I Have Seen the Future and It is Adorable

God bless this tiny little robot!


I just got back from seeing WALL-E and it is absolutely amazing. It's everything you could possibly want in a movie. It's a dark satire. It's a eye-popping sci-fi extravaganza. It's a silent comedy. Hell, it's even the best date movie of the year and I'm saying that partly because it's a terrific love story and partly because you should instantly ditch any girl who doesn't like it (I already told the girlfriend she lost major points by refusing to see the opening midnight show with me. Fortunately she gained them back by being so gung ho to see The Dark Knight that she's already looking up IMAX ticket prices.)

I knew it was gonna be great. I mean, Pixar has yet to disappoint me (granted, I never saw Cars due to the Larry the Cable Guy involvement). Really, when one of their movies comes out, it's not a question of whether it will be good but rather how high it will fall on their veritable hall of fame. Now that I've seen it, I have to say, WALL-E makes its way pretty high up there.
Of course, the number one spot still belongs to Monsters Inc.

I really love Monsters Inc. I always will. I've got a book n the art behind it. I've got a talking Sully action figure I picked up at a garage sale (that really doesn't sound like John Goodman, by the way). It is so damn good that I feel no shame admitting (in a public online forum, no less) that it marks the closest I've ever come to crying in a movie theater. I mean, if this ending scene doesn't make you tear up, you are heartless:
(Spoiler Warning, obviously)

Seriously, it bums me out people don't talk about this movie more. However, when you make so many good movies like Pixar has, some are bound to get lost in the shuffle.

ps. You have to check out this great site Pixar created for the movie. It's a fake homepage for the ubiquitous corporation that runs humanity in WALL-E and it's absolutely hilarious. There's good stuff everywhere, all the way down to the Privacy Policy at the bottom.

It all (as well as a few images in the film) kind of reminds me of Mike Judge's great movie Idiocracy. However good that movie was though, Luke Wilson will never be as fun to watch as that tiny robot. And I don't even mean that as an insult!

I Know All

You know what's one of my favorite things in the world? I love to impart obscure knowledge. And I'm not talking random obscure knowledge, the kind that makes you sound like some Rain Man-esque weirdo listing irrelevent facts. I mean obscure knowledge that fits into a conversation. The kind where, after you say it, people are like, "Dude, how the hell did he know that?".

Today at work I walked into an office to drop off some papers and caught the tail end of a conversation. All I heard was this one guy saying, "...but Rutgers has dissappointed me."
I assumed he was talking about our football team or something, so I asked him what's up. The conversation went something like this (and keep in mind I had just wandered into this office at that moment):

"How has Rutgers dissappointed you?"
"They don't have any cooking classes?"
"They don't? Well, they have Food Science classes."
"Right, but I'm looking for just a simple cooking class."
"Ah. Well, there is a cooking school in New Brunswick."
"There is?"
"Yeah. It's on top of the soup kitchen. I believe they
sometimes prepare food for the soup kitchen."
"Cool."
"Yep. The soup kitchen's called Elijah's Promise. Well, see
ya'."

It's not that anything I was saying was particularly awesome. It's just that these are incredibly obscure facts that the average person walking into the office wouldn't know. Of course, I only knew them because

1. I go to Rutgers.
2. A family friend was a food science major at Rutgers.
3. I did community service at the soup kitchen.
4. I saw the chefs in training while there.

Still, the only thing that would have made me feel better would have been if there were a couple mega hot girls in the office and, when I left, I did so by jumping on a motorcycle, donning my hot shades, and riding off into the sunset.

A Few Quick Notes

• The new Sigur Rós album is absolutely amazing.
• Mansour Pourmand, the director and producer behind the original film, Zipperface, has written Dave, Andy, and I an e-mail giving us his blessing to bring Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical to the next step.
• Did you read that second bullet point?! That's fucking crazy!

Sorrow Hill Filming Diary #1

Be a film actor, kids! It's glamorous!

Well, that's me in make-up for my first day of filming on Grindhouse Pictures' horror film Sorrow Hill. And here, as promised, is a little write-up of how the day went:

Anyone who's been following the film on its official production blog knows that filming on this thing has been pushed back more times than Joan Rivers' face. Ron (the director) and his crew have been hit by so many ridiculous little problems that you'd think God Himself didn't want this movie to get made (maybe he read the original script and saw the now-deleted masturbation/prayer scene). The financing was shaky for awhile, the set got vandalized, and the lead actress had to leave due to scheduling problems. The fact that we finally got to start this thing last week is a miracle and it's not one that any one's taking lightly.

Ron set up an aggressive shooting schedule to catch up on lost time and that's why I was up at 5:45 am and heading down to Atlantic City to try to get 75% of my scenes shot in one day.

I'm not a morning person. I never have been. Hell, I'd rather work from 7 at night till 7 in the morning rather than the other way around. So it's not surprising that I was a bit grumpy the night before the day of filming as I tried to get to bed hours earlier than usual. Fortunately I was going to do something I was really excited about or else I would have been downright unbearable (I'm assuming of course that I wasn't. Only the girlfriend knows for sure).

I arrived on set at around 8:20 am. It was 20 minutes after I was supposed to get there since I had mistakenly assumed that there wouldn't be much traffic at 6:30 in the morning. Everything was alright however since I had to wait anyway to get my make-up done.

Now that I've brought up the make-up, I can't say enough about how amazing it all is. Unfortunately I only have pictures of myself, but some of the stuff these two girls, Nicki and Miranda, did is so incredible. The most amazing stuff right now is what they did with John Delrosso (yes, Nicole's dad, for anyone wondering). He plays Lazarus, the main villain, and the dude is uber-creepy in the role. The only problem is that Lazarus is supposed to be 40 years older than he is. However, the girls do this amazing job on him that includes make-up, latex, and hair extensions that has to be seen to be believed.

Speaking of hair, we had the final discussion about mine. To recap, when I was cast I had a giant afro. I then buzzed it off, totally forgetting that I needed it for the movie. Ron had been flip-flopping on whether he wanted me to keep my hair short as it now was, or buzz it down again. In the end he decided just to wax it flat to my head as if my character hadn't showered in a decade and had been sleeping in a vat of rotten gelatin the entire time.

That wax (which was some ultra nasty concoction beyond that of any normal hair product) was only one part of the junk they put on me. They put make-up around my eyes to give me that special crazy look. They also covered me in this fake dirt stuff they had which went all over my costume, body, face, and even in my hair. If any of my housemates are wondering who ruined the shower, it was me, during my hour long rinsing that night.

The worst part of the make-up for me was that gunk on my teeth. It was this black wax crap (think wax lips) that I had to rub on my teeth and needed to be touched up every few takes. It's horrible stuff that made it so I had to eat my lunch like some kind of boa constrictor/horse hybrid, dropping rolled up slices of turkey meat into the back of my throat to be chewed by my wisdom teeth alone.

If you listen to the most recent episode of Ron's radio show, he and Rick (who plays my also-crazy brother) talk about how much fun the set is and how great everyone is. It really is true. Everyone is incredibly nice and fun to chill with. This includes people new to the set.

Like I said, the lead actress needed to be replaced. Nicole ended up getting bumped up to the role which was great since it meant that I got to do my big fight scene with someone I've known and worked with for a few years. However, it meant that the creepy scene I had to do would be done with an actress I'd never met before and wouldn't meet until half an hour before we filmed it.

When I got to the set, Ron introduced her to me by saying, "Leah, this is Jon. He's the one who will be molesting you." This was awkward, especially since it's the same introduction I've received before every blind date I've been on.

Fortunately Leah turned out to be as cool as everyone else and the scene wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as it could have been.

It was my first scene in the movie (both to be shot and in the actual film itself) and we started filming around 11ish.

The scene is this: Jessica (one of the unfortunate victims in the film) is strapped down to a gurney and is told by a crazy woman, Mama Jean, that she is to be the asylum's new "breeder". Mama Jean (who's played by this great actress named Michelle) then opens up a near by cage to release her two sons (Rick and myself) whom she hopes Jessica will "choose" to be her mate. This leads to a lot of creepiness involving us feeling up her legs and threatening her with a knife.

A while back, I was talking to Greg about watching the video of the first movie he was in. He talked about how he couldn't watch his death scene since it was just plain weird watching himself die. I thought at the time that that was something I wouldn't have a problem with and would actually find pretty funny to watch. However, while I wouldn't mind watching myself die in a movie, I am pretty sure that I never want to watch this scene of me molesting a girl strapped to a gurney. That's just too strange. And from the excited way Ron talks about it on the radio show, it sounds like the footage turned out pretty creepy. This is great for the movie, obviously, but I think I'm gonna be hitting the fast forward button when this thing gets finished.

One scene that I'm really excited to watch is the fight scene between myself and Nicole.

It was the last thing we shot in the day so we were all exhausted. I kept telling Sarah (one of the leads in the movie who was pulling double duty and acting as script supervisor) to either play my part for a scene or switch the script around so my character got to take a nap on the gurney instead of Leah's. However, I knew I wanted to make the scene good since it's probably my best scene in the script so I did my best to snap out of it and Nicole and I rocked the thing out. I hope it went well. It sure felt like it did. In the scene, Nicole swings a pipe at me, I throw her to the ground, she bites my nose, and then she stabs me in the foot with a sharp wooden stake. Also, this is the scene where I get to say my big "I'm gonna make you scream!" line.

Damn, it was fun to do! It's stuff like this that makes me actually want to try to be an actor when I'm out of school as well. It's the stuff like money and food that make me not want to do that.

Here's a picture of my impaled foot in the middle of make-up. Nicki busted this thing out so fast, it's incredible.

Well, it was a long, long day. I was at the set for 13 hours total and that doesn't include the hour and 45 minute rides there and back. When I got home, I pretty much passed out on Sam. I would have stayed that way had she not pointed out that I was still covered in make-up. However, the movie's shaping up great and should be a hell of a lot of fun when it's finished.

I don't have any filming this week, but when I do, I'll make sure to post about it here.

Another Random Appearance on the Internet!

I've got a lot to write about (blogs about Sorrow Hill filming and strip clubs are forthcoming) but I'm in New Brunswick right now and I don't think the girlfriend wants to watch me type for half an hour. However, I can put a fun link in here because it's time once again for one of my Random Appearances on the Internet!


The A.V. Club (the nonfictional entertainment section of The Onion) is probably my favorite website. I'm there everyday and I've linked to articles from it here on the blog a few times. So I was excited to see my name on the site.
A few weeks ago, I was incredibly bored and sent a question in to the Ask the A.V. Club feature and was happily surprised to have it answered on Friday's article. It's a really stupid question but one of those things that always bugged me. you can read it here.
I enjoy the fact that, since I wrote in with my school e-mail, my name appears in full instead of the simple "Jon" I signed with.

In other A.V. Club news, all the music reviewers on the site wrote a great article listing their favorite new songs of this year. The best part is, you can listen to all of them. I have to admit, I'm not cool enough to have heard of 75% of these bands but that meant it was realy great to check in on music that flies way under my music radar. Plus, they threw in a shout out to that amazing Frightened Rabbit song I've posted here a few times.
Here's another cool song from the list by British Sea Power:



A few of the songs they posted videos for instead of just the track. I loved seeing that great Kate Nash video again because potty mouthed British girls singing cute pop songs are adorable. Even better though, this video for Flight of the Conchords:



It's funny that they're making videos for the album since their TV show was mostly videos for the same songs.


And finally, another music tidbit. I've never been as huge a Girl Talk fan as a bunch of my friends. It's mostly because I'm a little hot and cold on the whole sampling thing. However, he released his new album with the same "pay whatever you want to download" thing as Radiohead and I think it's a fascinating idea. You can pay (or not) here.
Also, the first track is rocking:

Putting the "Music" in "Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical" (plus a rather exciting announcement)

A month or so ago I went to New York to interview for an internship with the Colbert Report in the fall. It's was an absolutely massive long shot. Like Eugene O'Neill stage directions long. So I decided not to write anything about it here since I didn't want to jinx myself and I also didn't want to spend months telling everyone who had read the post that I eventually didn't get it.
But I got it.

Yay, hooray for me. I'm awesome, I know. But, yeah, this fall I will be spending three days a week trying to bring Stephen Colbert coffee without accidentally making direct eye contact. It's easily the coolest thing that's happened to me in years. However, I'm going to my best not to get too excited about it since the amount of joy and excitement I feel about something is directly related to the amount of ways it will fall apart right in front of my eyes.

So, to keep from thinking about it, I've been thinking about other cool things Like the fact that the music from Zipperface, the musical I co-wrote, is online! That's right, Brent, resident CAP documenter has uploaded a bunch of songs and soundbites from the show and they're absolutely great.
Of course, let me do my paranoid creater thing and point out the deficiencies right off the bat. Unfortunately, these were taken from the worst performance so I can hear all kinds of problems. Most obviously, this was the night that the guitar was knocked over back stage and was then out of tune for Terry's song (one of my favorites in the show, dammit) so that Dave had to stop playing. Also, you can hear people stumble over lyrics and pacing a few times and somehow we lost the recording of the title song.

Oh, I'm gonna shut up. The songs sound great and it's fantastic to finally get to hear them again. Dave, Andy, and I (and I hope Zach, as well) will be giving them and the eventual video (when it's edited) our undying attention as we try to rewrite the script and bring Zipperface to the next stage. Until then, you can enjoy these as they are and you people who missed the show can kind of see what I've been talking about for the past few months (and be really fucking confused by the references to robots and dinosaurs).

So, here are a few samples.


First off, is the opening tune by a couple members of the Hobo Band:

I can't say enough about how much these guys added to the show. They were made up by members of the New Brunswick band, the Seal Club and were led by Zach Wiseley. Zach is an absolute genius. He also arranged the songs and was able to make them sound like actual musical tunes. I would ask him to do ridiculous stuff like, "Hey, Zach, could you arrange a mixture of all the songs in the first act into one tune to play at the beginning of the second act?" and he'd just do it. Absolutely amazing.

Next we have Morese singing one of the best songs in the show:

Again, this is the night with the shitty guitar. You can hear it right at the beginning. It's so depressing because I absolutely love this song. Fortunately, Morese sells the rest of it and the band sounds great otherwise so it still works. Brent included some dialogue at the end with the punchline of the song. It's a visual joke, so you people who missed the show are gonna be lost, but the rest of us can have fun reminiscing.

Unsurprisingly, I also am posting the Cuban Robot Wars medley, which Brent kept in its entirety. It may be seven and a half minutes long and utterly nonsensical to anyone who didn't see the show (and some who did) but it includes my cameo so, whatever. Plus, it's pretty damn rocking:

For you people who are really confused, here's a brief explanation. I'll try my best to make it simple. The play Zipperface is narrated by a hobo. In the beginning he states that the reason he is able to create the show is because he has software implanted in his head from something he calls "the Cuban Robot Wars". The audience usually shrugs this off as just silly dialogue from a crazy character, however, in act two, the play is interrupted by the narrator having a seizure. Another hobo takes over, however, he doesn't actually know the plot of Zipperface so, when the show starts up again, the audience gets treated to an entirely different musical set during the fabled wars and starring all robots. I played the lead robot.
Understand? Eh. I tried.
In the things that go wrong category, this was the night that I started to laugh and then said "robat" instead of "robot" during my first line. Pretty embarassing to fuck up one of lines when you only have about eight. Especially if you wrote it.

And finally, the best song in the show, the Finale Song:

Nothing went wrong here. This song rules and it will always rule. Plus, this was the night Izzy came to see the show and she was nice enough to hoot when I came onstage to deliver my line. This makes it sound to the untrained ears like I'm some kind of super stud. If only.

If you want to listen to the rest of the songs, you can download them here:
Download: Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical - Music and Soundbites
Again, it's missing the title song but there are a few well-chosen soundbites to make up for it. Like this one:


God, I love this show.

And, hey, I'm interning at the Colbert Report!

I'd Like to Get My Hanes On

Watching TV today, I saw this commercial for bras starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.



I don't really have anything to say about it. I just wanted to point out its existance.