(I wrote this post last month, but decided at the last minute not to post it, because it was Christmas Eve, and I didn't think it was an appropriate time to rain on the Peace On Earth parade. Then I forgot to post it after the holidays were over. I'm leaving it as it was written on December 24, though, as they often do, my thoughts on the matter have eased back a bit.)
It's been six or seven years since I've seen Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator, but a few weeks ago I saw two references to it in as many days, specifically, this clip...
Inspiring and just as relevant today as it was in 1940, no? I got all inspired by it and decided to share it on the ol' Facebooks, but before I got around to it, I started a-thinkin'...
Here he is, talking about greed and cannon fodder as if it was a new development that we can overcome. But it's not new, and there's a reason why this is as relevant today as it was in 1940 - because human nature hasn't changed in the past 71 years. Or in the past 71,000 years. There has always been greed. There was always been those that would dominate others. Hell, you can see it happen with the runners-up in the Animal Kingdom Intelligence Competition, the apes and the dolphins. Did Charlie Chaplin really believe that the oppressed could unite against the "unnatural men" and bring about a world of peace and happiness?
Or, as Charlie Chaplin might say, has my knowledge made me overly cynical?
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Yodel-lay-de-Haiku!!
Happy Thanksgiving
Lots of turkey and stuffing
If you're into that
Went to see Muppets
Not too bad, really
Got kinda slow at one point
Ah, my chai/green tea
Is there nothing you can't do?
Happy times ahoy!
Getting hot in here
Gonna take off my sweater
I blame the chai tea
So, that's pretty much my day so far.
Lots of turkey and stuffing
If you're into that
Went to see Muppets
Not too bad, really
Got kinda slow at one point
Ah, my chai/green tea
Is there nothing you can't do?
Happy times ahoy!
Getting hot in here
Gonna take off my sweater
I blame the chai tea
So, that's pretty much my day so far.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Kickin' It 5-7-5
Gonna lay down some haiku now...
Blog banner is old
Wonder if PG will pose
New one PG-less?
Pizza Movie Night
Every Friday with PG
She picks the movie
Heffalump Movie
Not the best of the Pooh films
Not-great pizza too
Way too much candy
My desk is a sugar trap
Fattened for winter
Lest I offend fans of Pooh's Heffalump movie, I will note it's still better than a lot of the stuff PG watches. It's just not, you know, the best Pooh has to offer.
Blog banner is old
Wonder if PG will pose
New one PG-less?
Pizza Movie Night
Every Friday with PG
She picks the movie
Heffalump Movie
Not the best of the Pooh films
Not-great pizza too
Way too much candy
My desk is a sugar trap
Fattened for winter
Lest I offend fans of Pooh's Heffalump movie, I will note it's still better than a lot of the stuff PG watches. It's just not, you know, the best Pooh has to offer.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
In A Movie With Talking Robots That Turn Into Functional Cars, I Demand Some Reality!
I recently saw the third Transformers movie. The best one can say about it is that it was a movie that lasted about two and a half hours and had stuff happen in it.
Now, I'm willing to let some stuff slide. Things happening, just 'cause? Fine. The goofy dude has a hot girlfriend (albeit one with freakishly puffy lips)? Whatever. People get knocked around and go through glass and still get up and walk around like it ain't no thang? As you wish.
What I can't stand for is the scene when the Autobots go to the moon and the entire Apollo 11 lunar lander is there. Including the part that Armstrong and Aldrin blasted off in when they left the moon back in '69. Apparently, in this reality, the astronauts got back to the orbiting command module by just jumping up really, really hard? Um, yeah. No.
Now, I'm willing to let some stuff slide. Things happening, just 'cause? Fine. The goofy dude has a hot girlfriend (albeit one with freakishly puffy lips)? Whatever. People get knocked around and go through glass and still get up and walk around like it ain't no thang? As you wish.
What I can't stand for is the scene when the Autobots go to the moon and the entire Apollo 11 lunar lander is there. Including the part that Armstrong and Aldrin blasted off in when they left the moon back in '69. Apparently, in this reality, the astronauts got back to the orbiting command module by just jumping up really, really hard? Um, yeah. No.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Not Gonna Roll A 436,285,194,397,075 Again
A friend of mine recently Shared upon the Facebook a graphic, showing the odds that any specific person could have come into being. You can see it here. Spoiler alert: The odds are so small that they might as well be zero.
The point I'm about to make was inspired by just part of the chart, however. The part that says that the odds that your parents got together and had you, specifically, instead of a different kid, is 1 in 400 quadrillion.
Here's where it gets geeky. Here's where I talk about time travel like it's a real thing.
Maybe I'm alone in this, among my readers, but I have often thought about the possibilities if I could go back and do it over. I could double major in computer science and mass communications and be all set for getting into the web design biz as it was becoming a thing (though I was using the internet as early as 1987, the World Wide Web wasn't created until I was already about halfway through college, and I first heard of it about a week after I graduated.) I could buy Apple stock when my CompUSA co-workers were still insisting that Apple was not much longer for this world. I could bet on the last-place Twins and Braves meeting in the next year's World Series (assuming a 19-year-old would be allowed to place a bet anywhere.) Stuff like that. But even if I somehow got the ability to go back in time, with my 2011 knowledge, and do it over, I wouldn't. Because I like my daughter.
There is a lot going on in my life that's good, and most of it could be made to happen again. I met M at a specific time in a specific manner that would be easy enough to do again. But, as the aforementioned odds indicate, it would be pretty much impossible to ensure that PG, specifically, would exist in my new timeline. The... ahem... circumstances that led to her coming into being would have to occur at precisely the same nanosecond that they did before. I don't even know what day it was!
So no going back for me. I'm glad I came to this important decision, because it would totally be possible, otherwise.
While we're on the subject, this is also why Marty McFly and his siblings were doomed the moment he came into contact with his parents in 1955 in Back To The Future. There's no way Marty could have returned to 1985 and have anybody there know who he was.
The point I'm about to make was inspired by just part of the chart, however. The part that says that the odds that your parents got together and had you, specifically, instead of a different kid, is 1 in 400 quadrillion.
Here's where it gets geeky. Here's where I talk about time travel like it's a real thing.
Maybe I'm alone in this, among my readers, but I have often thought about the possibilities if I could go back and do it over. I could double major in computer science and mass communications and be all set for getting into the web design biz as it was becoming a thing (though I was using the internet as early as 1987, the World Wide Web wasn't created until I was already about halfway through college, and I first heard of it about a week after I graduated.) I could buy Apple stock when my CompUSA co-workers were still insisting that Apple was not much longer for this world. I could bet on the last-place Twins and Braves meeting in the next year's World Series (assuming a 19-year-old would be allowed to place a bet anywhere.) Stuff like that. But even if I somehow got the ability to go back in time, with my 2011 knowledge, and do it over, I wouldn't. Because I like my daughter.
There is a lot going on in my life that's good, and most of it could be made to happen again. I met M at a specific time in a specific manner that would be easy enough to do again. But, as the aforementioned odds indicate, it would be pretty much impossible to ensure that PG, specifically, would exist in my new timeline. The... ahem... circumstances that led to her coming into being would have to occur at precisely the same nanosecond that they did before. I don't even know what day it was!
So no going back for me. I'm glad I came to this important decision, because it would totally be possible, otherwise.
While we're on the subject, this is also why Marty McFly and his siblings were doomed the moment he came into contact with his parents in 1955 in Back To The Future. There's no way Marty could have returned to 1985 and have anybody there know who he was.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Twin Pines Mall, We Never Knew Ye
It's interesting that the 25th anniversary of Back To The Future is being celebrated not during the 25th anniversary of the movie's July 1985 release, but the 25th anniversary of when the movie takes place (the 1985 part of the movie, of course.)
Also interesting is that the DVD industry is so beholden to releasing DVDs on Tuesdays that they're releasing the Blu-rays on the 26th, even though the movie takes place on the 25th. (Edit: It has been pointed out - by me, to myself - that the movie ends on October 26. So there you go.)
Not that it's a huge deal or anything. Just figured that if they were going to coincide with the movie date, they may as well have gone all the way with it.
At least the digital re-release in theaters happens on the 25th (and the 23rd. Just those two times, apparently.) In my town, anyway.
Also interesting is that the DVD industry is so beholden to releasing DVDs on Tuesdays that they're releasing the Blu-rays on the 26th, even though the movie takes place on the 25th. (Edit: It has been pointed out - by me, to myself - that the movie ends on October 26. So there you go.)
Not that it's a huge deal or anything. Just figured that if they were going to coincide with the movie date, they may as well have gone all the way with it.
At least the digital re-release in theaters happens on the 25th (and the 23rd. Just those two times, apparently.) In my town, anyway.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
I Think I Remember The Film
This post was, of course, meant to go up on New Year's, but I forgot. I almost wasn't going to post it even after remembering, since I wonder if anyone actually, you know, cares what I saw. But I made the effort over the year to note what I saw (besides, I'm kinda fond of the Hulk comment,) so here you go.
Iron Man - Loved it, loved it, loved it. Robert Downey Jr. is awesome.
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull - I was a little disappointed, but still had a good time. Better than Temple of Doom. But up against the other two... it was OK.
The Incredible Hulk - To say that this was better than the 2003 Hulk movie is like saying chocolate is better than a punch in the stomach. Not quite as good as Iron Man, but it comes close.
The Dark Knight - If it wasn't for The Lord of The Rings, this would be the best movie of the decade.
Wall-E - Saw it at a drive-in with a 15 month old, so I was a bit distracted. What I saw looked good, though.
Quantum of Solace - It was okay, but not as good as Casino Royale.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Saw it in a pre-stadium-seating theater in North Carolina. It was pretty good (the movie, that is, although the theater wasn't all that bad either.) Kinda struck me as a Forrest Gump without the name dropping. I could have done without the framing device of a very old Cate Blanchet dying in a hospital bed in New Orleans while Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on the city. You better believe M could have done without that.
*********************************
And there you have it! Stay tuned a year from now to find out what I thought of Harry Potter 6, the Star Trek re-boot, Transformers 2, Watchmen (if 20 Century Fox's lawsuit doesn't stop the movie from seeing the light of day,) and maybe even the Wolverine and Terminator movies! Possibly some higher brow stuff too!
(Song reference "Breakfast At Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something.)
Iron Man - Loved it, loved it, loved it. Robert Downey Jr. is awesome.
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull - I was a little disappointed, but still had a good time. Better than Temple of Doom. But up against the other two... it was OK.
The Incredible Hulk - To say that this was better than the 2003 Hulk movie is like saying chocolate is better than a punch in the stomach. Not quite as good as Iron Man, but it comes close.
The Dark Knight - If it wasn't for The Lord of The Rings, this would be the best movie of the decade.
Wall-E - Saw it at a drive-in with a 15 month old, so I was a bit distracted. What I saw looked good, though.
Quantum of Solace - It was okay, but not as good as Casino Royale.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Saw it in a pre-stadium-seating theater in North Carolina. It was pretty good (the movie, that is, although the theater wasn't all that bad either.) Kinda struck me as a Forrest Gump without the name dropping. I could have done without the framing device of a very old Cate Blanchet dying in a hospital bed in New Orleans while Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on the city. You better believe M could have done without that.
*********************************
And there you have it! Stay tuned a year from now to find out what I thought of Harry Potter 6, the Star Trek re-boot, Transformers 2, Watchmen (if 20 Century Fox's lawsuit doesn't stop the movie from seeing the light of day,) and maybe even the Wolverine and Terminator movies! Possibly some higher brow stuff too!
(Song reference "Breakfast At Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something.)
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Mission Not So Accomplished
As promised, here is the report on our drive-in movie adventure. It didn't go as smoothly as planned.
The drive-in itself was nice. It had a lot of rules though. Headlights had to be turned off before we entered the theater (so you don't shine your lights onto the screen.) I was a bit worried about this, since our car has running lights that never turn off. But the girl at the box office told me how to disable that, by turning off the car, putting the emergency brake up one click and starting 'er back up. There were a lot of other rules, about wearing shoes, about where tall cars (SUVs, etc.) had to go, stuff like that.
The thing is, those rules were drummed into our heads. The website had them. The pamphlet we got at the box office (along with a garbage bag for our trash) had them. And the owner got on the speakers before the movie started and went over them again in excruciating detail, complete with frequent explanation for why such and such rule exists. He did it in a friendly, familiar kind of way, but still... It was a bit much. It didn't help that the guy had an annoyingly nasal voice.
Otherwise, it was a nice place. The problem was with PG.
The odds were stacked in our favor; PG hardly took a nap at daycare, a place that has been tiring her out a lot, even with a good nap, lately. So I was optimistic that she would sleep through both movies. That she could barely stay awake during dinner made me all the more optimistic.
Sadly, she got a second wind between dinner and time to leave and ended up not falling asleep until we were almost at the drive-in. She stayed asleep until the theater owner came on and did his spiel about the rules and how awesome his theater is. She didn't like his voice either.
So M took her out of her car seat and held her on her lap in the front seat. There's a chance PG might have fallen back asleep during the opening cartoon (the one that comes with Wall-E,) but Nasal Guy came back on after the cartoon and put an end to that. PG wouldn't get anywhere close to sleeping again during the remainder of our stay there.
It didn't help that it was a hot, humid night, especially in the car, and absolutely inside PG's car seat inside the car. One of the many rules of the drive-in was that you can't leave your car running (because "CARBON MONOXIDE is POISON,") so we couldn't run the AC. This proved to be especially brutal when PG started fussing, and I rolled up the windows to spare our neighbors the noise.
We did stick around for all of Wall-E, but neither of us paid close attention to it. We kept our attention on keeping PG from fussing. Luckily, she found the movie and the people watching it interesting, so it was just a matter of walking to different points around the car, so she could see everything and everybody from a different perspective. At one point, she said "Wa-zis?" so I explained the concept of the drive-in to her, on the off-chance that she was, indeed, asking "What's this?"
It was obvious that PG wasn't going to sleep as long as we stayed at the drive-in, so we left before The Dark Knight started. That was a shame, since M still has yet to see it, and we would have gotten two movies for our $8 each (three, if we had stuck around for the 1 AM showing of Journey To The Center of The Earth, which was never in the cards for oh so many reasons.) On the other hand, we were both exhausted, so PG probably did us a favor. There will be other weekends for Dark Knight.
I'd like to go to the drive-in again sometime, but not until PG is old enough to watch the movies with us and behave. Unless we can find a babysitter that doesn't mind us being out to all hours of the night.
The drive-in itself was nice. It had a lot of rules though. Headlights had to be turned off before we entered the theater (so you don't shine your lights onto the screen.) I was a bit worried about this, since our car has running lights that never turn off. But the girl at the box office told me how to disable that, by turning off the car, putting the emergency brake up one click and starting 'er back up. There were a lot of other rules, about wearing shoes, about where tall cars (SUVs, etc.) had to go, stuff like that.
The thing is, those rules were drummed into our heads. The website had them. The pamphlet we got at the box office (along with a garbage bag for our trash) had them. And the owner got on the speakers before the movie started and went over them again in excruciating detail, complete with frequent explanation for why such and such rule exists. He did it in a friendly, familiar kind of way, but still... It was a bit much. It didn't help that the guy had an annoyingly nasal voice.
Otherwise, it was a nice place. The problem was with PG.
The odds were stacked in our favor; PG hardly took a nap at daycare, a place that has been tiring her out a lot, even with a good nap, lately. So I was optimistic that she would sleep through both movies. That she could barely stay awake during dinner made me all the more optimistic.
Sadly, she got a second wind between dinner and time to leave and ended up not falling asleep until we were almost at the drive-in. She stayed asleep until the theater owner came on and did his spiel about the rules and how awesome his theater is. She didn't like his voice either.
So M took her out of her car seat and held her on her lap in the front seat. There's a chance PG might have fallen back asleep during the opening cartoon (the one that comes with Wall-E,) but Nasal Guy came back on after the cartoon and put an end to that. PG wouldn't get anywhere close to sleeping again during the remainder of our stay there.
It didn't help that it was a hot, humid night, especially in the car, and absolutely inside PG's car seat inside the car. One of the many rules of the drive-in was that you can't leave your car running (because "CARBON MONOXIDE is POISON,") so we couldn't run the AC. This proved to be especially brutal when PG started fussing, and I rolled up the windows to spare our neighbors the noise.
We did stick around for all of Wall-E, but neither of us paid close attention to it. We kept our attention on keeping PG from fussing. Luckily, she found the movie and the people watching it interesting, so it was just a matter of walking to different points around the car, so she could see everything and everybody from a different perspective. At one point, she said "Wa-zis?" so I explained the concept of the drive-in to her, on the off-chance that she was, indeed, asking "What's this?"
It was obvious that PG wasn't going to sleep as long as we stayed at the drive-in, so we left before The Dark Knight started. That was a shame, since M still has yet to see it, and we would have gotten two movies for our $8 each (three, if we had stuck around for the 1 AM showing of Journey To The Center of The Earth, which was never in the cards for oh so many reasons.) On the other hand, we were both exhausted, so PG probably did us a favor. There will be other weekends for Dark Knight.
I'd like to go to the drive-in again sometime, but not until PG is old enough to watch the movies with us and behave. Unless we can find a babysitter that doesn't mind us being out to all hours of the night.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Oh Yeah... I Have A Blog
Yup. Kinda lost track of time. Here's what's been going down.
* When up to the lake the week that PG's daycare was closed for vacation. A fine time was had. It would have been nice to have seen everyone else who usually goes up, but the scheduling just didn't work out this year. It got pretty hot towards the end of the week. I could have done without that. I see that the temperatures up there are supposed to be pretty nice this upcoming week (the week that we normally would have been up there.) Oh well. Enjoy, everybody who's up there!
* Our quest to get a Wii Fit has finally come to an end. After haunting the Wii Fit page of wiitracker.com for a few days, I finally managed to order a bundle from Toys R Us.com that included We Ski and a cover for the balance board. Two days earlier, I had ordered the same thing from the same place, but didn't finish the ordering process before the supply ran out. So good news that Toys R Us was able to restock that quickly.
* After a great many months of talking about it, M and I finally got new cell phones. We both got LG Chocolates (not the new version that's just now coming out) for free, by virtue of having had our old phones for as long as we did, qualifying us for the discount.
As it happens, we received the Wii Fit and our new phones (which we had ordered online and where shipped to us) on the same day. So that was a pretty big day, UPS and FedEx-wise.
* PG's walking like a maniac (both metaphorically and, I suppose, literally) now. She still has a few balance issues, but they should work themselves out soon.
The talking, however, still hasn't really come. It's still all PG language all the time, with a few suspect words, such as "up," that may or may not have come at appropriate times on purpose.
She is getting pretty good at pointing at what she wants, though. The other night, after her bath, M told her that Daddy was coming upstairs to read some stories. PG pointed at the crib and grunted. That kid has been pretty sleepy in the evening lately. I blame the extra walking and her refusal to nap much at daycare.
* I saw The Dark Knight last week. I do believe it's my new favorite movie, edging out Return of The King because it's about an hour shorter.
* Two movie trailers, based on two of my favorite books of all time, have come out, and they have knocked my socks off, so to speak. Please to enjoy...
(HD version can be found here)
(An HD version can be found at Moviefone.)
That's about it for now. We're planning on seeing Wall-E and The Dark Knight at our local drive-in tonight, hopefully with a sleeping baby in our back seat. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes. It will be my first drive-in movie ever.
* When up to the lake the week that PG's daycare was closed for vacation. A fine time was had. It would have been nice to have seen everyone else who usually goes up, but the scheduling just didn't work out this year. It got pretty hot towards the end of the week. I could have done without that. I see that the temperatures up there are supposed to be pretty nice this upcoming week (the week that we normally would have been up there.) Oh well. Enjoy, everybody who's up there!
* Our quest to get a Wii Fit has finally come to an end. After haunting the Wii Fit page of wiitracker.com for a few days, I finally managed to order a bundle from Toys R Us.com that included We Ski and a cover for the balance board. Two days earlier, I had ordered the same thing from the same place, but didn't finish the ordering process before the supply ran out. So good news that Toys R Us was able to restock that quickly.
* After a great many months of talking about it, M and I finally got new cell phones. We both got LG Chocolates (not the new version that's just now coming out) for free, by virtue of having had our old phones for as long as we did, qualifying us for the discount.
As it happens, we received the Wii Fit and our new phones (which we had ordered online and where shipped to us) on the same day. So that was a pretty big day, UPS and FedEx-wise.
* PG's walking like a maniac (both metaphorically and, I suppose, literally) now. She still has a few balance issues, but they should work themselves out soon.
The talking, however, still hasn't really come. It's still all PG language all the time, with a few suspect words, such as "up," that may or may not have come at appropriate times on purpose.
She is getting pretty good at pointing at what she wants, though. The other night, after her bath, M told her that Daddy was coming upstairs to read some stories. PG pointed at the crib and grunted. That kid has been pretty sleepy in the evening lately. I blame the extra walking and her refusal to nap much at daycare.
* I saw The Dark Knight last week. I do believe it's my new favorite movie, edging out Return of The King because it's about an hour shorter.
* Two movie trailers, based on two of my favorite books of all time, have come out, and they have knocked my socks off, so to speak. Please to enjoy...
(HD version can be found here)
(An HD version can be found at Moviefone.)
That's about it for now. We're planning on seeing Wall-E and The Dark Knight at our local drive-in tonight, hopefully with a sleeping baby in our back seat. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes. It will be my first drive-in movie ever.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Five Minutes, I Tells Ya!
Y'know, I forgot to mention the lovely time M and I had at the Maryland Film Festival the Friday before last. And by "lovely," I mean, "kinda just OK."
As my longtime readers (particularly those who know me from the pre-blog, K-World times) know, M and I used to go to the Maryland Film Festival every year, where M would run the box office, and I'd see a bunch of free movies, and one of us would have a great time. Then PrettyGirl came along, and we had to give last year's Film Festival a pass.
But PG is in daycare now, giving us an opportunity to go see one day of movies without having to make any extra effort to score a babysitter. So we both took off work and did just that.
Unfortunately, the movies we saw were, by and large, not all that great.
Well, first of all, there was the fun and frolic in the box office tent. The plan had been to get Friend of The Festival passes, because that allowed us to see as many movies as we wanted on that Friend of The Festival Friday, plus free tickets to Festival showings throughout the year. But, upon arriving at the F0TF table in the tent, we found that M's student discount (she's taking MBA classes, did I ever mention that? News for another time, I guess) would only apply to her pass and not mine. So, after a quick pow-wow, we decided just to get two regular day passes from the regular box office table.
After waiting in line at the regular box office table for about 15 minutes without getting anywhere, because all but one of the cashiers were unable to take credit cards, we went back to the FoTF table and got our Friend passes.
A plus side to the long wait is that I had time to check out this year's shirt, deem it worthy of being seen on my person, and buy it. And if I had waited until after we had changed our minds about the Friend passes and gotten them, I could have gotten 10% off that shirt. Oh well. I guess that's fewer chai teas I could buy with the $2.00 I would have saved.
So, with our Friend passes finally in our possession and little time to spare, we set off to see our first movie. Or, in this case, collection of documentary shorts. The documentary about drive-in movie theaters was interesting, but the rest literally put me to sleep.
Next came the Comedy Shorts, which is usually a good collection. Not so much this year. There were a couple of good ones, particularly one where Pete and Brian both hit on a friend's sister and find themselves somehow saying the exact same thing at the exact same time and unable to stop, even after coming up with out-of-nowhere things to say. And there's one with a couple of guys busting out of things, which gets pretty creative. The other five or six shorts fell flat, though.
With three hours gone, we had time for just one more feature-length movie, so we saw Goliath, about a guy who gets divorced, gets demoted at work, and then his cat runs away. Sounds depressing when I put it like that, and it is, actually, but it was billed as a comedy, and the picture in the program had a still from the movie wherein our hero is walking down the road with a portable battery and a can opener to call his cat back (cats do love the electric can openers.) So we decided to give it a shot.
It had its moments, but it could have used a lot of editing. At one point, our hero and his about-to-be-ex-wife sign divorce papers. For about two or three minutes. Just signing and initialing. No dialogue. No music. Just two people sitting at a table, each paging through a big pile of papers and signing. And then, they switched piles of paper and. did. the. whole. thing. all. over. again. Five minutes (at least it felt like it) of paper signing, and then the scene was done.
It was at that point that I turned to M and said, "This is so much better than Iron Man would have been."
And, after watching our hero drive from his house to another house in real-time, I wondered what exactly the editor had done to make the producer fire him before he was done editing the movie.
So, all in all, I'd say it wasn't one of our better Film Festival experiences, though I would imagine that M would rather watch five hours of paper signing and silent driving rather than have to be in charge of a box office with non-working credit card machines.
As my longtime readers (particularly those who know me from the pre-blog, K-World times) know, M and I used to go to the Maryland Film Festival every year, where M would run the box office, and I'd see a bunch of free movies, and one of us would have a great time. Then PrettyGirl came along, and we had to give last year's Film Festival a pass.
But PG is in daycare now, giving us an opportunity to go see one day of movies without having to make any extra effort to score a babysitter. So we both took off work and did just that.
Unfortunately, the movies we saw were, by and large, not all that great.
Well, first of all, there was the fun and frolic in the box office tent. The plan had been to get Friend of The Festival passes, because that allowed us to see as many movies as we wanted on that Friend of The Festival Friday, plus free tickets to Festival showings throughout the year. But, upon arriving at the F0TF table in the tent, we found that M's student discount (she's taking MBA classes, did I ever mention that? News for another time, I guess) would only apply to her pass and not mine. So, after a quick pow-wow, we decided just to get two regular day passes from the regular box office table.
After waiting in line at the regular box office table for about 15 minutes without getting anywhere, because all but one of the cashiers were unable to take credit cards, we went back to the FoTF table and got our Friend passes.
A plus side to the long wait is that I had time to check out this year's shirt, deem it worthy of being seen on my person, and buy it. And if I had waited until after we had changed our minds about the Friend passes and gotten them, I could have gotten 10% off that shirt. Oh well. I guess that's fewer chai teas I could buy with the $2.00 I would have saved.
So, with our Friend passes finally in our possession and little time to spare, we set off to see our first movie. Or, in this case, collection of documentary shorts. The documentary about drive-in movie theaters was interesting, but the rest literally put me to sleep.
Next came the Comedy Shorts, which is usually a good collection. Not so much this year. There were a couple of good ones, particularly one where Pete and Brian both hit on a friend's sister and find themselves somehow saying the exact same thing at the exact same time and unable to stop, even after coming up with out-of-nowhere things to say. And there's one with a couple of guys busting out of things, which gets pretty creative. The other five or six shorts fell flat, though.
With three hours gone, we had time for just one more feature-length movie, so we saw Goliath, about a guy who gets divorced, gets demoted at work, and then his cat runs away. Sounds depressing when I put it like that, and it is, actually, but it was billed as a comedy, and the picture in the program had a still from the movie wherein our hero is walking down the road with a portable battery and a can opener to call his cat back (cats do love the electric can openers.) So we decided to give it a shot.
It had its moments, but it could have used a lot of editing. At one point, our hero and his about-to-be-ex-wife sign divorce papers. For about two or three minutes. Just signing and initialing. No dialogue. No music. Just two people sitting at a table, each paging through a big pile of papers and signing. And then, they switched piles of paper and. did. the. whole. thing. all. over. again. Five minutes (at least it felt like it) of paper signing, and then the scene was done.
It was at that point that I turned to M and said, "This is so much better than Iron Man would have been."
And, after watching our hero drive from his house to another house in real-time, I wondered what exactly the editor had done to make the producer fire him before he was done editing the movie.
So, all in all, I'd say it wasn't one of our better Film Festival experiences, though I would imagine that M would rather watch five hours of paper signing and silent driving rather than have to be in charge of a box office with non-working credit card machines.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
NewsFlash! Missing Blogmaster Found Emerging From Creative Rut! Both Remaining Regular Readers Possibly Rejoicing!
I'm back from my bout of laziness and lack of creativity. Allow me to summarize what's happened since my last post.
* PG is still doing the same stuff she was doing before, only more often and with better skill. Actually, there is one new thing. That deserves its own post.
* Iron Man was fa-reakin' awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!1!!!
* That's pretty much it, actually.
Now I don't feel so bad about not posting in a while. Not much has happened!
More about PG soon!
* PG is still doing the same stuff she was doing before, only more often and with better skill. Actually, there is one new thing. That deserves its own post.
* Iron Man was fa-reakin' awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!1!!!
* That's pretty much it, actually.
Now I don't feel so bad about not posting in a while. Not much has happened!
More about PG soon!
Friday, February 15, 2008
Two Words: Aw. Yeah.
Between this and Iron Man, it could be a very good May this year.
I got this from Yahoo Movies. You can see a larger version (HD versions too) there.
I got this from Yahoo Movies. You can see a larger version (HD versions too) there.
Friday, January 04, 2008
2007 Movies
I actually started this on time this year (February 21, the day after seeing my first 2007 movie) and managed to post about each movie shortly after seeing them. And then I forgot about the list by the time New Year's came along, so now it's getting posted four days late. Such is life.
Music and Lyrics - as romantic comedies go, this is one of the best I've seen. I think the music helped a lot.
300 - Truly a visual treat, so long as you don't mind the frequent slow motion and extremely embellished history.
The Hoax - The last movie M and I saw before PG came along (like, 3 days before). I was impressed with Richard Gere.
Spiderman 3 - Disappointing. They kinda dropped the ball with many things. Upon a second viewing, I determined that the first part of it is OK, but once Venom shows up, it's like they were trying to emulate Batman and Robin (but, thankfully, not attaining that particular level of suck.)
Transformers - So very cool, yet so often silly. Dragged a little at times, but I imagine a second (and third, etc) viewing will be better. That's often the case with me.
Post-Second-Viewing Review: Nope, not really better. I could have done without Optimus Prime saying "My bad" when stepping on a backyard fountain like a total spaz. C'mon guys... this is Optimus Freakin' Prime fer crying out loud!
And the clunky plot, with the overacting and unnecessary side stories, had a bit of a Godzilla (1998 flavor) reek to it.
But the transforming was cool, albeit without the famous sound effect.
Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix - The best of the series thus far. There's lot of stuff that only really makes sense if you've read the book, but I have read the book (three times,) so I was good to go. Definitely a Cliff Notes version, which was, of course, necessary. I was cool with the changes, and, in some cases, they improved the story. Like getting rid of almost all of Harry's whining and moaning that made the book one of my least favorites of the series.
In The Shadow Of The Moon - Loved it. I had heard that every living Apollo astronaut participated in this, so I was disappointed when only about six or seven of them showed up as talking heads, but otherwise, I thought it was great! Lots of never-before-seen footage made this NASA geek quite happy!
And that, my friends, was the last movie I saw in 2007, and that was in October. The combination of having a baby in the house and having a hang-up about seeing movies alone (never done it - too depressingly lonely!) prevented me from seeing anything except the movies I really, really wanted to see. Movies like Fantastic Four 2, Pirates of The Caribbean, Die Hard 4, The Simpsons Movie, Sweeney Todd, National Treasure 2, and such were relegated to Netflix. Such is life.
Music and Lyrics - as romantic comedies go, this is one of the best I've seen. I think the music helped a lot.
300 - Truly a visual treat, so long as you don't mind the frequent slow motion and extremely embellished history.
The Hoax - The last movie M and I saw before PG came along (like, 3 days before). I was impressed with Richard Gere.
Spiderman 3 - Disappointing. They kinda dropped the ball with many things. Upon a second viewing, I determined that the first part of it is OK, but once Venom shows up, it's like they were trying to emulate Batman and Robin (but, thankfully, not attaining that particular level of suck.)
Transformers - So very cool, yet so often silly. Dragged a little at times, but I imagine a second (and third, etc) viewing will be better. That's often the case with me.
Post-Second-Viewing Review: Nope, not really better. I could have done without Optimus Prime saying "My bad" when stepping on a backyard fountain like a total spaz. C'mon guys... this is Optimus Freakin' Prime fer crying out loud!
And the clunky plot, with the overacting and unnecessary side stories, had a bit of a Godzilla (1998 flavor) reek to it.
But the transforming was cool, albeit without the famous sound effect.
Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix - The best of the series thus far. There's lot of stuff that only really makes sense if you've read the book, but I have read the book (three times,) so I was good to go. Definitely a Cliff Notes version, which was, of course, necessary. I was cool with the changes, and, in some cases, they improved the story. Like getting rid of almost all of Harry's whining and moaning that made the book one of my least favorites of the series.
In The Shadow Of The Moon - Loved it. I had heard that every living Apollo astronaut participated in this, so I was disappointed when only about six or seven of them showed up as talking heads, but otherwise, I thought it was great! Lots of never-before-seen footage made this NASA geek quite happy!
And that, my friends, was the last movie I saw in 2007, and that was in October. The combination of having a baby in the house and having a hang-up about seeing movies alone (never done it - too depressingly lonely!) prevented me from seeing anything except the movies I really, really wanted to see. Movies like Fantastic Four 2, Pirates of The Caribbean, Die Hard 4, The Simpsons Movie, Sweeney Todd, National Treasure 2, and such were relegated to Netflix. Such is life.
Monday, December 17, 2007
We Now Return You To Our Regularly Scheduled Program
I think I've taken a long enough break. Back to the action!
School has finally ended! I got my Master Certificate in Digital Multimedia and Web Design, and I'm ready to get a high-paying job to pay off the ridiculously high cost of going to school!
If you're interested in seeing my final Flash project, get ye to www.rickhome.com/flash. The History link just goes to the regular flavor HTML version of the section that's been there for years. I just put it there to keep the other link from being lonely. Also, my original intent was to have a link to most of, if not all of, the usual RickHome sections, but time proved to a luxury I did not have. So I only got as far as making a link to the History section and a link to a special Flash version of Picture Pages (with pictures taken from the Picasa albums, not the usual pictures that have been on the old Picture Pages all these years) before stopping.
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So. That freelance gig that I mentioned in my last post? Yeah... didn't happen. They found someone else who would do it for free. I would have done it for free too, but they didn't ask me! Oh well.
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I just found out the other day that they made a sequel to A Christmas Story! And it sucked hard!
Leonard Maltin was being interviewed on the radio, talking about Christmas movies, and he said that they were all ready to make a movie out of My Summer Story, with Peter "Ralphie" Billingsly and Darren "Dad" McGavin, and everybody, right after they had finished filming A Christmas Story. But the studio passed on it. And then Christmas Story became a big holiday classic, so the studio eventually decided that a sequel would be a good idea after all. Unfortunately, everybody who appeared in A Christmas Story either had grown up or were unavailable by that time. So the dad became Charles Grodin, Raphie became McCauley Culkin's brother, and the little brother (I can't get uuuuuupp!) became an even younger Culkin. And word on the streets is that it was a disaster.
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I met a baby the other day that looks like Buddy Hackett. It's interesting how having a baby of your own can color your perception of other babies. F'r'instance, there's a baby I knew a few years back that I thought was pretty cute at the time. But now, looking at pictures, I think the baby had a freakishly large head and was a bit creepy to look at. Probably looks good now, though. I haven't seen the child in question for a long time.
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There were two streaks going this NFL season: New England's undefeated streak and Miami's unvictorious streak. Two weeks after almost beating New England and ending their streak, the Baltimore Ravens became the first team to lose to Miami this season, thus ending that streak. This pretty much sums up the roller coaster ride the Ravens have put us on this year.
The Ravens should have won the New England game. Stupid refs.
School has finally ended! I got my Master Certificate in Digital Multimedia and Web Design, and I'm ready to get a high-paying job to pay off the ridiculously high cost of going to school!
If you're interested in seeing my final Flash project, get ye to www.rickhome.com/flash. The History link just goes to the regular flavor HTML version of the section that's been there for years. I just put it there to keep the other link from being lonely. Also, my original intent was to have a link to most of, if not all of, the usual RickHome sections, but time proved to a luxury I did not have. So I only got as far as making a link to the History section and a link to a special Flash version of Picture Pages (with pictures taken from the Picasa albums, not the usual pictures that have been on the old Picture Pages all these years) before stopping.
********************
So. That freelance gig that I mentioned in my last post? Yeah... didn't happen. They found someone else who would do it for free. I would have done it for free too, but they didn't ask me! Oh well.
********************
I just found out the other day that they made a sequel to A Christmas Story! And it sucked hard!
Leonard Maltin was being interviewed on the radio, talking about Christmas movies, and he said that they were all ready to make a movie out of My Summer Story, with Peter "Ralphie" Billingsly and Darren "Dad" McGavin, and everybody, right after they had finished filming A Christmas Story. But the studio passed on it. And then Christmas Story became a big holiday classic, so the studio eventually decided that a sequel would be a good idea after all. Unfortunately, everybody who appeared in A Christmas Story either had grown up or were unavailable by that time. So the dad became Charles Grodin, Raphie became McCauley Culkin's brother, and the little brother (I can't get uuuuuupp!) became an even younger Culkin. And word on the streets is that it was a disaster.
********************
I met a baby the other day that looks like Buddy Hackett. It's interesting how having a baby of your own can color your perception of other babies. F'r'instance, there's a baby I knew a few years back that I thought was pretty cute at the time. But now, looking at pictures, I think the baby had a freakishly large head and was a bit creepy to look at. Probably looks good now, though. I haven't seen the child in question for a long time.
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There were two streaks going this NFL season: New England's undefeated streak and Miami's unvictorious streak. Two weeks after almost beating New England and ending their streak, the Baltimore Ravens became the first team to lose to Miami this season, thus ending that streak. This pretty much sums up the roller coaster ride the Ravens have put us on this year.
The Ravens should have won the New England game. Stupid refs.
Friday, November 16, 2007
An Evening of Giggly Babies and Giant Robots
M went to an invitation-only Tot Swap (like a flea market of baby clothes and toys) tonight, so I soloed the baby feeding and bathing and putting to bed. PrettyGirl was in a good mood, so it went pretty smoothly. We made each other laugh. Quite the comedian, that kid. Then I cooked up some spaghetti and watched Transformers. It was a good night.
As for last night, PG did indeed leave us (and herself) in peace for most of the remainder of the night. She woke up around 5:15 and yelled a little, though. We stayed put and let her yell, even when she ramped things up a little about 20 minutes later. Eventually, she went back to sleep. Or at least, I think she did. I fell back asleep before she did. So far, she's been quiet tonight. This will be the last update on the mundane subject of my daughter's sleeping habits, I promise.
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At some point between my drive into work this morning and my drive home this evening, the radio station I listen to on the western leg of my commute started its annual tradition of playing nothing but Christmas songs. And it's only the 16th of November. The Babies R' Us near our house was playing Christmas music when we were there last Saturday, the 10th. What happened to holding off until after Thanksgiving?
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PG is no longer the youngest at day care. Another baby has muscled in on her monopoly. PG's boyfriend's twin brother has become a fan of the new kid, but Glasses McBlabberson's heart still belongs to PG.
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Another night where I get my post in just under the wire. Sheesh.
As for last night, PG did indeed leave us (and herself) in peace for most of the remainder of the night. She woke up around 5:15 and yelled a little, though. We stayed put and let her yell, even when she ramped things up a little about 20 minutes later. Eventually, she went back to sleep. Or at least, I think she did. I fell back asleep before she did. So far, she's been quiet tonight. This will be the last update on the mundane subject of my daughter's sleeping habits, I promise.
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At some point between my drive into work this morning and my drive home this evening, the radio station I listen to on the western leg of my commute started its annual tradition of playing nothing but Christmas songs. And it's only the 16th of November. The Babies R' Us near our house was playing Christmas music when we were there last Saturday, the 10th. What happened to holding off until after Thanksgiving?
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PG is no longer the youngest at day care. Another baby has muscled in on her monopoly. PG's boyfriend's twin brother has become a fan of the new kid, but Glasses McBlabberson's heart still belongs to PG.
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Another night where I get my post in just under the wire. Sheesh.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Kicking Things Back Into Gear
My story-telling skills have gotten a bit rusty during this long hiatus, so I'm going to limit this to blurbs.
* See the new banner? That's just a placeholder until I can come up with something a bit more elaborate, but you get the idea.
* PrettyGirl was a very good little girl for much of our vacation to Redbrook. It took us about seven and a half hours to get there; PG gave us a total of maybe five minutes grief along the way, when traffic got held up by a truck spillage. M broke out the New Orleans music CD, which cheered PG up a lot, so the 50 minute standstill was mostly fuss-free.
The trip back took a little over eight hours; We got maybe another ten minutes of fussing over the space of that time, most of it during yet another traffic jam. Had we not gotten stuck in traffic, she probably wouldn't have complained at all!
Furthermore, we went to see a movie one afternoon, being as it was pretty hot and AC-free up at Redbrook, and we wanted to get into some conditioned air for a while. Naturally, PrettyGirl went with us. She slept through all of the previews and all but the last 10 minutes of Harry Potter 5, which is not a short movie. I did have to miss those last ten minutes, because she started yelling, but I had already seen Harry Potter 5, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
If PG keeps this up, she's getting a Porsche for her 16th birthday. I've already told her.
* PG found herself a new #1 Fan in her third-cousin Nate up at Redbrook. He even helped us change an especially messy diaper! Voluntarily! He definitely earned his diaper badge that day.
* My cousin is starting college this week or next week. He was born a few days before I started college. This makes me feel a little bit old.
* I almost bought a new pair of running shoes over the weekend. The only thing that held me back is that my uncle and my cousin (not the one going to college - his younger bro) were in town for our fantasy football draft, and I ended up hanging out with them afterwards instead. I can always get running shoes next weekend. Hopefully this perfect running weather holds up! Just as well if it doesn't; I'll be doing five-minute runs the first few times anyway.
* See the new banner? That's just a placeholder until I can come up with something a bit more elaborate, but you get the idea.
* PrettyGirl was a very good little girl for much of our vacation to Redbrook. It took us about seven and a half hours to get there; PG gave us a total of maybe five minutes grief along the way, when traffic got held up by a truck spillage. M broke out the New Orleans music CD, which cheered PG up a lot, so the 50 minute standstill was mostly fuss-free.
The trip back took a little over eight hours; We got maybe another ten minutes of fussing over the space of that time, most of it during yet another traffic jam. Had we not gotten stuck in traffic, she probably wouldn't have complained at all!
Furthermore, we went to see a movie one afternoon, being as it was pretty hot and AC-free up at Redbrook, and we wanted to get into some conditioned air for a while. Naturally, PrettyGirl went with us. She slept through all of the previews and all but the last 10 minutes of Harry Potter 5, which is not a short movie. I did have to miss those last ten minutes, because she started yelling, but I had already seen Harry Potter 5, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
If PG keeps this up, she's getting a Porsche for her 16th birthday. I've already told her.
* PG found herself a new #1 Fan in her third-cousin Nate up at Redbrook. He even helped us change an especially messy diaper! Voluntarily! He definitely earned his diaper badge that day.
* My cousin is starting college this week or next week. He was born a few days before I started college. This makes me feel a little bit old.
* I almost bought a new pair of running shoes over the weekend. The only thing that held me back is that my uncle and my cousin (not the one going to college - his younger bro) were in town for our fantasy football draft, and I ended up hanging out with them afterwards instead. I can always get running shoes next weekend. Hopefully this perfect running weather holds up! Just as well if it doesn't; I'll be doing five-minute runs the first few times anyway.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Is The "Good Movie" Standard Really That Different After Ten Years?
Before we get into the topic at hand, I thought I'd let you all know that I decided to go ahead and post the uncut video of PrettyGirl in her bouncy seat. It starts out a little slow, but once the Weasel starts Poppin', there's more baby boogyin' to be seen.
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So the American Film Institute put out a new Top 100 movies list last night, which probably means we'll be getting a new list of Top 100 Comedies, Thrillers, etc. over the next few years. Either there was something wrong with the first list or there's something wrong with this one, because a lot of movies' ranks changed a lot. Vertigo, previously the 61st best movie in history, is now #9. The Searchers, once considered barely Top 100 material at #96 is now #12. The General, not even Top 100 material at all in 1997, is brand-new to the list at #18. That last one isn't a new movie, mind you - it's a Buster Keaton silent movie made in 1927.
What's going on here? As Maryann Johanson, over at FlickFilosopher, says, "Has the stature of John Ford [director of The Searchers] changed that much in a decade? Was there some revival of John Ford hysteria that I slept through?"
The same could be asked about Buster Keaton. Or, for that matter, about The African Queen, which plummeted from #17 to #65.
M and I turned to each other in disbelief when E.T. came in one notch above To Kill A Mockingbird. In retrospect, I guess E.T. is a fine movie, but they had just shown the Mockingbird scene when everybody stands up as Atticus Finch leaves the courtroom, and then followed that up with E.T. (and the 2002 version with the CGI E.T., to boot), and I guess we got caught up in the moment. The fact that To Kill A Mockingbird went up in rankings more than E.T. (E.T. used to be nine spots higher than Mockingbird,) shows that this list gets it a little more right. That, and the fact that Star Wars went up two spots to #13.
One disappointment, in a way, is that I can no longer say I've seen all ten of the Top Ten. Raging Bull got bumped up (a lot) to #4, and I've never seen it. And M and I don't particularly want to see it, based on what we've heard about it. We can do without movies about people with violent tempers that go off on everybody all the time.
You can see the list here. You can also go to the actual AFI site, but you have to log in to see the list. But if you do, you can download a PDF that allows you to check off which movies on the list you've seen and print it out for your own Netflix reference.
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| Ella Movies |
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So the American Film Institute put out a new Top 100 movies list last night, which probably means we'll be getting a new list of Top 100 Comedies, Thrillers, etc. over the next few years. Either there was something wrong with the first list or there's something wrong with this one, because a lot of movies' ranks changed a lot. Vertigo, previously the 61st best movie in history, is now #9. The Searchers, once considered barely Top 100 material at #96 is now #12. The General, not even Top 100 material at all in 1997, is brand-new to the list at #18. That last one isn't a new movie, mind you - it's a Buster Keaton silent movie made in 1927.
What's going on here? As Maryann Johanson, over at FlickFilosopher, says, "Has the stature of John Ford [director of The Searchers] changed that much in a decade? Was there some revival of John Ford hysteria that I slept through?"
The same could be asked about Buster Keaton. Or, for that matter, about The African Queen, which plummeted from #17 to #65.
M and I turned to each other in disbelief when E.T. came in one notch above To Kill A Mockingbird. In retrospect, I guess E.T. is a fine movie, but they had just shown the Mockingbird scene when everybody stands up as Atticus Finch leaves the courtroom, and then followed that up with E.T. (and the 2002 version with the CGI E.T., to boot), and I guess we got caught up in the moment. The fact that To Kill A Mockingbird went up in rankings more than E.T. (E.T. used to be nine spots higher than Mockingbird,) shows that this list gets it a little more right. That, and the fact that Star Wars went up two spots to #13.
One disappointment, in a way, is that I can no longer say I've seen all ten of the Top Ten. Raging Bull got bumped up (a lot) to #4, and I've never seen it. And M and I don't particularly want to see it, based on what we've heard about it. We can do without movies about people with violent tempers that go off on everybody all the time.
You can see the list here. You can also go to the actual AFI site, but you have to log in to see the list. But if you do, you can download a PDF that allows you to check off which movies on the list you've seen and print it out for your own Netflix reference.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
2006 Movies: The Best and The Worst
Update: I didn't realize it at the time, but this was my 100th post!
As I alluded to in a previous post, I've decided to do the retrospective differently this year. Instead of listing every single movie and writing a well-thought-out mini-review for each of them, I'm just going to address some standouts (you may call them awards, if you like) and then just throw out the complete list at the bottom for those who are interested. I'll probably add a comment to most of the movies on that list, but I'm not requiring myself to do so.
Mind you, as I did last year, I'm only including movies that I actually saw in a movie theater between 1/1/06 and 12/31/06.
Alrighty then, let's get the negative stuff out of the way first.
WORST MOVIE OF 2006
WINNER (or LOSER): Failure To Launch - Easy choice. So very easy. Romantic comedies are, for me, only mildly interesting, and the seemingly necessary need to put in some conflict, usually in the form of a misunderstanding or a bonehead move on the part of one of the parties, usually doesn't sit all that well with me. But I tolerate them and move on. Sometimes I even enjoy them (The Break Up springs to mind, but there are better ones too.)
Failure to Launch took it further, however, by having some of the most reprehensible characters ever to foul a movie screen. I'm talking, of course, of the parents and the soulless harpy that they hire to emotionally manipulate their son into leaving home because they completely lack the cajones to, oh I don't know, actually have a talk with him about their issues with his sponging off them.
Seriously, the mom does his laundry, cleans his room, cooks him his meals, and never says a word to him about it. But when mom and dad decide that enough's enough, do they go to their son and say "Son, maybe it's time you started pulling your own weight around here, or, even better, got your own place again"?
Why, as a matter of fact, they don't. They hire a woman who apparently has made an actual professional career of dating grown men who live with their parents (the syndrome is called "Failure to Launch", which would make for a snappy movie title, don't'cha think?), get them into a meaningful relationship that, for some reason, will, by itself, make them want to move out of their parents house, and then she dumps them and moves on once they've gotten their own place. Nice lady. I wonder if she strangles their dog on the way out the door too, just to put some punctuation on the abrupt end to their supposedly meaningful relationship.
Now, even if our hero (such as he is - he does use his living arrangement to scare off the ladies when they get too close, so he's not exactly a saint either) had been living with his parents non-stop for all of his 30-some years, that would be bad enough. But (I'm getting into spoilers now - I hope you forgive me) he has lived on his own before. He had a serious relationship with a woman before (he might have been married - I don't remember - but I don't think so.) And the girlfriend/wife died. So now he's being manipulated into finally loving someone again. Loving someone who's only with him because she's paid to do so and who has every intention of throwing him away as soon as her mission is done. You can't blame her for not knowing that part, since neither parent bothered to mention that little nugget of info. But the parents know his past, know why he moved back home, know why he's acting like a big teenager, and yet show no sensitivity to that whatsoever. Instead they passive-aggressively trick him into leaving home. And spend part of his inheritance on the project.
Of course, this time the mean lady falls in love with her clients' unwanted growth, and when our hero finds out the truth and sends her on her way, she's so sad. Boo-hoo-hoo. It's a relationship founded on a pretty gorram lowdown lie. It was doomed to fail anyway. Consider it a lesson learned and try to do better by the next guy that you go out with.
But that wouldn't work in a romantic comedy, especially not one with wacky friends who think that the best way to get people to fall back in love is to lock them in a room and force them to talk it out while the friends (and everyone else in the coffeehouse) watch it all happen on webcam. How wacky! Of course it works, making the ending not as good as the ideal ending wherein our hero would tell her that she is a truly horrible person and then take an axe to the door (after repressing the urge to use it on her first, of course) and leave the premises. Roll credits.
M has asked me to note that she liked the movie and thinks that I took it too seriously.
RUNNER-UP: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - Lots of potential, mediocre delivery. It came across too much like something you might see on The History Channel or PBS or whatever channel does those "what if there had been TV news in the 14th century?" shows. The writing and the acting seemed a little too forced.
Delivery aside, however, it did make me think about how different - and how similar - actual U.S. History has been. In some ways, it wasn't so much "what would have happened if the South won the Civil War" as it was "what if race attitudes hadn't changed since the early 20th century?" That's especially apparent in the "commericials" that are interspersed throughout the "documentary".
If only it had played more like an actual documentary. I mean, come on, have any of you seen a documentary that illustrates a historical battle with a scene from a movie based on that battle? It's like illustrating the World War I battle in Gallipoli with a scene from the Mel Gibson movie about that battle. That's what they do when they get to the part where the CSA invades South America. This movie could have been much more than it was.
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BEST MOVIE OF 2006
Happily, this was a close enough race to include two runners-up. These are the movies that, when I look back on them, I say to myself "Oh yeah, that was a good one!"
THIRD PLACE: Cars - I'm not much of a NASCAR fan in real life, but I love it when it has Pixar cars! A lot of people found it difficult to accept a world populated by cars acting like people and doing people things, and that took away from their enjoyment of the movie. I had no such problem. It had a great opening (with one of Sheryl Crow's best songs in recent years), great animation, it took the story in a better-than-expected (for me - your results may vary) direction, and had a great climax. Plus, NPR's Car Talk guys had a cameo!
RUNNER-UP (co-winner, really): Casino Royale - I'm not a huge follower of Bond movies. Until this one, the most recent one I'd seen was View To A Kill. That, For Your Eyes Only, and the first three Connery movies were the extent of my Bond experience. So saying that this was the best Bond movie I've seen (well, maybe second to From Russia With Love) probably doesn't hold the same weight it would if I had seen all 20 of its predecessors. It's true nonetheless.
Daniel Craig might not fit the Bond mold in the looks department, but man-o-man he's cool to watch. The action scenes are great without getting silly (I hear the Brosnan movies got pretty silly at times). The opening chase scene blew me away completely. How did that guy Bond was chasing move like that? That's worth a re-watch all by itself! Most of the action is just as good, but that opening (post-credits, though the pre-credits scene was no slouch either) was the best chase scene I've ever seen, bar none.
The movie does drag out a bit at the end, though I imagine it won't be as bad on a second viewing, now that I know how ahead of time how much more there is and where it's all going.
WINNER: Little Miss Sunshine - This gets the edge over Casino Royale because I was in the audience at its only showing (other than Sundance) before it hit general theaters a few months later. Thus, I feel like I'm part of its exclusive club. But it's a great movie even without that extra attachment. It's heartwarming without getting sappy. There are characters that are quirky but still realistic. Abigail Breslin does a great job without being anything more than the regular kid that she is (let's see Dakota Fanning pull that one off.) Steve Carrel gives such a great serious performance that I totally forgot that up until now I had only seen him being goofy on The Daily Show and in his supporting movie roles. Actually, he played it kinda straight in 40-Year-Old Virgin, so there's that.
And it's funny as hell at times. The thing with the VW bus is great. The beauty pageant at the end was hilarious. Alan Arkin goes off on some funny rants. Great fun for all! Except kids - they don't need to be hearing some of that stuff.
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And now, for the sake of completeness, here is the list of every movie I saw in 2006, ranked more or less from worst to best. I should mention that, with the exception of Failure to Launch, I liked every movie on this list to some degree. So it's really ranked from OK to OMG after that first one. Comments appear wherever I found a comment easy or necessary enough to come up with.
Failure to Launch
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Hollywoodland - The George Reeves stuff was interesting, but I didn't get into the detective's story.
Stomp! Shout! Scream! - An independent movie making the festival rounds. I talked about it a little in my post about the Maryland Film Festival. The only thing I would add to the previous commentary is that the songs were catchy.
The Break Up - Amusing, and it didn't end formulaicly, which I appreciated.
The Eagle - The silent movie I saw at the Maryland Film Festival. It was fine, but I liked the silent movie they had had the previous year (the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.)
Brokeback Mountain - Nice scenery, to be sure. Otherwise, the downtroddenness of their career paths depressed me, and I just couldn't relate to the love story. I don't doubt that it was due partly to the fact that it was about two guys, but I think it was also because I just can't relate to stories about not being allowed to love the person you love. Because I'm totally allowed to love the person I love, I don't know what it would be like to have a forbidden love, and thus, the inability to relate and get into the movie. The man-on-man stuff didn't really bother me, which, honestly, surprised me a little.
X3: Last Stand - It impressed me at first with all the flash, but afterwards the bad plot decisions sank in, and I soured on it a little.
Clerks II - A definite improvement over the first Clerks. The returning actors have learned how to actually, you know, act since then. The Star Wars vs. Lord of The Rings discussion was great, right up there with the first movie's "Contractors on The Death Star" discussion. It's probably Kevin Smith's best movie, in my book. Of course, Kevin Smith movies aren't exactly Casablanca.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - It was a superhero movie, which I have a weakness for. Otherwise, I imagine this would have been ranked lower.
The Devil Wears Prada
Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
The Illusionist
The DaVinci Code - Less adversarial than the book (in most ways - in some ways it was more so), and a bit less intricate too.
An Inconvenient Truth - This was one hell of an eye-opener. Were it not for the alternative, I'd almost say it was a good thing that Al Gore lost the 2000 election, because it freed him up to do a lot more good this way.
The Prestige
Pirates of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest - For some reason, I don't like this one as much as the first one, but it was still fun to watch.
Superman Returns - Back when I still had a Biggest Disappointment category in this post, this was the winner. But that was due almost entirely to the hype I had built up in my head for it beforehand. Any new Superman movie would have failed to meet my expectations, even one with an interesting threat and an actual Lois Lane.
The Mad Magician - Despite being a 1950's movie, it qualifies for this list by virtue of my seeing it for the first time this year in a theater.
Night At The Museum - Certainly not the most tightly plotted movie, but it was very fun.
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang - I've said it before and I'll say it again: How is it that Napolean Dynamite got a chance but this movie can't get one?
Good Night And Good Luck - This was my favorite to win Best Picture. I got chills when Murrow made his big speech. It sounded like the sort of thing that a lot of people could stand to hear these days too.
V For Vendetta - I made a point not to read the graphic novel until I saw the movie, which is good because the two are different in many ways. I'm sure I would have liked the movie even if I had read the book first, but as it was, I had one fewer distraction (in that sense, I kinda dread a Watchmen movie, should one ever get made.) I was actually surprised that some shots that were framed in the movie to look like they were based on an image from a graphic novel were, in fact, nowhere to be found in the book. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot.
Cars
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Full Metal Jacket - What's this, you ask? I seem to be ranking another movie ahead of Little Miss Sunshine, which I just named the Best Movie winner. Full Metal Jacket, while the better movie, doesn't count because I've seen it many times before. But until this year, I had never seen it in a theater, and so I'm giving it some attention here. Actually, it was almost like seeing it for the first time when I saw it on a huge screen.
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And that's that for my 2006 movie list. Sorry it took so long.
As I alluded to in a previous post, I've decided to do the retrospective differently this year. Instead of listing every single movie and writing a well-thought-out mini-review for each of them, I'm just going to address some standouts (you may call them awards, if you like) and then just throw out the complete list at the bottom for those who are interested. I'll probably add a comment to most of the movies on that list, but I'm not requiring myself to do so.
Mind you, as I did last year, I'm only including movies that I actually saw in a movie theater between 1/1/06 and 12/31/06.
Alrighty then, let's get the negative stuff out of the way first.
WORST MOVIE OF 2006
WINNER (or LOSER): Failure To Launch - Easy choice. So very easy. Romantic comedies are, for me, only mildly interesting, and the seemingly necessary need to put in some conflict, usually in the form of a misunderstanding or a bonehead move on the part of one of the parties, usually doesn't sit all that well with me. But I tolerate them and move on. Sometimes I even enjoy them (The Break Up springs to mind, but there are better ones too.)
Failure to Launch took it further, however, by having some of the most reprehensible characters ever to foul a movie screen. I'm talking, of course, of the parents and the soulless harpy that they hire to emotionally manipulate their son into leaving home because they completely lack the cajones to, oh I don't know, actually have a talk with him about their issues with his sponging off them.
Seriously, the mom does his laundry, cleans his room, cooks him his meals, and never says a word to him about it. But when mom and dad decide that enough's enough, do they go to their son and say "Son, maybe it's time you started pulling your own weight around here, or, even better, got your own place again"?
Why, as a matter of fact, they don't. They hire a woman who apparently has made an actual professional career of dating grown men who live with their parents (the syndrome is called "Failure to Launch", which would make for a snappy movie title, don't'cha think?), get them into a meaningful relationship that, for some reason, will, by itself, make them want to move out of their parents house, and then she dumps them and moves on once they've gotten their own place. Nice lady. I wonder if she strangles their dog on the way out the door too, just to put some punctuation on the abrupt end to their supposedly meaningful relationship.
Now, even if our hero (such as he is - he does use his living arrangement to scare off the ladies when they get too close, so he's not exactly a saint either) had been living with his parents non-stop for all of his 30-some years, that would be bad enough. But (I'm getting into spoilers now - I hope you forgive me) he has lived on his own before. He had a serious relationship with a woman before (he might have been married - I don't remember - but I don't think so.) And the girlfriend/wife died. So now he's being manipulated into finally loving someone again. Loving someone who's only with him because she's paid to do so and who has every intention of throwing him away as soon as her mission is done. You can't blame her for not knowing that part, since neither parent bothered to mention that little nugget of info. But the parents know his past, know why he moved back home, know why he's acting like a big teenager, and yet show no sensitivity to that whatsoever. Instead they passive-aggressively trick him into leaving home. And spend part of his inheritance on the project.
Of course, this time the mean lady falls in love with her clients' unwanted growth, and when our hero finds out the truth and sends her on her way, she's so sad. Boo-hoo-hoo. It's a relationship founded on a pretty gorram lowdown lie. It was doomed to fail anyway. Consider it a lesson learned and try to do better by the next guy that you go out with.
But that wouldn't work in a romantic comedy, especially not one with wacky friends who think that the best way to get people to fall back in love is to lock them in a room and force them to talk it out while the friends (and everyone else in the coffeehouse) watch it all happen on webcam. How wacky! Of course it works, making the ending not as good as the ideal ending wherein our hero would tell her that she is a truly horrible person and then take an axe to the door (after repressing the urge to use it on her first, of course) and leave the premises. Roll credits.
M has asked me to note that she liked the movie and thinks that I took it too seriously.
RUNNER-UP: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - Lots of potential, mediocre delivery. It came across too much like something you might see on The History Channel or PBS or whatever channel does those "what if there had been TV news in the 14th century?" shows. The writing and the acting seemed a little too forced.
Delivery aside, however, it did make me think about how different - and how similar - actual U.S. History has been. In some ways, it wasn't so much "what would have happened if the South won the Civil War" as it was "what if race attitudes hadn't changed since the early 20th century?" That's especially apparent in the "commericials" that are interspersed throughout the "documentary".
If only it had played more like an actual documentary. I mean, come on, have any of you seen a documentary that illustrates a historical battle with a scene from a movie based on that battle? It's like illustrating the World War I battle in Gallipoli with a scene from the Mel Gibson movie about that battle. That's what they do when they get to the part where the CSA invades South America. This movie could have been much more than it was.
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BEST MOVIE OF 2006
Happily, this was a close enough race to include two runners-up. These are the movies that, when I look back on them, I say to myself "Oh yeah, that was a good one!"
THIRD PLACE: Cars - I'm not much of a NASCAR fan in real life, but I love it when it has Pixar cars! A lot of people found it difficult to accept a world populated by cars acting like people and doing people things, and that took away from their enjoyment of the movie. I had no such problem. It had a great opening (with one of Sheryl Crow's best songs in recent years), great animation, it took the story in a better-than-expected (for me - your results may vary) direction, and had a great climax. Plus, NPR's Car Talk guys had a cameo!
RUNNER-UP (co-winner, really): Casino Royale - I'm not a huge follower of Bond movies. Until this one, the most recent one I'd seen was View To A Kill. That, For Your Eyes Only, and the first three Connery movies were the extent of my Bond experience. So saying that this was the best Bond movie I've seen (well, maybe second to From Russia With Love) probably doesn't hold the same weight it would if I had seen all 20 of its predecessors. It's true nonetheless.
Daniel Craig might not fit the Bond mold in the looks department, but man-o-man he's cool to watch. The action scenes are great without getting silly (I hear the Brosnan movies got pretty silly at times). The opening chase scene blew me away completely. How did that guy Bond was chasing move like that? That's worth a re-watch all by itself! Most of the action is just as good, but that opening (post-credits, though the pre-credits scene was no slouch either) was the best chase scene I've ever seen, bar none.
The movie does drag out a bit at the end, though I imagine it won't be as bad on a second viewing, now that I know how ahead of time how much more there is and where it's all going.
WINNER: Little Miss Sunshine - This gets the edge over Casino Royale because I was in the audience at its only showing (other than Sundance) before it hit general theaters a few months later. Thus, I feel like I'm part of its exclusive club. But it's a great movie even without that extra attachment. It's heartwarming without getting sappy. There are characters that are quirky but still realistic. Abigail Breslin does a great job without being anything more than the regular kid that she is (let's see Dakota Fanning pull that one off.) Steve Carrel gives such a great serious performance that I totally forgot that up until now I had only seen him being goofy on The Daily Show and in his supporting movie roles. Actually, he played it kinda straight in 40-Year-Old Virgin, so there's that.
And it's funny as hell at times. The thing with the VW bus is great. The beauty pageant at the end was hilarious. Alan Arkin goes off on some funny rants. Great fun for all! Except kids - they don't need to be hearing some of that stuff.
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And now, for the sake of completeness, here is the list of every movie I saw in 2006, ranked more or less from worst to best. I should mention that, with the exception of Failure to Launch, I liked every movie on this list to some degree. So it's really ranked from OK to OMG after that first one. Comments appear wherever I found a comment easy or necessary enough to come up with.
Failure to Launch
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Hollywoodland - The George Reeves stuff was interesting, but I didn't get into the detective's story.
Stomp! Shout! Scream! - An independent movie making the festival rounds. I talked about it a little in my post about the Maryland Film Festival. The only thing I would add to the previous commentary is that the songs were catchy.
The Break Up - Amusing, and it didn't end formulaicly, which I appreciated.
The Eagle - The silent movie I saw at the Maryland Film Festival. It was fine, but I liked the silent movie they had had the previous year (the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.)
Brokeback Mountain - Nice scenery, to be sure. Otherwise, the downtroddenness of their career paths depressed me, and I just couldn't relate to the love story. I don't doubt that it was due partly to the fact that it was about two guys, but I think it was also because I just can't relate to stories about not being allowed to love the person you love. Because I'm totally allowed to love the person I love, I don't know what it would be like to have a forbidden love, and thus, the inability to relate and get into the movie. The man-on-man stuff didn't really bother me, which, honestly, surprised me a little.
X3: Last Stand - It impressed me at first with all the flash, but afterwards the bad plot decisions sank in, and I soured on it a little.
Clerks II - A definite improvement over the first Clerks. The returning actors have learned how to actually, you know, act since then. The Star Wars vs. Lord of The Rings discussion was great, right up there with the first movie's "Contractors on The Death Star" discussion. It's probably Kevin Smith's best movie, in my book. Of course, Kevin Smith movies aren't exactly Casablanca.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - It was a superhero movie, which I have a weakness for. Otherwise, I imagine this would have been ranked lower.
The Devil Wears Prada
Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
The Illusionist
The DaVinci Code - Less adversarial than the book (in most ways - in some ways it was more so), and a bit less intricate too.
An Inconvenient Truth - This was one hell of an eye-opener. Were it not for the alternative, I'd almost say it was a good thing that Al Gore lost the 2000 election, because it freed him up to do a lot more good this way.
The Prestige
Pirates of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest - For some reason, I don't like this one as much as the first one, but it was still fun to watch.
Superman Returns - Back when I still had a Biggest Disappointment category in this post, this was the winner. But that was due almost entirely to the hype I had built up in my head for it beforehand. Any new Superman movie would have failed to meet my expectations, even one with an interesting threat and an actual Lois Lane.
The Mad Magician - Despite being a 1950's movie, it qualifies for this list by virtue of my seeing it for the first time this year in a theater.
Night At The Museum - Certainly not the most tightly plotted movie, but it was very fun.
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang - I've said it before and I'll say it again: How is it that Napolean Dynamite got a chance but this movie can't get one?
Good Night And Good Luck - This was my favorite to win Best Picture. I got chills when Murrow made his big speech. It sounded like the sort of thing that a lot of people could stand to hear these days too.
V For Vendetta - I made a point not to read the graphic novel until I saw the movie, which is good because the two are different in many ways. I'm sure I would have liked the movie even if I had read the book first, but as it was, I had one fewer distraction (in that sense, I kinda dread a Watchmen movie, should one ever get made.) I was actually surprised that some shots that were framed in the movie to look like they were based on an image from a graphic novel were, in fact, nowhere to be found in the book. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot.
Cars
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Full Metal Jacket - What's this, you ask? I seem to be ranking another movie ahead of Little Miss Sunshine, which I just named the Best Movie winner. Full Metal Jacket, while the better movie, doesn't count because I've seen it many times before. But until this year, I had never seen it in a theater, and so I'm giving it some attention here. Actually, it was almost like seeing it for the first time when I saw it on a huge screen.
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And that's that for my 2006 movie list. Sorry it took so long.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
A Post A Whole Week In The Making
Most of the below was written before Christmas, but I never got around to putting in the rest of it until now. Oh well. What's old and stale to me is fresh to you!
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I finally felt my baby kick Thursday night [that would be the Thursday before Christmas]. She was being very kicky, and I happened to have my hand in the right place at the right time during an especially strong kick. I told her to leave her mommy alone and let her go to sleep in peace, but I don't think she listened to me. I have about 20 more years of that to look forward to, I suspect.
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We finally finished painting the baby's room last weekend [again, the one before Christmas]. My niece was not present for this final stage, so we had to do our best to recreate the stars and moons she had made on the other two walls. I think we did a decent job. I also painted a shooting star by the light switch that I think came out pretty well. Once I have my new camera, I'll take some pictures and post one or two.
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It's rare that I have something good to say about Dubya (of course, I rarely have anything to say about him at all), but today I do: President Bush signed the Combating Autism Act of 2006 on Tuesday [the Tuesday before... well, you know], authorizing almost $1 billion over the next five years for research, screening, early detection and early intervention.
[update December 29] I get e-mails from Autism Speaks, and when the Senate passed the aforementioned Act, A.S. sent out an e-mail asking us to e-mail our Congressperson and Senators to thank them. I did so, and I got an e-mail from my Congressman a few days ago telling me that he will be continuing the fight against Autism when Congress goes back into session. Looks like I voted for the right guy! Though, admittedly, he did run unopposed.
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The Top 2 Movie Franchises have been announced on IGN. Admittedly, it really wasn't a tough one (and two) to call, but called them I did. M also picked the Top 4, in order, correctly when I asked her to guess.
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[New stuff begins now]
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My eyesight has gotten worse lately. It seems all of a sudden, but I suspect (and hope) that it's just a matter of me not really noticing until recently, and that when I did notice it, I started noticing all the time. I guess I've been staring at computer monitors too much lately. The thing is, I've been staring at computer monitors a lot for the past nine years or more, so why is my eyesight going downhill so quickly now? I just got a new prescription in Summer 2005, fer cryin' out loud! Maybe my new flatscreen monitor at work is to blame, or maybe it's just because I'm in my mid-30s now, and eyesight worsens more quickly at this age. I dunno. I'll just get a new prescription and read up on monitor viewing safety. And maybe check for other signs of brain tumors, just in case.
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Looking back upon previous posts regarding Baby 2K7, I noticed that I forgot to mention a somewhat funny anecdote. It happened before we made the Big Announcement (way before) and it just slipped my mind to mention it in the running commentary post. So here it is now!
The day I tried out for Jeopardy in late August was also the day that we had our fantasy football draft, so M was at our niece and nephews' house watching them with my brother's mother-in-law while my brother and I did the draft. On the way to drop M off, she was talking about how hard it would be to keep the baby secret from the mother-in-law, with whom we've become good friends.
When I went to pick M up after the draft, both the mother-in-law and my sis-in-law started congratulating me. My immediate thought was that M caved in and told them about the baby. Before I could respond, however, M started yelling "Yay! Jeopardy! Jeopardy! Jeopardy!" And thus, the secret remained safe until October.
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I also forgot to mention about a month ago that M and I went to see The Marriage of Figaro at Peabody. I fell asleep at one point, but not for too long. I like Mozart just fine, but did he have to make his operas so long and drawn out. I'm pretty sure they were singing the same thing over and over again a lot. It was in Italian, and the translation was projected over the stage. Sometimes the same sentence would just sit there for almost a minute while the actors just sang and sang and sang. That opera could have been as much as an hour shorter if they had just sang what they needed to sing and moved on!
********************
OK. I feel I should have some sort of conclusion, like, "so that's what's been going on" or something like that, but that's too straightforward. I really should get this gorram post uploaded already, so I'll just leave you with this.
Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal. Not exactly something I follow much, but true nonetheless.
********************
I finally felt my baby kick Thursday night [that would be the Thursday before Christmas]. She was being very kicky, and I happened to have my hand in the right place at the right time during an especially strong kick. I told her to leave her mommy alone and let her go to sleep in peace, but I don't think she listened to me. I have about 20 more years of that to look forward to, I suspect.
********************
We finally finished painting the baby's room last weekend [again, the one before Christmas]. My niece was not present for this final stage, so we had to do our best to recreate the stars and moons she had made on the other two walls. I think we did a decent job. I also painted a shooting star by the light switch that I think came out pretty well. Once I have my new camera, I'll take some pictures and post one or two.
********************
It's rare that I have something good to say about Dubya (of course, I rarely have anything to say about him at all), but today I do: President Bush signed the Combating Autism Act of 2006 on Tuesday [the Tuesday before... well, you know], authorizing almost $1 billion over the next five years for research, screening, early detection and early intervention.
[update December 29] I get e-mails from Autism Speaks, and when the Senate passed the aforementioned Act, A.S. sent out an e-mail asking us to e-mail our Congressperson and Senators to thank them. I did so, and I got an e-mail from my Congressman a few days ago telling me that he will be continuing the fight against Autism when Congress goes back into session. Looks like I voted for the right guy! Though, admittedly, he did run unopposed.
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The Top 2 Movie Franchises have been announced on IGN. Admittedly, it really wasn't a tough one (and two) to call, but called them I did. M also picked the Top 4, in order, correctly when I asked her to guess.
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[New stuff begins now]
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My eyesight has gotten worse lately. It seems all of a sudden, but I suspect (and hope) that it's just a matter of me not really noticing until recently, and that when I did notice it, I started noticing all the time. I guess I've been staring at computer monitors too much lately. The thing is, I've been staring at computer monitors a lot for the past nine years or more, so why is my eyesight going downhill so quickly now? I just got a new prescription in Summer 2005, fer cryin' out loud! Maybe my new flatscreen monitor at work is to blame, or maybe it's just because I'm in my mid-30s now, and eyesight worsens more quickly at this age. I dunno. I'll just get a new prescription and read up on monitor viewing safety. And maybe check for other signs of brain tumors, just in case.
********************
Looking back upon previous posts regarding Baby 2K7, I noticed that I forgot to mention a somewhat funny anecdote. It happened before we made the Big Announcement (way before) and it just slipped my mind to mention it in the running commentary post. So here it is now!
The day I tried out for Jeopardy in late August was also the day that we had our fantasy football draft, so M was at our niece and nephews' house watching them with my brother's mother-in-law while my brother and I did the draft. On the way to drop M off, she was talking about how hard it would be to keep the baby secret from the mother-in-law, with whom we've become good friends.
When I went to pick M up after the draft, both the mother-in-law and my sis-in-law started congratulating me. My immediate thought was that M caved in and told them about the baby. Before I could respond, however, M started yelling "Yay! Jeopardy! Jeopardy! Jeopardy!" And thus, the secret remained safe until October.
********************
I also forgot to mention about a month ago that M and I went to see The Marriage of Figaro at Peabody. I fell asleep at one point, but not for too long. I like Mozart just fine, but did he have to make his operas so long and drawn out. I'm pretty sure they were singing the same thing over and over again a lot. It was in Italian, and the translation was projected over the stage. Sometimes the same sentence would just sit there for almost a minute while the actors just sang and sang and sang. That opera could have been as much as an hour shorter if they had just sang what they needed to sing and moved on!
********************
OK. I feel I should have some sort of conclusion, like, "so that's what's been going on" or something like that, but that's too straightforward. I really should get this gorram post uploaded already, so I'll just leave you with this.
Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal. Not exactly something I follow much, but true nonetheless.
Friday, December 22, 2006
This Is What Happens When You Procrastinate
IGN.com has been counting down the Top 25 Movie Franchises over the past few weeks. To qualify for a list, the franchise has to have at least 3 movies in it, and the ranking is based on the commercial and artistic success of the movies, plus its cultural impact and how much side merchandising (videogames, Burger King glasses, that sort of thing) it has had.
I was going to post about this yesterday, but I kept putting it off. Now I wish I had done it while I was thinking about it. Y'see, at the time, the list had only revealed Numbers 25 through 5. After thinking it through a little, I made a prediction for Numbers 4 through 1, which I was going to post. Since then, 4 and 3 have been revealed, and I got them right. But now you'll just have to take my word for it, because I didn't make my prediction before the fact.
I realize that I might be the only one who cares about this.
Anyway, here is how the list has shaped up so far...
25. Saw
24. The Pink Panther
23. Dirty Harry
22. Lethal Weapon
21. A Nightmare on Elm Street
20. George Romero's Dead films
19. Jurassic Park
18. Godzilla
17. The Terminator
16. Superman
15. Die Hard
14. Harry Potter
13. Alien
12. Rocky
11. The Matrix
10. The Godfather
9. Back to The Future
8. Planet of The Apes
7. Friday The 13th
6. Batman
5. Star Trek
Which left us with the only obvious four that hadn't been mentioned yet: Star Wars, Lord of The Rings, Raiders of The Lost Ark, and James Bond. Star Wars and Bond are the obvious Top 2 - Bond has 20 movies and catchphrases all over the place, and Star Wars is, well, Star Wars. When a craptacular movie like Attack of The Clones manages to make hundreds of millions of dollars, you know you're dealing with a powerful movie franchise.
3 and 4 were iffy. I gave Lord of The Rings the edge, because it has a Best Picture Oscar® under its belt. And sure enough, I see today on IGN the next two spots on the list:
4. Raiders of The Lost Ark
3. Lord of The Rings
You'll just have to take my word for it that I picked those ahead of time.
Here are my picks for the yet-to-be-announced Top 2. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb with these:
2. James Bond
1. Star Wars
I'll try to post something more universally interesting in a little while.
I was going to post about this yesterday, but I kept putting it off. Now I wish I had done it while I was thinking about it. Y'see, at the time, the list had only revealed Numbers 25 through 5. After thinking it through a little, I made a prediction for Numbers 4 through 1, which I was going to post. Since then, 4 and 3 have been revealed, and I got them right. But now you'll just have to take my word for it, because I didn't make my prediction before the fact.
I realize that I might be the only one who cares about this.
Anyway, here is how the list has shaped up so far...
25. Saw
24. The Pink Panther
23. Dirty Harry
22. Lethal Weapon
21. A Nightmare on Elm Street
20. George Romero's Dead films
19. Jurassic Park
18. Godzilla
17. The Terminator
16. Superman
15. Die Hard
14. Harry Potter
13. Alien
12. Rocky
11. The Matrix
10. The Godfather
9. Back to The Future
8. Planet of The Apes
7. Friday The 13th
6. Batman
5. Star Trek
Which left us with the only obvious four that hadn't been mentioned yet: Star Wars, Lord of The Rings, Raiders of The Lost Ark, and James Bond. Star Wars and Bond are the obvious Top 2 - Bond has 20 movies and catchphrases all over the place, and Star Wars is, well, Star Wars. When a craptacular movie like Attack of The Clones manages to make hundreds of millions of dollars, you know you're dealing with a powerful movie franchise.
3 and 4 were iffy. I gave Lord of The Rings the edge, because it has a Best Picture Oscar® under its belt. And sure enough, I see today on IGN the next two spots on the list:
4. Raiders of The Lost Ark
3. Lord of The Rings
You'll just have to take my word for it that I picked those ahead of time.
Here are my picks for the yet-to-be-announced Top 2. I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb with these:
2. James Bond
1. Star Wars
I'll try to post something more universally interesting in a little while.
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