Film

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

My stuff, Hank, and my apartment

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My stuff is here!

I got woken up this morning to the ring of the doorbell as my shipment of almost everything I own at the moment got delivered. I ended up with one pallette to be shipped — a grand total of 1,075 lbs. — and when I stood next to it, it looked like it was about 7 ft. high. Lots of crap, basically, but it’s my crap, and it’s the crap I wanted to keep.

My stuff after I unwrapped it.Looks like I won’t be into my apartment until tomorrow evening, rather than tonight. A bit of a bummer, but nothing too huge. When I talked to my landlord the carpet people were in the midst of getting the new carpets down, but the new locks hadn’t been installed yet. So, I call tomorrow afternoon to see if everything’s good, and hopefully will actually get a ‘yes’ this time.

And lastly — Hank! I put in my first online order for a DVD the other day, so that I could get ahold of the Heny Rollins DVD I babbled about a while ago. It showed up in the mail today, and so I’m now the quite happy owner of Henry Rollins: Talking From the Box/Rollins Goes to London. Talking From the Box I’ve actually seen before on videotape with friends back in Anchorage, but Rollins Goes to London has apparently not been released before, so that’ll be a completely new thing for me. Very cool…hrm…guess what I’m watching tonight?

Back again!

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Woohoo! We’ve reconfigured a few areas of the network here at Casey’s house, and it seems that things are back up and fully functional for me again. So, as things go here, I’ll do my best to return to updating my pages on a regular basis. I know, I know, something of a shock after about a month of near-nonexistent updates…but I’ll try.

Things for me are still in something of a holding pattern at the moment. I got word from the landlord of my apartment complex that the carpets are scheduled to be installed this Monday, so I should finally be able to get into my place Monday afternoon/evening sometime. I’ve made the requisite calls to the telephone and electric companies and am all set up there, so should be good to go as soon as I get the word from the landlord on Monday. I’ll be sending out the mailing address and phone number to those who need it in the near future.

Internet access options for me are still being investigated. I’m hoping to get set with a DSL line, I just need to get in contact with the local ISP‘s to see if my apartment has that as an option. I’m assuming it does — I’m going to be living right on Capitol Hill, just about 20 blocks or so uphill from downtown Seattle — but I’m not entirely sure yet. In any case, Casey has graciously allowed me to keep my webserver at his place until I have things up and running at my apartment, so the server shouldn’t be going down again at all, however there may be a couple weeks where my online abilities are severely limited until I get my own connection up and running. It’ll all get straightened out eventually — I’m just glad to have friends down here who are able and willing to assist me in all of this

In other news, I’ve been playing a lot with my digital camera since I got it. I took some time recently to stitch together some panoramas I’d taken. The first three were all taken before I left Alaska — from top to bottom, the Inlet as seen from Earthquake Park in Anchorage, a view of the Palmer hayflats where I hit a bonfire with some friends, and Jewel Lake, a popular destination in South Anchorage.

Cook Inlet, Anchorage, AK

Bonfire Panoramic, Mat-Su Valley, AK

Jewel Lake, Anchorage, AK

The fourth shot was taken at Gasworks Park here in Seattle during the 4th of July celebrations, about an hour before the fireworks display. I wanted to try and capture the sheer mass of people — later reports placed it at around 6,000 people just at this park (and it was one of two major fireworks displays within Seattle). I think it came out pretty decently.

4th of July 2001, Gas Works Park, Seattle, WA

I’ve been out to see two movies since I came down here so far — since it’s been a bit since I’ve seen them, I’ll just give brief rundowns of each. First off was Atlantis, Disney’s latest animated flick — another fun one from Disney. Not one of their all-time classics, but very enjoyable, with some absolutely breathtaking animation at times. More recently was A.I., the Spielberg/Kubrick sci-fi collaboration. In brief — I believe it to be an astounding piece of work, quite possibly Spielberg’s best work yet, and a film that, while getting wildy mixed reviews, is very likely to stand the test of time like few other recent films. Very, very impressive filmmaking, and my hat is off to Spielberg, Kubrick, and the rest of the forces behind this film. I’ll most likely post more about it after I’ve had a chance to see it a second time.

That’s the majority of the big news so far. As mentioned earlier, now that things are up and running again, I’ll do my best to return to a more reliable update schedule here. It’s good to be back….

Moulin Rouge

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In happier news, I went out to see Moulin Rouge this evening, and just loved it. I don’t think it’ll be a major hit with the general public, but anyone involved in theater, music, or both should fall in love with this movie. Baz Luhrmann (the director of Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet) is a genius in my book right now. The production was absolutely incredible, absolutely visually gorgeous (there are so many single frames I’d love to have framed and hung on the wall just to stare at), and musically a delightful smorgasbord of songs and styles. I was completely drawn into the entire thing, and walked out of the theater just amazed at the show I’d just seen. Much of it feels to me like it would have made a wonderful stage musical, but by doing it on screen, they were able to do so much more to it to make it even more visually appealing through effects and camera work. The entire movie is a lush, sumptious feast for the eyes and ears. Wonderful, wonderful film.

DVDs: Closets, aliens, and dinos

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I was only planning on one purchase for the week, but ended up with three, as I got a $25 gift certificate from Suncoast the other day. This weeks acquisitions:

The Celluloid Closet: A friend introduced me to this absolutely fascinating documentary a few years back, I’m in the midst of reading the book that inspired it, and it finally got released to DVD this week. It’s a really entertaining documentary about the portrayal of homosexuals in movies over the first 100 years of moviemaking, loaded with some great interviews, and tons of clips from various films over the years, from some of the earliest movies made to some as recent as the early ’90’s. One of my favorite documentaries that I’ve seen, and it’s nice to finally have a copy of my own.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: If you haven’t heard of this one — what rock have you been living under? One of the seminal Sci-Fi films to come out, and one of Steven Spielberg’s best works, this classic also holds the distinction of being one of the few films I can think of off the top of my head (aside from Starman, ET and Contact) to look at alien encounters in a positive light. This looks to be a nice special edition, with two discs — one for the ‘definitive’ director’s cut of the film, and the second packed with extra features.

Allosaurus: A continuation of the excellent Walking With Dinosaurs documentary, this program follows the life of ‘Big Al’, an Allosaurus whose nearly-complete skeleton was discovered in 1991. The skeleton had been so well preserved that scientists have been able to reconstruct an amazing amount of details as to the life of the beast, and it is presented here in the same ‘nature-documentary’ style that the previous shows were. The disc also includes a clever making of special that explains some of how the dinosaur’s life was reconstructed.

This I’ve gotta get!

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I had no idea that this was available at all, but I’ve got to get one one way or another. Henry Rollins has finally just released a spoken-word performance to DVD! I was lucky enough (as were a bunch of my friends) to be able to see him when he came to give one of his spoken word performances at UAA a few years back, and I’ve already got two of the spoken word CD’s he’s released. The guy does a just incredible show, going from fall-on-the-floor hilarious one moment to amazingly heartfelt and serious the next — when it hit the three hour point during his show up here and he was told that he had to wrap it up, I don’t think anybody in the audience realized it had been nearly that long, or wanted it to end.

In any case, DVDFile has a great review of the DVD up here, and I’m going to end up with this. Hmmm…anybody want to buy me a going away present? ;)

Memorial Day weekend

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This has been a really nice weekend so far. I actually ended up with a couple days off — worked Saturday at Suncoast, but that was it, so had Sunday and Monday off. Quite nice.

Took Miranda out to see The Mummy Returns on Saturday night, making my second time seeing that one in the theaters. It pretty much stays the same in my opinion — a fun flick that I enjoy, and almost as good as the first one, but a definite roller coaster ride. There are parts that are so much better than the first that I was really impressed — and parts that were so much worse that it was depressing. Ah, well…overall, pretty damn enjoyable. Unfortunately, Miranda wasn’t feeling well, and so she had to go straight home after the movie.

Jones Lake, Anchorage, AKSunday was a great day. Absolutely gorgeous weather, so I decided to go out and enjoy the sun and get some pictures of Alaska before I leave. I just picked up a nice little Kodak DX3500 digital camera earlier in the week (finally — it’s been about 8 years since I’ve had a camera), and wanted to get some shots of my home for the last 26 years before I bailed. I started by heading out to Earthquake ParkEarthquake Park, Anchorage, AK, as it’s just about a minute away from my house. There were a bunch of other families and tourists out enjoying the weekend, too, so I ended up spending a couple minutes there watching some kids play as their parents took in the displays scattered around the area. The view of Mt. Susitna Mt. Susitna, Anchorage, AK was just gorgeous, Sleeping Lady was out in full splendor, with just a scattering of light fluffy clouds up in the sky.

After Earthquake Park, I headed downtown, and discovered somewhat to my dismay that while downtown Anchorage looks gorgeous from afar, it’s still a bit too early in the year to get any really nice shots of it. None of the flowers have started poking up from the various planters, and the grass is still just coming in, so it’s still got a lot of brown mixed in with the green. No huge biggie, though — another couple weeks should take care of that pretty nicely. After a while I ran down to Village Inn to get some grub, then went home to rest for a bit.

That evening I went out to the valley to hit a bonfire party that Danielle was throwing. I met up with Danielle, Christina, and some of their friends from the valley (Sparky, Victor, Carlos, Dorothy, Earl, Dave, and a couple others who’s names I can’t remember right now) at Danielle’s house, then we all caravaned Heading out, Mat-Su Valley, AK out to the Palmer Hay Flats refuge for the bonfire. The evening was just beautiful, and the area was absolutely gorgeous — a valley down at the base of some hills, with the sunset reflecting off the mountains in the distance. I took some shots to try and put together a panorama of the view, if I can get them stitched together decently in Photoshop I’ll see if I can get the final result posted here.

After starting the fire Sparky, Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AK in the time-honored bonfire tradition of piling up a bunch of wood and dousing it with lighter fluid, we all just spent a nice evening standing around, talking, munching on some grub, and attempting to prevent Earl from blowing anything up. As few of us were much into drinking at all — I brought a few Smirnoff Ice‘s to drink, but only had two over the course of the evening, and few of the others brought anything — Victor, Sparky, Dorothy, Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AK it was a very nice mellow evening. We even had the troopers stop by a couple times to check on us, and they basically told us just to make sure we got the fire put out when we left — one of them even said that this was the kind of party they like to see. It was pretty cool — for all the harassment the police get just because they’re in a position of authority, it’s been very rare that I’ve had any sour dealings with them at all.

Eventually Bonfire, Mat-Su Valley, AKit got to be about two in the morning, and we all decided it was time to head out — a couple of us had to make it back into Anchorage before we crashed out, and everyone was starting to get tired. So, after a good few minutes trying to put out the bonfire (quite a chore in itself), we all headed home. The drive back in was wonderful, too — I just set the cruise control for the speed limit, and cruised on in. As most people out for the weekend were going to be coming back into town today at the end of the three day weekend, I didn’t have much traffic to deal with, and only saw a couple cops on the way in. Made it home a little after 3am and crashed out.

So now it’s Monday, the last day of the weekend, and I’m pretty much just spending the day relaxing here at home. I’ve got four more days of work at GCI, then the next two weeks will be the final push to get everything packed up and ready to go before I leave state…that countdown just keeps going….

Egypt, martial arts, drugs, sex.

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Not much of an update today. Was supposed to go out with Miranda to see The Mummy Returns, unfortunately as she’s not feeling well, that’ll have to wait until later in the week. But, I’ve got a good selection of alternative entertainment available…this being a Tuesday with some good new releases, I came home with some more movies. Here’s this weeks loot….

Big Trouble in Little China: A mid-80’s John Carpenter classic that was probably way ahead of its time. Chinese mythology and fighting in the midst of San Francisco just didn’t fly when it came out…but in today’s age of wire-fighting turning up everywhere (from traditional type films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to The Matrix and Charlie’s Angels), then this one fits right in along with the rest. Besides — it’s just a kick-ass flick!

Requiem for a Dream: The sophomore effort from Darren Aronofsky, the man behind Pi, this was in no way a ‘sophmore slump.’ A masturfully done and incredibly disturbing film, this story of four people descending into the depths of various addictions is not one to expect to walk out of feeling happy with the world, but is a very powerful film. I was lucky enough to see it in the theater while I was in Seattle last November, and was just amazed by this one — Darren Aronofsky is definitely a director I’m going to keep my eye on in the future.

Sex and the City: Season 2: After Adri recommended Season 1 to me and I went through it, I was pleased to discover that this is a wonderfully entertaining show. Didn’t even realize that the Season 2 set came out today until I saw it on the shelves, then figured I might as well pick it up — pretty much just a whim purchase. Not a bad one, though, if it holds up to the quality of the first season. Here’s hoping!

So that’s it. I’m thinking this would be a good evening to watch Kurt Russel kick some butt in Chinatown….

Back to the usual

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I’m back!

You’re thrilled, right?

Oh, well.

Okay, so Friday I got off work at 4. Spent a little time running around doing some last minute errands, then hopped online to chat until my ride showed up to take me to the airport. Got to the airport just in time to catch the plane, and headed up to Fairbanks. Kirsten and Jamie picked me up at the Fairbanks airport, and we headed back to Kirsten’s dorm at UAF (as she was kind enough to put me up for the weekend), where the three of us stayed up talking and BS’ing until way too early in the morning. But then — that’s the point of vacations, right?

Saturday was spent mostly with my family. Slept in, then walked down the hill from UAF about noon for breakfast with mom, dad, and Kevin. After breakfast we headed over to Emily’s work to visit her for a bit, then mom, dad, and Kevin headed off to do some shopping while I borrowed Kevin and Emily’s van to run around on my own. I ended up just tooling around Fairbanks for a bit, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather and listening to a great show on the public radio station called Mountain Stage — lots of really nice live acoustic bluegrass and country performances. Emily got off work at 4pm, so I headed back to meet up with everyone. We all went out to check out Kevin and Emily’s cabin (cute little one room cabin out in the middle of nowhere), then came back into town for family pictures at Sears and dinner at a local pizza parlor.

After dinner, Kevin dropped me off at the Backdoor bar, where I met up with fbkscpl2play, beckythesillygirl, meneleaous, b_converse, and ak_ghost_ryder (all chatters in the Alaska Yahoo! Chat room). We hung out there for a while, then fbkscpl2play and beckythesillygirl took me out to see a drag show at the Palace Saloon (a bar/showhall in Alaskaland). This was an absolute blast — the place was incrediby wild (maybe a side effect of having so little to do in Fairbanks?)! At one point, it was a toss-up as to which was going to be more entertaining — watching the drag queen performing on stage, or turning around and watching the people dancing on the tables!

After the show they cleared about half of the floor of tables and chairs and opened the place up for dancing. We made it until about 2:45am, then decided it was time to bail. I got dropped off back at the UAF dorms, talked with Kirsten for a bit longer, then passed out.

Sunday we slept late again and just hung out in Kirsten’s room until it was time for me to head out. She took me to the airport, and I came homeward bound. Miranda and Loren picked me up and ran me home, then they ran off to do some shopping while I kicked back and watched a few more Season 3 X-Files episodes. This show just gets better and better — unfortunately, I’ve now finished off all of Season 3, and have a few months to go until Season 4 comes out. Arrrrrrghhh! I hate cliffhangers!

Eventually I decided to get out of the house for a bit, and headed out to Century 16 to catch Shrek. This movie is just hilarious — it takes all the familiar fairytales we’ve grown up with, gives them a really wonderfully bizarre take, and has an absolute blast poking fun at Disney throughout the flick (especially the classic “princess singing with the birds” routine — I was laughing so hard after this that I almost missed the next few lines of dialogue!). Much as kids are going to enjoy watching it, I think it’s really the adults who are really going to get a kick out of all the jokes in the film — much of the dialogue is aimed squarely at the adults rather than children, and it makes for one of the funniest films I’ve seen in the theater in a very long time.

Then, not long after I got home, who should call but my friend Stacye — she was kinda bored and wanted to head out, so we met up at the Village Inn by my house, then headed out to ‘koots for a couple drinks. We sat there and talked until about 1:30am, when we realized how late it had gotten and each bailed for home to get some sleep before we got too far into Monday.

Today was a pretty normal day, just dead slow at work. Let a lady who works at GCI that’s expressed interest in buying my car take it for a test drive, though, so hopefully I may have found a buyer. Then came home, watched the extras on the X-Files set, and sold off a few more items from my online garage sale — the PowerMac 6500, SoundDesign stereo, and my old DJ equipment is now gone.

So, that was my weekend…now, back to the day to day drudge…fun fun fun!

Memento

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Went out to see Memento last night. I’d been curious about this one ever since I started hearing about it, and even more curious once I saw the trailer. The main character has suffered a brain injury, and has a condition where he cannot form any new memories. The last thing he can actually remember is his wife’s murder — everything else that happens to him fades in a few minutes. He can’t remember anyone for more than just a couple minutes, if conversations last too long he won’t know how they got started…interesting enough on its own, but during the film, he’s actually trying to track down the man who raped and killed his wife. Notes all over the place, key clues tattooed onto his body…a man obsessed, but incapacitated by being completely limited to short term memory. In addition, the film is told in an extremely ‘dis-linear’ (the director’s term) style…in other words, it doesn’t start at the beginning and end at the end. Similar to Pulp Fiction, only more. Very, very cool — certainly the best film I’ve seen so far in 2001, and I’m so looking forward to it coming out for sale — I need to watch it quite a few more times just to make sure I’m seeing everything correctly!

The Emperor’s new Superman

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The Emperor’s New Groove: I generally enjoy Disney‘s films, but this one seemed to be kind of odd — for once, we weren’t subjected to the media blitz that Disney is so good at, and the movie kind of snuck through the theaters — I wasn’t even sure when it arrived or left the theaters here in town. But the closer it came to the release day of the DVD, I heard more and more people talking about how good this one actually was…and eventually just went ahead and got it. End result? Absolutely hilarious! I was quite literally laughing out loud quite a few times during this flick. It’s something of a step back in a way — visually it uses a lot less of the CGI that is becoming so prevalent, and concentrates more on traditional cell animation, and the humor is much more along the style of the sly, more adult humor of Aladdin. Very, very cool — a definite keeper.

Superman: It wasn’t until I actually started watching this tonight that I realized just how long it had been since I’d seen this movie…it was almost an entirely new experience for me, as I’d forgotten most of the movie. And what an experience! They’ve done an incredible job restoring the film, complete with a newly mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack that is just incredible. What a wonderfully fun film, and a great little bit of nostalgia, too. All in all, not a bad evening of movie watching.