Well folks, today's Thursday! So here's a recap of this week's Zombie Attack! shorts, part 3 and 4.
Zombie Attack! Part 3 : "Proposal"
Zombie Attack! Part 4 : "House Hunters"
Enjoy & share with your friends!
So, I’ve been sitting around doing some thinking lately about the blog. Ways to keep it interesting around this joint. I looked back over some our previous blogs to see what worked and what didn’t (Douchebag of the Month for example), and I came across a movie review for “Avatar” written by Kaminski from months and months ago. So, I gots to thinkin. We make movies. We watch movies. Why not talk about the movies that we see when they come out. Only problem is, I’m broke as hell. Always. I can’t always afford to go see movies right when they come out. So, I now introduce to you to the very first installment of “The Dollar Movie Critic.”
I managed to get off work early tonight (as in not 2am) and took a little trip to my local dollar theater to see “Going The Distance,” the romantic comedy starring Justin Long and Drew Barrymore about a couple trying to make a long distance relationship work while he lives in New York and she lives in San Francisco. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for a while, since I watched the trailer online. I’m a big fan of Justin Long in his comedy roles (just look at “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and “The Sasquatch Gang for a couple of my favorite performances of his). Dude knows how to be funny and improvise like a beast. It seemed to me that this movie was going for the same audience that “500 Days of Summer” was going for, evenly aimed at the guys in the audience just as much as the chicks. I really enjoyed that movie, so I had high hopes for this one as well.
When I watched the trailer, two things stuck out. First, I saw that the movie was rated R, which, unfortunately, is not the norm for romantic comedies. It looked to me that they were going for something a little more along the lines of a Judd Apatow helmed romantic comedy, as opposed to the typical Kate Hudson crap that we’re all used to. The second thing I noticed was that Charlie Day (as in Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”) was in the flick. Seeing as how I (along with everyone else in KREJ) am a die-hard Sunny fan, it should go without saying that this movie immediately became a huge priority on my “movies to see” list.
And boy, Charlie did not disappoint in the role of Long’s roommate/friend. He killed it, in my opinion. He was my favorite part of the whole movie. He was in the movie way more than I thought he would be. There were at least 6 or 7 parts in the movie where he really got to shine. I was really happy to see that, in a movie where a handful of really funny and talented people (like Rob Riggle and Kristen Schaal) were severely under-used. Jason Sudeikis did an okay job as Long’s other friend and coworker, but I felt like there wasn’t much more to his character than a funny moustache for the majority of the film (There was a running gag about him having a moustache to attract older ladies, who are reminiscent of the 70’s, where the moustache was king). There was, however, a nice piece of business involving moustaches later on in the movie, that I thought was a nice pay-off to the gag, but it really didn’t really involve Sudeikis’s character that much. Jim Gaffigan could’ve been used a little bit more, but he was still very funny in the role of Barrymore’s brother-in-law.
As far as the leads go, I thought they did what all good leads in a romantic comedy should do, sell the relationship aspect, and be funny. Both of them had several really funny parts. The relationship was believable, but they actually dated, so that part kinda doesn’t even count if you think about it. The one person that surprised me the most was Christina Applegate. I knew she could do comedy, but I’ve never seen her go quite so blue before. She cracked me up several times, and the relationship between her character and Gaffigan’s was a definitely a different one than I’ve seen before in this genre.
I do have to say that I was actually surprised by the writing in this movie. There were several scenes where I felt like the dialogue was pretty genuine. I have to say I’m a big fan of the “that’s how people really talk” writing style that some of my favorite writers like Kevin Smith employ, and I think they succeeded as far as believable dialogue goes. I was a bit surprised that I found scenes between just the female characters just as funny and dirty as some of the scenes with just the guys. I felt the dialogue was pretty evenly balanced in that respect. I also appreciated how the writer approached certain things that most rom-coms would overlook, such as the question of “how the hell do these two have enough money to travel back and forth so often?” Surprisingly, this is writer Geoff LaTulippe’s first produced script. I look forward to seeing what else he does in the future.
As far as the film’s direction goes, there were a few shots in the movie that I liked quite a bit. One scene in particular, during the point of the film where the couple is getting to know each other, is shot in a style very similar to a documentary (all of the director, Nanette Burstein’s previous works are documentaries). The thing I liked the least about the movie was whenever a character flew from one side of the country to the other, a large map comes up on screen with line and a little animated plane to show us how a person can get into a plane and fly from one place to another (which actually happens quite a lot in a movie about two people flying back and forth to see each other). I’d say this technique is highly overused in films, and we the audience know how air travel works. They could have found a different, more unique way of showing their travels.
But that’s a small complaint. I thought the film was pretty enjoyable overall. If you’re into movies like “500 Days of Summer” or any of the raunchier Judd Apatow produced rom-coms like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and the likes, you’d probably enjoy this movie. If you’re as big a fan of “It’s Always Sunny” as I am, than this might be worth checking out with the appearance of Charlie Day alone. This is like the first widely released movie that he’s even been in since “Sunny” first premiered, and he’s pretty heavily featured, where as the other guys from the show, Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney, have been in a few things, but didn’t really get to do much, let alone something right in the range of what we get to see them do on “It’s Always Sunny.” But I should also add that this film should appeal to the typical audience of your average romantic comedies as well, as long as things like crude, sexual language doesn’t turn you away.
Aaaaaaaannnndddd, that’s my first review. I’ve been wanting to try and make a conscience effort to go see more movies, and maybe the movie review parts of this blog can get me to do that more. But I ain’t paying more than $2 a ticket until some millionare decides to start funding our movies. Sooo, millionaires get on that.
Peace,
-Grantzy
I managed to get off work early tonight (as in not 2am) and took a little trip to my local dollar theater to see “Going The Distance,” the romantic comedy starring Justin Long and Drew Barrymore about a couple trying to make a long distance relationship work while he lives in New York and she lives in San Francisco. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for a while, since I watched the trailer online. I’m a big fan of Justin Long in his comedy roles (just look at “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” and “The Sasquatch Gang for a couple of my favorite performances of his). Dude knows how to be funny and improvise like a beast. It seemed to me that this movie was going for the same audience that “500 Days of Summer” was going for, evenly aimed at the guys in the audience just as much as the chicks. I really enjoyed that movie, so I had high hopes for this one as well.
When I watched the trailer, two things stuck out. First, I saw that the movie was rated R, which, unfortunately, is not the norm for romantic comedies. It looked to me that they were going for something a little more along the lines of a Judd Apatow helmed romantic comedy, as opposed to the typical Kate Hudson crap that we’re all used to. The second thing I noticed was that Charlie Day (as in Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”) was in the flick. Seeing as how I (along with everyone else in KREJ) am a die-hard Sunny fan, it should go without saying that this movie immediately became a huge priority on my “movies to see” list.
And boy, Charlie did not disappoint in the role of Long’s roommate/friend. He killed it, in my opinion. He was my favorite part of the whole movie. He was in the movie way more than I thought he would be. There were at least 6 or 7 parts in the movie where he really got to shine. I was really happy to see that, in a movie where a handful of really funny and talented people (like Rob Riggle and Kristen Schaal) were severely under-used. Jason Sudeikis did an okay job as Long’s other friend and coworker, but I felt like there wasn’t much more to his character than a funny moustache for the majority of the film (There was a running gag about him having a moustache to attract older ladies, who are reminiscent of the 70’s, where the moustache was king). There was, however, a nice piece of business involving moustaches later on in the movie, that I thought was a nice pay-off to the gag, but it really didn’t really involve Sudeikis’s character that much. Jim Gaffigan could’ve been used a little bit more, but he was still very funny in the role of Barrymore’s brother-in-law.
As far as the leads go, I thought they did what all good leads in a romantic comedy should do, sell the relationship aspect, and be funny. Both of them had several really funny parts. The relationship was believable, but they actually dated, so that part kinda doesn’t even count if you think about it. The one person that surprised me the most was Christina Applegate. I knew she could do comedy, but I’ve never seen her go quite so blue before. She cracked me up several times, and the relationship between her character and Gaffigan’s was a definitely a different one than I’ve seen before in this genre.
I do have to say that I was actually surprised by the writing in this movie. There were several scenes where I felt like the dialogue was pretty genuine. I have to say I’m a big fan of the “that’s how people really talk” writing style that some of my favorite writers like Kevin Smith employ, and I think they succeeded as far as believable dialogue goes. I was a bit surprised that I found scenes between just the female characters just as funny and dirty as some of the scenes with just the guys. I felt the dialogue was pretty evenly balanced in that respect. I also appreciated how the writer approached certain things that most rom-coms would overlook, such as the question of “how the hell do these two have enough money to travel back and forth so often?” Surprisingly, this is writer Geoff LaTulippe’s first produced script. I look forward to seeing what else he does in the future.
As far as the film’s direction goes, there were a few shots in the movie that I liked quite a bit. One scene in particular, during the point of the film where the couple is getting to know each other, is shot in a style very similar to a documentary (all of the director, Nanette Burstein’s previous works are documentaries). The thing I liked the least about the movie was whenever a character flew from one side of the country to the other, a large map comes up on screen with line and a little animated plane to show us how a person can get into a plane and fly from one place to another (which actually happens quite a lot in a movie about two people flying back and forth to see each other). I’d say this technique is highly overused in films, and we the audience know how air travel works. They could have found a different, more unique way of showing their travels.
But that’s a small complaint. I thought the film was pretty enjoyable overall. If you’re into movies like “500 Days of Summer” or any of the raunchier Judd Apatow produced rom-coms like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and the likes, you’d probably enjoy this movie. If you’re as big a fan of “It’s Always Sunny” as I am, than this might be worth checking out with the appearance of Charlie Day alone. This is like the first widely released movie that he’s even been in since “Sunny” first premiered, and he’s pretty heavily featured, where as the other guys from the show, Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney, have been in a few things, but didn’t really get to do much, let alone something right in the range of what we get to see them do on “It’s Always Sunny.” But I should also add that this film should appeal to the typical audience of your average romantic comedies as well, as long as things like crude, sexual language doesn’t turn you away.
Aaaaaaaannnndddd, that’s my first review. I’ve been wanting to try and make a conscience effort to go see more movies, and maybe the movie review parts of this blog can get me to do that more. But I ain’t paying more than $2 a ticket until some millionare decides to start funding our movies. Sooo, millionaires get on that.
Peace,
-Grantzy
Well it's been a while, but it's time for another installment of Jerry's Scuttlebutt.
Let me start off by saying that the last few months have been more hectic than the rest of the year combined. Both personally speaking and KREJ-wise. Ever since Of Rats And Men wrapped it has been one thing after another here. The good news is this has entailed all sorts of wonderful opportunities for KREJ. We've been consistently meeting new and wonderful people to work with, and have been having a blast doing so. And as previously mentioned by Grantzy, we had the privilege to shoot a plethora of short films for Relapse Theatre! Even better, the first two are online and ready for you to go watch them! So after you finish reading this most-important of blog posts, speaking modestly of course, you should totes go watch them both, and then pass them on to your friends.
In other news, Of Rats And Men is currently in the process of being edited by none other than yours truly. We are planning to have a rough cut done by Halloween, and then we can begin fine tuning it for mass-viewing by you, our wonderful fans. But as far as a date for when the final version will be done? Well, stay tuned on that.. (honestly I don't know, there are way too many factors involved right now).
Rewinding to 2009, some of you maybe remember a little flick we did called Tim & Katie (A Nice Little Love Story, With Zombies). Well I've got great news for those of you who are clueless right now! We are going to be posting this movie, in its entirety, in the near future. Now for those of you who already saw it, there's even better news, this version will be shorter, tighter, and look a lot mo-bettah. Plus, I mean, it'll be online.. so.. you know, you can watch it as many times you want, whenever, and wherever!
Also, begin mentally preparing yourself for KREJ Productions to enter the realm of podcasting. It's been said before, sure, but this time, we really mean it (I think?).
Anyways, without further ado, I present to you the Zombie Attack shorts (more will be appended and/or posted as they are uploaded every Tues. & Thurs.)!
Love, Matthew (Jerry)
Zombie Attack Part 1: "Birthday Party"
Zombie Attack! Part 2 : "Good Samaritan"
Let me start off by saying that the last few months have been more hectic than the rest of the year combined. Both personally speaking and KREJ-wise. Ever since Of Rats And Men wrapped it has been one thing after another here. The good news is this has entailed all sorts of wonderful opportunities for KREJ. We've been consistently meeting new and wonderful people to work with, and have been having a blast doing so. And as previously mentioned by Grantzy, we had the privilege to shoot a plethora of short films for Relapse Theatre! Even better, the first two are online and ready for you to go watch them! So after you finish reading this most-important of blog posts, speaking modestly of course, you should totes go watch them both, and then pass them on to your friends.
In other news, Of Rats And Men is currently in the process of being edited by none other than yours truly. We are planning to have a rough cut done by Halloween, and then we can begin fine tuning it for mass-viewing by you, our wonderful fans. But as far as a date for when the final version will be done? Well, stay tuned on that.. (honestly I don't know, there are way too many factors involved right now).
Rewinding to 2009, some of you maybe remember a little flick we did called Tim & Katie (A Nice Little Love Story, With Zombies). Well I've got great news for those of you who are clueless right now! We are going to be posting this movie, in its entirety, in the near future. Now for those of you who already saw it, there's even better news, this version will be shorter, tighter, and look a lot mo-bettah. Plus, I mean, it'll be online.. so.. you know, you can watch it as many times you want, whenever, and wherever!
Also, begin mentally preparing yourself for KREJ Productions to enter the realm of podcasting. It's been said before, sure, but this time, we really mean it (I think?).
Anyways, without further ado, I present to you the Zombie Attack shorts (more will be appended and/or posted as they are uploaded every Tues. & Thurs.)!
Love, Matthew (Jerry)
Zombie Attack Part 1: "Birthday Party"
Zombie Attack! Part 2 : "Good Samaritan"
So, I still don't have internet, otherwise, I would have posted sooner with the tellings from this past weekend. Currently, I am sitting in my buddy Johnny's driveway borrowing some internets. It's cool though, because he knows I am doing it. It would be a dick move to steal someone's internets and them not know you are doing it.
Some guy I made up: "Martha, why is it taking so long to download Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3?"
Martha (whom I also made up): "I don't know. By the way, who's that creepy guy sitting in our driveway?"
First Guy: "I'm not sure. Hey, be a dear, and hand me that gun."
Anyways, this past Saturday was our (Steven, Trent and myself) first improv show. We were a little nervous, I know I was at least. Doing improv with an audience is interesting, because there is NOTHING planned. At least in plays or stuff there is a script to go off of, so as long as you know your shit, you can at least blame the material if it sucks. We managed to pull our shit together right as we were getting introduced (by our new friend Ron, who was in "Zombie Attack!" and will be returning later in this story) and we took the stage.
See, the thing about the format that we were doing, the Harold, is that it is normally done with 6 to 8 performers. Well, we have 11 in our class. That makes it pretty hard to keep 11 people all on the same page. Luckily, we managed to work together and we actually pulled off a pretty good first show. We had alot of people there in the audience, so that was pretty cool. It gave me a little more confidence in myself as a performer to know that I didn't just freeze up under pressure. Not that I ever really thought that might be the case, but it's always good to know for sure.
Like I said though, it is hard to do a Harold with 11 people, so some people got a little more play than others, but everybody got to do stuff. Out of the three of us, Steven was definitely onstage the most, in a hilarious scene with Craig Zeiss (whom you will soon know as Ron from "Of Rats and Men") and Kelley Roark (due some unfortunate incident, was cut from ORAM). I gotta say (even though it fills me with udder hate) Steven was getting a lot of laughs. Homeboy was killing it. It is really hard to explain an imrov scene, it's kind of like a "You had to be there..." story, but the best part about his scenes, were him slipping in and out of a gay accent as he was trying to hide the fact that he is gay from his mom... and Craig played his boyfriend... Need I say more... OK... I will... It was AWESOME!!!
So, after our show, we definitely stuck around. If you haven't been to Relapse Theatre, for shame. That's a bunch of really funny people who know how to have a good time. After us, there was like 6 or 7 other teams playing, including the aforementioned Craig Zeiss and our current improv teacher, Jay Revis and their brand new show, "The Condition." Hysterical, that's all I can say.
After a night filled with funny shows and hanging out with Ron and some people from our class, we headed back to KREJ HQ, with Ron in tow. And proceeded to throw down. We hung out til around 4:30 drinking and talking shop, future projects and whatnot. Definitely a very fun night. Ron is an extremely hilarious dude. Check out his YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/drmagoo18 Dude was in an official adult swim commercial.
Now to another potentially fun thing. We're currently working on added stuff to our website. "Zombie Attack!" is gonna be going up soon (on the blog first, then to the video section of the site), we (Kaminski and I at least) are trying to make a conscious effort to blog more (hard, in my current broke ass state), we're talking new features, and there might even be some "Tim and Katie" action coming soon. Another thing we're working on is podcasts. We've been talking about a KREJ podcast for a while, and once we get a shedule down, it's coming, but the podcast that me and Trent have been working on with our friend Luke Brayden might be out sooner. We don't have a name yet, but we're working on it. Make sure to check in for that very soon.
And I mentioned "Zombie Attack!" earlier, and tomorrow is the day. At some point tomorrow, the first part of the 7 part series will go up. So, check back here every five minutes tomorrow until it goes up, then watch it 30 or 40 times, in a row, and then post links to them on your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogspot, Myspace, Xanga, Gaia, and every other social networking site in existence (if you don't have some of these, create an account) and tell all of your friends and/or break into their house and write it on their calenders. And you'll have to do that every Tuesday and Wednesday for the next 3 weeks. Have fun kids.
2,
-Grantzy
P.S. Oh, and my cousin Josh (from Tim and Katie) was this close* to getting a tattoo of Homestar Runner on his ass. But the tattoo gun stopped working. Shitty.
*I'm holding my index finger and thumb roughly a centimeter and a half apart.
Some guy I made up: "Martha, why is it taking so long to download Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3?"
Martha (whom I also made up): "I don't know. By the way, who's that creepy guy sitting in our driveway?"
First Guy: "I'm not sure. Hey, be a dear, and hand me that gun."
Anyways, this past Saturday was our (Steven, Trent and myself) first improv show. We were a little nervous, I know I was at least. Doing improv with an audience is interesting, because there is NOTHING planned. At least in plays or stuff there is a script to go off of, so as long as you know your shit, you can at least blame the material if it sucks. We managed to pull our shit together right as we were getting introduced (by our new friend Ron, who was in "Zombie Attack!" and will be returning later in this story) and we took the stage.
See, the thing about the format that we were doing, the Harold, is that it is normally done with 6 to 8 performers. Well, we have 11 in our class. That makes it pretty hard to keep 11 people all on the same page. Luckily, we managed to work together and we actually pulled off a pretty good first show. We had alot of people there in the audience, so that was pretty cool. It gave me a little more confidence in myself as a performer to know that I didn't just freeze up under pressure. Not that I ever really thought that might be the case, but it's always good to know for sure.
Like I said though, it is hard to do a Harold with 11 people, so some people got a little more play than others, but everybody got to do stuff. Out of the three of us, Steven was definitely onstage the most, in a hilarious scene with Craig Zeiss (whom you will soon know as Ron from "Of Rats and Men") and Kelley Roark (due some unfortunate incident, was cut from ORAM). I gotta say (even though it fills me with udder hate) Steven was getting a lot of laughs. Homeboy was killing it. It is really hard to explain an imrov scene, it's kind of like a "You had to be there..." story, but the best part about his scenes, were him slipping in and out of a gay accent as he was trying to hide the fact that he is gay from his mom... and Craig played his boyfriend... Need I say more... OK... I will... It was AWESOME!!!
So, after our show, we definitely stuck around. If you haven't been to Relapse Theatre, for shame. That's a bunch of really funny people who know how to have a good time. After us, there was like 6 or 7 other teams playing, including the aforementioned Craig Zeiss and our current improv teacher, Jay Revis and their brand new show, "The Condition." Hysterical, that's all I can say.
After a night filled with funny shows and hanging out with Ron and some people from our class, we headed back to KREJ HQ, with Ron in tow. And proceeded to throw down. We hung out til around 4:30 drinking and talking shop, future projects and whatnot. Definitely a very fun night. Ron is an extremely hilarious dude. Check out his YouTube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/drmagoo18 Dude was in an official adult swim commercial.
Now to another potentially fun thing. We're currently working on added stuff to our website. "Zombie Attack!" is gonna be going up soon (on the blog first, then to the video section of the site), we (Kaminski and I at least) are trying to make a conscious effort to blog more (hard, in my current broke ass state), we're talking new features, and there might even be some "Tim and Katie" action coming soon. Another thing we're working on is podcasts. We've been talking about a KREJ podcast for a while, and once we get a shedule down, it's coming, but the podcast that me and Trent have been working on with our friend Luke Brayden might be out sooner. We don't have a name yet, but we're working on it. Make sure to check in for that very soon.
And I mentioned "Zombie Attack!" earlier, and tomorrow is the day. At some point tomorrow, the first part of the 7 part series will go up. So, check back here every five minutes tomorrow until it goes up, then watch it 30 or 40 times, in a row, and then post links to them on your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogspot, Myspace, Xanga, Gaia, and every other social networking site in existence (if you don't have some of these, create an account) and tell all of your friends and/or break into their house and write it on their calenders. And you'll have to do that every Tuesday and Wednesday for the next 3 weeks. Have fun kids.
2,
-Grantzy
P.S. Oh, and my cousin Josh (from Tim and Katie) was this close* to getting a tattoo of Homestar Runner on his ass. But the tattoo gun stopped working. Shitty.
*I'm holding my index finger and thumb roughly a centimeter and a half apart.
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