February 2012
1 post
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January 2012
2 posts
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I’ve officially joined the Adele bandwagon. About a year too late, I know, but 21 is a damn fine album. Deeply soulful and beautiful.
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"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" 4/5
Excellent reboot of the franchise. Never was a big fan of the originals, nor of Burton’s horrendous remake. I could see this one becoming a series and myself watching every single movie. To me, this movie answers the more interesting question. How did it happen? Can’t wait to see more.
November 2011
2 posts
“I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives,...”
– Richard Branson in The Guardian (via BoingBoing)
Damned right!
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October 2011
14 posts
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"Diary of the Dead"/"Survival of the Dead" 3/5
Caught these two on AMC’s Fearfest marathon the past week or so. Even given the declining quality of his zombie movies over the years (with “Dawn” being the pinnacle of all zombie movies), being the Romero fan that I am, I couldn’t resist.
“Diary” is interesting only because of the modern social media aspect of it. The found footage technique is getting...
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"Sherlock Holmes" 1/5
Turned it off a little more than halfway through. I wanted to like it. I loved Ritchie’s “Snatch” and I think he has some talent. But really, this should have been called “Generic Period Action Whodunit,” which I might have liked. I’m not necessarily opposed to big dumb action movies, but I think the fact that he turned the brilliance that is “Sherlock...
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"Bridesmaids" 3/5
Meh. I don’t see what all the fuss was about. Trying too much to be like “The Hangover”. There were 2 or 3 really funny comedic set pieces, but the rest left me lukewarm. Maybe there was just too much hype. It was a pleasant enough diversion, but it’s no “The Hangover.”
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"The Lion King" 5/5
I somehow managed to make it to 33 before I saw this. Probably because I was a junior in high school when it came out and decidedly too cool for it. Great and memorable movie. I almost teared up once or twice. Classic story and I was digging the old school animation style (although I’m pretty sure they were using computers in some capacity by 1994).
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"The Green Hornet" 3/5
Entertaining enough. The action sequences were too gimmicky and it was funny enough at times, but I expected better from a director as gifted as Michel Gondry. Although I suppose he’s the wrong man for this material, in which case he should have turned it down. Not a bad diversion altogether.
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"Source Code" 4/5
Seriously good sci-fi action movie. And smart too. Not that the whole jacking into someone’s mind thing makes much sense (and hasn’t been done before), but it makes sense within this universe and although some might consider the ending tacked on, I think it really worked.
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"Star Trek: Nemesis" 3/5
I was under the impression that I had seen all of the TNG-cast Star Trek movies. Seems I was wrong. I had somehow completely missed an entire movie, the final one with the TNG cast. It had some serious issues, like the Data 2 plot line, which didn’t fit at all and went nowhere (Yes, I know it was to give Data’s eventual death more impact, but it just didn’t work for me at all),...
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"Gone Baby Gone" 4/5
After first seeing “The Town” and being sufficiently impressed, I decided to watch this to see if Ben Affleck the director is the real deal. This was actually better than “The Town” and quite impressive for a debut. Affleck has definitely been paying attention on set. While I’d say he’s the real deal, I’m not sure how much range he’ll have with...
September 2011
10 posts
“Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money…”
– Gob Bluth
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"Alice in Wonderland" (2010) 2/5
This is precisely what happens when you give someone like Tim Burton too much creative control (and that goes for pretty much every one of his movies over the past decade with the exception of maybe “Big Fish”). He is such a talented visual artist, but such a shitty storyteller. Too bad he can’t pick some better writers, or the studios can’t make him. Here is the Burton...
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"Sanshiro Sugata" 3/5
Akira Kurosawa’s first movie. It shows hints of his future brilliance: the black and white cinematography is gorgeous and his visual storytelling is already wonderful (especially for 1943). That’s about the most I can say in its favor. The story is a bit lacking, but that could be due to the fact that it was chopped considerably by Japan’s wartime censors and that footage remains...
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"Black Swan" 5/5
Darren Aronofsky has not made a bad movie. Let me rephrase that: he has not made a movie that has not blown me away in some fashion. Okay, so “The Wrestler” was a bit of pandering to the industry (not that it was bad, just not up to his usual standard), but that’s understandable after how much “The Fountain” bombed at the box office.
His strength is in finding these...
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"Toy Story 3" 5/5
Can Pixar do no wrong? There are a few of their movies that I’m lukewarm on, but they’re largely victims of comparison to their better siblings. It’s been so long since I’ve watched the first two Toy Story movies, so the only thing I remember is that I liked them. Even then, this movie is do rich and fun and even very dark at times, that I was delighted to watch it. It...
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"127 Hours" 4/5
It’s only 94 minutes, but at times feels like it’s stretching into the 127 hours of its title, but in a good way. Franco is engaging for the entire movie. That’s good, since he’s the main participant for most of it. Danny Boyle’s directing style also keeps things from dragging on, while still giving you a sense of the time that has passed. And it is as bloody as...
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"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" 2/5
Okay, so it had a few cool action sequences, but the plot was largely nonsensical and Gambit was a giant disappointment. Also, Marvel needs to have its screenwriters talk to each other. At the end we see Professor X walking, but as we now know, he was paralyzed during the Cuban missile crisis at the end of “X-Men: First Class.” Marvel: things need to make sense. Even in your comic book...
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"Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
I can see why it’s such a cult classic. Right from the beginning, Vonnegut is daring you to completely disregard the plot, which thanks to the time-traveling Billy Pilgrim, jumps around from before his birth to after his death. A lot. It’s a surreal experience and makes you focus on the themes and ideas behind the words rather than the plot.
The book is about the firebombing during...
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August 2011
5 posts
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"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" 5/5
Of all the movies in this series, this one above all did the best job of capturing the depth and texture of the book. And even then, it didn’t capture everything. But realistically, this is an impossible feat. It also helped that the final books was split up into 2 movies. Not much more to say outside of my book review. An immensely entertaining and satisfying close to an amazing story....
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"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (Book 7) by...
After 7 incredible books, this volume closes things out nicely. I found myself reading the last 100 or so pages so fast that the action seemed to go by far too quickly and the book was over before I knew it, almost anticlimactically. Although, I think some of this can be chalked up to the quality of Rowling’s actions/battles, which is one of the very few things I find lacking in her writing...
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July 2011
16 posts
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R.I.P. Amy Winehouse
Just an amazing obit from the A.V. Club’s Stephen Hyden:
The body of work Winehouse leaves behind is criminally small, but what’s there is still worth celebrating. Because after all the headlines and letdowns and humiliations and cheap shots, what remains are some really great songs full of heart, pain, grit, balls, fists, tears, and a sturdy humanity that will live on once all the...
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Spotify Premium
Trying out Spotify Premium for a month and comparing it to Rdio. Premium editions of both services cost the same at $10/month. I hate that there is no web interface (win goes to Rdio), but the Android mobile app is absolutely fantastic.
Great UI and extremely stable, very much unlike the Rdio app (win to Spotify). The dilemma is I don’t have admin privileges on my work laptop (where 90% of...
Google surpasses 10 million users? →
If true, this would be truly astounding! I didn’t think it would catch on this fast.
Google+ Arrives
Joining the chorus of praise for Google+. The privacy & sharing settings are dead simple and it’s a chance for a fresh start. Zuckerberg needs to take note; not everyone wants to share everything with everyone.
“But you’re human. You can never be a dinosaur.”
– Dale Doback