July 2004 Archives

*** / ****
Dir: M. Night Shyamalan
2004 Color English 108 Min
Rated PG-13 for a scene of violence and frightening situations.
IMDB Site

I sat through this movie going "where is the twist?� I think it might have dulled the impact of it all on me. However, I really loved the look and feel of the movie. I think it was beautifully shot, edited, and acted. I love William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver along with the rest of the cast - they were all superb. Sure the twist is pretty weenie (honestly nothing will ever match the shock of Six Sense, so maybe M should try something different? Spider-Man 3? How about that Logan's Run movie that is rumored to be stalled now that Bryan Singer is going to re-invent Superman? Just a thought M), but I still suggest seeing it.

*** 1/2 / ****
Dir: Sam Raimi
2004 Color English 127 Min
Rated PG-13 for stylized action violence
IMDB Site

I am not a big Spider-Man fan, though it was one of my favorite parts of "The Electric Company" back in the 70's. Having said that, the first movie was nothing special, but this one is a great flick. It is rare to find a movie (especially comic based ones) that is well balanced with good acting and such. Was it cheesy in spots? Sure was, but it was all great fun. I think Tobey Maguire is a great actor and it helps overcome Kirsten Dunst (sorry guys, but she was terrible in this). Actually Donna Murphy seems to be channeling her Anij role from Star Trek Insurrection so its about a toss-up for bad acting in the movie. Well, at least it is better than the ride at Islands of Adventure.

*** / ****
Dir: Shusuke Kaneko
2001 Color Japanese 105 Min
IMDB Site

AKA: Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaij� soukougeki

Why did I rent this? Because I went to Japan and it was fun seeing Godzilla blast the heck out of the Owakundai aerial tram site as well as the Tokyo Government building - two places Daniel and I visited. I recommend watching the dubbed version - it was way more amusing than the subtitled version. How was it as a movie? Actually not a bad entry in the series. Certainly as entertaining as all of the old camp classics. It is interesting that there is still a guy in the suit.

*** / ****
Dir: Tim Burton
2003 Color English 125 Min
Rated PG-13 for a fight scene, some images of nudity and a suggestive reference
IMDB Site

I rented this because I had wanted to see it back when it came out in the theaters, and I like Ewan McGregor and Tim Burton. I got a heads up from Kris L. about some of the weaker points. I wasn't as strongly against the modern day aspects of the story, but the flashbacks to the life of Ed Bloom were way more interesting than anything else in the movie. Lots of emotion and cool visuals. A great DVD rental.

*** 1/2 / ****
Dir: Clint Eastwood
2003 Color English 137 Min
Rated R for language and violence.
IMDB Site

Plot sentance from IMdB: "Three childhood friends are reunited after one loses a daughter"

Another flick that was on my rental list. I watched it with Jason and he kept commenting how intense it was. It is an acting tour de force and it is directed in typical Clint Eastwood fashion (read slow and methodical - it is almost like he thinks he is David Lynch, but with less symbolism). Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won Oscars for their acting chops in this movie. The plot unfolds and the movie is full of raw emotion. If you let yourself get caught up in it, I think you will find it worth your time. Overall, it was a great movie - a bit intense so be prepared.

** / ****
Dir: Frank Oz
2004 Color English 93 Min
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, thematic material and language.
IMDB Site

Frank Oz, Scott Rudin, and Paul Rudnick basically make the same movie. Sure there are differences in the story and the actors, but this re-make of a 70's camp classic is very similar in style to "In & Out", Jeffrey, and Addams Family Reunion back in the 90's. Nothing real special here, though I loved Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, and Glenn Close. I guess I have never been a big Nicole Kidman fan, but she was at least tolerable. Thank goodness Jon Lovitz is getting some work.

I have earned a reputation among the relatives as the negotiator. Whenever they want to buy a car, I get a phone call asking me to come along and make sure that they get the best deal. This is the aftereffect of working at Edmunds as well as just knowing about cars.

I got Amanda into a Chevy Tahoe for $5000 off sticker plus incentives and her trade in for a total of $16,000 off sticker. I also managed to talk them down from 9% to 4.9% interest. Today I went with Timothy to get him a Toyota Matrix. I didn't get into full negotiator mode since he wanted a hard to find style and the dealer gave us a decent deal up front (less than 3% over invoice).

All in all, I have helped buy a total of at least 8 cars. I actually kind of enjoy it. Dad keeps telling me that I should be on the other side of the table or buying cars for people. I think I'll stick to Disney for now.

I finally finished Dome to Dome Twice. It took over 12 hours to render the DVD, so unless I find a major error, it is good to go. I think the menus and titles came out well and I can't wait to send it to the crew that was on the trip.

I am still working on some web sites with Haim, but have found myself against a wall creatively. It has been awhile since I have had to create something from the ground up on my own, but once I get going I think things will be OK.

I've been busy and its been hot so I haven't really had a chance to post an update recently. I have to post a couple movie reviews as well as just general stuff.

Michael Eisner et al were supposed to be by the Mark Twain today while I was there. No luck - he either was late or just didn't make it there at all. It certainly would have been nice to meet him.

Almost done with Dome to Dome Twice - just a few more menus and then designing the package and it will be sent. I have about another week before I need to mail it.

Also working with Haim on a few web sites. It is slow going with my schedule which is frustrating.

The title refers to a video I made with Leif Peterson for a 12th grade (I think it was English Lit or something). I unearthed the video copy I have and I had forgotten two things: 1) How funny the darn thing still is; and 2) How disappointed that I don't have the master tapes. When we edited the tape together (or when I duped it) some of the best bits got spliced over. I wish somewhere out there Leif still had the videotapes (I'm pretty sure we used his camera or that he ended up with a copy of the tape that is better than mine). Of course, I think only Leif or myself can truly appreciate the video and can gleam out some of it.

Another video I digitized was from college - Mutual of Omaha's Mesoclimate Adventure. It also got the ending cut off by some TNG episode (damn I hate early 90's VCRs). The good thing is that all the fun was in the early part and is still there to see so it is not as much of a disappointment as Stonehenge is.

I tried digitizing some of the old WKJC stuff that Alex, Kris, and I did back in '88. Unfortunately the old PXL dub to an old VHS tape has not lasted well. It was almost impossible to see back in '88 when I transferred it, and now time has taken its toll and its almost pitch black. I was able to brighten it up so you can actually see it as it looked like copied from the PXL. The only real fun stuff is the one episode of Captain's Log (don't ask) that survived with the three of us trashing Mom's white couches in the front room which doubled as the bridge in the episode "Mr. Schmuck has lost his ears".

One tape that is proving elusive to find is the one that has "Beyond Earthquake", "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure", and "Chronologie".

Jeez I was a disaster movie dork back in High School. Some things never change - just the special effects get better.

Curious as to how bad these epics are? Rest assured - Windows Media and/or Real Player versions coming soon!

Been a slow week. But here are some tidbits:

Amazing Race is back! Version 5 is off and running in Uruguay. So far they have a good group of teams, although I don't think it is fair to have a former Big Brother contestant on the show - it eats up spaces for the rest of us to try to get.

Watched Johnny English on DVD the other night. It was funny in spots and was a pleasant diversion for a few hours. It is sort of how I imagine what would happen if I were a secret agent.

Had a great time with Tiffany and Daniel on Saturday night - so much so we are going again soon.

Dome to Dome Twice is almost done with the editing phase, just need some titles and the menu design and its set to go - I don't think I'll have a problem hitting the early August release date.

I hope things stay mundane for a bit, it is nice not to have much to fret over.

Oh - here is something to ponder (and hopefully comment on): What would you spend $700 on if you didn't need it for bills/rent/crack or any other responsible thing. DVDs? Speakers? Digital Camcorder? Travel? The mind boggles..

Scouring the support groups I found out the Outlook-Thunderbird conversion sucks, but the Outlook Express-Thunderbird conversion is good. So a quick conversion and I'm off in Thunderbird. It does some great things like auto filtering out junk mail (though it is not perfect). Just in case, I still have Outlook installed and have made backups of all the data.

I'm loving Firefox still - no major issues and the tab browsing that Cooper and Andy have pointed out is super cool. Now I can have all of my sites I need to close fast in one spot. Not that I need to minimize anything, but if I did, it is there.

Today there was a site to behold in the cast member parking lot. Two people in Merchant Sailor outfits changing a tire. It appears that the new road construction on the street that I take to work claimed my tire. So my lead Kris helped me change the tire (I owe you a dinner - either that or a rubberized mallet). I think now might be a good idea to take Dad up on his offer for some new tires. Whatever I end up doing, I need to get the spare tire back on the back of my car cuz it looks just plane silly.

Today I declared my independence from Internet Explorer. I'm fed up with all of the problems that it has and security risks. The problem is since the demise of Netscape circa 1999, there really hasn't been a good reliable alternative. Then I ran across something that mentioned the new Mozilla Browser Firefox. I gave it a whirl and immediately loved it. Simple, elegant, not bloated. Just like the old Netscape Browsers. It also has Pop Up blockers and extensions you can install to read RSS feeds. Of course I haven't quite got the hang of that yet, but I'm working on it.

I then decided to try the Mozilla mail program Thunderbird. It seemed to be working until I decided to try and import my old Outlook stuff. About 90% into the conversion, it bombed out. So I was stuck with folder after folder of useless data. Worse yet, I tried to delete the folders and try again and it just kept bombing out. I then uninstalled the program only to find out that when I re-installed it, it still had all of my email information and yes, the corrupted folders. Ugh.

So I've scoured my registry for every last reference to Thunderbird and will try one more time. If it doesn't work, then it looks like its back to Outlook for me. Doesn't anyone make a good Windows compatible email reader? Andy has set up his GMail account so that all of his server mail gets sent there. I was thinking of doing the same, but I am a bit uneasy with Google having access to all of my emails. Nothing is ever 100% safe.

At last I have finally began production on the DVD of Dome to Dome Twice. I'm sure some of you out there know what it is, but for the three of you out there who read this, Dome to Dome Twice was a sequel travel movie I made in 1994 with Wendy, Joe, and Death. We drove 3900 miles in 9 days around the western US with stops at Crater Lake, Seattle, Cataldo, Butte, Yellowstone, and Colorado National Monument. WE started out with ambitious plans to go to Denver and also Four Corners, but by the time we camped out in Yellowstone, things went downhill. The camera was damaged when Death accidentally fell on some steps at an overlook at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone river as well as the original Gorn was lost at the Old Faithful Inn.

After the trip some mending of relations needed to occur, but for the most part we all got over it and look back on the trip with fond memories (well at least most of us do). It has been fun watching the video and finally editing it the way I wanted to 10 years ago. I am not sure if I will post some of the video on the site. I don't really have a good real media converter and some of the files are large.

I have also begun transcribing my Tokyo Trip Diary. Chapter 1 is done and I am trying to get a chapter done every day or so. Stay tuned!