Giant Domino Guinness Video

New Guinness advert: Giant domino villageBy Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 3:20am GMT 09/11/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/08/nadvert108.xml



From the moment Guinness used a Toucan to promote its dark stout, the brewery's adverts have always been iconic. Its latest and most expensive one, which will be shown tonight for the first time, is no exception.

Shot in an Argentinian mountainside village, it features a game of dominoes which escalates to include suitcases, tyres, oil drums, fridges, wardrobes and cars.

Proving that "Good Things Come to Those Who Wait", it culminates with the pages of 10,000 books flipping open to create a giant pint of Guinness. The advert, part of a £10 million campaign, was directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, who was behind the Sony Bravia "balls" commercial.

He described his latest project as "the biggest challenge of my career to date".
"It was a really tough job. From the remote high altitude location to having to frequently reset thousands of props as well as working with hundreds of villagers who had absolutely no understanding of acting or film making," he said.

The advert took a week to film, with some of the sequences having to be reshot up to 15 times.
Setting the dominoes on the table at the start of the advert took a team of three experts two days, but it took just 14 seconds to topple.

Paul Cornell, the marketing manager for Guinness, said: "The ad is fundamentally a celebration of community. "It shows an entire village coming together to create an awe-inspiring spectacle of toppling objects."

Animated short film: Happy

Great animated short film created by Vancouver Film School student Michael Lewicki through the VFS Digital Character Animation program.



Visit the animator's website here

Underappreciated Movie Villains

A post on my brother-in-law's blog about his favorite movie villains inspired me to create my list (in no particular order) of the most underappreciated movie villains.

Annie Wilkes - Misery

Annie is an obsessive, vindictive, dangerous woman that believes God told her to help Paul write his new book. The sound of her hammer connecting with the wood block and destroying his ankles is burned into my memory forever, and then immediately after she says to Paul "God, I love you." That's messed up.

"Now the time has come. I put two bullets in my gun. One for me, and one for you. Oh darling, it will be so beautiful."

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Khan - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Kahn is one of the baddest men in the universe. He is over 200 years old but still has huge pecs. He puts bugs in your ears that crawl into your brain and make you obey him. He will stop and nothing to get his revenge on Kirk. He was Anton Chigurh before Javier Bardem.

"I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive."
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Hal 9000 - 2001: A Space Odyssey

Before Ahnold Schwarzenegger made machines with conciousness scary, the HAL 9000 was blazing a trail for machines gone bad. Hal slowly losing sanity, killing astronauts and locking Dave Bowman outside of the S.S. Discovery is a statement about mankind being beholden on machines and the danger that lurks in that dependence.

"I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

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Keyzer Soze - Usual Suspects, The

Watching Verbal limp out of the police station is still my favorite movie twist of all time. I remember watching it, with my jaw open in disbelief...that everything I had been watching the previous two hours was a lie.

"Keaton always said, "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him." Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze." When people respect/fear you enough to make a quote like that, you are officially a bad, bad man.

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Harry Lime - Third Man, The

Harry fakes his own death, pulls his childhood friend into the dark and dangerous underworld of the black market in post WWII Vienna. Charming, sophisticated and very, very dangerous.

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly."

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Amon Goeth - Schindler's List

Cold and methodical without a trace of soul. The scene where he touches his reflection in the mirror and whispers "I pardon you" still gives me the creeps. Fienne's best work by far, and I doubt he will ever top it. He is the scariest type of evil. Not a demon from Hell, or a monster from another world, or even a raving lunatic. He is the personification of the evil that man can produce without regret, pity or conscience.

"Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are part of it. Six hundred years ago when elsewhere they were footing the blame for the Black Death, Casimir the Great - so called - told the Jews they could come to Krakow. They came. They trundled their belongings into the city. They settled. They took hold. They prospered in business, science, education, the arts. With nothing they came and with nothing they flourished. For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. By this evening those six centuries will be a rumor. They never happened. Today is history."

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Hillbillies - Deliverance

Start humming "Dueling Banjos" around any guy and watch us freak out. Enough said.

"Now let's you just drop them pants."

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Booth (Mitch Leary) - In the Line of Fire

Booth's phone calls to Frank Horrigan have some of the best verbal sparring in a movie. You have amazing dialogue and two actors at the top of their game, and you get movie magic. There is a great scene where Frank pulls out his gun, and aims it at Booth, who is hanging from a building ledge, and Booth simply closes his mouth around the barrel, daring Frank to shoot him. It was improvised by Malkovich on the set, but it plays perfectly.

"What did happen to you that day? Only one agent reacted to the gunfire, and you were closer to Kennedy than he was. You must have looked up at the window of the Texas Book Depository, but you didn't react. Late at night, when the demons come, do you see the rifle coming out of that window, or do you see Kennedy's head being blown apart? If you'd reacted to that first shot, could you have gotten there in time to stop the big bullet? And if you had - that could've been your head being blown apart. Do you wish you'd succeeded, Frank? Or is life too precious?"

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Mr. Blonde - Reservoir Dogs

After watching this film, you will never listen to the song "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealers Wheel the same way again.

"Listen kid, I'm not gonna bull**** you, all right? I don't give a good **** what you know, or don't know, but I'm gonna torture you anyway, regardless. Not to get information. It's amusing, to me, to torture a cop. You can say anything you want cause I've heard it all before. All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you ain't gonna get."

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Bill Lumbergh - Office Space

Yeah...I'm going to have to have you move me up higher on this list of villains. Oh....and we had to let some people go....so I am going to need you to come in and blog on Saturday....Ummmmmkay? That's greeeeaaaaat.

"So, Peter, what's happening? Aahh, now, are you going to go ahead and have those TPS reports for us this afternoon? "

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Tracy Flick - Election

Tracy is the overly chipper, strong, dedicated, driven and smart girl that you can't help but hate. She's too sweet, too bubbly, too perfect. It turns out, she isn't as pure as you think.

"Dear Lord Jesus, I do not often speak with you and ask for things, but now, I really must insist that you help me win the election tomorrow because I deserve it and Paul Metzler doesn't, as you well know. I realize that it was your divine hand that disqualified Tammy Metzler and now I'm asking that you go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen."
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Teddy Gammell - Memento

Tricking a man with no short term memory to kill a guy for $200,000 makes you a very bad man. Staying with that man and continuing to manipulate him for your selfish reasons...that puts you on this list.

"No, that's who you were. Maybe it's time you started investigating yourself."

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Dr. Christian Szell - Marathon Man

This man personally set back the cause of dentistry for decades.

"Is it safe?"

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Marsellus Wallace - Pulp Fiction

Possibly the only man who is a bigger bad mother than Sam "The Man" Jackson. Sam's character Jules gets all the attention for having "BMF" on his wallet, and his famous "Say WHAT one more time! I dare you!" scene. However, there is another man in the film that is just a little badder. He's a man with a band-aid on the back of his neck. A man that may or may not have thrown a man out a window for giving his wife a "Foot Massage". A man that makes you want to hop on Zed's chopper and get out town when he tells you that you're cool, but to never come back.

"What now? Let me tell you what now. I'ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin' n******, who'll go to work on the homes here with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'ma get medieval on your as**."

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Bureaucracy and ductwork - Brazil

When a fly is killed on a government terrorist list by a typewritter, and alters the name Tuttle to Buttle, (a literal BUG in the system) an innocent shoe repairman is killed while the "terrorist" Tuttle roams free. (He's an illegal freelance Heating and Ductwork Engineer. His crime, working without government permission.) As a result, a shy and quiet man that likes to daydream is assigned by the government to investigate the error and ends up being branded a terrorist and hunted by the state. The fact that a certain character's death is literally caused by being buried and smothered under government forms and paperwork, makes it one of the greatest and most creative deaths in cinema history.

"Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for paperwork. Where would we be if we didn't follow the correct procedures? "
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El Guapo - Three Amigos, The

If you don't know who El Guapo is, and don't know why he is on this list, then you are not allowed to read this blog again until you have corrected the situation.

"El Guapo only kills men. He does not kill crying women! "

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Big Boy Caprice - Dick Tracy

Breaks his piano player's fingers, slaps Madonna's Breathless Mahoney in the face, commits crime, and has some of the funniest misquotes in movie history.

"There is what is, and what we would like it to be. - Lincoln!"

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Emperor Zurg: Toy Story 2

The toy world's version of Darth Vader.

"No Buzz....I am your father!"

Writer's Strike: The Office

This is a clip from the creators of "The Office" talking about why they are on strike. The part that killed me was, last season NBC asked the writers to create a series of episodes made just for the website aka webisodes and they went on to win an Emmy for their work. NBC sold ad space on the online videos, and didn't pay the writers anything for their work. In fact, in what may be the most amazing part, is that NBC didn't even spend the $28 it costs to get an actual Emmy statue. (Winners don't get to keep the award they are handed on stage, they have to buy them) As sad as it will be to not have "The Office" and maybe have "LOST" not air again until 2009,(UGH) I have to side with the writers here. It's not fair that they get no share of internet, phone, or streaming revenue, and then also get squat on DVD sales.

Now that's a taste I like to have in my mouth

I made a run to Arby's for lunch, and sitting in the middle of the order board, sat a most glorious vision. Small, bite sized pieces of cheesecake, rolled in graham cracker and deep fried, served with a raspberry dipping sauce. I could not resist their sweet and tempting siren's song, and ordered a side order to go along with my roast beef sandwich combo. I am here to report, that Arby's cheesecake poppers are heaven in a paper french fry sleeve. Each piece is slightly crunchy on the outside, but warm and gooey on the inside and the tangy raspberry sauce is a perfect compliment to the sweet cheesecake popper. I can't afford to get hooked on these, the waistline is already hurting and we aren't into the Holiday season yet! Luckily, they are limited time only. I'm thinking Arbys. *Hate it when marketing works!*

Twin Tesla coils play theme from "Super Mario Brothers"

Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils playing Mario Bros theme song at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon sponsored by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI.

The music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved. The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software.

Fantastic Animation "Creep" by Radiohead

Movie themed Halloween Costumes

Here are some great movie themed Halloween costumes. You can see all of them at this link.

300

The Big Lebowski

Memento



Aliens

A vote for Romney is a vote for Satan

I don't usually blog about politics, but I saw today that there was an article from Salon.com where a televangelist from Florida who receives 40,000 emails a day, has stated that a "vote for Mitt Romney, is a vote for Satan", because Romney is a Mormon. Normally, I ignore the uneducated rantings of the misinformed, but this guy got under my skin today so please excuse me while I pull out the old soap box.

His reasoning went like this: Romney's election would serve as a giant advertisement for a competing religion, Mormonism, which Keller and others believe has falsely portrayed itself as another form of Christianity in an effort to find converts.

"He would influence people to seek out the Mormon faith," Keller predicted of a Romney presidency. "They would get sucked into those lies and they would eventually die and go to hell."

Aren't we as a nation beyond stupidity like this already? I don't write this as a supporter of Romney, or as a Mormon. I write this as a citizen of the United States that is worried about our future. I don't care if you are Mormon, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish....how are you as a PERSON? In politics, or in business...Are you the best person for the job? I don't care what color your skin is. I don't care if you pray 5 times a day, or 5 times in your entire life. Are you trustworthy? Do you put others before yourself? How do you treat your spouse/children, etc.

To judge another person based solely on their religious beliefs is asinine to me. I don't understand it. When 41% of white evangelical Christians who attend church weekly say they are reluctant to vote for a Mormom, that worries me. I wonder how many of these people have ever met a Mormon, done any research on their beliefs, etc. My guess, is that many have simply been told that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a cult, and have accepted that and allowed the teachings of their ministers to taint their perceptions. The majority of Mormons that I know are just like anyone else. They are hard working, intelligent, kind and decent people. They, like all of us, are seeking a way to make sense out of a world that seems senseless a lot of the time. They have families that they love, a country that they cherish and seek to better themselves and their communities. That sure sounds weird to me.

When I tell people that I am from Salt Lake City, I often hear "Really?" or "Wow" followed sometimes by "Why?".

I have been asked if we have roads for our horse drawn carriages. (WE ARE NOT AMISH, we have freeways, cars and even an international airport!)

I have been asked if we just ski everywhere we go. (Even though the majority of the state is desert).

I have also been asked how many wives I have. (Just one)

And if I really, honestly like living here. (Yes I do thanks!)

It's the 21st century, not the 12th. We need to open our minds to other realities and our hearts to our fellow man. The more we learn about each other, the more we realize how much alike we are, and that we're not as different or as scary as we thought we were.

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"Now it's come to this

It''s like we're back in the Dark Ages

From the Middle East

to the Middle West

It's a world of superstition

-

Now it's come to this

Wide-eyed armies of the faithful

From the Middle East

to the Middle West

Pray, pass the ammunition"

- Rush "The Way The Wind Blows"

Writer's Strike Update

Well, the writer's strike in Hollywood is about to get really nasty, really fast. The producer of "The Office" is picketing his own show, and the cast will not cross the picket line. That means, even though they already have scripts written, new episodes won't be produced until the strike is over. That is a major blow to NBC. The trouble for the studios is, that next summer the Director's guild is up for contract negotiations and they have already stated their minimum amount will start at what the writers get. Meaning, if the writers settle for 1.5% on residuals, that will be the minimum that directors will accept. Both sides have a lot at stake here, and the public, unfortunately get stuck in the middle.

Saturday Night Live did a great sketch this weekend breaking down the situation:



This strike will probably not end quickly, or easily, but I think the writers have the stronger hand here. Now the resolve to hold out long enough to win is another issue.

Heath Ledger comments on playing the Joker

The New York Times has an article about Heath Ledger, and mentions a few interesting tidbits about his role as The Joker in "The Dark Knight".

"He is here in London filming the latest episode of the "Batman" franchise, "The Dark Knight." It is a physically and mentally draining role — his Joker is a 'psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy' he said cheerfully — and, as often happens when he throws himself into a part, he is not sleeping much. 'Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night,' he said. 'I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.' One night he took an Ambien, which failed to work. He took a second one and fell into a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing.Here too was his Joker diary, which he began compiling four months before filming began. It is filled with images and thoughts helpful to the Joker back story, like a list of things the Joker would find funny. (AIDS is one of them.) Mr. Ledger seemed almost embarrassed that the book had been spotted, as if he had been caught trying to get extra credit in school. "

Sounds to me like Heath has really nailed the character, now I can't wait to see it on screen.

First look at the New Terminator

"At the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Sarah vanquished the liquid metal Terminator sent from the future to kill her teenage son, John. Sarah and John now find themselves alone in a very dangerous, complicated world. Fugitives from the law, they are confronted with the reality that still more enemies from the future, and the present, could attack at any moment. "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" reveals what happens when Sarah (Lena Headey, 300) stops running and goes on the offensive against an ever-evolving technological enemy bent on destroying her life, and perhaps the world. Her son, 15-year-old John Connor (Thomas Dekker, "Heroes"), knows that he may be the future savior of mankind, but is not yet ready to take on the mantle of leadership that he's told is his destiny. John finds himself inextricably drawn to Cameron (Summer Glau, "Serenity," "The Unit"), an enigmatic and otherworldly student at his high school, who soon proves to be much more than his confidante – she assumes the role of Sarah and John's fearless protector. On their trail are not only threats from the future, but an intelligent and tough FBI agent, James Ellison (Richard T. Jones, "Judging Amy"), who soon becomes a powerful ally.

In the reinvention of the "Terminator" franchise, the strong and intrepid Sarah discovers that protecting her son and stopping the rise of the machines is more difficult than she had ever imagined."

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/tvnews.php?id=39018

Police Want to Reunite 75 Stolen Gnomes With their Owners

Springfield, Oregon Police are investigating the theft of 75 yard gnomes that disappeared from all over the city's neighborhoods, and ended up in a family's yard.

Frogs, turtles, ducks, rabbits and all sorts of creatures comprise this gathering of ornamental yard ornaments. As they are now inhabiting the police department, Captain Richard Harrison with Springfield Police and his detectives says they are exploring ways to get these ornaments back to their homes.

I think police should be looking at the Travelocity.com gnome as the prime suspect of this cult like gathering of lawn ornaments. That's just my opinion though.

That's a sweet ride

Lick through over 700 lbs. of chocolate to win a jeep.





Seven people in Cleveland, Ohio licked their way through more than 700 pounds of chocolate in the "Sweetest Day the Jeep Way" challenge in Cleveland. After licking her way through a chocolate-covered Jeep grill and searching through more than 45,000 pieces of wrapped candy, Anne Gemkow of Chicago tasted victory, winning an all-new 2008 Jeep Liberty 4x4 with Sky Slider roof.

"For the Sweetest Day the Jeep Way challenge, we looked for people who are just as passionate about their sweet tooth as they are about their Jeep vehicles and who want to have fun out there," said John Plecha, Director - Jeep Brand Marketing and Global Communications. "Since Jeep owners love to cover their vehicles in mud, we decided to cover each of the seven Jeep models in chocolate instead and create a one-of-a-kind contest for a fun twist on the Sweetest Day tradition."

To "sweeten the pot" for boys and girls in the Cleveland area, the Chrysler Foundation donated $7,000 - $1,000 for each of the vehicles in the Jeep lineup - to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland during the Sweetest Day the Jeep Way event.