Wednesday, August 31, 2005

 

More stuff.

If there were an Academy Award for best blog, I have no problem believing that April Winchell would win it. The material on her blog is wrenching, funny, and thought-provoking. Not to mention controversial.

Every day you spend being a good person, is an investment you make towards being a wiser person.

For the second time (or maybe the third, I have a hard time keeping track of these sort of things these days), I will place a link there and ask you to go there. If that bores you to R.E.M. Disneyland, then hey--you can always go back to downloading porn.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

 
Let me start this post by saying that I’m really glad that Steve Carell and Judd Apatow are on top with their 40-Year-Old Virgin project. I have always felt that Steve Carell was shortchanged as a comedic actor, and should have been a leading man in film many, many moons ago.

But what I’m about to say may shock you, and provoke you to inundate me with e-mails threatening my life and the lives of my loved ones. I felt that The 40-Year-Old Virgin wasn’t a very good film.

I know that I’m hardly alone in feeling this way. Nick Schager for Slant thinks the movie runs over a half-hour too long. William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is much harsher, telling viewers to “abstain” from the movie. Needless to say, I don’t share his sentiments. But I can and will say this--there are better movies to be found out there now, and not all of them are currently at a theatre near you.

I don’t believe that the box office performance for 40-Year-Old Virgin this weekend (its second week at the top) says anything about the film. It is a bit of a crowd-pleaser, but many are waiting for the DVD. I thought that it was shaping up to be one of the highest-grossing comedies of 2005, but Wedding Crashers and Hitch will be sharing that crown and the 40-Year-Old Virgin will have to settle for the consolation prize of being the critics’ darling. At this point, it looks like 40-Year-Old Virgin will pant and wheeze cross $100 million.

But, I really believe that it will cross that enviable finish line, nevertheless.

 
Once again, here‘s another link I‘ve should posted many days ago but I just found it, so here it is.

It’s so true. Sci-Fi Network has some seriously retooling to do, but their issues aren‘t so grave as some other networks which comes to mind, networks which shall remain nameless save for the hint which I am about to drop now--*cough*Cartoon*cough*Network*cough*; *hack*Fox*hack*,*ugh*Kids*hack*4Kids*hack*. . .

Um, I think you get the point now.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

 

Here I am. . .

I’m a little late posting this update, but that’s only because I’ve been working with my new software (and playing with my workstation). I swear, when I retire, that’s all I’m gonna do. Play on my workstation.

Well, anyway it’s old news but the funny April Winchell has posted somewhere on her home page her deepest thoughts on what it feels like to have cancer. That’s a bitch (cancer, not April). I would e-mail her but something tells me that it would be a futile attempt as she would never get a chance to read it, let alone answer it. So, I’ll just place a link on my page, for her and do what I can to spread the word.

Some pictures will be on here, soon. I have to give my wrists some rest, since they feel like some demons from Hell showed up and blowtorched them out of existence.

Until next post, guys!

Thursday, August 25, 2005

 
2nd quote of the day, people:

“Modern politics are a cesspool in which politicians frolic. Anyone else who gets too close gets shit all over himself.” --James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

 

It Has Been a Good Week For Me.

Today’s post is a little unique for me, since I am posting from a different computer.

What I didn’t tell you guys before was--I have purchased a different computer (a Dell Precision Workstation 470 containing 4 GB of RAM w/ Dual 3.20 GHz Intel Xeon Processors and a Windows XP x64 OS pre-installed—which is being a bitch-and-a-half but, oh well—a SCSI 73GB Hard Drive [okay, I know that’s not much, but hold on] and a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Audio Card with a NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400 Video Card to round it all out), and I am still trying to get comfortable with it. Suffice it to say, posting here will be a challenge for the next couple of days, but somehow I will manage.

What this means is, I will now be freer than ever to create unbelievable 3D images. Even though this workstation is difficult to manage, they don’t call it a workstation for nothing.

I believe that I will always be a PC guy, simply because I don’t see a need to give in to Apple yet! Many people preach the gospel about how fast and how great the G5 (and, coming soon, the G6) is, but to me once you’ve licked a G5 you’ve tasted them all. And I have always hated their one-click mouse, that annoying S.O.B. of an outdated device (even avid Apple users admit, from time to time they go back to using the ol’ two-buttoner with the wheel in the middle because of the irritating lack of flexibility the Apple standard mouse offers them). Their keyboard, however, is one of my favorites and I wish keyboards for PCs were constructed like that.

At any rate, I do have a website in the works which will allow me to post my 3D work. When it goes up, sometime in the very distant future, you will see an alert—hopefully on this page.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

 

Flutemaster link added to sidebar

Now, anytime you guys feel the urge to torture yourselves by reading my Flutemaster experience can simply click on the second link under the heading “Special Articles!!!”. But please, make sure that there are no human beings, animals or other life-forms around you when you decide that you want to subject yourself to the horror! You may feel the need to strangle them/it/whatever.

That’s it for now, guys!

 

Another film bites the dust

Supercross: The Movie also collapsed hard at the box office, earning just $1.3 million smackers in its first weekend. Can’t say that I had high hopes for this one, but I was thinking about getting it when it hits DVD.

From what I’ve read, this film is not so bad it’s unwatchable, but it is pretty sorry. I might post a MST3K--type review of it sometime down the road. . .

 

Valiant dies at the box office

Disney, it’s all about the story. When will you guys realize that?

Valiant grosses $6.1 million, according to this source.

At any rate, I think the guys at Vanguard Animation are pretty talented, and that if they play their cards right their later films will rival Pixar’s not only in terms of visual splendor, but narrative structure. I know their next film should hit it out of the ballpark.

More later. . .

Friday, August 19, 2005

 

Outtakes!!!

There are “outtakes” for the Flutemaster article--pictures which I planned to post in the article, but couldn’t because there seems to be a limit as to how many pictures you can upload to a single post. Which is retarded, but I digress. . .

Anyway, the outtakes can be found here.

 

SPECIAL ARTICLE: FLUTEMASTER--A Remarkable Achievement in Crap

Poster © OMNI Culture/MarVista Entertainment

Warning: This article contains drug references, suicide references, pervasive and progressively intense language, sexual content and some references to pedophilia. If you are sensitive to any of the above, I strongly suggest that you avoid reading this article. Immediately.

A teenage boy named Justin Harmon from Venice Beach, California is given a magic flute with the power to command fantastical creatures, and is encumbered with the monumental task of keeping an evil sorcerer from getting it. 26 episodes co-produced with CCTV based in Hong Kong, iK Entertainment based in Beijing and China’s State broadcasting agency, each show 30 minutes long with commercials, Flutemaster‘s concept looked good on paper. The execution however, both narratively and visually, was a disaster of astonishing proportions.




Flutemaster image © OMNI Culture/MarVista Entertainment
Another one of those things where sticking in a cool-looking action scene (that, by the way, totally falls apart at the end, undone by the epileptic nature of the animation) cannot justify sitting through the herky-jerky animation, nor can it (and could not) save the animated show. Too little, far too late.


On the Flutemaster webpage found at obn-tv.com, I was amazed to see these words used in describing the content of Flutemaster: “. . .told with eye-popping visuals and a breezy sense of fun and cliffhanging thrills.” Those visuals were eye-poppingly reprehensible, I had no fun watching this garbage and the only thrill I got out of the entire atrocious, painful experience was that of trying to restrain myself from ending my life after each episode viewed.

The series was created by an American (as far as I know), Barry Glasser--responsible for Mighty Orbots for ABC, Galaxy High for CBS and Gold Diggers, a MOW (Movie of the Week) starring Christina Ricci for ABC's Wonderful World of Disney. Whamo Entertainment in conjunction with MarVista Entertainment, based in Los Angeles (as most of these type of outfits are) owns and is in control of all licensing rights to the series (Kid Screen magazine, 3/1/01).

Now, it is here that I must interject for a moment or two. Or five. Or ten. Whatever. Those first two paragraphs were written nearly two months ago, when I was in over my head and couldn’t figure out where to go with this article from here. Mired in deadlines and projects which I deemed more important than this one, I put this entire article on the back burner. Little did I know that Flutemaster would haunt me in my sleep, in the shower, while eating and watching a movie. So, last week I looked in my bathroom mirror and told my reflection, “Enoch, you have to finish the damn article.

“Anyway you can.”

So readers, I’m sorry if this article looks like something a high school freshman crapped out, bullshitting his way through entire paragraphs, hoping that the teacher won’t notice the overall lack of effort put into the research, the complete lack of passion for the subject matter and even some misspelled words--even words that are not difficult by any stretch of the imagination to spell. I am the uninterested freshman, and you readers are my teachers. And I am fully expecting you to give me a barely passing grade for the work. And you know what? I won’t care. I won’t care if this article gets a C- or even a D+ from you guys. Or maybe even a D-. The only thing I care about--as of this very typing--is getting this shitter in the can. Anyway I can.


Flutemaster image © OMNI Culture/MarVista Entertainment

Guys, look, I know this image is a little pixilated, but even a glaucoma-afflicted patient fighting Bright’s could clearly see the effort put into making images like these, which is apparently none at all. Look at the girl (the character could be a boy, for all I friggin’ know) with her arms outstretched, apparently making a run for it. I say “apparently” because the animation is so shitty she could be trying to mime a message to the audience. GET. AWAY. WHILE. YOU. CAN. And what the hell is up with that dragon, or whatever that creature is supposed to be? He doesn’t look remotely threatening. He looks like an otherworldly tourist taking a stroll through Denmark.


In January of 2001, Flutemaster was introduced at the National Association of Television Program Executives. There were some awfully repulsive programs being pitched to television executives shopping for potential airwave fillers for syndication, some competing with Flutemaster for the worst-ever-execution-of-a-terrible-concept prize. This is a starter list: Tracker, starring Adrian Paul as an alien bounty hunter who comes to Earth to track down escaped criminals in Chicago. Looks better on paper than on the screen. On paper is where the concept should have stayed (I think it did stay there, but that’s different material for a different article).

Colosseum (could there be a more generic title?), with Andrew Dice Clay (oh, man). Clay “plays”, word for word off of the STFV.org website, a “Brooklyn boxing promoter who goes back in time to the days of ancient Rome due to a magical amulet.” WTF? I don’t care. . .

William Shatner's Full Moon Frightfest. Well, compared to the turkeys I just posted on this page, reading the concept for this schlock anthology series was strangely reassuring. This turn out to be a one-time event--12 Full Moon horror/sci-fi movies, hosted by Shatner. That didn’t sound too bad. This should have been a recurring series, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.


And now, finally, Flutemaster. Which was pitched with the intent to launch a merch line, only the foundation for launching the merch line was not even conceived. Fernando Szew, Whamo's VP of sales and marketing, disclosed plans to find a global partner to share the cost of manufacturing and distributing merchandise for use in promoting the series. While I was reading this KidScreen article, from which much of the material in this paragraph originated, I came across this sentence: “Aside from the characters, the skateboard and the flute are two things that stand out as being very merchandisable. . .Justin [the hero] flies on a skateboard that's kind of magical, and he has skills preteens can relate to.”

And Szew doesn’t elaborate on what, exactly, those skills are. But the aforementioned attributes were used as a major part of the theme of the little advertising campaign Whamo launched stateside in a valiant (heh) effort to sell the preteen demographic. It’s like attempting to seduce Rebecca Romijn-Stamos by dancing like M.C. Hammer and rapping out your sexual prowess, Twista-style. In public. In short, Whamo’s marketing of Flutemaster was entertainingly pathetic and even educated the viewer on how little enthusiasm was evident by the parties involved. It was as if everyone connected to it had just said, “God, please see this. Will ya?”


A Short Paragraph About Sam Harris


He was born in Seattle, WA. A teacher noticed that he had talent for giving dramatic readings of well-known fairy tales, so she set to work on contacting his folks to let them know what a remarkable talent he was developing into. Some days afterward, he demonstrated his ability to enunciate words clearly and concisely. This wowed his parents--it actually got them thinking, “Boy, this kid gets an agent (or some kind of talent rep), he could be some sort of phenom! You know, like that Hilary Duff gal!” Okay, so that last sentence I threw in just for fun, but there was nothing funny about his parents’ reaction to his talent. They made sure that Sam had all the support he needed to pursue this goal, which had by now become a minor obsession for him. Soon, he had attracted enough publicity to be selected to participate in the Stories In My Pocket audiobook project, which after it was released won a number of awards including the Parents Choice Award. He was selected again by the same people behind Stories In My Pocket to read for the How & Why Stories audio endeavor and this in turn led to an on-camera but non-speaking appearance in the Ridley Scott epic, Gladiator.

Again, I must direct your attention to the fact that Sam Harris’s profile is nowhere to be seen on imdb.com. I don’t know why, it just can’t be found there. It should be there, however, because actors less talented and more public than he is are prominent on the website. It should also be noted that Flutemaster itself cannot be found on the site. It cannot be found on Wikipedia. In fact, as I have persistently stated throughout this article, there are very few places where it can be found. Which is why most of the material here is just filler, included in an attempt to be classified as a “Special Article”.

Back to Sam Harris. Before Flutemaster, Sam had the aforementioned live-action experience (in addition to being in Gladiator, he was in Green Lights, this independent film shot on digital video in Upstate New York). He attracted the attention of Barry Glasser, who was instrumental in getting him to read for the part of the lead. He nailed it, and the rest is history.

About Whamo and the formation of MarVista

(Much of the following is excerpted from an interview conducted by Ernesto Lechner.)

Image © MarVista EntertainmentThe Man himself (if this picture is to be believed), Joseph Szew, co-creator and full owner of Whamo. CEO/President of MarVista.


Whamo Entertainment was started in 1997 (year of establishment may be incorrect--if it is just e-mail me using my e-mail address at the bottom of this article) by this Hispanic gentleman Joseph Szew. Their first show was based on the children‘s classic The Little Prince. Today, Whamo’s library consists of in his own words, “A lot of animation, some live action series, feature films, and documentaries.” Joseph Szew was educated in Argentina (Buenos Aires, to be exact) and has a Bachelor’s in business administration. After getting into television programming and sales he decided that the next important change in his life would be relocation. He moved with his wife to the United States at 39, knowing very little English and was depressed for six months over his inability to property communicate with other people. What calmed him down were walks on Santa Monica shorelines, sometimes with his wife. If you live in the Southland, you should visit the beach in Santa Monica. I have, and it’s very relaxing.

Anyway, the Szews settled in Los Angeles and began making contacts. Initially, his job was maintaining sales and accounting for his brother-in-law’s company, which produced video dubs of Argentinean soap operas. When his brother-in-law moved to Miami, taking the operation with him he offered Joseph the option of staying with the business--in short, requiring Joseph to follow the business to Florida. Joseph declined. “. . .there was no way I was going to move my family again. So I started to make connections with American producers who owned programming I could sell in Latin America. And I started dealing with animation shows for kids, as well as a few series.”

Szew started a business which eventually bore the title “Whamo”, with a partner. “We decided to stop working for other people and start looking for shows that we could sell ourselves. In the beginning, we worked out of our houses until we rented a small office. . .At first, we would go to all the major film markets just to see what was going on. . .[we] were always hungry to find new product to represent. Then, we were lucky to have Anchor Bay entrust us their animation library for worldwide distribution. And we started having our own stand in the festivals. . .we met people and amassed a library of programming.”

Szew makes a point of emphasizing the fact that Whamo is largely family-owned, and that the people who operate it were gone over with a fine-tooth comb and filtered like water in a Brita pitcher before employment. “My son Fernando [now VP of sales and marketing] is about [as of this article] to start working with me, taking care of the growing multimedia segment of the business. . .happy to have him because he is a marketing wizard. . .I think we're definitely developing this company in a different way.”

Scrutinizing the above comments, every bit of the cynic in me asks, “How different? How is producing crap animation and no merchandise to speak of any different from what many of today’s self-professed ‘media companies’ are doing?” I digress, though. . .

What does Szew have to say to today’s budding entrepreneurs? “I would tell him to invest all the passion he can muster into the business. . .be completely honest with all his associates and employees. . .have an open door policy. . .always look your employees in the eyes. . .have the three qualities that I find essential for any family business: passion, perseverance, and patience.” End of article. Coincidentally, that attitude also describes the state of mind that Barry Glasser was in, all the time that he was working to get Flutemaster made. . .

In 2003, MarVista was formed by Joseph & Fernando Szew, Mar Gaya and associates Michael Jacobs (former PorchLight Productions SVP of worldwide sales) and George Port (founder and former CEO of Anchor Bay Entertainment), out of a nagging desire to find a way to actively manage and catalog all of the thousands of hours of programs, good and bad, that Whamo had accumulated for worldwide distribution. MarVista also emphasizes production over acquisition of original programming. Originally owned and licensed by Whamo, the bulk of distribution for Flutemaster is now being handled by MarVista.

Additionally, in late March 2005, MarVista production and distribution chief Michael Jacobs also said the company has entered into a joint venture with Vancouver-based Waterfront Pictures to produce six new animated direct-to-video features with a total budget of $6 million for the worldwide marketplace (source: Hollywood Reporter). Horrifying, when you think about it for more than five seconds.

Flutemaster: the Animated Series premiered in syndication in October 2003. I had read the downloadable MIPCOM pdf documents, and inside was the Flutemaster one sheet. My reaction was one of bewilderment. What could be so interesting about a boy and his flute? I said to myself, “It is likely that I will never see a show like this stateside,” and promptly put it out of my mind.

Well, lo and behold, in my room in Ojai, CA I was channel-surfing early one Saturday morning when I came across an ad for Flutemaster. And I said to myself, “That’s the toon advertised in that MIPCOM thingy!” My tape in the VCR, I had begun recording when it premiered later that same morning.


Flutemaster image © OMNI Culture/MarVista EntertainmentLook at that princess gettin’ down with her bad toon self. Notice her father (gee, he must have conceived her when he was, like, 100) trynna pull off a Merlin act. Byyyyatch, don’t you know you just a Poser magician compared to Merlin?

The nightmare begun. First, it was the wack framerate. Then, it was the idiotic music. The titles were barely visible superimposed against all those loud, just barely broadcast-safe colors. When the theme had mercifully ended, I had told myself, “Well, okay, maybe the theme sequence left much to be desired, but let’s see how the show plays.” Boy was I in for it.


Flutemaster image © OMNI Culture/MarVista Entertainment

I remember seeing this image in an episode. I think it was, something like, the fourth one. By that time, I was exasperated with life in general--watching episodes of Flutemaster has that effect on you. A show so terrible, it could send the viewer spiraling into depression.


The voice acting was horrendous. By horrendous, I am not merely conveying that the actors mispronounced some of their lines, or missed some cues. No. It was far worse. The entire voice soundtrack was terrifying from start to finish, featuring complete sentences that were spoken when the character’s lips were clearly, obviously not moving; ridiculously out of place “yells” in scenes which simply did not require them (i.e. walking, closing a door--since when does closing a door cause someone to shout?); many, many “hmmm” sounds coming from the characters, as if they were choir backup singers; and the granddaddy of them all, gratingly audible histrionics, the kind done by bad actors in B-movies. You’d expect these kind of performances in Roger Corman films, and even in Corman films the actors make some attempt to make the character’s emotions tangible to the intended audience. Not so with this Flutemaster pilot. No attempt was made at rendering any authentic human emotions--voice performances were either very pronounced (“OH NO! AHHHH! THE FLUTE!) or too muted (“He got away.”)

The voice actor for the villain gave the worst performance I have ever heard, and I have heard many. The actor voicing the evil sorcerer at times seemed to intentionally slur his words, as if the part required him to be somewhat inebriated, high or both. Perhaps the actor had downed some Courvoisier mixed with Hennessey and powdered Ecstasy, then did some straight crushed up solid crystal meth, oxycontin combined with a liberal helping of PCP and barbiturates--then came in to do the part. Sound editors, not that enthused with the project to begin with, decide to lock it in the final edit and forget it. That no one bothered to clean this pathetic soundtrack up just a little bit only lends some degree of credibility to my observations.

And folks, I observed all of this in the first damn episode. The second ep is even more messed up.

For instance, the princess in Episode 2 kept looking at her father like she wanted to suck him off. Every time they shared a scene together, I felt uncomfortable looking at these two. I kept saying to myself, “If I had to be a virgin as long as she was, I would just, like, use my magical powers to impale myself on the roof of the Castle.” She even sounded like she wanted a piece of him in her. Her father, the Emperor, looked as if he was sharing these same thoughts. Of course, none of the writers thought to write that in, or any of my aforementioned demented musings--I lay this on the animators, for failing and not caring enough to craft the appropriate facial expressions onto the characters. I hereby remind myself never to seek out the Chinese animation house responsible for bringing Flutemaster to life like this, for I do not want my character behaving in ways which can be implied or interpreted as incestuous.

By the second episode of a series, things are supposed to improve. Television is even more brutal than motion picture--the competition is ferocious. If ratings for your program drop below an average, your program says hi to the ghost wearing the “Cancellation” wifebeater. And the TV public gets amnesia fast. No one can seem to remember Millennium, that show created by Chris Carter (X-Files) starring Lance Henriksen, and it ran for three years with reruns being broadcast on the Sci-Fi Network. Or Platinum, the hip-hop music industry melodrama which aired on UPN amidst much fanfare but was met with near-total apathy when it premiered, and after it was pitted against CSI it died, hard. I see a second episode of a struggling series as a second chance to prove itself worth the viewer’s attention. And I don’t understand why the “second episode” concept never dawned on the creators of Flutemaster. Comparing animated backgrounds to the remarkably rancid pilot, I discovered a precipitous freefall in the quality of the artistry. It’s like, the BG painters told themselves, “Heh--there’s some mistakes in this, but not to worry. The CG department’ll clean this up.” Not so.

Flutemaster image © OMNI Culture/MarVista EntertainmentOnce again, we see monsters with a smile on their face as they are apparently trying to kill a person, even if the person in this instance happens to be a villain. I have seen more convincing animation pulled off in Flash.


I’m pretty sure that I can tell whether an animated show’s been digitally touched up--which is not a bad thing, so long as the image artifact(s) don’t take me out of the story. In fact, I will go so far as to say that I think anyone who watches animation on a semi-regular basis could pick a pixel out of a line-up of traditionally-painted effects. However, I saw no digital manipulation in Flutemaster whatsoever. Not in Ep. 1, not in Ep. 2. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t gonna see it in Ep. 3, either. Anyway, this tells me one of two things: That OMNI Culture, in association with OBN-TV, the Chinese government and Whamo/MarVista couldn’t scrounge up, between the four or five of them, the couple of pennies needed to purchase the basic off-the-shelf hardware and software needed to fix at least some of the show’s most retch-worthy visual dilemmas. Or two: Perhaps any digital tinkering would have made the show look worse than it turned out to be (my mind has resisted any attempt to imagine how much worse Flutemaster could look), so Whamo decided to just roll with it and stamp Approved on the broadcast tapes. Here’s an extra possibility--maybe they were just lazy-ass bastard sons of bitches!


Flutemaster image © OMNI Culture/MarVista Entertainment

Y’know, I’m not so sure I would put this image on any promotional material. It’s drawn too suggestively, like---uhhhhhh, it just looks PERVERTED!


While writing this opus, something weird worth mentioning here entered the stream of my consciousness. If advertisers saw Flutemaster beforehand, why did they still sign up? Were they that desperate to shill their shit? The more I think about these facts, the more fucked up it seems to be that Whamo actually made money syndicating Flutemaster. True, the bulk of the advertisements were about the U.S. Military, and paid for by the Military; some others were the obligatory Boys & Girls Club stuff, the “Don’t Do Drugs/Take a Bite Out of Crime” Scruff McGruff shit and the paper towel guys. But why even them? Hold up. Maybe that last question is more than a little lacking in logic?

Ah well. Ad space is ad space, right? Even when your ad appears in the middle of, arguably, the worst animated program ever to see the light of Saturday (this is even taking into account Rocket Red Hood, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, Jabberjaw, Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot, C-Bear and Jamal, Hammerman, Waynehead, The Amazing Chan & The Chan Clan, Captain Caveman & The Teen Angels, Catdog, the 1979 Filmation version of Flash Gordon, The Funky Phantom, Goober & The Ghost Chasers--yet another in a string of Scooby-Doo [which wasn’t a great cartoon to begin with] knockoffs, as if Hanna-Barbara ran out of ideas after the first episode of Doo was in the can, Marine Boy, and the obstreperously grating The Partridge Family: 2200 AD--I would have preferred to sit though an entire season’s worth of any of these shows over having to subject myself to the eyesore that is [or was, for all intents and purposes] Flutemaster) hey, at least people will know the product’s on the shelves. I’m sorry--kids will know that the products are on the shelves (working adults usually use their weekends to take a jog in their dreams) and will beg their parents to buy it for them, even though there’s not a chance in hell that they will ever need them.

Of course, I was hoping that even kids would be sophisticated enough to avoid Flutemaster like an AIDS crocodile with a tail coated with SARS. Most kids today are. But for the other dumb little motherfuckers who provided Whamo/MarVista with an excuse to keep this pathetic tripe going on the airwaves, their parents should have been caring enough to switch the offending channel to Nickelodeon. Eventually, Flutemaster made its way to Sunday mornings. Why? Why the hell did Flutemaster get aired on Sunday mornings? All these struggling independent animators, who are skilled storytellers, can’t get a DTV (direct-to-video) deal, and yet Flutemaster gets a full-season order, syndication to hundreds of markets, and a two-year run. That is beyond fucked up.

It makes no sense to talk about subsequent episodes. The storyline remains the same (boy summons creatures every time the big bad evil Weird-Al-Yankovic-lookalike sorcerer comes to try to take it away from him), with little variance, until the end of the season (I got the rest of the episode outlines online, since I had to stop watching Flutemaster at episode seven)--the animation gets worse, the sound effects more pitiful, the voice performances (can’t quite bring myself to type “acting” again) more over-the-top. I realized that I had the power to terminate this experience, that I didn’t have any obligation to anyone to have to endure more of this and that perhaps, on a purely subconscious level, I was being masochistic to myself--testing myself--to find my limits as a human being, what I can or cannot take. In the end, I could not stay with Flutemaster until the last new episode aired, because I could not take more of Flutemaster.

Conclusion

Flutemaster sucks dick!



Major thanks to the following sources for Flutemaster--A Remarkable Achievement in Crap:

http://www.sftv.org/natpe/
http://www.ithacafilms.com/stars/stars.html
http://www.saludos.com/byob/byob-succ-szew.htm
http://www.whamoentertainment.com/about_us.asp
http://www.whamoentertainment.com/subindex.asp
http://www.kidscreen.com/articles/magazine/20031001/marvista.html
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/brief_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000856744
http://www.obn-tv.com/programs/Flutemaster_Page.htm

My e-mail is
allenfs@aol.com. You can also e-mail me at e44r33@yahoo.com.



 

BREAKING NEWS! Flutemaster article finished!

At long damn last, the Flutemaster article is finished! It is just minutes away from being posted.

My deepest gratitude to all of you who hung in there waiting for it. I assure you--it’s worth the wait.

And to those of you disappointed with it--e-mail me at allenfs@aol.com and tell me to screw myself.

Whee!!!!!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

 
A bit unusual to see MTV.com commenting on matters of animation, but their Joe Ranft piece is pretty good. It’s cool to see that they make space on their website for people who are not on a reality show but are honest, honorable and even noble individuals.

 

[Ha ha] Academy Award predictions [Ha ha].

I usually don’t link to an article that’s more than two days old, but this one over at MSNBC.com about Oscar 2006 is one that I simply couldn’t leave by the wayside.

I’ll make a ridiculously early prediction--that Claire Danes is guaranteed a Best Actress nomination for Shopgirl. Who knows? Maybe she’ll take it home as well.

Ooooooooooooo. . .

 
So, guys, I guess it’s official--Christoper Walken is not running in 2008.

Damn!

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

 
In that last post, the word “remembrances” was linked to my compusa.com receipt page. If you clicked on said link before it was augmented, you saw how much I paid for a 500GB Hard Drive I ordered from them--$468.14. It was an honest mistake that’s now officially corrected. I hope.

Though somewhere, in some otherworldly medium I sure hope Joe Ranft saw that and had a big hearty chuckle.

 

Joe Ranft (1960-2005)

I’m a little late to the proceedings, but I just got word that Joe Ranft, one of the “storyboard” guys over at Pixar, was killed in a car accident near Mendocino, CA on the 16th. Which would be yesterday, if I am not mistaken. I jetted over to Cartoon Brew for the latest news. There are many remembrances on this page, and if it is not updated too often through the day you won’t have to scroll that far down to see all of them. This is terrible, shocking and sad news and my condolences as well as my prayers go out to his wife and family.

That’s all I have for now--

 

I gotta try to draw like him. Well, not like him, but you know. . .

Another day, another new blog by an artist/animator. This guy is Donnachada Daly, who was one of the directing animators of DreamWorks‘s Madagascar. Readers of Cartoon Brew should already know quite a bit about this talented fellow, but in case you have never been to his webpage, now’s your chance to put forth that one-half of a molecule of extra energy to click on the link that takes you there. And once you’re there, be courteous and spend more than one minute viewing his artwork. If you can spare the time.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

 
I’m on a roll. I’m being a serial poster today. I guess that because I have spent more time on the Internet today than in probably, all my years surfing, I have found some truly hilarious links. This one, I think you’re sure to enjoy. And if that link doesn’t have you ROTFL for whole hours, just send hate mail to allenfs@aol.com. As much as you want.

In fact, I will repeat my e-mail address, just in case you guys missed it the first time--allenfs@aol.com.

I love being boisterous.

 

Another potshot at Miramax

The Great Raid takes in less than $4 million at the box office this weekend. I don’t know why I’m reporting this. I just thought that it was interesting for a number of reasons.

Miramax had this war film on its shelves for a couple of years, and I guess they thought, “Hey! Now might be a good time to toss this one out into the market!” It’s a slaughterhouse out there--The Island was killed, as was Stealth, Bad News Bears and to some minor degree, The Devil’s Rejects. Now, Four Brothers, Deuce Bigalow, March of the Penguins, The Dukes of Hazzard and The Skeleton Key might not seem like much competition but The Great Raid is not a tentpole picture. Sure, it’s a war film based (mostly) on the famous raid on the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan in which 500 U.S. soldiers were rescued from certain death, but you don’t run into people on the street who ask each other, “Are you gonna see The Great Raid? I am!”

This is yet another example of a studio’s ineptitude--when it comes to generating genuine hype for their films. To begin with, it doesn’t help that The Great Raid had completed production in 2002 and collected dust on the shelves of Miramax since then, up until a week or two ago. And now that the Weinsteins are packing up and forming another new company, The Weinstein Co., they are apparently giving all the stuff they had on their shelves for the past couple of years half-assed releases. These are films, like The Warrior and Prozac Nation, of indisputable quality--films that could garner potential Oscar nominations and yet, well, they are getting the figurative stick up their collective asses. It’s a waste of my time and yours to bemoan this. Suffice it to say that Peter Biskind has enough new material to write a sequel to his book on the Weinstein Co., Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film.

I haven’t the foggiest idea as to what he could call this sequel, but whatever it may be, it will be just as provocative and controversial as the last title for his last book.

Postscript: Some material for this post taken from Roger Ebert’s review of The Great Raid.

 
For at least four hours after Paul Dini updated his Live Journal page, no one commented on his post. Isn’t that strange. This is like Leo DiCaprio showing up for an online chat session with fans, and yet none of his fans show up. That would suck.

This development is sure to change within a minute or two after I make this post--as it stands right now, though--when you go there, I don’t think you’ll be seeing any replies.

 
Introducing the Jerk-O-Meter!

Sorry. That’s just the best that I can do at this point in time.

More later. . .

 
Less than seven days after James Berardinelli’s review for The Dukes of Hazzard appears online, Roger Ebert one-ups Berardinelli by reviewing Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. As expected, he tears it a new one. The review concludes by saying, “Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.”

It’s a really short review--before long, I wasn’t even aware that I was reading the end of it. That’s why you should take a look at it. Really slow readers will be through the article in the time it takes to change a shirt.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

 

The World Gets Weirder

If this happens, I will probably start voting.

(Just kidding. I don’t vote.)

But seriously--widdn’t it be cool if Walken was, by some fearsome hand of fate, elected President? I bet his inaugural address would probably go something like this--

“In Africa, two zebras are having sex. I like hippos. But, let me get back to the sex and the zebras. And, a while later a baby zebra with just one stripe to be found on him is born. The father zebra believes that the mono-striped zebra is representative of his inability to produce a normal zebra. So, he kills the one-striped newborn. What is the moral of this story, people? Hell if I know.”

Wouldn’t that make a hell of an inaugural speech?

 
Now that my posts are slowly beginning to appear on this page, I want to publicize my involvement on the message boards over at agonybooth.com. I’ll be posting here, there, and everywhere as much as I can for the next two to four weeks--in addition to writing my screenplays and short stories and stuff. So yes, it’s crunch time!

Friday, August 12, 2005

 

Difficulties with Blogger

Another reason why I can’t post as much lately is because the limitations of this Blogger interface. More later--when I can figure out a solution to this seriously and persistently annoying problem. Ciao!

Thursday, August 11, 2005

 

Ah, crap, here it comes---

Not updating this site in five days means either one of two things--someone gunned me down, hard, or I’m working on Flutemaster.

I assure you, it’s Flutemaster. That, and I’m working on a special series of 3D images to post on here!

I can’t wait to get slaughtered and savaged in e-mails!

Monday, August 08, 2005

 

POST #100!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will begin my 100th post by wishing Mr. Paul Dini a late Happy Birthday! He’s in Texas (allegedly) celebrating and skeet-shooting with the current love of his love, Misty Lee. Here’s to a happy marriage and a healthy year for the two.

Can’t you believe it? My 100th post! Thanks to all of the readers who came to my site and loved what they saw. Without readers, I would have no motivation to post regularly (and I’m sure it’s the same for you guys, too--those of you who have blogs of your own).

 

Peter Jennings dies at 67

This news is making the rounds. I’m pretty sure all of you know by now. Let me reiterate--Peter Jennings is gone, from throat cancer. I am shocked beyond words.

There is a reason for me to be shocked. 1.) He was 67, guys. 67. 2.) He was a compulsive smoker. At least, that’s what the reports are saying. 3.) I will turn the channel to ABC tonight and every night afterward, for some time. And he won’t be on there.

He won’t be right back after the pharmaceutical companies shill their products, or after the occasional movie trailer flashes across the screen. He won’t be back after we see some commercial about a lame reality show premiering that night at 8p/7p central. He won’t be bringing us reports from halfway around the globe, from some remote region rife with violence or a world conference or an Olympic event.

As I write this, I am left with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. What will become of dignified journalism now?

Sunday, August 07, 2005

 
Exciting news in animation today. Marvel and Lions Gate are teaming up to make some feature-length animated direct-to-DVD adaptations of many of Marvel’s comic-book characters--as many as eight for 2006 and 2007, says this source. The first of these is tentatively titled Ultimate Avengers--it has an estimated running time of about 80 minutes and Curt Geda (Return of the Joker) and Steven Gordon will be sharing the directing duties. Expected rating for this film is PG-13 due to battle sequence/war violence and some possible language (!?!), though the same cannot be said for the rest of the animated films in development. They are still at the storyboard stage, with at least a few likely to be given a PG.

More as this news develops.

 

Batman Begins, @ $200 million

Batman Begins finally reaches $200 million. The official take at this time is $199,126,000, but I figure that amount is an estimate and doesn’t take into account greenbacks earned on Sunday. Although this millennium Batman earned considerably less than the 1989 Batman ($250.5 million, over $400 million adjusted for today’s inflation), preliminary box office reports suggested that Batman Begins would fade out of theaters faster than that other Batman which sunk the trilogy, you know, the one with the Schmuckmacher at the helm. (Okay, I know that pot-shot was a little harsh. No harsher than Harry Knowles, though.)

Of course, Batman die-hards (I believe) were just waiting for all of the opening-day irritants (the wittle kids, the annoying teens, old people) to get their fill first, so that they could see the Batman in all of its unvarnished glory--concentrating, scrutinizing every frame of the picture, analyzing the most subtle idiosyncrasies of each performance, relishing every bit of sound. It was only in this sparse setting could they focus undisturbed on the matter at hand--deconstructing Batman.

Because, as we all know, fanboys are compulsive deconstructionists.

 

Flutemaster sucks.

Flutemaster sucks. I’ve said this before. I’ll say this again.

Flutemaster sucks.

This article is a pain in the ass, of the highest possible order known to man. But, being a disciplined writer, I will finish what I have started. Thanks for the encouraging e-mails and messages, guys!

More to come. . .

Friday, August 05, 2005

 
The first stone has been thrown at The Dukes of Hazzard remake directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, a member of Broken Lizzard--responsible for the uproarious Super Troopers and Club Dread. And it has been thrown by none other than James Berardinelli, who has been throwing many stones lately. This review belongs in the hall of fame of bashings, right up there with reviews for Freddy Got Fingered, Dude, Where’s My Car, and Plan 9 From Outer Space. Not even the famed Devil’s Rejects received such a critical drubbing.

The extent to which Berardinelli trashes Hazzard is nothing short of astonishing. He whales on the director, editor, executives, the stars--no one seems to be left out. I was white with wonder and amazement. Click on the link above and go read the review yourself. I’m fucking speechless.

 
So, that last posting of 3D artwork went over pretty well. What a surprise.

Y’all will be seeing more, as soon as I can get used to the Maya control scheme. And maybe finished 3D Studios Max 6 images, as well. . .

I think I will take what limited time I have left to share with you an anecdote. Reboot, the classic CGI animated series from Mainframe, was something I never watched when I was growing up. It seemed unattractive to me, and it wasn’t until much later that Reboot grew on me. It’s been 14 years since Reboot premiered on ABC Saturday mornings--God, how time flies. Anyway, this post really has no point to it. It was just on my mind, and I decided to put it here for all to see. I see it now as a remarkable achievement, but I also see it as the beginning of the death of 2D animation.

I believe that it is imperative that 2D animation continue to flourish. I have bad 2D skills. While I was in attendance at Brooks Institute, my instructors always encouraged me to improve on what I had already known, and before I went to Brooks I was working with the Mohawk Valley branch of Compeer, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities and various psychological disorders, doing graphic designs and the like. Some of my first designs were done on the computer, using Lightwave and the like. However, I have always wanted to make an animated film using 2D techniques! There are ways of doing this on the computer, as I sure many of you tech-savvy readers out there know. It’s just such a pain in the ass to do, whether you’re doing it on paper or digitally. It really is.

However, 3D just comes naturally to me, for some reason. No, 3D is still a massive challenge, but I guess that what it comes down to is the fact that I enjoy it more as it offers up something more in the way of instant gratification. My vision seems to turn out closest to the way that I want it to turn out in 3D, whereas in 2D it ends up looking too cartoony, and less realistic. I suppose that I have the same issues that this young artist does in terms of control over the visual details of the image--those little lines, curves, thickness and thinness--the seemingly intangible aspects of organic hand-drawn animation. Maybe, it’s because I don’t know enough about the form.

Well, I guess it’s time to break into Studio Ghibli and steal their remarkable magic. . .

Thursday, August 04, 2005

 

UPDATE on Jackson interview

Ok (no pun intended), so it looks like the Jackson interview won’t go forward until either side gives up something precious. What a conflict.

However, if there’s no interview at all, I am OK! with that (pun fully intended).

 
Okay, so if this weren’t a slow news day, this posting tidbit wouldn’t be worth posting. But, here goes.

On imdb.com, in the FILM ARTICLES section, Michael Jackson has reportedly agreed to sell his side of the story (you know, the one about the trial) for a whopping $2 million to the American arm of that Brit wag mag, OK!. (That’s my nickname for celebrity tabloids, wag mag.) The thing that got me was a source close to this development, who allegedly said “the questions are very softball . . .”

Now, I’m not suggesting one way or the other whether the source is telling the truth or not, but what is so interesting about an interview with a superstar, answering softball questions? Just why would Joe Consumer want to read that? I’m perplexed.

If said interview were available on the ‘Net for free, it might be worth a read-through. Other than that, if I had to buy a copy of OK! and sift through all of the preceding fluff just to get to the in--no, actually I would totally ignore its existence if I had to pay to peep it. What makes an interview with a celebrity interesting is the polar opposite of what OK! is apparently offering us.

 


I think I will post this anyway, and will brace myself for the torrent of e-mails pleading me to not post another piece of my “art” here again.

Flutemaster article, once again, will have to be postponed. This time, I will not make any excuses.

Much more later . . .

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

 

Nothing much new today.

I will update this website, even though as of this updating, outside of the box office reports that you’ve probably already learned by now (Wedding Crashers is top right now, with a standing total of around $120 million)--I have basically nothing new to add. Yeah, Flutemaster is beyond late--there isn’t a word in the English language which can describe the degree of tardiness--but, I can dutifully acquit myself by saying this.

There are not even crickets chirping up any information about this lazy piece of animation. With good reason. It just poses a challenge for anyone trying to explain exactly what made Flutemaster suck so horrendously.

More later, guys. Keep checking back, please. I’ve also been meaning to post some of my 3D artwork, but that will have to wait until I can find a way to make the impossible possible.

Monday, August 01, 2005

 
Let me make a correction to the earlier post--there’s a link on Wonkette, which does not report events that happen in Upstate New York on a regular basis, which takes you to the website of the local newspaper for this town (Utica Observer-Dispatch), which reports the Ding-a-Ling conflict. Sorry for the mix-up.

Not one to make excuses, but I blame the aforementioned mistake on lack of concentration, fast typing and overall fatigue.

 

Mr. Ding-a-Ling

Three-quarters of a ways down this page is news from Utica, my hometown, about the ice cream conflict here. It involves a mobile merchant whose company goes by the name of Mr. Ding-a-Ling (no, I did not make this up for comic effect, and please don’t e-mail me the tiresome penis jokes) and his fight against city authorities for making his job difficult. He’s giving out free ice cream and other related frozen products in an effort to shore up support from the public.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to work.

 

The Failure of the latest co-financed “$100 million” studio project.

Not surprised that Stealth, featuring Jamie Foxx and Jessica Biel, failed hard. I read that it cost more than $100 million to complete and similar to The Island, suffered from poor marketing and terrible word-of-mouth. Arguably, when moviegoers weren’t attempting to ignore the movie they trashed it on blogs, chat rooms and in e-mails sent to Sony, the studio backing this Rob Cohen effort. Not to mention in reviews by professionals and amateur writers alike. At least The Island (which has since had its B.O. take boosted to $30 million) had Michael Bay’s name going for it. Though that didn’t even come close to doing anything for poor Island, at least filmgoers knew what they were getting, more or less. And if they saw the trailers or the TV spots, they had an even better idea.

Stealth had Rob Cohen as director, a couple of leads who were miscast, and visual effects which were hailed by many esteemed film connoisseurs as “sub-par” and “barely better than average”. But don’t expect Sony to do any quarterbacking when they report their latest earnings to shareholders this quarter--the film was partially financed by German outfits and any number of foreign partners. It has now become fashionable to make American blockbusters with some American greenbacks but many more euros--mostly German, of course.

I guess Sony America wasn’t going to be that shocked either, having planned accordingly for this event by suckering as many foreign partners into this deal as allowed by international law. As a result, German financiers woke up yesterday and began massaging their ass, from having been royally fucked over--again. I also heard that this and many other incidents will result in German tax laws being reviewed for possible retooling by authorities later this year. Stealth will probably be one of the last American films to benefit from the lack of business savvy on the part of the German finance ministers.

And, if the Germans wise up and tell Hollywood to find some other stupid foreigners to deceive, Stealth will probably represent the last time Americans will see more than one tentpole summer film per year. After this, the only projects Hollywood film studios will invest in are sure things.

Still working on Flutemaster article and making mountains of progress with Maya 6.0 and 3D Studio Max 6!

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