Dad's Library

My father loved movies as a kid so as an adult he took it upon himself to educate his family on some film history. This was a lot harder to do in the late 70’s and early 80’s then it is today. We’re talking about a time when renting video tapes required a $500 deposit, and buying video tapes was just an astronomical expense. So, his pickings consisted of whatever happened to be playing on broadcast television or laying around collecting dust at South Gate’s Weaver Library. And still, through these meager methods he was able to amass quite the film archive. While film heavies like Citizen Cane, Casablanca or Some Like It Hot escaped my early education I was able to get a strong dose of West Side Story, Singing in the Rain, and Gone With the Wind.

It’s this that I remember most about my childhood relationship with my Pops; him telling me I “have to see this” film. When you combine his library with his love for Super 8 and video tape equipment it's no wonder why my career lies in the film industry.

Nowadays I seek out my own movies and every once in a while I see one with my dad, though not as often as I’d like. And I collect too, it’s so much easier to do so these days. I don’t like clutter so I go through my library and every year about three members of my collection are dealt in a garage sale. If ever I don’t know whether I should keep a particular title or sell it I ask myself the simple question, “if I were dad would I tell my kids, ‘you have to see this.'” At that point the decision makes itself.

So, Carlin's Dead.

1976 vs 2008

Simmons is Pink!

From movies.com: "Stay for the credits and count the digital animation people who are all probably really, really exhausted by now: For example, I counted nearly 40 names that worked on cloth and hair. That's it. Weeks and weeks of animating cloth and hair. Next time your boss makes you restock the plastic-cup lids for an hour, you think of that and count your blessings."


Our hair and cloth team is better then yours!

Seriously.

In 2007 the average person worked about 2000 hours, most of us had surpassed that by late August. Over 100,000 (wo)man-hours devoted to styling, draping, simulating, and animating . These are most, not all, of my fellow cloth and hair monkeys who slaved away for hours, for days, for months on what I like to consider the finest simulation work to ever hit the big screen.

We are ripper, slasher, gouger, we are the teeth in the night,
WE ARE BEOWULF!...cloth and hair T.D.'s.

The DVD "drops" in a week. Buy it and marvel.

The Autumn of Apu

Apu: Well hello Mr. Homer, what brings you to my store?

Homer: Well Apu the softball team wanted me to talk to you.

Apu: Oh? What about?

Homer: Well, frankly your numbers are falling.

Apu: Nothing to worry about Homer ol’ buddy, it’s just a dry spell. The balls will start dropping and when they do you just watch that batting average of mine soar!

Homer: Well that’s just the thing Apu, you don’t seem to be hitting those hard line drives anymore, not like you used to when you were…you know.

Apu: When I was what?

Homer: You’re gonna make me say it? Fine, when you were taking steroids alright!

Apu: I’m not doing it anymore. I swore I’d only use human growth hormones to heal from my elbow injury quicker. That was a long time ago.

Homer: Well it’s also been a long time since you lead all catchers in the league in every offensive category.

Apu: That’s not fair!

Homer: There’s no reason you can’t have numbers like that again. All you have to do is take the drugs Apu, come on everyone is doing it.

Apu: What about my defense? That’s got to count for something.

Homer: Listen, Nelson is in the wings, ready to take over for you at catcher if you don’t do something drastic here.

Apu: Nelson! I threw out 38% of would be base stealers last year. When has Nelson even come close to that?

Homer: It doesn’t matter man! He’s using HGH and you know what? -he’s hitting the cover off the ball. Homerun after homerun! The guy’s a machine who cares who throws out more runners! Look it’s this simple, get your numbers up or you’re out.

Apu: Please, don’t take this away from me. Playing catcher for the Springfield Isotopes softball team is my life!

Homer: Sorry, it’s out of my hands.

Homer takes a bite from his donut and turns to leave.

Apu: Homer, that donut is $10.25.

Homer: D’oh!