Time to reign in our fascist government: Keep your laws off my body also means don’t tell me what clothes I can wear.Liquor licenses are often used as a way to wedge unconstitutional laws in, via threat of losing license rather than arresting people who actually do the offense. By indirectly tying a behavior to a business, they use the money a bar makes as bribery to get the bar to enforce a law that would be completely unconstitutional were it to target the actual people doing this.
Imagine if they arrested someone for their clothes? Not gonna happen. But threaten a bar’s livelihood for having that person in it? That’s gonna happen.
I hope the smoking ban supporters understand that their support for regulation of consenting behavior helps found the basis for this type of blatantly unconstitutional legislation. Consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want in a privately owned bar – including wear whatever color they want.
The Night Circuit Court of Appeals has set a new standard for tasers: You can’t just tase people for disobeying or acting erratically. They have to actually be a threat. Let’s hope this spreads to other court circuits. This is a good precedent (for once). A Technology War victory.Time for wuss cop Brian McPherson to pay for what he did to Carl Bryan, who lost 4 teeth and was arrested for charges that a jury deadlocked over after being tasered for acting erratically.
Yup. Don’t believe Israel’s lies — they will completely encroach the Palestinian people until they have no land left. Slowly, but surely. Nevermind the UN borders originally created after WW2 in a way that violated human rights; in 1967 they took even more land, and continue to do so this day — even while claiming not to.
Jews running ghettos seems to be the ultimate hypocrisy on the planet right now.
The U.S. condemned this effort, but again: It’s all lip service. Nobody’s going to do anything. If someone built a house on my property illegally, I’d shoot them in the head, and would be right to do so. End of story.
Computers will eventually replace journalists. Seeing as traditional journalism has purposely been dry, devoid of human/editorial content, and usually devoid of humor/satire — that just makes the process that much easier.
Hopefully humans will still be necessary to make connections between happenings, but true A.I. will eventually match, then exceed, human intellect.
Hopefully humans will still be needed to observe real events in the real world, but then again – total surveillance may make everything observable observed anyway. Who knows — maybe someday the top-down official news will be fully automated.
We’ll still have our bottom-up news via twitter, blogs, and social networks, of course.
A Winamp plug-in that allows you to use multiple soundcards on a single computer.I bought an external “soundcard” that has RCA outputs — but they don’t actually output my sound. Apparently, you need special software to send sound to 2 devices at once. HOW STUPID! Maybe my PC is hooked up to more than 1 device for a reason? Jeeze.
Well, this winamp plugin solves the problem for winamp only. This might actually be more sensible, because then I could watch a movie or play a game on my computer while having winamp send JUST the music to the 2nd zone [bedroom/downstairs].
In effect, this eeks out multi-room functionality that most people want in their receiver. However, my receiver doesn’t convert digital signals to analog, so it’s multi-room functionality proved to be useless. I’d rather have music going to other rooms while watching a movie with digital sound — than silence.
UNFORTUNATELY THIS IS USELESS FOR ME, AS THE TWO SOUNDCARDS ARE NOT IN EXACT SYNC. I DON’T WANT ECHOES!
We watched over 241 movies in 2009 (up 25% from the 193 we watched last year), so our TV-series viewing was down in 2009. Still, our list of TV shows watched was quite sizable. Read on for the full list.
I try to list the more obscure stuff first, as it’s probably no surprise that I watch Heroes. (more…)
Now anyone with $4,000 of hardware can intercept anyone's cellphones anywhere. At least if it's GSM. Have fun doing over-the-phone banking on an insecure line. I'll stick to my landline and the internet.
Pretty fascist — using copyright to squelch dissenting voices. Someone posted an employment agreement AS A COMMENT — and the law has repeatedly found that forum runners are NOT responsible for user comments. AND the comment has been removed.
But now multiple websites that tout an anti-corporate position — importing cheap labor and lowering american salaries — have been COMPLETELY shut down over a comment that no longer exists.
Pure corporate censorship, plain and simple. There is not a shortage of qualified programmers in the country. There is a shortage of employers willing to pay american wages when they can import cheap labor on H1-B visa cards, where you get sent back to your country if you get fired, and thus are willing to do far more than your free, American counterpart.
My Chinese h1-b co-workers were always way more willing to stay late. Of course — who wants to go back to China?
We could definitely use a good 5 of these remotes… We're always losing them! These PalmPad style ones have proven to be the best, though the "looks like a normal remote control" ones are useful at times too.
LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a man who said, “No,”
every single damn place he would go.
He pledged to only say “Yes”;
And of course made a huge mess…
Lacking judgment can be quite a formidable foe.
HAIKU REVIEW: Saying “no” to things…
Stops opportunity dead.
Let’s give “yes” a chance.
QUIRKS: The entire movie is a quirk. Like many Jim Carrey (or Adam Sandler) movies, it’s a framework for a gimmick: Guy who always says NO decides to always say YES — to everything. Then again, it’s based on Danny Wallace‘s real experience of saying “Yes” to everything for a year, and recording the results.
OBSCURITY: Trivial, but: I noticed the cover to the excellent psychological horror film “May” in the video store Jim Carrey was in at the beginning. It was the only movie cover I recognized. But what we DIDN’T recognize or hear was “Ana Ng” by They Might Be Giants, which was listed in the credits.
VISUALS: Well… There’s Zooey :) I could look at her all day :)
And… that really was Jim Carrey bungee jumping? He is very good at looking like a lifeless dummy. And when he bumped into the waitress — he broke 3 ribs in real life. That’s some dedication. And yes, he really learned basic Korean too.
MORALS: Be careful not to say no to life(-life-life).
BAD STUFF: It becomes more of a romance movie near the end. Like many of these “full of heart” movies.
In fact, this movie is so full of heart, that if it were a cadaver, they would have opened it up, shoved 62 other hearts inside of it, injected with with methamphetamine, sewed it back up, and defibrillated it repeatedly with the tasers of 1,000 angry policemen cracking down on anarchist protesters.
GOOD STUFF: Because Jim Carrey is such a funny guy, the movie is a lot funnier than it would have been without him. His boss was such a dweeb. And the demonstrated sheepism of the motivational speaker crowd was quite funny — and a good example of how sheeple sheepish people are in real life. The “Yes Man Cult” was more or less a cult of personality.
CONCLUSION: 4/5 stars on Netflix, 7.5/10 on IMDB (Carolyn gives it an 8/10 on IMDB). Despite being a contrived attempt to pull our emotional strings about life(-life-life) — they nonetheless succeed in making a quite moving movie nonetheless.
RECOMMENDATION: I’d really recommend this movie to anyone. It has laughs, romance, philosophy. Jim Carrey always adds +1 to the IMDB rating of any movie he’s in. Some people might find it too overt and gimmicky — but here in Clarolyntopiastan, we love a good gimmick premise!
SIMILAR MOVIES:Click (the movie) with Adam Sandler is probably the most similar movie to this. This is like a more lighthearted Click. One that wont make you cry and regret not being nice in the past.
Critics say it’s too close to Liar Liar, but this wasn’t about telling the truth! At all! In fact, MOST of the time that he said Yes to things, he WAS lying! He didn’t really want to do them! He was just following the covenant he agreed to to always say Yes to everything. Even if it’s not true or against his real desires.
MOVIE QUOTE: Allison: “The world’s a playground. You know that when you are a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it.”
COINCIDENCES: Jim Carrey and Zooey Descahnel both have the same birthday! But Carrey is 18 years older. (more…)
“after all, she was on her way home from work as a dancer at Captain Cream Cabaret.” “She got what she wanted,” the lawyer claimed. “She’s an overtly sexual person.”
A jury of elderly white people agreed, and dismissed three felony charges that he’d used his badge to win sexual favors during the December 2004 traffic stop.
Wow. This is offensive on so many simultaneous levels. And the stripper made $400,000 from it, because they know they'd lose in civil court.
So now the taxpayers have paid $400,000 PLUS a cop's salary so that he can cum on people while on the taxpayer clock.
The question is, will it be even more expensive? And will it be an excuse to re-prohibit alcohol? Will the ability to homebrew your own drug of choice eventually be taken away in favor of a corporate-licensed intoxicant?
LIMERICK REVIEW: There was a demure lady in jail;
Put there by an evil kidnapping male.
Such a person is no more than a worm;
Deserving fates that would make you squirm–
While justice served by a court seems kind of pale.
HAIKU REVIEW: Torturing children
isn’t the best use of time.
Karma is a bitch.
PEOPLE: Directed by Park Chan-wook, this is the 3rd movie in his Vengeance Trilogy, after Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, and the much-acclaimed film Oldboy, which is now being remade as a mainstream Hollywood film. (Let’s hope that doesn’t totally suck! But it’s hard to believe they could make anything as good as the original Oldboy!)
Then again, it looks like this movie is being remade as well. With Charlize Theron as Lee Geum-ja (and also as a producer)! Read about that here, here, here (in descending order of informativeness).
QUIRKS: Korean, which means subtitled. Non-linear story, which means “trippy pacing, man”. Asian cinema seems to have not yet forgotten that sometimes the best way to tell a story is NOT in direct, linear fashion. The storytelling here is quite beautiful. It starts out with the main character, Lee Geum-ja, being imprisoned for 13 yrs for kidnapping and murdering a little boy. But did she really do it?
This movie is not *quite* as much of a “mystery” in the way Oldboy is. You’re left guessing characters’ motivations, but the revelations ultimately come much sooner in this 2-hour film.
It’s long too: 2 hours. I love movies where you think it’s over, and it’s not. Then you think it’s over again, and it’s STILL not. That’s always a great feeling for me.
Also: Never in my life have I ever wanted somebody to eat snow so much.
VISUALS: Visually this is great filmmaking, though it is not *trippy*. But scenes are set up well. And while there is a fair amount of violence in this film, there is not much *gore*. You are aware that violence is happening, but you don’t see it up close a la Saw or Hostel. I actually consider this a bit of a fault, but it will make it more accessible to squeamish viewers. It’s more violent than Oldboy (in the final scenes), but has less gore than Oldboy. You don’t see anyone [oldboy spoiler alert] [highlight for spoilers]→cut out their own tongue, or eat a live squid for example. There is also a Fade To Black And White Version (which I would really like to get!), in which the film gradually fades to all black and white… Sort of a reverse of the movie Pleasantville. I wonder if this version would be even easier for quesy viewers to swallow?
SOUNDTRACK: An edited version of Vivaldi’s “Ah ch’infelice sempre” from “Cessate, omai cessate”… which is about a woman seeking revenge on a man who betrayed her. A layer of depth I didn’t realize until I read the Wikipedia link for this film.
MORALS: Sometimes vigilante justice works better than proper, civilized justice. The cognitive dissonance generated by the morals of this movie are astounding: On one hand, you can’t possibly condone the actions taken by the victims in this movie. And on the other hand, anyone wanting real justice would do exactly what these people did. I have absolutely zero doubt in my mind that if someone brutally tortured Carolyn to death, on video — that I would have abso-fuckin’-lutely zero qualms about doing the exact same thing to them.And I challenge any parent to watch their children be killed on video and do anything less. Sure, the legal system will take care of them eventually. But it just wont be the same.
This movie is about true justice. Old Testament style. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. If someone shoots someone, put them in the electric chair. But if someone gradually tortures someone to death for no reason… The electric chair really isn’t good enough for them. I believe in honor killings (not the Sharia ones! duh!), but only by loved ones, and only in the face of incontrovertible evidence. Show me a video of someone killing someone I love, and I swear I’ll fucking gut you myself in the most painful way possible. I’ll bathe in your fucking blood, and I’ll revel in your suffering and utter destruction. I’ll fucking end you.
BAD STUFF: There’s really nothing bad about this movie! People who like their stories presented to them on a silver platter might be put off by the non-linear telling of the story… But it’s not like nobody’s ever watched a movie with a lot of flashbacks before. This certainly isn’t as confusing as Memento, for instance.
Hell, there’s even a brief “angel” scene — that is something I would normally hate, as I despite all spirituality. But here? It’s poetic, beautiful, and tear-inducing. And a great cinematographic moment too.
CONCLUSION: OH. MY. GOD. Favorite movie out of the last 350+ movies (I went back and checked, and gave up after counting 350 back) that I’ve watched. This was awesome. While not as “f’ed up” as Oldboy, I found this to be a better movie than Oldboy, even after watching Oldboy twice and liking Oldboy more the 2nd time. It seems a lot of people preferred Oldboy to this, however. Carolyn & I certainly don’t agree with that assessment.
RATINGS:IMDB: 10/10. Netflix: 5/5. This is only the 2nd 10/5 given out of the 106 movies we’ve watched so far as of July 2009. We gave OldboyIMDB:8/10 and Netflix:5/5.
The other was the movie Crank, which is not at all a serious movie, but simply the *perfect* popcorn movie. This is soooo NOT a popcorn movie. This is serious stuff. This is Shawshank Redemption serious. Whereas Shawshank was about escape, this is about justice. It’s just as good, but in a different, more visceral way.
While I give 6/10s out very lightly, I do NOT give 10/10s out lightly. Maybe 1 in 50 movies gets a 10, maybe even less than that. I’m just saying it’s uncommon for me to rate a movie this high.
RECOMMENDATION: OH MY GOD!! See this! Especially if you have a sense of justice and revenge. If you want bad people to have bad things happen to them, then this is your movie and there is no other. Poetic, beautiful, f’ed up, slightly confusing… and just. Never has vigilante justice felt so good.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Obviously the other 2 movies in The Vengeance Trilogy are similar. But, this being Korean cinema, there’s not much to compare it to, American-wise. I’d say the closest comparison would be The Count Of Monte Cristo. Other good revenge movies include The King’s Whore (out of print and impossible to find, even for me) and The Cook,The Thief,His Wife,& Her Lover.
Compared to Oldboy, I found the justice in this movie to be much more fair and… just. In Oldboy, we have a guy [highlight for MAJOR MAJOR Oldboy spoilers]→ remove his own tongue and be tricked into fucking and falling in love with his daughter, all for the crime of telling other people about someone else’s incest. Isn’t that a bit harsh? In this movie, [highlight for MAJOR MAJOR Lady Vengeance spoilers]→we have the parents of tortured children torturing and killing the person who killed their children… which is totally deserved. I’d almost consider someone a bad parents for NOT doing what was done in this movie. Jail is not good enough for these fuckers,nor is the electric chair. I’m in general pretty soft on crime — even believing that many murderers should eventually go free, once reformed. But when torture is involved, and it’s done for no damn good reason, it makes it that much worse. Torture the tortuerers. To death.
MOVIE QUOTE: Lee Geum-ja, in a touching scene talking to her daughter, via a translator held hostage: “Listen carefully. Everyone make mistakes. But if you committed a sin, you have to make an atonement for that sin. Atonement. Do you know what that means? Big atonement for big sins. Small atonement for small sins.”
Yes. Big atonement indeed.
COINCIDENCES: (Sympathy For Lady Vengeance, Big Nothing) 2 movies in the same night with [highlight for spoilers, including MAJOR MAJOR Lady Vengeance spoilers]→people extorting money from other people for various reasons, recording snuff/murder films, cleaning up murder scenes of murdered murderers who murdered on film, upside-down shots from a kid’s viewpoint, plots that involve the main characters and their daughter, and a scene with a fallen mangled body. Really, one of the most detailed movie coincidences of the entire year.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Andy Chung didn’t like this as much as Oldboy, and felt it was forced to set up a perfect revenge, and lacked the poetry and beauty of Oldboy. We disagree. Vehemently. (more…)
This picture of mine got posted on Reddit for Christmas. Bam. 14,000 views in 24 hours, shooting a pic that had only been viewed 180 times in over a year up to my 40th-most-popular picture ever. Wowie.
Good idea, but bad implementation. If cops can turn these devices off, you can bet they will.
Remember Angela Garbarino? Turn camera off, wait awhile, turn camera back on — she's laying in a pool of blood. Because she "fell". I wonder if the officer's wife sometimes "falls" down the stairs.
LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a world above water
Where living was quite a bother
With fresh water hard to find
Most people were very unkind
And tried to keep from being the Smokers’ fodder.
-by Carolyn, with edits from Clint
HAIKU REVIEW: A world of water.
Little girl and her keeper.
You are a mutie!
-by Carolyn
PEOPLE: Kevin Costner == good guy. Dennis Hopper == bad guy. Jeanne Tripplehorn (Basic Instinct, Timecode) == leading lady. Tina Majorino (Napoleon Dynamite, Veronica Mars) == little girl. Hmm — Joss Whedon helped fix the script at the last minute. He described it as “nine weeks of hell”.
QUIRKS: Pretty much a typical fantasy action movie with a predictable plot. Prior to Titanic, this was the most expensive movie ever produced.
VISUALS: Incredible visuals. Highly stylized to meet the water world everyone lives on. As rich of a fantasy world as can be created in the desolate postapocalyptic situation of there being no dry land on earth, and humanity being a dying race. Most visuals are, obviously, related to watercraft such as ships and jet-skis and oil tankers and such. Of course there’d be neater effects if this was about a successful water-based society, but that’s not what this movie was about. It was about humanity barely being able to cling on without any dry land, pure water, or dirt to grow plants in.
BAD STUFF: Yet another fantasy where a chosen child is important, and thus we have to listen to some little girl whine constantly, as well as suffer her bonding with other characters. I often view the “chosen child” trope as a way of trying to hook into the small child demographic as well.
Also, the main bad guy, “The Deacon”, is a bit cartoony in his behavior at points. He makes the movie lose some realism. But Dennis Hopper is great, so it’s worth it!
CONCLUSION: 4/5 Netflix stars, 7.5/10 on IMDB. This was a solid fantasy action movie that had few dull points, despite being 2 hours and 15 minutes long. There were water-based battles and vehicular situations the likes of which I’ve never seen in any movie ever — such as a boat harpooning a small aircraft. While the story is fairly generic, the execution of it was done quite well.
We will be going back and watching the extra 40 minutes only found in the Director’s Cut to see if those are interesting too.
RECOMMENDATION: If you like stylized fantasy adventures, or sailing, or want to see how biker gangs would behave if they had no bikes or roads to bike on … See this! I’ve been meaning to watch it for many years, but was glad to hold out for a high-definition copy. Great battles and action!
SIMILAR MOVIES:Mad Max, while not being as good of a movie (it’s really kind of awful, yet epic), is to the desert as this movie is to water. Actually, this movie has a lot of similarities to Mad Max 2, specifically.
MOVIE QUOTE: Mariner: “Two drifters meet. Something needs to be exchanged.”
Drifter: “I know the code. But I’ll give this one to you for free.”
Mariner: “Nothing’s free in Waterworld.”
FRIENDS’ RATINGS:Jordan & Christian loved it. In fact, the only 2 friend ratings on my Netflix are their 5-star ratings. (more…)
I saw someone else post a month-by-month list of their favorite pictures from the year. What a good idea! I shall jump on that bandwagon, too. So here are some of my favorite pictures of 2009, month by month, all from my flickr (but NOT all taken by me).
I’ll try to keep it to 2-5 pictures a month.
I also will be including New Year’s Eve (2008->2009 transition) as it’s own month, since I usually don’t get my pictures up in a timely fashion.
Click any picture to follow through to my flickr, where it will be explained in much more detail. Or hover over the picture for a [very] brief summary. (more…)
Weird dreams where I was at a convention that was full of Harry Potter fans — and also some Star Trek fans. I witnessed things that made me believe magick was real, and then was kind of trying to talk to people and get them to perhaps start to teach me some of the magick craft. At some point, I think my sister made fun of me, like (paraphrased), “Haha! You believe in supernatural stuff. What are you gonna do now?” and I responded along the lines of, “I guess I’m going to systematically reevaluate every single belief I ever had.” It was a really interesting gathering, but then some real supernatural war between good and evil broke out. I apparently had inherent magickal powers, and helped out in the war. Hiding in the woods, I heard a tree calling to me. I went up to it, and it was fallen. I ripped a piece off, and it imbued me with some unspecified power that I didn’t know what I could do with. It was also a good walking stick. When I got to the top of the hill, some magickal person asked me how I did that. “I heard it calling to me,” was all I said.
Then I was hanging out in my Grandma’s house with William S. Burroughs, and a Star Trek guy who was vasillating between Deforest Kelley (Bones) and James Doohan (Scotty). Burroughs had some friends there who had The Junky’s Christmas in cassette form without his vocals, and he did a live “karaoke” performance of his own reading of The Junky’s Christmas. (No doubt, it was playing in our bedroom in real life, as I often dream about the songs that are playing.) I was telling Carolyn to post to Facebook that we were hanging out with William S. Burroughs! It didn’t occur to me that all 3 celebrities I was hanging out with had all died in the past 10 yrs, and that I was in a dream.
Around then, Carolyn woke me up. I had stolen her pillow and discarded my own.
“Dreams… They’re the hurricanes that wash the soulfilth from the superdome of our nightminds.”
-Xavier:Renegade Angel (more…)
Vicky & Ryan got us this for Christmas, and we played it. It was quite awesome! Like chess without as many rules, and … with lasers and mirrors! PEW PEW PEW!! Kickass.
These are significantly cheaper than they are through x10.com. We could really use at *least* 3-5 more appliance modules, now that we got some more non-lamp electrical devices for Christmas.
Gee, with over a million people on the watchlist… You'd think we could get someone we knew has been affiliated with al-Qaeda on the fucking watchlist in time for Christmas. FAIL. 8 years after 9/11, we still can't get simple intelligence together?
And then TSA accidentally leaked passenger screening process to the internet.
Like 911, this simply has the feel of the government intentionally letting something happen so as to garner more support for the war on terror. That it happens right when we are deploying troops to Afghanistan makes it even more suspicious.
I hate it when things sound like conspiracy theories… But with the amount of money we've spent on the war on terror — can we really be this incompetent? Jesus christ.
Where are all the articles about atheists trying to destroy Christian displays? How come the perpetrators in these stories are always the religions ones?
Oh yeah: Good people tend to do good, bad people tend to do bad, but religion can convince good people to do bad.
I'd love to see the faith-based spiritualists tell me how this is an example of religion being superior to absence of religion.
Just remember when you wish for a white christmas, you are basically wishing for circumstances that will lead to some people losing family members on Christmas. Nostalgia for snow days and liking the color white doesn't outweigh the damage done by snow. FUCK SNOW.
PLOT SUMMARY: 12yo boy falls in love with 12yo girl who is really a vampire.
UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→300-year-old murderer has inappropriate contact with 12-year-old prepubescent boy.
PEOPLE: A bunch of Swedes.
QUIRKS: Swedish language.
Based on a book, of course. Because Vampire romance is so IN now. The book is named after a Morrissey song.
Apparently, the movie was “dumbed down” from the book. Eli‘s “helper’s” role was reduced, and he never gets turned into a vampire. Nor is his pedophilia revealed as the motivation for his ambiguous/undefined relationship with Eli. In the book Oskar is also darker — for example, contemplating becoming a serial killer, shoplifting, committing arson.
And in the book, Eli was born male, but castrated by another vampire at age 12. This explains the un-vagina scene. And also why her voice is dubbed over by another, more androgynous voice. (Not that we noticed, since we were busy reading the subtitles.)
These are all things that could have been addressed in the movie, and would have made it more interesting and more thoroughly explained.
I did like that they FINALLY address the issue of why vampires can’t come in if they aren’t invited. I can’t think of a single vampire movie where they bothered to show what happens when a vampire does come in uninvited.
VISUALS: A lot of snow. And cool contact lenses on Eli. It’s shot pretty well, though there’s not many special effects.
BAD STUFF: Slow, and bleak. Very little action. It’s so slow that I thought the story was just being established when I noticed the movie was 80% over. They substitute bleakness and emptiness for depth. At least it wasn’t as boring as it was slow.
But ultimately, this is not a vampire horror movie, but a vampire romance movie — the same genre as Twilight. But without the sparkles. It’s Twilight With Twelve Year Olds. More depth? Yes. Darker? Yes. More interesting? I’m leaning towards no, but that’s debatable. More action? Definitely not. More entertaining? Nope. More boring? Yes. The hilarious thing is that there are a LOT people who have watched this film, who then slam Twilight — yet they haven’t seen Twilight. Amazing.
CONCLUSION: Definitely not worthy of IMDB Top 250 status! Neither me nor Carolyn nor Parthena understood what all the hype was about. It seems to me that every vampire-romance movie is hyped up to be more than it is. (Including Twilight.) (Though I liked both.)
RATINGS:
Clint/Carolyn: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 6/10. Generic pass. Whereas we gave Twilight a 7/10.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 8.1/10 (Top 250: #204), Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.6/5 stars).
RECOMMENDATION: Twilight is the movie most similar to this. Yet, nobody complains about this movie the way they do with Twilight. I guess if your vampire doesn’t sparkle and still eats a fewh umans, it’s okay to have a Vamipire romance story.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Maybe I’ll check out the British remake, Let Me In, in 2010… Hopefully it would be more faithful to the book.
MOVIE QUOTE: Oskar: How old are you?
Eli: Twelve… more or less.
COINCIDENCES: This movie was full of snow, and we happened to watch it while it snowing in real life — the great blizzard of December, 2009.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS:Ian loved it (yet is very anti-Twilight). Parthena didn’t like it (2/5 Netflix, 3/10 IMDB, “Oh my God, it’s too slow!”). Bunny Day thought it was too slow. (more…)
Oh nice! Google Shopping added a wishlist option! This is great, because it means not having to have a wishlist at EVERY separate store. Amazon doesn't have EVERYTHING, y'know…
Interesting. And it's not like we're against the Taliban — the Taliban were in power for YEARS before we gave a shit. I wonder if that guy I argued with a few years back still thinks this has nothing to do with an oil pipeline through Afghanistan.
A CIA analyst and Arabic expert found that he had no connection to terrorism — back in 2002. But we kept him imprisoned and tortured for another 6 years anyway. Thank you Bush for making us un-american.
Isn't it awesome how Cheney refused to listen to reason? /sarcasm
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] All this talk. I guess I should see it. I do like vampire movies, after all. Carolyn & I watched this with Parthena and John The Canadien.
LIMERICK REVIEW: There once was a movie called Twilight.
About vampires who don’t just go out at night.
Written by a Mormon?!?
I didn’t know they had fun?!?
I also didn’t know vampires could be morally right.
HAIKU REVIEW: Teenagers in love.
Vampirism complicates
all situations.
QUIRKS: Vampirism! Duh! And extreme teenage sexual tension. Vampires make emos look like cheerleaders.
Top movie debut ($70.6M debut gross) for any film directed by one woman.
VISUALS: The movie was more about sexual tension and relationships than visuals. If you want a vampire movie with visuals, watch Blade or Van Hellsing instead.
MORALS: A vampire that eats animals instead of humans is like a human that eats vegetables and no meat.
BAD STUFF: People expecting a traditional vampire movie might be disappointed. This is more of a teen romance that happens to have a vampire in it. Fortunately, I knew this going in, so it didn’t bother me.
In fact, this movie has garnered more hate than any movie I’ve watched in a long time. And a lot of people who hate and criticize it haven’t seen it! I am reminded of the Senator who talked about how damaging Beavis & Butt-head was to society without having actually seen it. I never saw Titanic or Independence Day because I thought they looked awful, and was annoyed by the hype — but I’m not going to sit there and say it’s conclusively a bad movie based on other people’s opinions, or that I will “never” see them. Maybe one day I’ll get bored and want to know what the fuss is about.
The main complaints against the movie seem to fall into 2 categories:
1) Vampire movies should all be the same. How dare they have a vampire movie that isn’t like standard vampire movies? How dare they? They’ve tainted the sanctity of cinema!
I find it close-minded that “any movie containing X must be like Y”. All vampire movies have to be horror slashfests?? Isn’t that a bit tiring? Did the super-fast running zombies capable of love in I Am Legend taint the zombie genre? Did people go ape-shit when Shaun Of The Dead dared to make zombie-horror into a comedy?
I guess it’s okay to turn horror movies into comedies, but not romances?
Sure, romance is one of the least interesting genres for fiction, but it’s a valid genre nonetheless, and can be interesting. Especially with some fantasy thrown in it. The fantasy made this a tolerable romance. Take away vampirism, and it’s a movie I’d never watch.
Life is about experiencing different things, not the same thing over and over. People need to get out of their comfort zones more often.
2) Relationship movies should all be the same. How dare they have a relationship that isn’t like the standard relationship? They’ve tainted the sanctity of feminism by her behavior! This also includes the “Mormon conspiracy to make subservient women” angle of criticism.
And it seems that in a lot of movies — except for Splendor — anyone who has a non-traditional relationship must meet an unfavorable fate. And it’s usually either a moral judgment about them having a “non-normal” relationship (in a threesome? They’ll both leave you!), or a judgment about a close-minded society (if you’re gay, you will be hoisted on the petard of society’s close-mindedness instead of your own moral compass). Is this to placate the public, who hates any relationship depicted in a way unfavorable to their subjective tastes?
Yes, the relationship in this movie is definitely non-traditional. Girls don’t usually get with guys who can’t stop thinking about how good it would be to consume their blood. Thus it’s considered anti-feminist (how dare a woman make choices that all other women don’t approve of!), even masochistic (BDSM — even if it’s just emotional — is wrong! Protect the gays, but your relationship style is a choice, and Fuck your choice if I don’t approve of it!).
Hmmm… I wonder what these people thought of Black Snake Moan.
CONCLUSION: We all enjoyed this! While not exactly a huge excite-fest, this definitely had the feel of the first movie in a franchise. Characters were established, plots were advanced, but the viewer gets the definite feel that there’s much more to the story. More that is yet to be told. The sexual tension was insane.
I gave this a 7/10 on IMDB and 3/5 stars on Netflix. I actually may end up liking the upcoming sequels better, since I viewed this more as a movie to establish things. I think the rest of our crowd pretty much felt the same about it.
RECOMMENDATION: If you really like the concept of vampires, you should watch this. Besides, there’s going to be sequels, so the story will probably get more exciting.
SIMILAR MOVIES^H^H^H^H^H^HSHOWS: Spoofed in “South Park: The Ungroundable (S12E14) (2008)” – the whole episode is making fun of Twilight.
MOVIE QUOTE: Edward Cullen: “My family, were different from others of our kind we only drink animal blood, but it you, your scent its like a drug to me you, its like you’re my own personal brand of heroin.”
I likened the whole movie to “What if I fell in love with a taco?” I would be tempted to eat the taco, as it’s my favorite food. But if I loved the taco, I would have to try not to eat the taco. This makes me think of the “taco-flavored kisses” episode of South Park. In fact, watching Twilight made me say “taco-flavored kisses” about 100 times over the next few months after watching it.
Now, I command you to be touched, with The Cat Carol, performed by my favorite anti-man-who-then-became-a-man vocal performer Meryn Cadell, and written by Bruce Evans:
Are you crying yet? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. (That warning was also issued on Twitter and Facebook.)
Mark says if you mouseover a chord it will put a fingering chart up. Personally, I would prefer all chords written out longhand. The only reason to say the chord name is to save space/paper, which are irrelevant concepts in an electronic medium. Put the chord over for reference, but SHOW…EVERY…FINGERING… I thought the point of tabs is to not have to memorize chords!
The Legay Satyricon explores the first amendment issues behind the judge's order that Balloon Boy's parents cannot profit from their endeavors as a result of his ruling. Personally, I think it's a first amendment issue too.
From the magazine AdBusters, a [partial?] reprint of an excellent article outlining how corporations today ARE NOTHING LIKE corporations when first invented.
People often use the ancient history of corporations as justification for the good today — but those people are probably clueless as to this corporation history. I was.
Corporations were originally chartered for the PUBLIC GOOD. And only for a few years. These charters were reviewed. If they did not serve the public, bam. They don't exist anymore. This was before we made the mistake of granting them all the rights of people, even though they are not people…
Obama == liar. Democrats == fail. Two party system == false hope. And you fell for it. Obama opposed this in 2005. Funny how things change.
This includes renewing the ability for the government to snoop into what books you checked out from the library AND your medical records, as well as roving wiretaps {which have been proven to be greatly abused}
Legislation sponsored by Democrats. At least 1 tried to fight it, but the judiciary committee the Obama worked administration worked with crafted 7 amendments to water it down.
If you complained about this when Bush did it, then you better complain about it when Obama did it too.
And yes, Al Franken voted for this too. But Specter didn't — and a few Republicans dissented too.
Note that a lot of these provisions have simply been used against drug users. Only 3 in 763 past sneak and peak warrants were terrorism related. 65% were drug investigations. (Drug War: Let's have multiple unwinnable wars at once!)
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] This is an action/conspiracy movie that starts off as more of a comedy, and gradually becomes more serious. It’s NOT a comedy, but Mel Gibson is hilarious nonetheless.
LIMERICK REVIEW: Conspiracy theories are abound.
Some people don’t like how they sound.
But sometimes they’re true–
Hopefully it doesn’t happen to you,
Or you may be buried under a mound.
HAIKU REVIEW: Get your tinfoil hat!
The government’s after you.
This is serious.
PEOPLE: Mel Gibson plays a person with mental problems who is into conspiracy theories. He publishes a newsletter called “Conspiracy Theory” — that has only five recipients. Is that really that far off from real life? He even improvised some of the scenes where he rants to his cab passengers. Julia Roberts plays a Department Of Justice employee. Patrick Stewart (aka Picard from Star Trek:TNG) plays the villain.
QUIRKS: Paranoia. I now see the appeal of balancing a bottle on your doorknob — if someone tries to turn it to get in, the bottle falls. This is perhaps the cheapest alarm system in existence, and I’m surprised I haven’t heard of this.
However, keeping your food combination locked inside your refrigerator is definitely going a bit too far.
VISUALS: No real special effects; visually this movie is quite generic.
MORALS: Conspiracy theories aren’t always crazy. Sometimes they’re true. When people pull off something that defies common logic, logical people absolutely will not believe it without evidence. While I am against faith in a higher being, faith in things that happen in the actual world is not quite as utterly useless as faith in a fictitious sky fairy. Merry fucking Christmas.
POLITICS: The CIA *did* do mind control experiments. And you can bet if there was any fallout from it — that it wasn’t made public. In that sense, a story like this can enter into the realm of actual possibility.
BAD STUFF: It’s a bit generic in the action sense — but the conspiracy angle keeps it more fresh than it would be otherwise.
CONCLUSION: 7/10 on IMDB, 3/5 stars on Netflix. This was better than your “generic pass” movie, because Mel Gibson did a really good job playing a semi-crazy. Conspiracies were visited — and conspiracies were true. It could happen. It’s not likely, but it could happen. And nobody would believe you.
RECOMMENDATION: Fans of Patrick Stewart, conspiracy theories, Julia Roberts, or Mel Gibson might want to check this out. It’s refreshing to see Picard as a vaillain without the Borg being involved.
SIMILAR MOVIES: Enemy Of The State is slightly like this, but without the comedy.
MOVIE QUOTE: Jerry Fletcher: “To be normal, to drink Coca-Cola and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken is to be in a conspiracy against yourself.”
Also: Jerry Fletcher: “Love gives you wings. It makes you fly. I don’t even call it love. I call it Geronimo. When you’re in love, you’ll jump right from the top of the Empire State and you won’t care, screaming “Geronimo” the whole way down. I love her so bad, I just… whoa, she wrecks me. I’d die for her.”
FRIENDS’ RATINGS:Benj didn’t like it. Becky hated it. (more…)
I have already done #2. (Funny how they quote John McCain for that one!), #6 (in spirit), #7, #8, #9, and #10. That's 6/10, and 6/8 of ones I agree with.
I disagree with #3, which doesn't apply to people who don't have cellphones. Cellphones cost more in many situations, like mine. And I'd be stupid to do #1.
I need to do #5, but I hate researching and managing my 401(k)! It's too hard!
Copyright was originally 28 years long. You weren't supposed to get royalties for something for the rest of your life. You want money, you work.
I don't get paid every time code I wrote is run, construction workers don't get paid every time someone pays rent to live in their building, inventors don't get royalties on their inventions for the rest of their life, and people who write recipes don't get royalties every time someone cooks with it.
Art enriches our lives, but it is NOT a special category where you live off your past work forever.
If the original 1790 copyright term was in effect, the original Ultima 1 would be public domain.
if the 1909 term was intact, my favorite book ever The City And The Stars would be public domain.
If the 1967 term was intact, Murder On The Orient Express would be public domain.
But thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, not a single work will go into public domain until 2018.
Of course they will extend it before then.
Culture robbery.
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] I obtained this movie because it was supposed to be one of the worst movies of all time — rated 2.2 on IMDB, with a full 48.9% of people rating it 1/10, and only about 18% of people rating it higher than 5/10. It was most popular with females aged 18-29 who rated it 2.5 on average. Hah!
HAIKU REVIEW:AE had warned me
that this film was terrible.
I should have listened.
BAD STUFF: Even going in with low expectations didn’t help! This was about the most painful thing we’ve watched. Even movies that we hate (Birth, The Unforgiven), we still hang onto until the end. Aborting movies is not something we do. Ever. Yet we aborted this movie 30 minutes into it. There was no semblance of a plot, or anything of any redeeming value. The last time we aborted a movie was Busted, which was anotherCorey Feldman / Corey Haim collaboration. Lesson learned. The Two Coreys mean a movie is unwatchable.
CONCLUSION: Even though this movie isn’t in the IMDB bottom 100 (which start at 2.1, and this is rated at 2.2)…. We enjoyed Disaster Movie (rated 1.6 as the 19th worst movie ever) more than this. Which is saying something very significant for a lot of people. This movie was HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE.
I rated this a 2/10. It escapes a 1/10 because there are things I would still rate lower. The Jonas Brothers 3-D concert, for example. I saw a nipple during that 30 minutes which means it wasn’t the worst 30 minutes of my life. Barely. 1/5 stars on Netflix. National Lampoon should remove their name from this.
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Weird dreams where I was at a convention that was full of Harry Potter fans — and also some 
Claire's blog 
