Hanford native to screen ‘Fort Roosevelt’ documentary Saturday

I know this screening is in direct competition with this weekend’s Swede Fest, but I read about it in the Bee today and my blogger’s oath requires me to inform teh interweb about this local film event. [maybe all you Hanfordians who hate Swedes (and obviously Kingsburg), will have something to do this weekend after all.]

Valley native and USC film graduate David Dibble attended Roosevelt Elementary School in Hanford from 1979 to 1983, and he absolutely hated it.  He hated school in general though, like most kids do. But the one thing that made school bearable was a wooden structure called “Fort Roosevelt,” which sat behind the school for 40 years.  The structure was closed in 2004 and demolished in 2005, and when Dibble made a trip back to Hanford a couple years later and found out, he decided to make a documentary.  The fort began as a duck pond, which eventually had to have a fence built around it to prevent kids from falling in.  The school used over 100 telephone poles to construct the fence, which gave it the appearance of a fort from the old west.  Additional buildings, wildlife exhibits and displays transformed the one-arce plot of land into an outdoor museum and playground.

For more information and to watch the trailer, go to www.fortroosevelt.com. The documentary will screen this Saturday, November 22 at 2:00pm at the Fox Theatre in Hanford. Admission is $2.  And I am genuinely disappointed that I won’t be able to check this out.  Seems like a very interesting docu about a slice of Valley life.

Random Goodness: American Idol disappoints; activates Berserker Rage

“I bet $50 on this thing! I don’t even have $50!” Yeah, these foos are hardcore…..hopefully a follow up video featuring the teasing they received the next day of school will surface. That’s what happens, brah! This comes from Videogum via UniqueDaily

Microsoft releases Xbox Experience update; streaming Netflix is bad ass

For about a half hour yesterday, I was able to dive the New Xbox Experience and all was good in the universe. For those of you who just tuned out when you read “Xbox” come back cause there’s more to it than mere video games this time. The NXE not only brings a redesign to the graphical interface of your Xbox 360 but also provides Netflix subscribers the ability to use their “Instantly Watch” feature to stream movie on your queue whenever you feel like doing so. Yup, you now have a plethora of movie & TV show choices available to you at any time at no extra charge (yes, I see the irony that now you need 2 subscriptions here to enjoy this but I was already so it works our for me). It took me about 2 mins. to start my first stream, Chavez, a documentary on the legendary mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez. The video was clean (although I didn’t watch any HD content, I’m told the quality is pretty good), there was no hiccups and I was allowed to pause, rewind & fast foward at any time. On the down side it seems that at the last minute, Columbia Pictures (which is owned by Sony, who produces the rival Playstation 3 system) has decided to not make their films available on the service as they had previosuly said they would so the choices available has dindled down a bit but there still plenty of films for you to stream. Apple TV? Meh. TiVo? So last year. This here is the future! Once this takes off, I’m certain that networks will follow and put their shows in the same kind of system (although you can already watch shows via this service, and in HD no less). Hulu on Xbox? It’s only a matter of time….

Random Goodness: Now that’s one way to fill your “Star Power” meter

What do you do when you are all strummed out on the plastic axe? No dummy, you don’t learn to play a real guitar and impress your friends and gf. You get a bike and waste about as much time as it would take to learn to play a real guitar and impress the entire internet with your new YouTube video. Then we’ll forget all about it by the end of the week after someone posts a video of their cat beating Gears of War 2 on Insane(difficulty). These guys just took Guitar Hero fanboyism to the extreme. Did these guys just film this in one single shot with no cuts? YOU ROCK!

Show your body a whole new world of hurt with the Iron Gym

It seems like every time I pick up the remote, I find some channel showing another home workout gimmick to help people lose weight and get ripped make their wallet lighter. Now this doorway pullup gimmick is the latest one I’ve seen and I found this parody of it that cracked me up. Oh and you can also kinda do dips, but not really.

Snoop and Martha talk “Izzles” and “Cognac Mashed Potatoes”

So Martha and Snoop hit it off backstage a while back at the Letterman show and have since been swapping emails back and forth. This ultimately led to what some would call the best guest appearance on the show ever. Snoop schools Martha on the fine art of “Snoop-guistics” and he also shows her the way to “Cognac Mashed Potatoes”. Now you too can stuff your face with some Cognac Mashed Potatoes this Thanksgiving. I don’t think I can find the words to describe the awesomeness here. I never thought I’d see the day Snoop would go from “187 on an undercover cop” to whippin’ up mashed potatoes with Martha Stewart. Ever. Then again, I never thought I’d see Martha sippin’ on a 40 of “O.E.” with Conan O’Brien.

The DUmb #13 • Where There’s A Will

A little late (okay, a lot late) but we’re back with another installment of our humble little podcast and this time Bryan Harley & myself are joined by Will Albritton from the Fresno Beehive as well as Robert Anaforian from One Pictures Worth. On this adventure, we sit down and talk about a bevy of subjects:

• We reveal we’ve never been to a Rouge Festival and Will schools us on the event

• Some secrets for the upcoming Swede Fest are revealed

• We talk about Oliver Stone’s W. & Kevin Smith’s Zack & Miri Make A Porno

• A discussion on the ad campaign for Zack & Miri Make A Porno and how films in general are marketed these days

• We discuss Wall-E and some of the best films of the year so far.

• A overview of the Fresno Filmmakers Forum and we churn our some suggestions for the next one

• Will laments his lack of trolls on his posts over at the Fresno Beehive & some insight into the Frank Caliendo drama

• We talk about the future of the print media and how the times are a changin’

• We end with some good ol’ fashion baseball shit talkin’ between Bryan & Will

You can listen to the podcast down there or you can direct download by clicking here! As usual, our podcast are slightly NSFW but nothing too bad this time. If you have any comments or are interested in joining us for a future podcast, be sure to drop us an email at thedumbdrum@gmail.com.

Zero Punctuation: Fallout 3 Review

“The Spirit” can “Plaster of Paris” me any day

The Beautiful Ladies of “The Spirit” from Party Marty on Vimeo.

Another day, another featurette. This time, AOL has posted a new video focusing on the female roles of the new Frank Miller adaptation of “The Spirit”. Videos like this surely can’t hurt ticket sales(Paz Vega, yes please). Ya know, the fact that Frank Miller is taking the reins on this film is kinda funny to me considering that originally, he was totally against adapting his own graphic novels to film. Before Robert Rodriguez convinced Miller to let him make Sin City, remember? Now he can’t stop tootin’ his own horn about how great The Spirit is gonna be. But hey, money talks, as they say and Sin City and 300 delivered all kinds.

Lately, what was originally excitement from funny book nerds over a new Frank Miller-directed film, quickly turned into doubt once the trailers were released. I don’t know what all the fuss is about, really. I mean, I’m no film geek Brodiemash, but I think the film looks fuggin’ awesome. There I said it. Excuse me while I go throw on my flamesuit.

P.S. Feast your eyes on the new TV spot and another featurette that was recently released. Kthnxbye.

The Spirit Featurette from Party Marty on Vimeo.

The Spirit TV Spot from Party Marty on Vimeo.

Swede Fest The Second deadline looms; still time to submit an entry

Sure, it might be cutting it close but working under fire usually produces some of the best creative work, no? Maybe it’s just me but I doubt it. YOU TOO CAN MAKE A SWEDE IN ABOUT 3 DAYS! Seriously, it can be done. Get some friends together, gather around your collective DVDs or head on to Blockbuster on a fact finding mission and decide on your film or scene or trailer. From there, the juices will flow, no doubt. If all else fails and you decide “Naw, I’m gonna continue being lame and not participate” well you can always just show up this Saturday over at the C.A.F.E. Infoshop located at 935 F St. in beautiful Chinatown and help support local filmmakers. The event starts at 1pm and it’s free for everyone so grab a couple of friends and come enjoy some free local films. For more info on creating an entry, be sure to check out the Swede Fest The Second page here and all will be answered. If not, feel free to email us at thedumbdrum@gmail.com. As a special treat for you guys, up there is Stormwysper/Michael Banti’s entry to our little film festival: Swede Intentions. Bad ass! Peace and good luck on your production!

Local boy Aaron Ruell directs another Comcast commercial

So when Napoleon Dynamite was released and hailed as the indie hit of the year, I was surprised to hear that the film had some local roots. Of course now we all know that Aaron Ruell, who played Kip in the film, was born here in Fresno and actually had a career in directing going for a while. Well, recently Aaron had been directing some commercials for Comcast and his newest one was recently released which you can see down after the break. Also, we’ve included another one of his older commercials for Comcast and if you need to see more, head on over to his Biscuit Filmworks site for even more stuff from the local boy! Thanks to Slash Film for the info! Read more…

Redesigned Mustang revealed; teen girls everywhere rejoice

I like the Mustang. But as of late, it seems like every time I see one, it’s being driven by a teenage girl bumping T-Pain and chatting it up on her blinged out Crackberry. I mean, c’mon….the Mustang has been somewhat castrated as of late. Not horsepower-wise but rather it’s overall bad ass image. Sure the redesign a couple of years back taking it back to it’s roots was cool and got me interested in the Blue Oval once again. But it wasn’t enough. And now here we are a few years later and once again we’re blessed with a slight tweek in wake of the Chevy Camaro being redesigned and scheduled for release next year. It looks cool but still can’t shake that little girl image. Still, I can admire a nice car not matter that the legacy it retains and I think it’s def an improvement. Check out some more pics by clicking here and be sure to check out the video walk through down below all of which you can find over at Autoblog. Let us know what you think of the redesign.

Where The Wild Things Are interview with Spike Jonze; new pics emerge

Over at Aintitcoolnews, director of the children’s book classic film adaptaion of Where The Wild Things Are Spike Jonze sat down for a rare interview to explain what the hell is going on with the production. As we had mentioned before, this film has been stuck in production hell since the beginning of this decade (the first teaser trailer was attached to the 2000 film The Grinch). Rumors ranging from having to reshoot the entire film to the studio wanting to replace the child actor playing Max have plauged this film from the very beginning. The interview give us insight into where the film is at now (the film’s been locked for a few weeks and are now working on special effects and is on track to be released in about a year) as well as a more indepth tour of all that has been going on and how the book has been translated onto film. Not only that, but they also have some new, exclusive pics that don’t show too much but provide a little peek into the visual style of the film, which you’ve probably already seen above. Yeah, it looks dope and that year seems so far away but I guess we’ve waited this long, what’s another year, right?