The FilmJabber Movie Blog

Here is the final chuck of pictures from Enchanted, which compare the film’s scenes to other Disney movies. The movie makes a surprising amount of references, several of which I didn’t even pick up on at the time of viewing (yes, I know I already said that).

You can learn more about Enchanted here, and can also view more Enchanted pictures here.

Anyway, here are five new pictures to add to the eight I’ve already posted…

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Yesterday, I did a blog post about the movies Enchanted references. There are four pictures in total there, but I have 13 total. For the sake of loading speed, I separated the pictures into three blog posts, so today is the second of three blog posts about the movie Enchanted and the past Disney films that it references. These pictures are actually pretty interesting, as I didn’t pick up on several of them while I was watching the film.

Of course, I noticed the Sleeping Beauty one right off the bat. Check back tomorrow for the final wave of pictures.

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I normally don’t promote contests that take people away from my own website, but Run, Fatboy, Run looks pretty funny, and the studio (or the marketing firm that is working with the studio) has developed a game widget that allows you to get excited about the movie – and to win a private screening for you and your friends. Personally, I don’t like playing these kinds of online games, but a lot of people do. From a marketing perspective, I really need to learn how to make some of these things, as they are very effective marketing teams.

Either way, you could win a private screening of Run, Fatboy, Run for you and your friends. Just play the game below – all you have to do is score 400 or more points and you’ll be entered in a random drawing. The contest ends March 30, 2008.

Normally I don’t add pictures post-release, but Disney sent over some interesting pictures that examine the past movies that Enchanted references throughout the course of its running time. Enchanted, now out on DVD, is about a cartoon princess who is banished by an evil witch to the real, modern-day world, where she falls in love with a normal man despite the valiant efforts of a handsome prince.

I’ll be adding more over the next day or two, so check back often!

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I’ve posted ten new clips for Drillbit Taylor, the new Owen Wilson movie. As I’ve calculated out, this probably means you can see about a third of the movie sitting in front of your computer… legally.

Drillbit Taylor opens this Friday, and is the first major film release for Wilson since his suicide attempt last year. Will he get extra fan support as a result? I think he might, though I haven’t seen much promotion for the film, if any.

Watch the Drillbit Taylor media clips here.

Check out the new Red Band movie trailer for the upcoming movie Pathology (2008), which comes to theaters on April 18th. To think that Regal has decided to start showing Red Band trailers at R-rated films is a pleasant thought, as this pretty cool trailer has a fair amount of gore and a surprising amount of sex and nudity.

This is not appropriate for work, church or grandparents!

Those of you looking to kill a minute or two, voice your opinion and have a stab at $20 Fandango Bucks should head on over to voxpop.tv and try out their Jim Carrey game. Why? Because I said so!

Seriously, the game is pretty cool. Basically, it’s Jim Carrey Death Match, which means his movies go head-to-head and you get to decide which one’s better. Eventually, after several one-on-one matches, you eventually end up with your top pick. The whole game is easy to play, takes almost zero brain power and runs on some pretty cool Flash technology.

Interestingly enough, I thought I knew what my favorite Jim Carrey movie is… but as the picks kept on appearing, I found myself torn. I absolutely love Dumb & Dumber, but, then again, I also love The Truman Show. Dumb & Dumber is funnier, but is The Truman Show a better all around movie? Of course, the guys (and ladies) over at Box Office Prophets would say Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of the best movies ever.

What did I choose? Maybe I’ll tell you, but maybe I won’t.

Play the Jim Carrey game now! 

Brendan over at Empire Movies posted this video, calling it possibly the best of the Andy Samberg shorts. I’d have to disagree with that, but the video is still pretty funny.

Check out this rather neat little viral campaign that Justin.tv is doing to promote The Ruins… Click here.

Some of the people on the webcam have a rather disturbing infliction, though you have to see it to believe it. Just don’t spend too much time chatting… you’ll see what I mean.

From a marketing perspective, I wish I had the programming skills (and the time) to develop (oh, and the money) something like this. It’s pretty simple, and at the same time quite impressive.

Based on the Scott Smith novel, “The Ruins” centers on a group of friends whose leisurely Mexican holiday takes a turn for the worse when they accompany a fellow tourist on a remote archaeological dig in the jungle, where something evil lives among the ruins. View The Ruins movie details.

A teaser poster found its way online a couple days ago from ShoWest for the upcoming George Lucas movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I must say – this movie poster makes the movie look pretty lame. After the artistically done posters for past movies, I would expect something a bit more elaborate than this goofy looking one.

I am really interested to see how Star Wars: The Clone Wars does. It’s a Star Wars movie, but it’s an animated Star Wars movies. It’s still going to make a good chunk of money, the curiosity factor will be there, but a lot of people are going to be turned off by the animated characters. The characters look ridiculously stupid, and it’s going to be hard watching them on the big screen. I’m afraid that this movie is going to further degrade the overall quality of the Star Wars franchise; this movie just wasn’t meant to be made into a cartoon, let alone released in theaters.

Here’s the Star Wars teaser poster:

You must have heard the story by now, whether on the radio, on the news or at the water cooler. Some idiot in England bought a $12,000 engagement ring (please tell me that’s more than two month’s salary, because I don’t know how this guy could make that much money based on his judgment call here) with plans to propose to his girlfriend.

Lefkos Hajji wanted to do something unique and thoughtful, so he thought that while he’s “popping the question,” she should be popping a balloon. And no, not just any balloon! A balloon that has something special inside… namely, his $12,000 engagement ring. Honestly, it’s a neat enough idea and something that probably sounded really great when he came up with it and discussed it with his friends.

But, when you fill that same balloon with helium (note: helium, as I learned, does not only make your voice sound funny, but it also causes things to float), take it outside and let go of it when a “strong” gust of wind hits you, that idea is suddenly not so good.

If it were me, and I were bold (or thick) enough to do something like this -which I’m not – I would hold onto that balloon even if I were caught outside in a Category 5 hurricane. Hell, I would figure out a way to defy gravity and fly just in case something bad were to happen.

Long story short, the guy loses the balloon when a gust of wind hits him, the engagement ring goes flying away into the sky, and the guy spends two hours driving around trying to track the balloon. If he had that little kid from The Kite Runner, he might have been in better shape, but, alas, he did not get the ring back.

Even better, he goes and tells his girlfriend, and now she refuses to talk to him until he buys her another ring. Are you f**king kidding? Either these two are the best match for each other, or the worse. He’s a dumbass, and she’s a bitch. Why would you put your engagement ring into a helium-filled balloon, and how could you be such a bitch as to force the guy to buy another one right away?

I watched The Aristocats a couple days ago, and I encountered a very annoying feature that Disney apparently thinks is a device that helps the viewer. It’s called FastPlay, and I’ve run into this piece-of-crap feature on a few DVDs now.

What is FastPlay? FastPlay is a feature on the DVD that allows you to skip the DVD menu and jump directly to the film. Or one would think. Upon plugging in your DVD, a screen appears on the television asking you whether you want to go to the Menu or do FastPlay. Naturally, I want to skip over all the junk and go right to the movie, so I click on FastPlay.

The movie starts, right? Nope! It goes to a movie preview. I normally like movie previews, but not Disney previews. I click the Skip button to jump to the movie. It goes to another preview! Crap, I chose poorly. I hit the Menu button – it takes me to the standard DVD menu. I click on the “Play” button. It takes me back to the first preview again, one for 101 Dalmatians. I skip to the next preview, and the next, and the next.

Five or six previews later, several remote clicks and multiple minutes wasted, I finally reach the movie. How the f**k is that FastPlay?

Here are my issues with FastPlay:

• It isn’t faster.
• It doesn’t skip right to the movie.
• If it’s made to be easier for little children, that doesn’t make sense. I bet two-year olds these days know how to use DVD players.
• It doesn’t save any clicks. Most DVDs go right to a menu, where you can hit “Select” to trigger the Play feature. FastPlay is just a simplified version of the DVD menu.
• There’s narration to explain what FastPlay does. If you need to explain it, then it isn’t very usable, is it?

Why did Disney develop this? Why defy standard DVD usability and actually add a new layer? Why label something “FastPlay” and not bypass all the stuff people who just want to watch the movie don’t want to watch? It doesn’t make any sense.

Watch the rather unique movie trailer for the upcoming action comedy Pineapple Express, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. I actually love this trailer. It isn’t downright hilarious, but the film looks like a blend between an indie action film and a Superbad-esque comedy… which, needless to say, isn’t seen too often. I especially love the part about where Franco is driving the police car and attempts to kick out the blood-soaked windshield, only to get his foot stuck in the windshield instead.

This may be 2008′s Hot Fuzz, but only time will tell. Watch the Pineapple Express movie trailer here:

Yes, this is a true news story. My friend Cassandra sent me this Yahoo! article about a woman who decided to sit on a toilet for two years. For these two years, her skin continued to grow to the point where her butt became physically glued to the seat and her legs “atrophied”.

The 35-year old woman from Ness City, Kansas decided one day that she didn’t want to leave her bathroom, so for some reason her boyfriend decided he’d bring her food and water every day. According to him, he’d ask her to come out every day, but she always refused. Is she mentally ill or disabled? That’s yet to be determined. Did her boyfriend keep her there? Police are considering pressing charges, but as Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple says, “She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body.  It is hard to imagine. … I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

The woman’s skin had grown around the toilet seat. “We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

This is just a really weird case. I can’t even imagine sitting in one place for two years. Even the most mentally disabled person capable of moving their own body would become fidgety after a short while, let alone a span of years. How could you sit there for years and let a toilet seat grow around your ass? And why would the boyfriend not call anyone sooner? I just don’t get it.

The Aristocats arrived on DVD in February. I was supposed to review it in February. I didn’t. It’s now March, and I finally got to the film. As much as I could watch anyway.

I don’t believe that, even in my childhood, I ever saw The Aristocats, and as such, my childhood sentiment for the film isn’t there. The movie, about four cats who try to make it back home to Paris after they are abandoned in the countryside by an evil butler, is a Disney classic, but it’s certainly a film that shows its age.

The Aristocats is moderately funny at times and has some quality entertainment; a scene where the butler hides in a haystack and carefully tries to steal a bunch of stuff from a couple of dogs is pretty amusing, and there are other highlights as well. The animation is good given that the film originally hit theaters 38 years ago (yes, 1970 was 38 years ago); actually, I miss this style of animation a lot. All the cartoons these days look so glossy; the roughness of The Aristocats really works in its favor.

I expect little kids will still find this movie entertaining, but I’d be curious to see if that’s the truth. The style of humor is certainly different than that found in modern movies, and I wonder if children are still able to appreciate calmer, more laid back cartoons like this film. Unlike most cartoons, The Aristocats really doesn’t have a prominent villain, and the film takes its time moving from sequence to sequence without any sense of excitement or tension. This isn’t bad – it’s just different.

Nevertheless, I found The Aristocats a little boring. Had I grown up on the film, I’d probably think differently, but since I didn’t, I didn’t see anything very spectacular here.  Little kids may still enjoy it, but the film certainly feels dated.

The DVD offers several games and activities, deleted scenes and some behind-the-scenes featurettes, none of which I bothered to watch.