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NoisePop 2002

After seeing so many posters for it at Bottom of the Hill, I do also want to attend NoisePop 2002, which is running from February 26 - March 3, 2002. Why does everything need to be scheduled at the same time?

San Jose Film Festival

Cinequest, the San Jose Film Festival, is going to be from February 21 - March 3, 2002. I think I am going to try to go this year, and it is tempting to sign up to volunteer for it.

Movie Review: The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson)

I had read a lot of reviews saying that this was not as enjoyable as Rushmore, so I think I went in with the right expectations. It took a while to get going since the trailers had already given away the basic story, but there were some excellent scenes throughout. Lots of really funny lines. The characters were interesting to watch even if they weren't always realistic. A lot of the sets were interesting, too - I loved the game closet, and the paintings in Owen Wilson's character's apartment were incredible. What were they? My goodness. It was definitely a movie where the creator's fingerprints can be seen all over, which isn't always a good thing, but still seemed ok here. I think, though, that his next movie should try for something a little different, or the appeal of this style will wear a little thin. All of the acting here was good, the only negative thing I can really say is that I wish Bill Murray had been given a funnier role. Overall, this was enjoyable but not revolutionary.

Movie Review: Casablanca

Wow, I had always known this movie was supposed to be a classic but figured it wouldn't live up to the expectations for me so I never tried to see it. But now I saw it, in the middle of a crepe-making evening, and it turns out to really be that good. It has held up amazingly well. Lots of really good dialog, an interesting story, interesting characters - everything you'd want in a movie. So, if you haven't seen it, go see it. It really is good. I won't try saying anything else, since I am sure just about everything there is to be written about this has been done.

Do you hear a clicking sound?

I don't think I understand what qualities determine if people "click" or not. Or whether immediate clicking is an important characteristic for succesful relationships. But it is nice when it happens. I'd just like to have a little control over it, or even just a better understanding. It would also be nice to be able to determine easily how the other person is feeling.

Phew!

Made it back from the vegas trip. Overall, quite enjoyable. Need to recover and attempt to rid myself of that inescapable smokey smell and we'll try to get something up here about it. I attempted to keep a paper journal while I was there but that did not last. For not really having anything to do there, I kept quite busy.

X-ma$

I'm off to vegas. I'll try to take a few notes so I remember what to say when I get back, but no updates here until Thursday or Friday.

Eat Melons Alone

I think it is a good band name, but you certainly get some strange results from google. Apparently it is part of some anti-toxin eating regimen. Shouldn't nutrition be one of those things we've figured out by now?

Christmas Eve

I went over to a friend's and watched Hackers and some Wallace and Gromit on a plasma screen tv while muching on pizza, popcorn, and desserts. Better than a candlelight vigil? I think so.

And I am going to house-sit next weekend. How strange. But I will get to play with goats and dogs and the previously mentioned plasma screen tv. We'll see how it handles video games. Ooooh.

Movie Review: Cabaret Balkan

A series of interconnected stories set in Serbia during the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, this is the kind of movie to make you really appreciate living in a society with a functional government. I think every story ended with some kind of violence, sometimes misdirected, sometimes spiteful, sometimes vengeful, sometimes random. It reminded me of the tone of some futuristic sci-fi post-apocalyptic movies, but this was much more gripping because it is set in a real place in current times. It is difficult to realize how different things can be in different places at the same time. This movie did a good job of getting you to identify with the characters, typically by having them be a victim of some sort, before they become the aggressor in another scene. It was occassionally difficult to tell who was who when it cut back and forth between different stories, and some characters disappeared after a single scene and some were followed later. Despite these unusual stylistic choices, though, I did enjoy this movie and would recommend it as a way of getting an idea of the general climate of those times, even if this is not a completely realistic presentation.

Left Pinky Finger

My left pinky finger is certainly feeling the effects of this bass playing thing.

Christmas Spirit

Go listen to this episode of "This American Life" and behold the wonder of David Sedaris describing his tour of duty as a christmas elf. You too can enjoy the mix of the absurdity of trying to have a season where we think the best of everyone, while also wondering about its necessity.

And that might be my only christmas link for the year.

Movie Review: Amelie (Jeunet)

This was a wonderful movie. I'm not sure I can accurately describe the story, since it follows lots of random events surrounding a young woman who had a secluded childhood. But the film is funny and happy and warm, and reminds you to enjoy the simple things that make life so enjoyable. It is also an extroadinarily nice film to look at, with good performances all around. It even pulls off the use of a narrator. This is a much brighter film, both in appearance and tone, than Delicatessen or The City of Lost Children, but it is just as enjoyable as those two wonderful films. I was with a group of 8 people, all of whom thought it was enjoyable. So go see it already.

Movie Review: Money For Nothing

I'm not sure how I got sucked into watching this, but it seemed like an interesting concept and it had John Cusack and Benicio del Toro in it, so I thought I'd giver it a shot. Based on a true story, it follows an unemployed dockworker from South Philly as he finds $1.2 million that fell off an armored car. Obviously, he decides to keep it, and the rest of the movie is full of him making bad decisions about what to do with it. One of those movies that can be painful to watch not because it is bad but because the main character makes so many stupid decisions. It never really seems to explore the "should you keep it?" question in depth, it decides to focus on the characters instead, but there isn't much substance there, either. Make sure to read the final text about what happens to him, though, because that was the biggest surprise of the movie for me. Apparently he committed suicide later, though, so I guess he never really figured out what to do.

Movie Review: Cradle Will Rock (Robbins)

The story of an attempt to stage a pro-union play as part of a government theater program during the depression, with a couple of side stories about Diego Rivera painting a controversial mural in the lobby of Rockefeller Center and a few other people impacted by the congressional investigation into communism in the FDR public works programs. It is one of those movies that makes you feel like you should know more about what really happened then, especially since the movie is probably not completely accurate (although they warn you with a "mostly true" tagline on the front). There were a lot of good actors in this, so there was a lot of it that was enjoyable to watch but I think the characters wound up either being good or bad, which seems a little simplistic. Maybe Bill Murray's ventrilloquist was the most realistic one in that sense, since he seemed to have some conflicting emotions and didn't always make the right choice but also didn't always make the bad choice. Overall, though, I think the movie felt a little forced, it lacked a nice flow. The fact that the musical that created the controversy is pretty lame certainly didn't help. I also didn't understand the need to have the author of the musical almost continually hallucinate. I really did enjoy the last shot, though, which shows you the good and the bad of seeing one of the character's predictions about the future of government theater be played out. It helped make it seem worthwhile to have sat through all of it. So, recommended if you like a lot of the people in the cast, since they all do get some fun scenes, but don't expect much as a whole.

Atlas Shrugged

I really appreciated Dave Winer's take on Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism. OK, I haven't read the book, but I have had to discuss things with Objectivists and they always do come across as very arrogant and having quite a different view of how the world works.

Email

I like having email to respond to. I feel a little guilty when I get too far behind, but I think I fear the delay between when I catch up and when I get more email to respond to.

I'm not happy that email.com has trashed my old email I had there and is going to stop forwarding email for free. I can accept the forwarding being shut off - we're not in the good old days anymore - but the disappearance of a few megs of email without notice is unfortunate. It was also weird to find a couple of weeks of email that had somehow not been forwarded properly.

BassMasters

Oh wait, not that kind of bass. Let the bass playing begin, slowly, poorly, but still cool-sounding, since it is a bass after all. We'll see if I am ready for band month in March.

Creepy Stalker Tendencies

So, I am happy for friends that find people to go and be happy with in some way like that, but I do get a little sad that this kind of thing does not happen to me. I mean, I do think it will happen at some point, but maybe it won't. Blah. I shouldn't stay at home reading about other people's lives, I guess.

Concert Report: El Vez

This may actually have made up for the previous two failed concert attempts. I actually found 5 other people that wanted to go, which was an impressive start to the adventure. It was raining fairly hard today (I guess you could think of it as winter) but we made it up to the city, met up for dinner at Ti Couz, and I got to sample 4 different dessert crepes. Mmmmmm. So tasty. Then it was off to the show. The opening band was called The Dragons, and they were ok, playing pretty straightforward punk, although their songwriting seemed to consist almost entirely of repeating a single line like "I want to fuck everyone" over and over. Oh well. It was encouragement to start my own band. The bass player sang a cover song, which was probably their best song of the night.

But then it was time for El Vez! He put on an incredible show. Mixing up Elvis songs, christmas songs, classic rock songs, pop songs, changing lyrics, changing styles, changing costumes - it was great. The backup band was pretty good, he had two backup singers that had pretty good choreography compared to what I would have expected - it was good stuff. Good crowd interaction, good transitions between songs (and I should also give credit to the Dragons, who typically slid from one song to the next without pause), and really getting the whole crowd into it. Yeah. Lots of fun. I'd love to see a non-christmas themed show, since christmas is not my favorite time of the year, but if I can enjoy his christmas show he must be quite the performer. Everyone I went with enjoyed it, too, which is a pretty good sign.

Uh oh

Someone from work found my site through google. Guess I will have to stop linking to all the porn and stop talking smack about all the co-workers. I guess I didn't do that much already, although it will be interesting to see if there is any change since I know there is a potential audience out there.

Movie Review: Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson)

Yet another blockbuster movie premiere I decided to go see on opening night. I hadn't read the book, although I had read The Hobbit and was pretty familiar with the setting for various, game-y reasons. Ahem. Anyways, the production quality of the movie was pretty amazing. The scenery and landscapes were dazzling, and lots of the computer graphics were seemless. The people-shrinking to get hobbits small enough was usually quite good, although the secret council meeting scene was an unfortunate exception. I wonder how that slipped through. The opening monologue setting up the history of the ring reminded me a bit too much of the alternate version of Dune, and I wished that those plot points had been revealed in a less obvious fahion. The set of scenes in the shire were a little slow, as well, so it really took a while to get things moving. I thought 3 extra hobbits as comic relief were a bit overwhleming, and it seemed unrealistic that they would have been allowed to go with on such an important mission. Maybe some of this would make more sense if I had read the books? Who knows. A lot of the journeying was exciting, and the fight scenes did carry suspense for those of us who didn't know the outcomes ahead of time. The end of the movie seemed incredibly abrupt, although they tell me this is exactly where the book ends. Well, we don't have the luxury of being able to pick up the next book here. It seemed a little cruel after all those years of conditioning from 3 act story structures. It definitely left me wanting more, since so much of what was set up here went unresolved. So little went resolved, for that matter. The next two movies had better be enjoyable, or this one will look much worse, since it really was just the opening act.

Kyoo

Kyoo watashi wa nihongo no shiken ga arimasu. Kinoo chotto benkyoo o shimashita, ga shiken wa amari yasashikatta desu. Watashi wa nihongo ga joozu ja arimasen.

Last Plane to Jakarta

How had I not realized that Last Plane to Jakarta, John Darnielle's (The Mountain Goats) music review zine is online? It makes for interesting reading, although it often does remind me I don't know anything about music.

If only it were that easy

From the movie Trust:

Maria: Did you mean it? Would you marry me?

Matthew: Yes.

Maria: Why?

Matthew: Because I want to.

Maria: Not because you love me or anything like that, huh?

Matthew: I respect and admire you.

Maria: Isn't that love?

Matthew: No, that's respect and admiration. I think that's better than love.

Maria: How?

Matthew: When people are in love they do all sorts of crazy things. They get jealous, they lie, they cheat. They kill themselves. They kill each other.

Maria: It doesn't have to be that way.

Matthew: Maybe.

Maria: You'd be the father of a child you know isn't yours.

Matthew: Kids are kids, what does it matter?

Maria: Do you trust me?

Matthew: Do you trust me first?

Maria: I trust you.

Matthew: You sure?

Maria: Yes.

Matthew: Then marry me.

Maria: I'll marry you if you admit that respect, admiration, and trust equals love.

Matthew: OK. They equal love.

(Thanks to the fantastic trouble and desire site for having the quote pages.)

Goodbye, Salon

I've stopped following links to articles on salon because of the full-page ads they give me before going to the article. Am I resisting the inevitable?

Project Management in a few easy questions

As I am preparing to deal with my manager no longer being my manager, I seek a way to maintain some of the good activities that have helped our team stay on track for most of this year. During some meeting I decided an easy way to try this would be to figure out what the common questions she always asks us are so I could ask the same questions in meetings. So far, I think I have figured out a reasonable chunk of the project execution part of project management based on this strategy:

1. What is the plan?
2. Is the plan written down?
3. Does everyone know what they are supposed to be doing?
4. Does this seem doable?
5. What can I do to help?
6. What are you concerned about?

I think this is the beginnings of a project management book. At some point I should expand on why these questions are important and what some common variations are.

After coming up with this list, though, my boss has started saying I have "project manager potential" which is scary to hear. Maybe she has it in for me, after all. The question that came up in my mind today, though, was whether good project managers need to be worriers to some degree. We may find out.

MoveableType

I installed the MoveableType weblog software (Version 1.2) to try it out. It certainly has a lot of features I want from GreyMatter, but it doesn't seem to have the same sense of coolness GM has. Sure, I am biased, GM has been a great piece of software I have interacted with almost every day for a long time now, and I can't turn away from it quickly. MT does have support for multiple blogs and categories and a few smaller configurable options that might be nice. The default look seems to be web-designer-generic, though, which gives me a negative first impression. It also uses pop-up windows, which I am not a fan of. The default entry creation page isn't very nice, either. The default templates are all full of lots of CSS junk - why can't that be in an external stylesheet? Argh. I can't really be making this decision purely on aesthetics, can I? They'll revoke my technical lead license for this. I guess I will play with it a little more, but it doesn't seem to have enough to support my review site goals, which is unfortunate. I probably need to look into some of the database-backed tools to give me something to build on. And then I'll finally face the dreaded decision of having to think of design issues or ask someone else to think about them. Yikes.

Geisha me

Here is a picture of me in my halloween costume as a geisha. I made it smaller so you can't see the full creepiness. After seeing this, I am pretty sure everyone else must have been pretty drunk that evening - I think my face looks a little chunky. Oh well. Also note that you can't see the fancy hair stylings that were in effect, nor can you see the dazzling fan action to cover my mouth as I laughed.

Let the google searches for geisha pictures commence once again! Yay, referrer logs. I'm watching you!

Note: Now that people have seen this, several people have said I really did look cuter than in the picture. I'm including this note here purely to make myself feel better about the whole thing.

Kofi Annan Speech

Kofi Annan gave this speech when accepting this year's Nobel peace prize. Here's some good quotes, although it is worth reading the whole thing:

"Today's real borders are not between nations, but between powerful and powerless, free and fettered, privileged and humiliated. Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another."

"A genocide begins with the killing of one man – not for what he has done, but because of who he is. A campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' begins with one neighbour turning on another. Poverty begins when even one child is denied his or her fundamental right to education. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life, all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations."

"The idea that there is one people in possession of the truth, one answer to the world’s ills, or one solution to humanity’s needs, has done untold harm throughout history – especially in the last century. Today, however, even amidst continuing ethnic conflict around the world, there is a growing understanding that human diversity is both the reality that makes dialogue necessary, and the very basis for that dialogue."

Japanese Children's Stories

One of the difficulties in learning Japanese is the four different writing systems used. The easiest for us native english speakers is the use of the english alphabet, which works out pretty well. The phonemes of english are pretty similar to those in japanese, so it makes more sense to me than some of the crazier pinyin stuff for mandarin. Hiragana was the next japanese writing system we learned, which has a character for every syllable, which is 46 basic and a few combinations of most of those to produce more syllables. It makes sense, though, and is reasonably consistent, and there are few exceptions to being able to just write everything exactly as it sounds. Seems like a good start! Unfortunately, that system isn't always used. There is a similar syllabic system used for foreign words and a few other special cases, called Katakana. It has a few more characters than hiragana because it includes some foreign sounds not present in japanese, but relies on the same basic 46. It seems silly to have these two systems, but it is manageable. However, neither is the main system used for writing. That's kanji, the borrowed chinese characters. No syllables. Thousands are used. Easy for people who know chinese already, but not so good for us native english speakers. But we don't need to know that for first semester japanese.

This is a problem, though, since trying to read most japanese requires knowledge of kanji. Which leads to the point of this entry: I found a source of japanese children's stories, written in mostly hiragana. I can't understand some of the grammar yet, but it is nice for practicing my hiragana reading abilities.

Movie Review: The Grifters

I had heard this was OK, and it had John Cusack in it, so why not have Tivo grab it?

Well, it turns out, because it wasn't so good. It felt like it was supposed to be a noir-style crime movie, but it really wasn't very exciting or suspenseful. I think good noir dialog is harder to write than people think. The most interesting part was probably seeing the scams the various people ran, but they didn't show too much of that. Oh well. The ending was surprising, but didn't provoke much of a response in me, so I guess the movie didn't connect for me. Oh well.

Movie Review: The Unbelievable Truth (Hartley)

I love Hal Hartley movies. Each of his movies that I have seen has been great. This movie was no exception. It seemed most similar to Trust in terms of the style and story. It almost doesn't feel like a movie. Even though the story is all about pretty routine things, with a little extra drama perhaps, the dialog is not done realistically. People talk in ways that you always wish you could talk in real life but aren't quite composed enough to do. Somehow, though, the characters are still interesting and sympathetic and feel like real people, or at least versions of real people. I don't think this was his best movie, which is not surprising since it was his first full-length movie, but it is still pretty great. It is the kind of movie that makes me wish I could watch it again right away so I could absorb it better. It is also the kind of movie I would love to see with a director's commentary, to get a better insight into what was going on. The interviews I have read with Hal Hartley have been interesting and I would like to see a more immediate reflection on the films.

Movie Review: Shall We Dance?

This is a Japanese movie about a married man who secretly starts taking dancing lessons to try to get closer to a pretty woman he sees from the train on his way home every day. A lot of the movie is based on the fact that Japanese society apparently doesn't feel that ballroom dancing is an appropriate activity so most people who enjoy it don't tell anyone. The movie itself is quite enjoyable, with lots of really funny scenes and some really enjoyable characters to watch. It is really nice to see some of the characters gain confidence through the dancing. It is also really interesting, though, to see how some things that seem really strange to me, like why the husband won't talk to his wife about dancing, treated so matter-of-factly. I think I just don't understand how people can be involved in serious relationships with such a poor level of communication. Oh well. The movie breaks down a little towards the end as not everything gets resolved, they don't explain why one of the characters knows so much about dancing, and the events become a little less realistic. Overall, though, the movie is pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it.

Dinner Conversation

Me: [explanation of my thoughts about an old relationship]

Friend: It sounds like you are dealing with that in a healthy, mature way.

Me: Yeah, but it doesn't get me anything.

Friend: Haven't you realized that nothing gets you anything?

Slippery Slope

People are beginning to complain about Ashcroft-and-Bush led reduction in freedom due to the extreme circumstances the country faces. Are wartime measures appropriate when we haven't even declared war? Bush says we are at war, using those exact words, but it is not true. The argument to defend these new laws and executive orders seems to be that while it would be possible to infringe on rights, these rules can be followed to minimize that impact. So the proof of whether we should worry about this comes when we see how the rules are implemented.

Well, The New York Times reports that secret immigration court proceedings have been going on since September 11, with outside parties unable to verify that the defendent's rights are being kept, even the right to a lawyer. So things are already being implemented, and people can't verify if rights are being violated.

Why should we go along with this?

Even if over eighty percent of the population responds to simple poll questions saying they agree with it does not mean that our government doesn't have a right to protect our freedoms. And by "our" I include everyone in this country, not just our citizens. The terrorists didn't ask if everyone they were about to kill was a citizen.

Freedoms are what makes this country special. We need to keep them except in the most dire of emergencies. Without seeing any more evidence, I do not feel that we are in that situation currently. And I don't trust people who don't want open debate about issues.

I am going to hell

But I should really try to read this first. I'm often uncomfortable in situations where I feel I can't express my atheist, skeptical views in a manner that doesn't seem mean or condescending or too dogmatic. The part of the FAQ I read makes me feel these people are addressing those very issues. Now, I need to find the more general skeptic equivalent, for when I encounter people who believe in ghosts or fortune tellers or numerology or psychics or curses or any of that kind of thing. The difficult part for me is in assuming that they have a valid reason for believing what they believe. It is so much easier to assume they just haven't come to the right conclusion yet based on lack of good evidence. If only we could all work towards making things better in this world, I wouldn't have such an issue with all this stuff.

Music Review Review

I love reading music reviews, and wish I could write them decently. Hopefully, practice will improve those skills, although I'm not convinced for movie reviews. Maybe practice and a little editing. Anyways, I just found that Rolling Stone made a lot of their music review archives available online. Some are just blurb reviews, some are more thorough. Not very good coverage of indie stuff, of course, but they have good coverage of a variety of genres. I wish you could filter to only see the albums and artists with reviews, as opposed to everyone they provide a discography for, but I can't complain too much since it is free.

Lack of Sleep

I think I am getting to that consecutive days of not quite enough sleep causing problems for me point, so no more catching up on reviews tonight. I know, I know, what will the world do without hearing my take on The Grifters for another few days? Cough, cough.

Movie Review: The Man Who Wasn't There (Coen Brothers)

I typically enjoy Coen brothers movies, although maybe not as much as real film geeks. I loved Fargo and Blood Simple, although I didn't really get in to some of the others. But any new Coen Brothers movie is something to go see, especially this one after I had seen positive reviews of it. And it didn't disappoint! Carefully controlled, as is typical for their movies, but very enjoyable. Twists and turns in the plot, but nothing too improbable. Billy Bob and Francis and James and Tony all did very nice jobs in their roles. Yay. And I enjoyed seeing a recent picture done in black and white for non-budgetary reasons. Those artsy Coen brothers! Heh. It was good if you like their movies, and probably good if you are just a fan of the noir-ish movies. Is there a better term for recent movies done in a noir style? It isn't really noir, I think, because it is more self-aware, but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

geeks and spooks, ala Sterling

I like reading Bruce Sterling's stuff. Most of his novels that I've read have been pretty good, and when he writes about geeks and spooks you can't go too wrong. I don't know enough to comment intelligently on it, but he has a good mix of frustration and optimism that is refreshing. I can relate to that mixture much better than either one in isolation.

This is the kind of article that makes me want to move to a third-world country that no one is quite sure of where it is and work with some smart people to build the next great software thing to use up all that computing power.

TV Watching

The average american watches 3 hours and 46 minutes of television each day. That is a lot of television.

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

I had already read the first two Harry Potter books before seeing this, which I think made me a little biased against the movie. The books were good because of their sense of fun and the creative ideas J.K. Rowling came up with. The reading I did about the movie beforehand warned that it tried very hard to stay close to the details of the book and not the spirit. I found this to be exactly true. The acting all seemed fine, most of the effects were good enough, but the sense of fun and wonder wasn't there. The sets all seemed kind of gloomy, and the movie was too long to have any sense of tension or excitement. Some of the problems of the book seemed emphasized, like Harry's complete lack of skill or effort to make things happen and just having good things happen anyways, and the unfair awarding of points at the end. Most people I talked to about this said I should lighten up because it is just a kid's movie, but I don't see that as an excuse. I love lots of kids movies, but I still expect them to be well crafted and intelligent. I have a problem with characters that are born into greatness without putting real effort in towards making it happen. I like characters that need to work to get good things. I find that to be more accurate with how I see the world working. Harry seemed to have all sorts of great abilities that just came to him without effort. Sure, he did try to be helpful, but that isn't quite the same thing. And the fact that three first year students could get past all of the best traps the school's faculty could set up? That seems ridiculous, and makes me fear the magic system in the Harry Potter universe doesn't make any sense.

So, despite all this, I thought the movie was mediocre. Lots of people I watched it with seemed to enjoy it, though, so maybe I am just mean and grumpy. But we'll see if they still enjoy the movie in the future or were just caught up in the hype and excitement.

If nothing else, I liked it more than Titanic, so I wouldn't mind seeing it take over the top box office spot.

Movie Review: Behind Enemy Lines

I knew this would be dumb, and it didn't disappoint. I went to see it because I have a friend who is a huge Owen Wilson fan. I think he's funny, too, but this movie was only funny in how silly it was. The premise didn't make much sense, most of the scenes didn't seem to make sense, and again it was a movie with little characterization. This suffered from some really amateurish directing, though, with lots of unnecessary camera effects and zooms and freezes and slow motion and quick cuts and hand held shots and all the other little tricks from movies these days. (shakes head sadly) Just because you have the budget for those things doesn't mean you should use them. Have a good story. Keep the movie interesting to look at but make sure the audience is following the action. Oh well. There are some decent chase sequences, and the scene where the plane gets shot down is neat, but it all doesn't really make sense together. I'm not sure if Owen was good or not, since the rest of the movie was so distractingly bad. I am confident he will be more enjoyable in his next partnership with Wes Anderson, though. Yeah! Also, two Gene Hackman movies in one week is plenty. I don't recommend that.

Sick

I was actually sick yesterday. Some weird stomach thing. Went home from work early. It's been quite a while since I was last sick.