July 7, 2010

I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS...

Yep. The Spanish are unpacking the bag of tricks for the first time. And the Li'l Rascals show – for the second time this tournament – their inexperience. In other words, they are shitting themselves.

This does not look good.

This does not look good at all.

[UPDATE] Or dear god, we are getting hammered out there. I have the same feeling throughout all of this Argentina must have felt when they played us. There seem to be so many more red shirts on the field than white shirts. This is looking bad. Looking very bad. Oh dear... let's hope we'll make it to half-time.

[UPDATE] And it's the second half, and they are still shitting themselves. There's no movement in the German team. And going into the Spanish half seems to be virtually impossible. I believe now that we are only minutes away from the Spanish scoring. And if we lose tonight, we will have lost deservedly. There is no movement. None at all. And if Manuel Neuer hadn't caught a few impossibles, then....

BREAKING NEWS.... Kroos! The first damn time that we actually shot the damn thing! Great catch by Cassias! But still, finally... MOVEMENT (if only for one minute)

[UPDATE] ... and we are out. 1:0. I told you. Congratulations, Spain. You deserved to win this one (I know, there are still a few minutes to play, but unless there's a miracle, this won't get anywhere)...

... it was nice while it lasted. Thank you all, around the world, who crossed your fingers for us. We'll see you again in two years.

Thank you, Li'l Rascals, for some wonderful games. Don't be sad. We are not. You gave us good times.

HOW TO RECOGNISE A STUPID JOURNO, OR TWO DEGREES OF HITLER!

Simple. As proven by the Sowetan newspaper today, all it takes to do what our English neighbours have been doing for decades. Play the Germans in football?

Wait for it! Wait for it...

Bastian Schweinsteiger has the "fearsome aura of Hitler".

Oh, and yes, we "blitzed" the Argentina team. Note that apparently we didn't play them, no, we blitzed them. Because that's what Germans do, didn't you know? We are apparently still all stuck in the fucking time loop that ran between 1933 and 1945! Yes, because for some "journalists", you know the ones, the cheap, fucking lazy ones, they couldn't have come up with anything better. Germans? Football? HITLER!

You know, only Glenn Beck would have been one degree faster in this game.

Germans! HITLER!

It exposes more about the "journalist" writing up this shit than it does about us. As a nation. let me do that to some others, just to expose the hypocrisy and cheap fucking lazy attitude that is thrown around.

Every single fucking time.

South Africa? APARTHEID! No, wait. BLACK RACISM!

Great Britain? MASS MURDER AROUND THE GLOBE THROUGH THE EMPIRE!

Spain? THE INQUISITION!

USA? MULTIPLE GENOCIDE! SLAVERY! MORE GENOCIDE!

See how easy that is?

Oh, and yes, the first person who tells this bullshit to my face will get bitchslapped from here into next week. No. More like, next year. And yes, bitchslapped. Not pimpslapped. You don't deserve a pimpslap.

SOCIETY WATCH: A/Cs FRY MANHATTAN'S GRID, FORCE FAT SLOBS TO SWEAT IT OUT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE

As delightfully reported in extreme hyperbole (gotta love'em) by the BILD, the hottest day of the year in New York had every air conditioning unit in the city running like an energiser bunny, with the predictable outcome of "ooops, we don't have enough electricity".

Cue to Joe Cocker. Summer in the city. Bruce Willis in a wifebeater shirt.

Yippie-kay-yaaah, motherfucker!

I recently read that for a lot of people A/C costs are the second biggest item for some in the United States, after the mortgage. Now, we only have A/Cs in stores and malls over here (some office buildings, too, the new ones). And I always hated all of them. The constant heat/cold has made my sinuses go into overdrive since I first experienced that kind of man-made bullshit while I was at the University of Missouri in Columbia. And where the first gift to the international students coming there was...

... a packet that consisted of a shitload of Nyquil and Dayquil. In the middle of summer. In August. With the heat outside pretty much being at 35 to 37 degrees all the time. Now, this European here went, uh, okay, this makes absolutely no sense, why would they give us a "first aid" kit consisting of flu and cold medicine?

Four days later, all of us Internationals were experiencing the first A/C'ed induced "summer flu", and that continued on and off for weeks. It nearly shot my sinuses, living in that part of the country. It's why I you could not pay me enough to go back there (I was back there, one more time, in September 2001. As to why, that one is a whole different kind of horrible experience, but one that doesn't deserve to be talked about. Suffice to say, though, the weather there had not changed at all. And two days in, I had the same clogged sinuses again.)

July 6, 2010

ORANJE IS IN THE FINALS (AFTER A HORRIBLY BORING GAME)

Yes. They are Germany now. Germany circa 2002. Sneaking into the finals. I have not seen a good game by them during this tournament. Like Germany, circa 2002. But they fight football. Like Germany, circa 2002.

With the exception of Brazil, they didn't have to play tough teams.

Like Germany, circa 2002.

But still, they are in the finals, and we are not (yet). So, congratulations, boys! You made it. And we still have to.

But that doesn't make your game tonight a good one ^.^

QUOTE OF THE DAY: THE INDUSTRY IS INCAPABLE OF PROGRESS

I belatedly came to realise that the comics industry does not want progress. In fact it isn’t capable of it, Alan Moore, 2010
One of the reasons why Alan Moore is one of the very few people I do respect is the fact that – while he has done his fair share of Mary Sues – he has also created some of the very few literary masterpieces comic books has ever done. And no, I'm not talking about Watchmen, which was and still is one of the most perfect examples of craftsmanship ever on display, but yet nothing more than the Mary Sue taken to its most extreme and logical end point.

Nor am I talking about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which I still consider as Moore's best satirical take on the Mary Sue (you want fan fiction? I'll give you fan fiction! I will use and rob everything MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

No. I do think that Moore's and Eddie Campbell's From Hell is one of the very few pieces of literature that the medium has ever produced. It is flawless. Disgusting. Beautiful. Poetic. And filthy.

And so I will miss Moore as a comics writer.

But in the end, he will do other things. Better things. Pushing himself further.

And that is what makes him a creator.

There are other quotes from this interview conducted by Comic Book Heroes, which tell it like it is and tell it like nobody wants to hear. Companies that are run by scumbags, Mary Sue writers who are willing to clean the dick cheese of those scumbags... and "fans" who defend these scumbags.

And while I'm not Alan Moore (for one, I have better hair), I will talk a bit about the Mary Sue in one of my forthcoming blog entries. And how it is slowly eroding not only the creative process, but also eroding pretty much all so-called creative industries as well.

TOMORROW, TOMORROW, TOMMOROW: OLÉ! COME ON, EL TOROS! OLÉ!

Well, today I shall watch the Dutch hopefully demolish the new Hands of God squad of Uruguay, so that they will advance to the finals (this one goes to my friend Edo, go Oranjes, go go go!)

And tomorrow, it's us and Spain. Oh boy. That will be a hell of a difficult match. While the Spanish have not played well this tournament (and I defy anybody to tell me different), they have been the best team in the world for at least the past three years. At some point they will unpack their bags of tricks, and holy hell, if they play, they play. I just hope it won't be tomorrow ^.^

One more time, and the L'il Rascals would be in the finals.

And it would be the most deserved advance to the finals since 1990 (because, as every German knows, we quietly weaseled our way into the finals in 2002, and while the finale of 1986 was the result of the typical "we will not give up" football fighting style the German team has been infamous for over the decades, let us not delude ourselves that both in 1986 and 1982 we were playing good footie. We weren't. We went on through sheer force of will... and in 1982 through one of the worst cheats in World Championship history. Yes. Let us be honest.)

And yes, I know that the best team does not necessarily win the title.

Remember Greece in 2004? They were the worst offenders of football as a game that I remember. Even worse than Italy in 2006. And yet, both teams claimed those titles as better teams (Portugal in 2004 and Germany in 2006) were left with nothing but admiration. And hell, you can't put butter on your bread for that.

So, in a pre-final analysis... I hope the Li'l Rascals win the damn thing. But even if they don't, they are a team with a future. And the others aren't.

And that alone is something to be thankful for.

Now, go out and play ball!

July 5, 2010

THE WRITE STUFF: WHEN YOU CANNOT DIRECT AN ACTION SEQUENCE, YOU SHOULD BE VERY, VERY QUIET (AND I MEAN, HUSH, DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK)

When I look at something like this – what should have been a rather exciting heist roughly half into the movie The Losers, I just have to sit back and laugh. At the sheer incompetence of the thing. Why incompentence? The shots are all blocked okay, aren't they? Lighting? All there. Some kind of non-descript downtown in some non-descript American city.

So you cannot blame the cinematographer. Nor the lighting, or otherwise Christian Bale (not in this movie, I am making a point here) would have gone "we are done, professionally" on somebody's ass.

Who's left to blame? The writer? Uh, no. He probably wrote something like AND THE CHARGE EXPLODES. THE VAN IS LIFTED UP INTO THE SKY. CHAOS ENSUES.

That's how much "writers" in Hollywood usually write about a scene. Because, see, it's all about the director. The director has a "vision". The "writer" has to use very small words and be as stupid and non-descript as possible as to not step on that director's "vision".

A director has a vision? Oh, fucking please.

German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once said that if you have visions, you should consult a psychiatrist. You don't need a vision. You need a plan.

The director here? The one with the "vision", but no plan? Sylvain White of Stomp The Yard and I Always And Forever Will Know What Happened On That Day Seven Summers Ago That We Are Desperately Trying To Forget.

So, Mr. White, this one's all on you. Come on down!

Accept your asswhupping like a man! And don't you come with excuses! You had a vision, didn't you? You're the guy with the microphone on the set. You are – like every director – god! Everybody does what you tell them to do! And this is what they did, eh?

Come on down, Mr. White! Accept your "I had no fucking clue what I was doing" award! Come on down! And tell me about your "vision"!

Let us go through the abortion of a direction frame by frame, shall we? And remember, kids, this one takes place during rush hour in a downtown area. Keep that in mind at all times.


When you are doing a frame that follows directly the beginning of a prolonged firefight on an open street, with dozens and dozens of cars around the main action, please have extras in the cars. And by extras, I don't mean one single business-suit attired old guy who stumbles into the frame from the right, without any regard for his life, looking like he's at a show in Orlando, Florida.


Even better than that? Right in the middle of the death zone, you have what appears to be a bike cop walk through the frame! While in the back, people are shooting in all directions (I'm not even going to get into the fact that there was another cop a frame earlier, who – I shit you not, people – looked like he was directing... traffic! Note how both cops (this one you see here, netflix the movie to see the other) never once reach for their guns. Or duck. Or take cover. Nope. Because that's not who we are.


But wait! It gets better! See this here? In the middle of a firefight that's been going on for at least two minutes now (the smoke in the back of the frame? That's tear gas), Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the other dude are maybe 40 metres away from the death zone. See this frame? Look carefully. Not a single person has left his car. There's no chaos. There are no people trying to get away. Nope. Everybody's right where they are supposed to be. Safety first, kids. Stay in your cars, lock the windows and let Pappy Cheney protect you!


And even when they blow shit up... nobody's moving. What is this? Baghdad? Is this one of these moments, where you go, oh, well, it's the wrong time, I guess, to stop sniffing glue (and if you don't know what I am referencing, shame on you)


But my favourite shot? This one, at the end of the sequence. Please remember that Jeffrey Dean Morgan and his buddy are roughly 40 metres away from the death zone. In heavy traffic. After minutes of shooting. And tear gas. And a helicopter whisking away a van.

And the one, single reaction you get? Look to the right background of the frame. Where there should be people running and screaming. But what you get is – I shit you not – a single granny, who tip-toes in an almost Keystone Cop manner, looking briefly back and then stopping, as if an idiot in the director's chair said, well, that's far enough now, Grandma.

Yes, Mr. White. This one's all you.

And I have seen far too many movies with "direction" like this. From "professionals", who apparently do not possess the ability to direct a scene that requires more than the foreground framing. Don't worry about the reactions, eh? Or what would really happen in a firefight in heavy traffic? Or even... how to make this look cool. 

I have had my own experiences (as some of you may have noticed while reading this blog) with artists, who took the short cut. Who went, why bother with a master frame when it is enough to go American or go close? After all, who will notice?

I will. I have. And I am. Noticing it every single fucking time.

And I don't respect you.

July 4, 2010

SORE LOSERS (MARADONA EDITION)


Of course, why doesn't it surprise me that Maradona would go off and attack the German fans? Yes, they were cheering. Yes. They were making jokes. The phrase "Ihr könnt nach hause fahren! Ihr könnt nach hause fahren..." is one of the staple chants in any German stadium, which means "You can go home now".  And the banner, "tschüss, Maradona!". Yeah, what a fucking insult that was.

But of course, let us not insult royalty!

Not the guy whose big fucking claim to fame is "the hand of god", and who was so arrogant pre-game that he told the press that they essentially were already in the finals, and who was Germany to begin with. Just like three months ago he insulted Thomas Müller by saying "who he?"

Thomas Müller's reply on the pitch can be thus translated to Maradona. Let me do it for you, okay? It reads like this.

What's my name? Say it! What's the name? Thomas Müller is the name! Say it! Thomas Fucking Müller! And I'm not your ball boy! Say my name, bitch!

Didn't I tell you this before, class?

Arrogance through ignorance.

Will get you killed every single time.

July 3, 2010

LI'L RASCALS DEMOLISH ARGENTINA! 4:0!

Yes! Maradona now fucking knows who the hell Thomas Müller is!

And what Bastian Schweinsteiger did in prepping for 3:0? That was pure humiliation! No, no... I want you to think about this. Germany is humiliating Argentina. Let me repeat that.

GERMANY IS HUMILIATING ARGENTINA!

When the hell did we learn how to play football? I mean, not just fight football, but actually play it? I tell you when. When coach Joachim Löw decided to go for the youngest team ever. And they said, thank you.

And now it is our turn.

To say thank you.

Go, Li'l Rascals! Go all the way!

TODAY IS THE DAY (ARGENTINA EDITION)

Can they be beaten? Yes. Can they be beaten by the Li'l Rascals? I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I could say without confidence that Argentina is going to get a well-deserved asswhupping today. But I fear they will be like Brazil, only worse. They are known to become punishment whores when things turn sour. And so, I hope that the German team won't let themselves be provoked. Not by the prima donna behaviour. And not by the extended Shakespearean death scenes we are likely to be witness to today.

And that after today, Diego Maradona will never again forget who Thomas Müller is. I want the little love hobbit to have nightmares about this Bavarian kid for the rest of his life. I want him to wake up screaming that kid's name. In fear. And sweating.

That's not too much to ask for, is it?

July 2, 2010

ORANJE! ORANJE! ORANJE!

The Netherlands just sent Brazil home! And deservedly so! What a fight! What passion! And how they spanked the Brazilian divas! Who were too lazy after their 1:0 to actually do anything. Who were in their minds already in the semis.

And who showed what ugly bitches they are, deep inside, when they were behind. That foul? That horrible foul? Kicking your opponent's ankle while he is down, with full force?

You ugly sons of bitches!

Such a foul is inexcusable!

I'm glad you are gone. You have shown never more than three to five minutes of excellence each game, and you always got away with it, thinking that it was enough.

Good riddance. And don't let the door hit you on your way out.

And the Oranjes?

Man, you folks were awesome!

HOW YOU WILL KNOW THAT YOU LIVED YOUR LIFE THE RIGHT WAY

When you die and there's a line of people wanting to piss on your grave so long, they need to pay an entry fee just to get to it. When it's so long that some of them die of old age while they are waiting their turn. Because know this. People will hate you. People will loathe you.

When all you care about is the truth.

THE WRITE STUFF: HOW TO CONDENSE YOUR ENTIRE STORY INTO ONE CENTRAL IMAGE (IT TAKES A WIZARD EDITION)

Since I said that plot is easy (and it is), the visualisation is key to everything.

One has to be able to write a teaser for the movie before even starting the screenplay. 2.30 minutes, maybe 3.00 minutes that tells you everything there is to entice audiences. Now, I know that the "normal" way is to not really worry about it until much later. And that thinking has given us trailers on top of trailers throughout the past ten years or so that – once we got through them – we didn't have to watch the movie anymore. And in a time of YouTube, that counts.  People now have the choice to leave you at the altar, unloved and unpaid. After those condensed "this is your movie" trailers.

What is the central image for It Takes A Wizard?

The goblins? The stand-off between Everett and Isaac? Hope going berserk on people's asses?

No. These are scenes, all of them. Some of them good scenes. Some of them, not so much. The central image is this. Isaac. With Hope. Facing all of the creatures. One man. Alone. And he tells them. "That's right. You know who I am. What I am. And what I can do." And they are afraid of him.

In terms of said teaser, it would play a little something like this.

Oh, and the first person to come to me and state that "this is not your problem, we'll have a director who will handle this, and a team of the best professionals will think about this," I strongly suggest reading my post on how the It Takes A Wizard logo came about.

You should read it very fast, though, because that swooshing sound behind you? That's my boot. And it's about to go up your ass. I will never, never want to ever hear the phrase "the best professionals" again. These professionals? They'll have to prove themselves... to me. No longer the other way around.

Because when somebody tells you that "the best professionals are going to work on this", what he means is that he hasn't even begun to think about the problem!

So, if you are one of those. Don't expect my respect.