Zach’s Unfounded Movie Review: Year One
Saw the new Jack Black movie Year One this weekend. Talk about an awful film.
Number one, I’m surprised I even stayed up during the entire thing. It was probably because they would always set up for what could be a great comedic scene when they either cut it too short or took it in the entirely wrong direction. Jack Black was his usual self, but him and Michael Cera just never seemed to click. Cera just grew to be irritating by the end. The two people who kept me from walking out of the show were David Cross and Hank Azaria. I was hoping there would be more of Hank, who is hilarious as Abraham, but I was once again disappointed. David Cross is great in nearly everything he does, and this isn’t any different. He was one of the few actors in the entire film with any comedic timing. Kudos to David for saving this movie.
This movie is definately on my list of worst films I’ve ever seen. Not near as bad as Ghost Rider, but damn close. 1.5 out of 5 stars.
How Michael Jackson defied gravity in “Smooth Criminal”
Because of the unfortunate demise of Michael Jackson this past week, I feel obligated to post at least something about him. Instead of commenting on his oddities or health problems, I thought it would be much more respectable to post about something that showcased the man’s sheer talent when it came to putting on the perfect show.
I came across a great write-up on Boing Boing Gadgets yesterday talking about one of the special effects in the video of my favorite MJ song, Smooth Criminal. Near the end of the music video, Jackson, along with the dancers surrounding him, seem to lean so far as to defy gravity. While filming the video, they used a mix of strings and magnets to achieve this effect. Of course, strings would look stupid onstage, so Michael came up with an ingenius idea to achieve the same effect with no wires.
Special shoes were constructed with a groove placed in the heel. These grooves were designed to anchor to pegs that would pop-out of the stage floor at appropriate times. Once the dancers and Jackson locked their heels onto the pegs, they could lean forward or backward just like in the video. Here’s a live version of Smooth Criminal, so you can take a look. Notice what after they complete the move (about 3:50 in,) you can see a dancer on the right of Michael have trouble disconnecting his shoe from the peg.
So cool! Here’s to the guy that thought of it all. Turns out he patented the shoe design, too! Head over to Boing Boing Gadgets at the link below to check it out.
Michael Jackson’s patented “Smooth Criminal” leaning shoes | Boing Boing Gadgets.
Damn! How’s that for crazy?!
Wow. Pretty much destroyed my last blog. So, I’ve just cancelled my web hosting plan and started this new blog, so I don’t have to look after all of the behind-the scenes shit. I’ll tell you a little bit about myself before I get started.
My name is Zach, and I’ve had somewhere around eleventy-hundred blogs in my 18-year life. The last one I had was doing pretty swell, until I hosed the WordPress database. I’ve finally crawled back to ready-made blogs, so I can express myself without fear of fucking up SQL databases. My failure to properly manage a website is sort of humiliating, since I work in computer support at the University of North Texas.
I’m also a student at UNT, studying Radio, Television, & Film. I’ve only just started taking RTVF classes last semester, but so far I love ‘em. Hopefully next semester will be just as enjoyable.
Now for what you will expect on this blog. I plan to make it almost exactly like my last blog, except to update it a lot more often. Since I don’t have to fiddle with self-management of WordPress, I have more to time to write. Hopefully within the next week my domain transfer from my old site will be complete and I can finally redirect my URL, zachpeterson.net, to this here page.
Until next time, stay tuned.
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