January 20, 2006
January Movies
Too lazy to do "full" reviews for all of these:
Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill - Cute, sweet, and a little crazy (not necessarily in a good way), which reminds me of San Francisco. The DVD extras took away from the "magical" tone the movie tried to set, which added some depth but took away some of the charm.
Brokeback Mountain - beautiful, sad, and made me feel sorry for the rodeo cowboys. Not as quite as emotional as I expected, but maybe that was because of the talkers in the theater. It was nice to see that Heath Ledger can actually act after sitting through Casanova.
Syriana - Another slight disappointment - lots of intriguing build up, discussion of things I don't usually think about, and then some arbitrary movie drama at the end.
Shaolin Soccer - Fun, I think I had forgotten how enjoyable it is to watch a comedy that I actually like. I only wish there was more actual soccer instead of all the 1 on 1 battles during a soccer game! I don't think it rises to the level of a comedy classic, but it is entertaining.
January 10, 2006
Organic Food
According to Consumer Reports, these things are worth buying organic because they contain high amounts of pesticide residue:
Apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, strawberries, meat, poultry, eggs, dairy, and baby food.
The Environmental Working Group has a PDF wallet guide of this as well, if you are in to that sort of thing.
January 09, 2006
Today's Niels Bohr Quote
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."
I think I need to save that one for some presentation about software estimation.
January 05, 2006
Full Moon
From The Washington Post is one of the best quotes I have seen in a news article in a long time:
Acquitting a Germantown man who exposed his buttocks during an argument with a neighbor, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday that mooning, while distasteful, is not illegal in Maryland."If exposure of half of the buttock constituted indecent exposure, any woman wearing a thong at the beach at Ocean City would be guilty," Judge John W. Debelius III said after the bench trial, reversing the ruling of a District Court judge.
[...]
James Maxwell, one of McNealy's attorneys, said yesterday's ruling should "bring comfort to all beachgoers and plumbers" in the state.
Today's Reading: Gandhi
This article about Gandhi was interesting, although it certainly has an agenda. Without doing too much verification of the article (although Wikipedia seems to back up most of the claims, I guess I enjoy seeing the faults of legendary people revealed. It is sad to not have idealists to admire, but maybe it is better to know that ordinary people, with all of the same flaws we have to face in ourselves and the people around us, are capable of accomplishing great things. This is also a good reminder to me that there are still huge gaps in my knowledge of world history.
January 03, 2006
Movie Review: Casanova
It has been a while since I have done one of these, but looking back at 2005 these past few days made me realize I missed having some better accounting of what kind of input I had this year. So we will start off with an easy one here:
Casanova is a very insubstantial film. A few entertaining scenes in the first two thirds give way to a final third that falls apart. Heath Ledger is not particularly dashing as the famed lover, making every female character's response to him somewhat puzzling, and Sienna Miller doesn't seem intriguing enough for him to want to give up his lifestyle anyways. The action scenes feel a bit clumsy and the special effects used to create the old Venetian backdrops is never too believable. Of course, the single worst effect had to go to a ridiculously small hot air balloon supporting most of Casanova's weight as he leaped off a balcony. At least it happens early enough in the movie that you can give up all hope for plausibility in the character development as well as the lack of physics before everything falls apart at the end.
All that being said, Jeremy Irons does have some extremely frightening hair, which makes his inquisitor role somewhat believable. Oliver Platt is believably fat for his role as a fat man. Casanova's assistant was entertaining to watch, but seemed to run out of things to do too early.
I guess none of that was terribly unexpected, though, so it wasn't like I hated the movie, although finding out it was by the director of Chocolat made it seem a lot more disappointing. Where was the passion? Or, at least, where were the loving shots of melted chocolate?