Big Screen Breakdown: Catching Fire

The first Hunger Games movie was my favorite movie the year it came out (yes, I ranked it higher than The Avengers), so the bar was set pretty high for its sequel. Now, I have not read the book, so I don't know exactly how well The Hunger Games: The Sequel Hook compares to its source material. As a predecessor to another, very well-liked movie, though? I can judge the heck out of it.

• Man, where do these movies find such talented actors? Frankly, I don't think they'd be half as good with a less-talented cast. Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, and now Philip Seymour Hoffman? Divine.
• Speaking of talented actors, was Josh Hutcherson this good in the last Hunger Games movie? I don't think he was, or maybe he just wasn't given enough to do, but I really liked him in Catching Fire. Like, a lot.
• Anyone else notice Jennifer Lawrence was wearing more makeup this time around? I guess that makes sense, what with her being a victor now or whatever.
• The Hunger Games have always been a metaphor for the schadenfreude inherent in mass media consumption, but they really drove that point home in this movie, with Jena Malone's brilliant portrayal of every foul-mouthed reality TV star, ever. Applause to you.
• You know, after the tributes all got doused with that flesh boiling poison gas, they cleaned up really well. Their skin looked so silky smooth, I think I might want to get some of that gas for my daily ablutions.
• Another thing I really liked was the portrayal of people who won the games through means other than brute strength. Adds a bit more variety to the cast to have some nerds in the pack.
• Is Lenny Kravitz dead? I hope not!
• So apparently the series isn't over yet? There's, like, another movie? Maybe two? Well, that's just GREAT! But couldn't we have at least gotten an ending to this movie first?
• Verdict: High recommended, unless the sequel sucks.

You Say You Want a Resolution?

Well, you know, we all want to change the world.

I'm a notorious New Year's Resolution transgressor, and yet I never stop making the resolutions. This year, I actually did pretty well, especially on my writing project, which lasted until my iPad got stolen in August. For 2014, I've got three things to focus on.

1 - 30 minutes of writing per day. I know, I know, I've done this one before, but I've actually had pretty good success with it in years past. I only fell off the wagon when I got caught up in doing a play, and I've got no plans to do anything theatrical this year.

2 - On a related note, I'd like to do three "character sketches" a week. By that, I mean "written descriptions of people I know/I see on the bus." I really do need to practice my descriptive writing, and I figure this will help. I may post some of them here, just to see if, by chance, people can figure out who I'm describing.

Good thing all my blog readers are completely gorgeous.

3 - And now for something completely different. The last goal I'm actually calling "Clean-a-thing," because I like to name my resolutions, like one would name an ill-fated pet with a tendency to run towards a busy street populated entirely by garbage trucks. This one's simple: clean one thing every day. On a busy day, this means dust a shelf or wipe down a mirror. When I've got more time, though, it means I have to break out the knee pads and sponges.

Over the weekend, I discovered the joy of cleaning while listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," "Stuff You Missed in History Class," and "Welcome to Night Vale" (although "joy" isn't probably the correct emotion for that last one). So, yeah, I'm now accepting recommendations for podcasts, cuz I'mma need a lot of mental stimulation to get me through the hours of cleaning ahead of me.

For the record, I'm also accepting donations towards the "Let's Remodel Braddy's Bathroom Because It's Unconscionably Awful" fund.

Going for a Ride

Here's a secret: the pretty unicorn thing belongs to the dad.

So I found a new trick I can pull with the Procreate app. See, my usual process is to draw and ink the whole thing, then scan it, save it to the iPad, then redraw the whole thing... again. It's a bit time-consuming, and it uses up a lot of pens. Last night, though, I found a way to shorten the process.

First, I sketch everything in pencil as usual. 

Then, I photograph it.

Yeah, I know. Looks like crap. But then I do the usual tracey-colorey thing, and it winds up looking pretty much okay.

Unto You Is Born

Why I'm Still Single 54

Death to Plushies!

You ever watch a movie and see something happen which makes absolutely no sense, contributes nothing to the plot, and then it's never brought up again? There's a term for that, apparently.  It's called a "Big-Lipped Alligator Moment." There's a reason for that name. I'm not going into it. Look it up.

Now, everyone's taste may vary. Some of you guys might like these scenes, but in my mind, a "BLAM" is almost completely unjustifiable.  A non-sequitur sequence usually indicates of poor planning or storytelling on the part of the writer: either they fell short on their run time, or they couldn't find a way to make the music someone worked SO HARD ON fit into the plot and didn't have the heart to cut it. These sequences are sloppy, untidy, and reek of meddling from someone who doesn't share the creative vision that the rest of the writers, directors, composers, and... um... sculptors had.

You know what got me thinking about the "BLAM"? This guy:

For the record,  I hate this guy.

If you haven't seen Frozen: The Road to Broadway yet (no, that's not the actual title, but it works), then you might be under the impression from all the marketing that Olaf the snowman is a major character. If he were, then you can bet your pink-striped knickers that Frozen  wouldn't be sitting at the top of my list of Best Movies of 2013. As is, Olaf's in about a dozen scenes, with maybe 20-30 minutes of screen time. I'd need a stopwatch to make sure, but, if I go see Frozen again, I plan to spend as little time as possible thinking about the snowman and instead focus on trying to find the Rapunzel cameo.

Now, here's my question for those of you who have seen the movie: What happens if you take Olaf out completely? What plot holes would need patching? What narrative elements are left out?

Olaf's the comic relief, but the movie's already populated with a dozen very funny characters ("all men do it"). Olaf himself doesn't have a compelling character; he's completely static. I actually watched the movie again and mentally removed Olaf from every scene he was in. The characters barely acknowledged him (except to occasionally set him up for a punch line) and he made no meaningful contribution to the plot. By my calculation, Olaf's function in the narrative could just as easily be filled by a lock pick and a Hallmark card.

EXCEPT... then there wouldn't be the presumable hundreds of thousands of dollars Disney will make off of merchandise with Olaf's visage on it.

That's it. That's the only thing that changes about Frozen as a whole if Olaf were to be left in the "poor ideas" bin. He is utterly without motivation, development, or personality outside of a few "wacky" characteristics. He's the latest in long line of characters created seemingly just to sell toys and lunch boxes. 

I call these types of characters "plushies." And, if you couldn't tell I %^#*in' hate them.

The "plushy" is a jaded marketing attempt to reach a broader audience when they don't feel the story is strong enough on its own to appeal to more than one demographic category. The plushy is every talking animal sidekick, every snarky creature voiced by whatever prominent comedian happens to be on the pop culture radar. They almost always feel foreign within the context of the film.

Now, sometimes, the plushy works out. Long time readers will know that the bane of my existence - my arch-nemesis, if you will - is Maximus, the horse from Tangled. He defies the internal logic of the film (how in the world does a horse lead the palace guard when it can't talk?!). He defies the external logic of... reality (horse tails can't move like that). And, worst of all, he won't return my phone calls.

AND YET... if you take Maximus out of the film, Tangled needs something in his place. Someone has to chase Flynn Rider. Maybe Russell Crowe could have done it, I don't know. But the point is that Maximus - or some three-dimensional equivalent character - has to be there.

In fact, a friend of mine actually argues that if Maximus were replaced by a less toyetic human counterpart, he would immediately be less interesting. That.. may be true, but I'm not yet ready to concede that point yet.

But that's one of the funny things - Disney's plushy characters are usually significant to the plot in some way. You can't take Sebastian out of The Little Mermaid, or Mushu out of Mulan, or Lumiere out of Beauty and the Beast. Heck, Stitch is arguably one of the greatest characters Disney ever churned out, and he can't NOT be a stuffed toy. 

These two, on the other hand?

COMPLETELY useless.

I'm not so naive as to think that all stories would be better off without a character who would look good sitting in the crane game machine at Denny's, but I think children's entertainment in general has proven that the marketable characters they introduce can be characters first and toys second. It just takes a little bit of extra effort on the part of the writers and editors, but it brings the quality of the story way up. Kids still get their Happy Meal figures, and adults get to not rip their hair out every time Bartok shows up again.

By the way, my friend from a few paragraphs earlier actually helped me to identify the first real "plushies" of modern cinema:

Take 'em out, replace 'em with a PDA, and the plot resolves exactly the same way.

Adventures in Animation: Danny Phantom

I had no idea that the show Danny Phantom had been released on DVD until I saw it on the shelves at FYE a few months back. This show holds some seriously heavy nostalgia for me. A long time ago, my brother and I would watch TV together on Sunday mornings, killing time until church started. Most often, we watched M*A*S*H, because it was ALWAYS on the air. However, we also spent a lot of time watching the Nickelodeon cartoons - a lot of The Fairly Oddparents, Jimmy Neutron, and, yes, even Spongebob.

Danny Phantom was always my favorite, though. The plot's pretty standard superhero stuff - basically, just imagine what Spider-Man would be like if Peter Parker had been bitten by a radioactive ghost, and you get the gist. The "freak of the week" tends to have a pretty normal gimmick for a supervillain - this one is a hunter, this one is a millionaire industrialist, this one talks like Gilbert Gottfried - so there's not a lot of novelty to the show.

There's one character, though, who makes the whole series something absolutely spectacular, and that's Danny's schoolteacher, Mr. Lancer:

Why's this guy so cool? Well, there are two reasons. First, he's a high-strung English teacher, and all of his curse words are titles of famous works of literature. Havoc's broken out at Casper High? Lancer will be the first to exclaim, "Lord of the Flies!"

Secondly (and this one's important), he's voice by RON @%&$@^%$& PERLMAN, who, you may recall, is awesome.

I've been turning this show on a lot while unpacking from the big move, and it's been a nice slice of nostalgia pie. Not exactly a healthy slice, but we all need some junk food in our entertainment every now and again.

Happily Ever After

A pen and a little heart. That's all it takes.

And freckles, preferably.

BONUS SKETCH:

I Hate The Homeless

...ness problem that plagues our city.

A news article from KSL made the rounds a few weeks ago on the Facebooks, so pretty much the entire state of Utah saw their expose on the "business of begging."  The article revealed that many panhandlers use the money they get from begging to support drug habits, rather than purchase food or shelter for the night, as most people probably suspect they would.  The entire tone of the article seemed to imply that these panhandlers are criminally deceitful and do not deserve pity or charity.

And the whole thing pissed me right the &$#^ off.

I'm not a terribly compassionate person.  Given a bit of disposable income, I'm far more likely to purchase another seaon of Ducktales than provide a meal for a hungry family.  Heck, I'm still holding a grudge against some lady who cut me off in traffic three months ago.  So this isn't really a call to Christian charity or anything - or, if it is, I acknowledge it's a fairly hypocritical one.

See, the article also points out that many of the people we see around Salt Lake City begging for change are suffering from some pretty serious mental illnesses.  They're sick people, but since they use the money they get from appealing to the sympathy of the general population to feed their illnesses, they get exposed to all sorts of scorn.  And, guys, that's a big freakin' deal.

Good mental health care is very difficult to find in the Salt Lake area - heck, in just about the entire state.  Even if you do find it, psychiatric services can be quite expensive.  Insurance plans are now required to provide mental health coverage (or will be as of 2014), but, even so, most plans used by lower-income households won't pay for finer care.  A lot of people are forced to attend programs that are understaffed and overcrowded - assuming they have the resources and capacity to manage their care themselves.

The truth is, I suspect that many of the people who beg for change are really in need - just not the need that they're advertising in Sharpie on their cardboard signs.  Obviously, the ills of the homeless and the beggars won't be soothed by receiving spare change from the holiday shoppers - after all, I doubt that the $0.78 I drop in the panhandler's cup after I buy my daily bagel will be used to cover the cost of a Lithium prescription copay.  Frankly, I'm not sure what the best use of that $0.78 is.  But I feel that it's criminal of us to shut off our sympathy because someone lied about their problem.  They've still got other problems, maybe even more serious ones.  We can be better people than that.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to finish up my Batman fanfiction where the Caped Crusader punches out lousy drivers.

Color Me Fascinated!

So I figured out how I could use my iPad to color some of my old drawings... just for fun.

Light and the Dancers

THIS is why you don't let ballerinas watch Black Swan!

New iPad means I can practice sketching with the Procreate app again. Finger drawing isn't quite as fun as pen and paper, but, every now and again, I miss it.

The Mask

Excuse me, but you've got something on your face...

I think I was getting tired of drawing so much lovey-dovey stuff(ey), that I felt I needed to put something truly horrible on paper. You're welcome.

Someone's Feeling Lovey-Dovey

The surest way to a person's heart is through a karaoke microphone.

Well, it is called a "love seat."

Man, I sure am drawing a lot of "boy meets girl" sorts of lovey-dovey nonsense, nowadays. I wonder if that means something?

Oh, it does. It means I've been watching too much TV.

Big Screen Breakdown: Frozen

A couple of weeks ago, I got invited to see Thor:  The Dark World at the critics' pre-screening.  For some reason, however, the theater wasn't able to get the film working, so everyone in attendance got to take a complimentary ticket as an apology.  Now, I could have gone back to see the most macho-est of heroes, but I decided to go see the movie with the pretty pretty princesses with the HUGE eyes.

Is that even a surprise anymore?

• Does Disney still market their movies?  I mean, I kinda had my eyes on Frozen for a while, but I don't think I actually heard anything about it at all.  No commercials, no billboards, nothing.  Did anybody know this movie was coming out?
• And what's with Disney movie titles nowadays?  You've got Tangled, Brave, and now Frozen?  It's like they used up the whole budget on the animation, and they could only afford one word for the movie posters.
• Man, musically, Disney has just not got the chops anymore.  The beautiful, classic musicality of earlier soundtracks  has been replaced by this strange, half-pop/half-Broadway feel that clashes with the visual aesthetic.
• Oh, and the line, "We finish each other's sandwiches"?  Way funnier when Arrested Development did it.  Ten.  Years. Ago.
• Okay, seriously:  what the ^%$# is going on with Disney and hooved animals acting like dogs?  Reindeer don't DO that stuff!  Well, at least the reindeer here isn't as annoying as that $#%in' horse from Tangled.
• No, THAT particular obnoxious niche is filled by the bloody snowman.  I REALLY hate the goofy-looking sidekick that serves no purpose other than to sell the movie to the kiddies.  Do the producers really not trust a story to resonate with children unless there's a frickin' plushie in the ensemble?

Ahhhh... I feel better.  Got all the complaining out of the way.  Now for the good stuff.  Buckle up - there's a lot of it.

• It's great to see the art of cartooning continues to influence 3D animation.  Disney's computerized people have never looked sillier - and I really do mean that in the best way.  There are some great character designs here.
• There's definitely a healthy dose of Disney romance here, but the real love story is between the two protagonist sisters.  Disney has finally learned to create some really great female leads, and these two are among the best.
• Remember the reindeer I complained about not five minutes ago?  Actually not that bad at all.  Sven the reindeer is attached to male lead Kristoff, and they've got this great chemistry.  You know what they say about a man and his car?  It's something like that, and it's believable in a way Maximillian the horse never was.
• Oh, and how about that villain?  Uh-MAZ-ing!  You don't expect him to be quite that sinister when you first see him and how silly he is, but, brother, he is SOMETHING else.
• Wait, Idina Menzel is in the cast?  Well, that explains the Broadway vibe.  She and the other singers really nail their parts, and they save a lot of the lackluster music, turning it into something memorable.
• These Disney CG movies sure do have a lot of dancing in them.  My favorite scene from Tangled was definitely the dance in the town square, and Frozen has similar scene right near the beginning.  Not as epic as the Tangled dance, but nice nonetheless.
• Tangled struggled to weave the comedic scenes together with the dramatic ones.  Frozen has a similar problem, but it's far less pronounced.  Actually, the human characters have some of the best comedy in the movie, and it never feels forced.  They've come a long way.
• STAY until the END of the credits.  I thought that was just a thing people did in movies nowadays.  Yet there I was, laughing at some of the best post-film jokes I've ever seen, and I was the only one in the theater.  Incredible.
• And speaking of endings, Frozen has one of the best I've ever seen.  It's the perfect fairy-tale ending:  touching, empowering, and completely in line with everything that came before it.  Even that doofy-looking snowman couldn't completely kill the mood.
• Verdict:  Come on, guys, it's a Disney fairy tale.  Of COURSE it's amazing.  Go see it.  Now.

Climactic Confrontation

Anybody else remember the game Rampage? That was a good game. Actually, that was a TERRIBLE game, but its heart was in the right place.

This picture was actually much bigger when I started it, but I cropped out a lot of bits that didn't work for me - specifically, some of the line work in tail looked awful. So I cropped it out.

Our Dearly Departed

I've been making cake bites for nearly two years now - and, frankly, I've gotten pretty good.  I've come a long way from my early days of working with chocolate, and I've managed to make do with a pretty limited supply of kitchen tools.  Heck, I've even managed to jury-rig a double boiler system without destroying any coat hangers to do so.

Sadly, that has all ended today.  After years of loyal service, one of my staunchest allies in the ktichen has fallen.

Alas, poor Yorick.  You've left us too soon.

What?  Are you telling me you DON'T name your glass bowls after figures from Shakespeare?  Geez - and they say I'M the weird one.

My best guess, not really understanding physics and $@#^, is that the heated water in the pan created some sort of low-pressure environment that sucked the glass bowl down until it simply shattered.  And that's really quite the bummer, because I've got four partially-finished batches of cake bites in my kitchen right now that are sitting around naked because Daddy Braddy can't get their chocolate pants on.

You know, I've never actually seen anything explode in the kitchen before.  I'm just glad the glass bowl shattered into the pot beneath it rather than shooting up and out.  I already have to replace my glass bowl - the last thing I need is chocolate-covered shards of death shooting at my eyeballs.

An Important Notice

In case you'd forgotten.

Kissy Face

Amirite, ladies?

Thoughts on an Autumn Morning

Of all the houses I looked at in the home-buying process, the one I chose own me over in part because of the apple tree growing in the backyard. Now, I don't know anything about how to take care of a tree like this, but I'm excited to learn.

The first thing I've learned about the tree is that it gives out a lot of stuff... especially leaves.

So Satuday morning, I found myself outside, raking leaves for the first time since I moved into the house. Now, maybe it's just my negligence, but there were a LOT of leaves. Luckily, I happen to really like raking: it's a chore that requires just enough physical exertion to engage the body, but not so much that it overwhelms the brain's ability to think. I found myself asking a lot of questions as I worked, like:

Why are there electrical wires growing out of my apple tree?

And...

What the heck is that thing?

Oh, it's a shovel. Why is there a shovel in my apple tree?

But the biggest question I had to ask myself was...

Just how in the heck am I supposed to fit all these leaves into one yard waste bin?

Cooking with Braddy: Hot and Sour Soup

I'm a new convert to tofu. I've never really cooked with it before, but I find it a pretty satisfying substitute on those days when I try to cut back on meat. And one of my favorite tofu recipes is my dad's hot and sour soup, adapted from a recipe that he pulled from America's Test Kitchen.

I say "adapted," because I got a copy of the recipe, and I'm pretty sure that it's nothing at all like what my dad actually makes. But, then again, I also cribbed a few notes from a crock pot recipe I found on. Pinterest, so it's not like I was working directly with the undiluted recipe directly from my dad's brain. I made a lot of substitutions, cribbed a bit here and there... and I wound up with a dish that was neither "hot" nor "sour."

It was, at least, soup. Hoorah for small victories!

Ram-Girl Lonely

Sometimes I draw girls, and sometimes I draw monsters... and sometimes girls are monsters, too.

Is it clear that this is a girl with ram horns? Sometimes I'm not so sure, when I do distance shots like this.

Adventures in Animation: Super Anime Haiku Edition

So during the months leading up the move (and for several weeks thereafter), I indulged in a lot of television. More than usual, and most of it was imported for our friends in the island nation of Japan. Should I be embarrassed?

Eh. Some of it's really good.

So here's a quick commentary on the shows I watched. Some were good, some we're bad, and all are worthy to be commented on in the form of haiku. Enjoy.

Another:

Someone here is dead.

Is it you? Or is it you?

It's not Bruce Willis.

Horror anime is something I could conceptually get behind. This... didn't quite do it for me. 

Clannad:

Your wife and kid died?

Cry, and become a robot.

Then they'll be okay.

Allegedly one of the best anime of all time. It's adapted from a dating sim. I think it's better if you've played the game. Otherwise...  PBPTHPBTHBAHAHAHAHAHAHA,

Spice and Wolf

Everything's better,

Economics or romance,

With naked wolf girls.

A surprisingly thoughtful and exciting look at medieval economics... that happens to star a girl with wolf ears... who happens to be naked a lot.

Haibane Renmei:

We've wings and halos,

But we are SO not angels.

I think we're in hell?

It's a story about redemption and forgiveness, and there's no shouting or fighting. Guys, this show was SO GOOD.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Are they lesbians?

Are they? Are they? Huh? Are they?

(Spoiler: Yes they are)

Some great animation, intercut with some absolutely ridiculous stock footage.

Wolf's Rain

Surly pretty boys

Take a walk to Paradise.

Also? They're all wolves.

The show's kinda boring. But the theme song sounds like something Sting might have sung if he was down on his luck, and that's not bad.

Puebla Magi Madoka Magica

Mami is pretty,

And she shoots guns from her skirt.

Huh? Her head's bit off?

Duuuuuude... This show is DARK! You wouldn't guess it from all the... tulle?

Mushi-shi

In truth, ghosts are just

Microscopic fungus that

Loves to eat your eyes.

How can a show be simultaneously scary and soothing? I don't know, but somehow, this show NAILED it.

Princess Tutu:

She is just a duck.

She is also Sailor Moon.

Ah! The pink! The pink!

This show is awesome. Do not mess with Princess Tutu!

He's My Monster!

Aww... look at his little monster bum!

Recently, my two favorite subjects for drawing have been girls and monsters. Part of me really wants to branch out and try new things, and part of me thinks "Girls/Monsters" would be a great title for a webcomic or something like that.

An Eye in the Dark

Man, I really thought this was going to be creepier than it wound up being. Showed it to my buddy, and he's all, "Aww, that's sweet!" Dangit, sweet was NOT the target!

All that hatching in the background? Took me two hours. Whew.

It's Coming From Inside the House!

Man, owning a home gives you a completely different sense of things than NOT owning a home does.  I have never, EVER been to Lowe's Hardware in my life as much as I have been over the last month... and the scary part is I now LIKE going to Lowe's.  I have no idea how my priorities shifted that much.

Oh, wait, I totally do know how that happened, and it rhymes with "one-hundred thousand shmollars."

It's not all roses and putty, though.  Some of the things I've had to deal with since moving in are a little more stressful... specifically, a chronically wet basement.  Now, I moved right before the rainy season, and I knew going into this thing that the basement was going to be a problem.  I also knew that I needed to get some gutters installed on the north side of the building ASAP, as there are a lot of drainage issues up there that could potentially cause some flooding.

I figured I hadn't acted quickly enough when a puddle appeared in my basement within a week of me moving in.  Now, Momma Bradford didn't raise no fool, so I took immediate steps to get the issue resolved.  Meaning, of course, that I permanently relocated my two grossest towels to the basement to serve on mop-up patrol.

Oh, and I guess I called some guys to get the gutters installed ASAP.

So we're about two weeks into the waiting on the gutters thing, with me going downstairs to clean up as much of the water as I can, when it hits me:  We haven't really had that much rain recently - definitely not enough to justify how damp it's gotten downstairs.  So I wake up one morning, rush downstairs, and check on the ground.  Dry as a bone.  Puzzles, I go upstairs, take my shower, and get ready for work.  Just before I leave, though, I decide to check on the basement again.

BAM!  Puddle City.

Turns out it's not all bad news. The leak, it seems, is somewhere between the tub's faucet and the shower head. That means that I can't shower, but I can take a bath. Yup, I can certainly bathe all six feet of me in a four-foot tub... Provided, of course, that I tape the drain over first, since the stopper in the tub doesn't work. But it's either that or smell funny until I can get the plumber in.

So, yeah... Leaky shower, not leaky foundation.  On the one hand, it's a relief.  The gutters would have been a nice solution to the drainage issues around the house, but there is no way I could guarantee that they'd fix it entirely.  Now that I know where the problem is, I know exactly how to fix it, and then it'll be fixed for (mostly) good.

On the other hand, "fixing" the leak is going to require tearing down a whole wall.  But I guess you can't make an omelette without tearing about your house.

OH, WAIT.

Why I'm Still Single 53

Cast Out

What's your angle, huh?

Seriously, the only reason I drew this picture was to experiment with drawing figures at an angle rather than the usual "straight up and down." It was hard. I mean, I couldn't just go up to a girl on the street and say, "Hey, mind if I lie down on the ground and look up at you?" Poses are HARD.