So I’m really enjoying my vacation. I’ve done some work, but for the most part, just been taking it easy. Doing what? Well…
Christmas Time Is For Being WIth The Ones You Love
Spent Christmas with MK and her family once again, though this time at her mom’s house by the Jersey shore. But despite being thousands of miles away from home, I still had the opportunity to bond with a loved one from my entire childhood yet again this holiday season: television.
Which meant MK & I mostly just sat around watching Xmas shows on DVD; aside from holiday themed Simpsons, Futurama, SCTV, and Father Ted episodes, there was also the Pee Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special, plus I even got to introduce MK to the Red Green Show via the holiday DVD. It’s kinda hard to describe, but the Red Green Show is yet another comedy I grew up with in the Pacific Northwest. Basically a parody of handyman shows, but from Canada, and to be more precise, its redneck-type humor, though for loggers. It’s also pretty popular in its native country; according to the show’s Wikipedia entry, one character, Harold is “arguably Canada’s most famous nerd.” I guess you just have to see it (which, if you don’t can sometimes be caught on PBS).
Though the definite highlight of all our entire television viewing had to be the late Christmas night installment of Play2Win, something that Dave first turned me recently and which has since become a serious late night addiction, on par with the shopping networks years back when they were hawking sports cards and Beanie Babies (due to its hyper Southern huckster Don West, mainly to hear him scream “GEM MINT TEN KEN GRIFFY ROOKIE CARD! GEM MINT TEN KEN GRIFFY ROOKIE CARD!” or “THIS VERY WELL MIGHT BE YOUR LAST CHANCE EVER IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFETIME TO GET A PRINCESS DI BEANIE BABY AT SUCH AN AMAZING PRICE!!!”). For those who don’t know what Play2Win is (and from what I understand, its pretty popular… which has to be true since there’s variants all over the place late at night), its a series for insanely stupidly simply word puzzles that the audience is asked to call in and answer. The first person to do so gets the chance to solve the puzzle on the air, but those who are too late are still eligible to play in some form or fashion. Oh, and each phone call is like $2. Sound like some stupid scheme, right? Well, that’s not the point. The best part of the show are the hosts, a pair of semi-brain dead/ditzy model types as they address the audience and attempt to entice them to call in. They basically have one minute’s worth of material that they have to stretch out for sometimes fifteen, twenty minutes, and there’s just something hypnotic about watching these women awkwardly ad-lib the entire time. Sometimes they disclose bizarre personal info, but the best is when they accidentally give away the answer to the puzzle (not that it matters… like I said, they are simple as shit, you have to be a total retard to not get them, though MK says that she’s already seen people on the air totally freeze up and get it wrong, or simply give the answer to a wrong puzzle).
Obviously, the reason why they stretch it out is to give the impression that no one else is watching, hence why everyone I’ve spoken to has confessed that, at one point or another, they found themselves fighting the urge to call in since it seems like such an easy chance to score some money (btw, another awesome part of the show is how whenever the prize amount is mentioned, this graphic appears on screen accompanied with a jingle, and its NEVER in time with the music that’s constantly playing in the background). And that’s exactly what I did on Xmas night, since my curiosity got the best of me, plus MK kept going “Do it. Do it. Do it.”. I called twice actually. The first time I was caller number 2, and the second I was number 5. Bummer. But the funny part about that was with each text message telling me that I was too late, it ended with a small, “inspirational” message. So at least for my $3, I learned that I should “always be a little kinder than necessary” and that “every journey starts with a single step.”
The only kinda downside to the holiday was when I found myself having to possibly kill squirrels in the attic on the behald of MK’s mom. What is it about the holidays and me having to kill rodents? Exactly ten years ago, when I spent Xmas in New Orleans, I had to deal with tiny lizards. But thankfully, that didn’t come to pass. Though if I actually came in contact with a bushy-tailed rodent, instead of bashing its head in, I would have tried to capture one for Mike.
Presents!
Oh, so other than bonding with loved ones, what’s the best part about the holidays? Presents of course! This year I got…
- The Aeon Flux Complete Animated Collection on DVD from MK (As a diehard Aeon Flux fan, I’ve wanted to get my hands on this set for the longest time, and it was well worth the wait. Every short from Liquid Television and episode of the long-form series has been restored, and in some cases fixed, but in a good way, not a jerk-ass Lucas type fashion, and with the utmost level or care and attention. Plus there’s supplemental stuff like storyboards and pencil tests, and a fairly decent behind the scenes/making of featurette; I had no idea of the “connection” to the old Nick cartoon Rugrats. Virtually everyone person I know who liked the original shorts was not a fan of the “talkies” that came afterwards, but I’m pretty convince that most simply never gave it a fair shake, nor watched more than 30 seconds, so all those need to give it a second look. At the very least, the entire collection is a pretty fascinating look at a time when MTV, and animation on television, was still legitimately daring and exciting.)
- a pair of ultra groovy designer plates featuring robots from Dave (I’ll pass along pictures later)
- “I Like You”, the hospitality guide by Amy Sedaris from MK (I don’t know if this makes me “weird” but I find Sedaris kinda hot!)
- SCTV: The Best of the Early Years DVD collection, also from MK (which includes one of my favorite bits, the Star Wars parody, “Empires a Girl’s Best Friend”, as well as the “1984″ episode)
- about twenty hot dogs from Jason
- a Flickr Pro upgrade, also from Jason
- the first season of Curb Your Enthusiasm from MK (A fave comedy of mine, maybe because I feel so much like Larry David at times from the show, with the whole raging against the whole world. I guess that’s why I always like George from Seinfeld so much. Which we all are when you get down to it; I used to really hate it when people asked each other what character they were the most like from that show. “I’m most like Elaine cuz I’m sassy!” or “I’m most like Kramer because I’m goofy and clumsy, but everyone loves me!” No. We are all like George, everyone one of us. We are all ugly, petty, stupid people that hate everyone else, and ourselves. Period.)
- plus a Japanese business card holder and some awesome postcards, also from Japan, that looks like old late 50′s/early 60′s animation from America, also from MK
… Though that’s not it! I still have to exchange presents with Katie plus a few other friends.
I also decided to treat myself yesterday by picking up the Tranformers The (animated) Movie re-release. And I’m so glad I held out for something better; the Rhino edition from a few years back was okay, but nothing spectacular. Aside from having a widescreen edition for the first time (something which I had been led to believe simply did not exist), there’s tons of supplemental info, such a special commentary track with a bunch of diehard Tranformers geeks absolutely have to check out, plus assorted test and deleted footage, as well as storyboard breakdown of shots. The best part of all this is that among the diehard TF nerds enlisted to shed light on the subject is that crazy British guy who I saw at the Transformers convention a year ago who at one point made the other dudes go “Jesus Christ you know a LOT about this film!”. Plus there’s a couple of featurettes, including one that talks about the death of Optimus Prime, and the impact it had, as well as a general Q&A with some of the folks involved with the creation of the film that is surprisingly informative. There’s also an option to view the movie with “Pop-Up Video” style factoids that also offer a wealth of info. It should also be noted that the transfer of the film itself is nothing absolutely phenomenal! The movie has simply never looked better. PLUS, there’s more! There’s an entire episode from Japan that actually bridges season 2 and 3 and was meant to introduce a number of the movie characters. And there’s a bunch of toy commercials from the past, both from Japan and America, but I guess they couldn’t get certain clearances, so they had to blur out the faces of all the child actors in them, and the results are pretty freaky.
I guess the “worst” part of the DVD is the short preview for the upcoming live-action movie from Bay and Spielberg, simply because everyone interviewed in the movie are so fucking condescending. They all basically echo the same stupid sentiment: “This isn’t some movie based on a stupid toy!” At one point, one special FX guy goes on to describe a scene featuring a Tranformer as a car going down a highway (gee, a highway chase scene in a Michael By movie, what a f’n surprise) that then turns into a robot, and how amazing that is since “You’ve never seen that before!!!” which is absolute horseshit since that stuff happened all the time in the cartoon. Further proof that the folks behind it have absolutely familiarity with the source material. It also provided more evidence that the entire thing will be nothing more than Jurassic Park/Aliens on earth but with robots. Though there wasn’t much as much actual tranforming like in the recent trailer, which both Jason and I agree is beyond obnoxious; I love how computer animators these days are so fucking in love with their tools that every tiny little thing has to animate and move and shit. Hence why the new designs, at least from what I’ve seen, are such crap: no one has any imagination, there’s no flow-through between the vehicle and robot modes. And why should there be when one can go overboard with the transitions. Whereas before they had to be creative and incorporate, say, vehicle elements in the robot form since they also had to figure out how everything moved around when they transformed. It’s all about intelligent industrial design, which continues to give away to generic sci-fi, Giger bullshit. Blah….
EDIT: For those who missed it, in the comments section earlier today, Steve mentioned how there is no true widescreen print of the animated movie in existence, and that this brand new version is nothing more than the original, fullscreen format print (which makes total sense since its an animated film based on a television show) with information cut off at the top and bottom of the screen to give a falsified widescreen feel. And as Jason also noted, this was somewhat common practice with live action films at the time; many were shot within a television ratio, then the subsequent theatrical and home video releases (at least fancy-smancy ones, primarily LaserDiscs) were matted to make them widescreen. But often, when they were later shown on television, or when released on VHS, you got to see the full frame.
As I also mentioned, I was going to do my own comparison between the new release’s widescreen and fullscreen version, but I just got lazy and assumed that since there was no mention of this in an IGN review of the DVD, that the rumor of a false widescreen version was, in the end, false. But once again, that’s what I get for not questioning IGN.
Anyway, later on, and earlier this evening, Steve also said that the original Rhino release was in some ways superior to the recent DVD release because, aside from not having to resort to fakery, the colors are better. Granted, the new edition is a bit brighter, with some color correction, but it would seem that whomever went a bit overboard, leading to some noticeable color saturation that I even kinda noticed, such as how Hot Rod looks. But I simply dismissed it by assuming that was maybe how he was supposed to look!
So once I got home not too long ago, I decided to finally compare both the new widescreen and fullscreen versions for myself, and wouldn’t you know, Steve was correct. BUT… the colors are different too! The fullscreen version included doesn’t seem to have the color saturation as the widescreen one. Also, things are a bit darker. Hence why it would appear that the fullscreen version is very similar, if not the same exact thing, as the Rhino release, at least as its been described to me. Strange!
Games Of Christmas’ Past?
Oh, so in between watching DVDs (and doing work… unfortunately, I haven’t been able to goof off completely this vacation), I’ve also been playing some games, because that’s what the holiday are all about. Video games and Christmas have always been strongly associated with each other in my miend, I guess since virtually every holiday brings forth a new game, usually some hot, end of the year title, or sometimes a new system. And since I already mentioned it over at the LifeMeter LJ, I may as well also mention that Christmas NiGHTS is not in face the one game that reminds me of Xmas the most, but is in face Gremlins 2 for the NES…
It was the Christmas of 1990… and my memories of playing that game are crystal clear because it was so nice and snowy that year (I’m a big fan of white Christmases). Plus, it was one of the few Xmas nights in which my dad was home (he often had to work that day), so not only was I up all night long (playing my new game… Gremlins 2 btw, was and still is quite excellent), but so were my folks in the living room. And since they weren’t arguing, it really did feel like a nice big happy family, Of course, I wasn’t with them and joining on whatever they were doing (watching the Discovery Channel I would have to assume). Instead I was playing my new game… and in between rounds, reading from the Tick Omnibus (the first couple of issues of the original Tick comic, collected) that I also got that morning.
Oh, and I also recall after playing the game that night watching Clockwork Orange for the first time (it had just premiered on The Movie Channel at the time). I guess I was 13 at the time?
EDIT: Dave (Mauro) sez “Gremlins 2 + Christmas = you win”. So he passed along a chiptunes song along, one that he created and “inspired” by the game, along with a few other “stolen” Sunsoft samples. Because afterall, “Gremlins means Christmas.”
And What About Today?
As for what I’ve been playing the past couple days, a whole bunch really. Been digging a bit deeping into Twilight Princess, despite previously mentioning before that I was going to wait till I got a Wii to play that version instead. But the other night I finally got to go though some really neat set-pieces, including the whole battle on horseback, plus I’m at the volcano temple and its been a lot of fun thus far (plus its offered the real first batch of completely drop-dead graphics). Though the wolf segment that immediately preceded all that was pretty lame (I don’t know what everyone else things, but at this point, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that all the wolf portions are pretty stupid, sorry folks).
Also been playing assorted Game Boy and DS games, plus after Christmas NiGHTS, I decided to give assorted other Saturn games a go, including Burning Rangers the other night…
So this is the time of year (it being the end of the year and all) in which every video game journalist or blogger names what their game of the year was. And to be honest… I’ve actually been thinking about, and… I just can’t think of anything. Plus I’m hungry (time to cook some hot dogs!), so maybe I’ll have an answer a bit later.
But I can tell you what the movie of the year was for me, and it was Funky Forest! Granted it came out in 2005 in Japan… but regardless, I first saw it this year, so it counts in my book. Though Jackass 2 is a close second for making me laugh like a little girl.
