Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" Blu-ray release

Terrence Malick's new film "The Tree of Life" is set to be released on  Blu-ray tomorrow (October 11, 2011). Terrence Malik is probably best known for the Oscar nominated, The Thin Red Line. His seemingly stream of consciousness film set in World War II. I sat back and watched it some months ago after realizing I'd never seen the whole thing from start to finish.
The majority of the film is dominated by an "in your head" monologue from the characters as they try to come to grips with what they are seeing and experiencing in war. Not so much Saving Private Ryan action war film as it is a philosophical exploration of man and humanity in general. The story seemed very non-linear and I realized at one point that the purpose of the film is a vehicle to deliver the message in the monologue while still maintaining a stunning visual appeal.
I'm expecting that Tree of Life is no different.
Meredith had the pleasure of working a few days on the film during the filming in Austin and around Texas. She could see that he had a real vision for what the film should be and that the physical medium of film and the reality of actors and locations were somewhat holding him back. Things often seemed sporadic and not connected during the filming. Something that is not uncommon when shooting a film as scenes are shot out of order to accommodate locations and actor's schedules. She admired his quest for perfection. She described to me one day of filming in which they had shot most of the day on a neighborhood street before Terrence moved the entire production one street over to shoot it again. It's no wonder that it took so many years for this film to be completed and released.
Terrence is a real visionary and creative genius. I'm expecting that The Tree of Life will be similar in style to The Thin Read Line and have real attention to detail and visuals, but deal more with the emotional struggles of family life and growing up. I'm sure that it will be anything but a literal and linear telling of a family story.
I'm looking forward to it.

Here is the trailer for The Tree of Life:

Machete coming to Blu-ray and DVD, Jan 4 2011

Robert Rodriguez's "Machete", which Meredith did the special FX make-up for, will be released on Blu-ray and DVD January 4, 2011.
It's a fun action noir "grindhouse" style film starring a ridiculously cool cast of Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson...and for that wow factor Lindsay Lohan.
So pre-order today!


     Blu-ray              DVD

2010 Emmy Award Nominations

One of Meredith's many make-up friends called her up yesterday. She said "Congratulations!". Meredith said "for what?". To which her friend replied "for your Emmy Nomination!"
Sure enough, she's been nominated for an Emmy for her work on the HBO bio-pic "Temple Grandin".
"Temple Grandin" was shot around Austin over a few months a few summer's ago.
It was a pretty stressful shoot for her. She'd come home crying almost every night as the department head seemed to really ride her hard. But she stuck it out.
So it's nice that she's being rewarded and recognized for her hard work. Hopefully she'll win, but even if she doesn't, it's a great resume builder just to be able to say she's been nominated. I'm pretty proud of her.
She's come a long way from slinging java in a coffee shop and picking up make up jobs for no budget film projects on the weekends.
Though for a true showcase of her creative talents, we'll have to wait for Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" to be released in September.
Now I have to find a tux somewhere...

Heavy Rain Update

I finished Heavy Rain about two days after I started playing it. Not a very long game at all. From what I've been seeing around the web, it is intended to be played several times since the outcome of the game can vary slightly depending on what choices you make throughout the game and who lives, who dies. There is a huge list of trophies that you can obtain from doing these elaborate sequences of movements accurately. Such as the "Baby Master" trophy (shown in the video below) in which you gain a trophy for changing a diaper, feeding a bottle and burping a baby.

As I wrote in my previous post, the control system was what really drew me to the game. I wouldn't doubt it if we see similar things in the future in other titles. It really brings you into the game making you feel more connected.
I didn't have any other glitches pop up in about the last half of the game. There were some instances where you would pop out of an animated mini-cut scene only to get stuck where you couldn't move or some things wouldn't render completely. Restarting the game would resolve it. Maybe they'll fix some of these things in an update at some point.
The graphics were a stunning. As you work through the game you unlock some videos a few that deal with the making of the game. They spent a lot of time capturing expression and facial detail.



Overall, Heavy Rain was an enjoyable experience. I'm very tempted to go back through it again to try to get more trophies and see what other paths I can follow.....but I've been a little distracted working on a huge complicated project for work with a very short deadline (which also explains the tardiness of this post).
I picked up God of War III. Actually, I pre-ordered it from Amazon so that I wouldn't have to scramble to try to find a copy locally. Plus I could choose a gift wrap option (my present wrapping skills suck) as this was more a gift for Meredith than it was for me.
God of War III is the 3rd installment of a game that Meredith and I have really enjoyed playing. It's a hack 'n slash dungeon crawler with some amazing animation and a variety of weapons, magic and special moves. Some really cool animated final kills that would put Mortal Kombat to shame.
Figured Meredith would wear the buttons out on the controllers so I bought her a new one in her favorite color.

MEAT

Looks like Mark finally got around to uploading his strangely bizarre but all around quirky comedy "MEAT" to YouTube. Which is a film about an interesting life lesson of how it feels to be on the other side of things. And it's a great opportunity to see the great David Blackwell reprise his role as a store clerk.
Meredith and I worked on this short film a few years ago and it was a real blast. Meredith doing makeup and me doing some camera work. Though her work is far better than mine, I'd have to admit.
Mark is one of those guys with a great eye for composition and detail and I always enjoy working with him on projects. Films are a lot more fun when you work with people you really like and respect.
Anyway, here's "MEAT"

Childhood

I just finished watching Poltergeist for the second time in over 25 years. Myself and Poltergeist have a long history. When I was young dad was stationed in Hessich Oldendorf, Germany It was the 80's, dawn of the VHS tape. There was some entrepreneurial folks stationed there that took it upon themselves to start their own video rental shops straight out of there military supplied housing. I can remember that membership cost a couple of donated movies on VHS tapes. Mom donated some rather innocent titles like Swiss Family Robinson and Elephant Man (before I knew who David Lynch was).
Dad was the base commander and along with mom were always being called way for some official function or some boring ball with the local German townsfolk leaving my brother and I with the sitters.
Rob rented Poltergeist one night when mom & dad were away. We had this great VHS player set up in the living room. It had a "remote" control that was a little play/rewind/fast forward/pause control tethered by a cord to the VHS deck. It was cutting edge back them believe me...
So Rob gets this movie and watches it. In it there is a scene where one of the characters has a pretty traumatic experience in which he sees a small cut on his face, starts to peel it and eventually peels most of his face off. Being maybe all of 8 or 9 years old at the time this freaks the crap out of me. Seeing my traumatic reaction to this what is an older brother to do but rewind the thing a dozen times.
I had nightmares for weeks after that. And not just nightmares but well...daymares? I'd see this poor wretch peel his face off in my mind throughout the day sometimes.
This more less started my obsession with special effects make up. One day perusing the base exchange's book store I stumble across Fangoria Magazine. I am amazed to see that it shows make up effects from all sorts of movies and gives some detailed explanations about how it is all done. Some strange therapy, but I come to the realization that it is all fake! And that there is some real art in making the unbelievable believable.
Flash forward 25+ years. I've avoided Poltergeist like the plague for all the years. That face peeling scene still stuck in my mind after all these years. Creeping into my nightmares even though I know it is not real. I see the movie sitting on the shelves in glorious Blu-Ray at my local Best Buy. I finally decided to face my fears and watch the darn thing. I get it home, wait until it is nice and dark outside and pop the disc in.
My oh my, how times have changed. First off I don't remember jack about this movie. The first quarter of the movie I don't even remember. Second...were we really that badly dressed in the 80's? I remember the kitchen chair repositioning themselves... I remember the paranormal crew getting there. Then the guy that decides in the middle of the night to look through the fridge only to find a maggot ridden chicken drumstick and a steak that vomits itself up. Poor chap goes straight to the bathroom to barf a bit. Then it dawns on me that this is the moment I've been waiting for. After 25 years I can finally face my fear of this face peeling.
So the poor chap enters the bathroom and vomits a few times...looks up in the mirror and discovers this small cut on his face and proceeds to peel his face off... Only now I can dissect the scene... Guy enters the bathroom, vomits a bit, cut to the sink, back to the mirror.... holy crap! that appliance looks like sh!t! Suddenly the left half of his face has turn into really poor looking foam latex. You can tell when he presses up on the gag a bit to ooze the blood out the little "wound". Then cut to the sink again. Then back to the mirror to a horribly bad looking "head" with too hands in front of it ripping apart some poorly done foam latex to reveal a stock skeleton skull.
At this point I'm dumb founded by the fact that I was so traumatized by such a crappy gag from so many years ago. My how times have changed. Now I think to myself, Meredith could of done a heck of a lot better job and would have made it much more believable.
I have no idea what I was scared of all those years ago.

Unfortunately, the same experience hasn't been able to cure my fear of creepy clowns...

Popcorn Friday

Two movies that Meredith worked on years ago doing special FX makeup that we thought for sure would never see the light of day...have finally come to light.

First up is Hallettsville, an almost typical boy haunted by his ancestor's secrets kind of film. Grandmother dies leaving the family lake front property to who doesn't want it because it brings back bad memories. The son decides that the best thing to do with a freaky old house on haunted property is to pack up all his co-eds and run out for a night of drinking and debauchery.
The scariest thing in this was Gary Busey, who wasn't even in a scary role...he's just scary 'cause he's Gary Busey. This was Meredith's first exposure to Gary but would not be her last.
Anyway, rent it if you can find it. It was shot in Austin and Johnson City and crewed by a lot of locals (including Meredith). If you really want to have fun, see if you can get drunker than Gary by the time the credits role.


Next up, the film that almost gave Meredith an ulcer, Exit Speed. Story of an eclectic group travelers on Christmas Eve trying to minimize their carbon footprint and take the bus to BFE, Texas, when their travel is interrupted by a murderous crystaled-out gang of stunt motorcycle riders (they're rampant these days). Deciding that the bus is not running on eco-friendly natural gas and they harass the bus for kicks, fun, women, money and showmanship. Fighting back with cosplay, Mexican ingenuity, and kick ass soccer moms a war ensues.
Meredith did the makeup special effects (and there are a lot of effects). She tackled a lot of last minute director "what if we..." effects.
In any event, she learned a lot on this film:

• She learned that shooting a film in the Texas rainy season is a bad idea.
• Discovered that they manufacturer bug zappers in tennis racket form.
• She experienced first hand how to tell if a lawyer is lying...they opened their mouth.

She did meet a lot of fine people and learn some cool tricks to boot. Not sure if she would do it again, but I doubt she regretted doing it at all.
Overall, not a bad film. If you can find it in the bargain bin at the Super Wal*Mart pick it up. She did a great job on a pretty makeup effects laden film...worth a watch just to go "ewwwww...."

To wet your appetite here's a trailer: