two websites i like

Human Clock: I love sites that show me that not everyone is boring, and that there still are people out there who are willing to invest their time into something just for the sake of adding fun and weirdness to the world.

The Date Project: a blog that describes a guy’s adventures and tribulations in trying to find a girlfriend. A fun read.

minority report

Saw this last night. I feel a bit odd describing what my expectations were. Normally I wouldn’t have expected anything short of “revolutionary” from a Spielberg movie, but after that twelve-bucks-and-three-hours-I’ll-never-get-back fiasco called A.I., I was actually expecting nothing short of “abysmal”.

Anyway, this was neither. I’d call it thoroughly entertaining, but not really thought-provoking. Of course, not all movies have to be thought-provoking, especially summer blockbusters. But this is a movie based on a story by Philip K. Dick, directed by Spielberg, so I’m forgiving myself for expecting some quality, and for comparing it with Blade Runner.

The vision of the future that Minority Report offers is much more detailed and realistic than that of A.I., and somewhat more optimistic than that of Blade Runner. The distinction between the various classes that exists today seems exacerbated in this vision of the future. The world seems cleaner, faster and safer for the middle and upper classes, while the underbelly of society has gotten even dirtier and more menacing.

The movie centers around a pilot project wherein crimes are prevented before they occur by using precognizants to predict them. This premise is interesting and well-developed enough to sustain interest throughout the (long) movie. However, the film does not explore too many of the philosophical implications of its premise, and it quickly becomes a simple whodunnit set in a cool future.

That’s too bad, because the rest is highly satisfying, from the character development to the original action scenes, well integrated into the storytelling. The CG was a lot better composited into the live-action stuff than in, say, Spiderman or Episode 2, and I’d have to say the special FX worked well overall in this movie. Something bugged me about the “jumping from Lexus hovercraft to Lexus hovercraft” scene (that we see in the trailer), like we didn’t really get a feel for the wind or speed of the action, but compared with the other two I just mentioned, this is forgiveable.

One thing that really pissed me off, however, was the shameless amount of product placement in this movie. In almost every scene, you have a blatantly placed parade of Lexus, Gap, Aquafina, Pepsi and Ben and Jerry logos… At least it was funny to see that even in 2054, The Gap still peddles clothes that are completely plain and absolutely devoid of any personality or style.

Finally, the film scores an extra half-point with me, for including a good amount of dialog in Swedish - always a good thing.

I think from this movie I’ll have to conclude that I’m a pretty tough crowd.

baltimore

I just found the old archives going back to March. I wasn’t a very regular blogger, but it’s all there.

And now, I’m going to collapse in a very comfy-looking Holiday Inn bed.

a walk on the dark side

I love this city. I spent the evening having dinner and people-watching on Prince-Arthur with Iris, Gord and Dotan. Montreal is so fine in the summertime, it completely compensates for the winter.

I love my street. When I got home there were some guys I had never seen before playing some lovely guitar on the stairs. I’m leaving the window open tonight.

Dotan just got back from Israel, where a cafe was bombed two days after he had lunch there. I’m getting almost blasé about all these stories I hear from my Israeli acquaintances, like the stupidity of it all should be as obvious to them as it is to me. But it goes back to what I was writing earlier. Sadly we don’t see clearly in conflicts we’re involved in. Ironic…

And in other news, I’m preparing for my short stint in Baltimore. This trip feels a bit like a walk on the dark side of the force. The sales department where I work has been trying hard to get me to join them. This is obviously NOT tempting in the least. In my opinion, there’s just more dignity to being a teacher, at the risk of being a snob here.

But I’m going to Baltimore with them, and there I’ll be making a presentation to a potential client. I kind of had to accept, as things in the training department were rather slow, and frankly I’d prefer almost anything to sitting in a cubicle thinking up new disasters to use in class. So I accepted - this one time - on the condition that I be allowed to tell the whole truth exactly as it is. They might stop bugging me if I really suck at the job anyway.

Well, with the return of new training upcoming assignments, I am assured that this time on the dark side will be very short, and this is a very good thing.

another amazing swing night…

Tired. Happy.

I’ll write more from Baltimore…

worst of the best

Just got back from the weekend in Toronto with Iris, Gord and T. We drove up there to see Gord take part in a Kung Fu tournament. He was in the top category, and we expected his to get his ass kicked - to be worst of the best. But he won one of his three fights, prompting us Gordogroupies to chant “HE’S NOT THE WORST! HE’S NOT THE WORST!”…

We played the sex shop memory game in the car (anal plug, jello vagina, nipple tassels) on the way up. I spent a lot of time with Iris and T visiting Toronto, which I’d describe as a cleaner, safer New York city (on a smaller scale of course). The three of us were all pleasantly surprised with it, because you hear so much crap about it here in Montreal.

T and I had a huge fight about something thoroughly stupid yesterday, then Gord and Iris fought about the exact same topic today (basically, in both cases the girl was complaining about the guy being a bore). The interesting thing was that when T and I were going at it, Iris was perfectly calm and rational while we were idiots. Today, however, T and I were laughing our heads off at how stupid they were being. I swear, you could almost have swapped our conversations word for word. However, when listening to Gord and Iris, T was on her side while I was on Gord’s. It’s as if we could listen objectively, unless it was a conversation we were taking part in.

Does it have to be that way? Is it inevitable to get into a situation where you can listen to anyone with an open mind except the one with whom you are interacting?

I refuse to believe that.

star wars episode 2

Things that bugged the hell out of me:
. the fact that artoo flies, all of a sudden - uh, when did that come about???
. rolling around in the grass - ugh
. excessive CG - Yoda’s better as a muppet
. puns !!!

Cool things:
. the origin of the storm troopers
. young Owen and Beru

Some people have complained about the bad acting and the gratuitous dominatrix outfit, but that was pretty much a part of the original holy trilogy. It just makes it more Star Wars to me.

But did I like it? Yes, though I agree with most of what the smc said about it.

Dad surprised me. I thought I’d have to explain the whole “okay. the good guys (the Senate) in THIS movie are the bad guys (the Empire) in the original” thing, but that didn’t pose a problem for him. His problem was “so why’d he get older if she didn’t?”.

the blog is afoot

Hello, world!!!

Well, praise be, I got the archives and commenting to work. Since this new blog’s so short so far, the new archives contain nothing more than what’s on this page… but hey, they work.

What the hell… I’m choosing this moment to jump in and release this beast to the world. If anyone is reading this, be a dear and put in a comment under ‘talk back’?

Okay, my beauty sleep is way past due.

everybody was kung fu fighting…

This weekend I’m going up to Toronto with Iris, T and Gord to watch the latter get himself killed at a Kung Fu tournament. Get this - when he was qualifying for the tourney, he inadvertently placed in the top bracket, so he’s probably seriously outclassed. I’m taking the digicam and making a video of the whole weekend.

Hey, if you had a chance to see your ex get the shit kicked out of them, wouldn’t you make it into a documentary too? I can even make a few bucks out of it, if there’s blood…

wow! that was amazing!

Note to self: marry a man who can swing dance.