Reviewsday Tuesday #1: Clue (1985 Movie)

Let me begin by stating that, while I hope to make my Reviewsday Tuesdays a thing, it is not a very high priority & therefore do not be surprised if I miss a week or two.  Now on to the review:

       This week I watched the 1985 mystery/comedy Clue -- based on the board game of the same name.  It reminded me quite a bit of 1976's Murder by Death.  Both are highly-farcical mystery/comedies that parody the archetypal "murder in a country mansion" setting with ensemble casts each trying to figure out which one of them -- or the supporting characters -- killed the victim.  Comparing the two, I would say that Clue had a much funnier & more satisfying ending (well, endings, rather -- the plural.  In keeping with the spirit of the game it has multiple separate & contradictory endings.  According to Wikipedia, when it was in theaters, different theaters were sent films with one of the several endings, so depending on where thou sawest it, the endings would be different.  On Netflix & the home videos, all three endings are spliced together so thou canst see them all, but it is done in such a way that makes it even funnier than just the one, in my opinion. But I digress....) As I was saying, while they are both hilarious, I enjoyed the body -- pun intended -- of Murder by Death a more than Clue, though Clue had a better finish.  I think if thou hast seen & enjoyed either one, thou wilt enjoy the other.

       The plot is essentially the same as the game: six colour-coded people show up at a mansion, the owner -- Mr. Boddy -- gets murdered, they must figure out whodunit; but the movie adds several new & interesting elements, such as supporting characters & backstories.  I am hardly the best judge of this sort of thing, but to me, the acting in this movie is excellent.  Although a couple of the characters are different from the version of the game that I am familiar with, each of their personalities is perfectly captured, from Lesley Ann Warren's sultry Miss Scarlet to the excitable Professor Plum, played by Christopher Lloyd, better known for his role as another coloured man: Doc Brown from Back to the Future.  Though some of the jokes are bit racy, all in all the cast really comes together to deliver a quintessential 80's cheesefest comedy, though the 1950's setting does make it feel more like a film from the 70's at times.

       That is my recommendation: if thou likest that 70's/80's-style comedy, clever parodies, and/or mystery movies, thou wilt probably like this film.  I placed it at #22 out of 98 on my Favourite Comedy Movies of All Time Seen Since November 21st, 2008, just below Megamind & just above the Mexican film Instructions Not Included.  10/11 Stars. (Murder by Death is five spots up at #17, in case thou art wondering.)

#TheArtAssignment: Never Seen, Never Will Follow-up

So Nadia & my Art Assignment (if thou dost not know of what I speak, click here) was featured in the highlights video, so I thought I would make this quick follow-up post just in case ye were curious:

As ye can see, she did a most excellent job.

On the Road Again.

Today we finally got under way in Pampero, resuming our travels around the country.  The first place we went was Wheel Inn, a diner in Cabazon near Palm Springs, famous for its large dinosaur statues:

Unfortunately, the diner had to close in October of 2013, but the gift shop in the Apatosaurus is still in operation, though it closes at 1700 so we were to late to visit for that day.  We walked around & took a few pictures before heading to the Yucca Valley Walmart for the night.

Random Fact: The Wheel Inn Diner opened in 1958, the same year my Mum was born.

I Made a Thing: #TheArtAssignment, Never Seen, Never Will

       For those of ye who do not yet know, The Art Assignment is a YouTube channel from PBS Digital.  Each week they visit an artist, talk about them & their work, then the artist comes up with a project the viewers can complete.  The goal of the channel is to "demystify the art-making process & bring you to a wider understanding of what art is & what it can be." [learn more about The Art Assignment here]
       The latest assignment was to "think of something that exists that you've never seen, and probably never will", then "articulate it", so I thought it would be a good idea to get together with another assignee, have each of us write a description of ourselves (both physical & a bit about our interests), send them to each other, then try & draw each other based on those descriptions.  I soon connected with someone, & they sent me this:

I'm a classically-trained musician.  My primary instrument is voice (soprano).  I'm currently getting my master's degree, and I am teaching music theory as a grad assistant. My favorite thing to do is curl up with a good book, with classicaI music in the background (Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss).  I love to read (my favorite book series is The Lord of the Rings), watch nerdy shows like Star Trek and Doctor Who, and watch movies (Star Wars is my favorite). I've gotten way into YouTube over the past year, especially the Vlogbrothers (of course) and Crash Course. This past week, I started listening to Night Vale, and I love it now too.
[...]I'm a 28 year old woman, a bit overweight and medium height (5'7"). Pear-shaped (big hips). I have an oval face, and pale skin (I'm white). My hair is cut about halfway between my chin and my shoulders. It curls out a bit at the very tips, but is otherwise straight.  I have bangs swept to the left side of my face. My hair is light brown (kind of like Shailene Woodley's). My eyes are green (not brilliantly green, with some brown in them, but not quite hazel). My nose and lips are normal sized? I don't usually wear lipstick, but I do wear mascara and light purple/pink eyeshadow.  I usually wear dresses or skirts  with tights (for work).

Based on that, I came up with this:

First off, let me state that I wanted to colourize it, but it seems that in the hustle & bustle of moving things to & from the RV, I have misplaced my coloured pencils.  Perhaps when I find them I shall draw another, but for now this must suffice.
       This project was a very interesting process to work through.  After several attempts to do a portrait-style rendering of the subject, I concluded that I lacked the technical skill to adequately capture the beauty of the human form in a manner that I deemed acceptable, so I had to alter my approach.  I decided to take a more figurative direction, attempting to capture the general spirit of the subject via the use of background scenery & such.  I did my best to be physically accurate as well, but, as I stated above, I found my abilities a bit lacking.  This lack also led to the final image being somewhat different from the one I had in my head.  As I would flub a line here or there, or make an awkward angle of perspective, I would have to make changes.  This is especially evident in the way she is sitting.  I would start from the feet & work my way up, altering the angle or placement of the various parts depending on how the lower bits turned out.  Although it was occasionally annoying, I found that this approach really freed up my stylus, & the final draft is a product of her description, my intentions, & the whims of fate & fancy; sacrificing accuracy for the sake of art.
       For me, that has always been both the greatest challenge & greatest greatness of making pictorial art: I am a realist at heart, & want to create the most perfect representation of the real & imagined worlds in my head, yet my skill is such that even my best work comes out looking somewhat cartoonish.  But what of it?  Even though I am sometimes frustrated by my inability to capture the images in my mind, the act of drawing is fun & stimulating to the soul, & I am (almost always) quite proud of the finished product, however unlike the ideal it is.  This Art Assignment really revealed to me that art is a collaboration between the artist's brain & body: it is the imagination's creation as interpreted by the artist's abilities.  That often the very act of creating changes the creation.
       Thanks to The Art Assignment for inspiring this idea, & thanks to Nadiact1000 for coming along with me on this artistic journey.  To see her side of the project, click here (Ye should definitely check it out.  I dare say it looks quite a bit like me, as ye can also see in my follow-up post)

Random Fact:  Although it looks like I snuck a self-portrait in there, that is actually supposed to be a picture of Richard Strauss.  The reason it looks so good is because -- except for the hair -- I traced it off of a portrait I found online :P Other than that, I either drew everything freehand, or traced it from earlier drafts I drew freehand.

2014-4-7: So I Just Noticed They Have the Date in an Obvious Box Right Up There...

       Therefore, I shall henceforth dispense with using the date in my post titles.
       But the main reason I am making this post is to give ye a quick update on where things are, just in case anyone does not watch the Vlog: My studies are ongoing, though I now expect to take the SAT in June, so that buys me a little more time.  Also, the RV trip (the first part of which you can read about on The Williams' Road Trip Blog, which recently moved to a new URL: http://thewilliamsroadtrip.izacktheyak.com/ ) shall be resuming sometime this week, so that is going to change things around here.  This shall become what it was originally intended to be: a sort of travel journal.  I shall no longer post "life updates" -- those will become the sole domain of the Vlog.  I shall continue to post the occasional book, movie, & cetera reviews here, & it shall also serve as a platform to showcase any non-video stuff I make (the first post of which shall be coming later today).
       Now, to those of ye that do watch the Vlog, do not be afraid: VTV shall continue to air for the foreseeable future.  VTV is just a brief (my current unwritten-until-just-now rule is that they can have a maximum length of 10 minutes, though I am thinking of increasing that to 15 depending on how things go in the coming weeks) overview of where I went & what I did that day, while this Blog -- henceforth to be known by its name, Viaggio di Vidrio, or the abbreviation thereof: VV -- shall house a more detailed, but less visual, record of the same, like the posts over on The Williams' Road Trip.
      Speaking of which, The Williams' Road Trip is going to continue to be updated as well, but I am no longer going to post there (well, I plan to finish catching up the New York City trip myself, but nothing after that).  Instead, it is to be run by my Mum & become her Blog, while VV is to be mine.
       So that is how things stand around here.  As I stated above, I am going to make another post today, but then after that am probably not going to post anything until the Travel begins.  Hopefully I shall see ye on the road.

V. out.

Random Fact:  Before science was able to develop the insulin-producing bacteria we use to help diabetics today, those who needed it had to get their insulin from pigs. (source: Mental_Floss)

2014-2-26: Oops. Thought I Posted This a Month Ago:

Sorry about that.  I typed out a post about how the blog was going to be on hiatus for a month or two due to the fact that -- between the Vlog & studying for the SAT's -- I did not want to also have the responsibility of posting here on a schedule.  But I saved it as a draft when I had to leave suddenly & then never went back & posted it so...yeah.  But the hiatus is still on for now, as I have just about two months to get through my entire Calculus course in time for the May SAT.  I might pop in every now & then, but the blog will not be updated on a regular basis.  Make sure to subscribe by typing your e-mail in the box up top if you have not already, so you can be notified when I start posting again.  Until then, V. out. (self-referencing FTW!)

Random Fact:  The first traffic light in New York City was installed today (February 25th) in 1930

2014-1-18: Movie Review #1: Frozen

I have not done one of these in a while, and it seems like this would be a good way to keep the blog up to date as long as there is still nothing of great noteworthiness going on.

             Anyhow, yesterday I finally got to see Frozen, the latest from Disney's Animation Studios.  I don't want to spoil the movie for those of ye who have not yet seen it, but I also want to tell ye what I think about it, so I shall see what I can do.
             The movie is about two sisters -- the daughters of the king and queen of a Norwegian-inspired fictional kingdom -- and their adventures.  Without giving too much away, I can say that the story revolves around the kingdom falling under an eternal winter, and the sisters' journey to try and bring it to an end.  That much you can probably tell from the trailer, but to tell you any more might ruin it for you.  I do not mean to say that it will ruin the plot -- because there is still much to say before even nearing spoiler territory -- but I think in this case the less you know about the movie the more enjoyable it will be.  That is not to say that I think having the movie spoiled would ruin the enjoyment, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of the plot going in, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was much more to it.
             Since I do not want to tell y'all too much more about the plot, let me simply list the things I think they did very well with the movie, and the things that bugged me.  Positives:  First and foremost, dat snowman tho:  The snowman (Olaf, whom ye have no doubt seen if you have seen more than a half second of promotional material for this film) was, in my opinion, one of the greatest triumphs.  From the preview et cetera, I was afraid he might be just an annoying sight gag character to make the under five crowd laugh without being terribly funny, but he was far from that -- actually, that is kind of what he was, but he was not annoying in the least and very funny.  I could not tell you exactly why I found him so funny, all I know is that even lines that I would never have found amusing are somehow hilarious when he says them.  Another thing that really stuck out to me was the ending.  I cannot tell you what it is, just that it is probably the best ending to a Disney movie this side of Pixar that I can remember.
             The animation was 3-D (I do not mean 3-D like with the glasses 3-D, although that is an option we saw it in 2-D, but I mean the 3-D CGI animation like the Shrek movies as opposed to the 2-D of movies like Lion King, Snow White, et cetera) and that was interesting.  I generally prefer 2-D animation for some reason, and indeed, at first I did think to myself "this would have been better in 2-D IMO."  But when the snow stuff started really happening, the 3-D made it much more impressive.  And I do not think Olaf the Snowman would have worked as well in 2-D.  By the end of the movie the 3-D had won me over and I really liked it, but at first I had trouble thinking of it as a Disney movie because of the three dimensions.  The music also had its good and bad side.  The quality of the songs ranged from good to excellent, but some of them were -- in my opinion -- criminally short.  Not just in the way of "I really like that song and wish there were more of it to love", but rather like "That song just started and then ended and did not really add anything to the movie."  Again, all the songs were awesome except one or two, and even those were very good, just some of them seemed to come and go and jar you out of the immersion with their abruptness.  The only thing that really bugged me was the way in which they dealt with the other LUV INTEREST:  you see the Ice Salesman Guy in the trailers, and he is great, but there is a Prince that shows up in the very beginning that falls in love with one of the sisters.  I really cannot say what bugged me about it without spoiling certain plots, but I the way they resolve this love triangle leaves something to be desired.
             But even with these complaints, Frozen still ties Chicken Run for #5 of 87 Comedy Movies watched since November 21st, 2008, making it my second favourite Disney movie* behind #4: The Emperor's New Groove. Also, in a funny twist of fate, the movie right below it on the list also happens to be a winter film: White Christmas.

[EDIT: For some reason, there are several Disney movies missing from my lists -- namely, The Aristocats, Finding Nemo, Up, and Wall-E -- that I need to re-watch before I can repeat that statement with confidence. Groove is still my favourite though.]

2013-1-7: HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2014!

So it is 2014 now.  I am still trying to finish my NaNoWriMo novel so I can get it edited and released before June, and also trying to get back on track with schoolwork.  The blog will have to wait until I can figure out this new year's schedule, so for now that is all.  I'm still going to try to update it at least once a week, but they will just be shortish posts like this until further notice.

Random Fact:  Carl Berner died today.  He was 110 years and 346 days old.  At the time of his death he was the 2nd oldest American and 2nd oldest German-born man on this globe.  Also, Margaret Ann Neve is the only known person who lived in the 20th century who was born in the 18th century.