EricNentrup.com

Hoodwinked The Movie.
Originally uploaded by Eric Nentrup.

My good friends at Blue Yonder Films have hit it big with their 3D-animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood in “Hoodwinked”. It’s got an ALL-STAR cast and looks HILARIOUS.

You can watch the trailer at Apple’s QuickTime Theater.

They are TRULY dedicated artists, and have been duking it out in L.A. for over 5 years now. If you have a Hollywood Video nearby, you can find their previous live-action comedy, “Chillicothe” available exclusively there. Kim even has a credit in the film as “Girl on Bench”! Melanie (who frequents this site) is also another one of the girls on the bench. We had such a good time helping out on that film, which DID go to Sundance in 1999.

It opens this Christmas, and could be a joyous occasion for you and your family. Yes, I said joyous.

So, Congrats to Cory, Todd, Preston, Tony, Peter, and Katie at Blue Yonder. You guys ROCK, and we’re SO very proud of your commitment to the craft and the great fun you’re creating for the rest of us! I hope it breaks the box office!

I’m a creative content creator, which is a fancy name for multimedia producer. I will continue in this career as Kim and I move to Denver in the not too distant future to go to work for Kingdom Building Ministries.

After responding to the Pat Robertson debacle in my previous post, I’ve been thinking about the question:

Is Television a VALID medium for sharing the story of Jesus?

I’d love to hear your thoughts to this impromptu survey. Click the little icon to the right of the title above to get to the COMMENTS page.

I just saw on the CBS Morning Show, Actor/Filmmaker Chazz Palminteri talking about his latest project, a film called “Noel.”

It’s being released via FlexPlay.com, a new service that makes DISPOSABLE DVD rentals mailed to your door. Crazy. They actually begin to disintegrate in 48 hours. I love it. Now I can QUIT HATING AOL for their ridiculous amount of waste with their CD’s and transfer that angst to FlexPlay. Not really. I don’t get that bent out of shape about it. I just think it’s a strange business model NOW when we could POSSIBLY be near a “Video On Demand” breakthrough via ONE of several technologies.

Anyhow, this qualifies for the “RANT” category, as I just don’t understand the notion to INTENTIONALLY create disposable stuff at a time when we are ALSO lobbying to recycle whatever we can. To their credit, they ARE recyclable, but at least in my tiny burgh, we’re still a ways off from the MASSES recycling most of their refuse.

Being the torn soul I am, I’ll likely try it. Or watch–I’ll make a short film and seek distribution with them. I’ll get over it. And if I DO get one of their discs, it’s going in the recycle bin.

Oh the days we’re livin’ in.

So I saw the Trailer for Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. The first half is footage culled from the previous FIVE films, and the second half of the trailer delivers the tease of new footage from the May 2005 release.

I have to say I like what I see. From what I’ve read online, folks are pretty much losing faith in George to deliver the goods. And I side with them on issue of writing and directing (what else is there?!?!?!). Well, the mogul-like stature of such Lucas offspring as Lucas Arts, Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound, and the biggest–Industrial Light & Magic, have paved the way for these films, as I’ll discuss below, and more so, occupied George’s creative side in a significant amount compared to his writing and directing. I wonder why he didn’t just STAY competitive with his colleagues (Spielberg, Scorcese, Coppola) instead of becoming a service provider to THEIR films.

I’ll take a moment to confess that NOT having cable, I missed the Comedy Central airing of “The Clone Wars” cartoon. But thanks to peer-to-peer networks and the client software available (unnamed here to not indict the innocent), I was able to snag a good many of the episodes and run them out of my PowerBook to my TV and Stereo, enjoying them just as I would’ve on TV. Sans the commercials.

Confession over.

This recent article on Box Office Mojo shows the disdain that true blue fans have for the versions of the film found in last month’s DVD box set of Ep’s 4,5, & 6. The author makes a good note that such fans are nearing fascism with demanding that Lucas REVERT to the ORIGINAL THEATRICAL versions of the film for DVD release. I give George a bit more grace than that.

It’s so funny. I can remember growing up, the occasional Entertainment Tonight story, or something similar, where George would pop back up in the headlines. Maybe for Indy Jones Chronicles or something. And they’d ask when they could expect MORE Star Wars movies. And George would always answer to the effect that he was waiting for technology to catch up with his ideas. And kudos to George for putting his money where his mouth was and building the de facto visual fx company two which all other VFX houses bow their greenscreens in unison curtsy. But I think that when that occured back in the late nineties as he “polished” the workflow for Ep. 1’s production, the technology arrived to find his ideas a dry pile of dust, instead of the more vibrant prequels we all would’ve savored had he just made the damn series in sequence. It’s pretty obvious to most that Ep’s 1 & II have eye candy filling chasms where story belonged.

The outrage of fans underscored in Holleran’s article reminds me of several recent and relevant encounters I have had with others (primarily from older generations) where I see a HUGE chasm between value of intelllectual property (a fairly new term) and the object or container of that property. Stay tuned for that delicious essay.

Nonetheless, my heartrate quickened when I saw the teaser trailer. We ALL want to see the transformation of Darth Vader. We all deserve another wookie moment, and there is no such thing as too many lightsaber fights, at least in my book. So, more power to George as he presses on towards next May’s release.

By the way…the title of this entry. It’s the TRUE dividing factor between men and women. I have YET to meet a fella who wouldn’t give his right android hand for an actual working lightsaber. Next time you’re with a few, just ask. In the meanwhile check out these fine replicas at a web retailer near you.