Memorial Day Banner

My wife just finished drawing a Memorial Day Banner for me. In case one does not know the characters in the banner picture are characters from the manga and anime show Fullmetal Alchemist. The spirit person behind the group is Maes Hughes who was killed earlier in the series.

The lady in the mini skirt is Riza Hawkeye who Roy Mustang, who is standing next to Maes, declared that when he bacomes leader, would require all females to wear mini skirts. The dog, as evidently seen by Riza's and Roy's legs, is Black Hayate whom she adopted when he was a puppy has grown to become highly skilled and trained due to Riza's shooting skills.

Going by the Book (2007) Movie Review

here for article

With Korean crime and detective dramas of late having been a fairly straight-faced and generic bunch, rarely diverting too far from the given formula, the determinedly off beat “Going by the Book” comes as a breath of fresh air. Directed by first time helmer Ra Hee Chan and written by award winning scribe Jang Jin, who was responsible for the 2005 hit “Welcome to Dongmakgol”, the film cleverly subverts the conventions of the form by turning the traditional bank heist premise on its head, whilst at the same time managing to work in elements of satire and social criticism.

Set in the small Korean town of Sampo, whose citizens are apparently all quite well off, meaning that there are plenty of banks just begging to be robbed, the film begins as the new police chief (played by Son Byung Ho, also in “Running Wild” and “Vampire Cop Ricky”) decides that the best response to a recent crime wave is to instigate a new and radical training method. This odd scheme revolves around a mass role-playing exercise, in which some policemen are given the task of pretending to be criminals. Unfortunately for the chief, his fine plans blow up in his face after a particularly anal and rule abiding officer called Jung Do Man (Jung Jae Young, “Welcome to Dongmakgol”), who had recently been demoted from detective to traffic warden, takes things a little too far, turning a fake bank raid into a hostage crisis which threatens to humiliate the law on a national level.

“Going by the Book” certainly has an interesting and refreshingly original concept, which director Ra makes the most of, though a fair amount of the credit goes to writer Jang, whose script is creative and witty throughout. Despite the fact that the plot basically does play out along the given lines of the genre, from the bank robbery gradually turning sour and the police laying siege to the building, right through to the inevitable twists and turns of the final act bus escape, the film amusingly subverts and deconstructs virtually every cliché and motif of the form. Although there is a dash of the expected slapstick, for the most part the humour is of a far more subtle kind, with Jang bringing out and ridiculing the underlying social conventions and moral hypocrisy inherent in the situation. The main conceit tackled here is the way in which the innocent and those who follow the rules of society are often punished, and the film takes this to a farcically literal extreme, making for plenty of dryly ironic laughs.

Although the bank robbery and the hostage crisis are obviously fake, a situation from which the film similarly manages to wring plenty of wry humour, Ra is still able to achieve a fair amount of tension, not so much as to whether or not anyone is likely to die or go down in a hail of bullets (something which is established early on in suitably droll fashion, bravely deflecting viewer expectations) but as to just how far the game of cat and mouse is going to go. The fact that the entertainingly stoic Jung Do Man is simply doing as he is told adds a definite satirical edge to the proceedings, and there is a certain sense of growing injustice which works well in the context.

Jung Jae Young does a good job in the role, managing bring a vital touch of sympathetic humanity to a character who could easily have remained little more than a distant cipher. As a result, the viewer is gradually drawn into the plot, and the film works well both as an intellectual exercise and as athriller in its own right. This in itself is a very difficult balancing act, and the film is one of the few that manages to pull it off effectively and, more importantly, without sacrificing enjoyment value.

“Going by the Book” isn’t quite flawless, with Ra overplaying his hand somewhat at times, and repeating a few of the gags a little too often, though these are minor complaints and do not prevent the film from being a genuine success. Quietly gripping and thought provoking, whilst packing in plenty of laughs and excitement, the film proves that the cinematic form is perfectly capable of being both entertaining and challenging at the same time.

Before we say 'I Do'

We found a picture of us the day before we were blessed together in marriage on August 25, 1995 in Korea. An American Southern Redneck and an Okinawan Redneck who met, got married and fell in love. Yes, in that order.

And before you ask if we were in the North or South part of Korea, we learned that to Koreans, there is only one Korea. Just part of it is under different management.

Found Memories

While doing a little 'Spring Cleaning' we came across a few old photo albums which means hours later the house was still a mess but we saw pictures of old friends on adventures we had together and we like it. The pictures here are just a few taken when we were near Jardim, Brazil and parts of Paraguay for a few months. We mostly fished for Paraná and Baku fish and did some horse riding in a few other places.

Newborn Kittens (AGAIN)

A few days ago are other cat had her litter. But instead of 3 kittens, she produced 5 kittens. Mom and babies are doing OK while we deal with the fact that we now have 13 cats and kittens now. All very soon will have a new home. As my wife hopes for.

Yatterman movie scene

Before Pokemon was a TV show and more likely a video game there was Yatterman. A cartoon show in the late 1970's where the bad guys were a group called the Dorombo Gang. A group of characters later parodied into Team Rocket on the Pokemon TV show.

Creativity is dying

I recently received an email saying one of my You Tube videos was deleted due to copyright infringement. Two more strikes and they will delete my account.

Account Status: Community Guidelines

Your account is in good standing.

Account Status: Copyright

Your account is not in good standing

Strike 1:

Namie Amuro - Boondock Love Game (not subtitled) - (melmika)
Video ID: gqNkos7CgIo
Removed due to a copyright claim by Record Industry Association of Japan on April 19, 2010

Be With You

Mio Aio's death leaves her husband Takumi and six year-old son Yuji to fend for themselves. Takumi is congenitally disorganized, suffers occasional fainting spells, and fears that his health compromised his dead wife's happiness. Yuji overhears relatives speculate that his own difficult delivery compromised Mio's health, and blames himself for his mother's death. Mio had left Yuji a picture book; in the book, Mio departs for a celestial body she calls "the Archive Star" but reappears in Japan during the following year's rainy season; turning the pages, Yuji eagerly awaits her return.

On a walk in the forest outside their house, Takumi and Yuji find a woman sheltered from the rain, and immediately accept her as Mio. She has no memory or sense of identity; she comes home to live with the father and son anyway. This new Mio asks Taku how they met and fell in love, and he recounts a tale of years of missed chances, beginning in high school and ending when she encouraged their marriage years later. As the rainy season draws to a close, Yuji discovers the "time capsule" he hid with his mother before her death. Mio's diary is inside, and its version of the Mio-Taku romance holds the answers to the mystery.

The famous Okinawan alternative rock band Orange Range sang the theme song to this movie called Hana. It was the top selling single of 2005. Be with You has also be made into a one-volume manga, written by Yoko Iino (飯野 陽子 Iino Yōko^?) and illustrated by Sai Kawashima (川島 彩 Kawashima Sai^?).

• 
  

• 
  

Yatterman 2009 movie

For all the Pokemon fans out there will love to see this movie. A blue print, if you will, of characters that eventually became the feature characters for the Pokemon series. In Yatterman the bad guys are called Dorombo consisted of three characters while on the Pokemon show are called Team Rocket. Again its an old kids show made into a movie dealing with good guys vs bad guys in large mecha robots. Provided the bad guys can raise enough money to buy the robots.

Definitely a kids movie.

Anyone needs change for a $100

The US government has just released new information in regards to the $100 bill coming into circulation later this year followed by the $5 bill.
Click here for the news story.

How Do Volcanoes Affect Our Weather?

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather/2007/09/09/how-do-volcanoes-affect-our-weather/

How Do Volcanoes Affect Our Weather?

by Sandi Duncan | Sunday, September 9th, 2007 | From: Weather

The total number of active volcanoes in the world is 455, with an estimated 80 or more being submarine. The greatest concentration is in Indonesia, where 77 of its 167 volcanoes have erupted within historic times.

Throughout history our planet has occasionally been witness to tremendous volcanic eruptions. For instance, on June 8, 1783, there was the giant eruption of Laki. Thanks to this Icelandic volcano, Benjamin Franklin may have been the first scientist to recognize the effect of volcanic eruptions on the climate. While serving as ambassador to France, Franklin noticed a “. . . constant. . . universal fog” that had drifted across Europe and into parts of Asia following the Laki eruption. Thewinter of 1783-84 was unusually severe in Europe. In a paper read before the literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester on December 22, 1784, Franklin proposed that a connection existed between the fog over Europe, the cold winter, and the volcanic eruption in Iceland the previous year.

On April 7, 1815, the titanic eruption of Mount Tambora, on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia emitted a cloud of dust and sulfuric acid which some believe gave rise to the famous ”year without a summer” in the United States the following year. The amount of material blasted into the stratosphere was 100 times greater than that of Mount St. Helens. It was, in fact, the greatest amount of ejecta released into our atmosphere in more than 3,000 years.

Then came the eruption of Tambora’s neighbor, Krakatau, August 27,1883, an explosion so great that rocks were thrown to a height of 34 miles, and 10 days later dust fell at a distance of 3,313 miles. It was an explosion that has been estimated to have had about 26 times the power of the greatest H-bomb test.

More recently have been the gigantic eruptions of Guatemala’s Santa Maria on April 24, 1902, Gunung Agung on Bali in 1963, EI Chichón in Mexico in 1982, and the Philippines’ Mount Pinatubo in 1991. These eruptions all managed to drive into the stratosphere, long-lived ash veils of noteworthy significance to world weather; producing vivid, fiery sunsets; weakening the Sun’s direct rays by anywhere from 5 to 20 percent; and chilling the global-scale average temperature by a few fractions of a degree.

THE GREENHOUSE “DEFECT”?
We know that volcanic veils like Agung’s, EI Chichón’s, and Mount Pinatubo’s took something away from the warmth of the Sun’s rays and tended to cool the lower levels of the atmosphere. We can also draw on the theory that tells us to expect such effects when unusually large numbers of very small particles of any origin, of any kind, are present in the upper atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets are especially long-lived in the stratosphere. Because each volcanic veil survives only a year or two in the atmosphere, the cooling effect tends to be a concentrated in the first year or two following the eruption that produced it. But some slight cooling may persist several years after that because the oceans are slow to respond to the cooling effect, and equally slow to recover from it.

The 15 to 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide ejected into the atmosphere by the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991, promptly reversed the trend of global warming, considered to be a possible sign of thegreenhouse effect. Mean global temperatures were depressed by 1/2 to 1º C for the next several years. (One scientist has speculated that EI Niño is actually an oceanic response to pollutants emitted by large volcanic eruptions, such as Mount Pinatubo, thus hinting at a connection between the two phenomena.)

Gackt - Boondock Jesus (subtitled)

I have taken the song 'Jesus' by Gackt to create another music video to showcase the movie Boondock Saints 2.

Earthquakes

I'm not an expert but I have noticed that all the major earthquakes have been going around the planet in an orbital movement going east to west.The last major ones where around Turkey moving to Baja California with now another major earthquake in Tibet. And they seem to be occurring more frequently.

Namie Amuro - Boondock Love Game

Using the song, Love Game, from Namie Amuro I used parts from the movie Boondock Saints 2 to create this video presentation. That is until You Tube pulls it.


Update: You Tube pulled the video with a threat to close my You Tube account.

Ghost Rider 2 update

link to news article

A few weeks ago I posted something called “7 Days with Producer DanLin“. The reason for the title was we discussed so many different projects, it took seven days to post them all. Thankfully, the interview went over extremely well, and now it’s time for a new “7 Days” column and this one is with producer Mike De Luca.

As you can tell by looking over his resume, De Luca has produced over 50 films and he’s got tons of projects in development. While I’ll be posting updates on Metal Gear Solid, Butter, Fright Night, Dracula Year Zero and tons of other things in the coming days, tonight is all about Ghost Rider 2.

For those who don’t know, the sequel to Ghost Rider is moving ahead full steam with a script by David Goyer. According to De Luca, “We have an outline that David wrote that kind of adapts his 2001 script into today’s times with incorporating kind of an original idea of Nic’s.”

We talked about whether or not Mark Steven Johnson will be back directing and if Eva Mendes would return as Roxanne Simpson. Oh, and he told me the tentative title is Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. So much more after the jump:

Here’s the thing, if you’re a fan of Ghost Rider, the interview you’re about to read should make you extremely excited for a sequel. Everything De Luca and I talked about on and off the record tells me the studio knows the first film had issues and they’re really working hard to get the sequel right. Of course the proof is in the pudding, so how about these facts:

– Mark Steven Johnson is not directing the sequel

– Eva Mendes will not return as Roxanne Simpson

– Ghost Rider 2 (or Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance) will be a hard PG-13

– The film is going to take place in Europe

– De Luca is open to David Goyer directing the sequel but it all comes down to his very busy schedule

– Says the sequel will be like “pushing the reset button” on the franchise

– As you might expect from the success of Avatar, Ghost Rider 2 might be done in 3D

– Says Goyer has just delivered his updated outline to the studio

– And says Ghost Rider 2 could be in front of the cameras this year

Here’s the full transcript of us talking Ghost Rider 2. As I said, it’s a great conversation and I think fans are really going to like what he had to say. Look for a lot more from “7 Days with Producer Mike De Luca” either tomorrow night or Sunday.

Collider: I spoke to David Goyer a few months ago and he mentioned you were taking his script from…

Mike De Luca: 2001.

Exactly. Could you talk about where the project is right now?

De Luca: Sure. We have an outline that David wrote that kind of adapts his 2001 script into today’s times with incorporating kind of an original idea of Nic’s that Goyer thought added to the mix in good way-that we all thought added to the mix in a good way-that gets Ghost Rider into a bigger arena to kind of apply our story in. So Goyer has just delivered that outline to us in the studio and we’re waiting to hear back and then we’ll know if we can go to like that revised script. But since we’re starting from something already written, it’s been a pretty speedy process.

I believe Nick said that, and I could be wrong about this, but he wanted to take “Ghost Rider” to Europe?

De Luca: Yes.

Is this what he brought to the table?

De Luca: Yeah, the idea was because Ghost Rider is a unique blend of theology and action and the character deals with the kind of battle of good vs. evil in a theological sense, that Europe you could avail yourself of a lot of religious sites and kind ancient religious site and a history of theology as a setting that isn’t available in the U.S. We wanted to kind of signal that we’re as different from the first movie just because we want to be fresh and new as you can get in terms of getting away from southwestern kind of pseudo-western thing.

So I guess a big things with fans is are you guys aiming to do another PG-13 or are looking more towards the R arena?

De Luca: We’re looking at a hard PG-13. You know, like the kind of PG-13 that Lord of the Rings and Dark Knight was. Like where you’re really right up against it.

Okay. I totally get it. Of course I have to ask, is Eva…is she part of the sequel or that still a work in progress?

De Luca: Roxanne is not a part of the sequel.

And what about Mark?

De Luca: Mark’s not a part of the sequel.

So when could David…because David is busy with Flash Forward….

De Luca: Right.

Is David a possibility for being behind the camera on this or is this sort of going to be a new director?

De Luca: It’ll be a new director but David would be kind of a new director to the mix in terms of not having done anything with Ghost Rider before. I’ve talked about it with him just because I’m a fan of David’s. A lot depends on his schedule and a lot depends on where we are when the script comes in, but I think just for me personally, this is just me speaking not Avi Arad or the studios, I have tremendous respect for David, I always have. We did Blade together when I was at New Line, and I thought the Flash Forward pilot was one of the best episodic pieces of TV direction I’ve seen in a long time, so I’d be excited to have that conversation with David if and when we get up to that point and schedules permit. But I want to keep it, and he knows this too, we want to keep it open for the right person to present themselves and if that could be David or it might be someone else, but I think we’ll know more after we read the draft.

Do you think it’s a possibility that Ghost Rider 2 could be in front of the cameras in 2010?

De Luca: Oh for sure.

Has the studio already talked to you about a possible release date and is that on the table right now?

De Luca: No, because we’re early and we don’t have the first draft yet of kind of the new version of David’s script. It’s just been about script development at this point.

Are you aiming for a similar budget with the first film or because of the success of the first film, which did quite well, that maybe you have a little bit more to play with?

De Luca: Actually I think we would all like to do it for less than the first film just because I think that we have time here in terms of planning that we didn’t have on the first film and I don’t foresee, although you never know with these things, getting into a situation where we’re rewriting as we’re shooting, which always drives up the cost of special effects movies. I think, since we have so much lead time on this one, the idea would be to lock a script and do it the traditional way of like just shooting what we’ve written and not inventing as we go because it’s a real smart way….if you can do it, you can’t always do it, but it’s a real smart way to manage costs. I actually think we can bring this one in….also the nature of his story, his plot from his 2001 script, it’s more intimate, it’s more contained.

Is it a character piece or more of an action piece?

De Luca: It’s both….it’s plot heavy. It’s got a story that is apparent, that you can follow, that means something in the end. But it is rich in character development, which is a mark of David’s writing I think.

Is this is the kind of thing where you’re almost hitting reset on the Ghost Rider universe and it’s sort of branching off on this new path where this could be the start of more films in a different direction?

De Luca: Yes. That’s a good way to put it. Reset is a good way to put it. Because I thought even with the Ghost Rider comic there were so many iterations. It’s one of those characters that’s almost like a blank slate. Even the rules of it and his powers and the way in some runs of the comic, the bike is a physical thing that gets turned into a hell cycle. In some versions of the comic he shoots the hell cycle out of his hands and there’s no real bike at all. You know, there’s just little differences as each artist and writer tackled the character that kind of frees us to be different with this next movie, but it is pushing the reset button, and I think putting the character in kind of an appropriate darker context.

If this movie takes place in Europe, do you think you would film in Europe or would try to make America fit Europe?

De Luca: Oh no we’d go to Europe. I think you’ve got to go to Europe and really take advantage of again like the history that that continent is steeped in, especially when it comes to issues of theology and religion and really like religion and religious artifacts that pre-date Christianity and Biblical times.

So you’re almost mixing a little bit of the National Treasure historical kind of thing but with the religion with Ghost Rider? Is that sort of….

De Luca: Well, he’s not on the trail of artifacts. It’s not steeped in history that way. It’s more like a milieu. It’s more like we’re using the fact that the continent has the history it has just as atmosphere. It’s still a very….and that 2001 script has been on the Internet, but if you ever get a chance to look at it, it’s a really intimate kind of redemption story and it’s very brutal and it moves like a freight train in that spirit, you know, with the Ghost Rider doing, I think, things that are very also kind of like jaw dropping, commercial set pieces and whatnot. They’re all there but it’s a very intimate storyline that lets you have some character development.

It’s very interesting that Sony and you guys would be looking at an older script because Fox looked at an old Robert Rodriguez script for Predators and they ended up going with that. They said we want a cool movie and bang they made Predators based on an older script.

De Luca: Right.

It’s funny that the studios are willing all of a sudden look backwards and see what have we developed?

De Luca: Yeah, I think it was really smart. It was sitting there. They own it and with writers like Goyer who’ve progressed from where he began to Dark Knight and what he’s doing on television, it’s hard not to take advantage of something that he produced that’s just sitting there because it’s a really creditable screenplay for the character.

Do you think Ghost Rider 2 is a feasible 3D movie? Would you like to see a Ghost Rider 2 in 3-D?

De Luca: As audience member, I’d almost like to see any special effects movie in 3D right now. Seeing Avatar, I mean it just excited me so much that I think that if you’re not telling a story where 3D would get in the way or distract you from emotion or plot, I think it’s worth bringing up for discussion for every genre movie I’m dealing with including Ghost Rider - which we’re calling Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance.

Oh really? Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance.

De Luca: At least right now. Everything’s always TBD but that’s from the comics and I thought that was a cool title and Goyer agreed.

Would it have a Ghost Rider 2 or just Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance?

De Luca: It’s up to Sony. I’d advocate….I don’t like numbers so I’d advocate Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance. But it’s their call.