Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was a lot of fun. It was the definition of a guilty, guilty pleasure. What I especially liked was that the Harold and Kumar are not stupid (stoned, yes, stupid, no). Sure, they're a bit geeky (Harold, especially, is struck dumb in the presense of an attractive neighbor he has a crush on), but in the end they managed to triumph over crazed rednecks, X-Treme assholes, lazy bosses, corrupt, racists cops and, it seems, the hand of fate keeping them from White Castle.

Some Movie Reviews

Suzy and I have caught a few flicks at the theaters and on video lately. MirrorMask was quite the visual spectacle ... Alice in Wonderland by way of Beetlejuice care of Neil Gaiman. Literally a teenage girls fantasy drawings come to life in a dream. Occasionally it slowed and stumbled, but made up for those short-comings with eye popping imagery.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is an early high point in the career of Miyazaki (later of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away). Lots of action, above average design and animation, a relatively meaningful plot, and best of all, a central character who is not passive in the least.

Primer is the ultimate, low budget science fiction thriller. It mixed some very real world cinema verite conversation with a plot something like Dilbert-meets-La Jetee. Because it embraces the pecular mechanics of time travel so thoroughly, it becomes effectively impossible to follow (the commentary reveals that certain strange events towards the end have no explanation because any explanation would rely on information that the protagonists simply don't have). Maybe not up to the level of indy flick hype it received, but not bad either.

And then, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit which restored my faith in animation. Quick paced, well told, delightful to watch, and simply full of delight. I hope I don't have to wait another five years for the next story.

Illuminati: New World Order - Uncut Press Sheets

I've put up for auction my collection of signed, framed, uncut press sheets for Illuminati: New World Order ... they are big and somewhat fragile (for a cross-country move, anyway) and perhaps will make the right person happy. In which case, they better be prepared to pay.

We're also running an moving sale, 8am - noon on Saturday, Nov 5th.

Wheels grind into motion

Well, our backup buyers have become our primary buyers (the couple from Colorado have decided to move elsewhere) and we've agreed on price and terms. If all goes well (and when does that ever happen?) we'll be closing on December 1st and hopping onto a plane to Portland! Lots and lots of details to work out, as you might guess and, as my Mom can attest, nothing is final until the closing.

Movie Review: The Corpse Bride

Despite our recent pounding by another Tim Burton movie, we were hoping for another Nightmare before Christmas. What we got was even more of a trifle. The animation was excellent, but the story was amazingly thin. You have no back story for any of the characters, which makes the sudden love between Vincent and Victoria (the main characters, whose wedding is complicated by the titular Corpse Bride) hard to swallow. We can only speculate that Tim Burton started with the emergence of the Corpse Bride and worked out from there ... then lost interest in the story itself (which is one of his unfortunate trademarks).

The end result felt like highlights from a longer, better movie. And like many "musicals" these days, the musical portions could easily have been ommitted without affecting the movie. Worse, several of the musical numbers were so crowded and noisy that you couldn't make out what any of the characters were singing.

What's with all these passive protagonists? This is all too common in animation it seems ... characters who are along for the ride, too timid to affect anything until, perhaps, they show some backbone in the final reel.

This movie is most notable for technical achievements; it was shot onto digital SLRs and editted using Final Cut Pro. In addition, several scenes show animated characters playing piano (one piano is branded as a "Harryhausen") which was incredibly ambitous. But that doesn't make it a great movie, just a rental.

For Sale: Star Trek: The Next Generation Pinball

Goodbye, pinball machine. We'll miss you.

Animation woes

Suzy and I have seen several animated films lately, with very limited results. First, we rented Millennium Actress, which had some very good buzz. This had some interesting ideas and visuals, but like so much anime, just ran out of steam early on, and become rambling and chaotic.

So, next up was Howl's Moving Castle. Again, a good start that went nowhere. This film was dissapointing on many levels; the story line had nothing to do with the book upon which the film was based (by Dianna Wynne Jones, a favorite of Suzy's). In fact, it liberated a couple of names and a few strands of plot from the book, then immediately undercut them. The animation was decidely sub-par for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. The characters were quite bland, the villains, politics, and entire world were arbitrary. But mostly, the plot made no sense. Why was Howl so scared of the Witch of the Waste (the movie recasts him from the book's shifty layabout into sometihng more like Neo in the Matrix); and once the Witch's power is broken, why do they take her in as a guest? Why does Sofi destroy the castle, just to rebuild a smaller version with Calcifer? Why does Suliman let them go at the end? Isn't having the scarecrow turn into a prince, and then announce "I'll go stop the war" in the last two minutes a bit arbitrary? Did we really need a translation of the lyrics of the syrupy J-Pop song over the credits?

But our animation misery was not quite over; last saturday night, we ventured out to the Coolige Corner theater to see their animation festival. This was a competition event ... but not the way I thought. You see, this was not like the animation festivals of the past; it did not contain Acadamy Award winners and hopefuls. It was a local competition, and an open one. These weren't finalists, they were ugly, pointless films by talentless, depressed, pretentious, angst-ridden, teenage artist-wannabees. There were one or two minor gems ("Crazy Eyes Dolphin vs. Mad Cow" was a charming visualization of a twisted story as told by three six year olds), but the majority of the short films were to be endured, not watched (and certainly not enjoyed).

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Avoid at all costs

No, really, this movie was excruciatingly bad. It was Tim Burton at his worst; imagery without story. Johnny Depp got Willie Wonka so completely wrong (and of course, Gene Wilder got him so right), but even that wasn't what sunk the movie. The music was terrible and unintelligible, plot lines from the original movie were dropped (and whether Slugworth was an invention of Mel Stuart or Roald Dahl, I don't know or care) taking with them all motivation for the characters, and all warmth and charm was surgically extracted from this film.

Don't be fooled by the first few minutes, which are playful and fun. Once we get to the factory itself, there's no movie, just a tedious wait for the end credits. Don't even rent this film.

Moving to Portland, OR

Well the cat is finally out of the bag: Suzy and I are officially moving to Portland, OR. We went through the very painful step of telling my parents, who were accepting that we just won't be satisified unless we try. This is an upsetting development for our friends as well, but I think ultimately much good will come of the move.

Our house is up for sale, and I suspect things will move quickly. We've spent the last many days cleaning up, organizing, and pulling out as much clutter as possible to a storage locker. The house looks great, as does the new lawn We had a broker show on tuesday, which was well received ... especially by brokers who had seen the house two years ago, before we purchased it. We'll see what happens on sunday, our first open house (1pm - 3pm).

In the meantime, we're pairing down our possesions before the move; including the Star Trek: The Next Generation Pinball Machine.

Wish us luck!

June 2005 - Quincy - New Yard

Just a few shots of our new back yard and patio.

Movie Review: Batman Begins

Whoa ... that didn't suck! Plays pretty close to the myth, with minor tweaks to make it work properly on the screen. It started, despite some action, as a bit too talkly but hit its stride by the end of the first reel. This Batman is not for laughs, and is neither invulnerable nor omniscient; in fact, he's quite vulnerable in a number of scenes. The screenplay finds some new nuances in Batman's rage/guilt/obsession.

Christian Bale makes a very good Bruce Wayne and a reasonable Batman (who can tell under all that costume?). Supporting actors do their job, with a few good lines to Micheal Caine. Suzy liked Katie Holmes more than I did; I felt she was pretty flat. Morgan Freeman is always Morgan Freeman. Gary Oldman was, as usual, unrecognizable as the lone, uncorruptable Gordon (long before being Commissioner Gordon).

I felt the action sequences were too jumpy, too hard to follow; we still seem to be living in the shadow of Gladiator (which I found laughable). You can do complex action without it turning into The Matrix, and I'd like to seem more effort there ... we're supposed to identify with Batman, and his whole shtick is being cool and controlled in a crisis.

This one is certainly up there with Spiderman and X-Men 2, and I honestly can't wait for a sequel.

April 2005 - Portland - Public Art

This is a short one; I had a quest to take pictures of every piece of public art I saw in Portland. That would be pointless ... there's just so much at every turn, even the half gig card would fill up almost instantly. It's great seeing people do a little extra. It's fun what can be done with one half of one percent.

April 2005 - Portland - Cannon Beach

This is a batch from Cannon Beach, which is about one and a half hours west of Portland, on the Oregon Coast. Haystack is the giant ("Godzilla-sized") rock on the beach, the core of a dead volcano.

April 2005 - Portland

This is a small batch of photos from our Oregon trip.

April 2005 - Portland - Columbia Gorge

This set of pictures is from a day trip to the Columbia Gorge. The road is specifically set up to bring you close to great waterfalls and scenic views. It used to be land owned by railroad robber barons, donated to the goverment for this purpose.

April 2005 - Portland - Japanese Garden

We took so many pictures while in Portland, Oregon that we have to release them in batches. This batch came from a mid-trip visit to the Japanese Garden overlooking downtown Portland.

The Phone

Have you answered The Phone?

Review: Sin City

Rob, Suzy and I caught an afternoon matinee of Sin City. The visual style was extremely powerful ... in fact, there wasn't much to the movie beyond that. It really was a transcription of the comic books to the screen ... but the over-the-top blood, violence, brutality and deviant fetishistic sex may not work so well on the big screen.

It did have quite a few good lines and wasn't exactly boring. I've only skimmed the comic books, but I got the feeling they crammed too much in. Too often, characters arrive, have a couple of lines of hackneyed conversation, and disappear (often in a splash of blood). I think I prefer a more controlled build up, where the potential of the combatants is established over the course of time, leading to a final confrontation ... Once Upon A Time In China did this quite well, for example, but in Sin City most of the characters are all but invincible (for example, shrugging off multiple gun shot wounds, or impacts from speeding cars) ... and that undermines any tension.

Suzy and my final take: Pretty entertaining for such a bad movie.

Calling All Nerds

Keeping track of everyone's email addresses has been getting harder and harder. I've created a Yahoo Group, callingallnerds, for this purpose.

Samuel Kijima Day 2

Some pictures of David and Aya's new son, Samuel. Sam is very vocal, and at 8 lbs 4 oz and climbing, quite strong. He loves (needs?) the sounds of Aya's and Dave's heartbeat.