Hosted By: Jeremy Heckman
When: Tuesday Mar 06, 2007
at 2:35 PM
Where: UCI Administration Building
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697
United States
Description:
Jeremy Heckman
Check out this event: Arts 50 Flash Mob
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Monthly Archives: February 2007
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Ok….I just finished the book and was just a little confused. It was a good book and all but there was some preconception rattling around inside my head that wasn’t fulfilled. So I just sat down and watched the movie trailer again.
What the hell? Where was all that stuff in the book? What kind of artistic license did Disney and Walden take? Was the book not good enough by itself to make a movie they had to extend it into this Chronicles of Narnia thing too? Please note: I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I am just a little concerned. Unless of course, they hired the author, Katherine Paterson, to extend what’s going on.
….(reads online material, not reviews)….
Well they’ve got David Paterson working on the script, so it can’t be that far asunder from mom’s vision….
See it’s just the fact that they’re selling this as the next Chronicles of Narnia/Lord of the Rings fantasy spectacle that bothers me….it’s like the story in the book isn’t good enough. Well it is a little dated, material wise…I just don’t know…I’ll let you know more when I review it.
Being Really Geeky
Credit for this goes to Vaughn.
For the ultimate product of nerd and fan-boy, all’s you gotta do is:
(Note – Windows machines only)
1. Start Menu
2. Run Command
3. Copy telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl in the box, and hit Enter.
An MS-DOS window will pop open and from there, all you have to do is watch.
I feel happy that there really are people who are nerdier than I could ever be.
Alternatively, you hold down the windows key and press R. That will give you the run box. Paste the bold text into the run box and hit enter and away you go.
I can’t even begin to imagine how much time and effort this took. Absolutely gorgeous.
Birthdays!
So yesterday was my friend Eli’s birthday (he works at Atomic) and we all went out after team rehearsals to celebrate…at IHOP. Woo hoo! Go Irvine night life! Anyways, we were there chatting and having a good time, when Trisha starts a game (as it were). She asks Eli to recall his favorite birthday party. Then we each got to talk about our favorites. Mine was a little mashed up from a couple of the parties I had, but it was one where I had a party at my house and upstairs was this huge table covered in Legos and then there was a large pizza and ice cream cake outside and we buried and dug up faux artifacts. That would probably be the best one on record, although my 19th was pretty sweet: Dad drove me up to Los Angeles to see a live taping of the Dennis Miller Show, which was awesome and then there was ice cream cake at home. That was also the year I got my Disneyland stone (you know in the Esplanade between the parks?). And pretty much all my birthdays were better than last years. Last year I woke up in Toronto on July 1st, got on a plane to Chicago, spent 5 hours in the Chicago terminal and then flew to Amsterdam. That’s right: my 21st birthday lasted all of 12 hours. At least I had a beer in the Chicago terminal. And don’t read this as resentment…it’s just a great friggin’ story! I love it! I love my life! Woo hoo!
Something To Feel Guilty About and (Re)Learning Spanish
Anybody feel bad about stepping on a bug? I’m obviously not talking to anybody who took a magnifying glass to an ant, but I recently was walking back into my house and it’s dark and all of a sudden CRUNCH! I look back and there’s a dead snail in my foot print. I always feel kind of bad when I squash snails because it’s not like they can get out of the way. And I keep seeing its remains when I leave/enter my house and keep thinking about it. What did he experience in his last moments (if he had any)? Did the shards of his shell just penetrate into his body and skewer the life out of him?
Permancer sentado por favor.
So THAT’S how it’s spelled out. I’ve always been saying “Per
If you can’t pronounce that and figure out what it is, first off shame on you. It’s the Matterhorn’s Spanish at Disneyland. Remain seated please. Permancer sentado por favor.
So yeah, I just found it at the end of Al Lutz’s latest article on MiceAge.com. Yay!
UCI Police Log
The UCI newspaper (New University) features a review of the
weekly police log. Two great bits to share.
On January 28th, 2007 at 16:58, a caller reported a missing pizza.
On February 2nd, 2007 at 3:24 a caller reported a homeless man sleeping on the
basketball court in Mesa Court.
Also, a correction from last week’s issue:
The Police Log said that “caller reports the theft of
coffee mugs from Starbucks.” It should be noted these men were able
to produce receipts for the coffee mugs and were not charged.
I love my school.
Wonderettes Addendum and Magic Smoke Detectors
In my review, I failed to mention something that I just didn’t conceptualize properly. The show IS a jukebox musical, where old songs with lyrics are used to tell the story, unlike a traditional musical where songs are tailored to the story. This also means that the story and characters were tailored to the old songs: hence the characters sing “It’s My Party (And I’ll Cry If I Want To)” and it’s my birthday party and there’s Judy wearing Johnny’s ring. So yeah….fun stuff.
The smoke detector in our house malfunctioned the other day, so dad took it down to inspect it. The manufacturing date? September 11th, 2001. Nice.
“Music and Lyrics” Addendum and The Marvelous Wonderettes
On her MySpace music blog, Hayley Bennett (played music star Cora) explains to her fans that the character she played in the movie was just a character. I almost want to message her and go: no we don’t assume that you have no morals because you play a strange character in a movie, we’re just generally untrustworthy of anyone in the movie/recording industry. But whatever. The soundtrack to the movie is really awesome. Unfortunately, I’ve got the song Buddha’s Delight nailed into my head. You know all those times I’ve hummed It’s A Small World and got it drilled into your head? That how I remember this song…drilled into my head. It’s excruciatingly annoying. One of the commercials before the movie was for Windows Vista and made me laugh hard. I mean it’s actually a really good commercial: a bunch of people doing normal things when suddenly they see something extraordinary, stop and say, “Wow.” Then they finally show a guy at a computer using Vista and Aero Glass (the 3-d desktop thing?) and he goes, “Wow.” Just makes me laugh.
So I today I picked up Katy at Disneyland and we drove to NoHo (North Hollywood) to see The Marvelous Wonderettes, which was choreographed by my godmother, Janet Miller and features Kim Huber (whom Dad has known since she was a teenager in Young Americans), Julie Dixon-Jackson (whom Dad “worked with” in the West Coast premiere of Sideshow at the Colony Theatre in Burbank), Bets Malone (Dad claims to have met her) and Kristin Chandler (married to Stan Chandler of Forever Plaid fame). Before that I spent a little time inside the park with my new phone and my iPod and my Bluetooth hands-free headphones doing some very interesting things like: dancing to the Shim Sham in my headphones via my phone, recording the Space Mountain soundtrack (the recording cut off right at my favorite part (right at the end where the guitar does a high solo) to remind me that I was going to go see the Wonderettes that night…darn reminders) and getting off of the ride and listening to the real song. I also counted the number of paces from the dog kennel across the esplanade to the bathrooms (150 paces). Eventually I will compare/contrast that with the distance (in paces) from the kennel to the bathrooms near the picnic areas to see which is closer. But that’s beside the point.
So anyways: The Marvelous Wonderettes. It started in September and has continually been extended in its run at The El Portal Theatre (very near to where I saw Barnum and City of Angels presented by Chromulome Theatre Company). The lobby is themed to the exterior of a high school gym on prom night and as you walk in you are handed a program, a dance card and a “Vote for Prom Queen” card and a pencil. The school mascot is the Chipmunks and even the pencils’ reflect school spirit (Go Chipmunks!). We are also invited to dance inside the gym if we know how to dance to 50’s music. Katy and I look at each other and laugh. Unfortunately, we can’t go right out on the floor because it’s open seating, so we save seats for the rest of my family and when they arrive we start dancing. But…the song’s don’t end! They keep feeding into each other (as pre-show music is wont to do), leading to this horrible dilemma. Eventually we stop and have a seat, ending with a short dip and some applause from the small house that just sat and watched us. It was definitely fun. Then the show begins. It’s a really fun show about 4 girls and their senior prom (2nd act is their 10 –year reunion) with great 50’s (and 60’s) music. Definitely worth the drive if you can make it up there. More information at their website.
A Very Successful Valentine’s Day and “Music and Lyrics”
First I set up a “Disney Enchanted Call” for 8 in the morning. I had her favorite Disney character, Ariel, call her and wish her a very happy Valentine’s Day. Then I showed up in the afternoon (I hate having class on special days…) with flowers and gifts. Then we headed to Downtown Disney for a movie, dinner and Build-A-Bear (thanks for the great idea mom!)! She picked out the limited edition Luck-O-The-Irish teddy and gave him St. Patrick’s Day boxers and a special Valentine’s Day beating heart (appropriately named Patrick Valentine). Then we went and saw Music and Lyrics, the new romantic comedy with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Great film with lots of really fun modern music and really fun 80’s music. A short note: there were about 8 trailers playing before the movie. A lot of them look like a lot of fun, but … 8 …. Trailers. I started to think the movie was nothing BUT trailers. Anyways.
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Music and Lyrics (2007)
Hugh Grant plays Alex Fletcher, an 80’s pop star Has-Been who suddenly get the opportunity to write a new song for Cora (Haley Bennett), who’s basically competing with Shakira and worships Buddha. Problem is, Alex could never write the lyrics…just the melody. So he needs a new lyricist (his old one was his girlfriend and they broke up and he started REALLY being a has-been…either that or it was his old band mate who stole the last 3 songs they ever wrote to go solo…I wasn’t too clear on that bit). His manager (wonderfully played by Mr. Easter Island Head, Brad Garrett) hooks him up with Greg Antonsky (Jason Antoon) who is basically a hard rock death lover, whom Alex isn’t very impressed with. Suddenly his temporary plant lady, Sophie Fischer walks in and starts watering the plants and fixing Mr. Death Lover’s lyrics to be a little nicer. Alex loves it and convinces her to be his new lyricist even though she’s a hypochondriac (very funny scene where she waters the cactus). They eventually fall in and out and back in to love throughout the course of an enjoyable movie, following the boilerplate for….gee every romantic comedy every made. But that’s not the reason you go to see the movie.
My goodness does Hugh Grant work out! He’s 47 years old and he looks great with his shirt off. Um….can’t a guy admire another guy keeping in shape for so long? The great fun about this movie is that everyone sings their own songs. AND it was filmed in the U.S. AND it was written and directed by one person. If you didn’t know that about me, I applaud writer-directors who get their work out there because there is no screwing with THEIR vision…the film is theirs and theirs alone….so I applaud Marc Lawrence for getting this film out there for Valentine’s Day. Just lots of fun.
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So after the movie, we discover that we don’t have enough time to go to Rainforest Café for dinner like we had planned (it’s 7:40 and her rehearsal starts at 8:30). So we walk over to the Disneyland Hotel and grab a quick bite at Croc’s Bit and Bites, a snack shack near the Peter Pan themed bar. I then regale her with the highlights of my life, including previous girlfriends, the elementary school 2 year change-over, the middle school betrayed at 13 story and the really tasteless April Fools Day joke that wasn’t intended. Then I drop her off at rehearsal and head home. Now here’s where it gets wonky. So I’m at home and I do the work I said I would do (setting up my mother’s new printer), when she calls and says rehearsal JUST GOT OUT! IT’S BEEN LESS THAN AN HOUR! So I finish setting up the printer and head back out to Disneyland. Yes it’s a drive, but that injustice of tearing us apart on Valentine’s Day NEEDED to be fixed. So I get there and wander about The Lost Bar (right near Croc’s Bits and Bites) until I see her. She’s inside the bar and I’m outside, wearing a hooded sweatshirt. She hasn’t noticed me yet. So I fix my shoe (darn orthodics!) and then pull the hood up and stand and stare at her through the window. I also occasionally glance at her co-workers and then back at her. The desired effect is achieved (I learn this after the fact) because her co-workers notice me staring at her and say, “don’t look now but there’s a creepy guy staring at you.” Then she turns around sees who it is and runs out to meet me. So we hang out at The Lost Bar with her co-workers. Robyn (one of her good friends) comes in with a Tinkerbell mask at one point which I promptly put on. Then we watch her co-worker do a couple of tarot readings. Very interesting stuff.
You shuffle the deck thinking about a question in regards to your near future (6 months). Then the reader lays out 10 cards in this pattern.
Then reads them to you, explaining what each card represents in each position. Very interesting stuff. So then I take the mask off and we start our goodbyes. Eventually we get to my car, get her home and tucked in and then get me home. All in all a fantastic Valentine’s Day for the first time in like 4 years. Yay!
The Dark Knight Returns
I just randomly started thinking about what they were doing with the DC staples (Batman, Superman) and thinking about Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker when suddenly this thought hits me: they’re remaking the movies and the franchises so that villains have replay-ability. In Batman Begins, the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) didn’t die and comic readers KNOW that we haven’t seen the last of Ra’s Al Ghul (Liam Neeson). In Superman Returns, Luthor wasn’t killed. Wasn’t he? I forget. But anyways: by essentially re-doing the Joker, they’re probably going to get him incarcerated at Arkham Asylum so he can break out every couple of weeks and raise hell, which is incredibly cool. Just thought I’d share my thought with the world, in case it cares.