The Bloated Penguin

I’m kind of wigging out like a crack-addict after the first three hours of rehab. I miss Fringe. Thursday nights used be an event, now? Well, last evening I actually went out of my apartment. With people. Come back Fringe, PLEASE.

If any of that rings true to you, you can do one of two things. You can join the Fringe Facebook group and receive updates during this ridiculous hiatus.

OR

You can just stay here and check it all out in one place:

A couple of weeks ago, this was posted

Then on Feb 18th, they posted this:

Also on the 18th, these photos were posted (the gallery is at the bottom of this post)

Then on Tuesday Feb 23, they posted a link to the Fringe Hidden Elements Game

Fringe Hidden Elements Game

And Last evening, these images were posted

With this video here

If you haven’t checked this out by now you really should. The Grammy’s went way beyond the cassette player and fast forwarded into the modern world of social media for their 2010 site. Focusing on the concept of “We’re all fans,” The Grammy’s site incorporated Youtube clips, images, Tweets and Flckr feeds from real people about their favorite artists.

Performers like LL Cool J, Lady Gaga, Leonard Cohen, Taylor Swift and Green Day all have dedicated fans that submitted their own versions of their favorite artists’ hits. Although the intro to each artist is a bit heavy, the concept is really nice and the it runs very smoothly. I know that this campaign is over, but if you’re looking for how official sites make smooth transitions between different methods of social media, this is a great example.

Check it out here.

In celebration of Disneyland re-releasing Captain EO, I’ve decided to completely waste your time and destroy all of your daily productivity by posting the entire short (borrowed from Youtube). In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, Disneyland California brought back and re-premiered the sci-fi short this week.

Captain EO was created in 1986 as an attraction for people to come to the theme park. Starring Michael Jackson, Anjelica Huston and a bunch of puppets, the short also has big names like Francis Coppola and George Lucas attached. Captain EO is a 3D sci-fi space ship type short film that ran for about 10 years in Disneyland. In 1997 it was replaced by another attraction, Honey I Shrunk The Audience… I probably don’t have explain how Honey I Shrunk The Audience was barely the attraction that Captain EO was.

In any case, with the passing of the King of Pop, Disneyland decided to bring Captain EO out of the vault for a short run at the Tomorrowland Theater. If you can’t make it all the way to Anaheim, you can watch it below (sans 3D glasses of course)

I don’t know how I feel about this one. On one hand, I really like Stephen Chow and I think Green Hornet is actually going to do much worse than it could have had he been involved. My personal favorite Chow flick is Shaolin Soccer, but I’m also partial to Kung Fu Hustle. So, I respect him and his filmmaking and especially for what he’s been able to do with a North American audience.

But on hearing the news of Chow doing a remake of Enter The Dragon which is titled Tai Chi, I’m a little bit on the fence. Enter The Dragon is the epitome of a classic genre film. Growing up Asian in North America during the 80’s, there were really only two things I wanted to be. One was a hockey player, the other was Bruce Lee.

After reading through the brief synopsis of Tai Chi I can see this film being made by Chow. His Ben Stiller-like approach to parody is really fun – I’m just really unsure if this is going to come off as a slap in the face to one of the greatest flicks of all time.

I never thought I’d ever think of Disney as the underdog, or the little guy, or the small animation studio that would surprise people with quality and story telling. From my youth, that WAS Disney Animation. Thinking back, I don’t think I can even remember a good animated sequence from my youth that didn’t have something to do with Disney. But who knew that behind he scenes of all of the magic was a really bumpy road?

I don’t know a whole lot about the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty, but after watching this trailer, I think this is going to be one of those flicks that I purposely don’t read about before seeing. For some reason, when watching this, I root for Disney. Normally I kind of rag all over them for their big theme parks, cookie-cutter animated flicks and their ability to spawn screwed up adults from childhood fame. But Waking Sleeping Beauty looks like a different story.

Disregarding all of the things that represent Disney (the theme parks, the channels, the merchandise), Disney is really about making movies. This flick talks about how Disney Animation started out with a bang, then fell to the bottom and crawled itself back to the top. Check it out below:

Normally I think Redband trailers are kind of a waste of time. Usually they are created just so people can see naked bodies and listen to people say “fuck.” But after seeing this Redband trailer for Kick-Ass, I can actually see a flick benefiting from producing two trailers. The Redband trailer actually adds an element to what people can expect from the movie. This R-rated flick will swear at you, show you things you shouldn’t see, gross you out and probably get banned in some areas. So, enough of the talk, enter your age and check it out below.

Okay, so Cassie Campbell isn’t really almost famous considering she is one Canada’s greatest hockey heroes of all time, but for those of you who have been watching the Olympic coverage of late and are not familiar with the educated female voice of hockey, here’s some background info.

Cassie Campbell is basically Canada’s broadcasting darling. No, she doesn’t cover the weather in a one-piece pantsuit, no she doesn’t anchor a local news show and no she doesn’t waste her time with ridiculous human interest stories about places and people that nobody should care about – Cassie Campbell is a bruisingly (is that a word? doubt it…) swift, trash talking, hockey great with a keen eye for spotting the details of one of the fastest games on the planet. Although she’s been getting a ton of international coverage because of those games out in Vancouver, her full time gig is actually as one of CBC’s color analysts on Hockey Night In Canada. With respect to Jim Hughson, she’s really the best voice CBC has behind a mic every Saturday.

But Cassie’s time in front of the camera wasn’t always behind a mic, in fact she shot up to hockey stardom on an international scale as she gathered 21 national hockey medals in her career (World Championships, Olympics, ect). She currently sits 8th in all time scoring for Canada’s national Woman’s Hockey program.

Enough about the hockey career though right? Since leaving the game Cassie has been heavily involved in charity work and motivational speaking to go along with her full time stint on Hockey Night in Canada. She’s one of the spokespersons for Scotia Bank, you may have seen her on a Pepsi or Gatorade commercial of late and if you’ve ever seen a montage of Canada competing in national hockey tournaments, you’ll probably recognize her as the one wearing the flag. The Brampton Ontario native currently lives in Alberta with her husband, but you can see her most Saturdays on CBC.

Strange I know…. With so much going on in the world of media and entertainment, for some strange reason I woke up this morning thinking about Gundam – specifically Mini Gundam. When I was a kid growing up in North America, even knowing that Gundam existed was a bit of a rarity. I was never actually that cool, but my mom taught English to a bunch of Asian foreigners so I learned from them what was cool on the other side of the world.

When my dad made a trip to Singapore I asked him to bring me back a robot – the result was the beginnings of my addiction to toys.

Anyways, I’m kind of in the mood to build one right now for some reason. Probably won’t have any luck seeing as I’m at work (shit – I mean not at work, on my own time ) so instead I’ll post a bunch of pictures courtesy of Google.

Bye for today.