What Recession?

I would love forsomeone to explain to me how, with all the news of falling profits, huge layoffs and government bail outs, I'm seeing so many stores undergoing cosmetic renovations. Citibank, Verizon, HSBC, to name a few that I have passed by, are updating some of their locations around the city. I'm not sure if this is happening elsewhere in the country (if it is, I'd like to know). It just seems to me that now is not the time to make a perfectly functionable location prettier. I think that money could be much better used on something more important, like the salaries of the people that were laid off. But that's just my opinion.

Gilbert Godfried at Caroline's

It was my first time at Caroline's last night. The place is pretty nice, and quite big compared to most other big name comedy clubs in the city. We had dinner before the show, which was surprisingly very good and well presented, if a bit pricier than I would have liked for a comedy club, but it is in the middle of touristy Times Square.
We somehow magically ended up with reserved seating right in front of the stage, it may be because we were having dinner, but I don't really know.
The emcee was woman, she was okay, kind of funny but not hilarious. Her jokes were kind of all over the place and her interaction with the audience was not great. The second guy, Kevin, was great. He had excellent delivery and his material was fantastic. His story about being smacked in the head by a pigeon had me laughing so hard I was crying.
Then we get to the main act of the night, Gilbert. It was a little hard to watch him, as he was uniquely awkward, he comtinuosly had a hand on his head either rubbing the top or covering an eye. He also kept adjusting the mike, usually putting his arms up to cover his face. I'm not sure if it was part of the act or if he's genuinely awkwardly shy. His routine was very good though. His voice is so annoyingly familiar and it just makes everything seem so much funnier. His jewish jokes were awesome and his impressions were pretty good, especially Jackie Mason and Bob Dylan. He capped it off with some of the dirty jokes from his DVD which were familiar but still great to hear coming from Gilbert.
Overall it was a fun night and it was pretty cool to see Gilbert Godfried live.

Gigantic: A Review

Gigantic
Starring Paul Dano and Zooey Deschanel.

The director, Matt Aselton was endearingly funny during the Q&A after the film.
It was interesting to hear that even he was unable to understand the reasoning behind some of the strange goings on in the film.
The Homeless/Con Edison/Hunter is one of the odd character metaphors that is kind of left to interpretation by the viewer.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. Dano is very believable as an unexpected love interest for Zooey's quirky character.
John Goodman plays Zooey's rich father with back problems. It's nice to see him in a good role again.

So far, the film festival has shown two very good movies that I would definitely recommend to any film lover, not just Indie film lovers.

Gigantic will be released on theaters today.

Lymelife review

Last night was the New York premiere of Lymelife.
It was the first of seven films showing at the Gen Art Film Festival.

The movie was fantastic. It stars the wonderful Alec Baldwin, Jill Hennessey (Law & Order), Kieran & Rory Culkin, Cynthia Nixon, and Emma Roberts. Set in Long Island. The movie revolves mostly around the youngest son (Rory) of the family and a sort of coming of age. There are some great realistically awkward moments as well as some seriously intense scenes. It was well written and very well cast.

I can see why it was the opening of the festival but it will be a tough act to follow.

The movie opens in limited release in theaters April 8th.
If it's playing by you, I would recommend going to see the movie.
If not, put it in your Que.

Slacker

It's been a while since I've written a blog. You'd think I was being lazy, but in fact I have been ridiculously busy and a lot of stuff has been happening in my life.

I will catch up over the next week on everything I have been doing. This will include book reviews of the free books given out at the comic con. Movies I have recently watched, and all of the personal crap going on with my job, Macy's laying off 7000 people and my having to interview for my job all over again.

I am also working on setting my FemGeek website!
I'm super excited about it. I've bought the domain names already and am working on some cool stuff. I have a bunch of ideas and want to make sure it's great before it launches.
I'm going to be looking for people to help me get it up and running, so if anyone out there wants to help me out with some web page designing, logo design and content let me know.
I can also use the website as a good excuse for not blogging regularly.

Preview of new Pixar movie Up!

The highlight of my day at Comic Con was definitely the preview of Disney Pixar's preview of their upcoming movie Up!
They showed the first 46 minutes of the movie to a limited audience of 300 people.
It was a little rough with the sound but overall it was the great animation and storytelling that we've all come to expect from Pixar.
The story of an old man who gets his house to float using a ton of balloons seems a little odd at first, but they do good job with the lead up and back story. You will definitely fall in love with the character very quickly. The preview definitely left me wanting to see the rest of the movie. It's due out in May and I can't wait to see it.

The rest of the Con is fun as usual. You can definitely see the effects of the economy by the deals this year. There are buy one graphic novel get two free, and 50% off the newer graphic novels. I got really good deals on some figures and stuff that I would never have thought I would get in the past.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. Joss Whedon presenting Dollhouse is sure to be awesome. He is my hero and I've never met him before, so I'm ready to totally geek out and wait for ever just to get his autograph. Wish me luck.

Day 2 of Comic Con

I got in late last night and was too tired and kind of lazy to write, so I'll fill you in on Friday night now.
I'm in the car on the way to the con now. I'm running much later than I expected. My sick Fiiance didn't want to get there too early and have to wait in line in case it made his cold worse. Anyway, I saw the premiere of the new animated Wonder Woman movie by Bruce Timm.
The movie was really good. The cast of voices was great, Keri Russell actually pulled off not sounding like a whiny brat, and Nathan Fillion was his usual charming, funny self. Disappointingly, Nathan did not make an appearance at the Con as was hoped. He did send a video recording that leaked a possible Serenity sequel. He was of course joking and said so vehemently, so be forewarned if any other posts leak "inside" info about that project, it's not true. The story was interesting, mainly centered around Ares the God of War. The dialogue wasn't too cheesy and the fighting was pretty good for animation. If you liked the Justice League New Frontier movie, then I'm sure you will like this movie.

The usual players are in town at the Con, along with some new faces like Joseph Linsner.
I will to into more details later tonight after I see more.
#1 on my agenda today is seeing Seth Green at the Robot Chicken panel.