slashdot.com. One post was talking about the big gamer news--you know, the one about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the hot Folger--ah, I mean, “hot coffee” patch that allows your playable character to screw anything that’s tight and has hair. (That aforementioned statement’s going to get me in hot water with all of the family-friendly search engines carrying my site.)

So, anyway, I came across this: a link to a very funny (and timely) Penny Arcade comic about the Rockstar/Take Two controversy, and click here if you want to see it. I’m not going to ruin it for you by giving it all away here--what would be your motivation for clicking on my link? And what would be mine for putting it on here?

 

More about Flutemaster

At last, the Flutemaster article is almost done. I’m exhausted at this point, but I’m pressing on. Because I’m a good soldier.

At some point, every writer who passes the threshold of exhaustion realizes that his or her mind begins to act in strange ways, similar to ingesting a hard contraband drug or smoking pot. It can be argued that lack of sleep, though extremely dangerous, allows you to conceive of unique ways of expressing yourself.

 
Is this me? Is this someone’s (bad) idea of a practical joke? Well, since I’m not widely known outside of L.A. or N.Y. (or even within those said cities) it’s highly unlikely that the [apparently] fictional profile is in any way related to mine.

Still, it makes for a fun posting.

 
It’ll be some time before you’ll see another post from yours truly. Because?

I am not willing to give up on the Flutemaster article yet.

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

 

Another post centered around The Dini

I know I’m beginning to sound like Peter Travers, or maybe an obsessed fan in need of some form of psychological counseling, but this latest Dini entry on his online journal is remarkable for any number of reasons. He talks, if only briefly, about his work on JLU (Justice League Unlimited), a Harley Quinn doll he received from the independent delivery outfit DHL, and a teasing statement about a new manga project in the works. It’s all there, folks.

There have been many exceptional posts written by Paul Dini, but none (and the following statement is, I know, a stretch to say the least) so provocative as this 7/26/05 post. Mark my words--before long, Paul Dini will stop blogging as there will be so many comments posted to his journal that Live Journal will have to invent a peripheral to sustain the site through the avalanche of hits. When word spreads like acid on plastic, that Paul Dini is maintaining (and frequently updating!!!!) a blog about his life and works.

I really hope I’m wrong about that part where I said that Paul Dini will stop blogging. That would really blow.

Flutemaster article may not even show up on this website. But I’m waging a final battle for information on this shitty ass, poor excuse, sad reason for an animated series before I throw in the towel and concede defeat.

 
If ever there was a pointless excuse for a website, it’s this one. I guarantee you, after you’ve clicked on the link, you will ask yourself, “My time on this green earth is too precious, and short. Why in the purple hell did I go that site?”

 

WB, are you listening?

Here, Paul Dini literally discusses Tim Burton‘s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to death. Go there, only if you have the patience and the time to wade through the seemingly endless yet priceless discussions.

Monday, July 25, 2005

 

The Follow-Up, such as it is

Perhaps I should explain to you what I mean by an underexposed film. You put $10 million bucks of marketing behind a $100 million tentpole, no one knows it’s even in the marketplace. Why? Because $10 million only buys so much marketing. It’s fine--in fact, more than adequate--for an indie film made on maxed-out credit cards and the family contribution (or a couple of angel investors), but something that Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. or New Line (or even DreamWorks) have risked considerable capital on needs to have every wheel working overtime for it.

That means (but is not limited to) TV spots around the clock one week prior to release, internet advertising (banners on every site which counts), giveaways, talk show appearances, in-building omnipresent hawking (okay, just kidding about that last one)--but you get the idea. In the case of Michael Bay’s The Island, the film may have had more than $10 million in ad dollars but for the past couple of weeks I watched TV almost non-stop, and with the exception of two, maybe three ads on two of the big three networks The Island has been AWOL. That’s bad.

However, on the Web it seemed that every other major website had Island banners on it. Except mine. Not bad, but exactly how much of an audience can one studio expect to have if advertisements for their film are primarily focused on the netsurfing crowd?

I prefer to be of the mind that believes The Island was done in by atrocious timing. The marketplace is wayyyy too congested with movies such as the Fantastic Four, War of the Worlds, Wedding Crashers, the Bad News Bears remake (or, as director Dick Linklater puts it, “remix”), and the critically excoriated The Devil’s Rejects, Rob Zombie’s sophomore flick. Not to mention Batman Begins and the aforementioned flavor of the weekend Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, Bruce Snyder, puts it: “The business was there. It just got spread pretty thin among a lot of movies.” (Thanks to yahoo.com for the majority of the information presented above.)

Total box office for Batman Begins stands now at $191,108,000 smackers. The audience showed up for this one, at last. . .

Sunday, July 24, 2005

 
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory takes in $28.3 million, War of the Worlds’s four-week take comes to 208.3 million and The Island, the closest Michael Bay will get to being nominated for any kind of filmmaking award, flops at just $12 million.

I don’t mean to rub it in, but this is also the first film that Laurie MacDonald, Walter F. Parkes and Ian Bryce have produced which has done this badly. I don’t know whether the film is the victim of underexposure (underexposure for a Bay film?) or poor timing. Maybe if they held it for two months. . .

I digress, though. I wish Bay’s film finds the audience it deserves. Because if some of the critics heaping praise upon it are to be believed, The Island represented Michael Bay’s maturity. Perhaps now, the box-office will convince him to go back to doing the films that have been critically but not commercially reviled.

More about the box office later. . .

Saturday, July 23, 2005

 

SPECIAL ARTICLE: The Dini/Wikipedia affair, complete and finally online!!!

(Illustration by Jeremy Scott)

(This is a repost of a article which initially appeared here on July 12, 2005. I wanted to repost this for the websurfers who haven’t had a chance at seeing this. For future readers, the article will be linked at the left of my blog and any of you having problems getting this article should e-mail me promptly at allenfs@aol.com. I’ll do the best I possibly can at fixing the problem.)

At last, Paul Dini’s biography has been added to wikipedia.com and here’s the link. But I will still be going forward with this article.

Wikipedia is famous for being an online encyclopedia which anyone can edit. However, I have never bothered, because the website does not allow you to claim credit for your efforts. If you receive no monetary compensation for writing, the most satisfying consolation prize is a credit for having conceived the piece. Another thing--I have no control over editing the article’s content, so theoretically someone can just come in and royally screw it up (maybe calling Paul Dini a transvestite porn queen with a penchant for eating ham sandwiches, for all I know--you can totally write your own revisionist history for anyone included in Wikipedia, no one is immune to tampering--not that I encourage nor endorse digital vandalism). Therefore, I would much rather spend twenty pages bitching about it.

It should be understood that none of the people who interviewed Paul Dini, who I e-mailed for the article, responded by the self-imposed deadline that I had set for myself. So this article had to be cobbled together from extensive research--interviews, even articles that Mr. Dini himself had written--and rigorous, thorough investigation.

First, some basic facts which everyone who knows Paul Dini should know (and if you don’t, read below):

Paul Dini was born in NYC on 8/7/1957. His favorite activities during early childhood were reading comic strips such as Peanuts, Pogo and Gordo. He also read humor books like Uncle Scrooge, Casper, Sugar & Spike and Fox & Crow. In his teen years he dug Archie, Conan
X-Men, Zippy, The Freak Bros, and Mr. Natural.

Here where we get into the heavy stuff. About 90% of the above paragraph came from a 2000 interview conducted by a young lady named Jennifer Contino. Paragraphs throughout the article (including the ones below this one) will contain Dini’s words from Contino’s article.

“I read just about everything I could get my hands on when I was a kid. . .I read all the basic juvenile mysteries like The Hardy Boys, Happy Hollisters, and Tom Swift, then all the standard kids classics like The Jungle Books, Lord Of The Rings, most of the Dickens and Mark Twain books, and a few years later, the James Bond novels. Around twelve, I really liked a writer named Ernest Thompson Seton, who wrote Wild Animals I Have Known, and several other books. . .all the stories were fascinating though usually tragic portraits of animals Seton had observed in the wild. It was basic boys’ adventure stuff, but it did fuel my desire to go out and photograph animals, which I try to do a couple times a year if I'm not chained to my desk.”

During Dini’s years at boarding school, “I'd write weird letters to family and friends, making up bizarre stories. . .highly fictionalized accounts of what happened to me and assorted friends and enemies. My mother encouraged me to be a writer. Thanks, Mom.”

A reason why Paul Dini initially wanted to be an actor: “ACTRESSES!” Reason why he gave acting up: “Couldn't get any.” ;)

As Emru Townsend wrote at Purple Planet Media in May of 1999, “When Paul Dini joined Warner Bros. in 1989 to work on Tiny Toons, he probably had no idea that he'd end up penning the adventures of his boyhood hero, Batman.”

Some of the shittiest work, by Dini’s own admission, he has ever done was for the ultra-pinch-a-penny-but-make-a-dollar Filmation version of Mighty Mouse back when he was still a sophomore in college in 1980.

“I had the opportunity to come out and do some writing for that animation studio and put school on hold for 10 months while I went out and tried to make it as a TV writer.” (Taken from a transcript of a chat session which occurred at http://www.harley-quinn.com/paulchat.html some years ago.)

“In '82, I moved out to California full-time and I jobbed around LA writing for various animation studios, just trying to get my feet wet; I was writing just anything I could. So I wrote a lot of really forgettable, awful cartoons. (Taken from an interview conducted by Jimmy Aquino, as are selected following passages.)

“Do you watch The Simpsons? Did you see the episode about Poochie the Dog? There's every network executive in there. You have creative people sitting in a meeting, and then you got some network executive come in. The executive will say, ‘Let's have the character be a little more with-it, a little more hip, a little more today, a little more contemporary, a little like “Hey dude, hey wow!”’ [These are] executives at other networks, like the Big Three networks, and to a smaller degree, Fox. This is the thing that plagued animation writing when I started, which was the early '80s. You had all this shit on TV -- it was like Smurfs, He-Man, She-Ra. . .these executives [came] in, and they just say, "We want this character more fun, more appealing to girls, more this, more that." In their way of thinking, animation is supposed to be something that's not interesting or fun to look at, or God forbid, you should laugh at. They want it to be comforting for kids, so a kid will watch, smile, and stare happily like a little drone, in between Fruit Roll-Up commercials. That's basically what they look for, for shows like that. . .

“So there was just this wasteland of crap, until the late '80s. And then things began to change just a little bit. . .a little more creativity began getting back to the cartoons. . .the thing that really hurt animation is that the producers doing the stuff over the last 20 years were these stinking cowards who'd go into these meetings, suck up to the programmers, and just do whatever they want. They're people who have no love for cartoons; they don't even like cartoons. They're just in the business of making them.”

About Dini’s first meeting with Bruce Timm: “I first met Bruce Timm when we were both working on an ill-fated Benny & Cecil revival about twelve years ago. . .in the beginning there was a lot of crazy energy going into the show and everyone was really psyched for doing a funny cartoon again. . .it would have been a great series if it had been given half a chance, but the network fucks destroyed it out of fear it might give kids brain seizures for being too cool.”

Back to Dini’s early career.

Paul states in his own words: “I was working for George Lucas. I had spent four years at Skywalker Ranch, working on a couple of animated shows that he did, called Droids and Ewoks. . .Prior to that, I had freelanced a couple of jobs in L.A. for various studios, and I submitted some work to Lucas and they liked it a lot, so I was chosen to go up and work with a number of people including George and the animators on developing the series concept for Ewoks and Droids. Then I went on to write the two seasons of the Ewoks cartoon. . .”

Ewoks was a forgettable 1980’s cartoon, like Droids. It was co-produced by the Canadian animation company Nelvana and broadcast on ABC (thanks
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/e/ew/ewoks_(cartoon).htm) from 1985 to 1987. Droids aired roughly around the same time, from September 1985 to November 1986--afterwards rerunning all of the previous episodes to death.

In this RevolutionSF interview written by Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Dini elaborates on how much he was creatively stunted by the network: “. . .we were dealing with a regime at the network that just wanted safe children's programming. Every time we wanted to stretch it a little bit, they would kick up a fuss over it. . .With Ewoks and Droids, we tried to give it as good a look as we could, and tried to make it feel special as part of the Star Wars universe. But. . .you're dealing with the corporate mentality that just wants to do everything safe and sweet. . .Ultimately it became a battle that was just not worth fighting. It became, ‘Okay, let's just try to do the show the best we can. Maybe it'll be good.’”

An interview with Wayne Chinsang has Dini chucking up even more about the claustrophobic atmosphere which he was subjected to while working on Ewoks and Droids: “We were doing something that was shepherded every step of the way by the censor ladies at the network, and it was gone over by the child educators, and that is a ghastly, ghastly way of working.”

On George Lucas’s involvement with Ewoks and Droids: “. . .He'd read over storylines and make comments on the scripts from time to time. Usually it was all pretty supportive. He sort of set out what he wanted. . .then stood back and let the writers and artists run with them.”


We also know that the Paul Dini-penned episodes of Ewoks had titles such as Wicket's Wagon, The Cries of the Trees, Blue Harvest and Asha. Of the four, Asha is quite possibly the lone Ewoks episode with the most powerful and emotionally resonant story line. It has to do with Kneesaa (the younger sister of the title character) learning that her sister is still alive, and was raised by a family of Korrinas. Asha has also become a wild creature. (For more information on this Ewoks episode and others, click
here and here.)

One of the two remarkable facts about Droids is that the show didn’t get cancelled before it did. That none of the insipid and uninspired storytelling (not to mention that Nelvana, having graduated from the Jay Ward School of the Arts by recycling backgrounds, using and reusing stock footage and even importing entire soundtracks from other shows for use in “scoring” some episodes) is Paul Dini’s fault should be immediately evident in the way that the show’s narrative was structured. No doubt, the Stingy McStingster squeezing-a-penny-until-it-melts-in-your-hand practice of producing budget animated shows back in the 80’s can be creatively limiting for any writer working under such conditions.

The second remarkable fact is that, despite all of these hurdles and road blocks there were actually some decent stories to be found in the very, very short collection of Droids episodes (the ones where Paul Dini was involved).


Dini says about his initial experiences working on Tiny Toons, a classic animated series in its own right: “You know, the first season of that was kind of fun -- just working on everything with the different writers and artists. . . It was all a blast and a learning experience because the chains were off as far as the network goes. Fox was very supportive of the show.”

About the content of the episodes: “There were a couple of cartoons that. . .really shine. They're just really, really pretty to look at and they were a lot of fun to work on. . .Sometimes we'd hit a stride and write about certain characters, whether it was Elmyra or Plucky or Buster, and we'd be just coming up with ideas, one after the other. We'd be creating our own cartoons and showing them to the other writers and directors and saying, "Hey, how about this?" or we'd be jamming up stuff together and making each other laugh. . .I think the fact that we were having fun showed through in the individual cartoons. By and large, it was a good experience. It set the stage for everything else.”

On Animaniacs: “I did a little bit of guest writing here and there [but] I never really worked on it to any great degree. I'd come up with a weird idea, ‘How about this? How about that?’ and they'd say, ‘Oh yeah! Can you write up something?’ So I'd write up something funny, a short cartoon, or a bumper or something. . .but other than contributing a little bit. . .I really didn't have much to do with Animaniacs.

_____________________________________

Paul Dini’s efforts on the legendary Batman: The Animated Series has been talked and discussed ad nauseum, but usually missing from those exchanges are the little details on the genesis of the series, which Paul Dini sums up in one sentence in an interview with Jennifer Contini: “Jean MacCurdy told us we had eighteen months to get it on the air.”

There’s more to it than that, though.

(The following four or five paragraphs are excerpted from an interview conducted by Jimmy Aquino.) “Bruce [Timm] wanted to do a very dark-looking, edgy show, where he was going to take and refine the look of the characters down to their bare minimum, and Eric [Radomski] wanted to do something that was set in a nightmarish, dark cartoon world - very stylish, very retro, and very Deco-looking. . .Jean [MacCurdy] knew that I loved the classic superheroes, and I really wanted to do a very dark and funny take on Batman. I thought that any other time Batman had been animated before, the elements were just dismal.

“Warners TV Animation, at the time, was kind of exploding, because Tiny Toons had been this hit, and it really surprised us at how successful it was for its time. I remember being called back on a couple of Tiny Toons projects around that time, and I didn’t want to give up on Batman, but everybody was yelling for me to work on different projects at once. . .By the time I finished my commitment to Spielberg on Tiny Toons, I was able to run right back [to] Batman around the 12th or 14th episode and write the Mr. Freeze story ["Heart of Ice"], which was the first one I wrote, and in some cases, the best.”

Dini on crafting the Mad Hatter character: “I try and think of the characters as real. . .I think the villains are really consumed with personal pain, and that pain sort of stimulates a sense of the theatrical and the wicked in them. . .I based [the Mad Hatter's first episode, Mad as a Hatter] on a really tragic story that happened in Silicon Valley about five years ago, about this guy who was a brilliant but shy computer designer and had a fixation on a woman, and he shot everybody in the office. . .When he came up with a way of controlling people, suddenly, they were able to do his will, and he loved it, and he was able to bring his fantasies of Wonderland and living happily ever after to life. But the main reason he did it was he was in love with somebody, and he didn’t want to use that power to control her because he knew that he'd lose her, but ultimately, he had to. That drove him over the edge and drove him crazy, so there's an element of sorrow to that character - unrequited love taken to the nth degree.”


As anyone who has ever written anything longer than a 7-minute short to be aired on TV knows, the BS&P (short for Broadcast Standards & Practices for the uninitiated) can be and continues to be a royal pain in the ass. In reference to Batman: TAS, Dini says they never were a major problem. “Because we do get notes from Broadcast Standards at Kids' WB, but for the most part--and this is [also] true for the folks at Fox--they really did understand the nature of the show we were going to do, and allowed us to proceed without terrible restrictions.” Without terrible restrictions--this probably means that instead of getting 100 calls an hour from the censor folks, Dini & Co. lucked out in getting 99. But, “everybody's been on board with the idea that we're doing an action/adventure show, that we take chances, that we bend and break the rules of what can be done on Saturday morning and daytime television. So it hasn't been that big of a problem, especially not on Batman and Batman Beyond for Kids' WB.”

Indeed, when Batman: TAS finally made its way to Kids’ WB, the notes became nearly non-existent. It was a renaissance in animation, much the same way that the premiere of another animated show that was kindred in spirit, Gargoyles, changed the face of animation. It would be another four years before such a startling event could be matched with the premiere of another landmark series in animation (and the only Batman-related series which Paul Dini was not a major part of), Justice League. There is not a soul who could claim to be a true animation-lover who would deny that Dini’s accomplishments acted as a blueprint for the tone and narrative structure of Justice League and all of its spin-offs, now and forever.

As for creative input on the revamped Batman show for Kids’ WB: “[WB executive] Jamie Kellner [had] suggestions; he [wanted] to see more of Batgirl or Robin on the show. On the other hand, there’s nobody really reading the scripts at the WB saying, ‘Hey, Robin wasn't in the show this week. Rewrite that episode. Stick him back in.’

“The artists have a lot to say about the show, like Bruce Timm, who is very vocal with what he thinks about the scripts. We'll have sessions with him, where he wants stuff rewritten or redone. Glen Murakami. . .has also got his input. The storyboard guys will get together and talk. If there's something that's bothering them, they'll come to me or to Alan, and we'll sit and discuss it.”

As for Superman: “We didn't want to be boring with Superman and just give you plain old Superman. We wanted to give the guy a little bit more depth. We wanted to get into his head just a little bit more, and at the same time, we wanted a show with something that made the character purely heroic.


"Superman is Clark Kent; that's who he is. He's a very human guy, and that extends to every element of him, as Superman and in his off-hours. We never liked playing him stiff. We like showing moments where he can be hurt emotionally, as well as physically. We don't like playing him like a square-jawed monk who just sits around and spouts rhetoric about how people should behave themselves.


“In one episode. . .we have him rescuing a little kid. He stands there with his hands on his hips, and he says, ‘You know, it's alright to play around with your friends, but you shouldn't do things on a dare because that will only lead to trouble. Goodbye, kids.’ He flies off, and one of the kids goes, ‘What a dork!’

About writing Mr. Mxylptlk for Superman: “Mxy was fun to write. We all sort of dreaded using Mxy on the show, and we knew we'd have to do him eventually. . .basically, I just made him a little shit. A mean little creep who just wants to screw around with Superman for the sake of screwing around with him. . .every time he shows up, Superman beats him, and he goes off swearing to the 5th Dimension and plots for three months about how he's going to beat him again, and he goes back, and Superman beats him again.”


A Green Lantern show was pitched to the WB around the same time that Duck Dodgers was in development. “It looked like Duck Dodgers was our best bet to get a series going, but there was some hesitation back and forth on whether they would pick it up or pick up another show. . .I'd done an initial development on the Green Lantern Corps, and Spike [Brandt] and Tony [Cervoni] took those ideas and started doing a lot of designs, which were kind of a looser interpretation of a lot of those characters than had been seen before.

“We wanted to do a story about a young man from Earth who gets his hands on the Green Lantern ring, and about how he is the fish out of water among all these aliens. . .It was not going to be like the Bruce Timm Batman universe. We wanted to open it up a little bit and take a lighter tone, at least visually, with it.

“But then what happened was Cartoon Network saw it and liked it, but they liked Duck Dodgers too. Basically, when it came time to select a show, they went with Dodgers, and that's what we did.”

What has emerged in Paul Dini’s writing, what others have noticed, is that he isn’t over-reliant on words (like some writers are--myself included) to tell a story. “The emotion is conveyed by the animation, the music and the posing of the characters. . .I think those are things that are really important for aspiring animators and writers to look at as a way of telling a story dramatically. So often I'll watch action-adventure shows, and where all of them falter is that every beat of action has to be explained and talked about. . .A hero will say, ‘Look! The bad guy's coming!’ Well, you can see the bad guy's coming. ‘We've got to stop him!’ Yeah, of course you've got to stop him -- you're the hero! All of those things that have become standard clichés of action animation writing. . .I don't know how they really got started. Maybe it was just to overcome cheap animation on TV.”


Dini is, by his own admission, in love with Texas. His comic book (also called a graphic novel by some toon bloggers), Mutant, Texas, reflects Dini’s passion of outrageous western tall tales and western movies--hell, Western Culture in general. “Everybody I know from Texas has this sort of sense of fun and confidence to them, so I tried to infuse the characters [in Mutant, Texas] with as much of that as I could. . .a lot of Texans who read it thought it was a lot of fun.

“A lot of this was just a nod back to rather clichéd but fun western imagery. I mean, how many times have you seen a cactus wearing a cowboy hat? You expect it after a while.”

On his other similarly-themed creation, the mythical figure Jingle Belle: “Jingle Belle means a way for parents to relate to their kids. It's less of a Christmas story than it is a comment on the way I see a lot of contemporary parents' relationships with their children. . .I was thinking, ‘What if Santa had a kid? What would he or she be like?’ I fixed my attention on a girl, and thought if he had a daughter, what if she was a brat, and had just had enough of the Christmas spirit? Like a lot of contemporary children, she'd been spoiled as a kid by her parents and now that she's a teenager, when the question of discipline comes up she rebels against it. I felt a lot of people could relate to that. . .the book Dash Away All was the first long novel I'd done about her. It's the story of what happens when Jingle Belle has to take over delivering the presents one Christmas eve. . .she's gone on the sleigh ride before, and now that she's a teenager, she's bored with it. She'll watch her DVD player or talk to her friends on her cell phone or just sleep while Santa's delivering the gifts. She doesn't really pay attention, and if she goes at all, she's dragged into it. Her mom says: ‘You can either help me clean the house, or go with your father.’ And she's like, ‘I'll go with Daddy and I'll help,’ but all she does is sit there and complain or screw off or something.”

“In this story, she has to go solo and deliver the presents by herself. What's even worse, she doesn't have the reindeer to help her. . .[and] tradition demands that a Claus family member and an animal-driven sleigh drop off the presents. . .she has to train these [substitute team of animals] -- none of whom are really good at this job, or like each other -- to get along together and make this flight.”

Dini on the Jingle Belle motion picture project: “It looks like Revolution Studios will be going ahead with the movie. They're developing it actively right now [but]. . .I can't say. . .exactly when it's coming out, but they are actively pursuing it and everybody over there is very excited about getting it going.”

Dini also has a passion for the little-known profession, cryptozoology: “To me it just strikes a fun, romantic chord. The idea that you could go off to a corner of the earth and discover [an animal] that is big, lurking in a jungle or a cave that no one has ever seen before -- I think that's a tremendous amount of fun. . .it's a chance to forge a connection to something that may or may not exist and bring something new to the world.

“I've gone around the world a couple of times and photographed rare animals and come up against some things people had thought extinct and got a look at them -- or a fleeting glimpse in some cases -- and that's exciting. Some people collect plates. I do that.”

(Excerpt from Jennifer Contino’s article, posted to Comic-Con.com’s forum board.) As is Dini’s nature, he is none too afraid to tackle the challenge of working with narrative properties which are strange (or at the very least, unfamiliar) to him. “Doing this gives me the chance to put a unique twist on not only Witchblade, but two of the Cow's other great lead characters, Magdalena and the Darkness. . .I like writing strong female characters and Sarah [Pezzini] is one of the most interesting and original heroines in recent history.”

Dini on his experience working with Top Cow, the publisher of the ongoing Witchblade chronicles: “I love it! They are great people who really enjoy the characters they work with and the people who write and draw them.”

An extra on the DVD of Comic Book: the Movie, directed by Mark Hamill (the movie, not the interview) contains a Dini interview in which he talks about characters such as Commander Courage and Laser-Disco Commander from his Codename: Courage screenplay: “You know, I really don’t want to put in Laser Disco Commander Courage, I really don’t want to, but--and if it was up to me, I wouldn’t. . .there’s a potential tie-in with Christina Aguilera, that--the music division of the studio is working on, and I’m--they’re saying there’s potential for a video, and we wanna play ball, sooo--maybe it’ll just be in the video, but certain--but it looks like the Laser-Disco might be a part of the product line--not the first wave, but when they’ll refresh it, like a year down the road. . .”

(For those with a high-speed Internet connection, here’s the
link to the interview--the text is taken from most of the second half of the piece. If you are on dial-up, I‘d say don‘t bother--unless if you‘ve got the hour or so it takes to load it up.)

Another project mentioned earlier in this article was Paul Dini’s Jingle Belle feature. In this excerpt from the Dark Horizons website, Paul tells Garth Franklin the Jingle Belle screenplay is almost done. “[Dini] expects the movie to come together by either the fall of ‘05 or ‘06 depending on [Revolution] studio's time table,” the website says. But Dini’s part of Krypto the Superdog has been completed and he felt it was some of his best work. Episodes of Krypto the Superdog which Paul Dini wrote or co-wrote include A Bug's Strife, Diaper Madness, The Dark Hound Strikes! and Streaky's Super Cat Tale.

Upon its premiere (if you could call it that) on Cartoon Network, reactions to Krypto couldn’t possibly be any more mixed. “I'm going to give it a chance, but it looks like WB's superhero animation is quickly going to hell in a hand basket,” said one rotten tomatoes.com blog poster.

According to Dini, Cartoon Network is more corporate now with their successes with Adult Swim. Shows that can be cheaply produced, like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, seem to be new trend at the network. Uh-oh.


(c) Misty Lee.
In a most unusual fashion, on February 12th 2005 Paul Dini proposed to his longtime girlfriend Misty Lee at the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum.

“I decided to do it in the more private confines of the museum garden,” Dini enthuses on the news portion of his Jingle Belle website. “I led Misty to the garden’s beautiful flower-ringed amphitheatre, took out the ring box, got down on one knee, hit the hand holding the ring box on my upraised knee, dropped the ring box, groped for it while mumbling something inarticulate that sounded like the Tasmanian Devil begging for a date, and handed Misty a Necco conversation heart with the words ‘Marry Me’ on it that I had saved for just such an emergency. When she stopped laughing (more out of a nervous ‘Oh my God, he’s really doing it!’ reaction than ridicule, bless her) Misty performed her greatest magic trick ever and turned me into the world’s happiest man by saying ‘Yes.’”

My initial reaction to this bit of news was one of shock and awe. I decided to investigate, to see whether this was one of Dini’s sleight-of-hand tricks, a postponed April fools’ joke for his devoted readers. To state the obvious, what you see below is what I came up with.

I went to Paul’s fiancée’s website--or rather, online journal for the uninitiated--to see if I could verify Dini’s statement. Lo and behold, click
here.

Misty Lee, going under the Internet codename Shimaera, disseminates a lot of interesting information about the relationship she has with Paul Dini--and she also offers readers some unique insight into her own quirky, appealing personality. You won’t see this on Wikipedia. Wait a minute . . .

Yeah, you will. After I wrote the aforementioned sentence, I checked the Dini Wiki article to see if it said anything about Dini’s engagement to Lee. It does, in one very unspecific and short sentence. The more I mine the Internet for info on Dini, the more I come up with.

Misty Lee’s journal is a veritable treasure trove, chock full o’ Dini details and little nuggets of wisdom. That this website is updated more often than Dini’s should come as no surprise to those who follow his schedule. That’s also not saying much, since it seems that Dini updates his Jingle Belle website like three times a year. Maybe four. Misty got him beat by at least eight more updates. (Of course, readers, I’m being facetious.)

(Two hours, fifteen minutes later.) Now, I will have to eat my words. The odyssey of Dini-fact finding continues. Judging from the amount of posts
this gets, hardly anyone seems to know that he maintains such a journal. While I will not want to be the one who outs him, that piece of info was too good to keep under wraps. This is, of course, equal to finding the lost writings of Marlon Brando on some long-defunct website at the farthest corner of cyberspace.

If any of the aforementioned can be believed, Dini also responds to comments made on his postings. I must now make you aware, however, that I am not responsible for the validity of any of the information contained in this article, though I have done my best to do what Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass never did--which was to report the unexpurgated truth as I see it. Since I am not a journalist, I am not encumbered with the obligation to retain total objectivity in my writings. I can be as subjective as I want, which is the fundamental license granted to a blogger, even to the point of being prejudiced on some issues. You may see some political bloggers exercising this very right. I have not done all of this typing to imply that anything you’ve read was a total fabrication, or that I intended to make this article any longer than it is. The information as it is related to Paul Dini’s life has been analyzed and fact-checked for any and all inconsistencies, for my objective is to render an accurate (or semi-accurate) account of Dini’s life and career, such as it is, while endeavoring to entertain and engage the reader. And to make you forget that your eyes are tired and that you may be suffering from advanced muscle fatigue, if you have been following this article from the beginning.

________________________________

We are rapidly approaching the conclusion of this article. July 8th, Mr. Dini posts an update to his journal entitled San Diego Countdown pt. 1. Here’s an excerpt--

“Well, here we are heading into the middle of July which means it is almost time for that great intergalactic freak show, the San Diego Comic Con. Forgive me, but the name "Comic Con International" always sticks in my craw as phony and pretentious. It has been known as simply "San Diego" for over thirty-five years and will no doubt be referred to as such for another thirty-five.

I have posted my signing schedule for this year over at my www.jinglebelle.com site, so I won't be repeating it here just yet. Rather, I'm going to talk about a certain pesky convention mainstay that I and a number of other professionals run into each year. . .”

There’s more, but rather than ruin it for you, just click
here. Then come back and finish the article. Please.

When I first posted the alert of the absence of a Paul Dini biography from Wikipedia, I had amassed a certain amount of information about notable people whose biographies appeared on Wikipedia before Paul Dini. What I uncovered might shock you as much as it has shocked me.

Misty, from Pokemon: How sad is that, a fictional character from an animated series getting a bio before a legendary real-life character? This world is going to hell faster than a speeding bullet. I am overcome with a mixture of bewilderment and extreme concern for the state of the human condition. (Misty Image (c) 4Kids Ent.)



Angel Long, English porn actress.

Anna Ohura, large-breasted Japanese adult model from Hokkaido, Japan, born 1980.

Ariana Jollee, prolific (aren’t they all) adult film actress from Long Island, NY. Born 1982.

Avena Lee, another Asian\Thai porn actress, born 1982 in Las Vegas.

Storm, character in the uncanny X-Men. Okay--maybe she deserves to be profiled.

Dazzler , aka Alison Blaire. Comic book character, member of some otherworlds team of X-Men. Has the ability to convert sound to light. She’s a gal you’d want to invite to a party. I can’t believe this.

Sunpyre, or Leyu Yoshida, fictional character born in Chugoku region, Honshu, Japan to a mother affected by the radiation fallout from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Flight, plasma blasts, ability to view infra-red and radiation immunity are her various powers. Has a brother, Sunfire--also a mutant. Sunpyre had been killed for a while, but now she’s seems to be alive and well in recent comic book issues. Got better coverage than Paul Dini. Also a shame.

Cable, fictional comic book character aka Nathan Christopher Summers--powers include teleportation, telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection. Fathered by Scott Summers aka Cyclops and a duplicate of Jean Grey. Appeared in a few episodes of the X-Men animated series. And this qualifies him for a single-page treatment in Wikipedia. Give me a friggity-friggin break.

Forge, holy shit, Forge. Mutant ability--invention. Fictional character who gets a lengthy single page profile, even though he’s a character who least deserves it. I can see Rogue, or Wolverine, or Storm--but Forge? Over Paul fuckin’ Dini?

X-23, aka Laura Kinney (rhymes with, and is almost spelled like, Linney), fictional female counterpart to Wolverine, a minor character in every respect--given the single page, full-length Wikipedia treatment, the article having exceeded even the length of other Wiki articles on real-world notable individuals.

Finally, Christopher Sabat, not a comic book character but a voice actor for anime imports, whose Wiki entry is especially insulting given the fact that next to no one knows him. Next to no one. Outside of his parents, his agent, his employers and his co-workers, no one. Yet, he gets a more substantial bio than Paul Dini. Or, for that matter, Bruce Timm.

I have thoroughly made my case now, that Paul Dini has been given the Bill Finger treatment by many online and print-based encyclopedias claiming to contain a vast and comprehensive repository of data on the life of notable individuals. I’m not bloviating here, folks, I’m just telling it like it is. I realize that the monumental amount of effort put into writing this massive piece will likely not change anything, and perhaps will likely be forgotten, but I also realize that no major war against obsolescence (waged by an individual, of course) has been won by accepting the terms outlined herein.

There is some small chance that future readers of my website will come and discover what their own eyes have never seen, and what their minds have wished they saw. And that is one of the most comprehensive yet incomplete biographies of a living national treasure, a life which has contributed so much to the art of animation and comic books and will make yet another lasting contribution to 21st century pop culture with his upcoming feature films and animation projects. Therefore it can be safely said, as I am sure you will agree, Dini’s impact on the psyches of Generations X and Y is inestimable.

I rest my case. For now.

----------------------------------

The following articles are the source material for many of the excerpts contained in this article. With grateful acknowledgement to the authors of these entertaining and insightful interviews.

http://purpleplanetmedia.com/eye/inte/pdini.shtml
http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.html?id=2352
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/pulse.cgi?http%3A//www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dget_topic%26f%3D36%26t%3D001040
http://www.comicbookthemovie.com/minidini.shtml
http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/oddball/index.cgi?date=2001-04-16
http://www.harley-quinn.com/paulchat.html
http://anp.awn.com/pauldini.html
http://www.sequentialtart.com/archive/apr00/dini.shtml
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news04/041109d.php
http://www.tlchicken.com/view_story.php?ARTid=2896
http://anbat.toonzone.net/essays/taopd.html
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/pulse.cgi?http%3A//www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dget_topic%26f%3D36%26t%3D000050
http://wf.toonzone.net/WF/heartofice/interview/
http://www.slushfactory.com/columns/content/EpFpulFyFAtajWuqEg.php
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20949~2606894,00.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/shimaera/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kingofbreakfast/

My apologies to anyone left out. Any grievances can be sent to my e-mail address:
allenfs@aol.com. I will respond, no matter how graphic the grievance.




 

More news.

From Amid Amidi’s 7/22/05 post (sorry, Mr. Amidi, I had to copy your saying wholesale--the entire paragraph was good stuff)--

“It's great to have an enlightened animation producer who understands the grassroots value of connecting with audiences through blogs, and is now allowing the creators of all these shorts to share their creative experiences with the online community. Not only are blogs a common-sense way of creating and building a fanbase for TV shows, and distinguishing the series from the rest of the competition, but blogs can also help to demystify the animation process, allowing the average viewer an insight into how animated films are produced. That may not sound like a huge thing, but it seems like every other day that I meet a regular joe who is unable to distinguish between cg and hand-drawn animation and who doesn't have the vaguest clue about how cartoons are produced. Educating audiences about the production process, and all the hard work and thought that goes into the making of an animated film, is perhaps the first step towards achieving the respect and recognition that this art form so very rarely receives.”

Now, the following are my very own words. Consider this for a moment. If film stars, instead of being involved primarily in the creative department, put all of their considerable influence and pull into producing animated features and TV programs, animation stateside would be just as valued as animation in, say, Japan or China. Or just about any other country for that matter.

 
Stumbled upon another goldmine--this site. Scroll down far enough and you will read an incredibly valuable response to a young animator’s question about the state of 2-D animation. A response from Tom Sito is as good as any.

2nd quote of the day: “Success doesn`t go always to the best draftsman or the best hustler, it goes to the stubbornest.”--Tom Sito

 

Dini post

If you have high-speed connection, hurry up and click on this damn link. This is a video blog featuring Dini at the just-wrapped San Diego Comic-Con, which appears courtesy of the great folks at filmforce.ign.com.

UPDATE: Sorry guys, the above link doesn’t work. All future guys seeing this now will not have to worry about wasting their time trying to watch a video that isn’t there. I’m sure the IGN guys will rectify this problem, and when they do you can bet your oldest collector’s edition issue of Maxim that I’ll have it here in due order.

 
It seems to me like Rockstar is doing some familiar backpedaling.

I don’t understand why they have to do any of this “We did not change our statements” nonsense--it’s like, all of these explanations are unnecessary. It’s idiotic. While they don’t have to engage in any name-calling or low-behavior like that, they do have the obligation of rectifying some of the misconceptions conjured up and publicized by the lawmakers, politicians and watchdog/special interest groups. If Hilary Rodham Clinton is wrong, she is wrong and that should be made clear. However, Rockstar seems to be more interested in keeping their fan base than protecting their reputation and the reputation of the artists who work for them. If I were a member of the upper management of Rockstar (or hell, even the spokesman) I would point out that the “hot coffee” mod is inaccessible to all but the most tech-savvy gamers--I mean, you’d have to be--well, I understand that the patch was available for download on a terribly obscure website which not many people knew about (the gamers, “nerds”, who did know about it didn’t own the equipment needed to make the download accessible for their PS2--gee, I guess that narrows it down some), so that leaves us with this supremely bitter aftertaste. That those guys on a verbal rampage were, in fact, acting on atrocious information.

More to come. . .

Friday, July 22, 2005

 
Another great article here from Game Revolution, about a supposed epidemic of youth violence in America, in which said epidemic is proven to be a lie manufactured by the media. Are you surprised? Neither am I.

 
This article here at gamerevolution.com talks more about the GTA: SA ratings fallout, and even includes some cogent insight that my lengthy, somewhat incoherent previous post lacked.

I have more Grand Theft Auto ratings controversy links, just give me a few moments to post them all. . .

Thursday, July 21, 2005

 

I don’t know what to call this article.

You know, when you read news stories like this, it makes you think: “What in the hell is the world coming to?” And the obvious answer is, “To an end.” But people, psychics and mystics especially, have talked about the coming Rapture since the development of the human ability to deliver sophisticated oratory. All of their predictions have been debunked, discredited, repudiated--any adjective of your choice--until now.

In the 1970’s, if video games were as sophisticated then as they are now, an issue such as the one which plagued the good folks at Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive would have never garnered this much attention. This is 2005--and it feels like we’ve gone back to the night Elvis Presley shook his hips “in a sexual fashion” on Ed Sullivan. In terms of our moral tolerance, that is.

I’m talking about a decade I’ve never experienced, and yet countless interviews with those people who have, countless movies made during that time period that are capsules of attitudes and freewheeling personalities and trends and fashions drive it home for me, that the decade is likely the most liberal decadent decade we have seen since the beginning of our modern civilization. No, this article isn’t necessarily about the much-reminisced ‘70s. It’s more like a brief compare/contrast article detailing the level of censorship, then and now. Back then, films considered to be rated R now were PG. Porn films were being shown in theaters. Exhibitionism was in vogue.

Today, under the repressive Bush regime, if you say “sex” in a feature, you are R. Unless if the film’s about America’s soldiers or firemen or policemen--somebody heroic, someone patriotic--then you’re given the “PG-13” ticket. Maybe even “PG”. Violence is tolerated, to an unbelievable extent--and yet a titty shot earns you some kind of a “restricted” rating or even a sanction in the form of fines or negative publicity.

Is this a rant? I would hesitate to call it such, although this article does contain some hostile expressions. Be it ever so humble. I was shocked when I read about the re-rating of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Doesn’t make a single bit of sense. At all. I couldn’t unlock the patch--why would your average gamer go through the trouble anyways? Where’s the logic in that kind of reasoning? The ESRB is giving a more explicit rating to the same exact material.

Sorry. I’m just repeating myself at this point. I just think the whole ballyhoo is stupid, many of the people involved in this are behaving in a manner which can only be described as being “imbecilic”, “moronic”, and “puritan”, and that the ESRB needs to reevaluate their criteria for what makes a game unsuitable for children and teens. Because kids hear worse stuff on the playground, or on the city buses and subways, every day.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

 
If posting has been a little slow around here--I blame it on Flutemaster. Bear with me.

I’m readying up yet another lengthy article--it’s a mixture of fiction and nonfiction. I can’t quite describe it to you just yet, because I haven’t really thought it out, yet. Thoroughly, mind you.

Any questions or thoughts, send ’em over to allenfs@aol.com. I’ll try to get around to answering as many of them as possible. At some point, if you send a question you will get an answer.

 

James Doohan's gone

What’s up with the massive number of notable deaths this year? I say this because of the latest one making the rounds in the media, James Doohan of Star Trek fame. Here’s an obit from AOL and if you can’t get to that one, click on this.

My condolences to his family, for what it’s worth. I never met him, but I’m sure he was a cool guy.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

 

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE--for myself

Blogs are created by many web surfers as a means to release pent-up feelings, or as a hobby, or to promote themselves. I will not confirm nor deny that my blog falls into any of the three categories, because I believe the style of my writings to manifest itself, to make itself self-evident to my readers. However, my original objective when I started this blog was to talk about other issues that concerns me, wrongs that needed to be righted and other egregious offenses to humanity. Tongue firmly planted in-cheek, of course.

This will be the first post where, for once, I talk about myself.

Not that this instance will be recurring; I am of the belief that there is nothing more conceited or narcissistic in the world than to talk about oneself. I have not begun to describe how boring it would be to do so. Which is why you don’t see too much of that here.

My life has never been exceptionally interesting. I was born in Utica, NY, 1985. I raised hell for my parents. Sometimes hell came to me. Animation was the only respite from these dark episodes in my life. In a recent interview with toonzone.net, Jerry Beck made an important observation about cartoons: Some of life’s best-kept secrets are concealed within cartoons. Unlocking those secrets could be the key to survival in this crazy, hectic and violent world. I for one believe he was onto something with that comment.

What has always kept me sane were my occasional forays into the deepest recesses of my imagination, fed by the imaginations of others. If I suffered through a “dry day”, my phrase for creative impotence--synonymous with “writer’s block”--my cure would be to pop in a taped episode of Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, probably the only good animated series to have walked the allegorical hallways of “DiC”. Now that we have DVD, I will once again renew my search for those early quality episodes.

What provoked me to post this? Dunno. Just felt like it. Now I feel strangely tired, possibly the result of finishing two screenplays or researching for the Flutemaster article. If this article feels rather incomplete (and to me, it does), my apologies. My energy is low. I will talk more about my early years when time permits, but first things first--I have to get the Flutemaster article in the can.

Talk about procrastinating and prioritizing.

Monday, July 18, 2005

 

Some Box Office News, and more

Five-week total for Batman Begins is $183 million, estimate. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory makes 55.8 million domestically. That’s pretty good, for a Warner Brothers flick. Even better for Johnny Depp. I haven’t seen it yet, but will make it a point to later this month.

Flutemaster article is getting to be a bitch and three-quarters, since even on this vast ocean we call the Internet, info on the animated series is scarce. I never expected to find a website containing an encyclopedia’s worth of content on the short-lived (so I hear) show, but I can’t even seem to find a review--a review, guys--of the show. However, when I start something, I’d like to finish it. So, the article’ll take a little longer, but it’ll be finished and ready for your perusal within the next couple of days. Hopefully.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

 
Animation Artist remains one of my most favorite websites, because they have the very latest news on new software and upgrades, sometimes before the more mainstream animation-related websites and groups. I visit it often, sometimes five times in a given day, other times one every other day. You can check it out here.

Many of you already know of its existence, but I felt the need to publicize it once more, for those regular readers who’ve never heard of it.

Check back wit’ ya later. . .

 

Jim Sheridan, director of In America, directs 50 Cent rap biopic Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Hot on the heels of that last wacky post, comes another bit of “WTF news”. Jim Sheridan, director of In America and In the Name of the Father will be helming a semi-biopic about 50 Cent’s early, rough hard-knock life, Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

I’m speechless. Not because Jim Sheridan is not a competent director--because he is--but for all intents and purposes, this is a rap film. Let’s say this again--Jim Sheridan (who, I think, is Irish--lemme get back to you on that) is helming a film partially-based on 50 Cent’s life, probably to the tune of an all-rap soundtrack. This is so hilarious. Friggin’ hilarious.

Here’s the link to the page I got this news from. Either you will laugh right thurr or shake yurr head in disbelief. Good luck with the project, Mr. Sheridan.

 
This is hilarious! Click here. You won’t regret it. Bunny re-enactments of popular movies.

Heh.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

 
See Paul Dini’s expanded Wikipedia biography here. Looks much better. I didn’t write nor edit it, BTW.

This is really remarkable. Just when you thought that all this “Dini/Wikipedia” mess was over. Think again.

You know, if I am any later with the Flutemaster article, I might as well just call it off. What can I say? I have a life, contrary to popular opinion.

More to come. . .

Thursday, July 14, 2005

 

Four's gross not so Fantastic

You know, I had to wait awhile to make this post. The fact that Fantastic Four made $56 million last weekend and is unfairly credited with lifting the industry out of the now-legendary slump (Fantastic Four had some Fantastic help--War of the Worlds, Batman Begins and Mr. & Mrs. Smith among others) is not amazing. It is, in all fairness, underwhelming for a comic book film like this. Because X-Men made more on opening weekend five years ago, around this period.

Couldn’t attend San Diego Comic Con, due to the fact that I’m stuck in motherfuckin’ New York!!!! I think I will be there next year, though. . .

The Flutemaster article is forthcoming. Hang on tight. . .

More to come. . .

 
My follow-up article is the one that I promised you guys--the one about the shittiness of Flutemaster. That one is forthcoming. Although I promise--this one will be much shorter than the behemoth that was the Dini\Wikipedia magnum opus.

Also, just as James Berardinelli posted his Price of the Crown novel (a chapter each day--for 35 days) on his website, I will post my own fiction on this one, in addition to writing my usual daily (or, semi-daily) commentary.

Any links to past special articles which appeared on this site can be found on my sidebar, where nearly all links deemed important are posted.

That is all, for now.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

 
Dini\Wikipedia article took a lot out of me.

Fortunately, I purchased a new design program, so I will be able to churn out some different--instead of stealing them from other hardworking artists like Jeremy Scott--designs. They may not be any good, but at least they are different.

Much, much more to come . . .

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

 

A Simple post.

Just added Haloscan to the blog. Enjoy!

Monday, July 11, 2005

 
I am overwhelmed by the amount of info that I have amassed on Paul Dini. I need at least a couple more days to smooth out the wrinkles in my exclusive piece. Even then, it might not be that smooth, but I hope you like it.

Keep checking back! I cannot emphasize this enough. The Dini article will be posted onto here.

Friday, July 08, 2005

 
For the first time ever, pictures will be posted onto E. Allen’s P.O.V. over the next couple of days. Just be patient, please.

No pictures of me, though. Not yet. Sorry!

Thursday, July 07, 2005

 
This is profoundly creepy. I won’t give you the link to this guy’s online diary for fear of disturbing you readers out there, but this convicted sex offender Joseph Duncan has been maintaining a blog on Blogger for quite some time. I’ll give you the link to the MSNBC news article that mentions it, and only there will you find the Duncan link and decide if you should go further.

This guy sickens me. Apparently he is responsible for the kidnapping of the Groene siblings, and he may also be responsible for the killings of their mother, brother and boyfriend. I will not speculate further on this as he has yet to be tried in any court of law. I haven’t seen much of the evidence (save for the website) but what I have seen makes me feel like retching. Or buying one of those MIB mind-clearing devices to make me forget what I just saw.

This guy represents one more reason why most, if not all, convicted sex offenders aren’t given second chances by their communities upon release. Because some (note: some) don’t deserve them.

I can only emphasize that I have just recently learned that he maintained a blog with Blogger. How many more would-be killers and ex-convicts and soon-to-be-convicts maintain blogs? A scary thought. An even scarier possibility.

I would comment on the atrocious bombings that happened in London today, but oversaturation has already begun to occur. When I can find a unique angle to the story, I will post it in ten minutes flat, as is my speed. Right now, I haven’t even posted the Dini/Wikipedia article yet. . .

 

Garron on Brown

Take a look at this review of Being Bobby Brown. It is savage. It is cruel. This reviewer is no-holds-barred--Barry Garron does not hold back anything, save the dialogue on the show. Garron’s ripper of a review makes me want to watch the show even more. Especially the part where Bobby says that he wants to retrieve shit from Whitney’s ass.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

 
Ernest Lehman has died. This sucks. For a full retrospective, click here, because nothing that I could say can possibly do the man’s legacy justice.

 
To those of you saying that I need to get a life--you can kiss my animation-loving, Utica-bred, Brooks Institute educated, country-music hating, rap-freestyle-analytical-convoluted-Madeleine-L’Engle-reading ass.

Wesside!!!!!

 
Gonna be busy for the next couple of days, so updates will be few & far between. I will be putting the finishing touches on the Dini/Wikipedia article, as well as writing some long overdue screenplays. I’m on a deadline. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

 

At Last, All About Animation

Look at this. Now, I’ve never been a big fan of the new Batman animated dreck currently airing on Kids’ WB, but I never in a million years would have expected the WB to pump out a The Batman DTV (Direct-to-Video) this quickly. You know, this is beginning to feel like the Golan-Globus/Filmation 80’s, where nearly everyone who’s a major player in Animation is attempting to spend much less and make much more.

Not one to constantly bore you with tales of the old days of animation, but in 1993 Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was produced on a $40 million budget, not exactly shoestring. In fact, there still are many films that can be competently made with that amount of money (this year’s Alone in the Dark, for instance, could have been a much better movie with a different director and improved casting--not with more money, per se). But these days, the prevailing belief is that to solve complex production issues one must throw more money at it, rather than do the heavy lifting by coming up with creative cost-efficient solutions. This can be applied to animation as well.

No one, not even 20th Century Fox’s Bill Mechanic, will admit that the reason Titan A.E. went so far over-budget (the budget ballooned to $80 million) had nothing to do with the competence of the crew, or the capable management of the production. And it certainly had nothing to do with Gary Goldman or Don Bluth. Ideas ran out at a critical time in the production (the middle) and the powers that be had no other choice but to request more money. Now, there was a way around these hang-ups--but why take a plane that’s leaving in the evening when you can board a motorboat that sets off in 10 minutes? Sure, the option may be more expensive, and it’ll most likely take longer, but what the hell? At least you will get to where you intend to be.

But the failure of many other animated movies can be blamed on poor management and an understaffed (also commonly known as a skeleton) crew, and vice-versa. And then, there’s the strange case of Flutemaster, that extremely poor excuse for an animated series that many of you have likely never seen (and for that you are blessed and fortunate), but that’s another article for another time.

Suffice it to say, the warped economic beliefs of the studios somehow made CGI more appealing to them. I really do feel then, that this is why 2-D is getting the royal tree stuck up their ass. And that Japan is one of the few countries where organic animation is accorded any amount of respect.

I will write more about the lack of love 2-D is getting from America, when I have the time.

 

News, at the bottom of our standards & practices

Hurry up an' click on this--or CNN might rewrite their page. “Sex killer walks free and into TV studio.” What’s up with that byline?

It implies that Karla Homolka is a fugitive, conjuring images of a 35-year-old woman scaling walls like Spidey, passing through security like she’s Sue Storm and surprising everyone who just happens to be filming or filmed--on a set. Yeah--anyone would click on a link that promises to take them to that kind of story.

But no, CNN doesn’t deliver that story. Are they now sinking to deceptive tactics in order to increase traffic to their stories?

(p.s.--It is not shocking if they are. I’m not beneath utilizing those same aforementioned tactics, but CNN is a news agency for crissakes. They’re supposed to be above doing these sort of things.)

 

Free Stuff

I probably have never mentioned this on any of my blogs, but this link takes you to a webpage that offers you software and desktop utilities for free. Yeah, you read that right--free and clear. So, if you got some free time on your hands (yeah, yeah, I know--terrible pun) click it and weep. Perhaps you’ve been spending too much for stuff you could get for free.

(Thanks a million to Mark Evanier’s blog site for initially posting this link.)

Monday, July 04, 2005

 

One More--

The $150 million Batman Begins is up to a little under $155 million as of this July 5. Everyone went to see War of the Worlds.

Well, obviously Mr. Cruise’s antics had little or no effect on the film’s box office. If War of the Worlds took in something like $113.5 million domestically with all of Cruise’s ranting, imagine if Cruise didn’t go on his verbal warpath.

War of the Worlds would have beat Spiderman 2. And the movie industry’s months-long box office slump would have ended as fast as it had began.

More to come . . .

 

Guess I Gotta Catch Up

Just catching up on some things. Like the “Paul Dini Wikipedia omission article”. Yeah, I’ve received many e-mails about that one. It’s on its way, folks. Hang tight.

Over the next couple of days, you will see many massive updates to this site. Please bear with me and tune in.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

 
This "blogger" thing program is malfunctioning on me, currently. It will take some time for me to resolve this unexpected disruption.

In the meanwhile, feel free to surf my other websites (listing will be posted soon). But come back soon to E. Allen's P.O.V.!

Thanx!

 
Lots of people talking about Tom Cruise’s latest antics. They just won’t seem to let it die. Unbelievable.

For even posting this on my blogsite, I am chastising myself. I am not known for doing what everyone else does. However, I felt the need to call attention to this astonishing trend in human behavior. Years from now, psychoanalytic researchers will compile this data and publish it in a report [probably] called, “A Brief History of Celebrity Bashing: People Who Do It And Why, 2000-2030”. Or something like that.

Just a brief attempt at predicting the future.

More to come . . .

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