Category: movies

hot takes: vol. 2

HACHI: A DOG’S TALE (2009) was ABSOLUTE DEVASTATION. okay, look. this is a movie where you need to get on its level. embrace the cheesy 90s-adjacent setting. accept Richard Gere into your heart. just let the movie do its thing. give it your full attention for an hour.

then cry for 45 goddamn minutes straight.

you’ll try to fight it.

you’ll say to yourself: PULL IT TOGETHER MAN, YOU WATCHED REQUIEM FOR A DREAM AND DIDN’T CRY LIKE THIS. YOU’RE NOT EVEN THAT INTO DOGS.

but the tears will come, and they won’t stop. as each new scene rolls in you’ll start to brace yourself and it won’t matter. you’ll be a snotty disgusting mess and your roommates will look at you with confusion and concern.

MANDY (2018) was CAGETASTIC. i don’t think i could ever recommend this movie, per se, but i sure enjoyed it. build up is way too long and torturous (literally and figuratively), but if you can make it to Cage’s seminal vodka-chugging-sobbing-underwear performance, you’re in the clear.

COCO (2017) was A VISUAL FEAST. i decided to catch up on some Pixar movies because animation is an important art form. this was maybe a little heavy-handed on its messaging but i’m not gonna argue with a dog that mutates into a technicolor butterfly, and all the skeleton gags were primo slapstick.

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (2006) was BEGRUDGINGLY ENGROSSING. it’s too long overall and much of the ending was unnecessary, but there is gorgeous poetry in the meta-meta-ness of slowly finding yourself engrossed in watching the story of a man who finds himself slowly engrossed in the story of a couple.

ANNIHILATION (2018) was A MESS. Natalie Portman is not a convincing sci-fi lead. cool premise, neat vfx, no likable characters or engaging dialogue.

THE GOOD PLACE was THE PERFECT BINGE. an excellent premise with a few incredible side characters propping up a mediocre main cast. totally fun.

CASTLEVANIA (S2) was TOP-NOTCH COMBAT. the production as a whole is super low-budget and they save everything for some of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen in animation – the last few episodes are absolutely stunning. i’m also a sucker for the setting and themes here, which makes the poor illustration easier to deal with.

HEAT (1995) was SELF-INDULGANT. i can get behind Al Pacino and Robert De Niro any day of the week, but this felt like a movie where the editor got shoved out of the room before they could put a stop to the absurd conversations where they self-analyze or just veer into outright monologue.

hot takes: vol. 1

i binged netflix for like two weeks, get READY for some HOT TAKES

CITY OF LOST CHILDREN was: REMARKABLE. delightfully bizarre. driven by a relentlessly creative series of events that play out within elaborate set-pieces. unique in a way that most films could never dream of.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was: DISAPPOINTING. Anthony Hopkins is a genius surrounded by peasants.

JESSICA JONES was: DECENT. desperately needed comic relief. creative use of an excellent villain. cool way to tackle gender issues, but left me feeling emotionless at the end.

LUKE CAGE was: ACCEPTABLE. felt really similar to Jessica Jones in pacing and tone. refreshing to see an all-black cast without tired racial stereotypes. relationships between characters mostly felt forced. better than most Marvel fare.

SPEED RACER (2008) was: SURPRISING. visually intense, hyper-exaggerated, massively eccentric both to its benefit and fault. charming enough to smooth over some of its failures. it knew what it was about and stuck to its guns. terrible casting for the main character, excellent supporting cast. not for everyone.

GOMORRAH (2008) was: MEDIOCRE. like City of God without compelling characters or relationships. has the trappings of a gangster/mob flick, but lacks the requisite insight into power structures or delightful confusion of empathizing with bad people.

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT was: UNCOMPELLING. it reminded me of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, where the novelty of the technique being employed merits credit, but is still mostly a distraction. couldn’t get myself to care about the main character or his arc.

PARKS AND RECREATION was: DELIGHTFUL. i originally had it boxed in as a different flavor of the Office, but it is far superior. every character is worth loving for different reasons, and each has a unique kind of relationship to other characters in the show. they significantly evolve without losing their core identity. the writing is consistently good. it ends on an incredibly high note – one of the finest conclusions to a series I’ve seen.

JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2 was: EHHH. lacked most of the oomph of the first.

LOGAN was: ADEQUATE. the first half of the movie was genuinely great. the banter between Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart is gold. the second half is worthless.

hot takes for your SATURDAY AFTERNOON

AMERICAN VANDAL was: GOOD. much better than you would imagine a mockumentary about drawing dicks to be. it’s fun to watch them squeeze eight full episodes out of it without going flat. the way it incorporates instagram / facebook / snapchat everywhere in its storytelling makes it a genuine product of its time. it’ll be fun to revisit this in a decade or two.

THE SOPRANOS was: STILL GOOD. my first end-to-end rewatch since it ended ten years ago. first few seasons are definitely stronger; as it gets into the 5th season, you can tell it’s wearing thin on a lot of interactions. but it’s still just fucking great television. deep, evolving characters and relationships, that delicious dissonance of empathizing with terrible people, even rooting for them. a slice of the 90’s with its high-waisted pants and a glance at the before-and-after of 9/11. i won’t defend the ending, but i still think it’s fine.

BABY DRIVER was: ECSTASY. my god i loved this. not a perfect movie at all – shoulda been much shorter and it’s more of an action flick than it needs to be. but it’s goddamn clever, stuffed to the gills with pop culture savvy and a love for music.

also wow the latest season of GOT was utter balls. it’s sad to watch the series sink like that, but ultimately i’m not that upset. they got 4 or 5 good seasons out there. it had its time, and it was a good while it lasted.

oh hey what’s that oh oh it’s more HOT TAKES

VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS was: CREATIVE. i won’t tell you this movie is good, but it’s a visual feast and i will always enjoy a movie that shows me something weird and flavorful. it’s kind of in the neighborhood of Speed Racer or Pacific Rim.

CREED (2015) was: COMPETENT. it’s just a well-made movie. the characters have depth, the relationships evolve, and it feels like a fresh, modern update to an old story.

STRANGER THINGS S2 was: TIRED. the main villain is just a horde of feral dogs. the 80’s references felt more ham-fisted. that said, i really enjoyed the interactions between Dustin and Steve.

MEN IN BLACK (1997) was: CLASSIC. i hadn’t watched this in at least 15 years, and it has aged delightfully well. it’s gross and silly but, again, creative and fun. it’s also got a lot of cute New York humor that totally flew over my head as a kid.

MORTAL KOMBAT (1995) was: STILL FUN TO MOCK. it’s the right kind of bad movie for the non-stop peanut gallery.

CLOUD ATLAS was: INSTANTLY FORGETTABLE. a mess of cheesy dialogue and heavy-handed motifs strung together with a plot that offers no real engagement or thrill. i watched it like a month ago and honestly can’t remember the main arc.

WONDER WOMAN was: LIFELESS. i’m definitely burning out on superhero movies, that’s for sure. but i heard boatloads of praise for this as a feminist masterpiece and i don’t see it at all. she gets dragged around london getting dolled up as the beautiful-but-naive foreigner while all the men around tell her what she needs to do. as far as female empowerment in action movies go, this doesn’t come close to Mad Max.

golden age

Westworld might be one of my favorite shows ever. It is a fully-fleshed out idea executed by an ultra-competent team with a clear vision. There are so many nuances to its universe. It raises all sorts of juicy questions about consciousness, power, and storytelling – without being glib or self-absorbed. Its premise is damn near perfect – plausible to the point of being vaguely familiar to concepts we already know in the real world, foreign enough to merit curiosity, but not so much that it competes with its characters and arcs. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

There’ve been so many creations in the last few years that have raised the bar for what we can hope to find in our media. I feel like we might be in the middle of a renaissance of film and television.

Mad Max is probably my favorite action movie ever. It Follows is easily the best horror movie in several years, and Stranger Things clearly builds on the elements that made classics like The Thing and Alien so good. Black Mirror is so damn prescient and thought-provoking, and never more timely and relevant. Rick & Morty is as funny as it is creative. Game of Thrones is possibly the first genuinely respectable fantasy series.

There’s fabulous shows for kids, too. My generation occasionally likes to get nostalgic about the cartoons we grew up with, but nothing I grew up on holds a candle to Adventure Time, Bravest Warriors, or The Last Airbender. These are actually great shows that don’t treat their younger audiences like unthinking krill.

This, for me, is a bright light in the recent darkness. I’ll take whatever I can get.

You’ll Disagree

No, really, you will.

BOONDOCK SAINTS SUCKED!

AHH!

Rantzor! Why does everyone think this movie is good? Even people with good taste in movies have fallen prey to this load of crap! I’m not alone in my feelings here; my brothers are with me on this. It’s insane. The straw that broke the matephorical camel’s back was Paul and Karen. Technically two straws. Shut that face of yours.

On track here. I could go on and on about how disgustingly self-righteous and vaguely blasphemous the movie was. It’s like X3, though; the movie sucks, but it appeals directly to 90% of the movie-watching populations, and that’s all that matters. It has the goods – violence, Irish accents (or in X3’s case, Hugh Jackman), and pseudo-reflective quotes involving God and guns. Heck, the movie has a freakin 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, this SAYS something! That’s not stopping them from making a sequel, though.

Life continues on in its general stride. I managed to get to Judo for the first time in two months, and I feel so utterly hardcore. No, really. I ran a mile (okay, maybe 3/4..) with my gi in tow (in a backpack, not wearing it) to Barton Hall, did that Judo thang, ran home, ate, ran another three miles, and here we are. Can you tell I feel like showing off? HAH! I can’t tell whether it’s the running I enjoy, or the running to techno. I’d do it more often if it weren’t for that, you know, muscle damage thing, being human and all. I feel great as is, though, I think I’m gonna try and do this a few times a day. It’s not as if I’ve got better things to be doing.

I suppose the only other piece of news is that my house will be entirely empty by Friday. Hayden, Ana, Jonathan, Mom, and Dad are all gonna be gone. Hayden and Ana back to El Paso, Jonathan to California, and Mom and Dad to….honestly, I’ve not a clue. I’ve never really been home alone for several (I believe I’m alone for three full days) days in a row before (never more than 2 full days), and I’m excited. No, I’m not holding a sexy party (queue Stewie clip), it’s just the thought of going out and buying my own food, and then cooking it, and then nobody else will eat it but me, and it’ll be up to me to stick it in the fridge. And when I wake up the next morning none will be gone, because no one else will be there to eat it. Ahem.

Hope you’re all enjoying teh summar. I sure am.

The Otaku Alliance

I bring you a dual-media post, containing both a podcast as well as a post! This is Paul-style, with music and even a rip-off of his introduction! I tried to add some crazy effects to the introduction, but all I could do was make it echo, or change the pitch. Neither were what I wanted. Anyways, I had to chop this one up a lot, so there are some obvious changes in tone and inflection occasionally. Not intended (except for in the beginning).

#6 – “X3 Sucked”

Muzak – “Answers” by Vigilante, “The Price is Right Techno Remix” by a guy on YTMND.

As noted within the podcast, #5 was fully produced, but came out with large technical issues. If you’re so inclined, you can listen to it, but it’s pretty messed up. I reused some (a lot) of the content from #5 for #6, so that will make it even less interesting. I actually liked #5 a lot more than #6, but you can’t reproduce this stuff at will. Anyways, I can see you’re all desperate to procastinate, so, here you go.

#5 – “Super Deciding Banana Antics”

Anyways. I suppose I enjoyed my weekend – I have something of a tan from all the mowing. Speaking of which, I now have 6 customers, resulting in 80 bucks for every round of mowing I do. Not bad, although with all this mowing I’m gonna have to pay for the blade sharpening and the gas (I haven’t had to before). Non-taxable, though. I’m still gonna apply at Greenstar, since I don’t want to rely on such a varied resource for my income. It’s nice having money again, though. Nothing makes me feel more out of place than having people pay for me. It’s also nice to be able to get people presents on their birthdays.

Speaking of which, I went and saw X3 with Christopher on Saturday, as a pseudo-birthday present for him. I’m assuming most of you now realize that the title for Podcast #6 was a complete lie – I just wanted to proudly state that it sucked hard. Way, way hard. They completely overused Wolverine/Hugh Jackman, and gave him the worst dialogue heard in a movie since Star Wars (“It’s a trap!”). Motivational speeches, TWO references to the title of the movie, and one-liners abound, attached to one of the most disorganized and improbable plots I’ve seen in a while, with mediocre production qualities (did they really need a 1/3 scale model of the golden gate bridge?), and total abandonment of the X-Men canon (Jean never killed any essential characters), combined for a truly terrible move. Christopher and I laughed about it the whole way home.

Soon after, Paul and Karen rescued me from certain doom, and we went to see Thank You For Smoking, which was still quite good the second time. Afterwards we realized that no Chinese places were open at 11:30 PM, so we went to Wegman’s. Now, I was way confused – I thought we were actually looking for food, but we ended up in the candy section, and somehow, I ended up with 1.5 lbs of gummy bears and 3 boxes of Pocky (note this for later). Likewise, Paul was assailed by dozens of feet of licorice, and we managed to escape with our lives, and even a little money.

In all honesty, though, I was confused as to why we were strolling the empty deli section, as well as to why Karen was buying some of the nastiest salmon I’ve ever tasted, until I realized that I was actually buying my dinner. I remained confused when we just sat down and ate it in the car – perhaps I’m just silly, but the car seemed awfully lacking in convenience and an atmosphere conducive to eating. But hey, I shouldn’t be complaining.

In other news, I think I’m turning into an otaku or japanophile or something. I’ve started searching for more anime, and I’m patiently waiting as 6 more download (ever so slowly). I’ve been thinking about taking up learning Japanese, too – I don’t know exactly where I could learn around here, but I think it’d be totally sweet. I don’t want to turn into Steven Segal or something, but Japan in general just fascinates me. Four large alphabets sounds somewhat scary, though. Although, I suppose I already know the romaji, so it’s more like three. Except, you know, the kanji has like 2000 characters worth knowing.

I also found the the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme that I developed while mowing today.

  1. Wait for a controversial or “anti-Christian” film, book, or song/album to come out. The target must be fairly popular.
  2. Write a book addressing this piece of media. The title must include the name of the said media. In this book, “prove” that the media’s focus is wrong. Place images from the said media onto the cover of the book.
  3. ?????
  4. Profit!

Seriously, there’s like half a dozen or more books on Amazon focused on “debunking” The Da Vinci code. It’s insanity. Who cares? Is boycotting or disproving the movie doing anything for the cause of Christ? Why not take the 30 bucks you spent buying that book, and give it to someone who actually needs it? These authors are literally living off of the laziness of those who are unwilling to go research this stuff on their own. You don’t need super awesome laser technology with your lollornets and roflcology, you need common sense.

The movie apparantly sucks anyways.

Who Saves Daylight?

I hate Daylight Savings. Not because I dislike the extra hour of sunlight, but because of how it forces me to adjust my aural sense for time. My sense of time generally relies on the color of my wall as seen through the top left corner of my left eye, but that is no longer a reliable source, forcing me to turn all the way around to my clock, which is occasionally obfuscated by various objects.

Daylight Savings royally screwed me over last night, too. I was exiting Oblivion expecting the clock to read 2:00 AM, providing for a full 7 hours of sleep prior to Church. Nay, it was 3:00 AM, forcing me to sit down and watch cartoons that had been dubbed with fart sounds most hilariously (it was an April Fools thing).

As for April Fools? I’ve taken a liking to the internet version of this holiday. Generally I hate April Fools, but this year, it did not fall upon a school day, and waking up to a world of bizarre news was rather exciting, until I realized it was indeed April 1st. What I find more amusing about April Fools is what is unintentionally interpreted as a joke. But then again, Snakes on a Plane is quickly coming.

Speaking of movies, I saw Slither last night, as a sort of birthday doodad with Christopher and Jonathan. Akin to movies such as Army of Darkness or Bubba Ho-Tep, this movie, whether because it really was hilarious, or because I was just in the mood, had me laughing the whole way through. It was really, really gross, through. I’m no fan of gore, especially the visceral, intestiny kind that Slither had, but I still managed to find it really hilarious.

I won’t bore you with Oblivion details right now, but rest assured, it’s coming.

Along with a gig of RAM (should be here Monday or Tuesday).

Lawyerizing

This calls for an entirely separate post. I’ve often wondered how Uwe Boll puts food on the table, but now there’s an answer.

Read this.

Here’s what I’m gathering from what comments on the article. It’s a huge financial fiasco, that Hollywood pulls on almost every movie, through Germany. Basically, investors turn a huge profit by investing in doomed ventures (Uwe Boll’s movies). How does this work?

Say you’re a rich dude, and your net income (profit) is 10 million dollars per year. According to German law, you are taxed on that 10 million, not the rest of your income. You may make 50 million, but if 40 million of that is losses, you are only taxed for 10 million. So, you put this extra 10 million into a movie like Alone in the Dark.

Now say you’re the company producing this piece of crap. You now have 10 million dollars invested into your movie. If you’re doing the movie 100% legitimately, this basically means that at the end of the process, you’ll give the investors a certain percentage of their investment back, based on how much money the movie makes. But if you’re Hollywood, you aren’t doing this legitimately. What do you do? You set up a tax shelter in Germany, where German investors give you money, before your movie has even begun. The advantage of this is that the investors can put their money into something completely tax-deductable, meaning instead of taking 15% hits in income taxes, they will take 5%, which ends up being in the millions as far as how much is saved.

There are dozens of other spins to add to the ball here, such as filming in several locations throughout the world to utilize other tax flaws, selling distribution rights, and all that jazz. However, the end product is a huge profit for every party involved. Take Tomb Raider. Ever hear that the budget for that piece of crap was $90 million? Did you know that the actual money required to make the movie was somewhere between $7-9 million? This, my friends, is why Peter Jackson feels compelled to sue New Line Cinema, for this very process of ‘cooking the books’. Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood team of lawyers.

I can’t sleep.

Bite of the Bagel

As you IE scum can see, things look relatively normal around here. I’ve added a hideous little “notice” box encouraging you to move over to Firefox, which is the suffering you endure for using the crap bucket that is IE. It’s all just some javascript that switches the images to gifs and the css to an IE friendly version. Nothing amazing, it only took about an hour total to do. Be thankful. You are like lasagna without cheese.

So, in an effort to start understanding the constant references to the Godfather in the Sopranos, I sat down and watched half of Part I last night. By the time I had to stop to ensure I got some sleep, I was totally hooked. I’ve been told by many people that it’s possibly the greatest movie of all time, and if nothing else, in the top ten. I’m looking forward to sitting down to it again tonight.

I also watched Batman Begins the other night, which is indeed a good movie. It made me want to see the other Batman movies (read: the first one, not the others). Something I’ve noticed that is unique about Batman is the comlete lack of continuity between each variant, whether it be the cartoon (the dark, shady one, that I wasn’t allowed to watch for the first few years of my youth, I recall it being quite good for a cartoon), the original series (biff! pow!), or the more recent movies. There’s not a lot in common between them. There’s basically a few elements that combine to make the movie: the billionaire Bruce Wayne, the crime-fighting Batman, the crime-ridden Gotham City, and the Bat-accessories. Not even the sidekick Robin is a constant in the equation, which I consider a good thing. It makes for a sort of open book which anybody can pick up, not know anything about Batman, and just get it. That’s healthy story design, I think.

Anyways. I have two programs waiting to be finished, a book to read, and physics.

Speaking of my Physics class, it has reached a low that I was not prepared for. It is boring beyond my wildest dreams. She’s a nice teacher, and I won’t be dropping the class like I normally do when faced with a class that isn’t fun. Even still, when you spend over an hour and a half reviewing three problems, you know someone should be shot, and it’s not the leopard in the corner.

Good night.

Another Quickie…(O.o)

[geek]

Happy, Gwen?

New case is wonderful – far quieter and sexier than before. I’ve set my next goal on what to buy – 150 dollars is the required amount this time. CD-RW, DVD/CD-ROM, Arctic Silver, HSF, PSU. Should have that before the end of the month – this is aesthetically the biggest upgrade – the drives will be black, the computer will run slightly faster and cooler, all that jazz, which will be rather nice.

[/geek]

I had the interview with Sho’s dad on Friday, which went rather well – I didn’t actually know it was an interview until Sho scolded my Army shirt near the end of school. It went well either way – it’s exactly what I’d hoped for. That, plus the 7 bucks an hour makes for a very good job.

[geek]

When I got home I promptly ripped apart my computer as Karel watched in laughing horror as I recklessly constructed the beast. My mistake in the building process was in not putting the seperators (my mind blanked on the actual term…) between the mobo and the case. Thankfully my ‘Power Supply’ brand PSU was smart enough to stop before frying me and my hardware. I didn’t know this at the time, and the squealing noise emitting from the PSU scared me witless. After spending the entire night laboring over the mess, I gave up assuming the power surge that day had shorted the PSU, which fried the motherboard and processor.

The next day I was severely distressed – I’d gone a full 18 hours without a computer, and I was beginning to crack. I retreated to my dad’s computer, when available, to sort out which parts to order, which added to 600 dollars. I obviously don’t have 600 dollars on me – I was set on loaning it from either Karel or Christopher. Dad was DEAD set against me borrowing from Karel, and spent all of Sunday arguing with him over the phone and bargaining with Christopher to get him to loan me the money. The other choice was to wait 12 days (actually more than that – about 20) for my Dad to get home to order them for me. Truly, a stressful situation.

[/geek]

In between all this, Paul, Ben, and Zach spent the night Saturday, after randomly appearing as I was going out to mow lawns (at the time Kerry and Julia were there too). Thoroughly mocking my biking gloves, they felt absolutely no mercy for my ego. I didn’t go to church the following morning even though I was ready by 9:15 – Mom didn’t get back from dropping Dad at the airport until almost 10:00, and Paul was still around, so I decided to stay home.

Today, I got myself a grand olde haircut (which I rather like, as per usual). I think I like this one enough to replace my :-O picture. Ye shall see.

I also watched Gladiator two or three times over the weekend. Possibly my favorite movie.

I Need a Haircut (O.o)

Today was quite fun. I spent it at Jesse’s house pretty much from after church till an hour ago. We shot targets with his .22, built an extension for the chicken coup, helped his mom with her stone walkway, it was nice to get out and do some work. They got some chickens recently (within the past few days), and I must say, chickens are ridiculously hilarious. GOBBLEZ!!

Yesterday, I pretty much spent the entire day staring at my programming books and improving this ever-complexifying program I’m making. I’ve almost created my own sorting algorithm, which, with my complete inexperience, will just be a copy of an algorithm that was developed 50 years ago, but, I’ll still have made it on my own. *nod*

I watched Full Metal Jacket the other night. That, my friends, is a really weird movie. I was expecting a bright, comedic war film, but the humor was very dark, and really thrown off by the people constantly dying. I also watched the “new and improved AGAIN” DVD version of Episode IV. I swear…you think they’d have the technology to remove the red and green boxes from around the TIE fighters, and the horrific lightsaber effect (where the actor stands still as the next frame pops in the saber itself). Strangely enough, I’ve never actually watched any of the 3 movies in one sitting. I’ve seen all of them in bits and pieces, but I’ve never seen any of them from front to back. I’m gonna watch V tonight, which is supposedly the best of all of them. Not having any recollection of which scenes go with which movie, I can’t say whether I agree.

My hair is everywhere. I need a haircut.

Don’t You Wish… (O.o)

In reality, I have little to nothing to write today, but I feel the need to update regularly after a week of not writing. So, Sunday was church. Cron preached, which was cool, although I didn’t get to talk to him, which was not cool. After church I went with Benjamin and Jesse to see Episode III again. Definately not as good the second time, as the first hour/hour and a half are snoretastic. Benjamin and I concluded that Lucas did nothing different this time – it was everyone else that did exceptional jobs. All the special effects, the music, and the acting (while still terrible) were overall better.

Today was a standard Monday. It doesn’t get much worse than that. We had a sub today in German, so after finishing our little doodad in the book we were playing cards. An amusing anecdote: the German word to surf the internet is gesurfen, and to chat is geschattet. Ahem. There was a rather uneventful fire in the locker rooms just as school ended, which stopped the buses. I got home, went to the SS office (my SS card will arrive in a week), took a nap, ate some bacon, and here I am. Good day.

Das War….ein Gutes Spiel! (O.o)

I just spent my entire day at Mike (Langenbacher)’s house. What was I doing, you ask? Not feeding ducks, to be sure. Our German class is doing this group (ours was Mike, Matt, Julia, Ryan, and myself) project for a book we read – paraphrase the movie in the form of a play, and you can do it in a movie. So, we did the movie thing. We shot the entire thing in about 5 hours (5:00 – 10:00), with about 9-10 minutes of actual footage. None of us actually memorized the lines – we’d shoot short sections (like 30 seconds) and just memorize right before. It was spiffy. I died about 5-6 times throughout the movie, which was thoroughly enjoyable. I hope Mike does a good job splicing it together, since I think it will turn out well if he does.
Various events worth noting:

  • I watched the Matrix Reloaded again Wednesday night. I’ve forgotten how cool some of the action scenes are – despite being a poor movie as far as the plot goes, I thoroughly enjoy the fight scenes and car chases.
  • I watched Black Hawk Down again Thursday night. I saw it a couple years ago, when I was in 6th grade. Another good action movie, a nice, realistic portayal of Rangers in action. I was unaware until watching some of the credits that Ridley Scott directed it. Man-points for him.
  • I may be getting my braces off Thursday. It depends on how much they like me. That same day, I will be taking the permit test.
  • I was cleaning out the car that will eventually be mine, (the green Ford Explorer in my driveway), and found much phat l00t throughout it. Jonothan never cleaned it out, so there’s all kinds of stuff about.
  • Benjamin and Nolan are spending the night tomorrow, as well as staying over pretty much all day. Their parents are out of town. Hopefully, Benjamin and I will be able to get this other box running on SuSE and have it serving all this stuff more reliably than it is on here.

Among the important events, Christopher will be coming to live with us (as in, in our house). He’ll be out of the military in a couple weeks, and pretty much has nowhere else to go, but home. His plans for the future are ambiguous, but he’s thinking about taking some courses to finish up his degree (he has at least 2-3 years worth in credit-hours from all kinds of random places). This is cool news.

[geek]

The Xbox 360 was unveiled about three days ago. If it holds up the Xbox tradition, this will be the hardware I’m getting. I don’t like Sony much at all – the PS3 is not appealing to me, even though I haven’t even seen the specifications or capabilities yet. The wiki on it is more extensive than anything the mainstream sites will give you. To sum it up, though, the Xbox 360 does everything and anything you want it to – it can handle media across the Live community and from external sources, like mp3 players, cameras, digital and video. It’s completely wireless enabled, so LAN parties no longer require hubs or cables, and the controllers are wireless. It has customizable plates, detachable 20 GB hd, it just, man, it looks sweet. The games are not worth speculating on – when they’re here, and they’re good, I’ll say something. But the list is nice – Fable 2, Halo 2, Perfect Dark Zero, Blue Dragon, Elder Scrolls IV, and Ghost Recon 3. It’s some crazy stuff. The graphics look incredible for all the games currently along in development. I don’t want to be a raving fanboy, but I hope I can save up enough for this thing. It’s sweet.

And Nintendo? The DS and Gamecube prevent me from trusting them until the deliver. I’m still hurt from the dissapointment of Project Dolphin. I remember the screenshots of the Zelda that was to be on the Dolphin. My heart ached for a long time.

[/geek]

Time to pick a movie to watch and clean up the room.

“Slowerly” (O.o)

I have been having an excessively good weekend. Karel and Nathan (whom I pretty much just met Friday, it’s been a while since I’ve made a new friend) came over and we did random things. Karel is amazingly good at ping-pong. I haven’t played against anyone that’s any good in a very long time.

A few random things. My dad bought me an RF Modulatar (not an adaptor) meaning I can now utilize this DVD player that’s been sitting here. Grades ended Friday, which are not optimal, because in a few classes I have ONE missing assignment, dropping it down like 2 full letters. My mom bought like 50 different kinds of cereals when I asked for something besides Fruity Pebbles. The list of cereals in my house include:

  • 2 Fruity Pebbles
  • 1 Frosted Flakes
  • 1 Frosted Checks
  • 2 Cinnamon Crispex
  • 2 Fruit Loops
  • 1 Cheerios
  • 1 Lucky Charms
  • 3 Cocoa Puffs
  • 3 Rice Krispies
  • 1 Trix
  • 1 Pops
  • 1 Kix
  • 3 Generic Health Brands

I kid you not. I also woke up to find a box of Krispie Kreme donuts in the kitchen. I ate seven. And let me tell you, those were so delectable donuts. The last time I had Krispie Kreme was on my birthday. They are filled with happiness.

My Saturday has been wonderful. I woke up at 1:30, layed in bed for 30 minutes, meandered about for a while, read another 30 pages in my C++ book, took a shower, played some mediocre games of Halo 2. I went and saw Kingdom of Heaven with Daniel and Ben, which was also mediocre. It was supposed to be about the Crusades, but the plot, in general, was nonsensical. It broadcasted a sense of “historical accuracy”, but the main character (Orlando Bloom D: ) starts out as thin blacksmith with long hair that can read. This uneducated and somehow literate blacksmith goes on to command the defense of Jerusalem against Saladin, magically knowing all the ins and outs of swordplay, castle defense, disease (which the vast majority of kings and generals in that day wouldn’t even know), and physics. Plot failures aside, it was still mediocre. The fight scenes were short, uncreative, and generally uninspired. Anyways.

As for the blog, I’m working on yet more changes, which have been approved by various others before implemented. I’ve learned enough javascript to do what I want with the blog – I have to say, Javascript is a disgrace. It feels more like I’m drawing on a page, than writing neatly formed and executed code. I think you’ll like what I’m about to set up.

The Stranglehold Knot (O.o)

I slept in for a wonderful many hours today. It feels so good.

Greg did the external evidence of the Bible on Sunday. Good stuff, I say, although I knew a good bit of it (half-ish). Afterwards, Daniel trotted on over and we had a jolley olde time. We ran out and rented Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, and watched both, with some pizza and EXTREME!! ping pong thrown in between. The ping pong consisted of us standing on opposing benches, seperated by the picnic table, and wielding bats. The goal was to keep the ball in the air. Pretty extreme, I know.

Kill Bill was highly worth seeing, although I can certainly see why some don’t like it. The violence wasn’t all that bad, although I’m pretty used to that style of gore. I’m not really sure which one I liked more, though. My guess is Vol. 2, since the action sequences were of higher quality, and the story was a little easier to follow, but I can’t be totally sure. They were both pretty good.

After sitting on the couch for 3 hours and 45 minutes, we jumped on the computer to attempt trickery upon IM. For the most part, it worked. Gwen was probably the must gullible (and that’s saying a lot), I can definately say she never caught on. Pretty sad, I say.

I haven’t done much today besides play Gothic and Warcraft III. I just got back from Boy Scouts. I went with the intention to quit Boy Scouts, but, I’m not sure I have the heart to do it. It’s pretty fun, and if I ever have time, I’d wanna come back. I signed up for the rafting trip at the end of the month, which has been fun in the past.

And finally, the Halo 2 autoliveupdate came out today. I haven’t gotten to see it yet, but I’m gonna try and pull myself away from the computer in a few minutes. w00t!

EDIT:

New screens on the upcoming Halo 2 content!

Pure awesome.

All That and a Bag of Chips! (O.o)

This week would not end. I beat it with sticks, clubs, pencils, and shoelaces, but it would not relent. I’ve had about 25 less hours of sleep than I need this week, and it’s been so very rough. The week in totality has sucked – at least three teachers are highly displeased with me, my grades have been awful (it’s weird, I have like an A+ in global and english, but i doubt i’m even passing in chem and math), and I’ve just been perpetually tired. I can say this for a fact: I have never experienced a week this long.

Tuesday was the Bible Study, which again failed to meet muster. I’ve promised Daniel I’ll go another time before I give up on it, so we shall see how things go in March. Wednesday was…nothing. Thursday was ski club, fun stuff, except for some damage I did to my trachea. I was attempting to grab Colette’s poles using my poles, and I pushed down a little hard and one of my poles stuck in the ground, and before I knew it I had stopped myself going rather fast by having a pole jammed into my throat. That hurt. Of course, in my delerium, I fell over standing up once I got to the bottom. Today was Ben’s birthday (technically tomorrow, but today was more convenient). We went to his house and laughed at Sho’s chick flick, The Notebook. The name is bad enough, but the movie was worse. This was either a case of major plot revision at the last minute, awful editing, or just retarded plot transition. Let me describe the general mood of this story.

Ben: “Something needs to explode.”
Tim: “Why hasn’t anyone died yet?”
Sho: “…”

[queue main character lamenting the absence of his girlfriend]
Narrator: After she moved, he sent a letter to her every day. After one year with no response, he gave up, and became an ensign.
[queue main character running across a battle field with lots of explosions for 10 seconds, and finds his best friend dead. without providing any emotional response and experiencing no emotional change, he returns home, his dad gives him a lot of money, dies, and he begins building a house]

This is in the space of 1 minute, and I am not exaggerating. Even though it was bad, it was most hilarious to mock. I call that a happy birthday.

As for the rest of today, it’s been really, really nice. Not having school is just so delightful, I cannot express the emotion therein. I was watching Jonothan play Halo 2 (he played it for about 18 hours straight yesterday, he couldn’t sleep, so he just played), and he’s improved a lot. If you know my brother, he’s not a real gaming kind of guy, and we’ve never really shared a joy in playing these things, so it’s cool to see him get excited at learning and getting better at a game I really enjoy. We were also playing LotR Trivial Pursuit, while watching the LotR: Fellowship EE, with my dad, too. I haven’t played a board game with my dad in….ages. The last time we did was at least 4 years ago, so that was really nice. My dad went to bed, so Jonothan and I are in the midst of a game of Monopoly (we’re taking a break at the moment).

So, at 4:31 in the morning, Jonothan owned me in Monopoly. Took us three hours. Off to sleep I go.

Woof Woof (O.o)

I have spent my week almost completely seperated from my friends, excepting those that have been playing Maple Story. I can say for sure that this is the best free game I have ever played, beating even the incredible Infantry. Yes, even Infantry. For those of you aghast at my lack of Halo 2-ing, I must state a fact that has remained true throughout my life: I am, at the core, not an FPS gamer. The first game I ever played and truly understood and enjoyed, was FF7 (this at the age of 7). I play FPS because I’m good at them and thus can enjoy them. I still maintain that FF7 is the best game ever created, and thus the upcoming movie FFVII: Advent Children has peaked my interest. I have found no easily accesible trailers to be downloaded, only streamed, unfortunately. Just do a Google for Advent Children. The CGI is outstanding, although the file itself or the actual animations suffer framerate issues for obvious reasons. In any case, I patiently await the arrival of the movie.

I feel like reminiscing about Infantry, so I’ll do that. Infantry was a third-person (bird’s eye) shooter. It was simplistic, yet really awesomely cool. It was set in the future, so you had your special doodad-taculars. Originally it was really boring – there were vehicles you ran around in and you just tried to hold these points in a boring King of the Hill form of a game. This changed once they introduced a very loose RPG system – you gained money and rank from kills and flag captures in these CTF-type games. You used the money to buy weapons, armor, or ammo. Most importantly, was the class system. There were dozens of classes, all unique. There were Heavy Weapons (not demolition, they used higher-powered rifles and grenades), Infantry (they were boring and noobular), Jumptroopers (Fast, Maneuverable, Light), Scouts (i think i may have the name wrong, but they were capable of being invisible and used the sniper rifle most), Engineers (they built turrets and defenses, which got their kills), Medics (infantry with healing), and a few others, as well as leveled up forms of those guys. Unfortunately, a few months after that version came out, it went p2p. It rocked.

O.o

Today was eventful. I haven’t actually played Halo 2 today, my will was crushed by still not getting a headset, I really want one. I’m also really tired as it’s getting late, and I had a busy day in general. I went and saw the Incredibles, it was funny. I like Pixar. After that I got dropped at Sho’s house, at which Sam, Kerry, and Colette were at. We talked and played Apples to Apples (funny game), and watched Farenheit 9/11, which made me want to strangle Michael Moore.

Why, you ask? That’s why.

Beyond that it was fun, I got to spend an hour or more talking to Colette and Sho after Sam and Kerry left as they played with my hair. (I guess I smell like Jing? Supposedly that’s a good thing…) Colette’s mom drove me home, and now I sit here about to sleep. Good day. I’m hoping I can get my headset thing all sorted out tomorrow.

O.o

Oy, I’m bored. It’s 8th period here, in my only study hall every 6 days. Sho was supposed to come with me, but as luck would have it, she was one of like two people who didn’t get a pass. *mutter* I don’t have any homework I’d really wanna do here (I have English, in which i have to write 5 vignettes, but I only write when I have music. Techno. You get the idea. Apparantly my dad is gonna take me and Paul to see “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” sometime during the week, which looks corny, but supposedly it’s not bad. Anyways, that’s all I have worth writing.

…

Busy day, indeed. Sam spent the night last night (he came over about 6:00) and we had a lot of fun. We watched a lot of Family Guy and Chapelle’s Show, played DoA3, laughed at my brothers antics, listened to music (of many assortments), and talked. It was really, really, really good to have him over for the last time. We woke up about 12:00 today and he left abotu 1:00 PM. Afterwards I walked down to the Commons with Christopher and Jonothan and ate lunch at Benchwarmers, then took a bus to the mall and walked around, they bought CDs, I just listened to stuff, got a moccha, my dad drove over and we watched The Village (good movie, definately not Shyamlyan’s best, though), and we came home. That was about 9:30. I watched a little bit of Starsky and Hutch (very funny) with my dad and Christopher.

I’m tired. Very, very tired.

O.o

Yay. It’s Turkey Day.

I went to sleep at 3 AM. I watched X-2, and the second half of LotR: Two Towers: Extended Editon. My mom ::grumble:: woke me up at 9:00. Wasn’t very cool. Ima go back to sleep soon. I’m very tired. I wasn’t up this early yesterday. Ugh. Not cool.

X-2 was awesome. It was, just, awesome. Nightcrawler rocked. It was pretty cool.

I like the Two Towers a LOT more now. Was a cool movie.

Anyways, I’m gone.

O.o

Wow. This was quite the eventful day. I go to skool, nothing much happened, but, skool is skool, it’s not gonna change. Anyways, I went to the mall at 6:00. I wandered around for 5 minutes, to find Daniel! I had no idea he was gonna be there, but I’m thankful he was. We wandered around for an hour, and we then watched the Matrix, but that was after we followed Sho, Zoe, Zahra, etc. around the mall for 15 pointless minutes. I don’t know why I tried. They just ignored me, btu I did get to see Zoe for the first time, which was cool. Anyways, Revolutions was cool, but dissapointing. For those of you who haven’t seen it – OH WELL! It had some cool action scenes, especially near the end. Now for my long and lengthy description of my movie watching experience.

The beginning wasn’t impressive. It did it’s job, making Reloaded flow straight into Revolutions. Neo, after stopping the sentinels, went into a coma. At this point, he is stuck between the machine world, and the real world. He cannot leave this place until the trainman lets him. The trainman is a program made by the….[guess] Merolvingian. Seraph, Trinity, and Morpheus then walk through a very controversial dance club [i’ll let your imagination take that away…] and force the Merolvingian to bring Neo back. Neo comes back, and then Bane comes back too. Bane kills a nurse, yea yea. So Neo sees the Oracle, all that stuff. Neo and Trinity then take the Logos to the machine city, and the rest of the crew head for Zion, which at this point is under attack. They do lots of cool scenes with that. Anyways, half of Zon is destroyed, but the Hammer gets back in time to EMP half of all the sentinal forces. Meanwhile Neo and Trinity are at the machine city, and theres some cool scenes against the machines. They send like 5000 little sentinal bombs against them and Neo blows one up, and they all explode…it was cool. Neo talks to the head of Machines, which is really stupid. It’s like this liquid mirror thingy. Really strange. He convinces the mirror to let him into the Matrix so he can fight Smith, this saving Zion. He lets him, and so he goes in. While this is going on, another 100,000 sentinals arrived at Zion and started blowing stuff up again. Neo fights Smith, which includes lots of explosions and water and metorites. It was cool. So Smith eventually copies himself into Neo. But because ‘Neo and Smith are exact opposites’, all 6 billion Smiths…explode. Including Neo. The matrix is rebooted, and a truce is maintained between the machines and the humans. Bad ending.

So that was my day. It was fun.

UPDATED NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN ON FRIDAY NIGHT, BUT WAS NOT PUBLISHED UNTIL AFTER MIDNIGHT!

…

This day feels like such a blur, and I’m really tired. Woke up at 10:00, our houseguests didn’t leave till noon [about 6 hours after they were supposed to leave], went with Jonathan to see Skool of Rock, was funny, not hilarious, but funny. Other than that, nothing happened. I need sleep.