Movie

So, yesterday the CEO rented a private showing of the Japanese horror movie "Battle Royal" for the entire company. I managed to stay detached and thus did not throw up. I avoided nightmares. But after I woke up I decided I won't be going to see any more movies he recommends, even if it's mandated company activity. I've read about it on wikipedia beforehand, but he said it was deep and all that stuff. Well, it either wasn't deep or it was too deep for me, because all I've seen is gore for the sake of gore. Maybe more psychology/narrative and less blood would've made it a great statement about the human condition, but as is, it's definitely not for general consumption.

Red

I just want to say: Elizabeth Kucinich.

Hmmm

So, influenza. Wonderful thing. Simply splendid. Spilled tea on my old Genius keyboard, had to replace it with one that has the "\" under the enter key until I buy a new one.

P. might even get me gainfully employed if I get off my lazy ass.

Reading about how Catch-22 was originally Catch-18 I discovered I don't know who the Jeeves fellow is, or any of P. G. Wodehouse's characters. Looked it up and what do you know? I've seen it mentioned in Hugh Laurie's short biography blurb or something, but I knew the guy playing House was known for parodying British nobility. I didn't know he was actually raised like a minor British aristocrat, but I guess they wouldn't let him parody Eton & Oxbridge graduates if he wasn't one himself. Anyway, have downloaded four seasons of Jeeves and Wooster, a bit too slapsticky but the accent is worth it. And the episode sets. English subtitles help.

Grey's Anatomy

So, I'm watching the first season of Grey's Anatomy because there's no House till end of September. It's like E.R. mixed with more Bridget Jones' Diary (or maybe Ally McBeal). I don't think surgical interns are actually that promiscuous, but then again, I didn't think people where fucking during programming course either… My discharge date is September 6th.

TV - House 1x12 "Sports Medicine"

Oh, I get it. Cute innocent young doctor dating physically and emotionally crippled obnoxious over-confident (though it's well deserved) old doctor. Of course RJA is all over it.

Movie - "Mean Girls"

I've pirated and watched this movie. I've used keeping up with current trends as an excuse to ogle seventeen year-old starlets playing sixteen year old starlet wannabes.

The movie was bad in a crude humor, overuse of cliches, over the top kind of way, and it was good in a predictable good-vs.-evil kind of way, and it almost made up for it. Like candy that you know is not good for you, but you eat anyway, because your taste buds say "yum!".
The nerdcore was adorable. Ok, that sounded gay. It is cool that nerdcore is getting into mainstream.

It was both sad and predictable that success contributed to the lead actress' personal problems.

From a review of the DVD on Amazon:

If anything, the grownups-especially the school principal, played by Tim Meadows, of whom the picture needs much more-tend to nudge these pushy teen-agers into the wings. The movie, produced by Lorne Michaels and directed by Mark Waters, is often funny, but it was conceived by people who are plainly wiser and more worldly than their target audience, and there's something about that discrepancy that, you know, totally sucks. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

That's the problem with mass entertainment - they have a brilliant anthropological study of contemporary female highschool cliques, and they have to film slapstick comedy to try and make their point. I think it aimed too wide and missed.

Edit, 2006-05-11: I've watched Heathers because most reviews mentioned it. It needs to be watched with an audience and 80s clothes are a huge WTF, but yeah, Mean Girls is definitely a Heathers remake. They exchanged the horror for slapstick trying to retain the black humor, but as I already said it didn't quite work out.

TV - House 1x11 - Detox

I was watching the girlfriend Pam throughout the episode going "who is that?" in my head. And then I clicked through the credits and it's Lilly Kane! She's good looking, and then I see she's more than a year younger than I am! I'm getting old. Did House have a massage or a masseuse? Good acting.

Update

• I've finished reading Glory Season. It was great. He has built a believable world within the constraints he'd set for himself, and the run of the mill plot offsets the intriguing setting admirably. The ending was kind of artificial, and it's a very hard sell, because so few men will read it and so few women read sci-fi. I'm sure I've missed lots of references. Looks like it doesn't have a following online, though to me it just begs for fan fiction (no, I won't attempt to write any). Brin has very professionally skirted around sex, amazingly well actually. R.: The cover has suffered substantial damage, I'm looking into replacement opportunities.
  Edit: procured, at very reasonable price, two personalized and signed beautiful hardcovers directly from author (see author's web page, seems author's wife handles shipping and handling). Am very happy with impulse shopping decision. R. seemed to like hers, making it even better.
• I watch the first season of House M.D. as it downloads, late as usual. It's good. Kudos RJA for watching the good stuff! It's the third series I've followed her, not disappointed yet. I hope I'm not in danger of becoming a little RJA clone, LOL. The rude sarcastic guy everybody hates but must tolerate because he's so competent, does he always have a beautiful soul? Maybe he's just a bastard. Or there might be hope for me yet. Oh, that girl doctor is hot.
• I've watched two episodes of Veronica Mars. It's BH 90210 all over again. rm -rf /mnt/series/veronica_mars
• Watched three episodes of The Unit. rm -rf /mnt/series/the_unit
• Today I've seen a guy walking a furry white Akita. Looked almost like a Samoyed. Great looking dog!
• Since the birthday meme is making the rounds again, I'll let you know I share birthdays with Johnny Carson and Weird Al Yankovic, and both the Parliament of Great Britain and the United Nations General Assembly first convened on that date. Oh, and Brutus killed himself because he has lost a battle to Mark Antony and Octavian. So, a good date over all, I think.
• My Python project has reached a complexity level where it seizes being a hack and requires actual design. That has made it less fun, but I'm struggling through it in the hope of building something useful. What fan fiction archive would you most like to search/filter using better searching and filtering than what they provide? I can make it happen.

Movies - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

After reading R.'s book, I'm going to see the movie tomtoday.

A week later: There is an observation I can't remember, I think made by Emperor Hirohito, about the distance between plans and execution. Well, maybe today.

Two weeks after that: I've seen it the previous weekend (half empty theater, mostly kids). I think it's the first movie I've seen where there's more detail in the movie than in the book. The movie is faithful to the source, though expectedly over dramatized, too pretty, and tries to look like LoTR.

The beaver family, as comic relief for the adults, was a bit much. Nobody laughed.

Why does the older girl (Susan) have to be pretty? Isn't the story about average kids? Like movie!Hermione, I think it's OOC.

They say LoTR is very Christian, but it never bothered me. This story does. I think it's because it's a bit more pushy with the evangelism. It's too short, too simplistic, too black-and-white, and the loss of the narrator in the movie hurts: I don't think Peter's development as a character really gets through the silver screen. I've been spoiled by more complicated plots, grayer characters, and less obvious than Sunday-school preaching of morals.

C.S. Lewis < J.K. Rowling < Lois McMaster Bujold

Movie - Serenity

Tickets to the only screening in Israel were sold out three days in advance. Lucky I had the sense to get the tickets in time, though unfortunately I didn't manage to arrange for more than one friend to come along. Screening it at 23:45 wasn't very smart of the ICon management.

Great movie, and the Firefly marathon afterwards was fun. Getting back home at 05:45 wasn't, but that's what holidays are for.

The audience was full of Firefly fans. Lots of cheers and clapping, lots of laughter at all the right places, even the jokes from the beginning that were spoiled by the trailers. The whole film was very funny, not just Kaylee's "batteries" and "I'm gonna live" lines (which were great). I think in the dialogue between Mal and Book ( - Mal: "You'll have to tell me about that someday." [meaning Book's history] - Book: "No, I don't.") Mal represents the fans.

It being a Whedon production, lot's of chicks: Zoë, Inara, Kaylee and River are all hot (and dangerous). If Kaylee discovers she's a lesbian in a later episode/movie, I won't be surprised at all. And those "this one time at band camp…" lines? Please, once in five years is enough.

I've met only two people I know at ICon, besides <lj user="grayswander"/> who went with me. Where were all the geeks I know, huh?

People, if you haven't seen Serenity, you owe it to yourselves to go see it.

TV - Lost, Season 2, Episode 3

Just watched the episode.

I understand the main metaphor about believeing whether pressing the button means saving the world as the same rift as described by Pirsig between the classic and romantic understanding. And it all sounds like psychobable, unless someone like RJA would like to explain what they mean.

TV - Alias Season 05 - Episode 01: Prophet 5

Like RJA said, the episode was surprisingly good. I'll keep watching.

Pop Culture - Serenity

Ooh, I've seen the trailer for Serenity (a.k.a "Firefly - The Movie"). I wanna go see it!

The Matrix Reloaded non-review

What's up with the MTV-esque raving niggers/steamy lovemaking clip?

I didn't get the philosophy crap; have to see it again to make up my mind about it.

Arse kixing was satisfactory.

In conclusion: Not the same "wow" feeling I had after seeing the first movie.

Edit, almost four years later: as far as I'm concerned, there was only one Matrix movie, and it didn't have any sequels.