The Life Aquatic is about a washed up Jaq Cousteau type figure who loses his best friend while filming a documentary. He boldly proclaims that after being a drunkard for one day that he will embark on this quest to kill the thing that got his friend. His oddball team ends up following along with some new members including his recently reunited son, a pack of interns seeking school credit and a pregnant report. Hilarity ensues soon after of course.

There are a lot of mini-memorable moments that I’m sure I’ll be reliving with Parr for the next few days. Plus the Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op tune by Mark Mothersbough is so infectious I think it will stay with me eternally.

The Life Aquatic is one of those movies that I can see myself championing although I think it would be folly to think that everyone would like it.

It can be slow, demented and awkward but it is very amusing none the less. I give it 4 out of 5 smegs, which um… in this case should be considered good.

Don’t forget to check out The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou site for previews, wallpapers and other goodies. It’s quite the perfect use of flash, video and other yummy technologies.

An hour of searching online for the song turned up nothing but preview clips. Ten seconds (literally!) of searching on DC++ found this audible gem.

Is every interaction you have with someone a rehearsed, moving speech of monumental emotionconsequences? No. So why should all movies be the same? They shouldn’t and with that said Ihave to proclaim that this movie is not for everyone. Hate everything shown on the IFC channel?Perhaps Die Hard 12 “Christmas Coupons” would be more up your alley. If however you like a movie that makes you think a little bit a feel good then check out NapoleonDynamite.

Somewhere in between Lost in Translation (awesome) and Sky Captain (awesome in a different way) liesNapoleon Dynamite. But don’t take my word for it. *Reading Rainbow SFX* *ba dum bump*

I’ve been exploring the local area a bit, got lost pretty bad at one point but otherwise its been an enjoyable experience. Went clothes shopping, picked up DDR Extreme (can’t wait to get home for another reason now), been eating out a lot and saw a few movies.

One of the movies I had the pleasure of seeing is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. It’s truly a fun and entertaining film and I would gladly purchase he DVD of it when available.

The style of the movie is retro futuristic. Robots, lasers, flying aircraft carriers and hi-tech electronics. Only… assembled from heavy gauge steel and other seemingly crude components. Another thing you’ll notice is that the film has a soft filter on it, similar to the Prince of Persia game but tailored for another universe. I found it quite pleasing although I did wish I could examine some of the beautiful textures in more detail at times.

Textures? That’s right. Almost everything in the movie was rendered, modeled or painted. Quite impressive considering there were only a few times I consciously noticed something not looking quite right. The cast spent a relatively short time filming the whole movie in front of green/blue screen and the end result is very convincing.

The story of Sky Captain can probably be summed up as an exploration adventure. Travel to new places, fight bad guys, repeat. It’s quite fun a the occasion comedy is refreshing so I say the formula works.

Bottom line is if you like adventure, sci-fi or B movies then you’ll not be disappointed by… SKY CAPTAIN *echoes*… AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!

In an unrelated topic…

Two girls were walking toward the movie theatre giggling. One of them said “Arrowed” and they both laughed. I waited a second till I passed them and shouted, “homestarrunner.com!”. They paused for a second, then continued to laugh.

Nice to know there are hidden Strong Bad / Teen Girl Squad fans out there.

Getting my hair dyed black again tomorrow. Now if I can just get a nice gothic outfit. Bet I can talk Parr into getting me a fluffy cuffed vampire looking artisan shirt. Hehe.

Now part of the theatre experience is always the audience and the people I happened to be watching the movie with were hilarious. At one point a few people in the audience were making the clicking purring noise of the predators which was being used a lot. The rest of the audience was laughing.

A few parts of the movie really stood out for me. The first was the researchers watching Frankenstein meets the Wolfman in black and white. It twas an homage to an older mix of monsters movies. The second was when our lead Predator made some armor and weapons from a slain alien for our human heroin. Very cool gesture. Lastly, I really enjoyed the lead predator / king / father or whoever he was (definitely older looking) gave one of their weapons to the human female who proved herself in battle.

Maybe I just have a weak spot for ceremonies dealing with honor. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I like Japanese culture.

Anyway I had fun seeing Predator and managed to do a few useful things this weekend. Pretty much finished my brothers web site. Hope he likes it!

The enema of my enemy is my friend?

Today was the last straw. I’m only going to the dealer for once a year warrantee service until my coverage wears off (this year) and nothing else. I’d rather get a good job done consistently somewhere else than the excellent/horrid flip flop they provide. Vote with your business, that’s what I say. Later suckers!

Second part of my day was pretty darn good. I watched a film called Grind which was lent to me by my co-worker Warlord. Overall it was a much better film than I expected, I wouldn’t say it was something I want to own or watch again but It was perfect for a Saturday afternoon cheer up session.

Parr stayed home from her usual church trip cause she wasn’t feeling too well in the afternoon. We spent some nice time together after she took a nap and worked together on some updates to Tatakau. I think the new automatic navigation piece is going to go up tomorrow. It programmed to read in all the directories, sort by name and link to each collection. It’s going to make it that much easier for Parr to add new sections without having to update the navigation all the time. Ah, I love PHP.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more relaxing and consistent. Ooh and rainy yeah that would be nice.

Matrix Revolutions, in case you’ve been living under a rock, is the third installment of the Matrix trilogy. It does a fairly good good of brining together a wide a varied plot to a singular moment in time. All good things must come to an end said the Oracle and unfortunately so did the movie.

I have to say overall I did enjoy the movie very much although I think the first film stands really nicely on it’s own as a complete package. Part III seems to be incomplete without part II. Not surprising as both movies were shot at the same time but released separately. I heartily recommend you see the third film if…

• have any interest in computer graphics
• enjoyed the first movie
• hated/loved the second
• you work in the fashion industry and will be using the film as inspiration
• you hate cash registers

The CG alone is worth the admission price, doubly so for the IMAX version. I got major goose bumps and an adrenaline rush during one scene where Zion’s APU (Armored Personnel Units) are all powering up for battle. I don’t know if something in me is hard coded for war or the thrill of seeing realistic mecha (a long time fantasy) come to life affected me very physically.

Then of course there was the immersion factor for me. I think I tend to enjoy movies more than others because I open myself up to them more. I find it relatively easy to suspend belief and live in their universe for awhile. This closeness heightens my enjoyment but it also makes for some interesting emotion roller coasters. For example, one of my favorite characters ends up dying in the movie. It came as a complete shock to me and because of the circumstances I began to weep. Feelings of sorrow and denial welled up inside of me. I couldn’t believe this was happening what would I do without this person?

My sadness quickly turned to utter rage as the character died before my eyes. This was all the machines fault! Damn them to hell! Adrenaline surged and muscles became taut weapons ready to strike. What could I do, how could I strike back at the machines? It was clear for one instant… I would go to the lobby of the movie theatre and destroy the cash registers with my bare hands!

It took me a few seconds to realize that destroying the cash registers would not affect the outcome of the movie. After a few more thoughts of, “Really but what if I …. oh yeah…” I finally decided to watch the movie screen with intensity channeling my rage into hope and somehow thinking this would bolster our on screen hero.

All in all I really enjoyed this movie and while it’s not perfect or perhaps suited for every movie goer, I think most people will find it very entertaining.

Of course seeing it in IMAX with over 10,000 watts of surround sound (event speakers behind the screen, too cool) always help.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is supposed the 4th in the El Mariachi series yet is only the third movie. Desperado being the second and yes you guessed it, El Mariachi being the first. Parr said that the director couldn’t really make part three and thinks a lot of the jumpy flashbacks in the this movie try to tell the story of the missing 3rd. It’s a story of love, revenge, double crossing, action, more double crossing, drug cartels, betrayal, vengeance and um… more double crossing.

Actually I had quite the hard time knowing who was working for who or who was even working towards what goal. I was pretty sure El Mariachi was the good guy but that’s about it. Well, truth be told I even had some doubts about “El” in the beginning. Wowsers!

The entire movie, like the plot, if filled with quick movements. The camera work especially in earlier parts of the movie is extremely fast cutting. Quite possibly the fastest and most frequent changes I have ever seen and that’s saying something since I’m part of the zero attention span mtv generation.

The camera work was so fast in fact that it gave me an impression that the director was either trying to rush through action scenes or… and here is the interesting bit… trying to show the action in the same way a story would be told. You know that really unbelievable story that was told and retold and embellished started out in a bar by a drunk sailor who was dizzy because he woke up spinning on a ceiling fan in the middle earthquake which was actually a rather large lady sitting down on the bench next to him.

The movie, much like the last sentence, is rich with a tapestry of interesting and eccentric characters. Johnny Depp who plays a CIA agent (or an insane person masquerading as one) does a particularly great job of portraying his character. He somehow manages to be evil, approachable, funny, shrewd and gullible at the same time. It’s truly a delight to see his performance and even if you didn’t like the story of the movie it’s worth watching just for him.

Other characters in the movie include Cheech Marin, Willem Dafoe, Enrique Iglesias, Salma Hayek and of course Antonio Banderas. They all perform a great job a representing their characters but they all almost seem like a back story to Johnny Depp who was far more interesting.

All in all I enjoyed watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico in the theatre although I wouldn’t want to buy it on DVD It’s is a fun ride it does get some extra brownie points for actually using the very excellent Pistelero music by Juno Reactor in a fight scene and not just in the movie preview.

This movie would be best enjoyed on a relaxing sunday afternoon.

Words escape me. My arms feels numb like they are not really part of my body, mere tools I use to type. The movie, the story was like a religious experience for me.

It’s rare that I get that into something but when it happens my whole reality suspends and I can question my own existence. In more simple terms, I’m lost, so pleasantly lost from the day to day humdrum. It’s a feeling of euphoric emptiness. Am I human? Am I a machine? Am I a set of random occurrences. Am I the result of fate? Can I make choices? Are they already made? Why am I here?

My god, any movie that stirs such questions and emotions deserves something much than an emmy or other such nonsense. It deserves a commendation for it’s service to humanity for asking us to question our own existence.

This very question, that has spawned religions, countries, countless wars and the drive to help other things. It’s a question we have been asking ourselves since the dawn of time. It’s one that might never be answered or perhaps is different for each person and their version of reality.

My god… what a movie. I’ve always had a weak spot for the whole concept of fate and destiny perhaps this is why I like the Dune series so much. I can’t express in words all the emotions, feelings and intuitions going through my mind now. I can only tell you that my current state is thanks to this, one of the best movies I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

I don’t know what to say other than, you must see this movie. Meld into it, enjoy it and come join me in our time in infinity.

I have to say I’ve never been truly happy with Pierce as James Bond but this film is different, the movie starts out in with our hero surfing into the coast of North Korea. After looking cool, using a few gadgets and issuing a couple of suave hand signals, James meets up with a helicopter during an unscheduled stop and switches places with a bad guy inside. James gets in the helicopter which takes off and he goes on to conveniently place a package of C4 into a briefcase filled with diamonds. He adds some finishing touches to the explosives with a flashing LED peg stuck through it, making mandatory “beeping explosion in a later scene” noises of course.

After the Heli lands, James meets up with some unsavory North Korean military personnel. The deal is simple, trade a whole bunch of diamonds for a whole bunch of weapons. Should be a easy trade except Mr. Bond is discovered thanks to a henchman’s digital camera and probably someone doing a google image search in a back room. The situation gets worse when the main bad guy demonstrates a new weapon on the heli that originally dropped James Bond off. Ka-Booom! (Depleted Uranium shells are really effective BTW). The situation quickly turns into chaos as the bad guys father, the true general of the North Korean army, radios in wanting to know why there is fire and smoke eminating from his base. He informs his son that he was already enroute and that he will be there in five min to inspect the area.

Our main bad guy then orders the super cool hovercrafts to leave the area. (Quick everyone mom is coming, hide the comic books and pixie sticks). James of course, facing certain death, sets off his previous C4 laden briefcase, gets on a escaping hovercraft, knocks out the driver and proceeds to cause some major havoc.

In the escape and chase sequence that follows, hovercrafts are skirting over mines, vehicles are blowing up, chain guns are trimming down trees and flamethrowers are making everything extra crispy. The chase is technically well done and ends with James Bond slugging it out with the main bad guy. They eventurally crash through a temple gate with the entire hovercraft going over the side of a waterfall to certain doom. Our hero james of course survives by hanging onto a bell hammer (horizontal asian style) as the bell rings over and over with his momentum.

All this commotion attracts the real General of course. James, surrounded and blamed for the death of the generals son is sent to prison, the special “torture you kind” that are becoming so hard to find in our western civilization nowadays.

All this and we haven’t even got to the main credits yet!

Well, I don’t want to ruin the movie for you but lets just say if you have ever liked any of the Bond films in the past, do yourself a favor and go to the theatre right away. This latest film is an action packed, visually diverse, bad pun filled, love fest extravaganza! Plus, any movie with John Cleese as an excellent M should probably be a mandatory film to see anyway.