todays bird
#extradirty
Cosmic Funnies
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hello vonnie
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
@theartofmadeline
★
ojovivo
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
cherry valley forever
tannertan36
Andulka
PR's Tumblrdome
noise dept.
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oozey mess
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Origami Around
Janaina Medeiros
seen from Greece
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@keithcalder
This website is no longer the best place to find me, and I won’t be updating it after this post.
Here are the best three places to find me, in order of my preference…
1) I have a weekly newsletter called the Snoot Letter.
2) I’m on twitter as @keithcalder
3) I occassionally blog at texting.com
2017 Movies #18 and #19 – Split (2017) and John Wick 2 (2017)
Fell way behind on my Tumblr movie list for 2017. I saw SPLIT opening weekend and JOHN WICK 2 at the premiere because I'm a fancy big-wig film producer.
I saw 19 movies by the end of January, and that is definitely not a pace to expect for the rest of the year. I usually end up seeing arund 150 movies a year, with big viewing spikes in January, December, and whenever I'm on vacation.
2017 Movies #15, #16, #17 – Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), Dead Calm (1989), and Hidden Figures (2016)
I got so caught up in the Kickstarter for the Snoot Zine, that I fell behind on my movie journal tumblr posts! So here's a bit of catch up. Watched Aguirre and Hidden Figures for the first time. Loved both of them. Rewatched Dead Calm and I think it might be a perfect movie.
Brian De Palma's CARRIE KILLER GIRL A BIZAPPE TALE OF ROMANCE MYSTERY AND MURDER
Snoot Zine Kickstarter Update
Three days into the Snoot Zine Kickstarter campaign, and it has been a huge success. The zine is fully funded, and all 100 of the limited physical zine subscriptions have been filled. So now we're into the world of "stretch goals" and new reward tiers, and we have a couple fun ones.
The top images in the post are limited art prints for The Guest created by artist Karl Fitzgerald. We have a new reward tier at $85 that will include one of these limited art prints and a physical subscription to the first year of the Snoot Zine. Both versions are 18x36 screen prints, and one is glow in the dark!
And here are the Stretch Goals…
200 backers - The Double Trouble Stretch Goal One of the four issues will be a double issue. 16 glorious pages of movie love.
666 backers - The Devil’s Stretch Goal A special additional issue about the cinematic depiction of Satan, including our own experiences producing Sean Byrne’s THE DEVIL’S CANDY.
1000 backers - The “For Your Consideration” Stretch Goal A special additional “For Your Consideration” issue of the zine, which will consist of handmade “For Your Consideration” award campaigns for my favorite movies of 2017.
1500 backers - The “More Then Meets The Eye” Stretch Goal I will force myself to watch all five Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS movies, and I will make an additional “More Than Meets The Eye” issue of the Snoot Zine that celebrates the unique cinematic achievement of Michael Bay’s robotic pentalogy.
1863 backers – The “Most Popular Zine In Kickstarter History” Stretch Goal Some boring zine about entrepreneurship got 1862 backers. If we can beat them, I will commission the creation of a large custom trophy for myself that says “Most Popular Zine in Kickstarter History.” When a new zine inevitably beats the Snoot Zine, I’ll send the trophy on to the creator of that project. Hopefully this will become a tradition that is handed from zine creator to zine creator until the heat death of the universe.
So come join the fun!
I’m making a handmade quarterly zine about movies, the craft of filmmaking, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse at movies I helped produce. I’m launching it on Kickstarter, and I hope you come back it and join in on the fun!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keithcalder/the-snoot-zine-a-quarterly-film-publication
If you were thinking of backing the Snoot Zine, you better move quick because there are only 12 slots left for the physical subscription! I'll be thinking of "stretch goals" over the weekend, since we're already well past the funding goal.
ride or die
Conventions can feel like a days long performative party at which everyone but me can have fun. It spends energy in exchange for gratitude which, while great, ain’t energy. I like seeing friends on either side of the table, old and new. I like to shake hands and sign my name and say thank you to the people that afford me this ridiculous lifestyle. I like to hug people, total strangers, who look at me and i can see in their eyes that we are alike in ways other people can’t see, don’t know about, can’t understand. Mostly, though, I try to smile and say thank you and to occupy as little space as possible. I try hard to not ask for that exchange, for that transaction, with others who, like me, find themselves on the other side of the table.
I made an exception at Dragon*Con last year. Congressman John Lewis walked by me and I shouted – I mean straight-up SHOUTED – “Congressman!”
He stopped and turned and smiled, all pro. I told him that in a place that was all about superheroes it was nice to meet a real one, and I shook his hand. I said, “You know my wife. Red hair. We were all supposed to have dinner together –”
The Congressman cut me off as we shook. He brought his other hand up to mine and embraced it, turning a handshake into a – into I don’t know what. A gesture of sincerity. “Last year. And your father passed. I’m sorry. That’s terrible,” he said and, shaking his head said very quietly, again, “Terrible.”
He was right. I was a guest at the show the previous year when my father’s tenuous grip on his health slipped for the last time. I left the show and raced the reaper from Atlanta to Charlotte to be at his – and my mother’s – side when his time came that evening.
And indeed, had I stayed, the Congressman, writer/aide-de-camp Andrew Aydin, wunderartist Nate Powell, and Kel and I were supposed to have dinner together. In fact it was during that meal that I texted my wife to tell her dad had died.
And a year later the Congressman remembered.
I praised his book MARCH (Leigh Walton of Top Shelf, who shepherded the project, gave me a copy of the freshly-minted v3 then and there and the March team signed it and you coulda knocked me over) and thanked him for teaching me the virtues of “good trouble.”
Then, to make Kel laugh, Leigh and the Congressman and I took this:
In a crazy sea of humanity, where everyone’s got their game-face on, where everyone’s on their grind, when everyone’s hustling literally and figuratively, this man, this hero, straight-up remembered why, a year ago, we were supposed to meet but did not.
Put aside the man’s career, his history, his legacy – that small, true moment of humanity from anyone would’ve meant the world. That it came from him meant all the more.
So yeah, I’m pretty ride-or-die for Congressman John Lewis, you goddamn butterscotch nazi pissmagnet. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
(Pardon my language, Congressman.)
I'm making a handmade quarterly zine about movies, the craft of filmmaking, and a behind-the-scenes glimpse at movies I helped produce. I'm launching it on Kickstarter, and I hope you come back it and join in on the fun!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keithcalder/the-snoot-zine-a-quarterly-film-publication
2017 Movie #14 - Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)
This movie exists as a cautionary tale against having a family. Not my cup of tea. At all. I'm shocked that it's on so many lists of the best movies of all time.
What if every note in Smash Mouth's "All Star" was a C.
It's 2017 and they have Jessica Jones doing the "here's my butt while I look over my shoulder at you" female superhero pose. So ridiculous.
2017 Movie #13 – Ip Man (2008)
I saw Ip Man on a plane a few years ago, and liked it a lot. I immediately thought "I need to rewatch this on Blu-ray to get the full effect." So yesterday I rewatched it on Blu-ray, and got the full effect. Still like it a lot.
I don’t post a lot on social media these days and I rarely if ever post anything personal. But I have two personal stories that I’ve never really told publicly that I feel I need to tell today.
About seven years ago there was a letter in my mailbox from the White House. To be clear, not just the White House, but from the newly elected President Of The United States. Wow, maybe this had something to do with his appearance in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, but oddly enough it was addressed to my then 8 year old daughter. It seems that unbeknownst to her parents, my little girl mailed a letter to President Obama wishing him well and offering him advice as only an 8 year old could.
And he wrote back.
In the letter he thanked and commending her for passing along her thoughts and engaging in this wonderful thing we call Democracy. To this day I still tear up remembering the look on her face as she read that letter realizing that not only did the President Of The United States write back, but that she lived in a country in which this was possible.
Two years later I was sitting in my office at Marvel when my phone rings and a gentlemen claiming to be an assistant to the President Of The United States tells me that the POTUS would like to commission me to do a piece of art for him. Thinking it was a prank I told him I’d love to discuss it further but I was rushing off to a meeting and would gladly call him back. I took down his info, did a quick Google search and confirmed that the number on my caller I.D. was indeed coming from an office in the White House. Wait, what?!?
As it turned out a close friend of the President, Patrick Gaspard, who was the Director of the White House Office of Political Affairs, was leaving to take on his new role as the Director of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Gaspard happened to be a HUGE Marvel Comics fan. We’re talking a full on True Believer since childhood, and President Obama thought that a perfect parting gift for his service to the administration would be a custom piece of art featuring Mr. Gaspard, himself and several Marvel heroes standing in front of the White House and for some godforsaken reason he was asking me to draw it. I of course had to get approval from the highest levels of Marvel where it was met with nothing but enthusiasm and a big thumbs up.
Now as unlikely as all of this sounds, nothing was more surreal than when I was sending off rough sketches to White House for the President’s approval and getting back notes. I’d never been more thrilled to get art revisions in my life! Once the piece was finished inked and colored by Danny Miki and Richard Isanove respectfully, I received word that the President was thrilled with the results and Mr. Gaspard was over the moon with the final framed surprise gift.
Admittedly, for those close to me that knew about the assignment, I’d make it a point to boast as often as I could that I was now officially the very first United States Sequential Artist Laureate. Quite frankly, I don’t see why that shouldn’t be a thing.
A short time later I was at San Diego Comicon signing books at the Marvel booth when someone extended a hand for me to shake. I looked up and the gentlemen said, “Do you recognize me?” How could I not, I had spent a week drawing him. It was of course Mr. Gaspard and he wanted to thank me personally for the art and to express how much Marvel had meant to him growing up and still means to him today. Patrick and I have kept in touch ever since and while his current tenure as Ambassador to South Africa is coming to an end, I’m looking forward to catching up with him when he’s back in the States and making good on my promise to bring him on to the set of Defenders or taking him to a Mets game.
And yes, I was lucky enough to meet President Obama. like I said, I don’t usually like to post things of a personal nature, but today I feel compelled to simply convey my own humble experience of having the great honor of meeting the most powerful man on the planet when he was in office. A man who was nothing but kind, appreciative and generous to me, who demonstrating a genuine love for the medium of comics and took more time than he ever needed to to express his appreciation for the work I created and the medium of comics itself. The same man who also took time to write a simple yet eloquent response in 2009 to a little girl who express love and hope, not for herself, but for her President and his future.
Godspeed President Obama, thank you for your service. I have no doubt and look forward to how you will continue to serve and change our world for the better.
Joe Quesada
2017 Movie #12 – Secret Movie (2017)
I watched a rough cut of a movie for a friend, but I can't talk about it. So here is a cute GIF of a baby panda instead.
2017 Movie #11 - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
My first time returning to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon since the initial release. I'm still blown away by the jaw-dropping fight scenes and Ang Lee's exploration of repression and control. And I still find the ending totally unsatisfying and inscrutable.
When I first saw the film, I was living in NYC. Five minutes into the screening, a family of four got up and walked out of the theater with the dad yelling "fuck this movie, if I wanted to read I'd buy a fucking magazine!"
Luckily his response wasn't shared by all of America. Sixteen years later, and Crouching Tiger is still the highest grossing Foreign Language film in US history. By a lot. $128m US gross is more than double the runner up, Life is Beautiful with $58m.
DUDE (and this re: your highlander TV show post) CAN CONFIRM THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME. i have yet to see the full film because of terrible DVDs/ flight mishaps. Great post, love hearing others grew up on Baby Sean Connery being their Highlander
Duncan MacLeod strikes again!
Why I’ve Never Seen The HIGHLANDER Movie
I'm cross-posting this from my infrequently-published newsletter Internet Movie Big Deal. Feel free to subscribe to IMBD if you enjoy reading this, as I probably won't share all of my newsletter postings here on the blog.
When I was a kid, I was a huge fantasy nerd. If it had swords, dragons, or magic then I was there with my nose pressed up to it whether the story was told in books, television, or movies. This could be tricky for movies, because I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies, and a lot of fantasy movies involve naked folk and/or heads being chopped off. Of course, HIGHLANDER has both. So it was strictly off the table when I was a kid.
As a young teen, I found out that there was a "Highlander" TV show, and I became obsessed with it. That was my Highlander experience. Duncan MacLeod was my Highlander, and Adrian Paul was a movie-star to me.
I am Duncan MacLeod, born four hundred years ago in the Highlands of Scotland. I am Immortal and I am not alone. For centuries we have waited for the time of the Gathering, when the stroke of a sword and the fall of a head will release the power of the Quickening. In the end, there can be only one.
Yup, that's my Highlander.
Years later, I was finally allowed to watch R-rated movies and I bought a bunch of DVDs to catch up on what I had missed as a kid. One of those discs was the HIGHLANDER movie. I started working my way through the pile of discs, falling in love with films like TERMINATOR, TOTAL RECALL, and ROBOCOP. I finally got to HIGHLANDER, but when I opened the case the disc was cracked in half down the middle. Shit. I went on with my life, and the rest of the pile of DVDs.
After college, I moved to Los Angeles to go to a graduate film program. I bought more stacks of DVDs, trying to catch up on my film education. And there it was in the bargain pile, HIGHLANDER on DVD. Of course I bought it.
A few days later, I was ready to watch HIGHLANDER. I open the case, and this disc is also cracked in half down the middle! Now I don't know if there was some screw up at the DVD factory when it came to make the HIGHLANDER discs, but I have another theory. Duncan MacLeod won't let me watch another incarnation of Highlander.
Last year, still a virgin to all things HIGHLANDER movie, I was on a long-haul flight from Los Angeles to Dubai on an Emirates flight. The kind of flight where you have time to watch a lot of movies, and the type of plane that has a huge selection. They have HIGHLANDER. Finally!
It's about 40 minutes in. I'm really into the movie. It has swords and immortal heroes and epic parking garage fights and Sean Connery. I could see this replacing the TV show as the canonical Highlander for me. And then it happens. The movie file seems to be corrupt, and it just won't play any further without horrible stuttering and audio dropouts. Shit. Duncan MacLeod's blade comes crashing down once again on the neck of the HIGHLANDER movie.
But no worries, I have another long leg of travel coming up from Dubai to Johannesburg. I'll just pick up where I left off.
Seatbelt fastened. Plane in the air. Time to browse the movie list. OK, good, here's HIGHLANDER. Let's get it going. Fast forward to where I left off. Play. Shit. The same corrupt movie file! Somehow Duncan MacLeod has destroyed every digital copy of the HIGHLANDER movie traveling around world on Emirates airplanes.
So now I've given up. There can only be one, and his name is Duncan not Connor.
