Mattlog

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Flying out this morning to Springfield.

By the time I return another male will have fallen in to marriage... heh... in the fall. (Kind of a reach.) I'll have picked a new roommate and will have driven the suckass drive from Joplin to Austin. At least we'll have saved 70 miles by leaving from there and not Springfield.

Have a good weekend... as Arnold always says "I'll be back."

Matt

Return of the Jedi

I probably haven't sat down and watched, in it's entirety Return of the Jedi, since maybe '99. You know gearing up for Ep I.

So I did today. Why not? I'm off I'm cleaning my house... and what the hell. It's on DVD now. Multiple watchings will not ruin it.

I've always kind of put down this film. I love Jabba and I love the Saber Duel at the end... after all it's what the whole sixology hinges on... but the rest of it kinda bugged me.... Can't say why. I always used to heel it's a bit weaker especially coming off Empire which is a much more emotional and personal film. Empire's all character.

But today was probably the most fun I've had watching the film in a long time. And in watching it today (with the entire back story being told in Eps I and II and in 232 days EP III) this film is so much better. It almost proves Lucas knew what he is doing. Yoda dying is a lot harder to watch. The Empeor is drunk on power. Going on 20 (almost 30 really) years of dark side domineering... his overconfidence in his power and his underlings becomes evident. Luke sees right through it. The Emperor has had this all figured from his political machinations in EP I which brought him to power. (Even if he did underestimate one Padme Amidala.) But Luke's got his number. His love and faith in his father is what saves him and redeems Anikin. By cutting off Vader's hand he realizes the path he's on. And in the most exciting moment of my whole day Luke tosses his lightsabre aside and says... "I'll never turn to the dark side. You've failed, your Highness. I am a Jedi like my father before me."

And then in the scariest read of any line ever Emperor comes back almost spitting "So be it, Jedi."

Lightning..... "And now, Young Skywalker you will die."

By the end I actually found myself excited. I was cheering and clapping. I stopped cleaning at some point during the film, I don't remember where.

Highest props now, more than ever to Jedi. Those final 20 minutes are awesome!

I'd also like to ass my appreciation of fixing the Matte lines on the Rancor monster. That scene actually looks like Luke's there with the monster. I though the Special Edition fix actually made it worse.

And one more thing.... I think Jedi is most like Ep I than any other in the trilogy. It starts off with a docking.... the battle sequence is three battles and there's a apoint where in all three battles things look bleak.... It's interesting. I'm eager to compare the rest with the others.

Jedi. **** stars

And just for fun....

He's not that into you.

So Oprah.

There's nothing on at 4 o'clock. I only have 21 channels of TV goodness and uh... there's nothing on. Half those channels are wacky cable access so I probably have 11 channels that may have something watchable and they don't. Cause Oprah's better than Montel.

And cartoons? Back in the day four o clock cartoons were the best. Smurfs, The Real Ghostbusters and Voltron filled your afternoon pre-dinner hours quite well. And now? It's Jackie Chan Adventures and Yugi-goh. Whoopie.

So Oprah's on while I get dressed for work. And last week he had a guy who wrote this book called He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys.

The scene from Sex and the City goes something like this. Paraphrased, I assure you. The red-headed chickie ... er... Miranda (thank you Google) goes out on a date with this guy who walks her up to her door kisses her good night, and when she invites him he says "I can't I have an early meeting."

So in typical SEX fashion they try to figure out what his deal is.

Maybe he's afraid of being hurt.
Maybe he doesn't want to ruin the friendship.
Maybe he's intimidated by me.
He just got out of a relationship

So they ask Berger (played wonderfully by Ron Livingston, the Office Space Guy) what his male perspective was. He tries to be nice but eventually says, "He's just not that into you."

"What?"

"If a guy wants a girl ... we're upstairs. Meeting or no meeting. We're comin up."

And that's the premise of the book. Guys will do whatever they can to keep the women they want. So Oprah has some pre-selected people come up and ask questions about their man and his response almost everytime was "He's not that into you."

"When I met the woman who would become my wife, she lived in Paris. She would call at like 3 am our time. But I took the call. We talked for hours. THat's what guys will do if they're into you."

If you're waiting three weeks for a phone call ... he's not that into you. Course I've been trying to tell my girlfriends these things for years... but why should they listen to me. Well know it's backed up.

So there.

Matt

A now a long awaited moment of Zen.

Lotsa Stuff

So birthday was great. Involved lots video games (Tiger Woods 2005 rules!) and some beer.

Great birthday, my friends are awesome. Even I didn't get my cake, Haley. It's okay there's a lot on your plate.

At anyrate, I spent most of Today recouping. Worked tonight at 5:30 made some cash came home and COULD IT BE?... the Holy Grail of DVD's was resting inside an Amazon box. I foolishly agrred to meet some friends out.... I was drinking water.... but now the Grail and me and I have to go out. I dived into the box and the Special Edition of the Star Wars Trilogy glistened in my hand. OH my stupid friends can wait, I think.

Pop in Ep IV cause if you want to see anything on DVD it's EP IV. And man does it look good even on my crappy 27". I'm awaiting the day we watch it on Jeff's 42"er. I watch the opening crawl.... Vader's entrance. Look at the new Greedo shoots first scene and much happier with. It's more like they shoot at the same time.

Jabba looks better but a bit too CG-eey.

I dashed to a friends house spend an hour there and return home by 3:00 and pop in the Empire Of Dreams documentary. It rules. So much good stuff ... mostly on the making of the first one.... I got hyper-tension just watching it.

And now it's five thirty and the 2 and a half hour doc is over. Tomorrow I must do the commentaries while finishing the cleaning of my apartment before Ryan moves down in a week and a half. I'm sure he'd appreciate it.

I hae more I wanna talk about... thanks to that damn Oprah but I'll save it for tomorrow...

Till, then May the Force be with you.

Oh and only 237 days until the opening of Episode III. IN case you care.

Matt

Something about a Birthday

Oh yeah it's mine.

It seems to happpen every year about this time.

Oddly enough I've been thinking about this time last years.

It was a move last year at 9/08 that set everything in motion.

By 9/17 last Year I had my job at the 'Bee's.

Boy what can happen in a year. I'm thouroghly comfortable which is probably bad. I should probably be nervous that nothing's changed.

But there's something happening... not that I should probably talk about... if nothing else so I don't jinx it.

So I'm 31. No one think's I"m older than 27. I'll take that. :)

Happy birthday to me.

Talk more in a few days.

Matt

Cell Block Transfer from 1138

So I just bought THX 1138. This as many of you may not know is Goerge Lucas' first film that stemmed from an award winning short he produced at USC.

I've seen this movie probably twice my life. Er... perhaps tried to watch this movie twice in my life. It's a bit depressing, intellectually engaging and a bit of a downer despite it's "hopeful" ending.

But I've been reading a few reviews of the past few weeks and all of them have said how this is a wonderful 2-disc set and everyone should own it. You sometimes have to wonder are they saying this to the general population or film students.

Since, though, I consider myself a bit of celluloid connisour I thought at this point in my life I had better go back and check it out. Besides everyone says the extras are worth the money.

So I started on Disc 2. The extras. I never do this. I usually go back watch the movie first. Get myself back in the head of the film. Watch the movie. Then do the commentary and only at that point do I do a disk 2 and with it's featurettes and domumentaries.

But this is 1138 so I did the reverse. The first documentary on the disc is called "A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope." If you are any kind of history buff or lover of all things film you must MUST watch this documentary. It basically tells the story on how Coppala and Lucas started taking over the film industry by setting up their production company American Zoetrope. And fascinating look at many upstart filmmakers converging for a few years in San Fran trying to make movies. And how THX 1138 became the first. The stories and excitement of this upstart crew is interesting and fun to watch. One of the best hours I've ever spent watching DVD. And that's something!

On to the making of the film doc. Which is a great look at the making of this film. Basically spending a half an hour getting into the finer deatils of the film the other doc chose not to explore. But such an exciting look into how Lucas even from the get go knew what his vision of films should be. A+ on this doc too.

The last little doc called BALD, is a vintage piece of pro-Zoetrope propaganda that not only discusses the film but shows all of the actors in strange areas of San Fran getting their heads shaved. Very interesting from a historical stand point.

So finally I put in Disk 1 and hit play. And I found the film to a lot more engaging then my last attempts to watch it. I would assume this due to my watching of more different films in the past 5 or 6 years. I also think getting the filmmaker's perspective on the film helped a lot too.

But I can rememeber my dislike for the film came from not knowing what the fu-zuck was going on. In the past several years films like Memento and Requim for a Dream or even Jacob's Ladder have a done this. You just sorta have to watch the film as whole to ever get it. And with THX 1138 you sort have to watch it like a foreign film. Walter Murch says is best in the doc... he says "It's not a film about the future. We wanted to make a film FROM the future." So all these little nuances that I didn't get.... you're not really supposed to. It's their daily routine. This is what people do everyday in this future.

The commentary is also a piece of work. Instead of a boring play by play like about half the commenary's are (never listen to the Total Recall commentary unless you want to here Scwarzenagger explaining how at any given point the movie someone could be real or fake over and over and over and over.) This commentary is far more interesting with the filmmakers not only going into the ideas of the film present but what some of that nuanced stuff actually is. It's clear these guys created a world THEY at least fully understand. :)

So although the film is still sort of a downer it's intellectually engaging in a good way, and a fcaptivating look at a young George Lucas' work.

Next week-- Star Wars on DVD.... I'll be holed up in my house for a few days. :)

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is on FIRE!

Been a busy week. Firends have kept me out and up late and I've felt like do nothing all day. One of these weeks where work takes it out of you... and it's been slow. So you're bored. Which makes you more tired.

So Xtina and I were sitting out on my porch tonight drinking off a six pack cause neither of us felt like drinking a whole bunch. And I saw flashing lights.... which in my apartment complex is nothing knew... it's not the Ghetto or anything but apparently there's, at least a domestic squabble a week. Or something...

So flashing lights mean nothing until we began to notice that the light was a pretty steady red.

"Let's be nosey neighbors," says Xtina and off we go. And the next building down from us... well, here's what we saw.

Imagine my surprise. That's XXXtina's head in the foreground.

Well we freaked out a little. XXXtina went totally sober. The yelling we heard earlier was the fireman banging on and kicking down doors. It took three fireman to kick down a door. Deadbolts.

Fireman all said they got everyone so that's a relief. There's a buliding there next to that tree on the left. That's my building. I was a little bit nervous but figured they'd have it out before it jumped to mine.

As you can see it just got worse. I think the apartments on the far side of this building were okay... save some smoke damage most likely.

Fireman had a hard time (not their fault) finding a hydrant for the side of the building all these pics are of.... almost a half an hour to find a hydrant down the block and run a hose to the truck. COuld saved much more of the building had one been closer. Have a feeling we'll be seeing in the next month or two on put in near us.

My two thoughts were these.

A) Odd this happened on 9/11.

B) Who pays this water bill. :)

Anyway, I smell like a camp fire (which doesn't necesarrily suck) and the fourth beer I was just handed is probably enough to put me to sleep.

So sleep I will.

Tourists.

The only other thing I have to say is that I wish I had Jeff's hi-def camera that could have taken some cool shit... but with mine I didn't have the luck... here's the best of the cool.

Had I had Jeff's Camera I could have zoomed in the room, caught some real cool stuff on the fire engine.... I would have gone nuts.... but alas.

Matt

Wedding

It's finally here!

Three things to say about the wedding. A) It was beautiful. B) It was fun. C) It was full of alcohol.

At least from my standpoint. :)

The trip itself with Sydney on our laps was actually easier than we had suspected it might be. It also helped that Shrek 2 was our in- flight film.

Food. That's another point about the wedding. It was full of food. Night 1 we ate at the Greystone Gourmet Institute. Great food wonderful wine.

Day 2 was golf. We played at the Chardonnay Golf Course in Napa. Shot a 46 on the front nine... I'll take that any day. Speically on this course where rough quickly became vineyards.

This shot is actually turned out well for me. Not on the fairway but where the red dots are. It's in the rough but not the Vineyard.

Rehearsal which we moved through rather quickly. Which took us to dinner. But first I had to iron.

Night 2 was a lot more beer.

Day3 Wedding day. Aj's "Final Meal" Was Wendy's. That's Aj's favorite fast food and it doesn't exist in England. It was, therefore, appropriate.

Here's us and a beer before the wedding. I'm the best man doing my job. :)

The wedding went almost flawless. I was reading a poem with the bridesmaid Elisa when I, flubbed, an important line. I just explained it was my job to screw up first.

Then pics.

Alot of smiling obviously. THis is the wedding party Elisa, Julie, Aj, Me, and Jeff. And as I always say, if there's a wedding *I'M* the party.

*sad rim shot*

Then the reception, my toast the cake and then some fuzziness, I think there was a lot of glasses of wine, a couple bloody mary's... we were in the hotel bar for a while... then someone's room. It was here I think I finally sobered. A little.

Then I crashed and/ or passed out.

Luckily the next day consisted of driving an hour and a half to San Fran. Good on the hang over.

Then a beautful second reception in San Francisco. This was our view.

http://ferris.is-a-geek.net:8181/albums/mcevergreene/slides/McEverGreene%20158.html

Another toast which, someday I'll have video of... waiting on Jeff for that.

And then dancing. Aj and I doing our JAZZ HANDS!

http://ferris.is-a-geek.net:8181/albums/mcevergreene/slides/McEverGreene%20424.html

And then the next morning an early drive to Sacremento to pick up Sydney who stayed with friends and then a long flight home.

Good times, good drinks, new friends. It's was weddings are all about really.

Matt

No Wedding Stuff Today

Too busy unpacking the WAY too much crap for one guy...

But someone sent me this and now I pass it along to you.

Be ready to Live long and Prosper.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&e=1&u=/nm/20040902/sc_nm/space_signals_dc

Not the Wedding Stuff

More Wedding stuff coming but uh.... well I ready this... and yes it's gossip but ... well you're all aware of my damn near obsession with Christina Aguilera.

Well, read this.

"[Paris Hilton] sat next to Christina, who dropped her three girlfriends and put her arm around Paris, who leaned into the crook of her neck," a witness tells the New York Daily News. We'll just give you a second to process that image ... Done? OK, moving on.

Another spy who spotted the blonde-on-blonde bonding tattled to the New York Post that the pretty pair "suddenly started making out," perhaps in tribute to the on-stage Britney-Madonna-Christina spit swap from last year's ceremony. Either way, we're guessing that somewhere Rick Salomon is weeping over his failure to capture the alleged canoodling on camera.

Well that'll keep me up nights.

Be back later this afternoon....