Todd Hits the Presses

Yes! Validation! My first ever printed thing in a newspaper came out today, a review of Kung Fu Panda. This summer I'm working two days a week for a newspaper in the south suburbs of Chicago. I do lots of odds and ends including fact checking, copy editing, reporting, and now writing movie reviews. It's pretty sweet. Anyway, here's my review of Kung Fu Panda:

You'll get a kick out of 'Kung Fu Panda'

If you find yourself waiting in line for a sold-out showing of the new Pixar film, Wall-E, check out another family-friendly, computer-generated flick.

"Kung Fu Panda" tells the story of Po (Jack Black), a portly, noodle-serving panda who is accidentally chosen to be "Dragon Warrior," the kung fu guardian of his homeland.

Critics have knocked the film for having a predictable plot, and this is far from the first DreamWorks picture with a zoological rainbow of celebrity-voiced characters. Yet, the time-honored "inadequate hero rises to the challenge through hard work" template is perfectly executed with an inspirational moral attached, and really works as a backdrop for the film's nonstop laughs.

While kids crack-up at Po's Homer Simpson-esque, slapstick suffering, the satire of kung fu films will delight any martial arts buff. Like the "sword of heroes," which is so sharp you can cut yourself just by looking at it, the film's razor wit will put teens and adults in fits.

Black's enthusiasm in conveying Po sounds completely natural for a giddy panda. So do Po's kung fu idols: "The Furious Five," are voiced by Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Seth Rogan, Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan, but the minimal lines and character development given to these stars makes you wish for a three-hour film.

The best thing I can say about "Kung Fu Panda" is that there's never a dull moment. You're either laughing at the gags or gaping at the gorgeous fight scenes -- and frequently both. With kids or with friends, it's hard not to get a kick out of this film.

- Todd ####### (last name withheld for copyright reasons. Just kidding. I just don't like stalkers)

So who's cool now, oh yeah, that's right, it's me. Always.

I Hate You Sarah Marshall

First of all, sorry about the hiatus. I was away for Spring Break in sunny Folly Beach, South Carolina for a fun-filled week of frisbee, beer, and sunstroke. But i'll write about that in more detail in another article.

The theme for this post came from when I was driving around Chicago tonight and saw some interesting billboards:





Also on the billboard, but not as obvious as the smack-talk, is the URL www.ihatesarahmarshall.com. My interest piqued, I checked out the site as soon as I got home. Apparently it is the brainchild of Peter Bretter, a TV composer who was recently dumped by, you guessed, Sarah Marshall, the attractive star of Crime Scene. The posts go from him being hilariously spinelessly in love with her at the earlier blog posts and hating her towards the end. He used the money he made from selling her engagement ring (which he never got to use) to make these hate billboards.




Or so you would think. Really the site and the billboards are a really well done teaser for the upcoming movie from the director and producer of 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, called Forgetting Sarah Marshall. No, there is no real Peter Bretter and no real billboard war. Its just brilliant advertising. Looks like its gonna be a pretty good movie, and exceedingly well hyped.

Eddie Izzard: Offering the Finest in Male Lesbian Transexual Stand-Up

Eddie Izzard loves women so much that he likes dressing up as one. Not gay. Fascinating. I first encountered the work of Eddie Izzard in what I feel was one of the most underappreciated films of the past decade, Mystery Men. Little did I know, the "normal" way he appeared in the movie was actually quite abnormal for him.


This is how he usually chooses to appear for stand-up gigs and the like. Classy. Anyways, the reason Eddie Izzard came up was that I was watching 28 Weeks Later at my friend P's house. The movie was pretty sweet because rage zombies are the best zombies, as seen here, you have to verify your age and shit, but you get to watch free videos. Watch the first one, "Infected Attack," it's ridiculous.

Anyways, we were watching this Deleted Scene on the DVD where the family is in the cafeteria just kind of talking to people and being awkward. Then P showed me this perfectly topical piece of Eddie Izzard stand-up comparing British with American film, making it obvious why the scene was deleted.



Enjoy.

Main Hoon Na: Bollywood at it's Best

This movie has everything. First let me tell you about the genre as listed on imdb, Action/Drama/Romance/Musical/Comedy. So good. So for those of you that don't know much about Bollywood, it's basically a genre of Indian film that is usually a long and complicated love story with tons of arbitrary and hilarious song and dance numbers.

Anyways, Main Hoon Na, is great to start out with because it stars Shah Rukh Khan, the Tom Cruise of India. He's the best romance/action/musical star in the world. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but basically Shah Rukh Khan is a Major in the Indian Army, and after a terrorist kills his father, he has to go undercover as a college student to protect the general's daughter from the same terrorist as well as find his estranged step-brother and have him help scatter their father's ashes. And then there's all sorts of love stories too! This movie alternates scenes of impossible Matrix-esque action with absurd, over-the-top dance numbers. It's extremely well written and very funny.

Here's a clip from the film. The main character has just saved the life of the most popular kid at school, so now everyone is showing how much they love him.



And here's a compilation of some action clips from the movie, set to "In the End" by Linkin Park. I thought there time in the sun was done, but no, here they are again.



Oh. And Merry Christmas.

Once and The Edukators

So I saw the movie Once on the airplane home from Japan, but I really liked so I watched it again two nights ago. Some of the music scenes are so ridiculously awesome that I decided I'd share them with you. This first scene is from when the two main leads first try to play a song together, inside a music store. There's also some other clips from the film spliced in. Enjoy:



Then there's my favorite song from the movie, which I imagined must have required a hundred takes to get right. Then I saw this video of the two main characters performing it live. Note the part where they are just screaming in perfect harmony. Glory.



Okay. So. Now that you're going to the video store to get Once, you should pick up this next film too. It's called The Edukators, and it's a German film that made a pretty big splash at Cannes. It's the kind of movie that can fall apart if you try to point out all the little flaws and improbabilities, but it can be really life-changing if you let it. Here's the trailer:




Cheers.

Back to America: A Crazy Ride Home

Alright. First. Some business concerning previous posts. It has been brought to my attention by one andrewh that the download link I provided for the Magic the Gathering Computer Game was not free, and since no one likes things that aren't free, I invite you to try this link instead. I haven't used it myself, but don't blame me for any spyware or viruses. Freedom has a price.

Also, I discovered that the kanji game I have is not 250 Mannin no Kanken but rather Minna no DS seminar. It's pretty hard to understand and there really is no easy setting, so I'd recommend this game only for advanced students. I'm currently looking into getting some simpler games. Also, I found a good website for buying these games in America. Yeah.

Oh. So. On my flight home. I first flew from Central Japan Airport in Nagoya to San Francisco. There were these two babies on my flight who decided the time had finally come to see who could cry loudest, longest, and with most evident distress. I enjoyed the competitive spirit, but not the 90 minutes of sleep. There were also so many movies I wanted to see. I ended up watching The Darjeeling Limited, and Once. The Darjeeling Limited was funny and had a lot of great shots, but for some reason the sound came through so quietly even on full volume that I ended up missing some key lines of dialogue that explained the thrust of the movie. I still recommend even though there were gaps in the plot I couldn't hear.

Once, well, I really liked Once a lot. I've never really liked musicals, but I really like music, so I feel that there is a quality of overacting and insincerity in most musicals that are completely absent in this one. It's just people singing a bunch of good songs all the time. Man, I really dig Irish music, and there's this one scene when they're recording an album when they're singing and playing a song, and then they just start yelling in harmony and it's just so loud and so perfect. I cried a little during this movie. It is good.

Anyways, so I got to San Francisco and after picking up some See's candies for my Dad, I got on my flight to Chicago. I was planning on sleeping the whole flight, but fate had something else in mind. Have you ever seen that episode of House where he's on the airplane? It was like that, well, almost. There was a guy sitting three rows in front of me who was apparently having some sort of heart trouble. Luckily for him, the people sitting next to, behind, and across from him were all doctors. So these doctors would take a medical history and try to figure out what was wrong with him and the flight attendants were rushing back and forth bringing first aid kids and blankets and other passengers were standing up trying to see what was going on. Then they set up an IV and brought out the defibrillator, which they thankfully never had to use. It was all really intense and interesting, so there was no way I was gonna sleep. We called in to Air Traffic control and we got to enter immediately, and when we got there paramedics came on and took the lucky guy away in a stretcher. The diagnosis was some kind of arrhythmia (sp?). I wonder what would've happened if there weren't all those doctors right there.

Anyways, when it was all done, two of the doctors, who happened to be married to each other, commended there two small children on being quiet and letting Mommy and Daddy help someone. Then the first thing the little boy says is, "I hated that." Kids.

So that's why I got 90 minutes of sleep in the past 24 hours. I guess I'm gonna go to bed.