Category: Film

my other mother loves me

Posted on By Wil

Yesterday, Anne convinced me to take a break from work so we could go see a matinee of Coraline, which was playing in 3D at a local theater. I love the book, and I love Nightmare Before Christmas, so it seemed like a no-brainer.

But 3D? I wasn’t so sure. I’m not a huge fan of 3D. It always feels gimmicky and intrusive, and I’m always wondering when Doctor Tongue is going to thrust a cat toward the audience.

However, my love of the source material, an excuse to play hooky with my wife, and how excited I’ve been to see the movie since I first heard they were making it was enough to get me into the theater without any real argument.

I am so glad that I went, because I loved the movie. I heard that Henry Selick wanted to use the 3D technology to give the movie depth, rather than shove things into the audience’s faces, and I thought he did exactly that. I told my friends that they don’t have to see it in 3D, but they kind of have to see it in 3D.

Speaking as a fan of the book, I was mostly happy with the adaptation. They added an entirely new character, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but he didn’t feel like Scrappy Doo to me, and if I wasn’t already a fan of the book, he wouldn’t have felt out of place to me, at all. Everything I wanted to see was there, and they managed to create the world that I’d created in my head when I read it with eerie perfection.

Speaking as a fan of movies and stop-motion animation, I was delighted. All the actors are fantastic, and the set design and animation was breathtaking. You don’t need to see it in 3D, but I thought they used the 3D experience perfectly, and if you have a choice, I’d take the 3D option (which is something I never thought I’d say.)

Coraline gets 4.5 out of 5 Beldams, on the Wheaton Scale of Randomly Rating Movies In A Way Which Is Amusing To Wil.

Seriously, people, go see it. I think you’ll love it.

the one about that time i worked in a movie with ron jeremy. yes, that ron jeremy.

Posted on By Wil

I can't recall exactly how it came up, but I recently mentioned that I'd once worked in a movie with Ron Jeremy. This revelation was met with some interest and a look that sort of goes like this: O_o so I thought it would make an entertaining (to me, at least) post.

The movie was called Mr. Stitch. It was a weird science fiction retelling of the Prometheus myth. I play the title character, a creature who was sewn together from the parts of 44 men and 44 women. It was written and directed by Roger Avary.

Roger did Mr. Stitch right after the massive success of his film Killing Zoe, and on the heels of his Academy Award for Pulp Fiction. Everyone in the world wanted to work with him then, and he assembled a mostly incredible cast[1]. He got Ron Perlman and Nia Peeples for major roles, Taylor Negron for a small but important role, and a guy you may have heard of called Ron Jeremy for a cameo.

While Ron is very well known for his … other work … he had also worked on a few indie movies at the time, including Killing Zoe, where he played the bank manager, who was shot in the face before he could deliver a single line. Roger liked him, so he hired Ron for a scene in Mr. Stitch that I don't think made the final cut, as a military medic in a flashback.

Ron came— you know, I'm going to go ahead and rephrase that. Ron arrived in Nice about a week before his scenes were to be shot, and he hung around on the set the whole time. He was incredibly funny, very friendly, constantly falling asleep, and when asked about pretty much any porn starlet from the time would reply, "Oh yes, I've had sex with her many times." I don't know if that was actually true or not, but it always made me laugh when he said it.

Ron told me that I could visit the set of one of his … other films … when we got back to Los Angeles, and though a certain part of me thought that would be hurr hurr hurr awesome, a more rational part of me thought it would just be weird and uncomfortable, so I never availed myself of the opportunity.

I grew so much as an artist and person during the end of 1994 when I lived in Nice and worked on that film, even though many aspects of the production were miserable, it remains one of the most fondly-remembered times in my life.

[1] I say "mostly" because the other lead actor, Rutger Hauer, was an absolute nightmare to work with and almost single-handedly ruined the film.

yet another awesome video for watchmen

Posted on By Wil

They've done another video to promote Watchmen, this time made to look like a 16mm film made in 1977:

If you're not familiar with Watchmen, I may need to explain — well, before I finish that, I will encourage you to buy Watchmen right now and go read it. I'm serious. Don't even eat or pee or anything until you're done. It's that good. There's a reason nearly every comic geek in the world swears it's one of the all-time greatest books, you know.

Okay, now that you've finished reading it, go ahead and eat and pee.

Okay, now it's totally normal for you to want to pick the book right back up again and start over, making sure you digest every single available detail in each panel. You won't catch everything, but that's okay; re-reading Watchmen is something certain geeks do, and every time we go behind the mask we find something we've never seen before.

Okay, now that you've eaten and peed, and read the book again, I don't need to tell you what I was going to tell you, because now you see it in the video.

…I know, right?!

boating our software

Posted on By Wil

Yesterday, I started writing a monthly column for Amazon’s End User Blog. For my first column, I looked at a really cool device that’s battling something I call Feature Creep:

…it’s increasingly difficult to find things that do just one thing, and do it very well. I blame this on something I call “Feature Creep” which I suspect comes from too many meetings, too much input from marketing, and not enough product managers and engineers who are willing to stand up and say, “You know what? I don’t think this coffee maker really needs an MP3 player in it. It’s fine just making coffee.”

Feature Creep is everywhere, bloating our software, lengthening our startup times, cluttering up our menus, and draining our batteries, so when I come across something that has successfully resisted it and stayed focused on doing one simple thing very well, I have a little bit of a pants party.

One of the best examples I’ve come across in the last year is the Netflix player from Roku. It’s a tiny little box that streams anything from Netflix’s on-demand library straight into your television, and that’s all it does.

So I’m pretty excited to have an opportunity to do for blog what I used to do for InDigital, and I’m looking forward to examining various gadgets and technology trends in the mysterious future. My column will update on the final Thursday of every month.

(If you missed this on Twitter and don’t know what the title of this post means: I put a really stupid typo into this column that snuck past me and my editor, and I was originally lamenting how feature creep is “boating” our software. Mmmm. Boating. It’s since been corrected, but I can’t help giggling about it.)

one last fistful of Ted Kord interviews

Posted on By Wil

Part deux of my interview with Trekmovie.com is online, so you don’t have to avoid spoilers any more:

TrekMovie.com: The first season can be be brutal.

Wil Wheaton: Yeah. That is why the first season is kind of fun. Some of the episodes are really really bad and a few of the episodes are extremely good, even if you are not grading on a curve. For the most part — we are awkward — we are trying to figure out what our show is about. And you can see how we had so many different writers and creative power struggles while we figured out what we were going to be. We were really lucky we got a chance to do more than one season. If it wasn’t for the incredible cast and writers like Sandy Fries and Tracy Torme, we probably would not have gone past the second season.

TrekMovie.com: I am in the camp that thinks that Michael Piller, and writers like Ron Moore, really saved the show in the third season.

Wil Wheaton: They absolutely did.

TrekMovie.com: I know some don’t like to hear that Gene [Roddenberry] didn’t save the show. I love Gene Roddenberry, but for TNG I think the Michael was the best thing for the show.

Wil Wheaton: Gene had the presence of mind to know he was getting old and he knew that someone who loved Star Trek as much as he did could step in to take the reins. He hand picked Michael. He begged Michael at the end of season three to come back. Michael didn’t want to at first, but Gene said to him “I need you to make this show great, I can’t do it without you” and Michael agreed. And Michael had the open submissions policy, which is how Ron [Moore] came on, with “The Bonding.” I don’t think it is inaccurate or unfair to give Michael a great deal of credit for making Next Generation great, but at the same time I think it is also fair and accurate to acknowledge that it was Gene Roddenberry who had the vision and presence of mind and the foresight to keep Michael Piller on and put him in a position to do what he did.

I also talked to buzz focus about playing Ted Kord, and that’s online, too:

So…. Brave and Bold Batman vs Frank Miller Batman – who would win?

W. Wheaton: (laugh) I don’t know that’s like asking which fruit will taste better an apple or an orange.

Are you also a fan of 70s/80s cartoons?

W. Wheaton: I remember getting up really early on Saturday mornings to watch the old Super Friends cartoons. It was really Challenge of the Super Friends and those old battles of the Legion of Doom that I loved. And I’m exactly the right age for GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats and He-Man.

Thundarr the Barbarian is my favorite cartoon in history. That was before they were allowed to do marketing and merchandising in cartoons. So these guys were like, “let’s tell some cool stories.” And, they did.

You’re involved in so many things, what’s your passion these days?

W. Wheaton: Honestly, it’s spending as much time as I can with my family. My boys are getting older. My oldest son is in college, his brother is a senior in high school and is going to college next year. I am keenly aware how 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week isn’t that much time. More important than anything else is providing for them financially and emotionally.

Finally, I talked to Media Blvd., and got to deliver what ended up being my favorite one-liner of the whole series of interviews (unplanned). See if you can spot it:

Shaun> That’s cool, I grew up on Challenge of the Superfriends. Don’t start me going down that memory lane.

Wil> Are you a Wendy and Marvin kind of guy, or are you a Zan and Jana kind of guy. Wendy and Marvin were lame.

Shaun> I was glad though when Zan and Jana took off, and that damn monkey Gleek, that was always screwing things up.

Wil> I was the right age for Zan and Jana, so I thought that was really funny. They always turned into something. They could have defeated their adversaries, like they were way overpowered for what they actually did with their superpowers. I was exactly the right age, I was born in ’72, so I was like 8 when I was watching that. I thought it was awesome, then I grew up a little bit and there was Wendy and Marvin and Wonderdog. I thought, “They’re dumbing this down!” I was like 11, “They’re dumbing this down for the audience, and they’re insulting my 11 year old intelligence. This is awful, worst episode ever!”

Shaun> I hated the way the Superfriends treated Batman. The only thing they’d show of Batman is the car stopping and picking up Wendy and Marvin, but the dog doesn’t make it into the Batmobile.

Wil> I know, like you’re going to make Batman the chauffeur? Are you serious? I can promise you that that does not happen in Batman: The Brave & The Bold. In Batman: The Brave & The Bold, Batman is awesome, and he is not a ridiculous chauffeur. Batman is nobody’s bitch in Batman: The Brave & The Bold.

Maybe I could have said “Batman: The Brave & The Bold” a few more times in that last answer. I think I really dropped the ball there.

So … I thought there were more, but I’ve either closed the tabs, or I was hopped up on old Foreigner albums and had double vision. I know that three isn’t really a fistful, but I have small fists. So there.

And with that, my friends, I am off to Phoenix for the Phoenix Comicon. I don’t know what kind of internets I’ll have while I’m there, my friends, but if history is any indicator, I’ll be Twittering the hell out of everything, my friends.