Archive for July, 2005

Club Dread (2004)

Rothe Blog Club DreadA Half Star

I am glad this was a free movie from the library. This was one of the stupidest movies I had ever seen. Club Dread couldn’t make up it’s mind about being a comedy, a college party, or a slasher movie. Either choice, it stunk. From the Broken Lizard film company with Bill Paxton, this is the follow up offering to Super Troopers, a movie that with the right audience could be funny.

But this movie was so terrible, and this is why. Acting that wasn’t good, and wasn’t funny at being bad, this movie goes from one bad joke about acid or sex to another. I don’t have anything else to say, no one should watch this.


Kill Bill Vol.2 (2004)

Rothe Blog Kill Bill Vol2Three Stars

I’ve been waiting to see this second part to Quentin Tarantino’s Kung Fu roots bloodbath two part series. In the first movie we see a bride killed at the alter with all of her wedding party by four assassins. She used to be an assassin, and was trying for a new life, but her former friends killed her in cold blood and now she is out for revenge. The first movie saw her kill two or three of the perps. Then at the end we find out that the baby she was carrying at the time of the event is still alive, and the guy who orchestreted it all, Bill, has her.

Vol. 2 was so much less campy violence, and more what I would call kung fu. There is a lot of slow sequences of back story, but they seem to be necessary for some point or another. Since Quentin was going for a certain effect, that is why the drama is drawn out. But this movie, two more people die, but not legions by a sword. A black mambo snake bites one guy in the face three times killing him, and another our lead character, the bride, Uma Thurman, kills by the exploding heart technique. She is the only assassin we find out that was taught this technique, and the whole group was taught by one teacher. Then there is one part that is kind of graphic, when Thurman plucks out the only good eye that Darryl Hannah has left.

So, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Vivicia Fox, and others round out the cast for these two movies. It wasn’t a bad movie, I just wouldn’t watch it a bunch of times. But, there is one part that I have never seen before. Thurman gets buried alive, and you get to see her punch her way out of a flimsy coffin and dig herself out in a semi-humorous scene.

So, if you saw the first part you’ll like this. I can’t even say if you like Tarantino movies you’d like this, because he did such a different idea with these two movies that it’s not a guarantee you’ll see his old style here. But, it has some cool action scenes, so if you can handle campy over the top bloody violence, you may check these out.


Spiderman 3 Casting Rumors. Who are the villains?

Rothe Blog Spiderman Image

Sometimes the anticipation and the secrecy is just as exciting as the actual movie when it comes to casting for Comic Book based movies.

This is no different for Spiderman 3. The rumors are not concrete. There are so many swirling around, from four villians, to maybe an appearance from the Black Cat, to Venom, and on and on.

Thomas Hayden Church = The Sandman?

Rothe Blog Thomas Hayden Church

Thomas Hayden Church, who I keep hearing was”that guy from Wings”, or for me more recently was in Sideways, was cast in March for Spiderman 3. The most popular rumor is that Hayden Church will be playing The Sandman, but it has also been said that he could play Venom, which although bold and has a fine line for failure, could be a huge payoff if done properly because of his popularity.

Venom, and alien symbiote that is almost liquid in form, is worn as a evil costume in the comics by Eddie Brock and eventually starts to take over his mind. Church really has the figure to play this role, but honestly, could they pull that off? That would be a ton of CG, it doesn’t seem like but yesterday that some of Spiderman’s scenes in the first film looked fake, and even one or two shots looked a little off of Alfred Molina as Doc Ock last year.

Hayden Church did say this in an interview(Entertainment Weekly). His statement is probably purposefully weird, and if I felt like researching into Spidey Villains, I might try to make more sense of it. But, it seems like it could fit into the theory of a Sandman character.

EW: After reminding the world he could really act in Sideways, the Oscar nominee will play an undisclosed, top secret villain in 2007’s Spider-Man 3. How about a hint?

THC: “He’s a horse of many colors.”

EW: There are horses in Spider-Man?

THC: “Let’s just say he’s an amorphous collection of protons, electrons, and neutrons, of different colors.”

Topher Grace = ?

Rothe Blog Topher Grace
Then, in May, Topher Grace of “That 70’s Show” fame was also cast for the upcoming movie. Having an especially hard time picturing Topher as a villian, I assumed he would play something else in the movie, some other role. But who? Honestly, would Mary Jane leave Peter for another love interest now? That wouldn’t make sense.

I have read rumors that he could play The Vulture but I have also read of Topher playing Sandman in the scenario that Church is playing Venom. Either way, the more I read around the internet, Sam Raimi has said that the next movie with have more special effects than the first two and the costumes for the Villians will just be amazing. So my initial idea of him being some regular joe is most likely way off base.

In the end, it’s just speculation. I wish it was more.

Yeah, ok. There is just so much they could do. One could argue that most of the villains mentioned couldn’t probably even carry a movie in motivation by themself, so two would really make sense. Plus, they introduced Curt Conners in the last movie as one of Peter’s professors. But will the one armed scientist be the stronest villian choice as The Lizard? Depending on motivation maybe, you have a story of Peter trying to save him, and some cool action scenes of him jumping and climbing all around. But, he would probably have to be all CG as well, so why not just do Venom then? Venom is a lot more popular.

I don’t know. Principal photography beings in January. I guess I will just have to concentrate on King Kong for now, and try to wait patiently. I will have a preview in the fall of Superman Returns to tide me over too.


Sin City (2005)

Rothe Blog Sin CityThree and a Half Stars

An All Star cast ranging from Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba to Clive Owen and Rosario Dawson, this movie isn’t lacking in stars. It also isn’t lacking in originality, with a large part of the movie having been shot on green screens and the backgrounds added in, the black and whites are rich and reflective, and the colors are so vibrant. This movie has a true comic book feel, with the graphic silhoutte shots, and the exaggeration in the fighting and car chases.

Having said that, I didn’t enjoy this movie. I have gone back and forth on why I feel let down. I knew going in that it was going to be close to an exact translation of three of Frank Miller’s bodies of work, Yellow Bastard, The Big Fat Kill, and Sin City (the graphic novel). I knew it was going to be violent, and although it was probably less than the novels, that isn’t saying much. The lack of color helps make it seem a little less gruesome, but the sounds more than make up for it.

Being an artist, I would hate to have my original ideas butchered just to be on the big screen. But at the same time, wouldn’t you want your work to be entertaining? I didn’t think this movie was that at all. I thought it felt long, and like I said, it was cool to see the comic book come to life. This is an extreme case where I don’t know how you could modify it even just a little to make it more entertaining. It just is a very dark, graphic story about the evils of booze, hookers, passion, and death.

If you are a comic book guy, see this, or you enjoy those types of movies. But this is graphic, and I don’t think really appeals to a mass audience. This movie is truly panel for panel from the comic book.


How do I save my action files? How do I bring / import my actions into a newer version of Photoshop?

Rothe Blog Adobe Logo
This is a really simple task that you may find yourself doing when you upgrade your version of Photoshop. Unlike brushes and other custom settings, you actually have to import custom actions after you place them in the correct folder on your hard drive.

To preserve your actions, these are the steps you take. Let’s first export them out of your old version of Photoshop.

Step 1: Open Photoshop, and make sure that your “Actions” pallette is open. Window > Actions. Or by default the shortcut is setup to Alt + F9.

Step 2: Click on the folder that has your actions you want to save. You should see a little triangle up in the upper right of the pallette, click that, and scroll down until you see “Save Actions…”.

Step 3: Save actions. Also, you may want to note what folder they are located in. You can either save them in the default folder with the rest of your actions, and if you are like me, you will then copy those to a different location to be backed up later in case you lose your system.

Here is a small illustration showing you what the actions pallette looks like, the small triangle I was talking about, and your save and load options.

Rothe Blog Photoshop Actions Ill.1

My actions are located in this directory. You will want to note the structure, because you will be copying these actions into a similar directory for your new version of Photoshop. Program Files > Adobe > Photoshop 7.0 > Presets > Photoshop Actions.

Ok. Now let’s import them back into the same, or a different version of Photoshop.

Step 1: Open Photoshop again, and again, make sure that your “Actions” pallette is open. Window > Actions.

Step 2: Click that small triangle in the upper right like you did before, and choose “Load Actions”.

Step 3: Navigate to find the file we just saved out (It should be a file you named with a .atn Photoshop extension on it), and choose “Load”.

You should now see your actions in your pallette available for use in your new version of Photoshop.


How do I trace an image in 3ds Max? How do I create an Image plane?

Information was readily available for this topic, as I got into this right away when I thought that I would have to draw the outline of a globe for my most recent project in 3ds Max.

Basically, what you are looking to do, is get an image into 3ds Max that you can then trace. What you need to do actually, is make what is known as a material, with your image on it. Then you need to make a simple plane, or flat paper like object, that you apply that material to and you have your image to trace on.

For this example I am using art by Adam Hughes. It isn’t line art, but what I was using was. This was the only tip I had for pure lineart. Find the best line between the best detail without looking chunky and then thickness of the line you are making in your lineart. 3ds Max will make you nice Illustrator line art, when make into a material, into pixelated little jaggies. I couldn’t find a way around that. For me, it was making the map outline in Illustrator at a 2px thickness.

Let’s get Started.

Ok. On to making your image plane. I am assuming here that you know what primitive shapes are and of course, how to open the program.

Step 1: Go to your “Create” tabbed pallette on the right side, make sure “Standard Primitives” is selected and you will see “Plane” in the lower right as one of your button options. Click that.

Step 2: Draw a plane. The amount of segements, and overall density of polygon information is not important here because you are just using this image plane as a springboard to make something else.

Rothe Blog Image Plane Diag.1 Studio Max

Step 3: Open your materials editor. It is the little button in the upper right that looks like four spheres, or you can get to it from your menus in this fashio; Rendering > Materials Editor. In your default shortcuts, it would open by pressing “M”.

Here is an illustration of all of the different parts you will need here in a couple of these steps. Refer to as needed.

Rothe Blog Image Plane Diag.2 Studio Max

Step 4: You will see a bunch of spheres. These are your sample slot materials. This all looks a little overwhelming, but don’t worry about it too much here, we will just scratch the surface. Click on a sphere, and then below in your “Blinn Basic Parameters” rollout, you will see an option called “Difuse” with a little blank gray square button next to it. Click this button. This is the diffuse channel. At the very basic level, it is the basic material for a “Blinn” material. It would be your color, or in this case, your image map for the surface of your shader.

Step 5: This will open your “Material / Map Browser”. At the very top is the option you need entitled “Bitmap”. Double click this. The rest of your options are for the effect you want to go for on your objects, from a mirror surface, to a refraction surface for lighting effects, to an actual surface like smoke or brick or something.

Step 6: In the dialogue box that opens, navigate to where the image is located on your computer and double click to select it. Your Material Browser will close, and you will see your image wrapped around on of the spheres. You will also notice now that that once blank box next to diffuse now has an “M” in it. This means that you have a Map applied to it, just for your reminder.

Step 7: Drag that sphere out on to your image plane to apply it to the plane. Your other option is to click a little button that looks like a sphere pointing to a cube. This option will only be available to you if your have your target object selected. If you roll your cursor over to find it, the title will say “Assign Material to Selection”.

Step 8: View your image on your image plane. Click the little button that looks like a checkered cube that says “Show Map in Viewport”, then you can go to your viewport name, in this case for me it is “Top”, right click, and choose “Smooth + Highlights”. Hopefully this should show up allright for you. There are many different viewport names, from left, right, perspective, user. Just right click to make sure your basic rendering is turned on so your can see your image plane.

Here you can see part of my image plane rendered out. You can also see above, the material and what it looks like after the image is applied to the basic shader before you assign that shader to your plane.

Rothe Blog Image Plane Diag.3 Studio Max

That’s it! I hope I didn’t loose you. I hope at a later date I can get into what to do next with tracing, but this is a good place to end for now.


Fantastic Four (2005)

Rothe Blog Fantastic FourThree Stars

Mmm Boy. Well, now a days there seems to be a lot of positive buzz about comic book movies, but for every good one there seems to be at least one bad one. Fantastic Four isn’t bad per say, but isn’t isn’t great, which is too bad for such a group of well known characters.

The main problem with the movie is story and casting. No small thing, I know. I kind of wondered about Jessica Alba as Sue Storm, and I left the theater not really having noticed her. She seems too young, wanting to be a strong character but not really, only stronger than Reed Richards, and really only gives good performances when she is arguing with Johnny. Who does not look like her could ever be her brother. Not convincing in love, and really not convincing as some super intelligent M.I.T. grad. Bad choice.

Ioan Gruffield. You don’t know that name, unless you saw the lost Bruckheimer movie King Arthur. He played lancelot there, and he wasn’t very good. This isn’t any different. You see fleeting glimpses of Reed’s brilliance, but it isn’t convincing. His character Reed, never becomes a leader that the movie is trying to push, and although a weak argument, he doesn’t look the part. A couple of gray streaks really don’t do anything. Plus, him as an elastic man, those special effects look a little silly.

Ben Chiklis and especially Chris Evans as The Thing and Johnny Storm the Human Torch were good and perfect respectively. If you read around the internet, you will hear that The Thing was awkward, stumbling, and unbelievable in costume. I didn’t think he was bad, I think it would have been hard to do a non CG Thing, and they did a pretty good job. He had some pretty good fighting scenes, and some pretty good emotion trying to deal with the raw hand he had been dealt. Torch was perfect. Not to take away from Chris Evans, but I don’t think that role would be very hard. You act arrogant, you say the snappy lines, and you get the girls. But he does do the Torch to a T, and it is amazing to see that character come to life. They did an amazing job with the CG on that one.

Then, Julian McMahon for Dr. Doom. Who? You ask? Exacctttly. Just like is too common today, you get an unknown and count on them to take the film forward. That is true for most of the cast in this movie, relatively unknown at the very least. But it does show that star power doesn’t always pan out either, like Jessica Alba.

To a comic fan, it is all about the translation, the characters, and their stories. This movie has a lot to do with telling the stories with a cast of five completely different characters. But Bryan Singer did it so well with so many more in X-men, why couldn’t Tim Story (Barbershop Oy!) do it too? The middle of the movie deals with the characters waiting around for Reed Richards to finish a little pod that will turn them back to normal. Then, 3/4 of the movie in, Dr. Doom turns to complete metal and decides that the F4 are the reason that his commercial empire has crumbled and that he is going to kill them with government weapons. Not very creative or villainous, and really an injustice to such a feared and intelligent character.

Don’t get me wrong. I like to see the eye candy. I like to see the characters brought to life and see the vision of transforming them for a modern audience. That is a battle that can have an exciting payoff. But that is all this movie was. When done right like Batman, and you love the characters, a movie can come to life. This one just seems to have gone through the motions.

If you liked Road Trip, this is a lesser shell, with less depth, but has it’s own good qualities if you like these type of movies.