Okay, this is way old, but holy crap its hilarious. There are many spin offs, I haven't gone any except one that was just ok. But this one is the awesome.
Mar 16, 2008
Mar 15, 2008
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Run, Fat Boy, Run - So, this is by the dude who did Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Quick review - Shaun of the Dead is genius. One of my favorite movies ever, hilarious, awesome, farce/satire at its best, it is tops. Hot Fuzz is pretty dumb, not very funny, not all that interesting. Good bits, but nothing special. This is a more honest movie, no satire, just sort of a story about a dude trying to get back his family. As far as the plot goes, it's pretty standard, nothing new, everything happens exactly like you would expect it to. It is pretty funny though, and him doing a more geniune kind of humor was much better than me than him trying to redo Shaun with Hot Fuzz. So, it's not amazing, but I did enjoy it.
We Own The Night - Not bad. It's basically a cop story. It's nothing amazing, but it's servicable. It's easy to compare to The Departed (both with Mark Wahlburg, which is weird), and fails in every respect compared to it. But if you haven't seen a cop movie in a while and you see this, it'll be good. Joaquin Phoenix is the best of the bunch, lotta rage and desperation going on there. So, don't run to see it, but defintely watch if it's on.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Finally saw this one, it was as amazing as advertised. If you haven't heard, the story is basically this guy has a stroke thing and gets "locked in syndrome" Can't move any part of his body except one eyeball. Using this eyeball, blinking out which letter he wants one letter at a time, he wrote a novel about his experience. Done mostly from his perspective, and based on a real thing, it's completely amazing and beautiful.
Saw 4 - See: review of saw 3 but replace "lame story of redemption/forgiveness" with "lame story of origin/motivation". Another boring twist, more boring backstory. Stupid and boring.
Hitman - Video game movie! And as such, not so good. I loved the games, but it doesn't make for a great movie, mostly because the main character is cool for his lack of presence, not for being a leading man. I guess it lends itself to a complicated plot, but this one was pretty generic. Oh, plus an unnecessary love story, cuz of course. Oh well, didn't expect it to be good, did I?
Persepolis - This movie is wonderful. It's a story of an iranian girl, growing up in the 70s and 80s, in Iran and in Vienna. It was a graphic novel, made into an animated movie. The story itself is interesting and beautiful, would make a fine book. The character art is just ok, nothing bad, nothing amazing. The backgrounds are fantastic, though. A prison on a hill, a city scape, even just a room - all done in this greyed (the movie is mostly black and white) style. It looks like it was done with chalk and then photocopied 5 times, it's great. Defintely worth seeing. Also, my favorite quote, as she describes the changes of puberty: "My breasts grew. [she falls forward] my buttocks appeared, thus restoring my center of gravity [she pops up like a weeble wobble]" Teehee.
Mar 11, 2008
Hezbollah Tofu
Hahah, this is great. So, Anthony Bourdain, the flaming asshole who called all vegetarians terrorists, has prompted the creation of this blog, Hezbollah Tofu, dedicated to making vegan alternatives to traditional french dishes. I don't know that they are any good, I haven't tried any yet, but it's awesome just in principle!
Kwikset SmartKey
Oh em gee I want this on all my locks right now!! The fact that its reprogramable is cool I guess, but that it's unbumpable is fantastic. So cool!
Mar 3, 2008
Mar 1, 2008
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Jumper - Sigh. I was so excited for this movie!! It's a dude, and he teleports!!! How can that not be awesome?! Well, it turns out, it's not awesome. Chiefly the writing, absolutely horrendous. The first 30 minutes are painful. They gave Diane Lane the shittiest dialog. Samuel Jackson just does his squinty glarey thing the whole time. It's really disappointing. There are cool parts, and teleportation is always cool, no matter what. It just fails in most other respects. Plus, I made someone else endure it with me, for which I feel rather bad.
Into The Wild - Help! I don't know what to do with this movie! My first impression is how unbelievably obnoxious it is. The main character is a spoiled little brat whose form of rebellion is this pseudo-philisophical, naturalist, faux-poetic, self-righteous bullshit life choice. I was so annoyed with him, I don't need his stupid story to teach me about the importance of human relationships, I already figured it out! On the other hand, the people he meets throughout are pretty great. The old man at the end, whose performance was nominated for an oscar and was the reason I watched this movie, is amazing. So do I hate it? Love it? I don't buy the poetry, I don't buy the beauty. The main character is a douche, but I guess they knew that, right? I'm supposed to appreciate it inspite of, because of, that? I don't know! I'm very confused. Great soundtrack though.
Last King of Scotland - Wow, this was pretty great. Maybe not exactly as amazing as I had heard, but pretty awesome. Forest Whitaker is amazing. His descent through the movie is really good. If There Will Be Blood hadn't flipped my shit so hardcore, I might be calling it the best batshit-insane acting I've seen in a while. I didn't know the story, so I didn't know how it would end, so I guess that made it more suspenseful for me. The whole last bit is pretty intense. So yeah, if you are as far behind as me on big movies, I'd say go see it!
Fur - BORing! This movie is supposed to be a shocking and dramatic romance. I notice one reviewer brings up Birth, the last Nicole Kidman movie that had a shocking and dramatic romance. This time it's a wolfman type guy. zzzzzz Don't care about him, or her, or if they do or don't fall in love. At times I questioned myself, like it felt like it should have been good and I wasn't getting it. But I think that's just it, it thought it should be good, but it wasn't.
One Night With The King - Okay, this movie isn't so great, I guess. The writing and acting are pretty bad. The weird thing is that despite that, I didn't hate the movie. It kept me moderatley interested. Maybe because I don't know the story (it's a bible story, about esther), I was more interested than I otherwise would have been. Anyway, I can't really recommend it, it's not good at all, but it's not too horrible.
The Queen - Another 2006 oscar movie I'm just getting too! Pretty fascinating. I've never been at all interested in the royals thing, so I didn't know much about it. Despite not caring, though, the movie was very captivating, like a behind the scenes view of a very public affair (the death of princess di). I'm not sure why Helen Mirren got an oscar, she was good and all, great even, but I didn't fall over or anything. Nothing much more to say, it is pretty much what you would expect, just very well done.
Happy Feet - This movie was entirely completely 100% average. Not that funny, all popular songs song by people that didn't impress me, ok animation, ok story, ok everything, who cares? And I love penguins, I'm an easy audience! Boring!
Breakfast at Tiffany's - So I had never seen this movie, crazy right? I rather liked it! It has the single most offensive character I've ever seen ever in a movie. Mickey Rooney playing a japanese landlord, complete with puffed up cheeks and buck teeth. It was absolutely atrocious. Black face is the only thing I can think of MORE offensive! Besides that, though, I am, as usual, very impressed with the cleverness and the writing in these old movies. Nice subtle remarks, leaving things unsaid that don't need to be said. It's cheesy and corny, and the ending is totally boring romance stuff, but most of the movie was quite enjoyable.
El Espinazo del Diablo - Oh wow, this movie is great! It's by Guillermo del Toro (pan's labyrinth), and it's kind of a ghost story. Though it's really another story with a ghost story character. It's really fantastic, not super scary, but I love the ghost and his special effect. This is why seeing foreign scary movies is cool. We are all used to the american thing, and by now even the japanese thing. Whatever you think the merits of the different kinds are, just seeing a different approach to it is a lot of fun. I was really impessed by the whole thing, I likes it!
Feb 26, 2008
Star Wars according to a 3 year old
Ok Ok, I generally think linking cute youtube videos is a waste of time, but jesus.
Feb 12, 2008
Feb 11, 2008
Feb 10, 2008
Book Reviews @ The Temple
Harry Potter 7 by JK Rowling (Read by Jim Dale) - Hey, this was not bad at all! Which surprises me I guess. I was totally into the HP thing in the beginning. This was not because of characters, or plot, or good writing. It was a great world she created, very charming and funny. Lots of little details that fill out a fictional world and make it both enjoyable and believable. I'm a big advocate of this kind of ground work in a fantasy series, I think it makes or breaks it. This, however, only lasted 3 or 4 books for me. I remember enjoying 4, but I was about done at that point. As the series went on, it became much more about the characters and the drama of the plot, and less about the world. This isn't a fundamental flaw, that has to happen in all series, it's natural. I just don't think she did it very well. In books 5 and 6, I just didn't care about the plot, or the characters. Then, allasudden, I listen to this book and I'm totally into it! And I have to think it has something to do with listening and not reading. The books just aren't written all that great. This isn't a thing I harp too much on, I'm no writer, I'm not even that smart a reader. But clearly the writing did not support my interest in the story, because I was bored, even when big things and deaths happened. Then Jim Dale reads it to me, and it's dramatic and interesting and I was much more into it. I was excited to get to the end, even though I already knew what happened! I should have listened to 5 and 6 too, maybe I would have liked them!
The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel Matt - This wasn't what I was expecting. I've previously read God & The Big Bang by Matt, and wasn't super impressed, but I wanted to learn more about Kabbalah. I thought this would be a discussion of it, helping someone as clueless as me understand. It was, instead, translated excerpts from the Zohar (mostly) organized into subject areas (such as Meditation, the Creation of God, The Ten Sefirots, etc). I'm not in the best position to say if he did a good job, this being my introduction to Kabbalah. But it seemed very nice to me. It's pretty short, I think I'll keep it around to look at again in the future. You could almost use a given passage as a meditation or something, if it spoke to you.
Yakuza Moon by Shoko Tendo - Well, this book isn't so great. I feel bad, she admits in the afterword that she's no writer. But even beyond that it's kind of really simplistic story telling. It's a tragic story, and interesting as those things go. But it's no real insight into yakuza culture, beyond "in what way does THIS brand of people go about fucking their lives up." I wanted it to be good, but it just wasn't great. Also really short, I read 40 pages in one sitting and then the remaining 140 in the next.
Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Read by William Hope and Laurel Lefkow) - This book is hard to describe! It's really a romance book, but it's also got a kinda scifi-ish element. And it's not super romance like there's sex all the time, though they do throw a "cock" out once in a while which is kinda jarring since its so rare. The basic story is a guy who time travels, randomly, can't control it. The book is the story of how he meets his wife, in many time periods, at different ages. It's kind of confusing at first, but what I like most about this book is how well it is structured. What could be super hard to understand throughout becomes very plain and easy to follow through a really nice progression of their lives. And this is coming from someone who typically thinks time travel is stupid as a rule. There was one part of the book I found very weird, a discussion of innocence that I would like to think was put there to make you feel weird and that the characters are wrong. But I couldn't find any subtleties to prove this. I'm afraid it was just icky. It's fleeting though. I wouldn't say the book is amazing, but it is worth while if you are into this sorta thing.
Feb 8, 2008
Feb 7, 2008
Feb 6, 2008
Movie Reviews @ The Temple
Rambo - Jeeeeezus. So, yeah, there's a lot of blood here. It's actually not hard core rambo for like 3/4 of the movie. Before that it's violent, but in a way that makes you uncomfortable not because it's bloody, but because you know that shit is happening all over the world right now. Genocide, murder, rape, pillage, etc. Pretty awful. I found myself analyzing the minutia of the effects or makeup as a way of distancing myself. It was interesting, for that reason. Then the last 20 minutes happen, and it is insane kick ass amazing blow the crap out of anything that moves rambo action, haha. 's pretty cool.
Gone Baby Gone - Man, this movie has a question to ask you, and it's a good one. The movie is very well done, it's white trash city up in this hizzy. It's uncomfortable it's so good at it. Casey Affleck I am increasingly convinced is amazing. But the big plot result at the end leaves you sitting there with the characters wondering what the right answer is. Very good.
Atonement - Umm... I don't know what to say about this movie. 1 hour and 50 minutes of it are boring and forgettable. I don't think the main chick or dude are anything special. If you like this period kinda thing, you'll like this. If not (as I don't), it'll be boring. But THEN, the last 10 minutes happens. And through an amazing bit of writing and an astounding performance from Lynn Redgrave, I suddenly feel like the movie is awesome. It's so weird. I don't know, I guess you have to see it, just make sure you hold out to the end.
Dragon Wars - Maybe it was cuz I heard such awful things, but I didn't actually hate hate this. I mean, the acting is awful, the writing is awful, the plot is just stupid. But the effects, which are really the point, aren't that bad! The dragons look moderately cool, the big dragon fight is adequate. It's by no means a good movie, but the fight is worth accidentally watching I guess.
Lars and the Real Doll - Saw this on a plane, assuming it's not the type of movie that I missed much. Don't know what to say, I didn't really buy it. From afar, I will try to say that it was too predictable and silly. I guess you could argue that they know that and that that's not the point. The acting was fine, the writing was fine, I guess it's just the plot I didn't like. And there's where a disclaimer/admission has to come in. This movie is in part about loneliness. And the thing about watching loneliness is that it makes you feel lonely. And that's not super appreciated all the time. Maybe if a different person watches this, it is sweet and is actually about hope and love and human spirit. But a lonely person watching it, I would say, does not see the hope. That person sees a silly movie about people that aren't real and things that don't really happen. All the first part feels familiar, the happy ending doesn't. So I would say a person could very easily be biased watching this movie, and therefore unfair to it. /end tmi
Feb 5, 2008
New X-Men Cartoon
Here's the trailer. Stupid ass music, not really impressed by any part of it. But of course I"ll be all over it anyway :)
Jan 31, 2008
Improv Everywhere in Grand Central
I don't know why I link to these guys, you should really be subscribed yourself. But they are back again, 200 people freeze for 5 minutes in Grand Central Station, it's awesome.
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