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22 December 2006

Yo, Rocky!

I finally managed to dig out from under the snow and checked out your new flick.

It hit the spot and I enjoyed every frame.

Thanks, man.

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21 December 2006

Yo, Rocky!

I haven't made it to the new flick yet. Ya see, well, I'm snowed in, ya know?

On the bright side, I finally checked out "On Demand" programming supplied by my cable provider and was delighted to see the previous five episodes of the Rocky saga are available in high def - for free!

Rocky IV still blows more chunks than the others, but not quite as badly as I remembered. One question: Why did you replace Bill Conti with a God awful '80s synth score by Vince DiCola? That was more grating than the film's music video sequences.

But... seeing Rocky rough it and work out in Siberia, well... that hit close to home, man.

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17 December 2006

So I picked up the new Rocky 2-Disc Collector's Edition this weekend.

It's the third DVD edition of this one movie to be added to the Mattsonian library and it is excellent. It's the deluxe treatment the movie has deserved all along. Excellent insights in Stallone's commentary and in the documentaries. Fantastic picture and audio quality.

The kicker is, after seeing the movie umpteen times (you know, after getting kicked to the curb by a girl, a job, a whatever), I finally noticed the house number of Rocky's place: it's 1818, just like mine.

I've said it a billion times now. Great minds think alike. And they live in the same house number.

The new DVD set comes with a free pass to Rocky Balboa, which I will take advantage of this Wednesday. Unfortunately, I missed the press screenings last week because of another trip out to Atlanta.

Yo, Rocky! See ya Wednesday!

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14 November 2006

I know. Site updates have slowed.

But I've got loads of photos from the Denver Film Festival and I'm putting together a couple short reviews of The Aura and Rape of Europa.

While I didn't get an interview with Vilmos Zsigmond, the evening presentation was excellent. BUT, now I have 2 1/2 hours of audio to wade through, plus 45 minutes or so of audio for the Scott Wilson evening.

Just to put it all in perspective, I flew in Thursday afternoon, booked it over to the opening night, chatted with Anthony Minghella (he was extremely nice; hope I got a good pic), then, amidst squashing a couple long distance "emergencies" on the work front, watched Rape of Europa Friday morning, slipped in Casino Royale Friday afternoon, and finally conked out Friday night.

I attempted to cover a press conference Saturday morning, but it was cancelled because of the tragedies that hit Denver Friday night (for one, a family was run over by a truck, so the media was unavailable...), but I did get a group shot including David Strathairn; not sure how good that pic is. Still afraid to look.

Saturday afternoon, watched The Aura, then hit the Vilmos Zsigmond and Scott Wilson evenings. Definitely got some excellent photos of Vilmos.

Packed Sunday morning and headed back to Atlanta. It's inauguration week. Lots of hub-bub going on. I'm hoping time will loosen up tomorrow evening; tonight's going to be nuts.

Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was slacking off or something silly like that.

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24 September 2006

I must admit to having a crush on a number of CNN's hotties. Betty Nguyen, Melissa Long, Kyra Phillips, Brianna Keilar, Delia Gallagher, Suzanne Malveaux, Mary Snow, Erica Hill... All are extremely qualified to tackle the incredibly challenging - but equally rewarding - role of Mrs. Anderson.

Alas, when I took the CNN Center tour, Carol Lin was the only one in the newsroom.

It was an inspirational little visit and it was cool to see some "artifacts" as the tour winded its way down via staircases after taking an 8-story escalator (the world's largest free-standing escalator) up to the start of the tour.

Of course, no photography was allowed during the tour itself, so these exterior shots will have to suffice.

One funny little bit of trivia: before CNN, the building used to house the Sid & Marty Krofft tour. Some of the rires were so funky, the place was open for only five months.

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23 September 2006

In Atlanta, the happening "bar district" is Buckhead.

After polishing off my review of the U2: ZOO-TV DVD, I was in desperate need of a Guinness and, happily, a Fado's was in walking distance of my hotel.

Unfortunately, the clientele left something to be desired.

Ya see, I was mesmerized by the vision of the silhouette of the Guinness harp in the creamy foam of my favorite pint. So inspired, I pulled out my brand new Digital Rebel XTi (it arrived via UPS express at stately Matt Manor only the day before) in order to take a photo.

The peanut gallery - a slew of women who seemed to think they knew something about something or other - pounced on the spectacle of a single guy taking pictures of the Nectar of the Gods.

One curious lady asked what I was doing. I explained I was taking a picture of the harp.

Ah. She was a sharpie. She said, "That's a Guinness, not a Harp."

Thanks baby, but do you see the harp above the word GUINNESS? She thereby stood corrected.

But she came back with another question: "Do you take that camera everywhere?"

"Uh," I replied, "I just got it."

Another was quick to point out when the flash didn't go off. That was unintentional. I actually had to explain that I didn't like flash photography (and one picture with the flash proved my point - it totally blew away the shadow - duh!).

OK. Maybe I should've used the macro feature, but I think the picture below at least manages to get across what I was trying to photograph.

Even the bartender chick was kinda coarse. Then again, she charged me for only three pints instead of four. Normally I'd point that out, but she didn't deserve the courtesy.

Oh. And then there was the really classy babe who sat down right smack next to me, glared at me, then chatted up her over-aged boyfriend.

She was drinking coffee. The ass proceeded to fall right off her stool onto her... well, her hands and knees.

Sweet. I can only hope the cream in her coffee was Irish.

Then, after leaving Fado's, I took a wee little walk and almost got run over while walking across the driveway at the nearby Cheesecake Factory. It's a frickin' chain, for Pete's sake! Don't be so excited to get there!

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was not as annoying.

In fact, it was rather pleasant. Things turned around at ESPN Zone (yeah, Atlanta is littered with all the chains; traveling the U.S. is like never leaving home). A nice girl named Catherine introduced herself and her D&T colleagues. Auditors one and all, they were in town for some training and group bonding.

She was cool and that nice little bit of friendly chit chat turned the evening around.

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