Strange 80s Benefit Concert with Weird Al, Tenacious D, Sarah Silverman and More

Sweet Relief Musicians Fund is proud to announce "Strange 80s," the inaugural annual benefit concert set to take place on Sunday, May 14th at the Fonda Theater. Hosted by Finn Wolfhard of the Netlfix hit "Stranger Things," "Strange 80s" will feature performances by Finn and a rotating cast of rock stars & celebrities covering the timeless anthems of the 80s! Tickets for "Strange 80s" will go on sale to the public on Friday, March 10th at 10am PT, with VIP tickets being sold at a later date via CrowdRise. All proceeds will go to Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to provide financial assistance to career musicians and music industry workers in need due to illness, disability or age-related problems. For more information, please visit: http://sweetrelief.org/.

Performers include: Tenacious D, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and Sarah Silverman, plus members of OK Go, Taking Back Sunday, Velvet Revolver, Steel Panther, Filter, Anberlin, Goldfinger, Sugarcult, Anthrax, Precious Kid, Filter, and Honey Honey, plus TV stars: Dylan Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, Hayley Orrantia (from The Goldbergs), and Chelsea Telmadge (from Stranger Things), with additional performers to be announced over the next few weeks!

A New Wreck-It Ralph Trailer

8 bit retro madness comes to the big screen as we celebrate the coming of Wreck-It Ralph!

Walt Disney Animation Studios and Emmy®-winning director Rich Moore (TV’s “The Simpsons,” “Futurama”) take moviegoers on a hilarious, arcade-game-hopping journey in “Wreck-It Ralph.” Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” “Step Brothers”) is tired of being overshadowed by Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer, “30 Rock”), the “good guy” star of their game who always gets to save the day. But after decades doing the same thing andseeing all the glory go to Felix, Ralph decides he’s tired of playing the role of a bad guy. He takes matters into his own massive hands and sets off on a game-hopping journey across the arcade through every generation of video games to prove he’s got what it takes to be a hero.

Wreck-It Ralph Details & Trailer

These days, when we call on all Disney fans to pay attention, we figure a good 90% of our readers will be looking up! Disney has gone from a company cranking out cheery musical tales of folks overcoming adversity to find love to being a powerhouse producer of media we will be talking about for all time. Now their saga of 8 bit baddie who wants to be seen as more is starting it's roll out and we've got some new bits of info to share.

Walt Disney Animation Studios and Emmy®-winning director Rich Moore (TV’s “The Simpsons,” “Futurama”) take moviegoers on a hilarious, arcade-game-hopping journey in “Wreck-It Ralph.” Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” “Step Brothers”) is tired of being overshadowed by Fix-It Felix (voice of Jack McBrayer, “30 Rock”), the “good guy” star of their game who always gets to save the day. But after decades doing the same thing andseeing all the glory go to Felix, Ralph decides he’s tired of playing the role of a bad guy. He takes matters into his own massive hands and sets off on a game-hopping journey across the arcade through every generation of video games to prove he’s got what it takes to be a hero.

On his quest, he meets the tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (voice of Jane Lynch, TV’s “Glee”) from the first-person action game Hero’s Duty. But it’s the feisty misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (voice of Sarah Silverman, “The Sarah Silverman Program”) from the candy-coated cart racing game, Sugar Rush, whose world is threatened when Ralph accidentally unleashes a deadly enemy that threatens the entire arcade. Will Ralph realize his dream and save the day before it’s too late?



We got some face-in-book time with The Art of Wreck-It Ralph and brought back the following extra details...

When it came to designing Ralph, Director Rich Moore explains, "We were always calling Ralph a brutish lout. The challenge was figuring out what this brutish lout looked like. That proved no easy task. The creative team started with what they knew about him. Until he was uprooted by the development of the Niceland Apartments, Ralph lived a simple mountain life and slept under a tree stump in the woods. There were some early versions where Ralph was a troll. Then he was a monster, then an ogre, then a shambling caveman. He had wrecking balls for hands, then a horn on his head, then bunny ears. He was a Sasquatch, a gorilla, and for about a week he was even a bulldozer. Screenwriter Phil Johnston imagined Ralph as; "part cat, part baboon, part dog, part skunk, part weasel, tapir, pig, wild boar, 1/43rd ape."

Rich met with John Lasseter to discuss which animal would make the most sense for a middle-aged, down-on-his-luck, angst-ridden character such as Ralph. Only one animal really fit; Human.

Dig the eye candy!





































CLICK HERE to read Steve Sievers rundown of Wreck-It Ralph from D23!

“Wreck-It Ralph” crashes onto the big screen on November 2, 2012, in Disney Digital 3D™ in select theaters.

D23 2011 : Planes & Wreck-It Ralph Revealed

Day two of Disney's massive D23 Expo began with me shoving Steve and Chelsea in a seat for three hours plus for a look at every movie (animated or otherwise) on Disney's slate got some sort of mention, clip or general introduction by cast and crew. Here's the vitals on "Planes" and "Wreck-It Ralph to get things started...

Steve: We got there an hour before hand to make sure we got a good press spot. The line outside went around the building. It was like a scene of Hall H from SDCC.

Me: yea i heard a lot of people were turned away?

Steve: Yes, a lot did. They say the arena holds 4,000 but I don't believe that. Could only imagine what it would be like if SDCC moved there. The presentation started out with a Walt Disney Studio Montage and then Rich Ross, Chairman of Walt Disney Studios came out. Rich said "I'm like you! I'm one of Disney's biggest fans!" The presentation starts with Disney Animation films in the works as Rich said a quote from Walt Disney "Animation is our bread & butter!" Then John Lasseter was introduced to the stage. (For those who still don't know who he is..he was the director of Toy Story/ Toy Story 2/ Cars and is Chief Creative Officer at Walt Disney Studios & Pixar Studios. The first film he talked about was "Planes". The film takes place in the cars universe...well actually above the cars universe which they use as the tag line in the teaser clip they showed.










Me: I think it's creepy the cars can go inside of bigger living vehicles....it's just weird...but we don't talk about the "Cars" universe among friends. It just raises too many questions...

Steve: Me too, but I'll still go see this!

Me: Me too!

Steve: The story follows a small crop duster name Dusty Crop Duster (naturally), a single engine plane who is orange and white and voiced by Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer. When brought out on stage he said "I was so geeked out when I got asked to do a 'plane session'! To be a part of the cars universe is ridiculous. I must say that if you have a chance to do it, do it!" They showed a teaser trailer which had music from White Zombie- "More Human then Human", which I thought was weird for Disney. It was like a scene from Top Gun, on an aircraft carrier in sea, F-14 and F-18s were taking off the run away and Stealth Bombers flying high in the sky. Then a small single engine plane is brought up on the flight deck and the music stops and we see Dusty, who looks so excited to be there with the big jets, but he quickly turns to a puddle of nervousness when he is about to take off. He flys off the air craft carrier and we over-hear him screaming off camera as two F-14 planes are watching what is happening. One of them asks the other "Think he will be ok?" The camera then cuts to Dusty writing "COOL!" really big in the sky with his awesome cloud making skills. END OF CLIP

The next movie they brought up was "Wreck-It Ralph". Ralph is a 8 bit video game bad guy who travels to different arcade games to try and prove that he is a good guy.

Me: ....That rules

Steve: It does! John C. Reilly voices Ralph and Sarah Silverman voices Vanellope von Shweetz. Rich Moore, the director of the film, comes out. He also worked on The Simpsons & Futurama so I cheered really hard for him! They showed the first 4 mins of the film which is mostly storyboards and unfinished work but still cool. Ralph is a big guy who is only good at smashing stuff with his big arms. He climbs up the side of the building like the classic video game "Rampage" and stands at the top on the road and smashes down and dances like "Donkey Kong" in the classic DK video game. Then enters Fix-it Felix who looks a lot like Mario but wears blue instead of Red. Fix-it-Felix is the character that kids control in the game at the arcade. He is the hero who jumps around with a magic wrench which he somehow got from his father that...you guessed it...fixes the damages that Ralph causes to the building. The arcade closes and when all is clear (no humans around), the characters in the arcade get to be themselves. The animation then switches from 8 bit style to classic Pixar style! All the residents of the apartment cheer on Fix-It Felix and then go home to their apartments while poor Ralph has to go sleep in his "home", which is a huge pile of trash. After Ralph tucks himself in with a pile of bricks he stares off at Fix-It Felix in the apartment complex as everyone gathers around him to hear his heroic tales. Ralph talks to himself about how he wishes he could be that good guy and people would like him. The next scene is Ralph at a Bad Guy Help group which looks like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with a circle of bad guy characters sitting on folding chairs at a community meeting center. A ghost from Pacman was in the group! One of the bad guys was talking and said "The other day I pulled a leg off some guy and I was bashing his leg over his head and I said to myself why am I doing this? I'm not a bad guy inside.. but then it hit me, someone has to be the bad guy in the video game!" Ralph talks about how he wishes he wasn't a bad guy. Then a zombie cuts him off by saying that being bad isn't shameful when suddenly a character that looks a lot like Kano from Mortal Kombat rips out the zombie's heart and the group laughs. The group ends their meeting with them all holding hands and says the Bad Guy Oath. Thats the end of the clip! The director brings Sarah Silverman and Jack McBrayer (who voices Fix-It Felix) onto the stage. They talk about how Ralph goes to the Central Station, which is a way he can travel from one arcade game to another. The first game he travels to looks just like Halo with all the characters wearing something similar to Spartan armor. That is wear Ralph meets Sgt CAlhoun (Jane Lynch from Glee). Ralph then travels to Sugar Kush, which is a car racing game and finds out a plan is in works to end all the arcade games for good and must SAVE THE DAY!









The Director asks Jack if he ever thought he would do a voice for a Disney film and he answered "My Own voice irritates me, so I never imaged doing a voice for a Disney cartoon!" Sarah was asked what she thought of Pixar movies and she remarked "I have a love hate relationship with Pixar films because I hate how they remind me of my inner feelings of love and stuff like that, but they are so entertaining that I always go see them all."

We are going to break this off right here as Steve has a MASSIVE pile of notes and hell..it is 2am when we are writing all this up. Sleep calls! Tonight we will have more so check back often!

CLICK HERE to dive into our Flickr where there are already pics of the rest of the presentations including the stars of Brave, Monsters University. The Muppets and THE AVENGERS!

The CLICK HERE to browse the rest of the show!

Special Thanks to Steve and Chelsea of level27media.com!

Everything I Know About the Rapture I Learned from Watching TV

This will be an attempt to clear things up for my heathen friends, as to what is going to happen this Saturday unless they screwed the dates up again or it was just a sort of heavenly fire drill. I am a Catholic, so I feel I am fully qualified to talk on this topic, though like most Catholics, all of my knowledge will be pieced together from the little I remember of Catholic elementary school and the years of my life wasted sitting in front of a TV. That said...

In the beginning there was Mimi Rogers and David Duchovny, and lo, there was much sex to be had with strangers in airport Double Tree hotels. Wait I should probably go back further than that. Starting over. The Jewish folks nail Jesus to a cross and he dies, so that our sins may be forgiven. So basically, you can blame the Jewish for the loophole of people being able to do any crappy thing they want their whole lives...as long as they repent at the 0 hour, they get a ticket to heaven. Nice. Thank you Jewish.

Anyway, Jesus dies and then rises from the grave. There are supposedly many stories of the things Jesus did when he came back like appearing to his disciples to send them off to spread the word of God. If you watch Family guy, he did magic tricks with his hands that today, seem childish, but wowed the primitive peoples. Jesus says he will return in roughly 2 thousand years and at that time, he will take all those fit for Heaven and transport them away from the horrors that are to come. In the Left Behind movie, the preacher Kirk Cameron shows us we just dissappear, leaving behind empty clothes and bewildered folks wondering why no one woke them for the massive orgy and where the hell everyone went for pancakes afterward. Nude pancakes. Back in the Mimi Rogers world, there are trumpet blasts signalling the coming of the horsemen of the apocalypse, which is why Jesus has to get his people out right quick. Those who are chosen are prepared for this, though, as they all dreamed about a black pearl which was a sign to stop masturbating. If you follow the Squidbillies scripture, we do indeed pop out of our clothes and ascend to heaven with all of our boy and girl parts bared to be scrutinized by others also ascending. It is a long trip. Yes, the ladies will see your small ding ding and point..and laugh. On the plus side, if they laugh for too long, they will probably fall back to Earth and explode on impact..so...there's that.

Now, those left behind get front row seats for some major chaos. The Earth practically turns on itself and there are earthquakes and storms and volcanoes belching lava all over LA and tornadoes ripping down famous landmarks and then the demon hordes come to torture everyone that is left. The Squidbillies tell us this is the optimum time for looting. You just have to do it very quietly, as not to attract the 7 headed, fire breathing monster. American Dad is a little more accurate, showing the world turned into a sort of Mad Maxian landscape where Jesus and his forces do battle with Satan once and for all. Eye patches are in style at this point in time, which makes me feel good about it all. I could totally rock an eye patch. Not so sure about all the leather though. And I can't pull off a mullet anymore.

So, now you are briefed and fully prepared. Should the end come this Saturday, I hope you will have no regrets. Tell the ones you love you love them. Quit being such an asshole to people just for the sake of being the mightiest asshole you can be. When you talk to a woman, look into her eyes..not her boobs. Her boobs will still be there later and you stand a greater chance of touching them if you can look in her eyes for 5 minutes. Let's all be nice to each other, hm?