Stan Winston
April 7, 1946-June 15, 2008

I was in complete shock today when I heard the news of Special effects guru Stan Winston’s death. Passing away at 62 years old this Father’s Day, Stan suffered from Multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer that attacks the immune system. Stan had suffered with the disease for seven years, but that didn’t stop him from keeping busy. Stan as a matter of fact, had at least five films in the works before his death including films such as; Terminator 4, Jurassic Park IV and James Cameron’s anticipated Avatar. With at least a few films out every couple of years since 1980, Stan showed us that no matter how CGI obsessed we get in Hollywood, there will always be room for a practical effects wizard.

As one of the greatest pioneers in special effects of the 80s, 90s, and 00s, Stan wowed us with his phenomenal work on such pictures as; Jurassic Park, Predator, Aliens, Terminator, Edward Scissorhands, A.I., and most recently Iron Man. With 4 oscars and a legacy of expertise in makeup effects, animotronics and puppetry, Stan Winston (along with maybe Rick Baker) was probably the greatest living practical effects artist of our era.

He’ll certainly be missed here at Cat Fancy may i suggest Pumpkinhead marathon? Just kidding, aside from that film (Which had a good monster) Stan’s always found ways to impress us and hopefully impress and inspire future generations as well.

Belle And Sebastian- If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996)

One of the 90’s original indie sensations, Belle and Sebastian have a great influence on many of todays indie pop bands. This album from the Scottish septet is considered one of their best and is my personal favorite.

Starting off with “The Stars of Track and Field”, the album has terrific melodies that continue through out. Great instrumentation is used, including a great trumpet solo. The tone of the trumpet is so appropriate for the sound as is almost everything else on the record. The textures and sounds the drummer gets still blow me away and I just cannot seem to figure out what he is doing.

Stuart Murdoch’s vocals are very light and bouncy. Sometimes it is hard to understand what he’s saying as he tends not to annunciate his words with his Scottish accent. But his tone and pitch are bar none and even with the lack of understanding it fits the mood perfectly.

One of my other favorite musicians on this record is Chris Geddes. His piano work is sensationally fitting and just creates the perfect atmosphere instead of just muddying up the mix with unnecessary chords.

Basically I feel like I am beating a dead horse when I say that this album is so great with what its trying to accomplish. Whenever I take a listen it just puts me in the perfect little content mood. You can definitely hear how it has influenced such bands as The Shins, Death Cab, The Decemberists, and many more. If you do not own it, I recommend it 1000%.

So it’s been almost four years since the release of Green Day’s Grammy winning comeback album American Idiot with extensive touring and promotion, I think it’s fair to say that most people figured Green Day would probably take it easy for awhile after thhat album. Though I’ll still bet plenty of fans are wondering “When are they going to do another album?” well I got news for you, they actually already have and it’s available right now.

This story starts in December of 2007, when word began to spread about a mysterious Garage Rock band on the web by the name of the Foxboro Hot Tubs. With a raw 60s inspired sound and their catchy two minute rock songs, questions soon arose as to the identity of this band. Similarities were soon drawn to the Pop/Punk Music stylings of Green Day and soon enough Green Day confirmed to be this band. Though this band ain’t just Mike, Billie and Tre as there a few other musicians tagging along for the ride. Jason White and Jason Freese (two musicians who’ve recently accompanied Green Day on tour) are members and Kevin Preston (singer/guitarist of Prima Donna) is also a part of the group.

Personally I’m a pretty casual fan of Green Day. I enjoy their music to some extent, (All I’ve really heard is Dookie) but seeing this band successfully utilize another genre of Rock is impressive, and I rather enjoy the results. For this side project really shows versatility in Green Day’s musical abilities and creativity. It’s also nice to see Green Day pay tribute to some of their 60s inspirations showing hints of The Kinks, The Stooges and Tommy James and the Shondells while also borrowing some similarities to modern Garage bands like The Strokes and The Hives. Though it is unfortunate that in order to experiment with other stylings, Green Day must take on another alias to do so, but I suppose it’s for the best. I mean they don’t want to piss off any fans by straying to far from their trademark sound.

As for the music they’ve recorded and release, there is currently a six song E.P. and a full length album (both entitlled “Stop Drop and Roll!!!”) that was released on May 20th. I currently only have their six song E.P. but I enjoy it nonetheless with some of my favorite tracks being “Red Tide” and their lead single “Mother Mary”. One thing is for sure is that it’s refreshing to see this band reinvent themselves in order to show that they haven’t run out of ideas. As for another Green Day album I read that Billie Joe is hoping to release another by the end of the year or early 2009, but until then I’d say that the Foxboro Hot Tubs might be something nice to tide fans over until than.

So it’s 3:14 AM, I just finished watching episode’s 1 and 2 w/ ben because he hasn’t seen any star wars, and the same troubling thing came up. Every time I watch episode II, I am can not for the life of me figure out who the hell Jedi Master Sifa-dias is. I’ve spent the last 3 hours of my life looking up all this random stuff on forums to see if I could learn more about this guy. I’ve read everything from “Oh it’s Qui-Gon!” to its Count Duku. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked to Sean about this, but I can’t remember so I thought I’d bring it up at least one more time.

Now it can’t possibly be Qui-Gon, because thats just dumb. The guy’s logic is that they say that Sifa-Dias died 10 years before AOTC, and that is when Phantom Menace took place. But this guy also says that Qui-Gon is a sith, and lots of people make fun him on the forum so he can not possibly be credible.

It also can’t be Dooku, because he is totally oblivious to the clones being made. Even though Jango is recruited by Dooku? And he is the clone blue-print?

The only plausible option I can think of is that Darth Sidious went by the name “sifa-dias” which is really just an alternation of “sida-dias” which evolved to “sidious”. This makes sense sorta because he needed the republic to have an army to fight the separatists, and we all know he was masterminding both sides of the war. The thing that doesn’t make sense is how Obi-Wan seems to know who this guy was, and knew that he had died. But when you go back and look it seems like Windu and Yoda haven’t a clue who he is.

Well either way you can go back and look at it from a million perspectives, and none of them seem to be completely air-tight. It just seems strange to me that there would be such a huge plot hole in such a big movie franchise. I also read that Lucas was intending to wrap up this part of the saga in Revenge of the Sith, but he must of been distracted by all of his piles of money. I was then referred to some Star Wars novels where it was explained, and I was like, “What do I look like, some kind of Star Wars nerd?”

You may know already that the Dragonball movie really is going to happen. You may know that it’s being directed by James Wong, of Final Destination and The One fame.You may know that Tom Cruise’s son from War of the Worlds, Justin Chatwin, is playing Goku, and that Chow Yun Fat is playing the elderly, perverted Master Roshi. But I bet you never saw it. That changes now.

Go on, look at that link!

You’re back now? Good. I warn you, you cannot unsee what you have seen. Instead, you have to get used to it. We’ll be seeing these idiots more frequently as we approach the film’s 2009 release.

Honestly, who wants this movie made? Yes, seeing a live action person shoot a kamehameha with some nice special effects might look cool, but the Dragonball universe is so far detached from our world. It just makes for a cheesy, horrible movie. Which is what this film looks like it will become.

But let’s not dwell on such things.

Well the Cat Fancy/Spartans softball post is a hard one to follow, but I thought I’d use the sunday post as chance to discuss a few Pop Culture tid bits, that I read about on the interweb.

The Web
So I’d heard earlier this week about the newly discovered “Bill O’Reilly Meltdown” from back when he was on Inside Edition. It sounded intruiging so this weekend, Colin, Nancy, Kelly and I had to see it, and all I can say is “Damn, that guy’s got problems” He really does push it to the limit saying things like “Fuck it” and “The fucking thing sucks” to his teleprompter and staff. It just stuns me that this man still has an audience at all, but it’s certainly become quite popular on the web. The original is amusing, but I actually prefer the Techno Dance Remix.

Music
Were getting closer and closer to some of this summer’s releases. Weezer has recently moved their album release date from June 24th to June 3rd and recently a few tracks have leaked on the internet. I didn’t want to spoil the experience to much, but i just had to hear a couple of the new songs, and what do I think? “Ehhh, I guess their okay” so unfortunately it’s not the kind of comeback I would of liked to see from Alternative rockers Weezer. The songs still continue to lack that kind of punch and spark of ingenuity that Weezer’s music had in the 90s. Perhaps they’ll win the kind of critical acclaim back someday but I don’t see it with this album. Though maybe I’ll grow to like it more when it comes out. I do like the single Pork and Beans and it is produced pretty cleanly and tight (It’s produced by Rick Rubin) Perhaps I could end up liking it, but I can’t see myself ever loving it or anything.

Another little music note is that Coldplay music video for Violet Hill is now floating around the web… or at least it was, I think it’ll be premierd “Officially” on May 19th if your curious. I also checked out their new song available on iTunes Viva La Vida which I really enjoyed, so I’m pretty pumped for that album. (Set for release on June 12)

Television
Well from the looks of this promotional artwork it looks like The Cleveland Show will be happening and premiering on Fox In March 2009. I don’t understand why Cleveland has a new family or what will happen to him on Family Guy but as a F.G. fan, I’ll naturally keep following all the info that pops up about this it’s just such a bizarre idea. Could it be good? Only time will tell.

Movies
Not much to report here, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I believe has premiered in a few places already. I thought I heard that it premiered at Cannes, but I’m too lazy to verify that. There have only been a couple reviews so I’m not sure what it will be like. Some critics on Rotten Tomatoes seem to think it will dissapoint fans (as some guy also told me that Lucas said that, and I’m like “Ja right, why would he say that?”) but some other critics seem to find it just as exciting or entertaining as the original trilogy, so I’m still of the opinion that it’ll be good. Either way I’m ecstatic for it’s release this week.

Well that’s all, I’d “Play this out” but I don’t know what that means…. Get it?