I have a new IMDb photo on my profile. It’s one Neil Kellen took one day for me, in a panic, after realizing I had no photos to post on the “Reality” website.

November is going to be an expensive month, because it’s when a few different gadgets I’m wanting all come out around the same time.  I’m looking forward to the Kinect, the Samsung Focus and the latest Assassin’s Creed game.

I’ve been pretty darn terrible at updating here, and think I should probably turn back to my ridiculous image posting.  It always inspired me to sign in and update, so here’s today’s:

This is going to seem a little recursive to the people who came to my site FROM Reality’s site, but for those who haven’t seen it yet, I’m on the internet somewhere else now (or soon will be, depending on when you read this).

The official movie site has been posting photos and bios for the cast members over the last few weeks.  Friday, I believe, mine will hit.  We’re going to start shooting this month, and I’m really looking forward to it. 

After a sit-down with the director, I’ve got a better handle on my character, and think it will be a blast to make this script come to life.  I’ll be posting more throughout the process on my site.  Hopefully I’ll find a good photo gallery plug-in that will make the process pretty simple.  Any suggestions for gallery plug-ins?

Also, I’m working on getting a gecko-cam on Sam’s tank, and having a live feed on here, if I can resurrect one of the doody laptops Sean gave me, that is.

I’m looking forward to starting up a new project, called “Reality”.  It’s a movie about a guy whose life takes a weird turn after being dumped, and he decides his problems can all be solved if he can just get his celebrity dream girl to fall for him.  However, getting to her and what comes after aren’t what he expected.

It was written and will be directed by Joe Atkinson, whom I’ve worked with before in a totally different venue.  Lewis Chaney, Neil Kellen and Marx Pyle are also working on the project, whom I’ve worked with in varying degrees on “victimEYES”, “Batman: Metaphors” and “Silence of the Belle”.

We start shooting next month, and are scheduled to wrap in December.  There are going to be some cool story-telling techniques I’ve never been a part of before, so I’m really looking forward to doing it.

Check out the project’s website for a daily cast reveal, and let me know what you think!

The first is that I’ve begun hosting a quick little segment on the newscasts of the TV station I work for.  It’s called “Plugged In”, and it focuses on everyday tech headlines.  I try not to make it too “geeky” or over anyone’s head.  It’ll just be the “news you can use” type of tech news;  mobile phones, social networking, video games, etc.

You can see the videos and links to what was in each show at:

• http://pluggedin.news25.us

Another thing is I got another credit on my IMDb page last week.  The short film “Silence of the Belle” was accepted into IMDb’s database, and a trailer was added to the site.  It’s a comedy blend of film styles, including silent film and 70’s kung-fu. 

Finally, I have a new roommate at my apartment, who only needs two cubic feet to live, so it won’t be too cramped.  I got a juvenile Tokay gecko shipped to me from Oklahoma.  I haven’t been able to identify the sex, so I’ve gone with a nice, asexual “Sam”.  That’s also the name of my favorite Tom Clancy character.

I’ve embedded the widget here so you can listen in live, or listen to the recording.  Right now, it’s the previous week’s show, but I’m assuming once the new one goes live tonight around 8:00pm, it’ll be here.

Wish us luck!

I’m posting a link to an interview done with Lewis and Theresa by RogueCinema.com.  They were asked about the movie “victimEYES”.  There’s some stuff in there even I hadn’t heard before, so I thought it was a good read.  RogueCinema is also the group that wrote that review of “victimEYES” on its IMDb page.

This weekend, we shot in sub-freezing temperatures in the woods for Marx Pyle’s new film, “Silence of the Belle”.  It was fun but COLD!

Christmas was fun, New Years was fun.  My brother Garth was in town and it was good to hang out with him for a while.

Cousin Damon and newly dubbed “Cousin” Meredith were in for the holidays, too.  We’re now in discussions for a trip to the left coast to visit.

Angie, the kids and I went to Nashville for a baby vacation.  It was really nice to get out of town and just wander around a different place for a while.

I suppose I had more than I thought.  Happy New Year!

My IMDb Page

I’m really excited about the upcoming premiere for the movie next weekend.  I don’t know exactly how much I’ve talked about it on my site, so here goes.  It’s called “victimEYES” and is about a serial killer who is caught halfway through his last kill, and is only able to blind the girl.  Months later, after escaping from custody, he comes back for her.  It’s a thriller with a TINY bit of violence, but mostly just suspenseful tension stuff.

It’s an independent, ZERO-budget film that we made to have fun.  We HAVEN’T bought our tickets for the Oscars, we’re NOT preparing our acceptance speeches for the Golden Globes, but we did have a blast going through the process of making a movie from beginning to end.

I play Jason Karnes, the killer.  It was directed by Lewis Chaney, a former news photographer and now assignment editor for my station.  We shot it around 3-4 years ago, but he’s just now finished up editing, and we’ve done a bit of marketing (posters, DVDs, etc) and arranged a premiere at the Henderson Fine Arts Center in Henderson, KY. 

I’ve embedded the most recent trailer below.

If you want to come:

‘victimEYES’ Premiere

Henderson Fine Arts Center
2660 S Green St
Henderson, KY 42420

November 7th, 2009 at 7:00pm

Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door

I’ve been away from the site recently.  No real reason in particular, but my rehearsals for the Civic Theatre show I just got done with didn’t help.  Games have been relatively slow recently, which is nice.  It’s been great bleeding more fun out of Halo 3.  Darren picked it up within the last six weeks or so, and we’ve been playing a lot of it.  He’s gotten where he’s able to hold his own pretty quickly, and can take me out in some interesting ways now, including this beauty below.  I’m the purple guy.  He’s off-camera with a rocket launcher.

I’ll be posting more in the next day or so about the movie premiere of “victimEYES” coming up in Henderson.  Until then, just visit www.victimeyesmovie.com.

HERE is my page. 

The movie is called Bloomington and it looks like it’ll be out next year sometime.

Now I suppose I have to find a headshot of some sort.  I think I have to pay for it, though, so maybe it can wait.  If/when the movie Lewis directed gets off the ground, maybe I’ll have a SECOND item.  Then I’ll have really arrived.

Man, I need to get back on the Twitter horse.  I’ll tweet this.

By the way, I’ll keep try and keep this as spoiler-free as any trailer you’ve already seen. 

This movie ended up being somewhere around the first X-Men movie, not quite to X-Men 2 level, but far better than the third movie.  Like I thought, Hugh Jackman was good, but some of the story around him was equally good.  There is MUCH creative license with his origin. Had this been Spider-Man they were dinking with, I probably would have been more critical.  However, with Wolverine’s past, so much of it has been muddled with false memories, amnesia, his healing factor “healing” his brain from painful memories, brainwashing and so forth, that it’s hard to definitively nail down his past, even IN the comics.

It pretty action-packed, with a few slowdown parts to show that Wolverine has a heart.  That may be another sticking point with die-hards.  He seems to be VERY sympathetic in this movie (and the following ones).  From what I’ve read in the comics through the 80’s and 90’s, Wolverine was more apathetic and self-centered than this, but I understand that you’ve got to care about the guy.  Otherwise, why would some of your audience watch the movie?

The weakest part, as I’ve discussed with some other people familiar with the source material, is the expendability of some of the complimentary characters.  From what I’d read, Gambit was an afterthought added by the writers after realizing that they’ve skipped him in three movies already, and the fans wanted to see him.  But unless there’s some director’s cut, he’s SEVERELY underused, using his kinetic power MAYBE twice, never his hypnosis, and otherwise just being really good at fighting with a staff.

The weakest part of the entire storyline, and what I’m betting is the most upsetting to the fans, is what they do with Deadpool.  It’s very weak, and I wish they’d just created a new character to do what he does, but instead, I suppose for name recognition, they pulled in Deadpool.  The only positive of that is that it doesn’t take up much time in the story.

Overall, I think the movie was as fun to watch as its predecessors, and don’t understand all the bad press it’s getting.

Now, the second, bigger surprise was the game of the same name.  This game is incredible.  It’s not the same as many other movie tie-in titles, rushed out the door to make sure it’s there for kids to buy as soon as they leave the theater.  This game is a Wolverine game, that just happens to have some ties to the movie. 

In an interview with Major Nelson, Don Vondrak with Raven Software’s explained that after doing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, they wanted to make a mature Wolverine game, and it wasn’t until a way into development that they were approached for movie tie-in themes.  The game, which was already very violent, could have some tweaks made to the plot, and they could continue making the game they wanted to make.

Then, in another bit of rare game development, Vondrak said the game had been wrapped up in December of 2007, but after the movie was delayed, they were given an extra 12 months of development time, which they used to polish it into exactly the game they wanted.

I’ve played several hours into it, and I’m TOTALLY impressed.  There are already several story lines that have nothing to do with the film, so I feel like I’m really forging new ground with Wolverine. 

Also, the game maintained the hyper-violence most suited for the character, instead of being watered down to match the tone of the movie.  So you get a better sense of the Wolverine in the comics, that you’re actually leading down this cool path of his broken memories.

Another amazing feature of the game is this incredible physics engine they use to destroy and rebuild Wolverine’s body as he takes damage.  His body can be stripped of skin, then muscle, then down to just bone.  Then, it will slowly rebuild itself as you watch.  It’s REALLY fun to experiment with.  At one point, I had taken a shotgun blast to the head.  Half of Wolverine’s face was gone, and just his metal skeleton showed through, but slowly, muscle tissue regenerated over it, then skin, then hair.  It was WILD.

I really liked both, so it was a good weekend for geekery.