This is the best acapella song I've ever heard. Petra Haden recorded this for the album "Guilt By Association", a compilation album of some indie artists' guilty pleasures set to be released in September. Even though the song has been played to death while replacing Umbrella-ella-ay-ay, it still is a great song. It's still nice to find differentversionsonthenet.
If you think that you can write a better song than Journey, why not try out your mad skillz at chord progressions on JamStudio.com. You can have multiple layers with different instruments and different playing styles and the ability to create verse, bridge and chorus sections. I'm having a blast with this. All it needs are the words to go with it.
Have some free lyrics courtesy of that mad genius, Britney Spears:
Everyday, I'm in a daze Looking for that someone And everyday, I sit and kneel and pray Oh, sweet love, can I get some? So why do you desert me, baby boy? I need your love right now! And if you desert me, baby boy Don't you leave me in your crowd...
I'm kinda busy right now. After a (nearly) brilliant game of Risk I got distracted with the newly released Bioshock and 300 on HD-DVD that came in the post today. It's not even on DVD in Ireland until October and it includes a cool picture-in-picture feature which you can see the entire film with all the original blue-screen backgrounds with directors commentary. It's a HD-DVD exclusive feature so take that, blu-ray. It's a smelly format anyways.
*Nominated in the category of best blog post title in the World Blog Awards For Outstanding Achievements In The Field Of Excellence.
I'm Not There aka "I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan"
Starring: Christian Bale as Bob Dylan, Heath Ledger as Bob Dylan, Richard Gere as Bob Dylan, Marcus Carl Franklin as Bob Dylan, Ben Wishaw as Bob Dylan and Cate Blanchette (who looks more like Bob Dylan than Bob Dylan). Click here for the trailer.
In The Valley Of Elah The new Paul Haggis written and directed film which is bound to win many oscars. I have to say I did not care at all for Crash. I noticed there was some subtle racism which made me feel really uncomfortable. You have to look carefully though. It's somewhere in the end credits. After the hair and makeup artists there's a little note saying: "I, Paul Haggis, hate black people. I do, however, have no opinion on the Mexicans". Anyways, here's the trailer.
Michael Clayton George Clooney stars in a film I know knothing about but the trailer sure is exciting. I think it's a comedy of some sorts. Here's the plot synopsis: Michael Clayton is an in-house "fixer" at one of the largest corporate law firms in New York. Though burned out and hardly content with his job, his divorce, a failed business venture and mounting debt have left Clayton inextricably tied to the firm. At U/North, meanwhile, the career of litigator Karen Crowder rests on the multi-million dollar settlement of a class action suit that Clayton's firm is leading to a seemingly successful conclusion. But when Kenner Bach's brilliant and guilt-ridden attorney Arthur Edens sabotages the U/North case, Clayton faces the biggest challenge of his career and his life.
See? Exciting stuff. It might need some car-chases, shaky-cam and an evil genius who's plan is to steal all the salt packages in every Supermacs all across Galway. The trailer is, as always, on youtube.
Gone Baby Gone Directed by Ben Affleck of all people, this film has the promise of being amazingly good. Boston folk are calling it the best film set in Boston. That is one impressive feat considering the amount of amazing films set in Boston which includes Perfect Storm (apparently set in Boston), Sabrina The Teenage Which and Ice Princess). Here's the trailer.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck (again? he's so hot right now) in a film that is almost completely compressed into the following two minutes so you don't have to see the film:
I've just come across Paperkraft.net which opened up the whole world of papercraft to me. It's a really simple process where you print and cut out sheets and assemble 3D shapes from them. I'm going to go through the printer's ink at home like there's no tomorrow. Here's a tutorial to get started. I've listed some of the best sites with all these paper downloads and more:
Here are some links to some the models I want to get started on straight away. Remember to ask an adult for help when you cut yourself many, many times with scissors.
(from left: Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, The Flash and some weird Wolverine type lady but with a mace instead of claws and she's got wings) There are a few things I love. Comic books and films/ TV shows/ cartoons basedon comic books being some of them. I love my toasted ham and cheese sandwiches too but that's a matter for another day. News of a Justice League movie is incredibly exciting to me and now with so many comic book movies planned and in production, the news is coming thick and fast.
The film adaptation of Justice League Of America will be shooting in early 2008 with George Miller (Mad Max, Happy Feet) directing. It still hasn't been announced whether or not it will be a live action film or a CGI film (like Happy Feet) to avoid distubing the level of realism set in the different movies of the established characters. One film sees Batman use ninja training and high-tech gadgets to fight crime. The other sees Superman fly an entire continent off into space. Fairly different universes there. The latest single superhero being pushed into production is Wonder Woman. After a few years attached to the project, Joss Whedon dropped out in February because he couldn't find an actress suitable for the part. There are new efforts now being made to get the film made and establish the character before the JLA movie. Producer Joel Silver purchased a script for it's great ideas but wants to get rid of the fact it's set in WWII. Rumour is that Katie Holmes is in the running to get the role of Princess Diana.
A Flash movie is also underway. According to Ryan Reynolds who was apparently approached for the role, "There’s talk of it being a JLA movie, having them all together. And then there’s other talk of doing a 'Flash' movie with [director] Shawn Levy,” Reynolds told MTV. “[it] might, yeah. I don’t really know how much I’m allowed to talk about that stuff. But I’m sure they’ll figure out something. It’s no secret that they have a JLA script and it’s a project that’s in development – the contents of which, who knows." Brandon Routhsaid in an interview that "If they come at me about it, I would definitely be intrigued to work with Christian and whoever else wants to be apart of it". Regarding the next Superman film, Routh confirmed that shooting and prepping will begin early next year, and that he's excited to do it all over again. "I'm getting a little itchy to get back in the suit now," exclaimed Routh. That's all after Bryan Singer finishes shooting "Valkyrie" starring Tom Cruise. Warner Brothers want to have the JLA movie released before the second Superman movie due in 2009. Today, Christian Bale said "It'd be better if it doesn’t tread on the toes of what we’re doing, though I feel that it would be better if it comes out after Batman 3" which goes against all of Warner's plans. It might be the case that JLA will launch all the superheroes who aren't Superman and Batman. I'd love a JLA movie with everyone there but I'd definitely prefer their individual movies.
The Marvel universe has it's own version of "The Justice League of America" called "The Avengers" and, guess what? There's a film version featuring that superhero ensemble too. Zak Penn, the man who wrote the screenplay of the upcoming "The Incredible Hulk", has been confirmed as the writer with a film draft already given the thumbs up.
Iron Man is coming out next Summer and Nick Fury is rumoured to be making a cameo in that movie (in the form of Samuel L. Jackson). Captain America is in pre-production and Thor already has a confirmed director in Mattheuw Vaughn. Spiderman is already fairly established too, I supposed. The schedule is looking to be that "Iron Man" will be released next May, "The Incredible Hulk" the month after and "Captain America" soon after that. Happy times for comic book fans. Overkill for everyone else.
Update: It's been revealed that casting will start next week to find a whole new Batman and Superman rather than mess up Christian Bale and Brandon Routh's schedules. It makes sense to me that the film will stand alone from the two big individual franchises and have simultaneous Batman and Superman in their own movies and their own unique universe.
I have reached a new level of hatred for Chelsea the cheaters. There was something incredibly fishy about the decisions made last Saturday by Rob Syles. The main issue is the penalty that never was. It was only given because of some pressuring from John Terry and the rest of the team. Second, a confusing decision to book John Terry from 15 yards away after he ran up to Essien appearing to give a second yellow card but then changing his mind. Throughout the game there were many occasions where Liverpool players were clearly fouled and almost Gerrard almost purposefully stamped upon by Mikel. I always thought that a match between two of the top teams in English football deserved at least a competent referee.
In an interview after the game, when asked about the decision and whether he saw Rob Styles being pressured to give a spot kick, Jose Mourinho said that his team wouldn't do that because the team were "naive and pure". Rafael Benitez heard this and said that if that was true then "I'm Little Red Riding Hood".
As a result of the poor refereeing decisions made, it was announced that Styles would be banned for one round of Premiership matches. He's since seen the video footage and now knows that he got it wrong and is deeply apologetic. It's also been revealed that Styles is on the board of the firm which paved the driveway of Chelsea's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. So it's a conspiracy now? Interesting...
Anyways, I've embedded below the highlights of the entire match as hosted by Megavideos because of some silly legal issue on YouTube. If all you want to see are the goals then here is Torres' classy shot and Lampard's "penalty".
This kind of refereeing/ cheating really pisses me off so much so, that I need a fix of football comedy to cheer me up. That's why I like to turn to funny compilations such as this one on youtube. My favourite moment would be just before the 2 minute mark where a Ronaldihno wannabe has everyone highly confused, Ted.
Due to an awful work-only radio I'm forced to listen to, I have no way of hearing new songs at work so I have to rely on checking the most popular newly released music videos of the past week. It's tough work. For every truly great song there's about 400 remixes of Chocolate Rain but I think I've said all I can about Tay Zonday two weeks ago.
