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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Nifty McNiftington's LiveJournal:
| Thursday, July 24th, 2008 | |
| 10:33 pm | Comic Con Quick Update 1. My attempt to liveblog Comic Con FAILED. First, the connection between the OLPC Fischer Price My First Laptop that I borrowed and the Comic Con wi-fi was spotty at best. But more importantly, my fingers are too big to use the keys on the OLPC. After spending five minutes trying to type a single sentence, I decided it would make more sense to just scribble my thoughts in a notebook and post them later. But now I'm too tired. I'll post them over the next week. 2. My attempt to get to the convention early FAILED. There was a hideous traffic jam on the part of I-5 where it goes through Camp Pendleton. There are no exits in this section, so everyone was just trapped in this jam. Going 7 miles took me FOUR GOD DAMNED HOURS!!!! The drive from LA to SD ended up being 6 hours long. 3. My attempt to meet up with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} spyscribe at the Middleman panel FAILED. They explained at the panel that the entire writing staff of the show other than the show-runner was stuck in the same hideous traffic jam I had been in. On the bright side, this attempt probably would have FAILED anyway, considering that I don't actually know her name or what she looks like, and am only about 80% confident that she's a chick.4. I didn't see a single person I know at the con today. Last year, I had bumped into four people by the time I got through the registration line. Shrug. 5. Assuming no snafus (which is a big assumption), tomorrow morning I'll be going to a panel for The Big Bang Theory. I'm tempted to ask a question along the lines of, "So seriously. Does Sheldon have Asperger's Syndrome or what?" But I think that would be a little bit too obnoxious for me to ask publicly. I'll still hope that somebody else does. 6. I'm still having fun. 7. That's all for now. I got up at 5:00 AM today, spent 6 god damned hours driving, and then walked approximately a ridiculous amount. So I'm pretty tired. |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | |
| 4:54 pm | Comic Con Last chance to carpool with me to Comic Con Thursday morning. Speak now, or pay the entire cost of gas yourself. If you're interested in meeting up at Comic Con and I don't already have your phone number, e-mail me at my username at livejournal.com. If I don't know your real name, you should probably title the e-mail something like "This is [your username] from LiveJournal" so I don't confuse your message for spam. |
| 1:53 pm | The Dark Knight (Spoiler-free) Around about May 6 or so, I said "I'm fairly certain that I will list [Iron Man] as the best movie of the year." But I added, "I hope I'm wrong about that, because that would mean there's an even better movie still to come." I'm not quite sure whether I was wrong or not. I'll need time to process and develop a perspective. It's hard to compare Iron Man and The Dark Knight, because they're very different movies with very different tones. But I'll be absolutely astounded if I don't end up listing them as the two best movies of the year.* And I can say with certainty that the two greatest superhero movies of all time came out two and a half months apart. I generally like fun movies. But The Dark Knight definitely doesn't fit into this category. It's gripping and intense. It goes to uncomfortable places, and it doesn't let up. But it does this incredibly well. You don't need me to agree with the (deserved) universal praise this movie has gotten. But one interesting note is that this is the first movie about the War on Terror that doesn't suck. And the reason it doesn't suck is that it treats differing points of views seriously. Every character in The Dark Knight has a different perspective on how to deal with terror and overwhelming evil. None of these perspectives are cartoonishly stupid straw men. Each one is something where you could see how intelligent and good people could reach that conclusion. And none of the characters with the exception of The Joker are cartoonishly evil. They all think they're doing the right thing. And even The Joker's motivations make sense given his twisted psychology. One of the lessons drilled into me in film school was that every character thinks of himself as the hero. Even Hitler thought he was the good guy who was improving the world. But this is a lesson that gets forgotten in most political movies. Filmmakers tend to surround themselves with an echo chamber, which makes them think that all decent and intelligent people agree with them. Which means that anyone who disagrees must be stupid or evil, so this is how their political opponents get portrayed. Also, when political movies are made about real issues, the people making the movie have already made up their minds. If they thought the people who disagreed with them had some good points, they wouldn't believe what they do. While it's possible to fairly and convincingly present an opinion you disagree with, it's extremely difficult. And when it comes to ideas, Hollywood is lazy. It's not even an issue of political sides. Doing a bad job presenting politics makes for bad movies. Even people who agree with you won't like the movie. Which is why all these anti-Republican movies flopped at the same time as Democrats were making huge gains in Congress. Hell, far more Americans attended $1000+ a plate fundraisers for Democratic politicians than were willing to pay $10 to see Redacted. I have no idea what Christopher and Jonathan Nolan's politics are**, and frankly I don't care. They did a great job presenting a myriad of viewpoints realistically. It helps that it was about an imaginary situation rather than a real one, even though that imaginary situation closely resembles the real one. Being a new, fake situation lets people take a fresh look, without being encumbered by their existing, pre-decided opinions. But that doesn't lessen the astounding accomplishment that the Nolans achieved in the script. It's surprising that a comic book movie presented the first serious post 9-11 look at terrorism, while all the ostensibly serious movies have been so cartoonish. Although given what's been going on in Hollywood, not too surprising. A couple additional notes: First, for such a bleak movie it had a fundamentally positive viewpoint on human nature. The Joker was trying to prove that deep down, everyone is just like him. And the movie demonstrated that they aren't. When pressed, people will deep down find the good in them. Even the people who are somewhat evil. (I'm keeping this review spoiler-free, but those of you who saw the movie know what I'm taking about.) Also, there's a clear anti-homage to Superman. The Nolans had obviously (correctly) decided that the ending to Superman was an incredibly stupid cop-out, and decided to redo the same idea in a way that wasn't dumb. Since I think Superman is horribly overrated crap, I appreciated that. (Again, those of you who saw the movie and also saw Superman should know what I'm talking about.) Which brings to mind one of my favorite episodes of How it Should Have Ended, which shows another reason why the ending of Superman was idiotic. Anyway, go see The Dark Knight. It's awesome. [Comments may have spoilers, so be warned] * Although once again, I hope I'm wrong. ** I vaguely knew Jonathan Nolan in college. (He went by Jonah back then.) As I recall, he was a moderate liberal. But I could easily be mistaken, as it was 10 years ago, and I had no particular reason to closely follow the politics of some random columnist for a rival newspaper who I occasionally bumped into in the hallway. And his politics could have changed in the last 10 years. |
| 12:05 pm | Stupid Entitled People A couple stories today about obnoxious people who feel entitled to money they didn't earn. First, there's this story about Sean Connery "withholding funds" from his son. Sean Connery's ex-wife talks about this, saying it was part of a goal to teach his son how to earn a living on his own. It's clear that the ex-wife thinks this was a horribly cruel thing to do. But here's the kicker: Jason Connery is forty-five fucking years old!!! The question isn't why Sean is cutting off the spigot of daddy's money. It's why the hell he supported him for so long in the first place. And as to his ex-wife who thinks it's a bad thing to treat a forty-five year old man like a grown up, I think this explains why she's known as Sean Connery's ex-wife, whereas nobody thinks of Sean Connery as Diane Cilento's ex-husband. And then there's this story. Basically, this woman married a rich broadway producer, who sensibly had her sign a prenup. She in turn, made a video of her crying, revealing embarrssing secrets about their sexlife, and insulting his family members. Her plan was to humiliate him in order to blackmail him out of the prenup. He refused, and she put the video on Youtube. Then in the divorce trial, she insisted the prenup shouldn't apply because, well, she doesn't really give a reason. I guess she thought it shouldn't apply because she's a heinous obnoxious bitch who wants more money. The judge ruled that the prenuptial agreement she signed is in fact a prenuptial agreement she signed. She called this ruling "disgusting," and said that her ex-husband is "basically throwing me out on the street." The kicker: The prenup says that she'll get three quarters of a million dollars. Which her ex-husband is paying, despite the intentional humiliation and attempted blackmail. But he's cruel and heartless. Because who could possibly live on $750,000? |
| Monday, July 21st, 2008 | |
| 12:24 pm | The end of Siskel & Ebert/Ebert & Roeper/Roeper & Random Dude/Roeper and Phillips At the Movies At the Movies is the show that I've been regularly watching for the longest in my life. I don't remember exactly when I started, but I'm pretty sure I was less than 10 years old. I kept watching when Gene Siskel died, kept watching when he got replaced by Richard Roeper, kept watching when medical issues took Ebert off the air and he got replaced with a rotating string of guest hosts, and kept watching when Michael Phillips became a permanent co-host even though they didn't put his name on the show. But Richard Roeper's contract is expiring in three weeks, and Disney isn't renewing it. Instead, they're going to re-invent At the Movies as an Entertainment Tonight knock-off. Entertainment Tonight is tied with quite a few other shows as number one on my list of "Shows I never have any reason to watch, ever." I'm actually dreading breaking this news to my mother, who's watched At the Movies even longer than I have. The good news is that Ebert is working behind to scenes to create a new show on another network that's exactly like At the Movies, presumably with Roeper and Phillips as the co-hosts. This new show would bring back the "Thumbs Up"/"Thumbs Down" rating. (Ebert and Gene Siskel's widow own the trademark to that, and Ebert stopped letting the show use it last year because Disney was dicking him around in contract negotiations. So instead At the Movies switched to a "See It"/"Rent It"/"Skip It" trichotomy.) |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 | |
| 2:25 pm | Weezer McWeezington I've had the Weezer blue album for years, and I enjoy it. Particularly the songs Buddy Holly and Surf Wax America. But there are also songs on the album I don't particularly care for, such as Undone, Say It Ain't So, and Only In Dreams. Lately, I've been hearing Pork and Beans a lot on the radio, and I really like it. So I'm thinking I should buy some more albums. Those of you who know more about music than I do, given the songs I listed that I like and dislike, which album or albums do you think I would be best off buying? Also, here's the awesome video for Pork and Beans. (They disabled embedding, so I have to link.) |
| 2:14 pm | Five Second Movie Reviews 7/18/08 [Where boffo reviews films he hasn't seen, so you don't have to.]The Dark Knight: I didn't spooge over Batman Begins the way a lot of people did. I thought it was reasonably good, but not amazing. Even though even more people are spooging even more over this, I suspect the same will be true. Still, being reasonably good puts it way ahead of most movies to come out in the last few years, so you should see this one. Mamma Mia!: A lame pointless plot with terrible pacing and non-characters you don't care about. The only reason to see this is if you totally lurve Abba songs, and even then, you'd be better off listening to a CD. Space Chimps: Nothing terrible, and reasonably entertaining for children. But there's no reason for adults to see this on their own. |
| Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | |
| 4:23 pm | Insidious Mediocrity What would you call a piece of media that is just non-terrible enough to keep you from giving up on it, but is bad enough that by the time you finally finish, you realize you didn't really enjoy it and that completing it wasn't a worthwhile use of your time? A couple examples of this: On Tuesday electricia and I watched The Music Man. Neither of us really liked it, but it never quite got bad enough for us to stop. Contrast this with a movie like Hair, which was so aggressively awful and obnoxious that I couldn't watch more than 20 minutes.Another example is the Neil Gaiman book Neverwhere, which I keep reading even though I'm not especially into it. By contrast, Wicked was so lousy that I threw it aside after a few chapters. (Although now that I'm taking the time to reflect, I'll be sensible and stop reading Neverwhere as well. Unless one of you can convince me that the second half of the book is much better than the first.) The weird thing is, the terrible movies and books are less bad for the viewer/reader than the mediocre ones, because they waste significantly less time. I was better off being actively irritated by 20 minutes of Hair than I was being slightly bored by 2 and a half hours of The Music Man. I only wasted a few chapters worth of my time on Wicked, and have already wasted far more than that on Neverwhere. I don't really have a point. I'm just procrastinating at work and think that's weird/interesting. |
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 | |
| 11:11 am | Lolcatz of Economics Since I generally believe the world would be a better place if more people understood at least the basics of introductory economics, I think everyone should go read perich's lolcatonomics post.He gives clear and simple explanations highlighting some of the basics, using examples from lolcatz. While perich is frequently opinionated and argues things that are controversial, in this particular post he sticks to only the non-controversial fundamentals. Everything he says in that post is something that anyone with any understanding of economics would agree with. |
| Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 | |
| 4:31 pm | Comic Con Schedule Dilemmas My normal default in Comic-Con is to go to the movie panels in Hall H, but this year there are a few scheduling conflicts that I'm not sure on. So I'll throw it out to ye to help make up my mind for me. Decision 1: Fox movies vs. The Disney Animation Story Process vs. Professional Writing with J. Michael Straczynski The Fox panels they list are for the The Day the Earth Stood Still remake and the adaptation of the Max Payne videogame. These both sound really stupid and terrible, so I would only be watching these for blog fodder. But they always have some unannounced panels, and I may be missing some interesting ones if I skip this. The Disney panel will "offer an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look into the story process at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Coming together exclusively at Comic-Con, these story team leaders will take you from first concept to final story approval as they discuss the art of storyboarding, re-create story pitches, and share boarding styles from their upcoming animated features. Don’t miss this revealing and humorous panel and your chance to get a sneak peek at Disney's next animated feature, Bolt!" The Professional Writing description is: "Let's talk writing, creativity, and selling (and selling out), and what the world of professional writing is like. Questions that you've always wanted to ask? Creative blocks bugging you? Wondered what the H*O*L*L*Y*W*O*O*D life is really like? Show up and get answers to those questions. This no-holds-barred talk is moderated by J. Michael Straczynski." Decision 2: Summit Pictures vs. Red Sonja vs. The Middleman Summit Pictures has listed panels for Push, Knowing, and Twilight. I don't know anything about these films, but summarizing from the schedule, Push is a generic sounding sci-fi thriller. Knowing is an action thriller starring Nic Cage. Twilight is a love story between a vampire and a mortal. Red Sonja was one of those movies I really liked as a kid, although I suspect if I rewatched it now it would be terrible. I was amused that they're remaking it specifically because it was a lousy movie. And I usually (but not always) like Robert Rodriguez. The Middleman is one of my favorite new shows on TV. Decision 3: Universal Pictures (The Wolfman) vs. Joss Whedon vs. a bunch of Showrunners The Wolfman panel features some footage and special effects. Joss Whedon will talk some about Dr. Horrible and his comic projects, Buffy Season 8, Fray, and the upcoming Serenity comic. But I'll have to endure throngs of screaming Whedonphiles. The showrunners panel will be the guys in charge of Chuck and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I like, and Lost, Gossip Girl, and Pushing Daisies, which I don't care about. Decision 4: Terminator Salvation vs. Dollhouse Terminator 1 and 2 are two of my favorite movies ever made. But if there had been a Terminator 3, it would have been so horrible that I would be forced to pretend like it never existed. I've been following the rumors regarding Terminator Salvation, and am very curious to see which are correct. Even though I strongly suspect the movie will be abysmal. Dollhouse is the upcoming TV show that I'm most interested in. But the downside is screaming Whedonphiles. Decision 5: Disney/Pixar vs. Battlestar Galactica I don't care too much about the Disney animated movie Bolt. But the other half of the panel is about a new Pixar movie called Up, which I'm eager to learn about. The guide describes it as an "extraordinary adventure that will take you to a lost world where anything can happen, and everything will." Every Pixar movie has been good or great and shown me things I've never seen before, so this is one I want to learn about. Battlestar Galactica is one of my favorite shows on TV. On the other hand, I doubt there will be anything revealed in this panel that won't get repeated on AICN within the hour. Also, Kevin Smith is moderating, which will just be annoying. Decision 6: Chuck vs. the Universal Movies Listed panels for Universal are The Mummy 3, the Death Race 2000 remake, and Land of the Lost. So mostly crap that would be blog-mocking fodder, although they could have other unlisted panels with stuff I would want to see. Chuck is another of my favorite shows on TV. They'll have a reel of footage from next season. ----------------------- What are your thoughts? |
| 11:59 am | Reality shows make you puke / Neolgism needed Remember six months ago when I was listing reality shows, and challenging people to determine if they were real or fake? Well this is way more stupid and ridiculous than any fake show I came up with: Hurl! This is actually a reality show where people eat lots of food, and the last one to throw up wins $1000. Seriously. I'm not making this up. That's a real show. This is so incredibly stupid and ridiculous that there isn't even a word to describe it. So I'm challenging you to come up with a word that means stupid and ridiculous to a ridiculously stupid degree. Also, I think a show about people trying to describe Hurl! would be a much better show than Hurl! itself. Not that that's any sort of accomplishment. I also think a show about Rosie O'Donnell's underwear would be a better show than Hurl! (But not if she was wearing it at the time.) |
| 9:33 am | Movie Review: Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D Journey to the Center of the Earth is surprisingly entertaining. Well, hopefully it's not too surprising to you, since that's what I predicted. But having seen the movie, I can confirm that I was correct. I should make it clear that you'll have to check your brain at the door. The movie is wildly implausible, and if you expect any sort of scientific accuracy, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Also I'll point and laugh at you, because what kind of idiot expects scientific accuracy in a Brendan Frasier movie? But if you can suspend your disbelief and roll with it, the movie's a lot of fun. Being dumb but fun puts it way ahead of the original novel, which is just as absurd but took itself seriously.* Brendan Frasier is perfectly cast as a live-action cartoon, and he sells the silliness in just the right way. JttCotE3D also manages to be significantly better than Indiana Jones IV. Unlike Indiana Jones, JttCetE3D sets up an internal logic and sticks to it. That logic doesn't particularly match reality, but at least we know what can and cannot happen, and the characters are able to comprehend the world enough to make plans and recognize the consequences of those plans. The characters in JttCotE3D are just as invincible as the characters in Indy IV. As the audience, we know that a light-hearted family adventure with only three characters isn't going to kill any of them off halfway through. But the characters don't know that. So even if they'll somehow survive a fall of thousands of miles, they'll still do everything possible to not fall in the first place. Because they think their lives depend on it. That lets there be actual tension in the scenes. By contrast, in Indy IV, Indiana would happily jump off a cliff with the attitude of "I'm Indiana motherfucking Jones! Nothing can kill me!" And everyone else would follow, with the attitude of "I'm a friend/lover/son of Indiana motherfucking Jones! Nothing can kill me either!" One minor quibble I had is that JttCotE3D seemed to have an awful lot of dangling plants.** In screenwriting, there's a technique known as planting and payoff. This is where the writer establishes some element early on, before it becomes relevant, so that later when it becomes relevant the audience will accept it and won't think it came out of nowhere. For example, in Harold and Kumar they change channels on the TV and flip past a snippet of news talking about a cheetah that escaped from the zoo. An hour later when they encounter the cheetah, the audience thinks "Oh yeah, that's the cheetah we heard about earlier" rather than "What the hell is a cheetah doing in New Jersey?" The cliched example is the hero's girlfriend gives him a locket, which later deflects a bullet. If the audience just saw the dude get shot, then he popped up thanks to a locket they had never seen before, they wouldn't accept that. But if we see the locket before, we can accept that. Which doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but it works.*** Audiences have been trained to expect that there's never a wasted moment in a movie. If an object or piece of information is established early on when it has no current relevance, the audience expects it to pay off somehow. If someone walks by a poster and says, "Hey, the circus is in town," later on he'll have to go to the circus, or a chase scene will be complicated by a circus parade, or he'll get mugged by a bearded lady, or something. If the circus is never mentioned again, the audience will feel antsy. If there are too many of these dangling plants, the audience gets downright uncomfortable. For example, in JttCotE3D, there's a scene that makes a big deal of insisting that for some reason, magnets are reversed underground. (Yes, I know that doesn't make sense. See above where I mention that the film's internal logic doesn't match reality.) You might think that there would be a scene where someone would forget this and misread a compass, or there would be some sort of miscommunication. But this never happens. Everyone uses their compasses perfectly. So why did they establish magnets were reversed? I have no idea. And because it was a 3D movie, this problem was compounded by them establishing things solely for the purpose of doing 3D gags. The teenage character is given a yo-yo, and plays with it enough to get good at doing tricks. You might think that some time later, he would use his yo-yo skills to get out of a predicament. Or lose control of his yo-yo and cause some predicament. But nope. He just zings it at the camera a few times, and 20 minutes into the movie forgets the yo-yo exists. Proper screenwriting technique is to make a pass through the script removing things that seem like plants, but never pay off. This is fairly easy to do, so often when there are a lot of dangling plants that's a sign that the script was rewritten or the film was re-edited at the last minute. I don't know if that was the case here, but since I was satisfied with the final product I won't complain. The 3D looked pretty good. It was much more consistent than Beowulf. But all it was used for were a few gags in the beginning, after which there was no reason it needed to be 3D. By the way, that 3D yo-yo flying at the camera gag was lame fifty-five years ago when they did the exact same thing in House of Wax.**** Despite these minor quibbles, I had a good time with Journey to the Center of the Earth. I put it in the same category as National Treasure: It won't change your life, and it might insult your intelligence. But it is fun, and ultimately that's the most important thing. This is worth seeing. * I like Jules Verne. Around the World in 80 Days is one of my all-time favorite books. But Journey to the Center of the Earth was not one of his better works. ** That's a term I just made up. Well the concept is well-known in screenwriting, I'm not aware of commonly used terminology referring to it. *** I'll let you in on a little secret about screenwriting that probably won't surprise you: A lot of the time, writers cheat on this by working backwards. While outlining the story, the writer will say, "Geez, how does he survive getting shot? I know. Maybe he was wearing something that deflects the bullet. I'll just go back to the first act and add a scene where his girlfriend gives him a locket." **** The Vincent Price version, not the Paris Hilton version. Although I will admit that in the 2005 remake, Paris Hilton was perfectly cast as a wax dummy who got a pole shoved into her head. |
| Friday, July 11th, 2008 | |
| 1:37 pm | Five Second Movie Reviews 7/11/08 [Where boffo reviews films he hasn't seen, so you don't have to.]Two out of three films are good this week. That's a surprise. Hellboy II: The Golden Army: I've never gotten around to seeing Hellboy 1, even though everyone I know of who has enjoyed it. The sequel looks like it's more of the same, so if you liked the first one, go see it. Meet Dave: This was a decent sounding concept, and then they spoiled it by casting Eddie Murphy. Which means it's crap. Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D: Surprisingly non-terrible. It actually manages to be fun and exciting, and is worth seeing. I missed my five second movie reviews last week. But the only movie opening up then was Hancock, which sucked. |
| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | |
| 10:48 am | Video Games GameStop is having a big sale on used video games. A lot of ye know way more about video games than I do (despite the fact that I write for video games professionally), so I'm looking for your thoughts. Does anyone have strong opinions on any of these: The Mark of Kri Summoner 2 Virtua Fighter 4 Spy Hunter 2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Dark Cloud Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Fable Now, with picking up cheap used games and borrowing games from friends, we already have far more than we have time to play. So if you think of any of these as mildly fun, that's not enough for us to buy them. Especially if they're single player. But are there any of these where your opinion is more along the lines of, "HOLY CRAP! HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE PLAYED THIS ALREADY!?!? THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVAR!!" |
| Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | |
| 12:01 pm | Is that a Hancock in your pocket or are you just watching a crappy movie? Hancock is lousy. You know all that fun, funny stuff that was in the trailer? That's just the first 20 minutes of the movie. And there really aren't any jokes that they failed to include in the trailer, so there's no reason for you to waste your money rewatching them. There's an old saying in screenwriting that anyone can write a great first act. I don't think that's remotely accurate, but I do agree that first acts are on the easier side of things a screenwriter needs to do. Coming up with an interesting character and set-up aren't nearly as hard as sustaining tension and audience interest while that character grows and tries to solve his problems. Hancock nails the first act. It has a great premise: "What would it be like if Superman was a drunk who everyone hated?" But it has no idea where to go after that. There's just a jumble of nonsensical CGI action sequences with no story, coherence, logic, or internal consistency behind them. The only goal in the movie is to pad out the running time so that it's long enough to be called a movie. This movie is based on an original screenplay, rather than an adaptation or sequel. As I've mentioned before, this is very rare for action movies these days. The script was originally written in 1996, when Hollywood was still making original movies, and then it was stuck in development hell for 12 years. This development hell shows, in that it feels like scenes from at least three unrelated films were mashed together with no rhyme or reason. So while I wish Hollywood would make more original movies*, I would prefer if they'd use the original scripts that are actually good. Anyway, you should skip this steaming pile of crap. * Not that there's anything inherently wrong with adaptations. But when Hollywood exclusively makes adaptations, that means that all sorts of potentially great original movies aren't getting made. Instead, they're being replaced by the mediocre adaptations that wouldn't be good enough to get made if they had to compete against original screenplays. (The good/great adaptations would get made either way.) |
| Monday, July 7th, 2008 | |
| 11:42 am | Cell Phones, GPSes, and Memory I made an observation a while ago, which I don't think was at all original, that cell phones have destroyed our capacity for remembering phone numbers. When we wanted to call someone, we used to look up the number in a personal phone book, and then type it into the keypad. For people we called regularly, we quickly learned the phone number so we no longer had to look it up each time. But now we look up the person by name in our cell phone, and hit the dial button. We don't pay attention to the number, so we never learn it. Before I had a cell phone, I knew dozens of phone numbers by memory. Since I started using a cell phone, the only new phone number I have committed to memory is my wife's. And a few work-related phone numbers which I frequently give out or dial on my work phone rather than my cell phone. But my capacity to memorize numbers has atrophied: I have to look up my boss' number every time I call her. If I was still regularly learning phone numbers, I'm sure I would have learned hers by now. As I said, this is a common phenomenon, and I'm by no means the only person to have observed it. But I suspect that as GPS becomes ubiquitous, people will lose the capacity to find their way around a city and remember how to get places. They'll just press the button for Bob's house, the GPS will tell them where to go. People won't have to pay attention, so they won't, and they won't learn the route on their own. Not that this is a bad thing. As GPSes get better, and especially as they start integrating real-time traffic information into their suggested routes, travel will become much faster and more efficient than when people were figuring out routes on their own, or even when they were using Google Maps. This is an unambiguously good thing. I don't see any problem with people losing abilities that are no longer relevant. Very few people still know how to harness an ox cart or butcher a buffalo, and there's nothing wrong with that. If they can free up their mindspace for something more useful or entertaining, good for them. I just think it's interesting. |
| 10:59 am | Top movies of the last 25 years I normally don't participate in stupid memes like this, but since it's about movies, I did this time. From Entertainment Weekly's top 100 movies of the last 25 years. Go through their list, BOLD the ones you have seen, and underline the ones you own on video or DVD; put an asterisk next to the one you love. Italicize the ones you want to see. Strike through the ones you hate/don't want to ever see. ( Read more... ) So I've seen most of the important movies of the last 25 years that aren't pretentious or consist of writers masturbating over how quirky they can be. (There are a few exceptions: For example, there's nothing wrong with Hoop Dreams. It just never interested me.) The pretentious/writers masturbating ones also seem to be the ones I disliked. I don't own a lot of movies because I don't re-watch them enough to justify buying them. I'd rather just get them from Total Access and watch them once. |
| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 | |
| 11:57 am | Wanted Wanted is a mediocre movie. If you're a big fan of action, you'll be mildly entertained. But there's no reason not to wait for video, and you shouldn't feel bad if you miss it all together. If you're only meh toward action movies, you should definitely skip it. It has some cool scenes and sequences that are enjoyable to watch, but it has two big problems: The first is that the abilities of the super-assassins are essentially magic. Worse, it's ruleless magic, which is always anathema to effective science fiction or fantasy. When the abilities of a superpowered individual vary from scene to scene based on what the writer/director feels like having happen in that scene, it kicks the audience out of the world. We can't engage our hopes and fears when we have nothing to base them on other than ever varying whims. The other issue is more fundamental. Wanted is basically a dumb movie that looks cool. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, if that's what the filmmakers were setting out to make. But for a dumb movie, it commits the unforgivable sin of taking itself seriously. Which is just ridiculous. This is a movie where Fate uses a magic loom to weave binary code telling mystical assassins whom to kill. (Really. That's not hyperbole. It's actually in the movie.) That's completely absurd. You can't have a premise so silly and then bog down the movie with pretentious pseudophilosophy. Why would you do that? There aren't any ideas in this movie beyond, "We kill the people that fate tells us would otherwise do horrible things." That's not a philosophy. That's not a credo. That's just an excuse to have people jumping hundreds of feet through plate glass windows while shooting fifteen people in slow motion. So why do they spend like 20 minutes of aggregate screentime using big words that don't mean anything trying to justify this? Some might compare this flaw to The Matrix, but there are some key differences. The Matrix actually had some ideas behind its philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Sure, the ideas were the sort of thing that college freshmen would discuss in the dorm lounge at four in the morning, possibly after splitting a joint. But at least they were ideas. Also, The Matrix was a much better movie that showed us things we had never seen before, while Wanted was derivative tripe that showed us things we've seen plenty of times before, including in The Matrix. And this pseudo-philosophy doesn't stop them from completely ignoring their justifications when they would get in the way of an action scene. For example, the supposed good guys have no problem whatsoever with throwing a train full of innocent people off a cliff. There's not a second of remorse for the hundreds of people who die. Which brings up another peeve of mine, that seems to be happening more and more in action movies: Treating deaths that happen offscreen as if they didn't happen. I complained about the same thing in The Incredible Hulk, but Wanted takes it to a new level. It actually violates its own continuity just to keep the deaths offscreen. So the train cars are filled with people while moving on the tracks, but a minute later when in the process of falling, they're empty except for the main characters. The train never stopped to let people off, so where did they go? The answer is that the director made them disappear because he didn't want you thinking about them, which is just insulting. Despite these flaws, the action scenes are cool enough for me to marginally recommend the movie to action fans. But you may enjoy it more watching it with the sound off, which is never a good sign. And since this may be of interest to some of you, I'll mention that you do get to see Angelina Jolie's bare ass in the movie. Personally, I've never understood horny guys who see a movie solely because of a scantily clad hot chick appearing in it. You can see even hotter women wearing even less clothing for free on the internet, so why would you sit through a lousy movie? Also, electricia had an interesting observation about Wanted, but it involves a huge mega-spoiler, so I'll put it behind a cut. You should only read this if you've already seen the movie or aren't planning to see it, because reading it ahead of time will completely ruin the story. Not that there's much of a story to ruin, but what there is will be spoiled.( HUGE SPOILER WARNING ) |
| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 | |
| 2:08 pm | Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger  |
| 11:26 am | Texas Tea! Black Gold! Fermented Dinosaur Poop! Here's an excellent primer on the economics of oil and gasoline, that can easily be understood by laymen. It explains why the price of gas has doubled in the last year, and also why an anticipated future increase in supply or decrease in demand would lower prices today. If you talk, think, or have an opinion on fuel prices, you should go read that article. It's all basic economics, but so few people understand basic economics that articles like this are a breath of fresh air. |