Hello, World!
Labels: music break, time sink
Labels: go there now, lotd, mmm
Labels: baseball, Cross Game, manga
"Tough." (Steve Jobs isn't gonna let you have it.)
"Get off my lawn!" (There are plenty of other platforms that do. Use them.)
Labels: better late than never, movies, review
I'm actually listening to The Blue Hearts album. The problem is that the titles of the songs are in kanji. I have no idea of the song I'm listening to. I'll just have to rely on their punk-rock energy to enjoy.
Labels: meta, tweet, why am i telling you this?
Labels: music break, nostalgia, time sink
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/obama-liquidates-himself/
Sucks.
Stupid Dems. Can't do anything right. Shit. Must find job in nicer Social Democratic country.
Labels: music break, time sink, vinyl
Labels: movies, Netflix Queue, review
Labels: Baltimore Orioles, baseball
Labels: Baltimore Orioles, baseball, get off your butt, lotd
Labels: music break, ska, time sink, vinyl
Anyhow, I had Sunshine, Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller, at home for longer than I wanted. I watched it last night.
The plot: Earth, in the future, is threatened by the dying light of its sun. They send a scientific team to jumpstart the star. The movie follows the second attempt to save the Earth.
Surprisingly, to me, that Boyle chose to direct a science fiction flick. I didn't think he had it in him as his style seems unsuited for the genre. Off course, he's able to make the film successful because the science fiction genre adapts well. Maybe Boyle at the helm makes this movie slightly more interesting.
Like all save-the-world flicks, the mission's crew are on a one way ride. Not all will survive, and when they start falling, they start to be picked off one-by-one. It is how they meet their grisly fate that is interesting. Do they know it's a one way ticket? Do they care for saving themselves or the earth? Do they realize the enormity of the responsibility in their mission? And does that scare them or enable them?
One thing about space, it makes you aware of how alone man or mankind is in the universe. This makes you think too much and adapt religion or scientific skepticism. Is the universe awe inspiring because of god or is it awe inspiring because of the physics of it all? Space makes dying a lonely thing.
As I watched the movie, my palms were sweating. Something about the cramp crew quarters, the heat from the sun, and the spooks. I could actually understand the desperation. Finish the mission. Don't let anything get in the way.
If you send religious minded people, expect them to flip out when confronted with the universe. Crazy. Don't send these people. They'll end up wearing Nikes, packed onto bunk beds, sleeping the eternal sleep under black sheets. They'll also expect the grim ending to be in concurrance with god's plan and ruin the mission.
It ended up a good flick for waiting two months to watch. Worth the long wait, but I have to stop doing that.
3 of 5 stars.
Labels: movies, Netflix Queue, review
For example, the best Drama pictures are: Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, and Up in the Air. The winner, Avatar, was no more dramatic than Aliens, and some may even call it an action flick.
When you divide pictures arbitrarily into Drama and Comedy/Musical, you start pigeonholing films into categories that make no sense! And why are musicals still around? There's only one or two non-animated musicals made a year. That shouldn't be enough to earn them a part of one category.
Here's another example of a headscratcher coming from the Golden Globes: Robert Downey Jr won for best actor in a comedy/musical for his hilarious portrayal of that truly funny guy, Sherlock Holmes. What you didn't LOL all through that film? Jokes on you then. Sherlock Holmes was as much an actioner as Avatar, but didn't qualify for Drama the way Avatar did! Hunh?
The Golden Globes also lump in television into their awards. Now, there's nothing wrong with TV, but throwing it into the mix is like comparing apples to oranges. The star wattage between the two is megawatts in difference. Funny that.
There. The rant is done. Perhaps fueled by Avatar's win. But then I look at the films and realize I don't think anything about them. Weird. Who knows what the Oscar race is going to be like?
Labels: oscar pool, WTF
Labels: anime, baseball, link fest, mini, nendoroid, thoughts, wishing for a pony
The premise of It's Complicated is that Meryl Streep's character has an affair with her ex who is married to a young woman. She is also courted by her architect. Hijinks ensue.
The first impression I had was this movie has those roles that are well written for women. Streep's character is well rounded. She's not the screachy ex-wife, but has enough contempt towards her ex even though they fall back into bed. She's not a caricature. Her motivations are many: vengence, remind her she's sexy, nostalgia. She's got it all and Streep plays the character with conviction expressing each motive in subtle ways.
The only fault of the movie is that it plays the "will they or won't they" theme between the ex-es. Will they renew their relationship as husband and wife? It wasn't hard to tell where that plot thread was going so that Alec Baldwin's plea at the end seemed hollow and forced -- like Myers couldn't write for a man. Always move forward never backward and spinning, spinning towards the future.
The dude from the Office was a distraction as they should've used someone less famous. I thought he was going to do something, but ended up doing nothing.
The real star is Streep. The real story revolves around her. She makes it all look so effortless. And why is she so old.
3 of 5 stars.
Labels: ha ha, you'll need babelfish
Rogers Hornsby
Who does like to work? I sure don't and on my current project, I'm about at the stage of not caring. If it was only better, or something I would've wanted to do, then maybe I would actually attempt something, but I'm just checking out things.
I'm giving some links here that discuss animation. If you remember of my take on the last decade of film, the Pixar film, The Incredibles, was the one film to really stick with me through the decade. I had said that watching that had been a revelation of what animation as a medium can do. Also, I expressed my disappointment in the rest of American animation. It doesn't try to stretch the boundaries in terms of stories. Then I expressed fondness for the Japanese animation director, Miyazaki, and his Spirited Away. Is it international animation that is more daring?
So, I'm thinking that I have plenty of time on my hands to research and understand the state of animated films. In particular I want to look at the difference US and international animated films.
http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/search/label/Pixar%20Week
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2009/12/29/seitz_miyazaki/index.html
http://www.google.com/phone/static/en_US-nexusone_tech_specs.html
Good riddance.
Labels: nerd
Labels: get off your butt, go there now
