There’s only one way to settle this: House Off!

For those of you who keep track of such things, My Island thus far has the following inhabitants:

Myself, 6, Tina Fey, Pam, Kate, Agent Scully, Sydney Bristow, and Veronica Mars.

That means there are 3 spots left. And no, there’s no doctrinal basis for that. It’s just to limit this list from going on forever. The Top 10 is time honored tradition and I intend to uphold it.

Today’s contenders come from one of my favorite shows: House MD. It’s pretty much required viewing as a med student. Not because it’s that accurate, it’s just a nice diversion from cramming facts into our heads. Who will make it out of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and onto My Island?




Will it be Cameron? Cameron has had the most face time on the show. She has fan collages (which always turn out kind of creepy), classy pantsuits and even this cute little manga self.




Cuddy? Another fanboy collage, why certainly! Still creepy.




Or Thirteen? She’s a intensely secretive brunette bisexual. Was this really a contest? Cameron might have won if she hadn’t dyed her hair blonde this season. But an even bigger problem than her hair color, she’s just too nice. Thirteen has the lucky number.

Jemaine, Bret and I

I am not much of a Buckeye. I’d almost prefer the team does poorly so it’s easier to get around town on game day. But there are some great perks to going to OSU.

What are the chances that Flight of the Conchords would come to BYU? They probably have a reasonably large fanbase there, but the chances of them coming to campus are nearly nonexistent. But they’re coming to OSU in a couple weeks. What are the chances that BYU would buy a thousand tickets and give them away to students? I almost forget the ridiculous tuition I’m paying when OSU throws free 30 dollars tickets at me every couple months.

My costume
(that's a link by the way)




My robot friends

My Morning Diversion

Since my studying before noon is only about 10% effective, I decided it was a good idea to go see Iron Man this morning. I’m all about efficiency. So I grabbed myself some French toast sticks, stuck them in my cargo pants and went to the 10:30 showing. Which was FULL. Why is the 10:30 showing full? Could be that other people are studying for Board exams as well. Or more likely, they appreciate the 5 dollar price as much as I do.

I hadn’t really intended to see Iron Man first run. I’d be surprised if he was in my top 25 superheroes. But my desire not to study, combined with surprisingly strong reviews (94% for a superhero movie? It must be good) convinced me to spare a couple hours. And it was pretty good.

Marvel does an excellent job throwing in little nods for the comic book faithful. Although I’m much less knowledgeable of Iron Man than say 25 other characters, I was pleasantly surprised with the foreshadowing of future events.

I think all the actors involved did fine work. I like Downey and enjoyed his performance. Tony Stark is a pretty fun character (much more so than his DC counterpart Bruce Wayne) so the movie rarely dragged. I’m traditionally not a big Paltrow fan (I think she’s great in Tenenbaums and ok in Running with Scissors and Mr. Ripley, but otherwise haven’t been impressed) but she did well. I think Terrence will be a good War Machine for Iron Man 2 (War Machine was a character introduced in the 90s to make Iron Man cooler) and he just had to sit through this film to make it to that one. Jeff Bridges had the unenviable task of playing the villain. Normally this is fine, but the fact is the Iron Man doesn’t really have any great villains. I'm sure Iron Man faithful would disagree, but I'm just not that interested in The Mandarin, Crimson Dynamo or Living Lasor.

All in all, a fun ride. It’s an escapist treat that’s well done, so likely worth your time. You only get 3 action scenes, but they're all pretty good and the repartee between Downey and Paltrow keeps your attention until the next thing blows up.

Here's War Machine. I bet my socks (a high value) that he'll make an appearance next time:



Things to watch for:
1. The best Stan Lee cameo yet.
2. The scene after the credits.
3. Shameless Burger King promotion. Which I saw while eating Burger King!

The Legend

Evidently a small percentage of my readership wants posts that don’t involve lingerie, and I’m here to oblige. That previous sentence will be the only reference to lingerie. Though this opening paragraph will likely be enough to cause my blog to come up in a lingerie search on Google.

On the opposite side of the spectrum from lingerie is The Legend. In the remote chance that some future employer would find this blog while searching for his name, I’ll simply refer to him as The Legend. In fact, this was the secretive name we used for the movie we made concerning his storied life. In fact because I wanted to keep the movie a secret from The Legend, none of you have likely heard any mention of it. He did unfortunately discover it before it was completed, and if I ever get my hands on the mole that told him . . .

The Legend is a fitting name for the man. He’s that guy that everyone knows that seems pretty close to perfect. Johnny Football Hero, Peter Priesthood, the complete deal. Some have claimed that I have a mancrush on him, but this is in fact a misconception. He’s not my type, even in the limited field of mancrushes. But I did decide to make a movie about his life, to explain The Legend to the world. I did some extensive research, then made up stuff to fill the missing dramatic holes in the story.

Personally I think it may be my best movie yet. Not exactly high praise, but I think it’s true. With every movie I have certain goals, and this one had the following:

1. The return of the narrative. I actually wanted this movie to be a story. Having a plot? Silly, I know. But I set out to tell a story, not just give an arbitrary sequence of events. I think this was pretty successful. There’s even a plot twist!
2. Special effects. I have always avoided scenes that would be difficult. This is pretty necessary considering I make movies with no budget and on random Saturday mornings. But I decided there were a couple effects I wanted and they ended up working well.
3. Rotating cast. Because no one person could play The Legend, I had 9 different people play him. I’d like to point out that I had this idea before I’m Not There. I was slightly upset that their movie made it to the theater before mine did, but what can you do.
4. On location. I normally film in just a location or two. It’s so much easier, in terms of getting your cast their and for controlling light conditions and audio. I didn’t travel to Morocco or anything, but I filmed in a greater variety of locals to further the plot.
5. Extras. I've always wanted to do commentary tracks, special features etc. This time I finally did a bit. A bonus theme song performed by ChrEte, a special Youtube compilation, the Buckeye Blast movie (The Legend started the charity) and a number of other extras actually gave people a reason to buy the DVD after seeing the feature presentation.
6. The voiceover experience. I wanted to try doing more narration. I’m usually pretty dialogue dependent, and I wanted more wide shots with voiceover. I thought this would make things easier, but in reality in made things harder. I also ended up using a bit too much, but you live and learn.

The movie ended up being 30 minutes, which I think is a good length. Though it is too long to post on Youtube, the 60 minutes film I made last year was a bit much for my ADHD audience. We debuted the film back in March to pretty positive reviews. Even The Legend himself gave us the thumbs up. And if he likes it, it must be good.

Jim's Choice

Today on My Island: Office Wars! This would have been much more topical a year ago, but I’m a bit slow.



Pam Beesly versus Karen Filapelli.

Who gets a spot on My Island? Forget Jim, this is all about me and mine today. The winner is:



Pam Beesly! Pam was actually the first person to win a spot on My Island, after Kate, who’s already living there. But why did Pam win? This brings up three important points.

1. I’m not quite as shallow as you think. Because on a strictly aesthetic basis, I think that Rashida is more attractive than Jenna. Jenna’s no schlub to be sure, but Rashida just edges her out. So selection for My Island is not purely on physical appearance, though I certainly admit that it’s a largely shallow (and quite pointless endeavor.)



2. It’s all about the banter. I recently realized that the main thing I’m looking for when I date is the ability to banter. To have a quality banter you must have similar senses of humor, common interests, compatible intellects and interesting personalities. Attraction and banter, that’s really all you need. Karen was by no means a banterless wasteland. She was clever, funny and engaging. But Pam beats her. Pam, though less acerbic, usually has a witty remark for the situation. She plays along with jokes and initiates them herself. She’s a fantastic conversation partner. And that’s why Ms Beesly gets a spot.

It’s worth noting that Pam made it, not Jenna. Having seen her in Blades of Glory and Walk Hard, it’s just not the same. I appreciate the following scenes:



But the sparkle isn’t there.

And why about Jan? If she always wore the following outfit she’d be a stronger contender:



But she’s also a crazy person, and is banterless, so doesn’t make the cut.