Claire's blog

• VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Final Destination 5 (2011)

  4/5 stars, 8/10 from both of us. NOT watched in 3-D. Same rating as Final Destination 2; possibly slightly better! Pretty much everybody agrees that #5 is better than #3 and #4.Native rating: IMDB: 6.0/10, Netflix: 3.5/5 stars (guess for us=4.2/5).Did not realize the blonde girl was the girl from the movie Frozen (and Hatchet 2), who was also Amy from The Walking Dead.The disaster in this one was a bridge collapsing, which was quite welcome after Final Destination 4 (which we watched several years ago and rated lower than 1,2,3, and 5) re-used car crashes (rush hour cars in FD2 vs race cars in FD4). And the twist made this one “more canon” (if you accept such a thing) than FD3 or FD4, which almost feel like “Final Destination Presents” type movies. Really, this should be a trilogy: FD1, FD2, FD5. People who only want to watch 3 movies instead of 5 should watch 1, 2, and 5.

  tags: media video movies reviews FinalDestination FinalDestination5 2011 Clint Carolyn

• VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Final Destination 3 (2006)

  Native rating: 5.8/10 IMDB, 3.3/5 Netflix (guess for us=3.9).
  Clint/Carolyn rating: 4/5 stars, 7/10.

  This one went through the motions and was still quite enjoyable, but missed out on a lot of the aspects that made the other ones unique.

  They didn’t get together to work with one another to prevent the deaths; instead everyone was more disconnected.

  It’s explainable because it’s in a totally different region (California) than the first one, so they didn’t have the history of what was going on, but still. It just wasn’t as interconnected as FD2 or FD1………….And there was no interesting twist, either.

  Still worth watching, though!

  tags: media video movies reviews horror FinalDestination FinalDestination3 Clint Carolyn

• VIDEO: ANIMALS: Elephant Using a Smartphone

  MOTHER OF GOD this is the coolest fucking elephant video i’ve seen in my goddamn fucking life, holy shit!!!

  I mean… holy fuck. Is this CGI? No? What the….. I had no clue they were capable of this. I knew they were smart, but still. I thought they were kinda locked in their awkward bodies and prevented from doing anything as cool as this.

  tags: media video reality animals elephants hardware phones cellPhones smartPhones YouTube videos ICanHasCheezburger

• VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Final Destination 2 (2003)

  Better than we expected! 

  Clint/Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8/10.  

  Native ratings: IMDB: 6.3/10, Netflix: 3.3/5 stars (but it correctly guessed 4.0/5 for us).

  Very much directly tied into Final Destination 1, which made it a lot more interesting than we expected.

  (And It didn’t hurt that changing to a female lead meant staring at hottie A.J. Cook the whole time, even if she is better looking as a blonde.)

  (And I never realized the multi-personality blonde chick from Heroes – Ali Larter – was also in Final Desination 1 & 2.)

  tags: media video movies reviews Clint Carolyn FinalDestination FinalDestination2

• JOURNAL: PARTY: Local Experts Can’t Agree On Whether Styx Sucks Worse Than Rush

  John The Canadien’s blogpost about our Saturday hangout/partying experience.

  tags: personal journal hangingout parties people Clint Carolyn JohnTheCanadien MarkI AutumnS ChablisO SeanR media audio music bands Rush Styx Voivod songs Mr.Roboto Genesis video TV shows TheClevelandShow FamilyGuy

• TACOS: Tacocopter Aims To Deliver Tacos Using Unmanned Drone Helicopters

  MOTHER OF GOD

  WE HAVE ARRIVED

  tags: tacos helicopters vehicles food tacocopter tacopter MOTHEROFGOD HuffingtonPost news articles

• VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Totally Fucked Up (1993)

  Clint: 2/5 stars, 4.6/10.
  Carolyn: 2.2/5 stars, 4.6/10.
  Native ratings: 5.9/10 IMDB, 2.9/5 Netflix (guess for us=3.3, way too high).

  I watched this in my quest to watch everything Gregg Araki has ever done; this is the 1st movie in the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. Unfortunately, I consided this Arak’s worst film ever. It seemed like he had not fully formed his style yet, and things were very loose and sloppy. How the hell can people like this better than The Doom Generation, the 2nd movie in the trilogy, with a lower rating? I don’t know.

  The whole gay teen suicide thing is quite tragic, but this movie didn’t really make me feel it. It seemed to just explore the situation (in Araki’s typical apocalyptic fashion) rather than tell a story… and we like stories. This would probably improve upon a 2nd viewing, but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to do that.

  Carolyn adds: “There wasn’t much of an ending.. not too much of a plot either… just flailing about with not much going on… a few things happened, but the characters didn’t really come to terms with them…  and then it ended.. ”

  tags: video movies reviews TotallyFuckedUp 1993 GreggAraki Clint Carolyn

• VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Judge Dredd (1995)

  Clint/Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10 (generic pass). Netflix also guessed 3.0 stars for us, which is also the national average. (But it only got 5.0/10 on imdb).

  Interesting to see people from both Twin Peaks and The Walking Dead. Great cast, Max Von Sydow was good too.

  Definitely kinda cheezy. Visuals are closer to Buck Rogers than something you’d watch today.

  A few laugh moments (Rob Schneider–funny, but not that funny). 

  The girls didn’t really fight like the guys. They mostly just shot guns. Almost sexistly and annoyingly so. I know girls can punch!

  A few plot holes – dude picks up gun and uses it, but I thought guns were DNA-coded? I guess that one wasn’t a Judge gun, but it was confusing after they talked about how Judge guns won’t work when a non-Judge holds it, but never talked about how to know when a gun is a Judge gun or not. 

  And that tube of fire – the fire is shown erupting from the inside out, and they have 30 seconds to get up it, so 30 seconds later, after going up it halfway, they are still in it, and the fire comes from *behind* them in the opposite direction as they continue to infiltrate inward? Huh?! So they have a fire vent pipe, but the fire starts in the middle and goes in both directions, one inside of the sity and the other out? It’s not even possible to explain it as anything other than really bad directing.

  But the movie? Still fun entertainment. A rogue cop against bad cops, set in a sci-fi world is an easy sell for us.

  tags: media video movies reviews JudgeDredd Clint Carolyn

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Final Destination 5 (2011)

4/5 stars, 8/10 from both of us. NOT watched in 3-D.
Same rating as Final Destination 2; possibly slightly better! Pretty much everybody agrees that #5 is better than #3 and #4.

Native rating: IMDB: 6.0/10, Netflix: 3.5/5 stars (guess for us=4.2/5).

Did not realize the blonde girl was the girl from the movie Frozen (and Hatchet 2), who was also Amy from The Walking Dead.

The disaster in this one was a bridge collapsing, which was quite welcome after Final Destination 4 (which we watched several years ago and rated lower than 1,2,3, and 5) re-used car crashes (rush hour cars in FD2 vs race cars in FD4). And the twist made this one “more canon” (if you accept such a thing) than FD3 or FD4, which almost feel like “Final Destination Presents” type movies.

Really, this should be a trilogy: FD1, FD2, FD5. People who only want to watch 3 movies instead of 5 should watch 1, 2, and 5.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1622979

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Final Destination 3 (2006)

Native rating: 5.8/10 IMDB, 3.3/5 Netflix (guess for us=3.9).
Clint/Carolyn rating: 4/5 stars, 7/10.

This one went through the motions and was still quite enjoyable, but missed out on a lot of the aspects that made the other ones unique.

They didn’t get together to work with one another to prevent the deaths; instead everyone was more disconnected.

It’s explainable because it’s in a totally different region (California) than the first one, so they didn’t have the history of what was going on, but still. It just wasn’t as interconnected as FD2 or FD1………….And there was no interesting twist, either.

Still worth watching, though!

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414982

VIDEO: ANIMALS: Elephant Using a Smartphone

MOTHER OF GOD this is the coolest fucking elephant video i’ve seen in my goddamn fucking life, holy shit!!!

I mean… holy fuck. Is this CGI? No? What the….. I had no clue they were capable of this. I knew they were smart, but still. I thought they were kinda locked in their awkward bodies and prevented from doing anything as cool as this.

LINK URL: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2012/03/28/funny-animal-videos-elephant-using-a-smartphone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ICanHasCheezburger+%28I+CAN+HAS+CHEEZBURGER%29

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Final Destination 2 (2003)

Better than we expected!

Clint/Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8/10.

Native ratings: IMDB: 6.3/10, Netflix: 3.3/5 stars (but it correctly guessed 4.0/5 for us).

Very much directly tied into Final Destination 1, which made it a lot more interesting than we expected.

(And It didn’t hurt that changing to a female lead meant staring at hottie A.J. Cook the whole time, even if she is better looking as a blonde.)

(And I never realized the multi-personality blonde chick from Heroes – Ali Larter – was also in Final Desination 1 & 2.)

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309593

JOURNAL: PARTY: Local Experts Can’t Agree On Whether Styx Sucks Worse Than Rush

John The Canadien’s blogpost about our Saturday hangout/partying experience.

LINK URL: http://igottarambleon.com/2012/03/27/local-experts-cant-agree-on-whether-styx-sucks-worse-than-rush

TAGS: personal, journal, hangingout, parties, people, Clint, Carolyn, JohnTheCanadien, MarkI, AutumnS, ChablisO, SeanR, media, audio, music, bands, Rush, Styx, Voivod, songs, Mr.Roboto, Genesis, video, TV, shows, TheClevelandShow, FamilyGuy

TACOS: Tacocopter Aims To Deliver Tacos Using Unmanned Drone Helicopters

MOTHER OF GOD

WE HAVE ARRIVED

LINK URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/tacocopter-startup-delivers-tacos-by-unmanned-drone-helicopter_n_1375842.html

TAGS: tacos, helicopters, vehicles, food, tacocopter, tacopter, MOTHEROFGOD, HuffingtonPost, news, articles

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Totally Fucked Up (1993)

Clint: 2/5 stars, 4.6/10.
Carolyn: 2.2/5 stars, 4.6/10.
Native ratings: 5.9/10 IMDB, 2.9/5 Netflix (guess for us=3.3, way too high).

I watched this in my quest to watch everything Gregg Araki has ever done; this is the 1st movie in the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. Unfortunately, I consided this Arak’s worst film ever. It seemed like he had not fully formed his style yet, and things were very loose and sloppy. How the hell can people like this better than The Doom Generation, the 2nd movie in the trilogy, with a lower rating? I don’t know.

The whole gay teen suicide thing is quite tragic, but this movie didn’t really make me feel it. It seemed to just explore the situation (in Araki’s typical apocalyptic fashion) rather than tell a story… and we like stories. This would probably improve upon a 2nd viewing, but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to do that.

Carolyn adds: “There wasn’t much of an ending.. not too much of a plot either… just flailing about with not much going on… a few things happened, but the characters didn’t really come to terms with them…  and then it ended.. ”

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108366

TAGS: video, movies, reviews, TotallyFuckedUp, 1993, GreggAraki, Clint, Carolyn

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Judge Dredd (1995)

Clint/Carolyn: 3/5 stars, 6/10 (generic pass). Netflix also guessed 3.0 stars for us, which is also the national average. (But it only got 5.0/10 on imdb).

Interesting to see people from both Twin Peaks and The Walking Dead. Great cast, Max Von Sydow was good too.

Definitely kinda cheezy. Visuals are closer to Buck Rogers than something you’d watch today.

A few laugh moments (Rob Schneider–funny, but not that funny).

The girls didn’t really fight like the guys. They mostly just shot guns. Almost sexistly and annoyingly so. I know girls can punch!

A few plot holes – dude picks up gun and uses it, but I thought guns were DNA-coded? I guess that one wasn’t a Judge gun, but it was confusing after they talked about how Judge guns won’t work when a non-Judge holds it, but never talked about how to know when a gun is a Judge gun or not.

And that tube of fire – the fire is shown erupting from the inside out, and they have 30 seconds to get up it, so 30 seconds later, after going up it halfway, they are still in it, and the fire comes from *behind* them in the opposite direction as they continue to infiltrate inward? Huh?! So they have a fire vent pipe, but the fire starts in the middle and goes in both directions, one inside of the sity and the other out? It’s not even possible to explain it as anything other than really bad directing.

But the movie? Still fun entertainment. A rogue cop against bad cops, set in a sci-fi world is an easy sell for us.

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113492

TAGS: media, video, movies, reviews, JudgeDredd, Clint, Carolyn

• POLICE STATE: Police union gives payments to officers involved in fatal shootings

  Yes people — there is a literal bounty on our head. When you wonder if that cop is going to shoot you, just be reminded that he’ll get paid $300 to $500 if he does kill and shoot you.  As if the pigs need more incentive to  shoot people. This is ridiculous.

  Anyone paying a modicum of attention has  seen how bounties in Afghanistan resulted in innocent people sent to Guantanamo for years (and not released for years even after the government realized they were innocent).

  The amazing thing is all the comments supporting this practice. A literal bounty on the head of taxpayers. Shoot us and you get a reward. Our tax dollars at work. PUBLIC unions at work.

  tags: politics PoliceState policeBrutality excessiveForce shootings deaths murders bounties unions policeUnions Albuquerque NewMexico PortlandPressHerald news articles

• JOURNAL: Local Woman Applauds Husband’s Progress In Dwarf Fortress

  John The Canadien’s blogpost about our long Friday hangout, which includes taco bell anecdotes, reviews of a shitload of cartoons we watched (6 hours), music, and spiel about Dwarf Fortress.

  A little bit of everything!

  tags: personal journal hangingOut JohnTheCanadien MarkI Clint Carolyn cartoons reviews AdultSwim Fox Bob’sBurgers FamilyGuy TheClevelandShow Queen AmericanDad SouthPark Unspervised TheSimpsons Simpsons DwafFortress

• VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Wild Wild West (1999)

   With a native Netflix rating of 2.8/5 stars (Netflix guessed 3.1 for us), and  4.4/10 on IMDB, our expectations were kind of low. But It turns out this movie is better than I expected. More comedy than I thought, and better action than I thought.

   Two things that made it better than if I had watched it when it came out 13 years ago: blu-ray/high-def, and the rising appreciation and popularity of Steampunk. It had never occurred to me that this was a Steampunk movie!

  Clint/Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
  Parthena/Eli: 4/5 stars, 7/10.

   Parthena adds, “I think it was way more funny and entertaining than people give it credit for. I think the mechanical spider and associated ridiculousness actually increased my rating of the movie, haha.” 

  tags: media video movies reviews WildWildWest Clint Carolyn Parthena EliS steampunk WillSmith SalmaHayek

• JOURNALISM VS. WAR ON TERROR: Obama’s personal role in a journalist’s imprisonment – Salon.com

  This is pretty damning. Journalist releases something USA and Yemen lied to their people about. Wikileaks then verifies it. Yemen imprisons journalist as if he’s a terrorist for saying something America doesn’t like. Local leaders and Amnesty International get mad.

  Pardon is drafted up. Obama then literally called Yemen when they had the pardon written up, in order to ensure that this journalist stay in jail and the pardon disappear. Which happens after the phone call.

  This is direct action. This is not Congress’s fault, this is not Obama being a puppet of vast machinery he has no control of. 

  And oh, we still have secret prisons just like under the Bush Administration. Obama just tricked Obama-supporters into thinking he stopped Bush’s practice. He did not. As usual, Obama continues Bush’s practices, but more secretively. 

  And at this point, is The New York Times even worth wiping one’s ass on? This is the paper that knew we were being wiretapped by the government, and sat on the story for a year. Among many other things, New York Times is now, to me, the least reliable major newspaper in existence.

  tags: politics ObamaAdministration BarackObama journalists journalism imprisonment AbuseOfAuthority Wikileaks Pakistan JeremyScahill TheNational Salon news articles Al-Queda CIA secretPrisons clusterBombs Majala Yemen AbdulelahHaiderShaye Abd-Ilah al-Shai child

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

POLICE STATE: Police union gives payments to officers involved in fatal shootings

Yes people — there is a literal bounty on our head. When you wonder if that cop is going to shoot you, just be reminded that he’ll get paid $300 to $500 if he does kill and shoot you.  As if the pigs need more incentive to  shoot people. This is ridiculous.

Anyone paying a modicum of attention has  seen how bounties in Afghanistan resulted in innocent people sent to Guantanamo for years (and not released for years even after the government realized they were innocent).

The amazing thing is all the comments supporting this practice. A literal bounty on the head of taxpayers. Shoot us and you get a reward. Our tax dollars at work. PUBLIC unions at work.

LINK URL: http://www.pressherald.com/news/police-union-gives-payments-to-officers-involved-in-shootings_2012-03-24.html

TAGS: politics, PoliceState, policeBrutality, excessiveForce, shootings, deaths, murders, bounties, unions, policeUnions, Albuquerque, NewMexico, PortlandPressHerald, news, articles

[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Watched on a movie night with Greg, Nicole, John The Canadien, and of course Carolyn.

UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Mother endangers child’s life by driving recklessly and then abandoning him at home during the middle of a hurricane.

PEOPLE: Directed, written, and co-edited by renowned Japanese talent Hayao Miyazaki, creator of Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Nausicaa, and My Neighbor Totoro.

We watched the Japanese-language version, so we did not hear the English-dubbed voiceover work of Cate Blanchett, Tina Fey, Matt Damon, Betty White, Cloris Leachman, Laraine Newman, Lily Tomlin, or Jess Harnell.

QUIRKS: Underwater fantasy world meets modern boring real world: Boy meets fish, fish becomes girl, boy falls in love with girl.

VISUALS: This was a great movie to watch in 1080p. HD arguably improves animation even more than live action, allowing you to see all the small, crisp lines which comprise each frame. Watercolors are employed to create a childlike feel, and the animation style is absolutely different from other Miyazaki films. In short: Very good animation, even if it may seem simple on the surface.

MORALS: Not sure if there was really a unified moral to the story, other than love saving the day. It was just one of those interesting adventures. If you are a mother, perhaps you should drive better than the mother in this movie. :) And not leave your kid alone in the middle of a hurricane…

BAD STUFF: It is more directed at children than Mononoke Hime, Spirited Away, or Howl’s Moving Castle. Some consider the animation style to be worse, simply because it is different, and uses watercolors. (They’re wrong.)

CONCLUSION: A fun, childish anime about love and the ocean. Despite not being aimed at adults, our group of 5 adults and 0 children all really enjoyed it.

RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3.5/5 stars, but I’ll call it a “low 4-star”. IMDB: 8/10. I’m bumping it up to 8/10 based on visual appeal. (“+1 visual bonus”)
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10.
John The Canadien: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. (He talks about the movie some on his blog here.)
Greg Z: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. “It was fun, worth watching. I’m easy to please with movies usually.”
Nicole Z: Netflix: 3.5/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10. “It was pretty entertaining, a real trip; I’m giving it 3.5 b/c it left a lot of questions unanswered, and a few holes in the plot. But it was fun to watch. Guess one really shouldn’t think to hard about it. :)”

The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.9/10, Netflix: 4.2/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.9/5 stars).

RECOMMENDATION: Animation connoisseurs should watch this.

SIMILAR MOVIES: The Little Mermaid has its slight similarities, since it was the film that inspired Miyazaki in the first place.

MOVIE QUOTE: Noriko: I’d let a fish lick me if it’d get me out of this wheelchair.

FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian really liked it, and reviewed it here. Dave O really liked it too (“It is such a remarkably simple and beautifully told story that didn’t rely on cheesiness of any kind.”). Daniel H and Cindy Lee both enjoyed seeing it in NYC. (more…)

JOURNAL: Local Woman Applauds Husband’s Progress In Dwarf Fortress

John The Canadien’s blogpost about our long Friday hangout, which includes taco bell anecdotes, reviews of a shitload of cartoons we watched (6 hours), music, and spiel about Dwarf Fortress.

A little bit of everything!

LINK URL: http://igottarambleon.com/2012/03/21/local-woman-applauds-husbands-progress-in-dwarf-fortress

TAGS: personal, journal, hangingOut, JohnTheCanadien, MarkI, Clint, Carolyn, cartoons, reviews, AdultSwim, Fox, Bob’sBurgers, FamilyGuy, TheClevelandShow, Queen, AmericanDad, SouthPark, Unspervised, TheSimpsons, Simpsons, DwafFortress

VIDEO: MOVIE: REVIEW: Wild Wild West (1999)

With a native Netflix rating of 2.8/5 stars (Netflix guessed 3.1 for us), and  4.4/10 on IMDB, our expectations were kind of low. But It turns out this movie is better than I expected. More comedy than I thought, and better action than I thought.

Two things that made it better than if I had watched it when it came out 13 years ago: blu-ray/high-def, and the rising appreciation and popularity of Steampunk. It had never occurred to me that this was a Steampunk movie!

Clint/Carolyn: 4/5 stars, 8/10.
Parthena/Eli: 4/5 stars, 7/10.

Parthena adds, “I think it was way more funny and entertaining than people give it credit for. I think the mechanical spider and associated ridiculousness actually increased my rating of the movie, haha.”

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120891

TAGS: media, video, movies, reviews, WildWildWest, Clint, Carolyn, Parthena, EliS, steampunk, WillSmith, SalmaHayek