Fishing in the Discount Bin - Sleepy Hollow

Here we are again with Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly watching and viewing of one of the many films I own.  The time, we peek in on one of my favourite directors, Tim Burton, and his 1999 film Sleepy Hollow.  This shows up in my notes at February 17, 2014.

News from Markworld: December 2014

 As always, I'm blogging my Christmas card letter, so folks whom I may have drifted away from who may be googling my name one night can also know how I'm doing.

Good day,

‘Tis I, Mark Cappis, once again including a nice little form letter in this Christmas card to let you know what’s been going in my life, especially in this year, 2014.

As always, writing this letter is difficult for me, as I can’t figure out enough ways to say “nothing.”  My life is still rather quiet and uneventful.  I get up, go to work, come home, watch a lot of TV.  That’s it.  My apartment doesn’t allow pets, so I can’t even get “crazy cat guy” on the go.

Work is still going fine.  As you may recall from last year’s letter, I am the afternoon show host and music director for 97.9 the Range in Westlock, Alberta.  (“Music director” at a radio station is the guy who actually picks the music the station plays, for those not in the biz.)  Well, there has been a notable addition to my duties.  In my little cluster of radio stations, 93.5 Prairie-FM in High Prairie switched to country music.  So the Company said, “Since we’ve already got a perfectly good music director for country music, let’s have him do both stations!”  So I do the music for both 97.9 the Range and 93.5 Prairie-FM now. 

Not much else of note happened.  I won a contest and got to be on TV.  CTV Edmonton was having a contest to give away tickets to the Indiana Jones exhibit at the Telus World of Science.  For the heck of it, I entered, and for the heck of it, I won.  Part of the prize was I got to go sit in the studio audience for CTV Edmonton Morning Live’s special Indiana Jones show.  That was a lot of fun!  Haven’t used my free tickets to go see the exhibit yet, but I’ll probably do that first thing in January.

And I’m still quite active on the social networks, if you ever want or crave more frequent updates as to the nothing that goes on in my life.  I finally brought back my podcast, too.  That ran last year from January until June, when things started getting busy at work.  Looks like things will be getting quiet again in January, so I’ll be able to launch the 2015 series really soon.

As always, my social media map:

Main site:  www.chaosinabox.com

Blog:  chaosinabox.blogspot.com

Facebook:  facebook.com/officialchaosinabox

Twitter:  @chaosinabox

YouTube:  youtube.com/mcappis911

Instagram:  instagram.com/chaosinabox

Google+:  google.com/+MarkCappis

I’m on LinkedIn, too, but I’m still new to that and figuring it out.  And I got my Ello invite the other day, but I’m not there yet.

Oh, and I got a new printer, too.  Which is why you’ll see this card has a nice printed label instead of being addressed by hand.  I may have lost some of that hand-made quality, but my wrists are thanking me.
And that’s all from my tiny apartment in Westlock, Alberta.  Have yourself a Merry Christmas, and all the best in 2015.

Hail Hydra!


Mark Cappis

Fishing in the Discount Bin - That Thing You Do!

Here we are again with Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly viewing of some movie I own, only for me to sit and blog and rant about it.  This time out, we're doing Tom Hanks' writer and directorial debut, the 1996 comedy That Thing You Do!.  This is in my notes at February 16, 2014.

Sunday Morning Movie Stuff

Well, yesterday, it was off to the city to do some Christmas shopping.  I won't tell you my usual tales of big city adventure, though, as it mostly involves stressed out Christmas shopping, and you are no doubt currently living your own version of that tale.  I hope, though, that you are finding time in the stress to take a moment for yourself, as I did when I wandered into a movie theatre to finally see Interstellar.

Christopher Nolan, the man behind the last trilogy of Batman movies and Inception is back with a science fiction epic about wormholes and distant alien planets.  How awesome does that sound?  As it turns out, it's very awesome.  Much like Gravity last year, this is a sci-fi epic that sought to root itself in real physics and the real science of what may be residing out in the vastness of space.  And much like Gravity, I was in awe at how they managed to capture the vastness of it all.  I almost regret not paying the extra to see it in IMAX, because if I got that overwhelming sense in just a regular theatre, I'm sure IMAX would have melted my brain.

In the not-too-distant future, humanity is dying out.  Planet-wide plagues have left food scarce.  Cooper was once one of NASA's best and brightest pilots, but when NASA was dismantled so its resources could be used feeding the world, Cooper became a farmer.  But a mysterious presence in his daughter's bedroom leads him to the secret bunker where the remnants of NASA continues working.  Out near Saturn, a wormhole has been discovered, leading to life-supporting planets in another galaxy.  Cooper is soon implored to lead the expedition through the wormhole, find the astronauts who've been sent ahead to survey the planets, and begin laying the groundwork for a colony.  Perhaps humanity can be saved by moving it to another planet.  Will Cooper survive the mission and return home to his family?  Or will his daughter be forced to continue his work?

In a way, Interstellar tries really hard to be this generation's 2001, only with a more linear plot.  The vastness of space...the big science ideas...and for the most part, it works.  It's incredibly tense and exciting when you see what can really happen out there.

The only thing that I really didn't buy was the ending.  After all the real science, the ending got a little too "wibbley wobbley timey wimey" for my tastes.  But, you'd come this far, you may as well see it to the end.

I enjoyed it quite a bit.  3.5 out of 4 nibs.  The full review is over on my ol' website.

---

Well, with all the trailer goodness we've had over the past few weeks, what with Star Wars and Jurassic World and all, it only made sense that eventually one would come along that I'd great with a resounding "meh."  And that trailer is for Terminator Genisys, the big reboot to the Terminator franchise.

I've never been too crazy on the idea of all these Terminator sequels.  The first one and T2 form this wonderful 2-part story, full of awesome action and just enough weighty sci-fi concepts to push it over the top.  I went to the theatre to see Terminator 3 back in the day, and while it was enjoyable, it really didn't bring anything new to the table.  I was excited about Terminator Salvation because a prequel about the future war is something I'd craved for ages, but again, I walked away thinking that it really didn't offer up anything new.

And sadly, in this first trailer for the reboot, I'm not seeing anything new.  Kyle Reese is once again sent back in time to protect young Sarah Connor from a Terminator, sent back in time by Skynet in a last-ditch effort to win the war against humanity.  But when Reese arrives in the past, it's not the past he was told about.  Rather than a meek waitress, Sarah Connor is already a hardened soldier, and her adopted father...is a Terminator.  Reese must get to the bottom as to how and why the past has already changed, while staying true to his mission of protecting Sarah Connor.

Alan Taylor, the director of Thor: The Dark World is directing it.  Emilia Clarke is the new Sarah Connor, Jai Courtney is the new Kyle Reese, and Arnold Schwarznegger is back as the Terminator.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Lee Byung-Hun as the new T-1000, as I thought he was pretty cool as Storm Shadow in the live-action G.I. Joe movies.  Oh, and the Doctor himself, Matt Smith, is in it as well.




Terminator Genisys, in what's hoped to be the start of a new trilogy, hits theatres July 1.

---

And of course, there was the big James Bond announcement.  We have the title of the next James Bond film!  In November 2015, James Bond will return in...

Spectre.

This makes me very happy.  At the end of Skyfall, I said I felt like that the James Bond reboot that began with Casino Royale was finally complete.  We had a new M, Q was back, Moneypenny was back....everything was back.  If only they could bring back James Bond's arch-enemy Blofeld and his terrorist organization known as SPECTRE.

Long story short:  due to some legal wrangling over ownership, the James Bond producers actually lost the rights to Blofeld and SPECTRE.  But, last year, after years of negotiations (and with all the involved parties who took it personally having finally died off), they were able to reacquire the rights.  So, for the first time since 1971, it looks as though James Bond will finally be doing battle against his arch-nemesis.

Along with the poster and the title, this official plot synopsis was revealed:

A cryptic message from an unlikely source sets James Bond navigating the layers of a sinister organisation known as SPECTRE. As M continues fighting political pressures that threaten the future of MI6, Bond draws closer to uncovering a hidden truth that threatens to destroy everything he has fought to protect. 

The cast was revealed, too.  Alongside Daniel Craig back as Bond, our villain is known as Franz Oberhauser, played by Christoph Waltz.  His henchman is Mr. Hinx, played by Dave Bautista.  For our new Bond girls, we've got Monica Bellucci as Lucia Sciarra and Lea Seydoux as Madeleine Swann. 

Filming begins on Monday for a November 6, 2015 release. 

Fishing in the Discount Bin - Alien Resurrection

Time for Fishing in the Discount Bin, my weekly blog about some movie I own.  We finish our voyage through the Alien franchise with Alien Resurrection.  This shows up in my notes on January 26, 2014.

Netflix Nonsense - Rocky Balboa

Well, we're at the end of my journey through the Rocky franchise as we get to the only Rocky movie that I've seen in the theatre, Rocky Balboa.