More movies, more movies, more movies

Okay, this is the fun part. I'm watching a movie while publishing my puny reviews. How ironic?

Okay, here we go.

1) The Kingdom - FBI squad in Iraq, investigating a bombing of Americans. Great movie with some good action scenes. Jamie Foxx with Jennifer Garner. Great action sequence on the DVD, where over a 5 minute sequence, you can watch it from 3 or 4 different angles (not simultaneously) . Nice extra

2) The Astronaut Farmer - Another interesting movie. Kinda like a space man "Field of Dreams". Not a movie which I remember a lot about. I remember enjoying it. But, not a long lasting memory. More of chewing gum for the mind, kind of entertainment.

3) The Italian Job - Ocean's Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen but different. Great car scene, racing around in Cooper Mini's

4) Capote - Definitely a Oscar award winning performance. Captured the odd behavior of Capote with great detail, and freakyness.

5) The Prestige - Another great movie about two magicians and what they brought about, both real and fiction. Great drama, with some interesting ramifications of what they did for their art.

6) Collateral - While I really had issues for Tom Cruise, but he and Jamie Foxx did a fine job of acting in this movie, and keeping it interesting. Not one I'd watch again, most likely, but worth watching at least once.

7) Good Night, and Good Luck - Another oscar winning movie. George Clooney and the group were wonderful, in this dissection of the Red Scare and McCarthy-ism. Not action packed, and you are left wondering what happened at the end, but you know you saw something worth watching.

8) Grosse Pointe Blank - Great Movie !! The story of the 10 year High school reunion and what happend with John Cusack going back to the town he left from his high school romanatic interest, all while making a living as an assassin.

9) Hairspray- John Travolta in Drag. Need I say more. The original movie was worth watching, and this one seems to improve upon the original.

10) Dr. Strangelove - another of those movies you watch because you really should, but at the end, you are left wondering where the movie really ended. Something to watch again in 5 or 10 years, but not any more often than than. Peter Sellers is wonderful in all his characters.

Okay, not many left on the DVD list, but the instant viewing queue is full of other movies, including some deadbeats.

okay...more movies

I'll just keep up with my previous theme and quickly review some more movies we've watched either online or from disk.

1) Intolerable Cruelty - Funny, Odd film. Thought Clooney was great, and could totally run off with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Fun movie with the double crossing and the odd give and goes between them.

2) Next - Nicholas Cage. The movie was okay. It had a Sliding Doors quality, in that he'd see into the future, and then come back to the "now" and choose a path. So, you'd see a couple of reality possibilities, as well as what "did" happen. But it twists and turns, keeping things interesting

3) The Bucket List - Hilarious with the play from each other in the movie. Grumpy Old Men but different. Nothing too deep, but interesting enough.

4) Lord of War - Nicholas Cage again. But the movie had its shortcmings. Slow in a lot of places. It was good to see the movie, but wouldn't see it again.

5) No Reservations - Catherine Zeta-Jones again, as the chef. Ratatouille with live action. Again, she projected her role well again, and the chemistry with the other chef and the kid were good. She's always seems to be able to do well on her roles. I believed her in Chicago in her role, where Renee was just flat.

6) No Country for Old Men - Glad to watch it, but wasn't anything that I was expecting. Won't watch it again, but definetly something to see. Odd, a bit towards the horror side of things, without the gratuitous jumping from behind corners at you.

7) Batman Begins - Loved it. Great reinvention of a franchise that got too silly for its own good. Definitly not your 1960's Batman. It pulled the movies back from the goofy edge of things, back to the Michael Keaton version, then cranked up the darkness. Great way to restart the role.

8) The January Man - Another obscure movie from the 80's. Entertaining, loved Alec Rikman in his supporting role, with Kevin Kline as the lead man. Funny, and very 80's.

9) Golden Compass - interesting movie. If didn't have a firm ending, mostly because it should be continued in the next book. Never read those books, but the movie was good, if not very English (but it wasn't slow). Might have to read the books before I watch them again. Of course, I haven't read the Narnia books, although my 11 yr old has 2 or 3 times.

10) Becoming Jane - Okay, a chick flick. but it was a good movie. I love Anne Hathaway in general, even when goofy. This movie, she projected well, and was believeable in the role. I guess I'm in touch with my feminine side.

Okay, enough for now. hopefully, this enlightens someone in the bits and bytes out there.

Hmmmm....Movies

Okay, I figure since I started this Blog thing, I should blog about something. So, how about movies. Or more precisely, all the movies that I'm trying to catch up on. Netflix is quite a treat. While I'm only doing one movie at a time, the online movie viewer for the older or more obscure stuff makes for interesting distractions. You can't beat the cost, in my opinion. I don't subscribe to fancy cable packages, just what gets me the local stations. I don't want to watch that much TV. Or more precisely, I would watch that much TV.

I set up computer A for my surfing, homework, and other stuff. On Computer B, I setup Netflix and watch a movie. It is a built in distraction !! Instead of going down web-links on tangents from tangents to orthogonal tangents, I only have one thing to watch. So, as new movies come in and are watched, I might as well review them. (BTW: the computers are side-by-side and I recommend a SW package called Synergy (see http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) which will allow you to move a mouse from monitor to monitor (computer to computer) without doing anything more than setting up a client-server application from the website).

Now, I have gotten complaits that the DVD's we receive aren't appreciated by the wife, but she knows I get the movies and hasn't put in suggestions, so, if you don't vote, you can't complain.

Okay, 5 movies I've watched online. Granted, these are tangents upon themselves, in the Netflix rating system. "You liked this, so you should like this..." Sometimes, it is true. At other times...Meh.

1) Cashback - Loved it. Obscure movie, young actors, but still interesting. Can be slow but was fun to watch.

2) JFK - Left. And Back. Left And Back. or somethine like that. Interesting to watch again and satisfies the conspirory theorist in all of us.

3) Team America: World Police: A sign I'm getting too old. Didn't even finish the movie. Sure, it is intersting from an artsy point of view, but come-on, it just got too goofy. A conspirory movie satire, that's out to hurt itself.

4) Blade Runner (Theatrical Cut): Still love the movie. Methodically slow in parts, but the dry, Harrison Ford in the cyberpunk movie is great.

5) The Postman: I actually liked this movie. A lot of movies I watch out of curiosity and this was one. But, I found it entertaining in the post-end-of-the-country genre. It flirted with being overboard, but not too bad. If Shatner showed up, then forget it, it would be over that boundary.

That's all. I'll probably watch something Hitchcock this evening, while writing a 3 page paper for homework. We'll see how it goes (the paper meaning). First, the housecleaning, NFL, eBay listings, and pocket lint harvesting.

Stand back. I know what I'm doing.

Well, maybe not.

Seeing a lot of movies lately, between hulu.net and netflix online viewing, you can view all those obscure movies that are good, but not really....good.

Old stuff out there...Hitchcock, which is fun. Clockwork Orange and Logan's Run are on my list.

Been to the movies as well: Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E, Iron Man, Prince Caspian, and Journey to the center of the Earth.

I know Brandon Fraser seems to be type-cast as a particular character, but he does it so well, and can pull off the likable, goofy, hero. Mummy 3 is on the list for the summer as well.

(Oh, and the female character is a pleasant piece of tough, plausible, eye-candy, but that's my...brain talking. I'm not sure that Jules Verne was thinking of her for the book, but sometimes, modern is better)

Okay, warm days, and ready for the second wave of vacation to Maine, and be ready for the onslaught of family that will be visiting and volunteering to "help".

Have a safe summer

Wrong... just wrong

Okay, a different bend on philosophy tonight.

A towel. Does it like being wet or dry?

It likes wet: So, it holds on to all moisture as long as possible, and slowly lets go, while cracking as it drys out, faster than a worm on the pavement. But when you get it wet again. Boy, is it happy.

It likes dry: It can't stand being wet. It likes it in a dry heat. Arizona is the place for it. Life in an oven is what it wants. It gets wet and immediately is trying to get back to the state of freedom, without being encumbered by water.

Okay, sad commentary that this is being considered.

As opposed to discussions with my 11 year old on trying to figure out how to make teleportation work. He seems to think he's got the whole conservation of matter solved, by introducing anti-matter in one spot, while creating it in another spot. He is still stuck on that whole "life-force" thing, on how to take that matter that is in-action, and make it move again on the other side.
Never mind the whole, reassembly part. He's got that mastered already, by lasers taking 3-D measurements.

I suppose he'll love Star Trek, if I ever introduce him to it. Or am I just pushing him on that path to geekdom, which he is already meandering on.

Stand back - I'm going to try blogging

Okay, reference to one of my favorite online-comics http://www.xkcd.com/

Now, what to write about in the world. Some people have the knack to write down things and you can hear their voice(s) stating what they write. Their writing matches their flow of thought, and their dynamic essence of speech.

Me? You get poor grammar, spelling, and incomplete thoughts (ohhhh... Spell checker...Nice.. shiny)

What is going on in this bend of reality? The attempt to make life...life again. Remember the exhilaration of riding your bike down the street, and feeling the wind blowing by, the sound of the tires on the street, and even the bugs in your face. How is it that when you get older, all you see are the hazard and drawbacks around it? You chant the mantra of peril at your kids, knowing that is would be what you see know, while riding on the street.

• Wear your helmet.
• Look out for the dog.
• Not so fast.
• Oh, there's sand in the road.
• Look out for the dummies
• Keep your hands on the handles
• Look where you are going not where you have been.

How do you reclaim that innocence? How is riding that bike fun again? Can the sheer joy of riding that bike be recaptured, and experienced all over again? Will it still be the same? Will it be a let down? Or will it just be what the doctor ordered?

Me? I guess I've figuring on how to get on that bike (blast these new fancy-pants hybrid mountain bikes...)

First time for everything

Okay. Welcome to my Blog.

"Insert First Time Blogger entry here"

So I (state your name), do hearby pledge to randomly insert blatherings of what I am thinking, doing, or just not thinking or doing, in no particular order, and make observations about things I either have no qualification to make comments on, or have just felt the need to make a pithy remark, further ostracising myself from the real world.

Oh, by the way, I can't spell, so please please please (let me...sorry Smiths reference) have the spell checker work.

(Note: This took three tries, after figuring out my "text" was turning into HTML code, and hiding itself from the world).