It was one year ago this past week...

...that Ronald Reagan passed away.

I know that there is - and probably will always be - some debate about his times as President of the United States. The man wasn't perfect by any stretch. Then again, who among us is anyway?

But I always admired Reagan. Part of his charm was that he wasn't afraid to admit having human foibles. He spoke with people, not at them or down to them. And they were people from all walks of life: foreign dignitaries, ecclesiastical authorities, or humble family farmers.

We were in Atlanta, me and Lisa and one of her friends from college, when the news broke that Reagan had died. We were on our way to the Lord of the Rings concert with Howard Shore conducting (I got the tickets about six months earlier, a Christmas present for Lisa). The concert was great, but all night it felt like... like the era of my childhood was finally, at last, finished. You didn't grow up in the Eighties without being in Reagan's shadow somehow: he was that kind of bigger than life. Nancy was bigger than life. Remember when we saw Reagan walking around the White House rose garden with Michael Jackson? Today Reagan is dead and Jacko is awaiting the verdict in his child molestation trial.

What the hell's happened to this country?

That was Saturday when he died. We were leaving back for home Tuesday morning and it was Monday night, while watching the mourners file past his casket at the Reagan Library in California, that I decided I had to go to D.C. and pay my respects to the man. We got back home about 10 that night and 12 hours later I hit the road again. Met up with some friends from the Internet along the procession route on Constitution Avenue and about 6 that evening the caisson bearing his casket filed past where we were standing...

I stayed in D.C. one more day, getting in line late Thursday night to try and get into the Capitol rotunda where his remains lay in state. It was like seven hours' wait from the far end of the Air and Space Museum, through five large "holding pens" on the Mall set up to accommodate the crowd, but just after the beautiful sunrise broke at dawn ("mourning in America", I couldn't help but think) our group got inside and were there for what turned out to be the next-to-last changing of the guard done in the Rotunda. Sure didn't seem like that long a wait though: all through the night I met with some really neat people from all over the place. Domino's and Papa John's were delivering pizzas to folks waiting in line (how they were told which holding pen to come to I've no idea). The Park Service had bottles of water for everyone. It was a little before 8 when we got through the buiding and I took the train back to my waiting car, drove to my hotel and packed up and went home.

I started writing about this a few days ago but got caught up in some things on this end. Wanted to come back and finish up this lil' tribute to the man. Wish this country could have other men of his kind of caliber in high office.

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The Nazis invented the sex doll (saywhuuuu...??)

Started randomly looking at other blogs this evening and found one called Suspect on film and since I'm a World War II freak his most recent post caught my eye. From Blogcritics.org...

The Nazis invented the sex doll

The Nazis invented the worst thing ever: the assembly-line death factory. But they also invented something else, perhaps the only legacy of theirs that endures to this very day. During World War II, Hitler's war machine created the world's first sex doll: Borghild.

The ”field-hygienic project” was an initiative of Himmler, who regarded the doll as a ”counterbalance” for the sexual drive of his stormtroopers. In one of his letters, he mentions the ”unnessessary losses” the Wehrmacht had suffered in France, inflicted by street prostitutes. ”The greatest danger in Paris are the wide-spread and uncontrolled whores, picking up clients in bars, dancehalls and other places. It is our duty to prevent soldiers from risking their health, just for the sake of a quick adventure.” One assumes Himmler also wanted to stop any racial dilution of the great German army.

The project was considered ”Geheime Reichssache”, which meant ”more secret than top secret.” Himmler put Dr. Joachim Mrurgowsky in charge, the highest ranking officer of Berlin's notorious SS Institute.

The world’s first sexdoll – or ”gynoid” – was built in 1941 by a team of craftsmen from Germany's Hygiene Museum in Dresden. The project was supervised by a famous technician, Franz Tschakert. He was the ”father of the woman of glass,” which happened to be the sensation in the 1930’s International Hygiene Exhibition...

Ohh-kaaaay that's enough for now, don't you think? This is probably the weirdest thing I've EVER heard about World War II. Weirder than the "British aircraft carrier made of ice cubes" or the "Nazis trying to contact the subterranean supermen" bits, even. Squeeze here if you want to read more about them kinky Nazis.

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Check out the new Forcery website!

Awright, our lil' film is starting to get some press coverage so in advance of the good word and for benefit of anyone who might find their way to it, Ed and I have worked on-and-off throughout today to beef-up the official Forcery website. You'll find production photos, cast and crew bios, download links and more! We'll be adding more stuff to it soon as it develops. In the meantime, head over to forcery.kwerkyproductions.com and enjoy!

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Man in suit! Man in suit!

Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers was the first place (I think) that had the concept of strength-enhancing mechanized endoskeletons worn by humans. It's since been used in movies like Aliens and The Matrix Revolutions. Now it's become a reality...

From AFP via Yahoo! news:

Japan unveils "robot suit" that enhances human power

Tue Jun 7,10:14 AM ET

TOKYO (AFP) - Japan has taken a step into the science-fiction world with the release of a "robot suit" that can help workers lift heavy loads or assist people with disabilities climb stairs.

"Humans may be able to mutate into supermen in the near future," said Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University who led the project.

The 15-kilogram (33-pound) battery-powered suit, code-named HAL-5, detects muscle movements through electrical-signal flows on the skin surface and then amplifies them.

It can also move on its own accord, enabling it to help elderly or handicapped people walk, developers said.

The prototype suit will be displayed at the World Exposition that is currently taking place in Aichi prefecture, central Japan...

That's gonna be a pretty cool thing for pro wrestlers to wear.

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This blog's look will be changing soon

I redid its look back in January but the all-black "nighttime" style is really starting to bore me. And that picture of me at the top isn't the best: it looks like I'm smirking or something. The original is a photo taken of me for a newspape I worked at a few years ago and in larger size it looks great. Reduced size, it makes me look too much like a psycho. I'm going to find a better one. I'm going to monkey around with it some during the next few days and see what I can come up with...

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Bush wants to make destruction of Bill of Rights permanent (seeks PATRIOT Act renewal)

A lot of its provisions were intended to "sunset" when it was passed over three years ago. Except Bush wants to keep them around indefinitely. For the duration of the "emergency", you see.

This "emergency" will never end. The "war on terror" is not intended to have a substantive goal. This will never enter into endgame.

Might as well face up to it: Osama Bin Laden won when he sent the planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center going on four years ago. He made sure America would never be the sweet land of liberty ever again. The irony of it is, it wasn't Osama who did the really dirty deed against the American people. He merely instigated it. He hasn't even been adequately punished for it. Instead the President of the United States - who swore an oath to defend this country's Constitution - is too busy taking away basic rights like that of having an attorney and protection against unwarranted searches and seizures and letting our guard down along this country's borders, to do anything meaningful against whatever real terorrists are still out there.

The PATRIOT Act does not defend America. The PATRIOT Act defends politicians from the Americans they continue to steal from and rape of their freedoms. No wonder Bush wants to keep hiding behind it forever.

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The unfilmmable Watchmen claims another one

This time it's Paramount that threw its hands up in despair. Mash here for the full story. This is one story - graphic novel or not - that will never, ever, EVER be made into a movie and it still do justice to the original source material. The only way it could possibly be done is if someone like HBO turned it into a 12-part season-long series of one-hour episodes, one hour given to each chapter of the book. There's no way to cram something so dense like Watchmen into a three-hour long movie.

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Woman sues Stephen King after claiming she's real-life "Annie Wilkes"

Ooh-boy, this is just too rich. Ever notice how sometimes things just seem a little TOO coincidental? Today TheForce.net posted on their fan films section about Forcery and turns out it comes hot on the heels of this item from the Celebrity Justice website. A woman is suing Stephen King because she claims she was the basis of the Annie Wilkes character from Misery and that King never credited her. She's sued him before, saying that King has ripped-off a lot of stuff from her over the years. Sounds like a pretty scary lady.

Then again, anyone claiming to be the REAL-LIFE Annie Wilkes is gonna be someone you want to keep away from sledgehammers and firearms.

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"Weird Al" Yankovic watched Forcery... and he liked it!!

The entire cast and crew was really thrilled to hear that "Weird Al" Yankovic - the crown prince of parody himself - wrote in after watching Forcery. Yup, our first-ever movie was seen by the one-and-only Weird Al (which is only fair 'cuz over the years between me and Ed we've amassed quite a lot of Al's CDs and merchandise and t-shirts and we can recite line-for-line all the dialogue from UHF and are patiently awaiting the arrival of "The Weird Al Show" on DVD... we've watched HIM and now he's watched US!). Here's some of what Al had to say:

"...Nice job! Wow, how'd you ever get Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg to be in it? What a coup!"

It wasn't easy, let's just put it that way Al :-)

It was one of those things that you overlook when you're doing something like this, but the updated "Definitive Edition" we just made available this evening has some additions to the end credits: for all the inspiration that they provided us over the years, the cast and crew of Forcery thanks not only Weird Al, but Mel Brooks and the guys who made the Airplane! movies. We really strived to make Forcery resonate with the same tone of comedy that they're the masters of. Ed and Chad and I grew up with their music and movies, and we often talked on the set about how our own was a sort of homage to them and that period of our lives. Hope we did them an honor with it :-)

And so it begins: the start of my filmmaking career that will one day find me directing Weird Al and Leslie Nielsen in Spy Hard 2: Spy Another Day. In the meantime I must bide my time and climb the ladder...

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Forcery - the Definitive Edition - download now available!

Am using Ourmedia.org to host this on for the moment. We may get other hosting soon. One offer to mirror it has come up.

Folks, I'd like to ask something of you, but only if you really, truly enjoyed watching our little movie here. If you laughed and thought it wasn't a waste of your time and were genuinely entertained by it, I for one would REALLY appreciate it if you could spread the word on Forcery wherever you can. Point people to this blog and the links we have to it. There's a reason I'm asking this and I'm still collecting some thoughts on that. Right now, it means more to me than you can imagine if this film - which had a LOT of good people working on, and sacrificing for so that it could be made - could get a little (actually a LOT) more exposure. Some really good e-mails and comments have come in already, and I'm wanting to see this fly a little higher and keep on flying.

Consider this to be Version 1.1 of Forcery. In all respects the same as the initial release but we managed to fix a few things. The audio, for one: sounds MUCH better! A few of the special effects were recomposited/refined. The final scene was rebuilt completely from scratch (you'll definitely notice it when you see Frannie's lightsaber and the changed dialogue of the Mel's Drive-In waitress). Quite a few scenes were "tightened-up" to make it flow leaner and meaner. You probably won't notice these things if at all, but to me they came to stick out like a sore thumb. Right now, there's not much more that I know we could do, with what we had to make this with already. I'm more proud of it than ever :-)

As before, there are four versions of Forcery for you to download:

480 x 270 Extra Large - 508 Megabytes: the biggest/most robust version outside of the DVD.

448 x 252 Large - 355 Megabytes: the "regular large" version.

384 x 216 Medium - 192 Megabytes: medium-sized version.

256 x 144 Micro - 96 Megabytes: the "micro-sized" version. Still my favorite because it fits neatly onto a 128 MB USB flash drive (along with Quicktime installer) so I can take my entire motion picture around with me in my pocket. Or around my neck on its lanyard. Like the dead albatross from Rime of the Ancient Mariner...

By the way, if the download doesn't work for some reason at first, try again one or two more times: you will get through to it. Ourmedia's servers are a bit quirky sometimes but I've yet to see them totally fail to deliver the goods.

Anyway, enjoy the show! And please spread the word about Forcery! :-)

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Inmates in British prison watching Revenge of the Sith bootleg DVD

This story made me laugh for some reason. From contactmusic.com...

OUTRAGE AS STAR WARS ILLEGALLY SHOWN IN UK PRISON

A bootleg copy of the brand new STAR WARS movie, EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH, has been illegally screened in a British jail.

The pirate DVD was shown to prisoners at the Coldingley Jail in Surrey, despite the fact that the blockbuster has only been on release in cinemas for three weeks.

And police were amazed when an inmate reported the illegal screening, which is believed to have been organised by a prison officer.

One prisoner says, "Most people loved it. The last place you'd expect to watch pirate films is in jail.

"We don't have access to the DVD, so presumably a officer to put it on.

"It was a nice gesture - but pretty stupid really."

06/06/2005 14:02

This is sort of a step up from China, where they have prison inmates making bootleg DVDs :-P

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Okay, so it wasn't by LAST night, but Forcery Definitive Edition WILL be today :-)

Encoding to Quicktime is something I'm still striving to have some finesse at. Right now Media Cleaner is busy churning out four versions of Forcery - same sizes as the initial release - but with a few extra bells and whistles now that I learned how to do 'em. The movie should autoplay as soon as you open the file, and if you're downloading from the web it should start playing as soon as it's got enough info to run on while it's still coming in.

We'll have the website for it updated in the next few days too. Which'll include a VERY cool endorsement of the movie that I've been sitting on the past few days :-)

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Forcery version 1.1 available this evening

It's not a "special edition" like I referred to it as Saturday, more like how it SHOULD have been originally released had Fate smiled on us a little sooner. As it is, we did get lucky enough to have some things fall into place that let us improve on it a lot in places where it needed it. So no new material, but it is a better viewing experience. Melody and I happened to find ourselves each calling this one "Version 1.1" so that's what this, the definitive release, is going to be known as. When it's online later tonight just forget that the first release ever happened. Strike it from your mind. It never took place. You just imagined that you saw it already. "This isn't the movie you're looking for." Forget about it. Forget it, I say!! Maybe someday with a million dollars of funds I can give it a total work-over including new scenes and that'll be a real "special edition" but for now, let's just say that our first baby is walking around a bit.

In addition to a blooper reel, I'm also considering posting a "viewer's guide" to all the little in-jokes and sight gags that we stuck in this movie. Like, that's Chad's brother who's picture on one of the wanted posters in the sheriff's office. There's about five of them on the "Filks Found Guilty" newspaper clipping alone. All told, there might be a hundred such items spread throughout Forcery for both Star Wars and Stephen King fans (and everyone in between) to look for :-)

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AMC is showing Independence Day right now

Lisa said it was on earlier but it didn't register until now that she also said "it's on AMC!" Yup it's official now: Independence Day is an American Movie Classic. Funny thing: as much as I berate myself for the fact that I watched this seven times in the theaters when it first came out in '96, every time I wind up watching it again I understand anew what it was that kept me coming.

You see, this isn't a movie about evil aliens in fifteen-mile diameter spaceships blowing up the White House at all. Yeah the effects looked wicked cool, especially the scenes where the fighter jets are engaging the alien fighters beneath those monstrosities. Speaking of which, Independence Day probably ranks as the VERY LAST of the old-school special effects blockbusters given how ridiculously LITTLE computer-rendering was used in it, compared to something like Revenge of the Sith. That was neat eye candy but Independence Day was much like Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's previous effort Stargate in that it focused on the characters more than the techno gimmickery involved. To me, Independence Day was and always will be about the way America should be: a land where there really is no division or meaningless factionalism. A country where every man (and woman) really is considered equal, and not a favored elite by virtue of birth or corporate backing. Independence Day is not a movie that either so-called "liberals" or "neo-cons" should enjoy: a Jew and a black man fly a spaceship together and save the world, and no one ever takes notice of that. The President of the United States is a REAL Air Force flyer who's not afraid to strap into an F-16 and take off after the bad guys alongside refugees from an RV flotilla. No one is stopping to figure out how to capitalize on this mess: they're just fighting to make sure that their children will have a world to wake up to tomorrow.

Man, Independence Day may be one of the most politically mocking movies of all time. No wonder it's always resonated with me somehow.

Anyway, glad to see that it's now being played on AMC alongside such other classics of the American screen as Every Which Way But Loose, Smokey and the Bandit Part 2, Death Race 2000 and National Lampoon's Animal House :-)

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Kyle Williams made my brain hurt this weekend

But in a good way!

Every time this kid has something profound to say - which is just about every time - I usually make a post about it with a link to whatever is his latest essay. I didn't forget about that this time at all. It's just that this week's Williams piece was very dense: we're talking on the scale of Tolkien or Rand here. It provoked a lot of things to think about and I wanted to make sure my brain was thoroughly wrapped around it before saying anything about it.

Suffice it to say, it's a BRILLIANT piece Williams has up at WorldNetDaily this weekend. Titled "Idolizing intolerance", this may be his most powerful piece yet. From his article...

It bothers me that many members of my denomination, Southern Baptist, claim that sending children to public school is a sin against God. It bothers me that the evangelical spokespeople in America were almost universally and emphatically pro-war during the Iraq campaign. It bothers me that abortion and homosexuality are the only issues that national evangelical activists care about. It bothers me that, according to surveys, evangelicals are more likely to be racist than unbelievers. These things bother me.

I don't have an opinion on homosexual marriage. I really don't care, but I believe it ridiculous for Christians to expect unbelievers to act Christian. I believe abortion is murder and should be outlawed, but I believe those who have abortions need love and a change of heart, not picket signs and hate. I don't believe in beating society over the head with morality, because outward signs of morality are worthless divorced from Christ. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that we must judge those inside the church, while God judges those outside...

I don't have the heart to steal his thunder by quoting his closing thoughts here. Mash here and check it out for yourself.

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The things that make your phone ring at 11:30 p.m.

Last night was a little interesting. I was playing The Matrix Online with fellow mates of our faction (we're the Priory of Zion on the Method server) when the phone rang. A good friend - that I've mentioned here quite a few times already - called to see if I'd be willing to assist in something. I said "yes" immediately.

Now, the task itself is pretty neat, but what's really got me stoked is where this is going to be at.

Will be able to post more about it toward the end of this month. Suffice it to say, it's the kind of situation that might make some people crap in their britches when they learn where a guy like me is gonna wind up running around in. I just hope that my security clearance checks out :-)

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Forcery "special edition" coming soon

I may even have it ready to go by tomorrow evening, depending on some factors.

Awright, this past week was a little harsh on my baby, the first movie I've ever made (hopefully not the last though). It was harsh on ME: something happened that seriously, seriously got me feeling rather despondent. Ummmm... "betrayed" would be a good word to use. That's one thing I don't take very well. Betrayal, especially after you've spent a long time earning a trust, is... well, that's pretty low.

It all had to do with Forcery. The details of which I'll be disclosing more about in the days to come. Yeah I was brought pretty low (and there's nothing wrong with admitting that) but in the past day or so there's been some things that have more than lifted my spirits. And I've been doing some thinking on the matter too.

(This'll all make sense soon, trust me. I'm gonna come out both barrels blazin' but there's a proper time for that, and right now ain't it. Suffice it to say, some hard things need to be said openly, about some people, and I'll be unloading that soon enough.)

But I can say this: Forcery picked up a... I'd say it's a pretty darned good endorsement, from someone who seemed pretty impressed with the film and if HE was impressed... whoa momma!! Not too shabby for a first film out the gate :-) The other thing is, we've found some possible venues that would see it promoted bigtime. But we're gonna "fix" a few things first. I know, the audio ain't that great: already talked about what happened there. Lo and behold, that's going to be fixed, and we found a VERY neat solution to it! A few minor things, stuff you probably won't even notice. I'd say that this upcoming "re-release" should be the definitive version, and this one out now just the "preliminary". Which isn't the usual way to do things: next time, we'll know. And we'll do better.

So anyhoo, I'll be posting a honking big write-up about some things soon, and will be bringing you an improved version of the movie. Hope you'll find it entertaining and enlightening :-)

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