Category: Quickcasts

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here”¦

Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.

Here’s how I can tell that I’m getting to know Missy pretty well: I can so spell her name without having to look it up to see if that’s really how you spell P-e-r-e-g-r-y-m. It’s like the back of my hand at this point.

One of the reasons, though, that I genuinely looked forward to Comic-Con this year, and how it was honestly one of the most satisfying trips I’ve taken to San Diego, was that Missy is always an entertaining interview; she’s completely honest about what she’s doing, she’s never at a loss to tell it like it is and I can’t help but be amazed by the joie de vivre she possesses.

Missy has a way of navigating the cutthroat waters of life in Los Angeles by simply shrugging at the absurdity of it all while carving out a resume that is slowly starting to generate more and more opportunities for the actress. From her stint on HEROES to her current run on the CW’s REAPER, and if you haven’t checked out the goodness that is the pilot episode I am sure those of you who are technically inclined can catch that wave somewhere on the Interwebs, Missy brings a freshness to roles that speak to her personality: charming and disarming.

It’s hard to dismiss the fact that she enjoys what she does and is thankful for what she has but she’s markedly different from any other vapid actress I’ve ever had the misfortune to interview from the standpoint that Missy, at the end of the day, is someone who embodies the axiom of good things happening to good people. With regard to her role as someone who plays opposite of a man who has to keep a day job with the devil Missy can simply do no evil.

To be sure, when Missy took the stage with her fellow REAPER cohorts at the panel in the biggest hall at the Comic-Con, exuding the same nonchalant attitude that has been present with every interview incarnation we’ve had, I had the feeling that if nothing else in life she can at least be someone who can say that she is who she is and isn’t about to compromise anything to get there. However, she could shill for The Ryde and hook a brother up with one of those cryptic “MMM…Burritos” shirts that she was rocking much to the amusement of this journalist during the interview I’m sure her conscious would turn a blind eye…

Now, since this is the last installment of my Comic-Con coverage I have to publicly give much love and many thanks to my anonymous and hardest working PR source that keeps allowing me to talk to Missy and others in her employ. You made the expense of getting to San Diego worth every cent I spent and I appreciate it. I still think you need to dress up better if you ever think about taking a photo with me again but I’m sure we can work on that next year.

Download SDCC Missy Peregrym Interview:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 144.45 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 62.40 MB)

[display_podcast]

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here”¦

Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.

It feels good to be in the presence of someone who makes you want to be a smarter person.

All through college I appreciated the chance to learn and appreciate what the collegiate system, I thought, was supposed to be about: to sit amidst the free flowing of ideas from various peer groups, the chance to gain wisdom from those who were hardwired to espouse thoughts related to lectures or, ultimately and hopefully, have the possibility to have your knowledge base raised a notch or two after the sixteen weeks was over.

For me, it was exactly like this. I learned and gleaned just as fast as I could. Unfortunately, I paid the social cost of turning my weekends into extended learning time but there’s something I was frustrated I couldn’t do after I was given my bachelor’s in English: tell you why the world has turned out the way it had. I don’t know why this was such a sticking point with me but, through divine intervention, as I crammed in 12 credit hours in one summer I had to take a sociology class entitled Social Problems. It was taught by Professor Pete Padilla at Arizona State University and it pushed my understanding of the underhanded things or government is capable of to its veritable limit. To understanding what Sea Lines of Communication means to our overall military strategy and how it will impact whether we’ll defend Taiwan in the case of a Chinese assault on that island to the blatant and glaring reality that as long as you have the control you can spin any story you want, even if it’s how the ATF and FBI had a hand with what ultimately happened in Waco, Texas some decade ago.

The thing is, though, I had my eyes opened to a whole new world and when the class was finished I felt there wasn’t a way for me to keep the intravenous information flowing into me. I was tossed into the Working World and lost my sense of sifting through the messages I was spoon-fed on a daily basis through all forms of media.

It was about 4 years later when I found Ted Rall.

Ted was an instant touchstone for me from the standpoint that his cartoons, which somehow sounds awfully minute and insulting when I say it aloud as you compare his work to the other funnies out there for your base amusement, represented something more than just jokes. They were actionable in that they reached out and made you agree with what he was saying or it made you want to scribble down a death threat or two as evidenced by his “Terror Widows” comic which ran five months after September 11th:

His thoughts almost always have a heft to them when he has something to say. His book, America Gone Wild, showcases some of his own hits and misses with commentary to tell why he’s more than happy to say when he thinks his point wasn’t a very clear one or when something was written too hastily. Ted’s writing some of the most profound commentary on our modern society, with a voice that is unequaled in its ability to attract thunderous protestations from those on both sides of the political arena but, and here’s the most important part, he’s been an active voice against a presidency, the Bush presidency, that knows no limits with how far it will go to lie, cheat or steal its way into your hearts.

Rall’s disdain for the current administration is certainly out there for all to see in its Generalissimo El Busho glory but it’s also his essays that cut straight to the quick about what’s on his mind with the world or his books on what’s happening in the Mideast or Central Asia. And it’s the latter, entitled Silk Road to Ruin, that I read after picking up at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con which not only kicked open my closed sensibilities with regard to caring for countries I couldn’t pronounce but it made me acutely and severely aware of what is coming on our political, military and, possibly, environmental horizon with things like Lake Sarez being poised to be our next great world disaster waiting to happen.

I had the privilege to talk to Ted for a few minutes regarding Lake Sarez, politics, whether Bush is, indeed, the worst president ever, airport security and what it takes to develop an acute sense of reading between the lines we’re fed by an anxious media.

Download SDCC Ted Rall Interview:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 187.88 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 83.19 MB)

[display_podcast]

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here”¦

Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.

One of the nice things about actually going to Comic-Con is that you can sometimes get opinions about comics that don’t come from your average, pale, emaciated comic book shop employee.

Blair Butler, of Fresh Ink on G4’s Attack of the Show, does readers for all genres of comics a great service by being an objective voice about what’s hype and what what’s hot within the illustrated world. Her thoughts are always interesting if for the reasons that they’re always well reasoned and come from a place of genuine affinity for the art form. The selections she chooses to champion and those that get her occasional barb help to sift through the wheat and chafe. Since there isn’t any one single platform where comics are given an objective arena to be talked about on television, and surely there could be the case that Blair could turn the segment into a full-length show with the amount of titles that are out and come out on a weekly basis, it’s her recommendations that hold the greatest weight with me; it’s due to her that I found DMZ, one of the best titles going today.

Prior to the interview she was signing autographs with some of the other members of Attack of the Show and it was interesting to see the number of fans that were clamoring for just a few moments with her. She’s the latter day equivalent of a rock star within the context of the convention but couldn’t have been a more interesting and engaging person to talk to about the state of the comic universe. When I finally sat down with her we talked about what’s been good to read, conventions in general and the nature of the superhero genre.

You can catch Blair with a varying degree of certainty on G4’s Attack of the Show which airs nightly or you can catch all her most recent installment of Fresh Ink over at G4’s website.

Download SDCC Blair Butler Interview:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 83.27 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 36.27 MB)

[display_podcast]

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here”¦

Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.

I’ll be upfront about it: it was a really nice breakfast.

Atop a pavilion, overlooking San Diego’s convention center and the trickling of the faithful waiting to get an early jump on the festivities, the intimate breakfast that was hosted to introduce the day’s events for Fox Atomic’s DEATH SENTENCE held the kind of curiosity I could not resist.

Here was a director, James Wan, known for his viscous visuals with the original that started a mega franchise, SAW, the likes of which no one was expecting to happen, and had continued on that trend with his other notable film, DEAD SILENCE before landing on a project that is slightly askew of what people would be expecting next.

The film delves into the kind of revenge convention that spans generations and continents and it was, honestly, the first time I saw a trailer that got me excited about a Kevin Bacon movie since THE WOODSMAN and reinvigorated my belief that a balls-out action film can’t hold a candle to kinetic action if it’s done with a sense of purposeful film making. I could be wrong on all sorts of levels, of course, but from the footage that I saw prior to the interview I was struck by the way Wan has taken the action convention and twisted it just enough to have the sense that there is something at stake for all involved. It’s no longer just one person against the world but what happens when that one person just gives in for once into the restorative power of getting a little payback.

The interviews themselves lend more credence to the idea that this is really a new interpretation of the trope which suggests the what if of a man taking things into his own hands and is really driven to take things to their ultimate end. James Wan couldn’t have been more open and eager to talk about the major things which drove him through the production of the film and Garrett Hedlund was equally engaging talking about what he did in order to find that space where he no longer was just the pretty faced love interest in GEORGIA RULE and had to be the guy that everyone loves to hate.

DEATH SENTENCE opens August 31st. See it and experience the vengeful love.

Clip #1: James Wan talks about the evolution from horror to dramatic action and what he felt should be the essence of the picture.

Download SDCC Death Sentence Interview #1 – James Wan:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 65.41 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 29.03 MB)

Clip #2: Garrett Hedlund spins a yarn about achieving a real sense of badass-ness in this film while reflecting on his experience in the picture.

Download SDCC Death Sentence Interview #2 – Garrett Hedlund:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 83.27 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 36.27 MB)

By Christopher Stipp

Archives? Right Here”¦

Instead of manning-up and actually going the emotionally hard route of being outrightly rejected by publishers, I’m rejecting them first and allowing you to give my entire book a preview, let you read the whole thing or, if you like, download the whole damn thing at no cost. Download and read my first book “Thank You, Goodnight” for FREE.

Before the advent of DVD audio rippers made it fun again to listen to a good audio commentary while not enslaved to your La-Z-Boy there was the good old cassette recorder.

When I was old enough to rent movies but not sophisticated enough to know how to rig them up to one another to make a copy of it (not that I ever did that, legally speaking) I used to take a portable boom box and actually *record* the audio of the movies I really liked. I don’t know why I did this, nor why I incessantly looped major portions of POLICE ACADEMY 4: CITIZENS ON PATROL on my GE Walkman. I do know, however, that I filled up a couple of tapes when it came to THE MONSTER SQUAD.

I loved this film.

I recorded the dialog, the up-tempo musical interlude as the squad gets ready to throw down, the great moments Rudy gets as the “tough kid”, everything. I never listened to a recording so many times as I did with my MONSTER SQUAD tape. The film, in an odd way, encapsulated of what it was like to be a goofy young kid admist an ostensibly scary situation; that’s the movie’s appeal all these years later. Fred Dekker walked that line of genuine scariness and abject absurdness with equal parts. You couldn’t have found a more balanced film of this variety and somehow I responded to it with rapt dedication for a while.

I guess, as the years went on, I kind of forgot about the film. I started watching other movies, evolved as a movie consumer, but there was always something about that story; it turned out to be a touchstone, though, and when decades later there was talk about bringing the movie to DVD I just couldn’t wait. The very same feelings I had as a youth came bubbling back when I was given the opportunity to interview director Fred Dekker and cast members Andre Gower, Ryan Lambert and Ashley Bank. It was a surreal moment, to be sure, and it was definitely a satisfying moment knowing that years ago this was a movie I told everyone about and now I’m in the position to be able and tell everyone that this is the DVD to own this year.

Halcyon days of youth don’t have anything on the experience of being able to revel in the geekery of revisiting this film 20 years later with those who made it so good to watch long ago.

Clip #1: Director Fred Dekker talks about the mechanics of getting MONSTER SQUAD filmed and whether the adage of working with kids and animals really holds any truth.

Download SDCC Monster Squad Interview #1 – Fred Dekker:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 76.11 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 34.45 MB)

Clip #2: Ashley Bank talks about what memories she has of the production and what it was like to be a part of the resurgence of the movie-that-would-not-die.

Download SDCC Monster Squad Interview #2 – Ashley Bank:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 34.24 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 15.60 MB)

Clip #3: Andre Gower and Ryan Lambert remember back about the experience of being young on the set of a major motion picture.

Download SDCC Monster Squad Interview #3 – Andre Gower & Ryan Lambert:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 114.53 MB)
Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 50.23 MB)

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