creepshow314

I AM IRON MAN REVIEWER (spoilers!)

2008-05-09T01:49:00.001-07:00

So I finally saw Iron Man… Was it worth the wait? Yes and no. Y’see, I got this curse…Now, others might call it a gift, but not me, I know better. Sometimes when I watch a movie, I either predict the shit outta it, or think about how I would’ve done it, or both. With this movie, surprisingly, I didn’t predict the shit out of it. I think the reason for that was Jon Favreau and the four writers went way below my expectations when it came to the climactic ending, causing me to think about how I woulda done it.
This is an ‘origin’ movie, so it takes a lot of time for Tony Stark to become Iron Man. My 11 year old son had a hard time with this, but I didn’t, because Robert Downey Jr. does such a great job. Plus, I’m sittin’ there with the matter-of-fact-knowledge that when he finally puts on the suit, it’s gonna be worth all that dialog and witty banter.
I was fucking wrong. He puts on the suit and flies around the city a bit, then decides for some reason (foreshadowing!) to see if he can fly into space. Of course his suit ices up and he falls back to earth, with the power coming back on at the last minute, but didn’t we already see that scene in The Hulk (minus the jet boots and the humor)? Maybe that’ll be the new go-to scene in superhero movies, like in action movies, when the bad guy grabs a cop’s gun after he’s been supposedly beaten, giving the good guy, who did the Christian thing by sparing his life, a reason to not do what Jesus would do.
So that was a letdown.
Next thing to look forward to? The revenge sequence, where Tony as Iron Man flies back to the desert to save refugees and kill the terrorists who held him prisoner and killed the man who saved his life. This didn’t let me down, it just went by too quick.
But that’s okay, right? Cuz now here comes the jet fighter sequence! Am I on the edge of my seat? No dammit no. Jonny Favs, don’t use a stationary camera angle and have CG Iron Man zoom past it. I don’t give a shit about his contrails! I wanna see Iron Man as he flies!
Film it as you would a car chase! Complain all you want about The Matrix Reloaded, but it had one of the best car chase scenes ever filmed. Imagine Trinity and the Keymaker on that bike just zooming by a camera the Wachowski’s placed on the freeway, over and over again. So I’m exaggerating.
And speaking of the guy who saved Tony's life and got him to change from arms dealer to super hero... There's a scene where Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) refuses to help Tony in his crusade to protect the people, because in her mind, it'll just get him killed, and she cares too much blah blah blah, so she quits. Yeah, just a plot device to get Tony riled up and give a speech about how she was by his side the whole time he was making millions off the death and destruction of innocents, and now that he wants to protect the innocent? "Okay," I think, "here comes the Oscar-nominated power of Bobby Downey Juney! He's gonna tell her about the man who saved his life and get all emotional n' shit...!"
Then he sits down, like he's tired and he's just asked her to get him a coffee and she said "Aw man. Now?"
Jonny? You done missed a golden opportunity to show Tony Stark has got a new heart- both figuratively AND literally!
Okay, so now we get to the climactic battle between Iron Monger and Iron Man. Monger picks up a car and throws it at Iron Man.
Iron Man gets thrown into a bus. Monger blows up the bus. Then they both fly up and freeze in the atmosphere! (Foreshadowing pays off! (there’s way more foreshadowing in this movie, but I’m tired)) Iron Man lets the giant 3 ton Monger fall back towards the city, not giving a shit about what or who he’s gonna land on and destroy. But it doesn’t matter anyway, cuz Monger is okay, and knocks Shell Head’s helmet off so we can see it’s Robert Downey Jr. in there (which I didn’t mind at all. Nowhere near as bad as Alec Baldwin in The Shadow).So instead of Iron Man defeating the bad guy, Pepper Potts pushes a button and saves the day…much like Dee Dee in Dexter’s Laboratory: Ego Trip.
At one point during this movie, I actually stopped leaning forward, because I realized they weren’t interested in blowing me or my son away with awesomeness. I lean forward during movies when it gets really exciting, you see…
So, having said all that, I still want to see it in theaters again, then buy the 2 disc special edition dvd.
Love,
Jeff

JMA #1!

2008-05-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

That's me. JMA. Number 1. Jeffrey Michael Allen. Actually, I'm not number 1. That's my middle finger sticking up there with the shiny nail. Blood shoots from my eyes as grey scraggillies climb out of my beard. My interpretation of life, at Big Bri's house. For May's Jelly of the Month Art Blog. Check it out. You might get a chuckle out of all the funny April entries... F-holes. Not you, them.

GRAMPA'S CRACKED RIBS

2008-04-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

My grampa (who is my kids' great grampa) fell and broke his ribs in his home. But I know what really happened... ;)

LAPD NC

2008-04-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

I drew this for my cop/nephew and his division of Narcotics Officers. They're makin' t-shirts for themselves and wanted a skull with flaming police batons as the cross bones.

BUSH TAKES A DUMP

2008-04-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

For April's Jelly of the Month Club entry. He's takin' a dump in his toilet, which is shaped like the U.S.A. and he's getting Constitution Toilet Paper with his blood stained hands. Enjoy!

BILL PLYMPTON'S IDIOTS & ANGELS

2008-03-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

This looks pretty dang cool. It's worth a view.

JAMES CROMWELL EFILNIKUFESIN (N.F.L.)

2008-03-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

Now with music.

MIKE BORKOWSKI: B-DAY CARD GENIUS

2008-03-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

Self explanatory.

RHODES SCHOLAR

2008-03-14T14:19:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday you Monkey Farm Frankenstein! Whaddaya doin' with my TIME?!?

XIAOLIN SHOWDOWN: TIME AFTER TIME ANIMATICS (AFTER & BEFORE)

2008-03-14T03:41:00.000-07:00

UPDATED. Includes original untweaked version. More info coming soon.

Trap Door 1987 (HydroWaste-A-Go-Go)

2008-03-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

The year was 1987, the place was Sameesville, PA, the band was Trap Door, the song was Hydrowaste-A-Go-Go, the motto was All-Out-Trap-Fockin'-Blitz-Rock! The line-up was Wiggly, Andy Van Hallen, Holee Cow, Bats and Wooferine!

Shot in half a day on a rented video camera and edited between two home VCRs, duplicated a few dozen times and served up digitally 21 years later. Hydrowaste was originally written by Wiggly and Mr Trousers circa 1979. YIKES!
~Wiggly

ANTI-DRUG COMMERCIAL

2008-03-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

This commercial used to annoy the crap outta me. The music, the drawings, the animation, the kid at the end with his unsure half-smile, puttin' his pencil in behind his ear... After saying all that, I love it now, especially the music. I had him say something more interesting at the end.

MY GRAMPA'S THOUGHTS ON DAVID CARUSO

2008-03-07T18:10:00.000-08:00

Just got a new camera/camcorder cell phone and put it to good use on my grampa talkin' smack about the red-head stepchild: David Caruso.

Perry Condrial Hematomy! The UFC's Beloved Mascot.

2008-03-02T21:48:00.001-08:00

My latest entry in the Jelly of the Month Club. The theme for March is: Mascots. Since the only mascot I could think of was the San Diego Chicken, I made one up. It's a giant cauliflower ear (perichondrial hematoma) in yellow tights and an oversized UFC baseball cap. I used Randy Couture's ear for reference, the best cauliflower ear in the world of MMA.

RED IN THE 21st CENTURY

2008-02-28T19:45:00.000-08:00

One of my versions of Red, the bartender who owns the Tube Bar and got harrassing phone calls from the Bum Bar Bastards. In this drawing, Red is calling out the name that's a play on the phrase "How'd you like a kick?" Done on my Cintiq with Alias Sketchbook.

GENERAL 'THUNDERBOLT' ROSS

2008-02-28T18:22:00.000-08:00

From the new Incredible Hulk movie: William Hurt looking more like the comic book version of Thunderbolt Ross than Sam Elliot did in the first Hulk film. So far so good.

HOMEMADE ROBOT SPIDER

2008-02-28T14:03:00.001-08:00

Pretty neat.

WIGGLY, TIME TRAVELER

2008-02-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

He can only travel forward in time about one second every second.

DON'T F*** WITH THE PUNISHER...

2008-02-27T23:29:00.000-08:00

This guy did. Look at him. Got his nose pushed in. Gash on the forehead. Missin' teef. Pssh! That dude got F***ed up! Done on my Cintiq with Alias Sketchbook pro for February's Jelly of the Month club.

MORAV!!!

2008-02-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

This looks like it could be one cool movie. Click here to see some behind the scenes photos and Grant from Mythbusters working on one of the robots' understructures!

JAMES CROMWELL'S SUICIDE: ERASER

2008-02-21T23:37:00.000-08:00

This scene, from the Schwarzenegger movie Eraser, was just a quick little scene meant to move the story along. But I (with the help of my old laserdisc player) extended it to comedic heights. I did this ten years ago for my brother on his birthday. He and his friend Paul were laughin' so hard they were crying (everyone else in the room was repulsed). This was way before A/B Repeat & DVD's, so forgive the quality. WARNING: THIS IS VIOLENT, A MAN SHOOTING HIMSELF IN THE MOUTH, OVER & OVER & OVER AGAIN. IT MAY NOT BE FOR EVERYBODY. Hopefully you can find the humor and beauty in Jimmy Cromwell's performance.

HUGH JACKMAN AS WOLVERINE

2008-02-16T10:32:00.000-08:00

I was pretty underwhelmed with the first photo of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine from the new X-Men Origins movie, (it looks like it could've been a pic of him from either of the first 3 movies) so I started drawing the old costume over him as a joke, but then I liked how it was comin' out, so I kept goin'.
Just dragged the photo into Alias Sketchbook and drew on top of it.

XS: CITADEL OF DOOM W.K.

2008-02-14T19:27:00.000-08:00

I thumbnailed this sequence to go with Andrew W.K.'s song Never Let Down. I love that song and felt it would really sell Rai choosing his friends over Wuya, escaping from her exploding Citadel of Doom, and the earth returning to life. Most of all the scene on Dojo's back, where Omi, Kimiko, and Clay all celebrate Raimundo's return to the good side. When Justin made the animatic, he edited the song into it, which was a big no-no because the first season I got a little too sound fx and music-happy with the animatics (animatics are just for timing and network execs to view to get a feel for how the show will look animated) & a producer told me "No more music or sound fx in the animatics." So for Citadel of Doom, I ignored his words and asked Justin to put it in anyway. It paid off. As the music started, the producer gave me the evil eye. I gave him my "Trust me" face, and after the scene was over, he wiped a tear from his eye and called me a mother effer. Twas the greatest compliment I ever got. So I finally got around to re-editing this sequence with the song. Hope you get the same joyful, uplifting feeling I do from this.

OMI: STUPIFIED!

2008-02-14T11:39:00.000-08:00

DELETED SCENE-Raw footage of Omi after being blinded by the Star Hanabi. As boarded by Mike Borkowski.

KURT LIED ABOUT NOT NEEDING HELP

2008-02-12T00:52:00.000-08:00

Part 4 of STONE COLD: SON OF CURLY & SHEMP. For a man who just got his head knocked off by Booker T, he sure can yell at his boss and the WWF Champion. Comedy Gold. Scroll down for previous chapters in this saga.