Finding Nemo

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I love going to see Pixar’s movies on opening weekend. Preferably during the day, when the theater is full of children — kids get so wrapped up in the movie, it’s an absolute joy to be able to sit in the midst of all that excitement.

Pixar continues their as yet unbroken string of excellent movies with Finding Nemo, the story of a father’s hunt for his missing child. Quite simply, the movie is flat-out gorgeous — set in the ocean off of Australia, the entire film is a visual treat. Everything from the eye-popping colors of the tropical fish to the depth and fluidity of the ocean is captured perfectly.

As usual, in addition to the pervasive eye candy, Pixar has kept up their usual excellent standards of creating a true family film — one that can be enjoyed just as much by adults (and children at heart) as children. Excellently acted all around, in many ways the real star of the film is Ellen DeGeneres as Dori, a scatterbrained but very sweet and optimistic Blue Tang.

My personal favorite characters, though, were actually secondary characters — a flock of seagulls, whose language and constant squawking consists of a single word: “Mine!” A little hard to describe in print, but they got laughs out of me every time they showed up on screen.

All in all, an excellent film. Go see it — and when you do, sit through the credits. No outtakes this time, but some funny bits with characters swimming around during the credits, and one post-credit gag that’s one of the best in the film.

I really have to wonder just how poorly Disney would be doing if they didn’t have the film deal with Pixar. Seems like lately, the only truly good films coming out of the Disney stable are Pixar’s animated gems, and about the only thing that’s really “Disney” about any of them is the logo on the front of the film!

Other good Finding Nemo reading:

The Bourne Identity

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A better than average action movie with Matt Damon as an amnesiac secret agent. Rescued while floating in the ocean with two bullets in his back and a Swiss bank account number hidden in his hip, he has no idea who he is or what he’s in the middle of, but he has an unerring ability to spot danger and dispatch any attackers with ease.

Quite fun to watch — more known for his dramatic roles, Damon does a very credible job with the action scenes, and Famke Potente (of Run Lola Run) is very enjoyable as a girl swept up in Damon’s flight and search for clues. One of the better action/thriller flicks I’ve seen.

Traffic

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Traffic got a ton of good reviews when it came out, but for one reason or another, it just didn’t grab me very much. It wan’t bad at all, and the color tinting technique used to help distinguish the three storylines from each other was interesting to watch, but, while I wasn’t bored, I wasn’t overly involved in it, either. Decent, worth a rent if you’re curious.

Licence plates in The Matrix

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The discussion thread regarding Matrix: Revolutions on the Home Theater Forum is turning up all sorts of interesting tidbits, including the fact that all the licence plates seem to be biblical quotes!

The Twins’ truck on the freeway: DE2852. Deutronomy 28:52 — “They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you.”

Trinity and Morephus’ Cadillac on the freeway: DA203. Daniel 2:03 — “I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.”

Agent Smith’s Audi at the beginning: IS5416. Isaiah 54:16 — “Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.”

No more standalone IE

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Here’s an interesting little tidbit buried in a Microsoft TechNet Q&A session:

As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 SP1 is the final standalone installation. … Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS.

Very interesting, especially in light of the blogged to death \$750 million AOL/Microsoft settlement that includes licencing IE to AOL for the next seven years (and possibly sounding Netscape’s death knoll). Makes me curious just how that’ll work.

Also — does this also kill IE for the Mac? IE already hadn’t been updated for the Mac in ages, and with the proliferation of alternative browsers available out there for OS X — including Apple’s own Safari — has Microsoft decided it’s time to concede the browser war as far as the Mac platform goes?

(via Jeffrey Zeldman)

Write a blog, say hello to the FBI

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17 year old Erin Carter has deleted all but a single post on her weblog after being questioned by police officers who appeared to be the FBI regarding something she wrote. The details are in “The FBI has been reading my diary.”

Note to the FBI: Feel free to browse through my politics category archives, just be sure to knock before entering my apartment. ;)

(via mathowie and Jeffrey Zeldman)

Bush lied. People died.

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More and more information is coming to light exposing the extremely ugly truth that even while madly beating the drums of war, Bush and Blair administration members knew they were lying:

Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq’s banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.

The foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Mr Blair and President Bush could not be proved. The problem, explained Mr Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence to back up the claims.

Mr Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments, especially those being presented by the Pentagon’s office of special plans set up by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz.

Mr Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not “explode in their faces”.

Sorry to dash your hopes, Mr. Powell, but I do believe that that is exactly what’s happening — as well it should.

(via Daily Kos and Tom Tomorrow)

Salam Pax found

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The UK paper The Guardian has found Salam Pax, of the Where is Raed? weblog — and while they’re still keeping his identity secret, he will be writing for the Guardian starting next week.

No one in Baghdad knew who he was or the risks he was taking. Apart from a select group of trusted friends, they still don’t. The telephones and the internet haven’t worked here since the collapse of the regime, so the Iraqis never had a chance to read the diaries of the Baghdad Blogger. Outside the country, many didn’t even believe that the man who wrote only under the sobriquet Salam Pax truly existed. It was the great irony of the war. While the world’s leading newspapers and television networks poured millions of pounds into their coverage of the war in Iraq, it was the internet musings of a witty young Iraqi living in a two-storey house in a Baghdad suburb that scooped them all to deliver the most compelling description of life during the war.

(via MeFi)