Just finished watching A Fighter’s Blues. It was a pretty good film, albeit with a few plot holes here and there. I also recently saw Sausalito, which was an interesting little film, with good cinematography that presents San Francisco in a HK cinema style, but the conflict of the piece was contrived. Shaolin Soccer was another viewing, a good cheesy kung-fu flick, but the special effects are surprisingly well executed.

Here’s another of my latest sketches, that will become the basis for my satine dot org web site. Satine is one of the characters in Moulin Rouge, and the site is going to have some of my artsy / hobby stuff on there. Lately, I’ve also seen some rampant copying of my Utada Hikaru sketch, so I unfortunately had to put a copyright on this one, at least until I get a digital watermark setup.

(more…)

If you liked The Matrix, you’ll also like The Matrix Reloaded. Well, just skip the first 30 minutes or so (or bring a book). Reloaded really starts out slow and but then throws you into insane hyperdrive for the rest of the film.

Some of you may know that one of my old research friends, George Borshukov, is one of the top R&D visual effects supervisors on The Matrix trilogy, he is the guy behind Bullet Time and Virtual Cinematography (the Burly Fight in Reloaded), Mission Impossible 2 and When Dreams May Come. I also have another friend working there, H.P. Duiker, who I knew through our old research team led by Paul Debevec at Cal. I also know some other friends working on creature effects in Revolutions at Tippett Studios.

Since I started watching Buffy, some of the Buffyisms have crept into my daily vocabulary. “smoochies”, “you’re not wrong”, “oogily boogilys”, “kicked in the ghoulies”, and the habit of making everything all adverby. It’s fun, it’s like my personal guarantee.

Smallville was better than the average ooh-monster-ooh-meteor-rock-mutant episodes. They finally advanced the Lana Lang / Clark Kent storyline (about frickin’ time), and we’re not quite sure whether Lex Luthor is good or evil yet… but the only real TV answer is “a little of both, let’s explore that inner conflict”.

I’m redesigning my web site. The old dark look to photon|effects is getting on my nerves. I’m thinking of something in Flash, but haven’t decided yet, the design I’ve got right now doesn’t really need to be in Flash, but it helps make the swooshy animations fun.

Second thing is, do I make this web log just become the main page of satine dot org? Maybe… I was hoping to put a real web site there, but that might not be realistic anymore.

Oh yea, check this site out, it’s kind of the look I’m going for…

I have to say, iTunes is pretty great, only have to get the songs that I want. The music selection is pretty limited for now, hopefully they’ll add some new record labels soon.

A Million Parachutes - Sixpence None The Richer
Tension Is a Passing Note - Sixpence None The Richer
Here Without You - 3 Doors Down (warning, there’s a popup)
Give You Back - Vertical Horizon
Warning Sign - Coldplay

I seem to be on a WB music kick lately. Nearly all these songs are from WB shows. Anyway, have to go now, I hear Lana calling… :-)

Just got home from watching Confidence, a pretty good con artist thriller-with-twist film in the tradition of The Grifters and The Usual Suspects. Recommended if you like those films.

Just saw the trailer for this new French CG movie, Kaena. Very cool, nicely executed piece of work. Its style reminds me of an animated short, Platige Image’s The Cathedral, and to the supinfocom series of animated shorts shown at SIGGRAPH 2002. Platige isn’t French, but hey, their stuff looks pretty good, too.

It’s Only Love - Heather Nova
Waking Hour - Vienna Teng
Safe and Sound - Sheryl Crow
Everything - Lifehouse