The Evil League of Evil

It's pretty safe to assume that when I do not update my blog regularly, it is because I am working on a project.  There have been quite a few things I've wanted to write about: how disappointed I am in this new season of Heroes (and conversely, how NOT disappointed I've been in Fringe), how excited I am that the winter constellations/Messier objects are coming back, how much I LOVE my new PS3 (favorite games so far: Everyday Shooter, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Echochrome and Stuntman: Ignition. I have others, but I haven't had time to really play them enough to know if I "love" them. Oh, and the Blu-Ray player is pretty nice, too.)   Ahem.  Yes, all of this and more has been on my mind lately. I find it hard to write coherently when something "big" is occupying my thoughts, however.  Lately, that's been quite a bit.  I injured my foot, which, despite the fact that it is purple and swollen and painful, my doctors have assured me is "nothing to be concerned about."  Whew!  All I have to do is stop using it ever.  While I don't invest heavily in the stock market, the financial weather has kept me patiently sitting at home, doubting my desire to just jump into L.A. in the immediate future.  That's fine.  In fact, it's so fine that I've signed a 1-year lease for a new bachelorette pad here in Boulder, not that such a thing cannot be broken if Pixar decides to hire me (which wouldn't be L.A. anyway, but that's beside the point).  My workload at my day job ballooned last week.  I've also just purchased a new (and by new, I always mean "used") car from a friend who is currently in Europe.  Oh, and I'm officially "single" again, which has been a strange realization.  To summarize: breaking up, buying a car from someone in Italy, busy at work,  moving, foot injury, and working on a new project (in addition to planning a website overhaul, but I'll save that story for later).

Now for the Project:

I would hope that the people who read my blog have seen Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" by now.  If you haven't, go watch it for free from hulu.  It's three 15-minute episodes.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

You back?  Cool.  Fantastic, wasn't it?  What an outstanding trio of talent, guided by that Whedonesque sensibility!

So, now that you have the background, I will give you the scoop:  The DVD version of this "show" is going to be coming out relatively soon.  The creators have decided to hold a video contest in which we must make our argument for why we should be included in the Evil League of Evil.  The winners will be featured on the DVD and viewed by dozens and dozens of geeks worldwide!  I wrote and directed the below video and made it with my friend Robert Bowen, who is probably a bigger fan than even I am.  Camera and sound (and fancy equipment) by Carl Fuermann.

Oh, and there is some vocabulary you should be aware of:

Deus Ex Machina: any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of a plot. Perepeteia: a sudden turn of events or an unexpected reversal. Anagnorisis: the critical moment of recognition or discovery, esp. preceding peripeteia.

All three will make an appearance...

Slusho Zoom!!!

This is my official entry to the Slusho!! commercial contest. It is a fictional commercial for a fictional drink that may or may not somehow play into the new film "Cloverfield," produced by J.J. Abrams. Or doesn't it?

For those of you who think that sounds vague, let me explain:

It is.

Last summer, the movie "Transformers" opened in theatres across the U.S. (yeah, I loved it, so sue me). Immediately after the first East Coast screenings let out, Google began getting hit with thousands of searches for things like "mystery jj abrams trailer transformers" and "transformers trailer monster movie" and "1-18-08" and "free porn." With the exception of the last search, all of this was seriously pleasing the folks over at Bad Robot productions. Why? Before "Transformers," audiences were treated to a movie trailer (or "preview," if you will) consisting of a sort of first person video clip of what appeared to be a monster attack on New York City. It began with the taping of a surprise going away party and ended with the severed head of the Statue of Liberty skidding down a SoHo street. Vague bits of dialog like "I saw it! It's alive! It's huge!" could be heard through the chaos of the crowded streets below, as the party-goers evacuate their apartment and attempt to glean more information. The audience was given nothing more than the name of the producers ("Lost" creator J.J. Abrams and his parent companies, Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures), and what seemed to be a release date of 1-18-08. A wave of "what the f*@$?!" spread across the crowd. A massive viral marketing campaign was born...

Youtube was soon inundated with pirated copies of the trailer, the web world was abuzz with "what's it all about" speculation, Paramount pictures was "denying" involvement in this titleless production, and geeks and "Lost" fans like myself were salivating over having a new way to waste precious time.

Fine. What the hell does this have to do with some slushy drink thing? Honestly, no one knows! The drink was first mentioned in an episode of "Alias" (also created by Abrams, also a show that I love). Additionally, in the original trailer, one of the characters from the film was wearing a slusho! shirt. It didn't take web geeks like myself long to find the slusho! web site, where even more oddness was revealed (like a donkey swimming underwater while thinking of a blue oven mitt and a bizarre story about some "secret" deep sea ingredient that is evidentially used in the manufacture of slusho).

Now it appears that some company called "Tagruato Corp." has been harvesting this slusho ingredient (?) using off shore oil rigs, one of which (according to foreign "news sources" whose videos are available on YouTube) was just destroyed this last weekend, as the monster makes its way to New York City. Also, the main character from the movie trailer, Rob, has announced on "his" MySpace page that he is going to go work for this company...

This kind of realtime buildup to movies and alternate reality gaming is fascinating to me. The Internet is becoming an increasingly collaborative and accessible space for the human race.

I'm really looking forward to the film. At this point, I have an almost scientific fascination with it. I'll only be disappointed if, like so many other movies this year, this turns out to be yet another zombie movie...