Run for your lives!
Making the ordinary terrifying! Awesome!
Rudolph Remix
This isn’t quite how I remember it.
Anyone See Roger Ebert Lately?
He is going through some rough shit right now and the first pictures of him were released on the 24th. The Chicago Eightandfivers may know this already, but I just found out and was shocked. I knew he was going through an illness, but I had no idea. According to the Ebert-penned article, this is how it all went down:
What happened was, cancer of the salivary gland spread to my right lower jaw. A segment of the mandible was removed. Two operations to replace the missing segment were unsuccessful, both leading to unanticipated bleeding.
A tracheostomy was necessary so, for the time being, I cannot speak. I make do with written notes and a lot of hand waving and eye-rolling. The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding. If all goes well, my speech will be restored.
The article is a good read and he is facing his disfigurement and illness with great strength…
I can eat 50 eggs, Streaming Online
I enabled Netflix Watch Now last night and for the first time in my life had the pleasure of watching Cool Hand Luke. And I do mean pleasure. Everything about the experience was great, with the small exception of being required to use internet explorer (even 7 sucks).
Here’s how it works: If you’re a Netflix subscriber head to the page, login and click “your account”. On the right there is an icon that says “How can I watch movies on my PC?” click “Start Now” and you get a new tab at the top called “Watch Now”. Hit that tab and you’re rollin’.
It’s not perfect. It doesn’t have all of Netfix’s catalog available, far from it. After about 10 minutes I’d paged through nearly everything available which could take days in their DVD section. But there was enough that I hadn’t seen (and wanted to see) to keep me busy for a long, long time. Well… 15 hours a month in my case as that’s the alloted time for my subscription level (one hour for every dollar per month).
After choosing Cool Hand Luke I hit “play” and internet explorer prompted me way too many times to allow some crap and it finally started. I moved the window over to my standard definition TV (480i) connected to my PC with an S-Video cable, hit full-screen and let ‘er rip.
There are three levels of video quality available that are determined for you basic, good and high. The qualification for which level you get is based on your connection speed. Basic = 500 kbps (the one I get), Good = 1.0 mbps and High 1.6 mbps or better. I imagine there are few people with the 1.0 mbps connections out there and far less with the 1.6 but that’s what they offer. I’d like to see the ability to choose you’re quality and just let the thing buffer more but I have to say that the quality of Basic was better than I expected. I’m sure it wasn’t DVD resolution, but I really couldn’t tell–it was that good. I wish they divulged what the different qualities actually meant but I’m not complaining that much–there’s just a failure to communicate… with the user.
Now where did I put those eggs?
Anyone else interested in Inland Empire?
I’m a pretty big David Lynch Fan, so when I caught word that his newest film Inland Empire was getting out in limited release, I had to see if it was coming to Minneapolis. I was happy to find that according to it’s website, it was opening here in Minneapolis last weekend…
The Problem was, I couldn’t figure out where they had it playing. It wasn’t listed at the the Uptown or Lagoon and it wasn’t at the Walker. I probably could have called these places to ask about it, but never did.
Amazingly, I was trying to get a couple beers Saturday night at the 331 Club (cool bar by the way) and happened to over-hear a guy talking about having seen it. I asked where and he said the Oak Street Cinema. He went on to explain the theater is in some amount of disrepair and the movie wasn’t very good, but I told him I still had to try and see it…
It runs now threw March 1st. I plan to go waste 3 hours of my life sometime between now and then watching a movie that will undoubtedly make no sense. If anyone else is interested, let me know.
B-Fest 2007
Last weekend I attended B-Fest 2007, a 24-Hour B (as in Bad) Movie Festival put on by A&O Productions, which is a student group my brother was a part of while attending Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. So basically I got real cheap tickets to Chicago, stayed with a friend Thursday night and spent Friday night through Saturday afternoon in a Theatre in the Student Center at Northwestern watching movie’s that by definition are not very good.
The Schedule is available here, but I’ll give you a walk-through of the event:
(more…)
Superbowl Flashback
In honor of the upcoming Superbowl, eightandfive.com brings you the trailer for original Hunter S. Thompson film, “Where the Buffalo Roam” starring Bill Murray and Peter Boyle in a fantastic journey into the madness of Gonzo journalism while covering the 1972 Superbowl.
If you can’t stand football, and you would rather watch something other than Minnesota’s royal Prince…then you should check out “Where the Buffalo Roam.” After all, you can always DVR the halftime show!
Where the Buffalo Roam - 1 min, 45 sec.
Jean-Claude loves the spotlight. I mean REALLY loves it.
I don’t want to bring down the level of the content here on 8&5. Unfortunately, and for reasons that I can’t begin to fathom, I feel compelled to post this video. For the sake of my conscience, though, I’m including a warning. Anyone with an aversion to 90’s action stars, stone-washed denim, or pup tents should look away.
“Sir, do you have a license to carry that?”
Worst Movie Theater EVER? AMC Roseville!
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on January 11, 2007. This AMC theater has since updated this building and added a foyer to protect patrons from the harsh Minnesota winters. If you choose to comment, please remember that the information dated in this post was correct at the time of publication.
Chris Hewitt of the PioneerPress wrote an article I actually enjoyed recently. It seems he has been checking out the latest movie theater in the Twin Cities which happens to be the AMC in Roseville, MN at the Rosedale Shopping Center.
There is really only one problem with Hewitt’s article: He was WAY too kind!
What he should have wrote was: What kind of EFF-ING IDIOT would put a theater in MINNESOTA that FORCES PATRONS TO STAND OUTSIDE!!??
It gets worse. 
If you park on the lower lot by Panera Bread and Williams-Sonoma, you must navigate a concrete stairway that may be ideal for Southern California, but for the icy chill of the North, it is just a lawsuit waiting to slip. They will be lucky if someone doesn’t DIE trying to get up or down these stairs!
If that doesn’t seem so bad, how about the view from the top?
Tip: You can avoid the death traps by parking in the UPPER lot, that would be the one by the Granite City Grill. IF you are lucky, you can get in up there. But there probably won’t be any parking since the AMC was built in what was the parking lot for that part of the mall!
If you are fortunate enough to get through these pitfalls, you are forced to stand outside to get tickets. 
And of course, the REAL reason the lines are outdoors is because they don’t want to have cashiers sell you tickets at all, they want a computer to do it… 
So once you have battled the internets, the elements, the Ice Lords, and the Robots of Death, you are at last allowed into the AMC Movie Palace. You are immediately greeted by the gaudy glow of a plasma screen from one end of the foyer to the other. Why does popcorn cost $50? Why did I just take out a second mortgage to buy Junior Mints? Well, someone may as well pay for the wall-to-wall plasma menus and it’s not going to be the AMC theater owners. That’s right my fellow customers, it’s our lucky day, WE get to finance the plasma TV menus! I bet the popcorn tastes better too! 
I will say one good thing about the AMC Roseville: It still smells new.
Go there now. See a movie this week.
If you wait until the humidity of summer kicks in, and the people have had six months to rub their grease and body oils and juices into the seats, it will smell like farts and burps just like every other movie theater. Go to the AMC Roseville to catch a movie before it has a chance to lose its luster.
Then, once you have seen a movie at the new multi-plex, just go back to PirateBay.org for your latest releases.