Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Listen To Me Acting in Star Wars: Rise Of Nobility



I not only directed this, but did the voice of Nordey Weems and a wild line or two back in 2003. Enjoy. if you enjoy Star Wars, you'll enjoy this.


http://shaven-wookie-productions-rise-of-nobili-mp3-download.kohit.net/_/350363

Rise of Nobility is a story about Padme Amidala growing up. Padme wasn't always the stolid, non-emotional and self-assured queen that she was in The Phantom Menace. What Rise of Nobility tries to explain is why and how she becomes that way. Feelings of dissapointment, anger and regret cause her grow up much earlier than most. These events forge her into the queen that she will become.


Elizabeth Ascot as Padme Amidala
Evan Slaastad
as Anakin Skywalker
Kody Hencz
as Anolo
Susan Highsmith
as Cook
Lila Atherly
as Dene
Christopher Walker
as Guard
Armage Bedar
as Guard #1
Inari Icewalker
as Guard #2
Keith Abbott
as Jar Jar Binks
Bill Corning
as Mechanic
Shawn Johnston
as Narrator
Pamela K. Kinney
as Nordey Weems
Evan Grummell
as Pilot
Abe Dieckman
as Prince Veruna
Michael Smith
as Professor Sacul
Eric Grove
as Qui-Gon Jinn
John Reeves
as Raneely
Ted Alderman
as Redbeard
Corey Dell
as Reve
Linda Lyons
as Shmi Skywalker
Andy Matthews
as Student #1
Chris Matthews
as Student #2
Jeremy Caldwell
as Prince Xizor
Elizabeth Ascot, Armage Bedar, Shawn Johnston, Pamela K. Kinney, Adam Bertocci, Brian Bisetti as Wild Lines

Monday, July 21, 2008

Review of the Dark Knight


If you love a film with a dark hero, a villian that is truly evil and a hero edging toward becoming a villian then this is the film to see this summer.
In this second film, Batman is heading toward the dark side himself, debating with himself should he or should he not attempt to be like the villian, in order to stop The Joker. In my opinion, Christian Bale is the best actor I have seen that fits Bruce Wayne and his dual personality, Batman, both.
As for Heath Ledger, I suspect many will go see the film because of his death, but they will not walk away denied of a great performance. Heath does what Jack Nicholson brought to the role, a psychotic killer with a penchant for clowning around too. Frightening, dark, he brings a disturbing element to The Joker. Mnay children are afraid of clowns and Heath ledger shows us why we fear them.
There are others in this film who were great. Michael Caine is superb as Alfred, just as he was in the first film. Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over the role of Rachel does fine, bringing a maturity to the role than Katie Holmes did. Gary Oldman as Gorden and Morgan Freeman as Lucias are wonderful. Aaron Eckhart did fine, as zealous District Attorney Harvey Dent, bent on cleaning up Gotham's crime. he even reveal to us that he is not all there beneath the surface at one point. That maybe Two-Face is waiting to burst forth. Though I felt he was a little off.
A local critic where I live said the last 30 minutes shouldn't happen. In a way I agree, they should have added to the first climatic ending and then I think it could have been solved. But unlike him, I think this is a great film.
I give The Dark Knight 4 3/4 dragons.

Friday, July 18, 2008

In Two Weeks I'll Be Signing at Hanover Book Festival




I'll be signing along with fellow authors at the HANOVER BOOK FESTIVAL Saturday, August 2, 2008. The festival will opened to the public in from 10:30AM to 2:30PM. It'll be in the Mechanicsville VFW Post 9808 7168 Flag Lane Mechanicsville, Virginia 23111.
I'll be selling and signing copies of Haunted Richmond ( check out the book trailer at
Haunted Richmond Book Trailer ), some horror anthologies I have stories in, and a sweet super hero romance short story download by my pseudonym, Sapphire Phelan, for sale at Amazon on CD, so you can get this signed. I won't have other romances by Sapphire Phelan for sale as no erotic this year, but will \keep them in my suitcase and if you come to me wanting one I will sell it, just ask me.
I will have also postcard promos on Shifting Desires that will be out, but I won't have enough time to order and get copies by then, so I will hand out signed postcards and bookmarks if you want one.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Watch Haunted Richmond Book Video Now at YouTube



I am so excited. You can now view the Haunted Richmond book video up at YouTube. It was done by AVA Productions of Newport News, Virginia. You can now view it at YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUqyeoSb4n8

Friday, July 11, 2008

Review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army



We went and saw "Hellboy 2: the Golden Army" at 2:45PM today. I did like it and my husband enjoyed it. But I felt something was lacking. It felt more toned down than the first movie. In this one Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and the woman he loves, Liz Sherman(Selma Blair) now live together, but not in harmony. The road to love is never more rocky, as he doesn't clean up his place and still has all the cats he has, while she can't even find a place to put her toothbrush, whihch she finds in a open can of cat food.

Add to this mix the leader of the government paranormal organization, Tom Manning who gets replaced with Krauss, who's an spirit or ectoplamic being in a mechanical suit. Blend in a healthy helping of an elvish prince who comes back, kills his father, and is trying to get the last piece of a golden crown and a map so he can find and command the golden army to destroy humankind and you get trouble of frightening proportions. Enough to push Hellboy's and Liz's personal problems on the back burner. Sorta. . . But I won't say more as it will reveal a spoiler.

All this would be great, but for that nitpicking little piece of flatness to the film. A spark that was in the last film isnt there. Its there, just a a tiny flame. And after ironman and with The Dark Knight coming out next week, this film is good, but it will have to work hard to compete money-wise to compete with the other two films. Ironman was wonderful and I suspect The Dark Knight will be up with Ironman, just in a more darker way.

And so I give Hellboy 2: The Golden Army 4 dragons.

If you want to watch the offical trailer and learn more on the film: http://www.hellboymovie.com/

Friday, July 04, 2008

Fourth of July Myths






















































Happy 4th of July, I hope you all today don't overeat all those burgers, hot dogs and barbecued ribs. Along wth everything else delicious. Right now we're grilling ribs and burgers, along with corn on the cob. We made vegetable macaroni salad this morning and will have potato salad I bought from Ukrops Supermarket. So I guess I should follow my own advice. But everything is so good. LOL.


Anyway, there are myths connected with the Fourth. I've been working on a myths, legends and folklore book of Virginia and ran into these. It's something different ot learn about this holiday, showing that we have much to learn about our history.




4th of July is a celebration of the U.S. Constitution.


The U.S. Constitution’s purpose was to remake the American governments of the Revolution by making the system less democratic. The delegates from 12 states who met in Philadelphia in summer 1787 had been sent by the states to recommend amendments to the Articles of Confederation. Instead, they instantly decided to meet in secret, and then the nationalists among them tried to win adoption of a national – rather than a federal – constitution.



The 4th of July was the day that the 13 states established their independence.
No, it was not. Virginia established its independence on May 15, 1776, when its revolutionary Convention adopted resolutions for a declaration of rights, a permanent republican constitution, and federal and treaty relationships with other states and foreign countries. It was because the Old Dominion had already established its independence – had, in fact, already sworn in the first governor under its permanent republican constitution of 1776, Patrick Henry, on June 29 – that Virginia’s congressmen, uniquely, had been given categorical instructions from their state legislature to declare independence. Virginia was not the only state whose independence was not established by the Declaration on the 4th, as New York’s congressional delegation did not then join in the Declaration. In short, the states became independent in their own good time – some on July 4, some before it, some after the date.



The chief legacy of the 4th of July is the political philosophy set out in the Declaration of Independence.
Since the 18th century, political radicals have argued for understanding the Declaration as a general warrant for government to do anything it likes to forward the idea that "all men are created equal." Yet, that was not what the Declaration of Independence meant. The Declaration of Independence was the work of a congress of representatives of state governments. Congressmen were not elected by voters at large, but by state legislatures, and their role (as John Adams, one of them, put it) was more akin to that of ambassadors than to legislators. They had not been empowered to dedicate society to any particular political philosophy, but to declare – as the Virginia legislature had told its congressmen to declare – that the colonies were, "and of right ought to be, free and independent states." In other words, the Declaration was about states’ rights, not individual rights, and the Congress that adopted it had no power to make it anything else. All the rest of the Declaration was mere rhetorical predicate.



The 4th of July is a non-partisan holiday dedicated to recalling the legacy of the American Revolution.
In the Founders’ day, the 4th of July was a partisan holiday. Celebrated in the 1790s and 1800s by Jeffersonian Republicans to show their devotion to Jeffersonian, rather than Hamiltonian, political philosophy. If a Federalist in the 1790s, you would celebrate Washington’s Birthday instead of the 4th of July. If you believed in the inherent power of the Executive in formulating foreign policy, in the power of Congress to charter a bank despite the absence of express constitutional authorization to do so, and in the power of the federal government to punish people who criticized the president or Congress, you would not celebrate the 4th. The 4th was the holiday of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, those great states’-rights blasts at federal lawlessness. It was the anti-Hamilton, anti-Washington, anti-nationalist holiday.



The fulfillment of the 4th of July lay in the establishment of a powerful national government.
Celebrants of the 4th of July in the Founders’ time rejected the idea that the Constitution had created a national government. They insisted that it was federal instead and that Congress had only the powers it had been expressly delegated. This was chiefly through Article I, Section 8, that the federal courts had no more jurisdiction than they had been assigned through Article III, and that the vast majority of government functions had been kept by the states. When federal courts grabbed for more power in 1793, these people added the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution. In response to the nationalists’ war on France and Alien and Sedition Acts, they first adopted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, then elected Republicans – Jeffersonian states’-rights/laissez-faire advocates
– to run their government.



The Declaration of Independence stood for the rights of white, male property owners alone.
The philosophical material in the first section of the Declaration, although commonplace at the time, had no legal or moral weight. Congress didn't have power to commit the states to it. Now, revolutionaries who accepted the Lockean version of social compact theory did not necessarily believe that only white, male property holders had rights. Thomas Jefferson, for example, who was the author of the draft Lockean section of the Declaration, followed his belief in the idea that all men equally had a right to self-government, coupled with his belief that white and black people could never live together peacefully as equal citizens in America, to the conclusion that blacks must be colonized abroad to someplace where they might exercise their right to self-government.



The fulfillment of the 4th of July will come when the United States has sponsored democratic revolutions throughout the world.
No. George Washington--in an address he co-wrote with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay-- along with Thomas Jefferson counseled that the U.S. avoid foreign entanglements, and of course, foreign wars.