Jay_Smith's blog
Submitted by Jay_Smith on June 21, 2009 - 5:52pm
Submitted by Jay_Smith on June 20, 2009 - 1:32pm
You must have the ability to record your lines and save them as a WAV, MP3 or WMA file. OGG and other formats are acceptable for auditions, but my editing software hates OGG, so if you plan on participating in the production, we'll need to have one of the first three formats.
Your filename should follow one of these formats:
Audition: A_(Role Name)_(Line Number)_(ActorName).MP3 (or extension)
or "A_Becky_1_HGarrison.mp3" (H Garrison's audition for Becky: Line 1)
Production: HGW(episode#)_(Role Name)_(Line Numbers)_(ActorName).MP3
or "HGW01_Becky_1-15_HGarrison.mp3"
If you want to put multiple audition takes on one file, that's fine, but PLEASE write that in the text of your email. Email to zebrapix@hotmail.com
~~~
Submitted by Jay_Smith on May 6, 2009 - 6:01pm
Submitted by Jay_Smith on April 12, 2009 - 5:58pm
Be careful what you wish for.
I've been out of the loop for a while and I'd given up on seeing a Red Dwarf reboot/reunion show, so when I tuned in for the latest Doctor Who special (which I'll talk about elsewhere) I was pleasantly surprised to find a very special Easter Egg following up "Planet of the Dead". I went back and watched the first two episodes.
Some things should be left alone.
I really enjoyed Red Dwarf when it ran on my local PBS station. Every Saturday night, as Saturday Night Live ran out of its good material, I could switch over to WITF and pick up on new-to-me episodes of Rimmer and Lister, Cat and Kryten satirizing science fiction concepts and doing a damn fine job with the proto-CGI and rubber monster effects. As the show wore on and the gimmick of being the last humans in the universe wore out, the show reinvente itself into something fresh with every series. At its worst, it was a 22 minute set up toa funny punchline. At its best, it was inventive television.
When the show went off the air, I didn't petition or grieve very hard because Red Dwarf was always one step away from losing that delicate balance between satire and self-parody. Cast changes and re-attempted themes brought it closer and closer to "jumping the shark" but it ended before it got to the ramp.
Red Dwarf 2009 is just not funny. It's like watching your favorite rock band take the stage after ten years realizing they haven't really practiced much - at least not together - in the interval. After 2 episodes, I feel like I'm reading a lucky fan's winning entry in the "Write a Red Dwarf Reunion" contest. So far the story has about three misses for every joke it nails. Overall, once the novelty of seeing everyone in costume wears off, there's nothing left to capture my interest.
Submitted by Jay_Smith on March 22, 2009 - 11:57am
Once again, Andrea Romano amazes with her voice casting. No stunt casting (say, Lynda Carter as Hippolyta) and the choices (save perhaps Nathan Fillion who is always the snarky Texan Nathan Fillion) do not bludgeon you with the actor's identity.
I typically don't like knowing who is voicing which character because I know Romano puts "name" actors into roles without hitting you in the face with them. With Romano, the story and character is put before the actor performing the role. I enjoy the game of hearing a voice and putting it to a face and in all but a few choices I find myself saying "DAMN that was a brilliant casting choice."
It took me until the end of the film before I realized Rosario Dawson was performing Artemis, and Dawson has a distinctive voice. Oliver Platt, who is usually the first to ham it up melts into his Harrod-like role as Hades. Alfred Molina did not sound like himself and I kept thinking it was either Dean Stockwell or Miguel Ferrer. I would have been easy for Molina to phone it in with a low, sinister variation on Doc Ock from Spiderman 2, but he wore the character very well.
The film itself is a simple tale of Diana finding herself in the modern world, sparring with Steve Trevor as they search for the god Ares, who escaped Paradise Island and has the usual "conquer the gods" plan that somehow involves leveling Washington DC before he can assume the power of Zeus and be top god or whatever. I'm not complaining because gods do what gods always do in these movies and I don't expect deep political intrigue in a movie meant to be more "300" with hotties than "Clash of the Titans".
Submitted by Jay_Smith on March 22, 2009 - 11:53am
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that "Hulk Vs. Wolverine" is appropriate for all ages. That said, this is the Wolverine I remember in the 80s, complete with his classic catchphrase "I'm the best at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice." That line, spoken at the top of the show, is a message from the production that this is a show for the fans. HvW is a dust up show, a half-hour of super-people giving and receiving beat-downs. There is blood, but not the buckets one would expect from a show where four of its main combatants use bladed weapons.
The story is simple: The Hulk crosses the border into Canada and the government sends Wolverine to stop him. Multiple beat-downs ensue. We know who these guys are, so there's really no need to waste time on back story. From Hulk's first punch, we're on a cringe-inducing, slash-happy ride. For the half-hour, we are treated to an escalation of violence that includes Weapon X members - Sabretooth, Omega Red, Lady Deathstrike and...oh yeah...Deadpool. This Deadpool deserves his own feature. At about 15 minutes, I can see how the production shoehorns elements of the upcoming Wolverine movie into the plot. It is unnecessary and borders on the distracting, but it is ultimately handled well. I was disappointed not to hear the line, but it hardly needs spoken: "no quarter was asked, no quarter was granted." In the end, the fight is over and so is the show. No one had to save the world or stop the countdown clock from reaching zero...just good old fashioned beat-downs.
Submitted by Jay_Smith on March 22, 2009 - 11:19am
I have to admit, I was in my 20s before I read Watchmen for the first time. I know that, especially now, it is considered THE comic book story masterpiece and one of the greatest novels ever written. But I was once young and foolish enough to think that heroes were supposed to be heroic. Now, because heroes have to carry their demons as close as the symbols on their tights, Watchmen's dark, conflicted psychosis seems to be the norm rather than the exception.
Perhaps these days, Watchmen seems less edgy, even pedestrian compared to books like The Authority, Preacher or The Boys. But if you read it in a historical context alongside Crisis on Infinite Earths and Marvel's X-Men or Secret Wars, you can see why Watchmen is the pioneer to whom all modern 'mature' comics owe their existence.
Why someone felt it necessary to take this story, carve up the images into nifty flash animation, float the camera around Gibbon's singular backgrounds and dance the characters like paper dolls across the screen - I don't know. To me, it seems like the ultimate crutch for those too lazy to read the graphic novel. While it is beautifully rendered and would be perfect to attract new readers with a well-executed scene, rendering all 12 books into 12 episodes in roughly 5 hours is overwhelming.
I get the feeling I'm watching Zack Snyder's animated storyboards. And that's not entertaining because I know they're not. If they were, it would at least possess the academic value of seeing Snyder's thought process of how to bridge the media between book and film. This is simply one interpretation of the story, and not a very lucid one.
Submitted by Jay_Smith on February 10, 2009 - 8:17am
In addition to the Robert Kirkman "Walking Dead" series, Max Brooks' epic "World War Z" and "Dead Set" here are some better than average Zombie vehicles...
~MOVIES~
UNDEAD - An Australian outbreak with a unique twist on the genre.
FIDO -Imagine a world where the living dead are controlled and even kept as servants.
DEAD ALIVE -Peter Jackson's disgusting and hilarious horrorshow.
RE-ANIMATOR - Lovecraft's story turned into a campy cult classic.
EVIL DEAD/EVIL DEAD 2 - They'll swallow your soul! Yes, Army of Darkness is awesome, but it is less a zombie movie than the others.
FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD - Okay, it's direct to DVD crap, but I LOVE the idea of an outbreak on a 747. Think Snakes On A Plane meets Air Force One meets NOTLD.
Submitted by Jay_Smith on January 21, 2009 - 7:24pm
Submitted by Jay_Smith on December 28, 2008 - 3:12pm
I am producing a new segment for "The Chronic Rift" podcast called "My Guilty Pleasure" which will talk about some of the cooler, stranger and less-known aspects of fandom.
The main reason I'm doing this is to learn more about subjects for myself. What is it about certain activities - LARPing, Wargaming, Collecting, Selling, Trading, Reading, Writing...all the stuff you see at conventions that you just don't have the time to investigate.
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