in the shadow of the tower...

well the highlight of today has got to be all the progress i've made towards solving my current countdown of doom...

however following up on the information i acquired here today has required me to once again follow the aquaduck through the campus... right past the scary magicy looking clocktower...

now rather then go ANYWHERE near this place i made my way to the opposite side of the aqua L, and came across a very weird landmark...
now it shouldn't come as any surprise that so close to a place of magic one would find something like this... a plaza covered in C's... i can't figure out why they'd be here or why you'd put them up. point is their really weird, and must serve some sort of equally weird purpose.

i don't have time to properly figure it out right now though sadly... just making note of them so that once i have my countdown problems solved i can come back and figure this out...

a enquiry of sorts... a general sort that is

T-Minus: 32 days...

Location: University of Otago

Objective: Home

_

okay people of the innerweb now we're talking! inside the info centre i found exactly what i was looking for. the general enquiries desk!

now i had to stand in line for a few hours just to get to the nice person at the other end. i then had to spend another hour explaining why i as a non-university student needed the information i was requesting, but after convincing the info dude that it was an EMERGENCY he reluctantly gave me the address i need...

so now i'm off to hopefully score myself a new home here in new zealand!

campus tour

T-Minus: 32 days...

Location: University of Otago

Objective: Home

man what a good night sleep that was... forgot how nice it is to sleep in the great out of doors... a nice early start to the day too... nothing like waking up to the sounds of sea gulls squaking in the morning... yeah i they bug me too!!!

okay so first thing here this morning was finding my way around the university, and finding the information centre. already it's a very pretty place. the leith aquaduck runs right through the middle which gives it a very nice civilized feel.

wow and magicy! the main hall looks like hogwarts castle... sure hope they don't have any dragons around here! the scales on my lower jaw are still kinda tender from the last time i met up with a dragon!

i'm just going to avoid that whole section for now. hopefully the information centre is somewhere else as it is still a huge campus, and that clock tower area is just looking a little too magicy for me...

wow it sure is big too! the commerce building was massive... still no info here though. i'm liking this end of the campus better then the clocktower... not as magicy... more vancouvery


after a couple hours wandering around i came across a building that might be what the doctor ordered. the info link... sure hope they can hook me up with my needed information... otherwise i could be in trouble shortly...

pretty sweet building. has a bunch of useful offices and services... including a library! i'll have to email mike about it, and keep it in mind for future reference (get it... i made a pun... you know about referencing a reference... and people say i'm dumb!).

it also has the university inquires desk. just the sort of desk i'm in need of...

so i'm off to get my information here people of the innerweb. catch you in a little bit...

Man of The Year - 2006 - DVD

Thursday, February 22, 2007



I made sure to reduce the size of the poster art so as not to draw too much attention to the fact that I actually saw this movie, truly a disaster of epic proportions. Yet one that delights with streams of non-sequiturs from Chris Walken. Lewis Black also stars, and looks so restrained that he might pop. If you're getting wasted next weekend at home and need a junk movie to help the hours along, check it out, absolutely. Otherwise, ssshh! Keep hush about it!--and keep the cover art minimized, dadgummit! We don't want to encourage Barry Levinson any more than we already have.

Nonetheless, read my review over at Cinema Blend.

Contemporary Short Work Animation, Univeristy of Chicago Animation Series

Friday, February 16, 2007



This was a night of animated shorts from the years spanning 1999-2006. But don't quote me on that because the U of Chi. coordinators ran out of programs before I could get one. My memory hasn't retained the titles of the films, let alone their release dates. Such is life, and I'm over it if you are. Actually, I'm over it anyway.

There were about 5 films that ran for about an hour, all of them works left undistributed (at least to my knowledge), so it was, in other words, a great opportunity to see some underground stuff. The picture above is from a film that consisted of single copies of painted portraits, which were then smeared with different layers of paint. Each shot revealed the layers of brushstrokes, but in reverse order until the face in the frame morphed back to its original form. The best way to describe it is as a cross between Stan Brakhage and Richard Linklater. Imagine physical lines of color that move ala Waking Life (2001), and have the same hypnotic effect as something like Mothlight (1963).

Little Miss Sunshine - 2006 - DVD

Thursday, February 15, 2007



I struggled to figure out why Little Miss Sunshine was lauded by so many and consequently nominated for awards left and right (and finally winning Best Screenplay at the Oscar's on Sunday). For me, it was a bit too much calculated quirkiness. I like the idea of a parody road-trip movie, that's funny in itself, and intriguing with the dark twist Little Miss was advertised to have. But the idea alone isn't enough to sustain a feature-length film. Depth to characters, for one, needs to be there. The people in Little Miss Sunshine are more like ornaments. Alan Arkin as Grandpa is hooked on heroin; mom and dad (Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear) fight incessantly; big brother is mute (and reads Frederick Nietzsche); and his uncle Frank (Steve Carell) is a suicidal Proust scholar. Besides the fact that I, too, would be suicidal were I a career Proust authority, his is the character that made the least sense to me. It sounded like literary name-dropping rather than real dimension. It's very easy to reference high-art, but to match it is difficult without looking like an imitation.

Out of that murk came the little sister, Olive (Abigail Breslin), who was a genuine beam of light when she was happy, the inverse when she was sad. Breslin's character (and Breslin herself) was inspired; the rest were cardboard facsimiles of an archetype. Individually there were fun moments. Steve Carell can deliver a joke with panache, even if it's just okay material. The same can be said for Greg Kinnear, who recurs more and more as a dramatic actor (But how I loved him from the Talk Soup days!) Toni Collette is enthralling in anything she does, always transcending her real persona (I particularly like her in About A Boy (2002)). Alan Arkin is an undeniable force.

Yet with all of that, and to my utter dismay, I was bored.

Maxed Out - 2007 - Film

Thursday, February 15, 2007



New review! Read it now in Four Magazine!

school of hard rocks...

T-Minus: 33 days...
_

Location: University of Otago
Objective: Home

okay things are looking very dire again here people of the web wide world. not only did my last attempt to find a home and job fail, but i wasted a LOT of time with that attempt

now i spent some time brain storming... which with a brain the size of mine is kinda hard too do... but i think i've come up with the perfect plan. it won't get me both a home and job like the last plan, but it will at least score me a place to stay... hopefully...

first i was going to have to find the university. which once back in dunedin hopefully wasn't going to be too hard.

the trip back in from the peninsula though. MAN! i sure am glad i didn't take that job at the albatross observatory. i'd have to leave for work from town the night before just to walk all the way back out here!

well finally i got back into town... way later then i'd hoped! it was already early evening, and i was just dropped off at random. i still needed to find my way to the university.

fortunately i found a key landmark that runs throughout town. the leith it's called, but i could a swore fake rivers like this one were called aquaducks! which now that i think about it is just as confusing... man humans are weird sometimes...

anyways if you follow the aqua L it runs from one end of town to the harbour (you can even see it on the map of dunedin... don't believe me check it out!). along the way though it runs through the university... which meant all i had to do was walk along the aqua L and i'd find my destination.

what do you know it worked! just took me a little while longer then i'd hoped... everything around the university is closed by now...

which is no good... i really need to get some information from them as so as possible cause the clock is ticking

i guess it's okay in a way... the long journey back in from the peninsula has kinda tuckered me out. now i've noticed that your not supposed to sleep around the university (now i've never been to skool of any kind so i'm not sure... but is it normal to have to warn students with actual signs NOT to sleep at skool???) but i'm really feeling the need to crash. especially since that way first thing tomorrow i can get down to business and get that information that i need...

fortunately i'm noticing a nice rocky spot by the aqua L hidden UNDERNEATH a building...

i'll be spending the night there, but please don't tell campus security people of the web wide world!

Mister Roberts - 1955 - DVD

Sunday, February 11, 2007



Mister Roberts is set on a WWII supply ship, headed by a brass Captain Morton (James Cagney) who hasn't let his crew off ship for nearly a year. His booming voice (though we don't yet know it is his) thunders above the ship deck instructing the crew; it's a eerie, monotonous sound that feels disconnected from the ship, God-like, as if it encompasses the sea and surrounding sky. It's a weird opening scene with the ship separated from anything else on the horizon. As far as we know from the first few minutes it very well could be abandoned; the voice an imagined sound from the grave. A glimps of the shore appears a few moments later and it's clear the ship is set just off the mainland, and from here the absurdity of the ship's positioning begins.

Naturally charming, and alternately quiet and witty, William Powell plays Lt. "Doc," who is Lt. Roberts' (Henry Fonda) confidant and friend on their lonely, droning time in the service. Most of the time there is literally nothing for the soldiers to do but wait until the warring soldiers at sea need supplies. They sit idle, desperate for a diversion, even a fight. Things are so laid back that Lt. Roberts is addressed as "Mister Roberts," the crew's father figure. He keeps them sane; they peep through their binoculars at the nurses' station on land, and he lets them to peel their shirts off in the hot sun--all against Navy protocol, and of course much to the dismay and anger of Captain Morton. Harry Carey, Jr. plays Stefanowski, one of the many seemingly pubescent soldiers on ship--you can't miss him with his glistening white waves of hair.

Ward Bond is "Chief Petty Officer Dowdy," as usual a gruff but tenderhearted authority figure who seems more dimensional against the foil of Cagney, Powell, and Fonda. Jack Lemmon plays funny-man and slacker Ensign Pulver, who talks a lot of smack but rarely has the gaul to live up to his words. Once Lemmon enters the mood naturally lightens—particularly in the scene where he, Doc, and Roberts concoct their own brand of whiskey, made of none other than water and a few liquids from the medicine cabinet.

John Wayne's second son Patrick also has a part as a soldier, though it is small so pay attention whenever the larger group of soldiers is on screen. Working with Ford really is like being a part of a family; he's screened generations of his best actors, Harry Carey and Harry Carey, Jr; the Duke and his son Patrick, not to mention his own brother Frank in earlier films (who also used John when he was a director himself in the silent days). Beside these players are his unofficial family, the recurring actors like Fonda, Cagney, and Ward Bond, all smack into the Closterphobic space of this ship stuck at sea. They even bicker like family.

Mister Roberts has the same apathetic and frustrated tone as some recent war movies, like Jarhead (2005), for example, where Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) is bored to numbness in Iraq. It's full of pent-up anxiety that longs to be unleashed against an enemy that for them doesn't exist.

Also, if you were an AMC junkie in the past, you might be familiar with the movie Ensign Pulver (1964)--they played this movie almost as regularly as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969). Ensign is a remake of Mister Roberts with Walter Matthau as "Doc," and a slender Jack Nicholson as a shipmate.

Mister Roberts was co-directed with Mervyn Leroy, and uncredited as director is Joshua Logan, the film's screenwriter and later director of its remake, Ensign Pulver.

Yojimbo - 1961 - Film

Saturday, February 10, 2007



This was my first glimps of this much-talked-about Akira Kurosawa flick, and served as the perfect companion piece to the Western overload I've been having in my John Ford movie marathon. It's a Western in its own right, but one that deviates from the classic Stagecoach style, and looks a lot more like something from Sergio Leone or Clint Eastwood (and I am told was remade as Leone's A Fistfull of Dollars in 1964). I saw it on a sparkling print with a big bunch of film geeks at Doc Films (at the U of Chi.) and had a marvellous time--even when it came to the gory scenes, like this one:









Also, here's a fantastic still:

small birds - big birds

T-Minus: 36 days...

Location: royal albatross centre

Objective: job

well today being the new day that it is time to seize it (i heard that carpeting denim was how the romans seized the day back IN their day... weird guys the romans must have been).

if i could get a job at the albatross centre then i'll be set. i'd have a home and job all in the same area, AND be practically finished with the government criteria... all in less then 10 days!

so up to the top of the hill i went first thing in the morning to scoop out the joint. the plan was to see what it was about, and then apply for the job.

wow what a nice setup they've got in there! a big giant maori carving greets guests at the door... wonder if it is supposed to be like the giant globe at the tyrrell? still it is super cool! kinda like the totem poles in BC...

further inside there is whole gallery on critters of dunedin... ubber sweet!

included in the displays is a force field squid... which would make a nice treat i've decided... if only i could find a way to penetrate it's dense see through spherical bubble of defense...

next was a display on the penguins of otago. the rarest of these is the yellow eyed penguin. a very pretty bird, but i'd say it's name is very limited... more like a yellow eyed tuxedo bodied duck footed penguin...

wow i REALLY wanted to work here after the next penguin i saw. that is sorta saw!!! something in this building gave me superpowers! i had x-ray vision and could see INSIDE the penguin!!!

quick side note though you'd think it the most unlikely thing imaginable me and this guy are very related... you can see it even just in our arms... though drastically different in size and shape... the same bones are there... creepy eh

well after checking out the galleries it was time to take in the main attraction: the albatross tour!

so up to the VERY top of my neighborhood went our tour group. to a special viewing building to see the centres main attraction...

the royal albatross...

now at first from our viewing position... which was kinda far away, but for good reason to not bug the alby's... they just looked like big sea gulls at first, and man there is a LOT of sea gulls in my neighborhood...

looking through some bioocculars though and i realized just how HUGE an albatross is!!!

now this was a cool time of year to see these guys cause their in the middle of taking care of their eggs!

holy smokes though... when they get flying do you really get just how BIG they are... so big they need the wind to help them fly!


well after seeing these guys in life i was TOTALLY in for working at the centre!


at first it looked promising. going over my resume they were impressed by my tyrrell experience. they said they'd never thought of having a dinosaur work at the centre, but it might be an interesting addition to the staff. all they had to do was get me cleared through the department of conservation as the centre was run by them...

and here's where all my work of the last few days came crashing down...

the D.O.C. wasn't opposed to my working at the centre initially. what they were opposed to was my new stated address on my application form... turns out that my choice of nature preserve wasn't as cool with them as i thought it'd be...

you see no where in the description of a tyrannosaur is the scientifically stated need for an oceanic/shoreline habitat... meaning i was an intruding species on pilot's beach... in other words i was nearly breaking a few of my directives!!!

now long story short i was able to get out of trouble... well okay minus a long lecture about the terms of my bio restriction directives, and the preservation of new zealand's environment...

i however now have NO home again, and as i'll have to find one in town, and am without transport i'll be unable to work at the centre... it's just too far out...

so back to the drawing board people of the innerweb...

best backyard EVER!

T-Minus: 37 days...

location: taiaroa head

objective: job

well now that i've got myself settled into my new home at pilots beach i thought i'd check out the surrounding area... since it is my stomping grounds and all.

i'd also like to see if i can find a job in the area. cause otherwise it's a LONG walk to get into town for work...

up on top of the hill is a museum looking place about albatrosses... not sure what that is... i'll have to check tomorrow as the centre is closed at moment...

now where i'm living at pilots beach is in a nice protected bay, but on the other side of the hill (on the top is the centre) is taiaroa head which is facing the big open ocean...

WOW is all i have to say!

i do LOVE the ocean, and this is it in its wettest, crashingest, wavest form...

you get a real impression of just how powerful the ocean is here... i don't even think godzilla could bet this stuff... why does he live in it i wonder?

after a nice hour or so enjoying my new backyard the sun started to set... good first day in my new home though...

tomorrow time to get to finding a job seriously, and reporting my new place of residence to the government!

things are looking up people of the web-wide world!

sealing the deal

T Minus: 38 Days...

alright so people of the innerweb as i'm sure you now know, i'm facing the greatest crisis of my life... well okay post-tyrrell life... the point is that my plans in this new dinosaur-less land are in jeopardy...

to resolve this i'm going to have to be more dedicated and organized then ever before...

as i've now explored the rough area around dunedin (again when i have some time i'll share some of these findings, but in the meantime) i now need to get down to the business of

• finding a home or place to stay
• getting a job
• convincing 3 people to give me autographs

this reminds me of my exploits in dinotown... only hopefully less booby traps here in new zealand... just like there i have a goal that needs a plan to be achieved...

so from here on in i'm going to keep track of my attempts like so:

Location: Pilot's Beach

Objective: Home

so after my exploits around town i realized perhaps the easiest place to start would be far away outside town, and work my way back in...

so out here at the ocean end of dunedin is the best starting point i figured... they call this area taiaroa head though i'm not seeing any skulls around... it's PRETTY far out of town. the drive was almost 45 min, and it's practically in the middle of no where.

so why did i choose to start out here?


the reason... it might be an easy fix to my home situation... because this whole area is a big nature preserve run by the department of conservation...

now i have to answer to the D.O.C. because i'm an endangered species in new zealand, but that comes with one good thing. they have to help me with my survival... so the nature preserve seemed like the perfect place to start!

the other great thing i can be picky about who comes to visit me while at home... only those with a permit can enter.

right away big bonus to picking this location. it has a beach! man i love the ocean!

though nothing is perfect (even free accommodation it would seem)... i wasn't too impressed with the D.O.C.'s management of the beach. it was covered in old dead logs and drift wood!

though suddenly to my surprise i was shocked to discover that the logs moved... they'd come to life!!!... or had they?

turns out their not logs, but a sea mammal called a sea lion... not my first pick of preserve-mate, but hey they are really cool... their kinda like some of the things i'd seen during my undercover work at the aquarium...

there were a lot of rocks lying around, and i figured it'd be fun to see if i'd moved into a fossil site as well as preserve.

to my shock the rocks here move too! of course it turned out to be a fur seal... quite the busy place to live its turning out... but hey the price is right!

even though their mammals i'm kinda digging my lion and seal preserve-mates... anything that can swim in the ocean is just neat, in my book anyway.

well this whole criteria thing is turning out to be easier then i thought...

i'll just have to report this into the department of immigration and the D.O.C. tomorrow, and on to the other two items on my list...

exploring

T-Minus: 39 days...

okay no pressure or anything, but AHHHHHHHHH...

so i've spent (hopefully not wasted) a few days checking out the town of dunedin... i promise to update you with a vlog of my findings, BUT of course i'm a little rushed by a certain impending doom... so it might be a week or two before i finish it (vlogs take a little bit of time to make surprisingly)...

just to give you a taste of where i'm trying to establish myself, and meet the government criteria here's the map of the area, and i'll try to give you an idea of where i am or have been operating around here...

i'd love to make this a longer entry, but i've got a few leads, and not much time. so catch you soon people of the web-wide world...

upgrade and new approach...

well suddenly my planned new simple and easy life down under has become very complicated and hard!!!

the new rules i have to operate under seem to be pretty fixed and strict, and even worse those three criteria i need to reach before march 31 could ruin everything!

with this ticking countdown of doom i think i should start taking note of the passage of time

T-Minus: 44 days

okay there we go. good start to handling this crisis if i do say so myself... wait i did just say so myself... no if really involved.

i'm not going to lie though people of the innerweb i'm still a little lost as to what i should do to sort these things out. fortunately i know one person whose job is to make sense of such things...


i gave bond... peter bond... my special talent agent a ring (as they'd say here in new zealand) to see what he could do to help me with my problem.

now tracking down peter has been a little hard. he's been travelling around europe (a dinosaur populated place i'll point out) to increase his talent base. everywhere from germany to england, and i haven't talked to him a whole lot since his move.

he was happy to hear from me, and he launched into pleasantries. now i tried to convey to him the urgency of my call, but i didn't want to be rude... so we ended up wasting like 10 whole minutes on pleasant conversation!

man can't do that anymore. the blog clock is ticking!!!

fortunately he finally asked me "so how are you doing now that your down in new zealand?"

man it was about time. i told him not good. which naturally lead to him asking why not...

now i have a bad habit of rambling when i'm upset... it's not my fault. i do have brain the size of a peanut after all... but peter wasn't able to keep up with me, and well after wasting 2 minutes on trying to tell him i wasn't about to calm down...



fortunately i had all the regulations and rules in a text form so i just sent them to his phone...

peter was even more mad then me! all i heard was some unrepeatable in blog format words, and then "this is a total infringement on your freedom, and mine to profit off yours!!!"

now peter is a professional... he calmed himself down within 30 seconds... which i greatly appreciated cause again the clock is ticking!

"okay, i've got a plan..." peter said in a calculated manner. "but it's going to require some changes from you there big guy"

oh boy i thought... i was hoping peter would make this all go away nice and easy, and make things return to normal. well turns out that special talent agents can only do so much when it comes to being faced with a governmental menace...

peter said the march 31 requirements were the most important to deal with now... the rules can wait...

i need a "drastic public image make-over" peter thinks. we tyrannosaurs have a very terrible reputation, and as of such i need to overcome it if i'm to succeed here in new zealand, or anywhere...

as my blog is my "ambassador" to the world... wow suddenly i feel important... my blog is going to have to serve as the main means of convincing people that i'm not a brutal prehistoric killing machine.

to do this peter has a list of things i'm going to need to change so that the blog "reflects me as a person" this includes the following:

1. Add personal elements and touches to my blogs format
2. Start posting more of my personal thoughts and feelings
3. Start getting to know your audience and engaging them

so basically make my blog more about me... isn't it already about me though???

well who am i to argue with peter. i've got some ideas for #1. if you look along the sidebar you'll find that i've added a bunch of things about me. so check them out

even more important leave a comment people of the web-wide world, and let me know what you think of my new and improved blog!

i in the meantime am going to try and start meeting those 3 criteria...