Film

While I’m not nearly as much of a movie buff as many, I do like ’em and watch ’em when I can.

The human adventure is just beginning

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Today marked the release day for one of my personal most-anticipated discs — the Star Trek: The Motion Picture — The Director’s Edition. I picked it up at lunch, then made it through the rest of the day until I could get home and watch it.

Part of the reason I’d been awaiting this release of the first film in the Star Trek series is that for the first time, we are being shown the completed film. Usually when a film is being made, the director assembles a rough cut which is shown to test audiences. Their reactions, coupled with anything the director might notice as he watches the rough cut, serve to guide the director and editor in assembling the final cut of the film. Unfortunately, the schedule for ST:TMP was so tight that that crucial final step was never taken — the film had to be done by a certain date, and so the final edit was never performed. Also due to time and budget constraints of the time, many of the special effects sequences had not been completed. Essentially, what we’ve seen for the past 22 years has been no more than a rough cut that director Robert Wise was not happy with, but it was all there was time for.

In 1998, Robert Wise was approached by Paramount to see if he was interested in finally revisiting and finishing the film. After some initial trepidation he agreed, and after months of curiosity and speculation, the final result is finally available on DVD. Not just a new edit of the film, a team of restoration artists and CGI artists have worked with the director to carefully enhance some effect sequences, complete others, and create an entirely new 5.1 sound mix utilizing the original source elements from the film.

The end result is, quite simply, incredible. While the new cut incorporates new effects sequences and some scenes that had previously been inserted for the television version, Mr. Wise has also taken out some scenes and tightened others to create a new version that is just slightly longer than the original, but has a much more finished feel to it. The effects shots are doubly impressive, in part because they’re so seamlessly integrated into the body of the film, that I didn’t even notice many of them until they were pointed out in a documentary! The artists working on the new effects sequences worked very hard to match the style of the original effects, only creating sequences that could have been created in 1979 had there been time, and even working from the original storyboards rather than dreaming up ideas that might be ‘cool’, but not true to the original vision. Suffice to say, I was not merely impressed by this new version of a film I’ve been watching for years, but flat-out floored. I’ve never harbored the disdain for this film that many other fans have, but it’s always been obvious that it had some serious problems. Now, however, it has finally been completed, and we can leave the dubious honor of being the worst of the series to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

In addition to the outstanding work done on the film itself, Paramount has finally released a true Special Edition DVD, rather than the movie-only editions for the rest of the series. The movie disc contains two feature-length commentaries. The first is an audio commentary with director Robert Wise and others, and the second is a text commentary (presented in the form of yellow subtitles) written by Michael Okuda, long-time graphic artist for the series and Trek-tech geek extraordinaire. Both commentaries are packed with information, but the text commentary is my personal favorite. You need to be a bit quick to read some of it, but there’s a great sense of humor permeating the track that makes it a lot of fun (my personal favorite bit — as Kirk is explaining to Scotty that there is something approaching Earth and the Enterprise is the only ship within reach, the commentary pops up with, “This seems to happen a lot — it almost makes one wonder if the other ships stay away when the Enterprise is in town, in case something happens!”).

The second disc contains three documentaries ranging from about 15 minutes to about half an hour. The first covers the road from the initial concept for the series ‘Star Trek — Phase II’ that was to be the flagship show for a Paramount based TV network (years before UPN appeared) to the beginning of production on ST:TMP. The second covers the production of the film, and the third explores the work done to create the new Director’s Edition. It’s a bit of a bummer that little time is given to the problems that led to the unfinished film being released and the subsequent reactions, but the three documentaries still cover a lot of ground, and are well worth watching. All of the theater and television trailers are included on the disc, as well as a huge collection of deleted scenes (documenting scenes deleted from the original cut, scenes that were included in the television cut, and one section that collects all the pieces that were trimmed in the making of the new cut).

All in all, an absolutely incredible set, and one that does the die hard Trek geek in me proud.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

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After Enterprise, I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coen brothers’ last outing. A great little film, as it turns out. I’d already picked up the soundtrack a while back, which is an incredible collection of old-time bluegrass, folk, and gospel music, and it was neat finally seeing how all this wonderful music fit in with the film itself. The Coen brothers, of course, have a twisted sense of humor that I just love, and the movie was definitely one of the better outings I’ve seen from them — and one of the better performances I think I’ve seen George Clooney give. Incidentally, now I’m going to have to find Down from the Mountain: Live Concert Performances by the Artists & Musicians of ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, which apparently is available both on CD and DVD. Hmmm…Christmas is coming up pretty soon….

For a wonderfully surreal time

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…pop in the new Monty Python and the Holy Grail DVD, set the audio track to French (or maybe just mute it if you actually speak French), and turn on the ‘subtitles for people who hate the film.’

I watched about half an hour of the movie like this last night, and kept bouncing between laughing and just staring at the screen in bewildered amazement. I wasn’t sure what people meant when they mentioned that the ‘subtitles for people who hate the film’ were made up of text from Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV, Part II‘ — I thought they’d just run the text of the play underneath the Holy Grail. However, they’ve actually grabbed lines from Henry IV that are as close as they can be to the actual wording and intent of the lines in the Holy Grail that they’re replacing, and the end effect is truly, wonderfully bizarre. Some scenes don’t quite work, but in others, the correlation between what’s happening onscreen and what the subtitles are saying is freakishly accurrate.

I think this subtitle track may be one of my favorite features on the disc — probably not the one I’ll visit most often, but in terms of the sheer twisted humor of the idea (and the work it must have taken to assemble the track), I think it’s absolutely amazing.

Another week begins

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Been a busy morning so far, but I figured I’d grab a couple minutes to babble away for a bit. I ended up having a pretty nice weekend — a good balance of getting out and doing stuff, and kicking back and killing time at home.

Friday evening I headed out with Chad and Kelly, since Kelly is in town for a little bit on her way out to a job in Colorado, and we all went to see From Hell, the new Johnny Depp film about Jack the Ripper. I’d give it a very solid ‘good’ overall — not bad, but not great. Worth a matinee showing, at least. However, the closer it got to the end, the more I liked it — and while the end didn’t come as a total surprise to me, I really liked the choices that were made in presenting the final events of the film, and even what those events were. Of course, I don’t want to give away a whole lot here…suffice it to say I was somewhat pleasantly surprised with the closing moments of the film.

Saturday I went out with Chad, Don, and Kelly for a bit. We started with brunch at El Greco, a nice little spot up Broadway a bit, then we all headed down to the Pike Place Market to do some birthday shopping for Dez. Of course, as we were wandering around in a cooking store finding her present, who should we run in to but…Dez! Just the way these things work, I guess. In any case, everyone got things hidden in time, and we chatted with her and her sister Morgan for a bit before they took off again, and we got the gifts and skedaddled. I wandered home to rest and watch a movie, then that evening walked up to Chad and Don’s house and we all cabbed over to Casey and Dez’s place for Dez’s birthday party. Was a lot of fun…just a few friends kicking back and talking. Round about midnight I was getting tired, so I packed up one of the computers I’ve had over at Casey’s and hauled it home with me on the bus.

Sunday was spent mostly cleaning up at home — since I got the TV I’d been just enjoying being able to watch movies again, so had let the house go a bit, and I finally got sick of it. Popped in The Emperor’s New Groove to listen to as I cleaned, and got just about everything put away. I’ve even got my computers set up on my table, all plugged in and ready to go as soon as Rick gets here with my monitors (not that I’m anxious or anything….). Much nicer living in a place that’s actually all clean and presentable.

That evening I went out with Heather, a girl I’ve met here at work. She works for one of the other businesses in the building, and after getting to talking after running into each other a few times, we figured we’d get together sometime. So, we ended up heading out to the Satellite Lounge, just a few blocks up Pike, and sat and talked there for a few hours. Was a very pleasant evening — and I figure any girl that I mention Closet Land to and have her know exactly what movie I’m talking about (it’s not the most well-known flick out there) has got to be pretty cool. Anyway, it made for a very nice evening…we’ll see what happens from here, I suppose.

And that about catches us up to the here and now, as I continue muddling my way through another week punching the green button. Fun fun fun….

Thirteen Days

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I rented Thirteen Days (about the Cuban Missile Crisis) the other night, as I hadn’t seen it, and I was curious both about the film itself and about New Line‘s Infinifilm brand.

The movie was certainly quite decent (though Kevin Costner seemed to do his usual trick of being an inattentive babysitter for his accent, rather than actually adopting it), but what really struck me about it was the similarities to the current air of tension, fear, and paranoia sweeping the nation. While the setups for the two conflicts are different, the attitudes and feelings of many of the characters in the film were very familiar. In one of the (fascinating) historical background pieces, there were some ‘man on the street’ interviews with people at the time this all was going on — and just about anything that they said could easily have been said at any point within the past month. Average people worrying about their safety, whether or not it’s right to go to war, whether a conflict is justified — very eerie to hear sentiments I’ve heard, read, and spoken since September 11th coming from the mouths of people forty years back.

It also made me very curious about just what’s going on in the conference rooms of the White House these days. Considering the wide range of emotions and suggested courses of action during the Cuban Missile Crisis that only recently came to light (such as Kennedy’s secret tapes of the meetings, as discussed in the extra materials on the disc), it really makes me wonder how much is being debated — and how much is known — behind the scenes, that we’re not likely to find out for years, and possibly decades. I’m not one to try to raise paranoia or fears…the film just made me think a lot more than it probably would have had the events of September 11th not taken place. Until now (I’m 28, by the way, born in ’73), I hadn’t really had anything that could make me sympathise with the events portrayed — I could empathise to a certain extent, but I hadn’t had any experiences that really came that close to what was happening in 1962. Desert Shield/Storm affected me to a certain extent, but not like this — it was too distant…a war on TV. Now, for better or for worse, it’s all too easy for me to understand just what was going through peoples minds then — because it’s going through mine, now.

Neat, neat stuff. Not necessarily comfortable. But very worthwhile.

A sunny Saturday afternoon

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Just thought I’d drop in and toss a bit up here. I’m sitting at Aurafice, a coffee/internet joint just 2 blocks away from my apartment — nice little place, and while I’m not sure what the music that’s playing right now is, it works quite nicely for me.

Yesterday after work I swung by home just long enough to check (snail) mail and change clothes, then headed back downtown. The movie 2001 has been cleaned up, restored, and is hitting theaters again, and yesterday was the opening night of its run here in Seattle — at the Cinerama, no less. There was no way I was going to miss out on seeing this, and being able to see it in a theater like that on opening night — no ifs, ands, or buts, I was there. Took a bus downtown and made it there 40 minutes before the show started just to make sure I could get in and get a good seat.

What a show it was, too. I’d not yet been to the Cinerama here — though I’d heard it was a theater more than worth going to, I’d not yet seen something playing there that was going to drag me down. I’m very glad I did this time, though. The auditorium is incredible — 800-some seats, and a 30 foot by 90 foot curved screen! Just a huge picture (though, in all honesty, I believe the number one auditorium at Fireweed Theaters is larger), a new near-pristine 70mm print of 2001…very, very, very cool. Definitely the way to see it.

After I walked home from that, I found a call on my voicemail from Alex — apparently his plans changed, and he is in town for one last weekend before heading back up to Alaska. I met up with him, Casey, and Chad at the Bad JuJu Lounge (right next door to The Vogue), and hung out with them for a bit. Went home fairly early, though — this whole 6am wakeup time during the week kinda puts a damper on too much late-night revelry on Friday nights.

Not much has happened so far today, though who knows what the evening might bring. I did put together another new mix…hopefully it won’t be too much longer before I’ll be able to post the .mp3 files. Until then, though….

Too cool for words

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Ooers…this is the kind of thing that convinces me that there is still some good stuff going on out there.

I just found a listing on the Corona Coming Attractions movie news/rumor site detailing a film that I will have my skinny lil’ butt planted in the seat for come opening day — HardWired. Alex Proyas (director of The Crow and Dark City) directing a sci-fi murder mystery where the suspects are Artificial Intelligences and/or robots, and it’s going to be the first in a series of films based upon the ideas and concepts from Isaac Asimov‘s I, Robot stories?!?

I am so there.

A good weekend for movies

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In the midst of more and more news about the continuing aftermath of the WTC and Pentagon attacks, and in a world where it looks more and more like the U.S. may soon be declaring war, I decided it was a good time to take a bit of a vacation and head out to the movies. My reviews for the shows I checked out aren’t the best I’ve ever written, unfortunately — I’m kinda tired and have a light headache that I’m hoping won’t get any worse anytime soon — but I at least got something up.

Thursday night I saw The Crimson Rivers (good thriller), Friday I checked out O (a decent Shakepearean update), and today I watched The Ghosts of Mars (fun brainless sci-fi romp).

Other than that, things have been fairly uneventful for the most part. I’ve been keeping a pretty constant eye out on the news, and am working on collecting at least the first week’s worth of newspapers since Tuesday. So far, Saturday has been the only day I forgot to pick any up. Got together with Chad, Don, and a friend of theirs (whose name I’m spacing on) for breakfast at Jack’s Roadhouse Cafe on Saturday, then we all checked out the Capitol Hill Block Party up on Broadway. Other than that…not a whole lot of major import has gone on.

I’d post more, but I’m just feeling kind of lackadaisacal at the moment. Besides — Dez is behind me watching Braveheart on television, so it’s easy for me to get distracted. Until next time, then….

More about this cruise thing

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Looks like I’ve got a couple days to catch up on here. Well, let’s see — start with Wednesday. I did call the guy from Carnival Cruise Lines — “JB” — as soon as I could in the morning. He wasn’t available then, but I set up an appointment with his secretary for an 11:30am (2:30pm their time, they’re based out of Florida) call. That was something new for me — nothing really groundbreaking, I realize, but I’ve never had to make an appointment for a call before.

Anyway, work went on from there about the same as the day before. Of course, by the time the tech came by, the machine that had been giving me all the grief the day before was behaving fine. Typical — they can be pretty ornery beasts sometimes.

So 11:30am rolls around and I give JB a call. We talked for about 15 minutes, and while it wasn’t a yes, it certainly wan’t a no, either. Apparently at the moment he’s putting together a list of prospects, and expects to be doing the hiring in a month or two. He did give me the basic rundown on what the situation would be, though.

The cruise lines has 16 ships in operation now, with two more being built. The two things he stressed most about the DJ position is that they need to be able to work from a large variety of music, due to the wide range of customers on the ships, and that they are comfortable relating to people and taking requests. I was sure to let him know that I’ve always been a request-based DJ — finding way to work in what people want has always been a lot more fun for me than just working from a set playlist. That always seemed a bit boring to me.

All the music and equipment would be provided by the club, so I wouldn’t have to worry about bringing any of my stuff along. From what I understand, the clubs are decked out, too — from the pictures on the website, they look to be top of the line. Lots of fun toys, in other words! :D

The clubs run seven nights a week, and all contracts are for six-month stints. The contracts can be renewed, too — he said he’s got one DJ on his seventh contract (three and a half years!). I’d be assigned a cabin, most likely with a roommate — a mild bummer, as I like having my own space, but it would be worth trying, at least. Meals are provided, too, so it’s basically room and board included with the contract. Additionally, the DJ’s get $300 a week in cash. After three months, if things are going well, it can go up to $325/wk, then if things go into a second contract it can go up to $350/wk. I’m not sure if it continues to go up after that or not. There are also occasional private parties that can pay a little extra.

As entertainment staff, the DJ has his days mostly free, and is allowed access to areas of the ship that some of the other shipboard staff apparently don’t. There are spas and fitness clubs to work out at, pools to swim in or lounge by, shows by other entertainers, bars, it’s possible to go ashore when the ship is in port somewhere, and they’re even (according to the website) outfitting their ships with internet access.

Basically, it sounds like a dream job. Get paid to take a 6-month (at least) cruise, spinning in a top-flight dance club every night. The pay is slightly less than what I’m making now, but when you factor in the provided room and board negating the need to pay rent, utilities, and meals, I’d be holding onto a lot more money than I’m able to now. Should this all actually come through, I figure I can just put all my stuff in a storage unit here in Seattle and be good to go until I’m ready to come ashore again.

So at this point, I’m just going to put all but absolutely necessary spending on hold for the next couple months and see if I’m lucky enough to get a spot. If I don’t then I’ve got a decent job and apartment already going here. If I do — I’m going to be on that ship and loving every last little minute of it.

After that call, work was really difficult to pay attention to — I kept daydreaming about opening the door and seeing a sea of water, instead of a sea of office cubicles.

Once work finally ended, I caught the bus out to Casey’s place to check e-mail and type up all my Bumbershoot ramblings and Tuesday’s journal entry for the weblog. Between getting all that typed in (I talk a lot, don’t I?) and getting the pictures sized to post also, I didn’t make it out of there about 11pm. After that it was a half hour wait for the next bus, as I’d missed the previous one by just a matter of minutes, and it was about midnight by the time I made it home. At that point I was very glad I’d decided not to start babbling about the call with JB that night, but to leave it for the next post. Went to bed, and crashed hard.

On the way to work Thursday morning, I got to chatting with the girl that I’ keep seeing every morning on the bus. Turns out her name is Kerry (Kelly? Kate? Ergh…damn my faulty memory), and she and her boyfriend just moved down here from Cold Harbor, Alaska, just a month or two before I came down. Small, small world.

Work was pretty obnoxious again, but I think I finally got caught up with things. It helped that I had another pair of hands, though. XBS keeps a supply of ‘floaters’ trained and available in case a post needs extra help or coverage, so they’d sent Loren over for the day to brush up and make sure he remembered all the procedures. Having him there helped a lot — I don’t think I’d have been able to get through everything myself.

Came home and grabbed a bite to eat, then wandered down to the Temple of Avarice (Pacific Place, an almost ridiculously ostentatious shopping center with a 2-story movie multiplex on the top floor) to catch The Others, a thriller with Nicole Kidman. Very cool ghost story — I’d been wanting to see it for a while, and wasn’t dissapointed in the least.

And that’s it up to Thursday night. Now I just have to “hurry up and wait” for the next couple months to see if this DJ position comes through. Wish me luck — I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed, that’s for sure.