Typography-o-rama comes to an end

And that, as they say, is all she wrote, folks. I just posted the last of the movie homage pieces that I have made so far. I'll be focusing my attention on some writing projects (and our upcoming trip to the Pacific Northwest!) So I may be incommunicado on this blog for just a little bit.

I will be coming back, though... Both to this blog and to more homage pieces. What movie/book/song/tv show/poem/etc would you like to see get the homage treatment? Let me know by leaving a comment!

Do Not Watch. I cannot go when you watch.

We've come to the last of my movie homage pieces... for now. I present to you: Fight Club, available framed and as a print only. Perfect for your single serving friends.

Fight Club is the perfect picture of Gen X apathy mixed with a heavy dose of anti-consumerism, with a bit pf psychosis to boot. It features superb performances by Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. A dystopian classic of my generation.

Here are some interesting facts about Fight Club:

• Tyler's recipe for explosives, as described in the movie, does not actually work. The one from the book, however, does.
• In an interview, David Fincher claims there is a Starbucks coffee cup visible in every shot of the movie. You'll have to check it out and let me know.
• There's a scene where a Fight Club member sprays down a priest with water. The camera shakes a little because the cameraman couldn't help but laugh.
• Brad Pitt went to a dentist to get one of his front teeth chipped to pl
  ay Tyler Durden.
• The packaging for Avery 8293 Matte White High-Visibility Labels (the real product, not in this movie) shows a letter with an address label attached. The label is made out to Tyler Durden.
• The producers' first choice of director was not David Fincher, but Peter Jackson. Jackson, however, was too busy prepping for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• Ed Norton was a final contender for three leading roles at the same time: Fight Club, Man on the Moon, and The Talented Mr Ripley. Man on the Moon went to Jim Carrey only because he was a bigger box office draw, and The Talented Mr Ripley went to Matt Damon. Without these two twists of fate, Ed Norton may not have starred in Fight Club in one of his most best-known roles.
  

The Salted Pork is Particularly Good!

I've posted my tribute to my favorite movie trilogy: Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. You can get just the print, or you can purchase it framed.

All three of these films are still in the top 20 highest grossing films of all time, with Return of the King coming in at number three behind Avatar and Titanic. It's hard to say exactly how much these films mean to me, as an achievement in film, as the film(s) with the most moving score of all time, as an adaptation of one of my favorite book series ever since childhood. I have a lot of personal feelings tied up in the metaphor of the ring's journey and the relationships in the story, not to mention fond memories of seeing the films for the first time, and rewatching the Extended Editions in several long marathon sessions, with close friends.

Here are some interesting facts about the Lord of the Rings trilogy:

• Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring, also played Frodo Baggins in the 1981 BBC radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
• The Two most renowned Middle Earth artists, John Howe and Alan Lee, appear in cameos as two of the nine human lords who later become the Nazgul.
• The two men were also an integral part of the visual design process for the trilogy.
• Very little CGI was used in making the Hobbits appear so small. Instead, Jackson mostly utilized forced perspective camera tricks (objects and people closer to the camera appear larger than those further away).
• All three films were shot consecutively, on location in New Zealand. It is estimated this brought about $200,000,000 dollars into the New Zealand economy.
• The Helm's Deep battle at the climax of The Two Towers took four months to shoot.
• The final day of filming for the trilogy, a shot of some skulls for the Extended Edition DVD, was completed three weeks after Return of the King had already won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

I Don't Know. I Didn't Go Into Burger King.

Pulp Fiction is the lastest film to be homage-itized in my Etsy Shop. It comes in framed and print-only styles, but not with mayonnaise. Gross.

I feel like picking a favorite movie is like picking a favorite person. It just hurts feelings. But, if you twist my arm behind my back and.. okay okay stopit! Ow! Ow! Ooowwww! Stop it! Mom! Oooww! MOOOOM! Uncle! Uncleuncleuncleuncle! OKAY IT'S PULP FICTION!

Here are some fun facts about Pulp Fiction:

• The role of Vincent Vega was originally written for Michael Madsen, who played Vincent's brother Vic in Reservoir Dogs. Madsen couldn't do it, due to a scheduling conflict.
• Tarantino has often talked about having both actors reprise their roles in a Vega Brothers movie, but has yet to do so.
• When buying heroin from Lance, Vincent complains about his car getting keyed. It's clearly Butch who did it, off camera. He later kills Vincent with his own gun so keying his car seems unnecessary.
• The part of Jimmie was written for Steve Buscemi. He couldn't do it due to a scheduling conflict, but appears briefly as "Buddy Holly"
  at Jackrabbit Slim's.
• Tarantino wanted "My Sharona" to be the song played during the Gimp torture sequence because if its, ah... appropriate bass rhythm. He couldn't get the rights.
• The "Bad Mother Fucker" wallet was not made for the movie, it belonged to Tarantino, and is a reference to Shaft.
• "Martin and Lewis or Amos and Andy?" means "Vanilla or Chocolate?" Think about it.
• Tarantino collects vintage TV-show themed bo
  ard games, and did not pass up the opportunity to sit down and play "Welcome Back, Kotter" with John Travolta during filming of Pulp Fiction. I am not making this up.

I'm not saying this print is what was inside Marcellus Wallace's briefcase but.. well, it's pretty cool.

...or El Duderino if You're Not Into the Whole Brevity Thing.

My homage to The Big Lebowski has been posted, framed and unframed. Put it on your Christmas list, or pick one up for the bowling enthusiast, slacker, philanthropist, or Nihilist in your life.

1998's incomparable The Big Lebowski is written and directed by the Cohen brothers and stars Jeff Bridges as "the Dude, "a role that seems to define what Bridges himself would be up to if he hadn't been born into a Hollywood family.

The Cohen brothers manage to take what should by all means be a contrived and ridiculous story about incomprehensible and largely unlikable people and craft it into a modern-day classic. There isn't a hipster alive who doesn't wish he could be friends with the Dude, nor who doesn't know a blow-hard with a heart of gold like Walter.

Here are some fun facts about The Big Lebowski:

• Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, and Sam Elliott were all the actors that the Cohens had in mind when they wrote the screenplay.
• In the movie, the Dude never actually bowls.
• The nine-toed girl (who gives her toe to the nihilists) is played by musician Aimee Mann
• The plot starts when Jackie Treehorn's thugs bust into the Dude's apartment. One of them pees on his rug. the other is played by Mark Pellegrino, aka Jacob from Lost.
• The second time we see the thugs, each is wearing the clothing that the other was wearing in their first appearance.
• A White Russian (or, a "Caucasian") is 2 parts vodka, one part coffee liqueur, one part cream.
• Jeff Bridges had one question for the Cohens before every scene: "Did the Dude burn one on the way over?" If the answer was yes, he would rub his eyes to make them bloodshot before the take.
• Every bowling shirt Donny wears has someone else's name on it.
• As ridiculous as he sounds when he is saying it, everything Walter says about the kidnapping is dead-on. Bunny was not really kidnapped, it was not her toe, and there never was any ransom money.

Stay tuned, there are more films to come!

As You Wish

Today, I've posted my typographical homage to The Princess Bride. The framed version is available here, and the print-only version here.

The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman and directed by Rob Reiner, was released in 1987. At the time, I was seven years old, just about the right age to place myself in Fred Savage's shoes (well... bedsheets, anyway) and feel the same sense of wonder and adventure at this story as his character did. This is a timeless classic. I've been disappointed recently by how some old 80s favorites fail to hold up to the test of time (Labyrinth, I'm looking at you), but The Princess Bride is just as funny and quotable now as it was then.

Here are a few fun facts about the Princess Bride:

• As thick as Andre the Giant's accent is in the movie, his real accent is even harder to understand. Every time he would forget to annunciate, co-star Mandy Patinkin would slap him in the face to remind him. One assumes Andre took this in good humor or there would be no more Mandy Patinkin.
• Vinzzini isn't just blustering when he says "never get involved in a land war in Asia." This is a real strategic principal, similarly presented by Field Marshal Bernard L Montgomery to the House of Lords in 1962 (although presumably with less cackling).
• There really was a Dread Pirate Roberts, too, thought to be one of the most successful pirates of all time.
• It's not stated in the movie, but the screenplay notes that the boy and his grandfather live in Evanston, Illinois. Take a look at the bedroom and you'll find Cubs and Bears items all over the place. Go Chicago!
• On the DVD scene menu, the scene that should have been labeled "Pit of Despair" was incorrectly labeled as "Pit of Desire." That would have been a very, very different scene.

Signature, Shop, and Star Wars

So, it's been a while since I've posted. Last time I had the excuse of being hyperactive over at my other blog, Fatblog. This time... Eh, I've just been lazy. It happens.

However, for the last two days, I feel like I've done nothing but work, so what goes around come around, or glass people shouldn't throw stones at baskets of unhatched eggs, or... whatever colloquialism I'm looking for.

My first bit of business lately was coming up with a new digital signature for my art. I've been looking lately at going back to my geek roots and starting up role-playing again. As such, I've been looking at the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Players Handbook, and noticed some art by Scott Fischer. Ficsher's art is sweet, but what I really noticed is his signature:



I thought, man, my poorly scribbled "SS" just doesn't match up to that. I love the play on his name with the fishbone. I drew on that idea and thought "Smith... Smithy... Blacksmith", and thus came up with the following. What do you think?


In slightly more relevant news... I opened my Etsy Store! Skahfee Studios is open for business. You should check it out. For now, just my Star Wars pieces have posted. Over the next week or so, I'll be posting new items every couple of days. Keep an eye on my shop for the items, and keep an eye out right here for some words on what the piece means to me.

I've already talked a (quite) bit about Star Wars here, so that's why these 3 pieces don't get their own post. Seeing the Star Wars movies was a formative moment in the childhood of quite a number of geeks, and I certainly can't count myself out of their number.

A lot can be said for the work that Lucas has done in the last ten years and how... uh, not so wonderful... it has been. What is hard to deny, however, is that Lucas is a master world builder. Every alien race, every futuristic piece of machinery, every planet where it never stops raining (or never starts) that he created could easily be a bit of flimsy, two-dimensional scenery for his actors to chew. Instead, it all feels grounded in a real history and it's all just swimming with little perfect details. That is Lucas's legacy, and it's something that should make every creative mind jealous long after we forget how wooden Hayden Christensen was as Anikin Skywalker.

Anyway, that's enough from me... I'll be back!