Entries Tagged as 'Movies'

Breaking the Silence

It’s time to break my self-imposed silence. I know I haven’t posted in almost two weeks, due to illnesses making the rounds in my household. This cold, damp spring has been killing all of our health, and some days checking my email is a herculean task. I’m on the mend though, and received my first affiliate marketing check yesterday, so I’m feeling revitalized.

With my renewed sense of purpose, I realize that I need to focus on what’s important: making money. As it stands, I need to focus on the prize, and blogging isn’t going to get me any closer to it.

I know I’m not going to make money by blogging, and that has never been the intention. If I want to make money by writing, I’ll do it in a different fashion than by writing about how to make money. There are no ads on this site, and I plan to keep it that way. This is my personal blog, and I have no intention of whoring myself like John Chow, or others like him. Not that I have anything against what he’s doing, but that isn’t me.

This blog is still going to be a dumping ground for information I need to keep an eye on, but I don’t think I’m going to be blogging per se with any regularity, since I feel that my time and energy needs to be focused on making money, not just watching others make money and talking about it.

Last night I watched the 2002 John Leguizamo movie “Empire.” It’s the story of a drug dealer trying to go legit after he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. The story has some parallels to my life. Although I’m not involved with anything illegal, I want to legitimize my life and what I do.

When I was a kid, I was continually beat about the head constantly hearing about my ‘potential’ and failure to live up to it. I’m smart, testing somewhere in th 140 range on my IQ. I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I am smarter than your average bear.

As soon as my teachers found that out, I was constantly lectured about my potential. The problem is, none of them, not a single one, actually told me how to realize my potential. I later learned that the majority of education majors graduate in the bottom 50% of their college class.

Anyway, I’ve had the onus of realizing my potential saddled upon me for most of my life. The fact that I work in a factory and am wasting my fabled ‘potential’ means that I’ve become the black sheep of my family.

I make decent money, but I have to kill myself to do it. I come home every day bleeding from dozens of sheet metal cuts, metal slivers everywhere, coated in grease and hydraulic oil, coughing out the remnant of burning heavy metals that I’ve had to breathe in for 8 hours.

That’s why I decided to try affiliate marketing - so that I could enjoy life, and eventually rub everybody’s noses in my success. The check sitting here on my desk proves that I can do it, as long as I put my nose to the grindstone.

I’m going to finish this post with a monologue from Empire. The truth in his speech inspired me, and helped me to clarify what’s important.

We all know selling and competition, that’s what this country’s built on.
It’s all about one thing: making money.
Money, baby. Simple as that.
Everything else is just bullshit.
Money is why people come here from every country in the world.
It’s what the American dream is all about.
You think people come here from all over the world to live in East New York…
in Harlem, the South Bronx…
because of the beautiful views, because of the fucking quality of life?


For everybody– everybody– money is what life is all about.
Getting it, keeping it, losing it, holding it…
needing it, living it and dying for it.
You have to look like you got it, whether you do or not.

Geeking Out

This post is going to deal entirely with comic books and the movies that are based on them. If you’re not interested in either, then stay tuned for more money making posts.

According to Empire Online Ryan Reynolds (Waiting, Blade 3) has joined the cast of the new Wolverine movie. Reynolds will be playing Deadpool, and fighting alongside Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). I’m actually pretty disappointed by the news. As much as I like Ryan Reynolds, I was hoping that the Wolverine movie was going to follow the story of Weapon X, which is an amazing story.

Apparently Warner Brothers and Leonardo DiCaprio are planning on filming a live action version of Katsuhiro Otomo’s groundbreaking cyberpunk tale Akira. I was taken aback at first, however short of Orlando Bloom signing up, Leo is one of the most effeminate/androgynous American movie stars I can think of - which makes him perfect for a live action remake of an anime movie.

This news comes on the heels of my finishing the sixth Akira graphic novel. 2500+ pages in 7 days. It’s an amazing series, and this is the second time I’ve read the entire series. While the movie will always have a special place in my heart, after reading the manga in their War and Peace-esque length, I just can’t bring myself to watch it again. I am impressed that they are planning on doing two movies, but there’s no way that live action special effects can compare to the animation, especially when Tetsuo loses control of his power and becomes Godzilla blob. I cannot envision that scene looking anything less than crappy rendered in CGI.

I got the tip off this morning that Columbia Pictures has optioned “The Boys” for a big screen adaptation. I have been a huge fan of Garth Ennis’ work on the “Preacher” series of graphic novels for some time now, and was recently introduced to “The Boys.”

The basic premise is that there’s a secret outfit within the CIA that keeps track of superheroes, and if necessary reigns them in. Blackmail, extortion, murder, nothing is too dirty or underhanded for The Boys to stoop to in fufilling their mission. The stories are well crafted, and chock full of Ennis’ trademark black humor and sexual perversion.

I picked it up to read the foreward, and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting. My sides splitting with laughter, I literally couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to take in the story. The second graphic novel is due to be released in the next few months, and I’m looking forward to picking it up. I’ve been told on good authority that the Tech Knight, Garth Ennis’ parody of Batman, is a real gutbuster.

My great fear with this adaptation is that they will mangle the casting. I don’t have any strong feelings about any of the major characters except for Hugh “Wee Hughie” Campbell. Wee Hughie was based, visually at least, on actor Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), and I’m afraid that he may get passed over in the casting for a more familiar nebbish actor, such as Steve Buscemi.

I was excited to see that HBO is working on a Preacher series. Then I saw the details. The plot synopsis states: An ex-priest turned professional gambler exposes murder and corruption in a small New Mexico town. Um, WTF? Did anyone involved with the series even read the source material?

Powers Boothe has been cast as Jesse Custer (The Preacher) Powers Boothe is a great actor, but the Custer character is a twenty-something shepard to a redneck town in deepest Texas. Unless the series starts at the end of the graphic novels (which I haven’t made it to) and tells the story in flashbacks. However, the lack of Cassidy, who is integral to the series, makes me believe it’s not to be. They may have renamed the character, but why?

This makes me want to cry. I pray that HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice” remains closer to the original material.

Finally, it appears that the “Priest” movie is still on, but details are scarce. I’m dreading this one. The manga tells the story of Ivan Isaacs, a priest who sold his soul to a demon to gain vengance against one of the arch-dukes of hell. It’s a gritty, intense, rollercoaster that grabs you by the front of your shirt and holds you tight throughout each 200 page installment.

The series originally ran for 26 issues in South Korea, but seems to have stalled out. I got issue 14 two years ago, and I’m still waiting on issue 15. I’ve actually given up hope on ever finishing this series. It’s a shame, since I loved the merging of the horror and western genres. It was a bloody, brutal, and most importantly - interesting series, that ended too soon on this side of the ocean.