OK guys, this is terrifying. I don’t even want to know how staff member Ricky Holdman found this little bundle of terror, but I know for sure that this face will haunt me forever. Pencil Face is an ingenious and horrifying short film from SCAD Shorts.
Please watch this at your own risk. You have been warned. SquidFlicks will not be held liable for emotional or mental distress caused from watching Pencil Face.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MjTb5A68VA
Hello everyone! If you have been visiting the site with any frequency this month, you will have no doubt noticed the lack of consistent updates. I just wanted to let everyone know that it has been a very crazy month for Patrick and I as we prepare for graduation from High School this coming weekend.
There is a lot of fun stuff coming up in the next few weeks when our Summer School session officially begins, so don’t worry!
Hope your May hasn’t been as crazy, but if you’ve been in this position before, you know how busy and stressful it can be. At least it only happens once, right? (At least for high school).
See you soon!
Squid Fitness is proud to announce its first weight training line – the Robert Downey Jr.’s Practical Pecs System. This state of the art fitness routine was developed in preparation of filming Iron Man 2, which recently came out in theaters across the world.
In a period of three weeks, Mr. Downey was able to put on 20 lbs of muscle with this amazing workout! Who wouldn’t want to do that?
According to his personal trainer, Downey pushed a heavy wheelbarrow around an obstacle course, swung sledgehammers, sand-filled firehoses, and more. It was a cost-effective and natural alternative to traditional weight training, and it had rapid success for Downey, who needed to buff up for his return in Iron Man 2.
I say well played sir. That’s a pretty dang sweet routine to get results like that in just three weeks. Who knows how big you could get if you worked out for a longer period of time? I say pretty big.
So…who’s ready to hit the weights?
Source:
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/us-magazine-robert-downey-jr-20-pounds-iron-man-2.html
Where do I start with this movie? Writing this review was insanely difficult for me, for one big reason; this is my all time favorite movie. I’ve been in love it for a couple years-to the point where I’ll even put up with the commercials when they run it on TNT or USA. Personal emotion aside, this is an amazing film. Darabont (who later gained the rights to The Green Mile because of his work on this film) created nothing short of a masterpiece with this movie.
Plot:
The Shawshank Redemption is a drama in the purest sense of the word. It weaves a tale of lies, money, lust and violence in a two hour epic. The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of Andy Dufresne (Robbins) and his journey through a lifetime in prison. The movie simply follows him over the period of a few decades in a corrupt New England prison known as Shawshank (clearly). During his time at Shawshank, Dufresne befriends Ellis Redding (Freeman), deals behind closed doors with Warden Norton (Gunton) and Guard Captain Hadley (Brown). The one thing I refuse to do with this blog is ruin story lines as some other reviews do. I simply want to give a summary of the overall plot. Having said that, the ending to The Shawshank Redemption is simply amazing.
Acting:
There is no subpar acting job in The Shawshank Redemption. Robbins and Freeman both play their parts(which are not complicated roles for two veteran actors) perfectly and they never ruin the attention span of the viewer. Gunton and Brown both play the people you love to hate; Gunton is the man you want to see go down in flames and Brown is the prick you just want to see on screen. Every other inmate from the the stuttering Heywood(William Sadler) to the wise Brooks(James Whitmore) grows on whoever happens to be watching at that point in time. In fact, there is no actor in The Shawshank Redemption that does anything less than a great job.
Verdict:
We all have movies that we can recite dialog from memory or watch over and over without getting bored, and The Shawshank Redemption is that movie for me. I’ve watched it easily a hundred times in my life, if not more. It is one of the movies that every living person needs to see at least once before they die.
5/5 Reels
Platinum Squid Rating
A Must-See!
Trailer:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTSDBhczJMU
Purchase:
Tired of having to watch all the ads and previews on a DVD because you can’t fast forward by them like in the good old VHS days? I stumbled across a couple of great tips to try next movie night. Use this powerful knowledge to better enjoy your movie night!
It’s really simple. Once the first trailer starts playing, press STOP. Press STOP again. Press PLAY and the movie should go right to the menu! If that doesn’t work, try STOP > STOP > STOP > PLAY.
As an added bonus, the new Avatar DVD has NO previews! It goes straight to the menu! That is soooo considerate! =) Take notes, Hollywood!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ufyEEIjA8
This is a guest review submitted by Derek Dowell! Thanks Derek!
Nice hair, Hawkeye! (The Last of the Mohicans – 1992)
It’s 1757 and uber actor Daniel Day-Lewis, despite being a hardcore frontiersman, sports great flowing tresses of salon quality hair. Not what you’d expect from this method actor of a white “Indian” miles from the nearest Wal-Green’s, running bare-chested through the wilds of the northeast in pursuit of deer with his two Mohawk buddies.
Based on characters created by James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans boils down the tediously descriptive passages of that late 19th century series of books into an historical pseudo epic with a magnificent soundtrack. You wanna talk about dense word imagery? Back in high school English class, reading and reporting on a book by Cooper counted double. I read them all. At the time, I thought I was coming out ahead despite the possible long term brain damage. Now I’m not so sure.
Thank goodness The Last of the Mohicans doesn’t try to emulate JFC’s verbose style, otherwise the camera would still be lovingly lingering over every single blasted leaf on a tree in the opening shot. Having said that, the cinematography is marvelous! For those of us who didn’t graduate from film school, that means it looks awful purty.
Here’s the situation. France and England are squabbling over the New World (not Pandora, you cretin – the OTHER one). Some of the Indians side with one and some with the other. Thrown into the mix are a couple of English sisters destined to be kidnapped by the baaad Heron Indians, one of whom, Wes Studi (he of the perpetually scowling countenance), lets you know immediately that good things are not in store for our heroes. You might remember Studi as the tough-guy Pawnee from Dances with Wolves two years earlier. **SIGH** Yes, he was also in Avatar, and that’s all I have to say about that.
One of the sisters, Madeline Stowe, falls for Day-Lewis (Hawkeye). He is likewise smitten, despite the fact that she must be using the wrong conditioner since her hair is not nearly as luxuriant and well-groomed as his. Still, we assume he wants to make babies with her from the meaningful glances between them that go on for five freakin’ minutes! But first he must rescue her from Studi’s bad Heron-ness. The final 15 minutes of the movie are as strong you’ll find in Hollywood and is the reason anyone pays to watch shadows on a wall in the first place. There’s sacrifice, heroism, suicide, murder, and an eternally building crescendo of some kind of Irish jig and reel music over booming drums – and that’s just at the line at the concession stand.
The Last of the Mohicans manages to successfully mash together historical context, romance, and a darn good action adventure that satisfies like a really good potato chip and bologna sandwich. By gosh, this film deserves a 5/5 rating but since modern audiences are allergic to history and have the attention span of fruit flies, I’ll grudgingly lower the rating by one notch – but that’s all, damn it!
4/5 Reels
Gold Squid Rating
Rent it, buy it, live it!
Well, maybe the April 1st interview didn’t work out so great, but that’s okay. Here’s a real interview with Director James Cameron! There was a big YouTube campaign and some of the best questions from fans and viewers of Avatar were answered by the man himself. Also, I hope you know that the DVD is out…and I already have it. =3
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2UpEcSUGY
Hey SquidFlicks nation! Patrick and I are legally allowed to drive! Watch out! Check out this cool video!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VilHMZitkKY
Comedian Conan O’Brien, well known for his stint as host of the Late Night show, and the controversial gain and then loss of the Tonight Show, will soon be hosting his own late night comedy/talk show on the TBS network. It was highly speculated that he would sign with Fox, so the TBS move was quite a surprise. The show is scheduled to begin this November.
The bigger question here is: Can he finally get the Emmy award that still eludes him? Conan is a great host and has been working the late night comedy shift for over a decade, and all he has to show for it is one lone Emmy nomination. Perhaps this will be a new life for his career. It certainly has been crazy for him and his fans since the Tonight Show debacle. As Conan said. “NBC stands for Never Believe your Contract!” =P
Good luck, Mr. O’Brien. SquidFlicks will be following the updates!
As you all know, last year’s resolutions for SquidFlicks didn’t exactly live up to expectations, but a new year means new progress! I have taken a step towards completing this year’s resolutions by doing a Resolution Check every two months. Here’s the one for January through February!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Km00nf4Pes
