Saturday, December 27, 2008

The Spirit



In the words of Killer and Dixon, "well alright". You know I really liked this movie and I was very skeptical going in because I'm not really into the Frank Miller parade. But I enjoyed watching The Spirit. Here we have Eva Mendez, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Gabriel Macht as The Spirit. I would also like to mention that the dad from the Wonder Years plays the commissioner.

So why did I like this flick? Well, I'll tell you. First off, we seem to be ending this decade with a revitalization of Film Noir, the classic detective story, beautiful women in high class clothes, femme fatal, fedoras, and lots and lots of low key lighting. And then you add in the aesthetic of that sharp black, white and red use of negative space seen in Frank Miller's Sin City. I felt that this aesthetic was more carefully used, no haphazard choices or gratuitousness. They punched in a non obtrusive pin pointing kind of way. In scenes where the Octopus (Jackson) and Silken Floss (Johansson)dressed as eccentric Nazi's the black, red and white became the environment as opposed to a cheap effect.

The acting was deliberate and articulated as a clear choice by both actor and director. Particularly Scarlett Johansson's performance exemplified these choices. Realism, the standard for film, was tossed out the window and the theatrics of film noir with the blend of lines made for a comic produced a corky kind of procedure that I really appreciated. Both Eva and Scarlett were hot to trot and you do see Eva Mendez' booty. It was better than Angelina Jolie's in Wanted. Good ol' Sam Jackson was unreserved and was able to show that he's actually kind of a weird dude. He loves comic books, I don't know how many people know that, but if you couldn't tell by the roles he takes, (Unbreakable, Jumper, this, Nick Fury) its sort of his thing. I mean he dressed up as a Nazi and it made sense. He was able to fit in a few Samuel L'isms. Like the line advertised "you are NOT making this easy". And I sort of wish he hadn't. For the most part he was getting away from his more candid motifs and techniques but I feel it was put in there just so you know he was gettin' down as sam jackson.

I really liked the writing, it was written by Miller Time himself and you could tell. It felt like it was taken write from a graphic novel, which is very different from film writing and there was a weird poetry about it, an apostrophe about the love affair between the spirit and his city. The humor was a little obvious, like not really clever but that's kind of how comics are so it made sense. I kind of dug it. I've never read this but it seemed like Frank Miller is influenced greatly by Alan Moore, and right he should be, dude is masterful.

Top five reasons I'm glad I saw this:

5) Proves Film Noir is an undying and timeless style.

4) Was a comic book movie and not a movie that's made from a comic. (There's a difference)

3) Made me less skeptical about Frank Miller.

2) Saw Eva Mendez' booty.

1) Two days after its release and I got it on the five buck club.

Killer out!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

They Hear it in His Sleep Sometime.

so today my roommate the funky monkey and I went to the goodwill because we thought they were having their 50% off store wide deal and guess what, they weren't. And when I thought 2008 couldn't get any worse. bam! I find this:

you can't tell what that is you say?

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

What to expect in the Story

So we don't want to give away too much to everyone about the direction of the strip, but at the same time we do want to give you a little bit of a tease. So lets just say that a somewhat mysterious figure is coming to the Hill and some heavy ish is bout to go down. Who is this figure you ask? Not sayin'. But it is gonna get cold and dark in the d. Here is a sneak preview:

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

If killer had the money

If Killer had the money he would probly be shoppin on-line at pullandbear.com and Ima tell you why.

I was up on vimeo.com lookin at some videos, and I go there now instead of youtube, to which I'm not even going to provide a link for because vimeo allows you to up load videos at a higher quality rate and they also promote the best videos where as youtube has garbage water videos. They are like the walmart of video hosting websites before walmart started selling george, like back in the b.u.m. and boss days.

So anyways, I get up on this dude from spain, name is Angel De Franganillo he's got these dope animations, and a dope website too and so I start clicking around to see some of the stuff he's done, art stuff, and commercial stuff. That's where I stumble upon pull and bear. Apparently he did some of the flash work on their website, I believe he did the pull and bear forest portion.

Well I get to skimmin' around and this website and turns out they have the clothes and the shoes, and I would definitely by some of them shoes and probly some clothes too if I had the money. But here's the thing, when I say the money, I mean any money at all, cause their stuff is not expensive if I have done the calculations in my head correctly (i.e. its mostly europe based and no U.S. venders yet) but I was so captivated by the design of the website alone that it made me think man I would get up on some of this stuff, unlike the MACY's fiasco had by common friend to Dixon McGlintok and I, Royal Layotta.

While some of the clothes are euro for sure I feel like a lot of it is a combo between the two current divisions in hiphop culture, the gents and the hipsters.

Oh snap, I got to go to work, if I had more time I'd put up some pictures, I'll have to post some later.

-Killer

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

New Wave.

So basically I wanted to show the internets a new cat that I am feeling at the moment named Kid Cudi.
He is out of Cleveland Ohio and he brings a new vibe to this hip-hop movement. I personally think HipHop needs to be Obama'd and some of these new cats out now are doing just that. Now I know that not everyone will agree with the vibe that I am putting out, but I honestly think that being different leads to being interesting. Anywho I can dive more into that at a later time (which I am sure I will) but without more ado, Check the vid and pay ATTENTION to the lyrics:
Kid Cudi - Man on the MOON.


If you don't get it. Its all about being genuine to yourself and remaining focused on who you are and catering only to yourself and such forth.

Enjoi yourselves.

-Dixon

Sunday, November 16, 2008

We love real hip-hop.

Gangstarr is one of the g.o.a.t.s. of hip-hop and ten years ago they came out with a song that just understands you. You ain't got to be in the thick of the hood to get it, you don't got to be a real thug, you might be an e-thug. Sometimes you get to the point where you are just humbled by lookin' in the mirror. And its songs like this that let you know other people get it. I'm talkin about "Moment of Truth" off of the album under the same name that came out in '98 back when Dixon and Killer first became boys. let me put this link up right here.


-Killer

Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Dixon and Killer Combo

So, my boy Dixon and I (Killer) have a web comic that we are going to release weekly on our website Disasterpeace so ya'll should check it out.

To explain it a little, it takes place in the all too familiar section 8 housing called "Candlewyck Hill" where a family of extremely gifted and yet completely ambitionless people live. The hero of the story is the oldest brother Quaivon but everybody close to him calls him Ducie. For a complete biography on the different characters you can go visit the site.

The idea of this comic came about last summer when I was working at the Benjamin Banneker Community Center as a councilor and a fellow staff member told me this goofy story about what a few of the kids (I call them Bannekids) got into. In the center there is a library that is remotely connected to the public library and for some reason our library consists mostly of romance novels. One of the titles was "Black As the Night" but some of the Bannekids don't read too well and thought that it said "Black Ass the Knight" and went to the other kids and was like "Aye, aye look at this, it's called Black Ass the Knight" and then the one of the other kids looked at it and said "Man, that says Black As the Night! Who is Blask Ass the Knight supposed to be?! Defender of the Ghetto?!?" I died when I heard this and had to draw Black Ass the Knight as soon as I could get a piece of paper and a pencil and as a result came the first page of the comic. I knew that I had something good and wanted to have another hand in the mix for this comic and so I called up my boy Dixon McGlintok and said I had a project for him. Later in the summer we met up and had a meeting and started the ground work for what will hopefully be a huge success and if nothin' else a familiar depiction of the way we grew up.

So we hope you enjoy the site and the blog. Eventually the website will be a little bit more multi-media and interactive based and on this blog we will continue to have updates on our progress and also other reviews on comics and music that we think is cool.

Duces!

-Killer