Hey there!

So a lot of little things going on in full and half swing, got a couple films in writing and heading for pre-production phases, as well as Hero Sandwich work chugging along.


Make sure you head on over to the KREJ video page to check out our newest item, the trailer for Tim & Katie as well as Saving Suburbia if you haven't yet seen it. which if you don't know what that is, or haven't yet seen the IMDB page, go here.



Headed to Savannah, GA for the weekend & next week, will be hanging with Hannah all next week, yay! So smell ya later!
-Matt

AND THE WINNER IS!?!?!?!

well well well, look who finally decided to post, I'm gonna pretend it took me so long to post because i was waiting for something important to say... and i am. after lots of debating and research i am here to announce the dbag of the month for February, and the winner is...."Jeff Grantz" (i put quotes in on purpose because im not sure hes real).Jeff pulled out a flawless victory for the the second month of the year completely destroying all in his path with an unheard of amount of dbaggery, truly no one else stood a chance against this he man of douches. Most shocking is the absence of Jeff kaminski in the 2010 games as most of his "fans" thought he would have the first two months in his back pocket. But not to worry because the year is far from over and I'm sure that kaminski has a few tricks up his sleeve, and by tricks i mean poop. but not to be out done i will be upping my game for march as i myself have my eye on the douche bag of the year prize...and ill destroy any and all of you to get it.

on a more personal side note i am currently well into my summer project entitled "the last atlantian" a mocumentary about the last son of atlantis. it should shock and thrill all of you im sure.

on an even more personal note i will soon be starting improv class at the relapse theatre in order to improve my acting skills. I will also be taking classes over at sketchworks for on camera work, i am very excited and i have to personally thank atkins for helping me all the info and inspiration to take classes and carla for pushing me to take that big step forward and do something important.

Rants and Ravings!

Krej News, Movie Review and some more rantings and ravings...

Hero Sandwich - Hannah has finished character designs on Captain Deluxo and Turbo Tom. And they look amazing. Jerry did some coloring that somehow made them even better. I also got to see some early concept work for Titanium Cranium (Don't know who any of these characters are yet? Don't worry you will soon). I am exceptionally stoked about this project, it's going to take time but should be worth it. Keep your eyes open thar may be a "Hero Sandwich" poster soon!

In more Krej news Jerry and myself started working on an outline for a new summer project. The concept is still in it's rough form. We want to incorporate lot's of motion graphic effects and an existential/absurdist* story. My concern is it might be to "out there", even by my standards.

In even more Krej news, Steven has begun working on a mock-umentary script for summer production as well. I am tempted to go into more detail, but I think I will let Steven himself do that. I will say this, he is basing a character on me who speaks with a very thick french accent.

Movie Review

Saw Kevin Smith's new film "Cop Out" today. It was pretty good. Not "Mallrats" amazing, but also not "Jersey Girl" trash either. Tracey Jordan really shines, his comedic chops are borderline immaculate. Something did seem to be missing from this. I don't if it was the fact that Smith didn't pen it or not. At times the plot seemed overly complex (for a comedy anyway), and the extra stuff took away from the truly funny.

The Tracey Jordan/Bruce Willis combo was a sight to behold. They worked very well together. The opening scenes show this very well, but as the movie trails on some of that magic fades. My hope is this will propel Mr. Jordan to a major movie comedian, he clearly can hold his own with Willis. Over all I give this flick a 7/10.

Other ranting and ravings...

Been watching a lot of "Man Vs. Food" as of late. I enjoy the show, but at the same time it is a good example of what has become wrong with us as a society. Gluttonous America is in all it's glory. I can't imagine starving kids in poverty stricken areas of the country or the world would appreciate this show. But enough ranting.

Now for some raving!

How about all these natural disasters. Maybe the end of the world is coming. Probably not though. It's highly important to note George Carlin's view on the end of things. "The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked". That's the absolute truth, it wouldn't take long after humanity ceases for Earth to fix itself and be "normal" again.

Which means all those environmentalist are going about this the wrong way. They should launch a "Save the Humans!" campaign. A source close to me assures me the dolphins are working on that though (get it? 42? Don't Panic? Hitchhikers? Thanks for the fish?).

Lastly and certainly most importantly, The Grub bequeathed us with a new word this week. In his infinate genius he decided the words otherwise and either/or needed to be fused together. Thus The Grub spoke and we were given "Eitherwise". How does one use this, an example. "We gotta stop ruining this planet "eitherwise" we will find ourselves on the wrong end of extinction". Thank you Grub for allowing us to be privy to your insanity and general loathing of the English language.

Well that's all I got in the tank for now. Going to work on a script for my new short and some storyboards for the same project and "Hero Sandwich".

*note this is in reference to the absurdist philosophy, which is connected to comedy style but not necessarily comedic in it's raw form.

Here You Go... Hot Off The Presses...

Ok, so I was gonna wait a little while to unleash this news, because I knew the press would just have a field day when the big announcement breaks, but since Jerry already “leaked” it in his last blog post, I figured I’d go ahead and man up.

The rumors are true. Young Trenton and I are starting a Comedy Gangsta Rap group. We don’t have a name for our group yet, so we may like to hear suggestions, if you got any. We do however have our individual rap names: I am henceforth to be referred to as Baby-J and Trent will answer to T-Lean and/or Caveman.

We’ve been working on some material. We have 2 songs completely written, and several more concepts for songs. We’re doing all the music and beats ourselves, with a little help from Josh Thompson (who you might remember as Kevin from Tim and Katie), a fantastic musician in his own right. We’re planning on cutting a demo (I understand that’s Industry Talk for Recording a Demo) at KREJ headquarters in the next couple weeks. We suspect you might be able to download the EP straight from the KREJ website (Psst… Jerry start working on that technology!!).

Unlike a lot of White Comedy Rap artists, such as The Lonely Island, we’re not really going for the whole “white 80’s rapper/Vanilla Ice/Beastie Boys” sound. We’re slightly closer to the Rap/Hip-Hop stylings of such artists as Outkast, Eminem, Ludacris, Dr. Dre, Goodie Mob, and Busta Rhymes, all of which we’re huge fans of (Not to say we don’t enjoy the Lonely Island, we do a good bit, but Come on, we’re from the A).

T-Lean and I are really excited about this new undertaking. We have another band who we understand is looking forward to having us play some shows with them. We’re planning on getting the EP out of the way first, and then doing some local shows here and there. And, since we do tend to make films and whatnot occasionally, there may be some music videos heading your way soon. We don’t have any shows scheduled just yet, but stay tuned, because you’ll hear it here first.

Sincerely,

Your boy Baby-J

P.S. This in no way affects the work we are doing with KREJ Productions. We still plan on working on our scripts and films and all that, even when we blow up like Hiroshima. :D

Waffle-House-Control to Major Tom,

I posted this on my blog, but I figured I would share with you some KREJ news, and a story of what my weekend was like.

I had a pretty crazy time this past weekend. on Friday night, I made a trip to Criminal Records to see a band I really like, Surfer Blood, play in-store before their actual concert. I bought some records, and then I talked to a homeless guy for like 15 minutes about music on the way back to my car. I went home and then headed back out to Midtown Art Cinema to see 'Creation', a great little flick about Charles Darwin and his internal/external struggles while writing The Origin of Species. It was a pretty good film, and I enjoyed it for the most part, though I wish they would have shown even more of the conflict between him and the church, and the impact his book had, though it was still pretty interesting to see how much his studies conflicted with his wife, who was in actuality, his first cousin, played by Jennifer Connolly (<3).

Then Saturday night, I went with some friends to East Atlanta Village to try and get in The Earl to see a sold-out show featuring a great soul/blues band, called Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. That didn't turn out so well, and in 5-10 minutes we were headed back to our car to leave and find something else to do. It was then, that we discovered in our brief absence from the car, someone had placed a boot on my friend's wheel. We were then notified that not only was a tow-truck on the way, but it would cost us $75  to get the boot off there and then, and $200 total if we were towed. So we hit up an atm and got the hell out of there. We came back to my apartment, and decided we would go to a nearby gentleman's club. So that was pretty entertaining, albeit nowhere near as cool as a Black Joe Lewis concert. But my friend was pretty bummed about getting booted, and this seemed to lift his spirits.

Upon departure, we all agreed we could eat, so we headed to a Waffle House in Buckhead. When we arrived we were greeted by an elderly man in police-uniform with a cowboy hat. He was policing the line and making sure people didn't skip, because the place was packed!! It took forever to get our food, and our server confused mostly everyone's orders, except yours truly, so it was nice to finally be done and ready to head home. As we were standing at the register waiting to check out, it was then that a large group of 7 people decide they would piggyback onto a table that these 2 other people had already sat down at, even though nobody knew anybody else. Well Ole Major Tom(I like to think his name was Tom, but the people who worked at the Waffle House kept calling him simply:"Major". But come on, Major Tom? That just makes this whole story even better doesn't it?), he wasn't having any of this line-skipping, standing around a table cause there's no seats left business. He walks over and starts berating the offenders, and one of them, a very afeminite Hispanic young man started to give Ole Major Tom some lip. It was then that Tom started yelling and slamming his hands on the table ordering everyone there to the back of the line, which was practically out the door. This didn't seem to really convince any of them to get up and move, so Ole Tom pulls out his handcuffs and slams them on the table and yells some more. It was then, finally, that the offenders figured it would be a good idea to listen to Tom.

Absolutely hilarious.


In other news, nothing KREJ-ey going on lately, Trent and Grantz are kinda doing their own thing and starting their rap careers. So look forward to hearing samples of that some-time soon. It's starting to look like nothing really big will be going on this summer, which is a pretty big bummer. Hero Sandwich is moving along but I had really hoped to do another feature-length film this summer, as it was a lot of fun to get lots of friends and friends-of-friends involved in something everyone could be proud of. But here we are.


Not-so-much KREJ-related, but yesterday I rendered a clip of my in-progress animation I've been working on off-and on for my reel:




Hope you all have a great week, and you enjoyed my story.
-Matt

Thus Spoke Kaminski

In honor of the upcoming Oscars, I am going to rant a bit about the films of 2009. Don't worry most of this will be praise.

To start things out, let's talk about how many movies got made last year. Approximately 7,000 films (yes this including indies, most notable Tim and Katie) were produced and in some way made it to theaters. Of which I paid good hard money to see around 20.

Of that 20 here is a breakdown of my top 10 (I will do my best not spoil anything).

In no particular order...
Moon - Duncan Jones (Son of Davies Jones, or as he is known to the world...David Bowie) directed this under 10 million sci-fi flik (hard to believe they can make one so cheap). An excelent look at loneliness in space, with Sam Rockwell acting very good with himself.

Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - Terry Gilliam goodness. In a weird way you can see Heath Ledger still has some of his Joker mannerisms. Oh and Tom Waits plays the devil perfectly.

That Evening Sun - Probably haven't heard of this one have ya? It was way under the radar, thank some deity for indie cinemas or I never would have seen the trailer. The story follows an elderly man dealing with the changing of the times.

District 9 - Great story, amazing special effects and an unknown actor. This sci-fi came in at around 30 mill (thar be a point to me mentioning budget in relation to sci-fi's, so bear with me). The movie is an excellent allegory for the apartheid in South Africa.

(500) Days of Summer - I traditionally avoid Romantic Comedies as they are rarely realistic in anyway shape or form. But damn if this one didn't nail it on the head. A unique aspect of the film is you can take the male protagonist and female antagonist and switch them. Thus making the female our hero and the story would still work.

Zombieland - Excellent use of horror and comedy. Plus Bill Murray making an amazing cameo.

The Hangover - Got to see this one in Vegas, which somehow made it even better. R-rated comedies got a shot in the arm thanks to Todd Philips.

Watchmen - Mind blowing. Zack Snyder is proving to be one of the most visual directors of our time.

Hurt Locker - Intense, anything could happen at any second. At no point do you believe your heroes are safe. Want to know how to write a script, look at this movie.

By my count that's 9 films. I know I said I wouldn't put them in order. But I half lied, as I have saved the film I felt was the best, for last.

The Road - I don't know where to begin with this one. Again most of you probably haven't heard of it. Flew right under the radar. Which is fine as this movie wasn't intended for the masses. It's a story about a father and son trying to survive a very bleak apocalyptic world. Very loyally it follows the book it is based on.

Viggo Mortensen was robbed by not even being nominated for this film. His performance is one of the best of the decade. He is authentic as a father trying to protect and feed his son. The pacing is a bit slow, but it's believable. A must see, and read.

Honorable Mentions
These films were good, but not the best

Sherlock Holmes, 9 (the animated one, not the live action), Star Trek, I Love You Man, Observe and Report

Now their were a few films that slipped through my fingers, I blame the economy. Here is a list of movies I really wanted to see, but haven't been able to

The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Public Enemies. Where the Wild Things Are. The new Harry Potter. Youth in Revolt. Anti-Christ. Drag Me to Hell. Big Fan

I hope I can get around much sooner then later to viewing all of them.

Snubbed! These films I saw but felt were moderately overrated (I enjoyed them, but alas something was missing).

Bruno, Inglorious Basterds and Avatar.

I typed a full review on Avatar in an earlier blog. I would like to take a second and point out that visually it is AMAZING. My complaints were with the story and Sam Worthingtons wooden performance. Plus the budget was insane, 300 million! Moon/District 9's budgets put together were roughly 35 million. And both had excellent/unique scripts.

So what does that leave left? The horrible films that for some reason I paid to see. The following were all hollow and over produced Hollywood shit.

Terminator Salvation, GI Joe, Wolverine and Transformers 2.

All 4 garbage with at best mild redeeming qualities. I felt especially scorned after watching Wolverine. Having been a fan of the character since I figured out what comics were, I wanted to see a Wolverine movie. And in all honesty I would rather it never been made then what we got. Don't even get me started on the Deadpool character.

Whelp that about does it for my ranting. This was all my opinion, and in most cases NOT the opinion of other Krej members. I only ask that this year you take some time and visit the Indie Cinemas in you're area.

My Pencils are the hotrods, my paper is the tarmac.

And they're speeding along to get Hero Sandwich character sketches on their way.

Character design is a fun way to work, especially when you're working with people you like and have just as much fun as you do. You get to dive in, create, and learn. This is especially interesting for me since I am a very detail oriented person and this kind of work has to be fairly simple in design and structure, so it turns on another part of the brain.

So far I've worked on a few sketches and things are moving smoothly along!

And of course, working with friends also helps. But I already said that.