Archive for March, 2007
Linkdump for 3/29/07 - X has a Good Agent
David Lynch on Product Placement
Scorcese used the letter X throughout The Departed to signify impending doom.
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez pick their top 10 favorite movie posters.
This is insanely great.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
Mario & Sonic are finally coming together for their first game, and it’s an odd one.
The good:
- Miyamoto is “very closely involved”
- Sonic Team, responsible for the rash of truly awful recent Sonic games, is NOT involved.
- It’s for the Wii and the DS
The odd:
- It’s officially licensed by the International Olympic Committee
- It has events like ping pong, swimming and the 100 meter dash.
The Snow White Orgy
The so-called “Snow White Orgy” refers to a massive party that Walt Disney threw to reward the crew that worked on his immensely successful film Snow White. Things got a little out of hand, hence the name. A little back-story:
Conditions at the Disney Studios during the production of Snow White were more than a little harsh. Women and men worked apart, with the mostly female Ink and Paint department separated from the mostly male Animators. A memo was sent out to the animators by the Disney brothers that they weren’t supposed to “dip your pen in the company’s ink and paint”, a subtle reminder that the women of Ink and Paint were off-limits. Even dirty jokes were a grounds for dismissal if Walt was in earshot. A strict dress code saw men coming to work in ties and jackets (although they were allowed to remove them when they were at their drawing boards) and women forbidden from wearing pants and forced to wear neutral-colored skirts and blouses. Add to these repressive conditions the pressure and stress that came with creating the world’s first animated feature, working day and night with little time for leisure, and you’ve got a group of people in desperate need of a little fun.
The Disney brothers recognized this and decided to throw a massive bash at the Narconian Hotel near Palm Springs for all of his employees and their families (if they had any). The hotel had lavish accommodations, with swimming pools, tennis courts, a golf courts, music and all the food and alcohol they could want. All expenses were paid by Walt. They were free to spend as much as they’d like. The sudden shift from misery to luxury meant that something had to give.
It started when an animator threw an ink and paint girl, fully clothed, into the pool. Other jumped in after her. Then the bathing suits came off.
Next thing everyone knew, they were waking up in rooms that weren’t their own, alongside people they didn’t know. One animator, Freddie Moore, thought he was on the ground floor when he stepped off his balcony and ended up in a tree.
Walt was horrified by the bacchanalia and drove home with his wife the first thing the following morning. He never spoke of the party again and it was an unspoken rule that you didn’t mention it either if you wanted to stay employed. He never threw a party like that again.
(Based on Jim Korkis‘ interview with Bill Justice from Walt’s People, Vol. 3. There’s precious little about this on the internet, even if you’re brave enough to google “Snow White Orgy”.)
Zefrank is Handicap Accessible
My deaf and (legally) blind mother-in-law just linked me to zefrank. If that’s not crossover appeal I don’t know what is.
I emailed the guy to let him know. He responded insanely quickly. Nice guy, too.
Linkdump for 3/28/07 - Straight Talk Express My Ass
Oof. Just when you think you couldn’t hate McCain more. What the hell happened to him?
NiGHTS Sequel Confirmed!
Do you know how long I’ve waited to pretend I’m a flying hermaphrodite again?!
And it’s for the Wii! It’ll be like having a flying hermaphrodite IN MY HAND!
For the record…
If the movie shows up rated, chances are I haven’t seen it before. I’ve been noting the more egregious deficits in the films I’ve seen (Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia) but from now on I’ll save that space for actual comments.
I’ll be here all geek…
More like God of War 2: Be Continued, am I right folks?
I finished the game in just over 12 hours. It may sound short, but that was in two sittings. Now it’s 3:20 in the morning and my eyes are too parched to sleep.
Yojimbo
Yojimbo was publicly stated to be inspired by The Glass Key but is believed to actually be an uncredited film version of Red Harvest. Either way, Yojimbo was remade into A Fistful of Dollars but they didn’t secure the rights and so Kurosawa sued. He won and 15% of the film’s worldwide gross and exclusive distribution rights for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea was awarded to Kurosawa. He said he made more money off of A Fistful of Dollars than Yojimbo.
Yojimbo had a sequel, Sanjuro, and that in turn is also being remade. No idea whether they got the rights for it, though.
Someone did get the rights to remake Yojimbo, though: Bruce Willis’ Last Man Standing. It was crap.
This film was pretty great, though.
When the dog runs down the block with a severed hand, Bowser leapt into my lap with his chew toy of Mickey’s Hand.
