Geekery

Whatever I’m geeking out about at the time.

Lock, Stock and Logan’s Garden Stomper

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First off, just finished watching Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, which I borrowed from a co-worker. Absolutely hilarious little crime drama. Took me just a couple minutes to get used to the heavy cockney accents that most of the characters have, after that had no problems. Not very predictable, either, and a great questionmark of an ending. If you’re into English humor and/or crime movies, this one’s quite worth the time to catch.

Next off, three more DVD’s to my collection. I wanted to fill in some holes in my collection with a couple movies that I’d been thinking about for a while, and added one more just ’cause it caught my eye.

Logan’s Run: A classic Sci-Fi film. If you’re at all into Sci-Fi and haven’t seen this one, you really should. Set in 2274, mankind has escaped the ravaged planet into covered cities, where they live with virtually no concerns (and a fair amount of hedonism) — until Lastday. On the day of your 30th birthday, you either submit to Carousel and die, or become a Runner and are hunted by the Sandmen. So what happens when Sandman Logan 5 gets long into his 29th year? I have to admit, though this was heavily spoofed in the film Free Enterprise, the closer I get to my own Lastday, the more I think of this film….

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: I actually have yet to see all of this film, to be honest. I first caught the last half over at a friends house, and have since found the book that the movie is based on. Considering what a bizarre murder mystery and cast of characters this story has, imagine how surprised I was while reading the book to find that it’s all a true story! The book is a thouroughly enjoyable read, and had me laughing aloud quite a few times while reading it — enough to catch my dad’s interest, at least, as this was happening while we were on vacation. I’m looking forward to finally seeing all of the movie, and just might watch it before crashing out tonight.

Romper Stomper: This one was actually something of a whim purchase — I’ve heard very little about it, but enough for it to catch my eye while browsing the movie racks. It was the breakthrough performance for Russel Crowe (most famous for Gladiator), where he plays the leader of a group of skinheads. Having known a few skinheads here in town during the years that they were a presence, I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by the various portrayals of them that I’ve seen (one of the best so far being Edward Norton‘s role in American History X), and from what I’ve heard, this movie does a very good job of portraying the skinhead mindset. Plus, the DVD edition looks pretty nice — a 2-disc set, including director’s commentary, background info, and a documentary on how skinheads have been portrayed in the movies. Should be an interesting night when I get to this one.

That’s it for tonight, though…time to either dive into ‘puter putzing or pop one of these into the player and catch one more movie before I crash out. Hmmm…anybody got a coin I could toss?

Antitrust (Hackers 2000)

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First things first — anybody remember when winter in Alaska meant snow? Not that I’m really complaining, I figure this is just training for when I move to Seattle…but it’s sure wierd as all getouts.

I went out to see Hackers 2000…er…sorry, make that Antitrust tonight. Not a bad little flick…nothing that’s really going to tax your brain, but an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. I do have to give them some props, though — this is one of the first movies since WarGames that I can think of that had a realistic computer user interface for the most part. Aside from a few dialog boxes that were pretty obviously mockups made for the sake of movie world clarity, the majority of the screens shown were using some variant of UNIX! I’m not sure which one — it’s pretty tough to tell from a command line, and most of the window managers out there have been ported to most *NIX flavors — but one little thing made me really wonder.

At one point in the movie Milo (the main character) is accessing a terminal and grabbing a bunch of video clips and stills, using a combination of GUI and CLI commmands. At one point, he calls up a program from the text prompt called “grabapp” — now, I know for certain that under Mac OS X, the screen grab utility is “Grab.app”, ported from the NEXT program “grab.app”. Made me take notice…could these be NEXT boxes? I highly doubt it, there could be any number of grab.app’s out there, or it could have just been put in to make it look semi-realistic to those of us geeky enough to watch the command line, but I thought it was at least a nice touch.

Anyway, a very entertaining, if predictable flick — catch a matinee sometime. I may pick it up when it comes out on DVD just to make a custom slipcase for it that actually says “Hackers 2000″….

Mom?!?!

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Just picked up one new DVD to add to the collection today — George Lucas in Love. If you’ve never seen the film, it’s well worth it…it’s a 9-minute long short film exploring the truth behind the story of Star Wars. You can find it online at MediaTrip.com, but I liked it enough to get a good quality copy. Plus, it comes with three other short films, all parodies of popular movies…not bad for twelve bucks!

Up and running

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Okay, I just got things up and running again. As of right now, everything on my site should be working correctly — now off to bed, I’ve got to get some sleep tonight!

Downtime

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Sorry about the recent downtime (the last couple days or so) — something went seriously glitchy on the machine, and I had to do a system repair on OS X, which nuked the web directory. Thankfully, I’m not a complete idiot, and had backed up the entire site before the repair, and so a quick copy back, and things seem to be up and running again, for the most part.

Unfortunately, the copying has changed read/write permissions on many of the files, and so not all of the interactive elements of the site — such as my messageboards — are working at the moment. I should have those fixed within the next day or two, but it’s a bit late tonight to go digging for the documentation. I’ll post an alert when things work again, of course.

High Fidelity Imposters Dream of Hallmark

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I’d actually managed to go through a couple release days without anything catching my eye enough to spend money on — miracles never cease, eh? I’d thought about picking up Hollow Man, but I think I’ll leave that one firmly in the ‘renter’ category. The effects are great, and the first half of the movie is very promising…unfortunately, the second half blows. A lot. It has, however, prompted a very interesting discussion over on the Home Theater Forum, where I hang out from time to time.

After work today I had to go by Suncoast to figure out when I work this weekend, and discovered that I had a paycheck waiting for me. Rock on…but funny, I didn’t have it when I walked out. Instead, here’s what I ended up with:

High Fidelity: John Cusack‘s recent romantic comedy. A good friend of mine and I have had a vague theory for a while that John Cusack is assembling a loose series of films all revolving around the same character (so far, the only stumbling block we’ve found is that the character has different names in each of these films…still, logic has never stopped us before), and we think that High Fidelity just may be the most recent chapter. So far, we’ve got One Crazy Summer (high school), Better Off Dead (high school), Say Anything (high school graduation), Grosse Pointe Blank (10-year reunion), and now High Fidelity (life in the real world post-school).

The Impostors: I saw this one on a whim when it was in the theaters a while back, and walked out thinking that they just don’t make movies like this anymore. It’s a really silly little comedy, and the best word I can come up for it is delightful — which isn’t a word I apply to movies very much these days. Reminds me a lot of classic Marx Brothers type situation comedys…fluff, but thoroughly enjoyable fluff.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: I’ve been something of an amateur Shakespeare buff for a few years now (ever since Kenneth Branagh released Henry V to the theaters), and this is the latest addition to my so far woefully incomplete collection of Shakespearian adaptations. I’ve counted this among my favorites of Shakespeare’s comedies since I first saw it performed live (in an outdoor theater in Berlin, translated into German, and accompanied by a bevy of attractive young German ladies…ah, the memories…), and this is a beautiful production. Plus, with Kevin Kline, who I find to be an incredible actor, Stanley Tucci, who I’d just seen in The Imposters, and both Michelle Pfeiffer and Calista Flockheart, who are just fun to drool over…can’t go too wrong here!

In any case, that’s it for this batch…was just in a mood to get some slightly lighter fare after the oh-so-comedic batches of discs I’d picked up the last couple times.

Oh, I’d forgotten to mention this — my roommate got me a very cool Christmas present this year: The Hallmark TV Classics Collection, a collection of five made-for-television films. Included in the set are Alice in Wonderland, Cleopatra, Gulliver’s Travels, Merlin, and Noah’s Ark. Of these, I’ve only ever seen half of Merlin, and hadn’t even heard about Noah’s Ark, so I’m really looking forward to diving into this set. So…that’s it for tonight….

I am Jack’s sense of apathy.

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…and you open the door and you step inside; we’re inside our hearts. Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light. That’s right — your pain, the pain itself, is a white ball of healing light.

I don’t think so.

This is your life. Good to the last drop. Doesn’t get any better than this.

This is your life — and it’s ending one minute at a time.

This isn’t a seminar, and this isn’t a weekend retreat. Where you are now, you can’t even imagine what the bottom will be like. Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static; everything is evolving. Everything is falling apart.

This is your life. Doesn’t get any better than this. This is your life — and it’s ending one minute at a time.

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake! You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are all part of the same compost heap. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

You are not your bank account. You are not the clothes you wear. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your bowel cancer. You are not your grande latte. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis!

You have to give up. You have to realize that someday you will die. Until you know that, you are useless.

I say, let me never be complete. I say, may I never be content. I say, deliver me from swedish furniture. I say, deliver me from clever art. I say, deliver me from clear skin and perfect teeth. I say, you have to give up. I say, evolve — and let the chips fall where they may.

This is your life. Doesn’t get any better than this. This is your life — and it’s ending one minute at a time.

You have to give up.

I want you to hit me as hard as you can!

Welcome to Fight Club. If this is your first night, you have to fight.

— Fight Club

Insomnia

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I’ve been having some real problems sleeping for some reason lately — last night I went to bed and crashed out at 10pm, then was awake again at 1:30am, and couldn’t crash out until around 4am. Really, really annoying…so, in honor of my own sad state, I found the lyrics for “Insomnia” by Faithless (one of my favorite dance tracks).

I only smoke weed when I need to,
And I need to get some rest,
I confess, I burnt a hole in the matress,
Yes, yes, it was me, I plead guilty,
And on the count of three I pull back the duvet,
Make my way to the refrigerator,
One dry potato inside, no lie
Not even bread, jam,
When the light above my head went bam!
I can’t sleep, something’s all over me,
Greasy, insomnia please release me,
And let me dream about making mad love on the heath,
Tearing off tights with my teeth.
But there’s no relief,
I’m wide awake in my kitchen,
It’s dark and I’m lonely,
Oh, if I could only get some sleep,
Creeky noises make my skin creep,
I need to get some sleep,
I can’t get no sleep.

© Faithless (Maxi Jazz/Sister Bliss/Rollo)

Mononoke, eye candy, and John Doe

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Well, seeing as how my life has one very happy coincidence that payday and video release day both happen on the same day every week…Tuesdays are my usual day to go out and get movies. Picked up quite the trio today, too. Here’s the scoop:

Princess Mononoke: A very impressive anime film that was released in Japan in ’97, and just hit the U.S. this year. I’ve never been very big into anime — I enjoy it, but there’s very little of it that I pick up — but even without seeing it, the unanimous good reviews that Mononoke got were enough to get me to add it to my collection. I just got done watching it, and was quite impressed — a good choice for my third anime DVD. Breathtaking animation, a very well-written story, and if you choose the English dub, a great translation by none other than Neil Gaiman. Well worth it, I’d say.

The Cell: Okay, okay, so if you take the time to really study it, it’s not that great of a movie — a contrived and predictable plot, with acting that occasionally has a tendency to push the limits of medocrity. However, for someone like me who’s always been fascinated with movie effects and visual work that veers towards the darker side (H.R. Giger and Dali are two of my favorite artists) and good audio mixing, this movie is an absolute treat to watch. Visually astounding every time you enter the dreamscapes of the characters, and an aural experience that is as much a treat for the ears as the visuals are for the eyes. Now, if only that much creativity had been put into the plot….

Se7en: While David Fincher is one of my favorite contemporary directors (he’s the director of Se7en, The Game, and Fight Club), I’d yet to pick up this movie, as the only edition out until today was a early “flipper” disc — the movie broke in the middle, and you had to flip the DVD to the second side to finish the movie. Well, thank goodness for New Line, because today marked the release of an incredibly extensive 2-disc special edition of Se7en — disc 1 for the movie and four commentary tracks, and disc 2 for a ton of supplementary material. This one will take hours and hours for me to go through — just the kind of release I like!

So, that’s it for this week. Between those three, and working my way through season 2 of the X-Files, I’ve got enough to keep me a couch potato for days lined up. Too bad I’ve got this silly thing called a job to get in the way…ah, well — since it’s the job that lets me indulge my movie collection, I guess I shouldn’t whine too much, eh?