I was at the movies last night and saw the new Hellboy II poster up in the lobby. It really caught my eye with its simplistic style. Most sci-fi hero type movies go for very exaggerated poses and wide angle perspective shots of the characters- which is fine. After all, comic art is precisely that but you gotta love the perspective of his profile at ground level. Hellboy is bullseye dead center, which is a amateur no no in photography and graphic design but when you know the rules, you know how and when to break them. The artist pulls it off nicely. The colors are bland and dark as it should be. This is Hellboy. A demon from hell here to save mankind. The contrast of Hellboy's red skin against the gray and golden sky really makes him pop. The title and text above and below him are centered and very old school in its layout. Again, to sum up it's very simple and I love it. It's definitely going up in my room when it goes on sale online. Hellboy II comes out July 11th.
A Hell Of A Poster
Mutt Williams And The Comb of Destiny
Tonight I finally got a chance to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom on the Crystal Skull. I purposefully didn't read any reviews prior to seeing it as to not spoil any plot lines or have anyone else's opinion poison my movie going brain. I did hear, however, that people either hated it or loved it. I loved it. SPOILER ALERT: I'm sure I'll read or hear people complain about the ending and how so far fetched or un-Indy-like it is. I would have to disagree. No one in the movie says the word aliens but come on they're friggin aliens. And so what? Is it really all that crazy? How about a beam of light that melts Nazi faces off, pulling hearts of chests or a Holy Grail that makes you age instantly. The intent of the Indy movies are not to get kids to care about history. It's about adventure, globe trotting and following clues to the fun ending that bitch slaps history books in the face. It takes place about 20 years after that last movie (the same length of time since the last movie came out) and all the characters are that much older. Indy doesn't pretend he's the same ripe young age he was in the previous films. There are plenty of old man jokes coming out of the mouth of Shia LaBeouf's character Mutt Williams. Nevertheless Indy still cracks a whip like he used to. It's not much of a spoiler here but Mutt Williams turns out to be Indy's son and it hints to a spin off or continuation of the franchise with Shia as the leading man. I think it can technically still be called Indiana Jones even without Harrison Ford for this reason: Indiana is not really Indiana's name. Henry Jones Jr. is his name and Mutt is not really Mutt's name. Mutt's real name is Henry Jones III. Mutt is a name he gave to himself and with that reasoning he can always change it to Indiana as a tribute to his father. Either way I would give it a chance and check it out. If you get a chance, see this one too.
Attack of the Tripods
f/5 @ 10 seconds
f/5.6 @ 1/5 second
A composite made in PhotoshopThe Nikon DSexy
My latest purchase... the Nikon D60. The successor to the D40x, the D60 adds a few new features such as vibration reduction (VR) and other minor upgrades. If I owned the D40x, I don't think the price tag would be worth the upgrade, but since I don't, I do! This baby is awesome. 10.2 megapixels. 18-55mm lens. 2.5" LCD. This is my first DSLR and from what I hear it's a perfect entry level camera. I've read through the 190 page manual about two times learning how to set all the various functions. Of course now I have to buy all the necessary accessories to go with it: UV filter, tripod, and camera bag. My buddy Mike recently bought the Rebel XTi and the camera bag he bought is just awesome so I chose to buy the same one but instead of gray trim I'm going with the camo.
Below are a few pictures I took experimenting with depth of field. Check them out.
The Office
This past week I stayed home from work for about 4 days with the flu. It was horrible. Instead of enjoying my time away from the office environment, I subconsciously chose to re-watch episodes from The Office to get my daily fix of phones ringing, keyboards typing, and pranks a pulling. Well, everything except the awesome pranks. I wish I had an arch nemesis at work I can pull pranks on... Mike, if you're reading this keep an eye out...
I Am Iron Man
So tonight I saw Iron Man for the second time in 24 hours. Yeah, it's that good. One of the best superhero movies I've ever seen. Robert Downey Jr. nailed the roll of Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, inventor turned gold and titanium plated crime fighter. The origin story followed Stark to the Middle East who got kidnapped by a terrorist group and forced to build a missile. Stark with the help of a fellow prisoner instead secretly build an iron suit to escape captivity. Due to injuries sustained while being captured, Tony got shrapnel in his chest which is slowly making its way to his heart. To prevent this, he implanted an electro magnet to his chest which also serves as the suit's energy source. Back home in California, Tony builds an upgraded suit to use to destroy the weapons his company sold to terrorist groups around the globe. Obidiah Stane is Tony's business partner and the one responsible to selling weapons under the table to these groups. He steals Stark's ideas and has a suit made for himself and later becomes Iron Monger the chief villain in the film. The movie runs just over 2 hours which gives it plenty of time to build a great story with characters you like. There is plenty of humor and action that makes the time fly by and keeps you wanting more. The specials effects by ILM are incredible. As a bonus, there are a few tie ins to an Avengers spin off and/or a sequel with War Machine. Stay after the credits for a short scene with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) confronting Tony with a proposition to join what he calls the "Avenger Initiative." Where do I sign up?
