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Movie Review: The Heist (Mamet)

This movie had no characters in it. It had a lot of actors, but they all seemed to be portraying dialog-spewing machines rather than actual characters. This is an unfortunate thing because it really made me uninterested in what happened to them, all I could hope for was to enjoy the occassional really funny line that one of them would spew. And there were some good lines! But I also had to sit through a lot of backstabbing and double crossing and trickery and all that stuff that really didn't seem to matter since I didn't care about any of them. And when one of the plot twists relies heavily on someone's emotional predilection, it seems rather amusing, since we have no context to work with. It makes me wonder if this is something Mamet does intentionally, trying to get a "noir" feel, or if he only interacts with people like this in his life. Hrmmm. Even with State and Main there seemed to be a better attempt at characterization, although that movie wasn't too great, either. I guess I'm not sure what to think about this. If I want interesting but unrealistic dialog, I'd much rather watch a Hal Hartley movie. But this is probably worth a rental if you can survive off the occassional really funny line - I think the Bible line is easily worth the price of a rental.

Movie Review: From Hell

I liked it, but it was a little strange. First, you have the Jack the Ripper thing. It is pretty creepy, and the movie effectively conveyed the horror of the attacks and the horror of the public's response to them. Then, you have the fact it was based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's comic, which makes for the second really good comic based movie I've seen this year (the last was Ghost World). Unusual enough to see one, but two? That's strange. And you had a typically wonderful Johnny Depp and a nice Heather Graham playing the extremely unlucky main characters. Who both wind up with fairly cruel outcomes, which is a strange thing in such a heavily hyped movie. It was good and creepy and brutal and made me glad that I could not relate to it more personally. Probably not for everyone, but nice for those of us who don't like always seeing the happy endings.

300 Entries

This is entry 300. That's a lot. I started this originally in March, which seems like forever ago, but I think this means I am averaging over 1 entry per day, which keeps me above the pace I set for myself. Especially with the little month long break in there. Heh! So much has changed, but it seems like this site can only be improving.

I'll keep working on the to-do list tomorrow.

And I'll try to think about who might have found my site by searching for geisha halloween pictures from 2001. Someone I know? Hrmmm... (and where are those pictures, anyways?)

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time In China

I was a little disappointed after I had heard so much about this movie for so long, so maybe my expectations were too high. There were lots of enjoyable fight scenes, but the movie itself wasn't too exciting. I didn't like it as much as Iron Monkey, which was actually made as a prequel to this. But if you like this sort of thing, you could do far, far worse.

Movie Review: The One

Let's say you get one of the world's best martial arts superstars to star in your big-budget movie. Do you think the best course of action would be to put him in lots of amazing martial arts fighting sequences, or to put him in lots of effects-driven action sequences? If you picked the effects sequences, you might be OK with this movie. I would have picked the martial arts sequences, so I was disappointed. Don't get me wrong - Jet Li does a lot of martial arts fighting in this movie, the problem is that he is often fighting against himself, which means he isn't in a real fight, he is in an effects sequence. And it really limits the camerawork that can be done if you can't look at both fighters simultaneously. Sigh. Didn't we learn from the Jean-Claude van Damme movie where he played two people? I actually liked Kiss of the Dragon more than this.

And, there are serious problems with the concept. Why do only murders result in the energy transference, and only when done by the same person from a different universe? It makes no sense. And that would be fine if it were fun to watch, but it wasn't.

After watching this movie, the group I was with decided to go watch a good Jet Li movie to try to remove the taste of this film from out mouths. That's not a good sign.

Pressure

Wow, after all that self-imposed novel pressure, I've become really good at wasting time. Sure, I had class tonight, so it really wasn't that much time wasted, but still... Maybe I am feeling like I am not accomplishing anything because I am not working on the novel. New project will have to start soon. And I will try to start putting up real stuff here, real soon.

Oh Crap

I'm going to have to start writing in here since I have given up on the novel, aren't I?

I'll try to do a better job tomorrow.

More To Do

• The Grifters
• Kicking and Screaming
• The Shining
• Thanksgiving dinner
• Worst Case Scenario Boardgame

Beat Down

I think nanowrimo beat me. I'm over 25,000 words, but there is really no hope of finishing before the deadline. It turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. Figuring out why goes on the todo list, which I should now start being able to attack again.

Sigh.

To-do list

Things to put here:

• harry potter movie
• the man who wasn't there
• mail order bride
• oni sunday comics link
• update greymatter hack instructions to include popups, as per nice email
• x-force
• shall we dance?
• hendrix movie

Too much non-weblog stuff to list, really. I blame the novel. It is a gift, it is a curse.

Soccer: Loss (5-1)

The other team could score goals and we could not. They kept getting good crosses in to people who could actually head into the goal. I played right fullback all game, and didn't feel too directly responsible for any of the goals. I should have written this a couple of days ago so I would actually remember what happened, I guess.

22,500 words of butt-kicking

So far behind, but I haven't given up yet. Some day will be my big writing day and I will get on track, right? Ugh.

Mountain Goats

Yay! Some new songs from the Mountain Goats, thanks to Tiny Telephone.

Soccer: Win (3-2)!

Hey, we actually won! And it was a fun game. Yay. I, of course, played defense, and had a few good plays, including a goal line kick-away and a header between a few opposing players right in front of the goal. Heh! The team did pretty well, passing things around and out-hustling the other team. Mark did a fine job of goalie in the second half. Roger did a good job in the midfield, helping keep the ball up on the other end of the field. Lots of running, though, so I am exhausted now.

Birkball!

Last night I screamed Birkball enough times to become hoarse. I think that means that the game must be somewhat fun. But who would have expected it to have been around for so long?

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a bad thing, right? It makes me very uncomfortable that I am feeling it a little and kind of hoping for it.

I need to focus on happy things.

What is going on?

It is strange that a Tori Amos review could contain such a neat essay about what is going on in the world, but not so strange if you've read that review column before.

Family Happiness

you can arm me to the teeth.

you can't make me go to war.

- the Mountain Goats

Movie Review: Monsters, Inc.

This movie was fantastic. Sure, I'm a sucker for computer animated kid's movies, and I want to see Pixar do well, but I went in to this a little worried it wouldn't live up to the previous movies. But it was really good! The story was pretty simplistic, with the obvious payoff set up fairly early, but the characters were really well done. Boo was extremely cute, as the friend I went with to see it kept saying over and over afterwards. Sully was also a very likable, sympathetic character. And, for maybe the first time in these kinds of movies for me, I think his appearance significantly helped establish the character. It wasn't just an iconic representation that you could attach the character to, but something that helped show what the character was. And it was mostly because of the fur, which looked incredibly soft and realistic, in a stuffed animal sort of way. Then, in a scene with snow later on, the animators try to outdo themselves by showing more wind and clingy snow on the fur. Hehe! And the message seemed good, both on a simple level (laughter is more powerful than fear) and on a complex level (the importance of investigating alternative energy sources and the danger of monopolies.) Well, maybe I'm reading a little in to it. But you'll see what I mean.

Overall, I liked it a lot. Go see it with people not afraid to laugh at a children's movie.

Boo!

Slow updates

I'm still only around 2200 words, but hopefully I'm not too far behind on Japanese. The novel is coming along ok, but it is going to be rough going by the end of the month. About as expected, I guess.

Here, I'm going to need to do write-ups of:

• The One
• Once Upon a Time in China
• From Hell

It is going to be a big list of make-up work by the end of the month.

People suck

You have a nice conversation with someone, a few meaningful stories are exchanged, and you think there may be hope for humanity.

Then you see that the nanowrimo site has been hacked, and you can't update your wordcount.

People suck!

Anyways, I'm at 1714. Whoo.

Update

I need to write the concert report for Tenacious D, and talk about doing interviews again, but I am going to try to start the novel instead. We'll see how long I last!