Hot Rod (2007)

This movie is about a hilariously naive self-proclaimed stuntman who has to raise $50,000 to get his step dad a heart replacement so that he can kick his ass, and in doing so, prove himself a man. I wasn't sure that it'd bring this promising story home, but i think they pulled it off.

Ironically, given that the movie is about a never-say-die moron who never successfully pulls off a stunt, the film makers clearly knew their limits and weren't laughing too hard at their own jokes. The jokes are pretty much in Napoleon Dynamite territory with goofy physical comedy and quirky but lovable losers. It definitely doesn't have the immersive atmosphere of Napoleon Dynamite but it does have some surprisingly creative sequences that don't get beaten to death.

Another impressive thing about this movie is how well the supporting cast was chosen, including Ian McShane (the dude from Deadwood), Sissy Spacek, and that one guy from the party scene in All the Read Girls (i think his best line in this movie is about wanting to fist fight the sun and punch it in "it's stupid face.") I guess Lorne Michaels (producer) has been doing this stuff for decades, so he's probably learned some tricks of the trade. Come to think of it, Stuart Saves his Family was a pretty hilarious movie too. Maybe i should finally see that "Pat" movie.

This probably won't be the funniest movie of the year, but it's not trying to be more than it is, and that works out just fine. (Update: i watched this movie again and now i think it may be the funiest movie i see all year, assuming there's nothing as hilarious as Borat.)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

I need to see more Coen brothers' films. I haven't seen Fargo or O Brother, Where Art Thou? and I think I probably should now.

NCFOD was just plain creepy. I had no idea what to expect, especially with the skeletal summary of "a man who finds a suitcase full of money is pursued by a number of individuals". Um, right...really sucks you in, doesn't it?

I think it's better that I didn't know what it was about, or who was in it besides Josh Brolin (wow, where did this guy come from?).

There is one particularly uncomfortable conversation in this movie that made me squirm so much, I felt kinda sorry for the stranger sitting next to me on my right. The 8 o'clock show sold out last night and I can see why.

I really don't want to give anything away by talking details here, but I think you should all see this movie and then we can discuss it at length.

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (2006)

Read this novelette

I'm not usually a fast reader or one who finds it impossible to put a book down, but every once in a while the right story makes me stay up an hour later than I should seeing what happens next. I read this a few months ago, but since it's up in its entirety and it's really great, I thought y'all should check it out on this fine Thanksgiving weekend. Cory Doctorow frequents the geek podcasts I put on in the mornings as background noise, and he also writes real good.

This one's about the apocalypse as seen from the inside of a data center (one of those huge facilities with thousands of computers in rows and columns where "the Internet" happens).

The Cult of the Amateur 2007 by Andrew Keen

This book reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies, Tombstone.

"It seems my hypocrisy knows no bounds."

The great failing of Andrew Keen in this book (maybe anytime else) is that Keen assumes that people are chained to their laptops and forced to watch user created content. His whole premise of the book is that Web 2.0, the next generation of interaction among users on the interwebs, is the global warming of culture. Man has gotten to the point where they have slowly, or rapidly if you side with Keen, begun to dismantle the hierarchy of culture: where have the cultural gatekeepers gone?

Wikipedia allows a 12th grader to have the same anonymous credential as a PhD biologist on the topic of giraffes. Anyone with a camera and an internet connection can entertain/dupe a bunch of people with a lonely girl and a web cam.

What Keen fails to assert in any argument before his last short chapter of "solutions," is that the keeper of culture is the person who chooses to engage it. I have to chose to look at anything I click on YouTube. I have to choose to chat or make friends on "my"space. If anything the failing of Keen's history on the dementia of Web 2.0, is it falls on educators, specifically and by my own bias the English Majors of America, to teach critical thinking. You don't have to be a professional critic to determine the value of a work, let alone whether or not it's credible.

Art is made by artists. Criticism is made by critics. But that street is one hand washing the other. Now Mr. Keen might say that I'm mixing metaphors. I say that I know I'm mixing metaphors and choose to despite the fact that might be looked upon by Keen as "amateurish." Is it amateurish when I'm credentialled by the state of Montana?

The other topic that Keen fails to address is that for an artist like me user created content is free marketing for me. If people choose to watch what I choose to post, they may at some point choose to pay me for the content they choose to look at. Yes Keen, I ended that sentence with a preposition because I know that if you take a latin lexicon and mix it with a German syntax, then yes, you can end a sentence with a preposition just like in German.

So if you want to get pompous I can be just as pompous as someone who looks like this:

Then yes I can be just as pompous.
My apologies to Mr. Keen, because as I type my drunk aunt is telling me how great and quirky my humor is. I wish I could have spent more time on it without distraction.

Blade Runner - The Final Cut (2007)

Maybe i should buy the five DVD Blade Runner set that's coming out with all the different cuts of the movie in it, because i couldn't much distinguish between this final cut and the director's cut, which has been available for many years. But that's OK, cause it was cool to see this movie in Chicago's beautiful Music Box theatre.

I'm guessing that most readers will already have seen this sci-fi thriller, about a detective, Harrison Ford, who has to hunt down homicidal androyds (known as replicants) in a futuristic L.A. I can't really give a fresh impression of a movie i've seen many times, but i did get some different things out of it this time. The parallels with Frankenstein for example, and the heavy suggestion that certain people may not be what they seem (sorry, no spolier.)

I also noticed that Rutger Hauer, who plays the leader of the replicants, is a much better actor than Harrison Ford. Hauer has some great scenes in this movie, and i wish he had more screen time. Harrison Ford does all the same expressions that he does in every other movie he's in. My favorite is the google-eyed one accompanied by throwing his head back violently, that he does whenever he gets hit. I think he probably did that one in every Indiana Jones and Star Wars movie.

Anyway, when you decide you want to see Blade Runner again, you should check out this new version (though i remember liking the voice over from the original version) i'm pretty sure it's the best "cut" yet.

Fred Claus (2007)

We didn't put much thought into picking this one. Actually, the decisive factors were that it started fifty minutes earlier than American Gangster and i think the running time is about thirty minutes shorter. Had i known this movie was PG, i would have thought twice, because generally speaking, i don't like movies (especially Christmas movies) without cursing.

This is mostly nothing but what you'd expect, a feel good Christmas movie about Fred Claus's (Santa's brother) disfunctional family. Vince Vaughn plays his typical curmudgeon, but unfortunately toned down for a PG movie. One strange thing is the number of "legit" actors who are in this: Paul Giamatti (Santa,) Kevin Spacey (an efficiency expert sent to the north pole,) and Kathy Bates (Fred's mom.)

The other strange thing is the scene where Fred goes to a "Siblings Anonymous" meeting, where there are other siblings of famous people, namely Roger Clinton, Stephen Baldwin, and Frank Stallone. This scene was bizarre and came off as pretty undignified for all involved (such as when the group therapist instructs Stephen Baldwin to stamp his feet to "get Alec's attention,") as well as being out of place in a kid's movie.

You can probably see where this is all going. Apart from the Siblings Anonymous scene there weren't too many cringe-inducing moments, or at least none that bad. You'd be much better off renting Bad Santa than seeing this, unless you're seven. No watch checks, but then again i don't have a watch.

Lions for Lambs

i am hungry and both lion and lamb sound pretty good. i imagine lion is a bit tough and perhaps gamey. plus they're harder to catch. the best lamb i know of is at a turkish place in the Tenderloin of SF, a bad neighborhood. i'm kind of wishy washy about supporting turkish businesses right now. so those dinner options are out.

the metaphor of lions and lambs in this new movie comes from a German soldier's remark in WWI that the British were lion-like troops led by lambs, weak leaders. that's pretty much the story line to this movie, with modern-day Afghanistan as the setting and politicians as the lambs.

it's another movie in a line of serious titles about current events that i've seen, with a mighty heart and in the valley of elah. hollywood is trying to come to terms with the war on terrorism. i support that.

the audience got a thumbs down. dort's chair kept getting kicked by a lady behind her.

it cost like 10.25, the saturday matinee general admission price. it goes up a quarter at night. you can't blame that on gas prices or the mortgage crunch. maybe it's the writers' fault. how much is it in chicago?

So You Think You Can Dance Tour (2007)

When I was ten, my best friend got us third row tickets to the New Kids on the Block.

While I remember none of it, I do recall sheer elation and excitement.

Is it wrong that I felt something similar for the SYTYCD tour show?

If it is, then I couldn't be more opposite of right.

The thing is, I realized the biggest reason I enjoyed myself had just as much to do with the surroundings as the show itself.

I kept envisioning being trapped in a swarm of tween girls, suffocated by the smell of Bath and Body Works, whipped in the face with long, layered hair and crushed to death by jumping and dancing.

Instead, everyone stayed seated, there was no dancing, no obnoxious screaming (at least by me) and people were quiet during the performances, clapping only when necessary.

Shit, it was like being at the opera where people know how to behave! And I've never even been to the opera, I can only assume this is how it is!

OK, so then there was a part of me that just flat out wondered if I have lost any taste I may have had, or if my attention span is so short now, I could sit and watch clips of a television show for the second or third time in a stadium on a big screen and pay $50 for it.

OR...is watching other people dance to really fun, loud music a majorly good time for me?

It's probably both, but something about watching those kids on stage made me want to go back in time, when it was acceptable to have crushes on people like them, or at least want to be them.

Sure, I realized that if I even attempted one of their moves I'd end up with cramps or aches or experience some other physical harm.

Either way, it was pretty freakin' awesome.
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The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson 2004

What WHAT?! A book review?
The only thing I can say about this book was that it was perfect based on timing.
If you want to read it, you'd also better love architecture or design and enjoy debating it. The book follows the concurrent activities of the production behind and during the Chicago Columbian Exhibition (world's fair to you lay folk) and the demented dissections of H. H. Holmes, a former doctor turned Jack the Ripper with his own crematorium on the South Side.
The timing for me was perfect because of my move to Chicago in the near future (days away) and my new temp job at a hospital. It was pretty interesting and will give new appreciation for things like a local cemetery, The Museum of Science and Industry and the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier.
And it may also give you new appreciation about turning single women into skeletons. I don't know.
My next review will likely be
The Cult of the Amateur by the Web 2.0 Chicken Little: Andrew Keen. More to come on that.

Knocked Up (2007)

This is another comedy brought to us by the same people that gave us Superbad and 40 Year Old Virgin. As one can surmise form the title, it's about some broad getting preggers. It stars Seth Rogen, who's been in a lot of things of late, and the hot blonde from Gray's Anatomy.

So yeah, plot goes as such: hot blonde meets not so attractive yet funny jewish guy at a club, both get drunk, they hook up and then she is now Knocked Up (2007). The movie follows them as they come together for the abortion of the baby. I kid, I kid. She keeps it, and he's there for her and a series of mildly funny events happy with witty remarks on the side.

To me, this movie was a funny ha ha and not an "oh, my side" comedy. To me, it's like it tries to be a season 3-4 Simpsons episode where there's an event that carries along the comedy, for the most part, and then it ends with like some sort of moral or feel good moment. Overall, I'd say 40 Year Old Virgin is better. This movie is a nice 2 hour diversion if you got that sorta time. I didn't check my watch at least. But I did turn away at one shot taht was completely not needed. I'm gonna be a doctor and really didn't think they needed to show it. Anyway, here's to not hot looking funny guys getting hot chicks.

American Gangster (2007)

Sadly, disappointing. The trailer made it out to be sort of a "Clash of the Titans" drug drama epic between Crowe and Washington, but instead it was really focused on the details of the drug trade, and how Frank Lucas used business smarts to rise to power in '70s Harlem.

The details make for a lot of long, slow conversations with ambiguous objectives. I'm all for that, but it helps when there are less characters and motives so I can infer what they're really talking about. It's hard to have those kinds of conversations when the guy I don't recognize is somehow related to Crowe, but I don't remember how or remember if I should know, and they're talking around some kind of important point, but I can't remember what it is.

I was also sleep-deprived for this viewing and worried about falling behind in school. Attention-span lapses occurred. But no watch checks because I didn't want to think about the 2.5 hours passing during the movie. It seemed more like 2 hours than 2.5, to be honest.

One last thing: Denzel WAAASHington. (that's for ben who's the only person who might read this blog and get that joke)

Taskpaper (2007)

(The developer is offering a free license of Taskpaper to reviewers. The software costs $18.95, so in a way I'm getting paid $19 to exercise some creativity and get a good program out of it.)

Never have I become so dependent on a single program so quickly. I used to use a big Microsoft Word .doc for my to-do list, but that resulted in notes being scattered all over the place in clusters, organized only by date -- not good for my job (and many others I'd assume), where it can take days or weeks to finish a project.

Taskpaper's great advantage is in doing a very simple thing very simply. (Aesthetically it's like a red, glorified TextEdit, but in to-do list programs bells and whistles are a distraction, not a feature.) Type something and hit the colon button, and what you just typed turns into a heading. Underneath that, you type something and it becomes a task with a checkbox that you can click when you're done, turning the whole thing into greyed-out strikethrough. I like that it doesn't delete the task as soon as you hit the checkbox; I use that as my "pending approval" stage, so I can uncheck the box and go back into active mode if I get something back with tweaks requested. If I want to get rid of an item, I have the backspace key.

The other great thing is that you can click on a heading and Taskpaper will automatically clear the rest of your tasks off its window so you can focus only on that one job. If you're like me and always feel like there's 3 other things you need to be doing at any given moment at work, this is a really good way to see one job through to completion before turning your attention to other things. Going back to the master list takes just a click of the home button in the upper left.

I was using the free beta, which issued an amusing debug error in my console every time I typed or moved the cursor, but the current version has that problem licked. A less pleasant surprise that I discovered upon upgrading is that now Taskpaper automatically grays out any text that isn't part of a task. I had a few sets of notes that were just lines of text, not attached to a checkbox, and while they're still there they now look grayed out / completed.

You might be able to tell that I'm stretching for something negative to say. Taskpaper is easy fast, lightweight, and a big boon to my productivity. Win.

(The author of Taskpaper, Jesse Grosjean, also offers Writeroom, which I've been using unregistered for even longer. He's offering a free license for a review of that too. I may very well take him up on that.)

MURDERLATION (Halloween 2007)

Holy my crap this was one of the best shows I've seen in a while. It was in a dank basement in Humboldt Park, which was both very much the same as a dank basement in Evanston (where I'd seen a few basement shows with people from this scene) and yet very much different.

Of course it didn't hurt that the songs are instantly catchy and great (I had no previous exposure to the Misfits; I think my punk-leaning brother who was my conduit to hardcore in h.s. thought they were either clownish with the makeup, or too weird and goth). But Murderlation really took it to the next level with the energy, and the crowd got way into it.

The best part was the end when Claire and Chris both threw themselves into the crowd to really start the pit. Points for participation!

I just went on the sadu face website only to find out that show was their last. Ergf. It should be Halloween every day.