Movie Review: The Place Beyond the Pines (contains Spoilers)

Ryan Gosling has become one of my favorite actors. I can't quite put my finger on it. In this flick he plays carny white trash. Which reminds me of every d-bag whiteboy I grew up with. The open is him running his motorcycle threw a gyroscope. He finds out he now has a kid with a fling from the last time he was in town (Eva Mendes). Like any respectable carny trash he turns to crime to make some extra cash, specifically robbing banks. He hits a few banks without a hitch. His getaway driver says he doesn't want to do it anymore, and Ryan makes the dumb decision to do one more score. And of course he gets tracked by the cops. Enter Bradley Cooper. At this point he's just a beat cop. He follows Ryan into an apartment complex and ends up shooting him dead.
At this point, the main character of the movie shifts. I thought this was an interesting twist. The movie is 2 1/2 hours long. The main character switches from Ryan Gosling to Bradley Cooper at roughly the halfway mark. We get to see corruption on the police force Bradley works for. Ray Liotta shows up at this point for about 15 minutes. We fast forward 15 years and the son that Gosling left behind and Bradley Cooper's son are actually friends. And by friends, I mean assholes who like to get high together. Their unaware of their fathers' history. Gosling's kid actually tracks down the guy who was his getaway driver. He feels him in on the history. After a falling out the 2 sons had, Gosling's kid shows up with a gun. ETC. ETC.
I somehow never knew where this movie was going. I kept expecting Bradley Cooper's character to hook up with Eva Mendes, but it never happened and I'm happy about that. The movie may have been a little on the long side, but it really is an interesting flick. I'd give it 4.5/5 stars. 

Rain Dynamics Test

Movie Review: OZ The Great and Powerful

In short, this is the story of how Oz went from being a small town magician and scam artist, to being the man behind the curtain. After seeing the movie, I wondered who the movie was actually made for. I'm not sure if its for children. Do many kids today know bout the Wizard of Oz? Maybe they do, but what need was there to create a prequel to the Wizard of Oz. It didn't bring anything new to the table. Look there are the munchkins (little people, not the Dunkin' Donuts food), look theres the yellow brick road, look theres the witch. It was a series of "hey, remember that from your childhood."Many people critisized the film as being chauvinist, since it shows women concerned with gaining the effection of a man. I guess thats chauvinism now. And two sisters acting catty towards each other. Whatever! This was bad movie for a series of reasons.

First off, Who likes James Franco? Was he that good as the green goblin's son that we have to pretend he's a great actor? He looks like every other stoner d-bag I went to high school with. Because he has a sharp chin and looks confident so he's a lead. Granted, I grew up in an Arnold action movie era, but since when is a 5'10" charming stoner, the lead in a film. Ughh.
The CG in this movie left a lot to be desired. There were totally useless CG that seemed to be the artist just showing off. No wonder these movies cost a small fortune. Fog is a tough thing to recreate. In this movie they tried repeatedly to make it, but just never really worked.

I would not recommend this movie. Their will no doubt be sequels. Stay away from them too. The truth is that the Oz stories are not really that compelling. If your a depression era child, they were great. But now....lets put a road closed sign in front of the yellow brick road.



5/10 Stars

Capstone Checkpoint 1

Just a quick update on my capstone.

The USS Indianapolis

This is one of the first fun things I remember doing. Me and my Dad made a model out of mainly wood and fixtures. Its the USS Indianapolis. I'm in the process of restoring it. I remember taking it to a shallow creek one time and getting it to float. It was great. Let the good times roll.

Rusty Pipes

The photograph is the reference. I rendered this in zBrush. There was some trouble rendering it in maya, too many polys I think.

Movie Review: The Bone Collector

I just watched the Bone Collector (and by watched I mean I had it on in the background as I did other work). The Bone Collector was made in 1999 and it stars Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington, but more importantly Queen Latifah. Decent supporting roles by Michael Rooker and Ed Harris (thats Al Bundy people).
This movie is essentially about a serial killer. The opening scene is of Denzel, as a NYC police officer, wondering into a crime scene. He looks around and has some loose industrial equipment fall on him. He spends the rest of the movie in bed, unable to walk. This introduces Queen Latifah, who plays his bedside nurse.
The first time you see Angelina, she's hustling out of some guys apartment late for work. As soon as I saw that, I knew what was going to happen next. The guy comes out of the bathroom wearing just a towel and begins explaining to Angelina that he needs more. What guy who's just casually fucking Angelina Jolie would say that? A little liberal gender role reversal. See, women can be just as casual about sex as men can (heres a hint: NO THEY CAN'T).

So, she heads off to do her job and based on a 911 call she goes to the scene of the serial killer's crime. Denzel is so impressed with how she handles the crime scene, he basically recruits her to work on this case.
You see the serial killer abduct people, but you never actually see his face until the end. The killings are usually not shown. He did use a steam pipe to burn a woman to death. Not sure I wanted to see that anyways.
I'll just skip to the grande finale. Turns out the technician who works on the medical equipment Denzel uses to stay alive is actually the killer. He was a cop too, but years before Denzel had exposed that he was a corrupt cop and got him thrown in the slammer. The killer briefly talked about being repeatedly raped in the showers. Angelina shows up at the last second to shoot him in the back.

All cop-themed shows follow a similar pattern. Countless movies and TV shows follow these patters; CSI, all the Law and Orders, Righteous Kill, the Lethal Weapons, etc. You have the lead cop who bends the rules, because he's gotta do what he's gotta do to catch the bad guys. Lots of internal squabbling with the Captain, who needs everyone to be in their place (played by Michael Rooker in this one). Internal Affairs is snooping around and they're treated like pariahs by the rest of the department. Lots of tension between the rookies and the veterans. The only problem with this non sense is that if you watch any of the cop reality tv shows, First 48, you'll see its like a regular office job. Detectives just sit around waiting for hot tips. I could write a better cop script, if the pencil was in my ass. 

A few Capstone Updates

My Future Ideas

So, as it happens, current political climate may be useful in my future endeavors. For a long time I've had this idea about portraying a post-United States America. What was America being portrayed as a series of individual countries. Thats not likely to actually happen, but it might be interesting to show it. I'll fill in more of the details laters. Also, I like the idea of being politically incorrect. Not necessarily for the purposes of creating buzz, but showing people's deepest, darkest ideas come to light. Doing a movie about the various end times beliefs of religions and other groups.

I've been writing a script for a movie called Right to Resist. Which is about an average citizen shooting a corrupt police officer who invaded his home. He panics, runs for it, and then the State hunts him down with extreme force. I might even have it take place in Indiana. 

Lord Suidae

Lord Suidae. High Financier of High Crime. Torn from the pages of a pulp novel. This plutocratic piggy enjoys a nice glass of brandy as the world burns down around him.  

Twister in the desert valley

Dark Clouds and all.

So, I started working at UPS this week. Its not gonna work out. I worked a FedEx for 4 years and eventually go so fed up with it I quit. I hate this feeling that I'm spinning my wheels. Doing a job that semi retarded proudly do. Stacking boxes to make a wall in a shitty warehouse for hours a night. I'm better than this. I'm smarter than most of the people that work there (I don't mean that to be pompous or blowhardy in anyway). Its is depressing and frustrating that I'm stuck in stasis.
My family members are no help either. Many of them have no real career success, so I have no where to go for advice. The dream would be to start my own business, and I have many ideas, but no plans of implementation. But no matter........this is it. Its either try to do my own thing or stack boxes till I die. 

Shut the door

Ride in the Desert

I started a camel zSculpt a couple days ago. Heres a little progress.

One of my favorite painters: John Trumbull

John Trumbull was a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. He studied to be a painter under another great guy named Benjamin West. The reason I like John is that his work has a distinctly neo-classical style. His work grabs you. I'm also a sucker for anything involving war history, so thats the reason I found him. He did the infamous painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which was eventually purchased by the United States congress. First one below....

Here we go.

So, In order to raise my online portfolio, I will be blogging in a daily basis now. About my art, other people's art, news, politics, etc. Stay tuned, several big things to come. 

Team Capstone:More Renders

Welcome to the Saloon

Team Capstone

Myself and the other members of Team Wonder have been working on an exquisite animation. Here are a few images we'll be using for backgrounds. I'll be posting more on our project as we progress. I used toon shader with an ambient occlusion layer to get the texture. Adding a cross-hatch to the shader gives it a lined look.

Iguana zBrush Turntable

Some of my old work. I’m going to be uploading a lot of my zbrush work on tumblr for the purposes of feedback. 
Iguana Turntable from Jon Estle on Vimeo.

Lip Sync Challenge

Pretty good start for one of my first 3d lip syncs.
Lip_Sync_Challenge.mp4 from Jon Estle on Vimeo.