GPS knows better - Mio Digiwalker C230

My brother and his wife gave me the Mio C230 Digiwalker a couple years ago as a present. I left it in the box, thinking I would sell it.

"I don't need that," I thought to myself. "I know this city."

However, I whipped it out recently. I thought it would be fun and perhaps helpful, especially with my girlfriend in the car to navigate while I drive.

Boy was I right. The small, rectangular box, less than an inch thick, is fairly simple. It has only two buttons, the standby button and an On/Off switch we never use. It took Britt a few times out and about to get the hang of it, with touch-screen typing and menu options and a couple of different views, one called "cockpit" and the other more of a map overview, I believe.

The gadget has gotten us into, and out of trouble. One memorable moment came as I drove in daytime out toward Britt's school about a month ago. Britt was fumbling with the thing, and I heard all kinds of noises coming out of it. She was sounding frustrated, but I was driving through the busy streets of the Richmond and couldn't help her much.

This thing is broken, Britt said as I drove on. I more or less knew the route, but still enjoy hearing the directions the Mio gives. Britt usually enjoys playing with it as well. But the "view" was messed up, Britt said. Usually in the cockpit view, the land is black, with a red line showing our projected route and a blue line for the streets, or something like that. Now, though, the land was beige, with black lines on screen.

Pretty soon we figured out the problem. It was the first time we had used the device during daytime, when it switches to a brighter mode. Tee-hee.

We haven't got a good nickname for the Mio but tried out Magellan and Sir Francis Drake. It's usually accurate with directions, though sometimes it tells me to turn where turns aren't allowed. It also can lead me to some troubled neighborhoods. Recently, we used it to get from the Dogpatch area of San Francisco, an up and coming spot near the new ballpark, to Keith's house in the Mission. Mio guided us right up and over the dodgy part of Potrero Hill, the projects where OJ Simpson grew up. There were some characters out on that Friday night, but we weren't hassled. Could I have sued its makers if I were?

The voice is an older female, and mangles some pronunciation, especially Spanish street names. "Arguello" sounds more like arugula. "Gough" sounds like nguoi. It cries "route recalculation," a mouthful, every time I get off track. That happens often. Britt says I'm just trying to piss off the machine. Maybe.

Despite the Mio's simplistic worldview, and constant nagging, it takes me places I would never otherwise go. For this objective, technological naivete, I enjoy my Mio.

Anything Else (2003) / The Front (1976) / Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)

In response to Ian's heartfelt search for a different comedy, I propose Woody Allen films. I've seen three lately, The Front, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Anything Else. To be honest, The Front wasn't an Allen film, because he starred in but didn't direct.

Christina Ricci, co-star in Anything Else, gets me going in that good way. To quote Jason Biggs, Ricci's boyfriend in the film, or maybe it was Biggs' then-girlfriend who said it, she's got an offbeat sexual energy. But her whole aura is offset in this movie pretty quickly by her outright craziness, like a nightmare in Brooklyn kind of torture-your-boyfriend nutiness. She tries to set Biggs's character up with different women, depriving him of sex while encouraging him to sleep around, and lets her mom move into the living room of their apartment. The film's set in Queens or thereabouts, with a bunch of brown stone houses, I think.

Not to be outdone, the crazy girlfriend in Vicky Xtina (Penelope Cruz) wields a gun and rummages through other peoples' luggage. She got the Best Supporting Actress award but doesn't appear in the film until about halfway through. We were misled, hoping for another Volver (my gf is a huge P. and Suri Cruz fan. We own Vanilla Sky). Javier Bardem rules in this film, making out with pretty much everyone worth kissing in the thing, yet still retaining some integrity as an artist.

So what's with Allen and crazy women? Who knows.

No watch checks in either of those films, although I did watch Anything Else on two consecutive nights, about half each time. The dialogue is good, with Biggs doing his best Woody Allen. Allen himself co-stars as a paranoid best buddy/mentor. It made me miss having a crazy mentor like I did at my last job.

So these are different comedies, not gross-out, wittier, perhaps snootier, than the Apatowian stuff. Anything Else gets a little slow or tries a little too hard, with split screens at one point showing the zany action in three different situations at once. It's definitely old style.

The Front, meanwhile, tried way too hard. It was based on the Hollywood blacklist, but set in New York, where some TV was filmed/aired live back in the 50s, evidently. The actors were real blacklisted types, except Allen I guess. I feel like everyone took it a little too seriously to be funny. There is a great Allen moment at the end though, where he sticks it to his WASP-y persecutors. He avoids answering their questions, without taking the 5th, and mumbles his way into an indictment of the communist witchhunt. Take that G-men!

Cinematic Titanic: Dr. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks - Live Dec. 20th '08

Because I'm likely at work still I will be brief.
If you ever thought that MST3K was the greatest thing in the world to air on TV, then you would have been happy to be part of the audience at the Lakeshore Theatre.
Timely comedic references (read contemporary as well as "good timing") mixed with a horrible mutant of a plot made for a fun evening.
Mr. Boone Harris of Elk Grove Village nearly wet his pants and went blind with his giggling school-girl laughter,—it was just the warm up act of TV's/DVD's Frank Conniff performing his tune "Convoluted Man"— drawing the curious stares from neighboring theatre patrons.
Granted it was not an insightful look into the creative process of smart-assery that made MST3K sub-popular, but it was still fun. More cherished was when Boone conveyed my question to creator Joel Hodgson, who along with castmates stayed to sign and chat with anyone willing to wait in line.
And in response to the question about "TV Wheel," they own the rights but who knows if it will come out. At least you can catch a glimpse of it on youtube if you look hard and don't tell too many folks.
P.S. Later that night we watch the DVD of Cinematic Titanic's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," which some may remember as an MST3K episode, and still other may remember as one of Pia Zadora's first film roles. It's a no frills DVD that delivers funny. I highly recommend it for rainy days on the couch (read the darkness of my youth).

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Cristal Skull (2008) and Sex & the City (2008)

[Incredulous] "You're named after the dog?"

I could say the real "aha" moment in this installment of I. Jones comes early on, when the aforementioned hero jumps into a lead-lined refrigerator to survive a nuclear blast. "So they really did unfreeze him for this movie," I would tell myself as he struggles out of the battered fridge.

But that's too easy. The fun of the film is in making Jones into a family man. I suppose that's like the last one, putting him in the "son" role, but it works. The lead woman is light, as is the kid, and pretty much everyone, gophers, attack monkeys, aliens and commies included. It keeps a sense of humor and doesn't go on too long, like the other film I saw last weekend, Sex & the City.

Yeah, Sex is stuffed with references and undeveloped characters, so watch the series first. Or don't, and don't. But it is generally a good time and more dramatically interesting than, say, the giant jungle car battle scene in I. Jones.

So go for the killer ants in Jones and the killer fashion in Sex, and stay for the laughs. Or go for a walk instead.

SPOILER ALERT Both of these films end in white weddings, er, weddings of whites.

Iron Man (2008)

I'll begin by saying that I never followed any comic character affiliated with The Avengers unless they interacted with the X-Men. So I really don't know too much about those characters, but that still is more than anyone in the general public would know regardless. So I guess that didn't make me have any expectations about this movie. And usually that's a good thing so I don't get hyped up and end up hating it.

This movie tells the origin of Iron Man in the current time in history. To me, that makes the tech involved a little more believable. But let's start at the characters, because I felt that's the strongest part of the movie. Robert Downey Jr. does an excellent job of making the audience like a character that is a genius, alcoholic lothario. I have not appreciated his acting this much since Weird Science. He delivers his one-liners with ease and really does look like Tony Stark from the comics. As for as his supporting cast goes, this is the first time I actually liked Paltrow's work, Jeff Bridges did excellent being bald, and Leslie Bibb was hot. Terrence Howard played Rhodey well, thus making me get over the fact that the role wasn't cast for a black actor with a more husky voice.

Now the suit itself is sexy. I'll even say the version 1.0 is; but it makes you wonder how his captors don't put a guard inside the room to monitor him as he assembles it. Anyway, the use of his robot buddies to make the Iron Man suit most are familiar with is actually able to hold my attention for reasons even outside the "wow, that's cool" factor. Staying true to the comic, the repulsors are the main form of attack. However unless i missed something, i dunno how an alloy used on satellites can withstand military projectiles. I mean, don't satellites get damaged a ton just with a little space garbage? Whatever.

Anyway, the final battle is not against a major supervillian (at least I dont think), but then again, I dunno who the archnemesis of Iron Man is. And even the battle itself isn't that spectacular. This movie is more about getting us to like the character of Tony Stark than showcase the battle abilities of the Iron Man suit. And I think Favreau did a good job of getting the audience to like Stark, thus ensuring people will go to a sequel. And there's bound to be a whole lotta of bad muthafuckers going to the sequel. I bet I'll be one of them.

Overall: 0 watch checks and recommend it for both non-comic book people and nerds.