Nice Work If You Can Get It

Talk about a long con!

Don’t forget her agent. Minimum 10%. Plus whoever else gets a cut. Her lawyer? PR firm? Stylist? Blackmailer?

They have raised $59,000 already, but they need to know there is enough coming in to ensure that they can pull this off.

And Iowa Family Policy activists should know that extra $18K won’t go to waste. We’re gonna have strippers at the after-speech ice-cream party!

Is enough coming in now?

(OTOH, Iowa Family Action Policy Center, kudos for using ensure properly!)

@Pedonator: kudos for using ensure properly!

I noticed that. Especially after I noticed last week that even the New Yorker has fallen.

Talibunny’s gives off the same vibe as most lottery winners or sport players. I don’t see this as ending well for her financially.

I hope those Iowa Family Action folks have a very sincere pumpkin patch in which to wait for their Great Bumpkin.

Can’t wait to see their faces when they realize their idol is just a dog in lipstick Flying Ace drag.

I’m having a hard time here. Just witnessed “Wall E” on iTunes and LOATHED IT. Nasty, filthy and corrupt. If this is what Pixar is I will sell my paltry holding in it. Disgusting.

Now I go to bed and try to sleep. Ugh ugh ugh!!!!!

@Benedick: I’ve had that feeling since Cars. Lasseter’s taking out his midlife crisis on us.

@nojo: I thought 300 was bad till I saw this thing. The OH won’t look at computer generated toons so I sometimes watch them on the down low. Talk about confusing plot with story (Yes, I’m talking to you, Mr. Tarantino. Read a fuquing BOOK!!!). Seems like there’s no one older than 12 working on these things. That it was well reviewed doesn’t surprise me. The reviewers know nothing about anything. That’s why they’re reviewers instead of writers or directors. Even when they’re right – it has happened – it’s for all the wrong reasons. And of course it’s all made so much worse by the wizardry of its production. Give me two planks and a passion any day.

@Benedick:
scuse me but 300 is the best movie ever made. period.
what other movie exposes the latent homosexuality of so many rubes.
as for your reaction to Wall-E it seems a bit extreme. I thought it was boring but “Nasty, filthy and corrupt.”?
also forgive me but refusing to look at computer generated toons seems a bit, um, bitter.

in the interest of full disclosure this is how I have made my living for the last few decades.

btw
excuse a personal annoucnment/end zone dance.
I MADE IT. I DID IT. I came through the gauntlet of fire with my foreskin intact!!
I am going to be a lighter on the new project. something I have wanted to do for a while (I have been doing effects here for the last two years [the nasty corrupt computer generated kind] and I had to convince them I could do it even though I have more cg lighting film credits than effects credits so I had to do tests – how humililating) so I am excited even tho I will have to live with the fact that the OH will never see the fruits of my labors.
to be fair to them it is very very different from film lighting. the most obvious difference being things have to look good not from one angle but from all angles. its a lot harder actually.

@Capt Howdy: Right Right and Right.

I thought 300 too ridiculously Jocks v Fags. Sorry, Jocks v Arab Fags. And all those hideous men with their pants off. And that story, the real one, or as real as it gets, makes me cry. (You’ll learn I cry easy. Also, I get indignant real easy. I try to keep it within reasonable bounds but frequently fail. eg right now).

I’ve spent my life trying to learn how to tell a story. It’s what I do for a living so I am perhaps a tad more invested than others.

The OH hates the look of computer-generated toons. Not quite sure why. He doesn’t respond at all to exploding spaceships. He gets confused by illogic in the scenes. I don’t happen to agree. I love Monsters Inc, for example. And the look of WALL E is dazzling. They kind of knock it out the park. I just hate what’s happened to story-telling and the whole ‘uplift’ crap. Instead of telling the story they plot the audience’s reaction and then manipulate it almost frame by frame.

The FX stuff in Curse of the Golden Chrysanthemum is astounding, mostly because you can’t see it (apart from some flying ninjas on wires. But even then, you’re going WTF at how it was done) and it serves the story, creates a world in which the story can take place. So I’m on board – till the final fade-out which made me laugh.

But you know the way this crowd gets about Supreme Court decisions? I get that way about stories. I shouldn’t use this place as a vent. We’ll do lunch.

Have I mentioned how much I love grips? And Best Boys? Good for you. Lighting is totally fab. I know very little about movies but lots about the theatre. The OH has worked with some of the best. If you should ever want to know how Tharon Musser did the final cue in A Chorus Line I’m your man.

@Benedick: It’s all about how you tell the story.

@Benedick:

hahaha
I was just yanking your shank. you know that right?
oh, listen. about the story thing, I am soooo on board with that.
unfortunately it is not just a problem with CG movies. the dumbing down of our culture is reflected in no better way than comparing Transformers 2 to some of the worst B 50’s sci fi movies that were made for a few hundred bucks. they were so much smarter.
having said that I think Lassiter is better than most. I thought the Incredibles was a great movie on several levels. personally I blame Disney having worked there for several years I know for a fact that company can suck the life and creativity out of absolutely anyone and anything.
I wish he would leave while he still has something left.

@Benedick:
also about 300
I work with many stupid homophobic pseudo cool 20 somethings.
it was so much fun watching them rave about that movie and see it 10 times without ever understanding why.

see dumbing down comment above.

@Capt Howdy: I knew that. Lifers around here know enough to ignore me when I go off on a tangent. It’s really the best policy. The real question is, why am I spending quite so much time here when I should be working?

But bravo on the gig. Hope you have a rewarding time.

@Benedick: @Capt Howdy: I blame Disney for so much. I am still bitter, bitter, bitter over what they did to my favorite (tragic, of course) childhood fairy tale The Little Mermaid, taking away the beauty of sacrificing all for the one you love and turning it into some happily ever after craps.

BTW, Benedick, I knew all the answers to this week’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” quiz about Florence Foster Jenkins thanks to you. Kisses!

@Mistress Cynica: I happened to hear it quite by chance. Made me laugh.

@Benedick:

Welcome to Disney’s Pixar, as opposed to Disney/Pixar. I thought Up was worse.

@Mistress Cynica:

You would rather have us tell a story where the heroine is in excruciating agony for half the story, then narrowly misses dissolving into sea foam on her way to becoming a celibate angel?

You have to sell tickets to these things, you know. Most people hate a downer. The original is beautiful, I agree, but that fact doesn’t make Mermaid any less of an achievement.

Oh, and they are investigating doing The Snow Queen after they finish Rapunzel and the new Winnie-the -Pooh movie.

@Mistress Cynica: Hunters hate Bambi. Son of RML remains freaked out by The Sorcerer’s Apprentice apprentice to this day.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Agree. Who wants to see “the feel bad movie of the summer”?

Is it possible that Disney gave Lindsay Lohan her last decent job for “Herbie: (The Female Lead is) Fully Loaded”?

ADD: One of the secretaries here got a new computer this week. Set up will have to wait until the tech guy finishes fixing a partner’s tractor. For reals.

@redmanlaw: I’ve been told that the best way to see The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is high as a kite.

@SanFranLefty: I think that goes for all of Fantasia. There’s some pretty trippy imagery throughout.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: I never think of Pixar as being Disney but I guess it is.

Hope things are going well for you there.

@Benedick:
it is now

@Benedick:

Still touch-and-go, but thanks. I got some reassurance that I am “in the club” and don’t have to worry, but in my experience sometimes one can be in the wrong club. Hopefully I picked the right horse…I think the axe might fall Nov. 30th- I’m betting they merge us with Theatrical like they did at Paramount- but we’ll see.

Corporate politics are pathetic, but there it is.

@flippin eck: @Benedick: @SanFranLefty: @redmanlaw:

You all must see Allegro Non Troppo, the Italian parody of/homage to Fanstasia. Very funny, and trippy as well.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches:
I give Lassiter credit for one big thing. I was there when they started their distribution deal with studio ghibli. Roy disney wanted to butcher Sprirted Away (possibly the best animated film ever made) because he said it was not suitable for disney audiences (read not brain dead enough) and Lassiter laid down the law. he said he would quit if Roy was allowed to do it.
big fight, Lassiter won. he will receive lots of slack from me for a long time for that.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: Glad to hear it. By ‘Theatrical” I assume you don’t mean ‘to do with the theatre’. Anyhow glad to hear you’re in the club. (Limey slang for ‘knocked up’ or having a ‘bun in the oven’) Well done you.

I think I saw that movie.

@Capt Howdy: I netflixed it.

@Benedick:

Hehe. “Knocked up”.

Theatrical means of or having to do with the release of feature films. We are “Home Entertainment” which would be of or having to do with DVD sales.

For now.

@Tommmcatt is hunkered down in the trenches: The Allegro kitty segment still makes me cry.

The $1.25 mil will be paid in Nation of Alaska sovereign bank notes, so joke’s on her!