Dallas 362, with Jeff Goldblum and Selma Blair, neither of whom were main characters, and neither of whom I recognized till halfway through the movie. This film was...interesting, in my opinion, but I won't say I enjoyed it. I'm not sure it was because I'd call the movie bad, per se, but I think it resonated in dissonant ways with me, reminding me uncannily and uncomfortably of people I'd met while working at the hospital, and calling to mind other issues I have right now. So while perhaps there were effective character studies in the story, in that I ended up just disliking some of the characters I was kind of put off. Interesting, but a bit too stark and colorless for my taste.

In other news, damn but that was a storm last night. And past the dawn; it was like an inordinately long microburst, but one that I'm slowly gather went across southern Arizona. I'll have to fix the screens on the windows in my room so they don't rattle at the thunder, though admittedly I doubt there'll be thunder like that in a while. The first thing I heard on the way to work when I turned on the radio was an elder gal saying, "In my 68 years I ain't never seen a storm like that..." and there's still a flashflood warning Nogales through Tucson periodically between the songs long after it stopped raining well into the morning. Crazyfun!

Apres-midi Addendum: apparently the floodwatch is going till the middle of the day tomorrow, and more storms are a'coming tonight! Aweso.

Flight, Vol. 1, by basically all of my favorite indie artist/writers. I would say this is a perfect book to introduce someone to the graphic/text genre (ie, comics). While often passed over as the realm of superheroes and banal newspaper filler, comics are an interesting liason point between visual and verbal art, and when done right can augment itself with the best points in each. Hence, the goosebumps and stirred emotions that come about after reading many of the stories in this volume, whether they are one page of six panels or can hardly be recognized as 'standard' comics at all.

Tangentially, I'm reminded of a short story, sort of, that was the starter for one of White Wolf Publishing's old shared-setting compilations. The reason I hesitate to call it a short story (as the rest of the pieces in the book were) is because it was basically a fabricated diary - the authors handwrote and sketched out the diary of a man bitten and turned into a vampire, and while that sounds like it might tip into cheesy, it was actually almost heart-wrenching because of the extra pull of that strained handwriting and frenzied, dark drawings.

And to tangent off of vampires, I'll also note that as much as the Blade movies are esteemed at the dojo for being a perfect example of the ideal of the Shuri style of fighting (simplified, staccato power hits with grappling-by-opportunity), in Blade Trinity there's a wealth of different styles right in the end. Reynold's character adroitly shifts from crossbody armbar to omo-plata (hello, standard jujitsu), Biel's character throws in a little wing chun, and Snipes and Purcell's characters throw two completely distinct styles of European sword at each other (an interesting contrast to the European versus Japanese sword at the conclusion of the first movie).

Benchwarmers, with David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Napoleon Dynamite. This movie would have failed miserably as a movie were it to take itself seriously for one moment - naturally, I have to follow that clause by stating that of course there was no point where it did such. In that line, I'd call this one something of a kid's movie for adults. That is, it has the plot and characterization, sort of, of a kid's movie, but the humor is of a fun, vulgar nature. In truth, I'm still kind of amazed I didn't find it just plain stupid...it pulled itself off, I guess.

yay mini-blogosphere!~
y.t. - yours truly, natch
Fighting the Forces of Darkness...day by day - the oh-so-lovely Ms. Connie!
Like a phoenix rises from the ashes. - Mr. Scott, back in action!
now it's powm! - Mr. Kevin, recently of the Sweden-lands, ja!
You almost had to be there. - community forum: quotalicious.

purty.

Random, silly question - for all that spears were supposedly much more prevalent than swords in real life (say, examples such as a spearhead and a pole being cheaper than a sword, or that more samurais used a yari than a katana at various points in time), why aren't they so prevalent in fantasy novels? In fact, the only examples I can think of where spears had any presence at all are in Robert Jordans Wheel of Time novels where the Aiel use an odd combination of African and Okinawan ideas about spears (short, for stabbing, but also like a sword, but also for throwing like a javelin, but with a buckler instead of a shield?), and in George Martin's most recent novel (or was it the one before?) where a spear is used in a duel, largely I'd guess to signify the exotic nature of one of the opponents.

So, is it just that the sword is more suited to heroics in its more versatile nature and myriad connotations (and the spear, conversely, not so heroic, despite its potential as a phallic symbol?). The spear is, however, often used in kung fu movies...but perhaps that's just in the interest of variety of weapons for the sake of the given movie, such as in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon where the only point a spear really comes into play is in a scene entirely based around the sheer number of different weapons used.

-interesting, short little article on yoga, and contrasting the concepts of religion and spirituality (heh, if you know me, and read to the end of the article, you'll know exactly which interests me and how)

-also, put up some old photos from Colorado and Cali

Lady in the Water, with Bryce Dallas Howard and Paul Giamatti. Wow, I really did not realize that the same gal that was in The Village was the nymph in this movie. Or narf. Whatever. In one sense, I enjoyed this movie immensely because it was like a Charles de Lint story in live action; it wasn't as good as a de Lint story because it had to be more overdeveloped and simplified to an extent in being in big-movie form. Had it been in text, however, I think a lot more could have been drawn out of it. Still, solid acting, cinematography, etc, except for the damn monkeys - just don't go into it expecting a horror movie, it's really a kid's movie in Shyamalan-form.

One, never, ever play a game called "Never Have I Ever" with a significant other. This is me verbally shaking my head "no." In the past, I wanted to know every last detail about my woman's past....but now, not so much. That's no reflection on the person at all - it goes exactly the same, the other way. Is that innocence-lost, I guess? It was easier to know about someone's past, when they didn't really have a past, as it were?

Two, 'round here apparently it's cool to have a fire at a residence, as long as it's contained within some sort of oven or grill, and you're cooking something. The firemen (and firewoman) we met the other night were really cool about not slapping down a several thousand dollar fine for a backyard conflagration, but they also weren't told about the drunkent waving of gargantuan flaming palm fronds. They did let us take pictures of the owner of the house in a swimsuit on their firetruck, though.

Three, there's a show I'd never heard of till last night, "Final Fu," that's actually pretty damn good. It's a martial arts competition/reality show, and while there's always going to be some cheese necessary to promote MA to a wider audience, they seem to keep it to a minimum. There are MA-based obstacle courses, board-breaking courses, and multiple types of sparring, the last interesting enough to get the viewer pumped and cheering. Though, we noted, it didn't seem fair to pit a small femme against a much larger guy, just in terms of advantage by weight.

Blow, with Penelope Cruz and Johnny Depp. I think it was acted well, and is an interesting snapshot in the same sense that Scarface was, about a similar subject. Same deal with it being a character study, in a vaguely similar way to that, or maybe Walk the Line. But beyond that...I don't think it pulled it off as well as those other movies. I just couldn't stay interested...maybe because there seemed to be little, realy driving tension except for the main character's oft thwarted ambition? Or maybe I was just exhausted.

Grizzly Man. I honestly saw very little of this movie. I'm just noting that as I napped while it was on in the same room, it seeping into my unconscious made for the strangest dreams I've had in a good long while. I mean, from what I did see I (and my family, who was watching) thought that the guy the movie was about was certifiably insane. Just...wow. A right loon, that one. And somehow he ended up as a transvestite news reporter in my dream? Yeah I dunno.

Superman Returns, with Parker Posey and Kevin Spacey. Eh, nothing to write home about. I think what held my interest most, besides the special effects, was vaguely trying to discern the semantic value and pattern of hair in the movie - say, Luthor's wigs, Kent's versus Superman's hair styles, Kent versus Lois' boyfriend's hair, etc. I think the movie was very true to Superman - unfortunately, as Superman is more a symbol than a character, it didn't so much make for an interesting movie. Posit, though: Superman as the American version of a Greek god?

Dead Man's Chest, with Captain Jack Sparrow. Well, except for some minor boat oar usage, I was quite disappointed in the fight scenes, especially considering how solid they were in the first movie. I liked this better than Superman Returns, overall, though this one was quite long - I almost want to say it would have worked better as a novel, with more room to flesh out a good amount of things (like the relatively more interesting love quadrangle - yes, I am counting Jimmy Olsen in the other movie).

I met a gentleman last night at a bar, who happened to be in a wheelchair. His arms seemed slightly hindered in their movement as well, but he could conversate just fine. Long and short of it, it turned out he had a wealth of knowledge of martial arts theory and application from his former training in wing-chun (I think he'd been hurt relatively recently, I gathered), and was able to articulately pick apart famous scenes and techniques from martial arts movies in a technical manner. Not much to note, just observing that it's really too bad the world didn't get to see him as a martial artist or even teacher, given his mental acuity in that regard.

Randomness. Housework is kind of fun, I've learned enough to have confidence in claiming a modicum of handiness (hell, if anybody else needs to do this stuff, I'm there and ready with oh-god-don't-do-that!'s galore), but it's exhausting and dominates your life when it needs to get done. I've never been so interested in Home Depot, though.

Crash, with many famous people. Interesting, intense, and not very happy. The postmodern aspect of it was pulled off well, I would say, as that's tricky to do without being just plain annoying or pretentious. I was wondering throughout, in regards to the racism theme, is it the anger inherent in the person that creates that racism, or the racism that creates that anger? That is, which is more inherent? If the Persian character could have just let go of his anger when it wasn't justified at all in his second appearance in the movie, would the result have been the same, for example?

So we're driving back and forth from Phoenix last night. And it occurs to me, as we drive by ABF and USF Bestway trucks, that there's a good chance that I had shipped stuff on several of the trucks that we were sharing the road with. It's not the most significant thought ever, but it was interesting to see an extension of my job out in the rest of the world - I mean, to see a...manifestation of the meaning of papers I shuffle and sign. It was a semantic kind of moment, if you will.

Sex and the City (season one). Interesting. It's certainly that. I can see how the show used scandal as an attractant, and while that's amusing on a shallow level I wasn't impressed so much with the acting and such. What interested me most about it, I think, was the structure of each episode and its potential - ie, a theme is presented, and then the episode generally follows the four different reactions of its archetype-characters. So in the sense of each episode being a sort of narrative essay on a particular topic, I enjoyed it. Beyond that, I didn't dislike it, but I'm not sure it would draw me back to follow the show at all.

I wonder, randomly, how far symbolism extends in terms of chess pieces. Does the knight move one square over because a real cavalry man might have turned his horse at the end of charge to be able to fight to one side? Is the queen a symbol of feminine empowerment over the king? Perhaps the bishops can only move in such an oblique way as a commentary on the nature of politico-religious power.

The Producers, with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell, and more! Fabulous! I think we can all picture what accent I would have said that in. Despite that little dip into the fruitier side of things, I have to say, Thurman has never been hotter. Yowza. Oh, and the rest of the movie is a lot of fun, too. The songs are catchy, but not annoying-get-stuck-in-your-head catchy, which is nice, and the some of the actors really seemed like they were having lots of fun. Keep it gay! I mean, Uma is very attractive. Yes.

NYX. Wow. Great art, great characters, great writing. A quite original and unique take on the Marvel shared-setting, both in terms of depth of the story and its subject matter, and in terms of the style of art; I wish they would do more comics like this one, I think the genre would be the better for it. Now I just need to find the conclusion of the septet, though, I only got to read 1-6!

A while back, kind of around my lowest point in that recent bout of depression, I caught a feature length cartoon, the conclusion to the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, on late at night, completely randomly. Especially as after I didn't understand what I had watched until after extensive reading of backstory and synopsises (synopsii?), looking back I'm surprised I bothered watching it at all. Convoluted and fractured to the point of being postmodern at times (and I usually intensely dislike postmodernism), by all logic I should have flipped channels in the space of a few minutes.

But for some reason, I was riveted. I could hardly take my eyes from it; when my dad came home from the night shift, I haltingly tried to explain what I knew to him, but stopped when I realized how little that was. And yet still I watched it till I was sitting still after the credits were over, struggling to find some meaning that seemed just beyond my reach, or on the tip of my tongue, or whatever. Anyway, so just coming across that little blurb about the director/creator/dude basing it on his experiences with depression, it got me thinking. Maybe this movie was one of this things where the significance of it all isn't really in the surface story so much at all, but in how it hits you in the back of your head. That is, whether by something Freudian or Jungian symbols or whatever system one might want to look at it, maybe I just really identified with not the shallowest aspects of the story but the underlying, between-the-lines stuff that's not readily apparent at all.

Then that got me thinking, maybe that's how the better aspects of the horror genre work - I suddenly want to go pick apart a good King story or go play Silent Hill.

Google + Shakespeare = I really wish I had this while in school

Ôdishon, with Ishibashi Ryo and Shiina Eihi. Uh. Whoa? Disturbing. Very, very disturbing. In a sense, it was quite reminiscent to me of Mulholland Drive, both in general character and in specific sequences. White was a really bad choice for subtitles in some scenes, though, although that's a nothing-observation. It's hard to talk about it without giving anything away, so I'll say that it's definitely not for the faint of heart, and I'm torn between wishing there was more depth of story and wondering whether that added depth might have taken away from it. Oh, I suppose also I'd be interested to hear whether people thought this was a feminine-empowering movie, or the opposite - I suspect it could be tricky in that regard, like GI Jane.

Fun logic issues started with Theseus' Paradox

And the entry for Ghost in the Shell is rife with interesting starters for philosophical discussion

Conquest of Armageddon, by Jonathan Green. Though there were a few moments that were nice in a cinematic kind of sense, that doesn't go anywhere near far enough to alleviate the not-so-good qualities of this novel. The structure of the narrative for most of it is just plain confusing, for one - for example, I (now) understand that Green was using a combination of flashbacks and dream-sequences for the first third or so, but there is no reason not to delineate those things (as opposed to just blending them all together in a confusing manner). Beyond that, the writing style was excessively wordy to an extreme degree (much to my chagrin to complain about that, as I know I have to keep from doing the same in my writing), which actually wouldn't have been an issue so much were it not for the repetition involved, as well.

I have to say, the 40k shared setting was used nicely, and the novel certainly fits its atmosphere - but if I could I'd write a general letter to authors using that setting to not use the Space Marines; it just seems needlessly difficult to actually make anything but a cardboard-cutout character out of a religious, scripture-spouting zealot. Which the Marines did a lot of in this book. Just not very much character development.

"The unconscious knows no negatives, I was taught when studying Freud. If someone tells me they don't mean to offend me, I know they probably do." - interesting statement - I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the first bit of it means (I mean, the latter part explains it, but it seems there's more to it, maybe)

X-23. Ah, now this was good stuff. Where House of M was certainly epic in scope and had a definite 'wow!' attached to it, this managed to get a similar 'wow!' while being much smaller in its focus - namely, the origin of X-23 before her introduction in the interesting NYX, the more famous character Wolverine's..uh...sister? Clone? Daughter? In any case, while it's a bit gory at times for the average Marvel fare (ie, don't be surprised), it's interesting how much emotional weight can be drawn into this medium (no pun intended).

So I've been feeling really dispassionate lately. Like...neutral. Not really happy or sad or mad or anything. And to be honest, I'm tired of it - I've almost been wanting someone to pick a verbal fight with me or something, just to get me riled up...the trick is, I'm not sure that would even get me going.

In conversations with Ms. Connie, with direction from her I think maybe I realized part of it is self-defense - from myself. I know that there was a specific point when I was recently depressed where I realized how much letting my temper and frustrations etc out of control actually cost me, in details and in the larger scheme, not just in how much pain and trouble I caused externally but how much damage it did to me on various levels. I wonder whether this dispassionateness is me just unconsciously surpressing any sort of...uh...'louder' emotion for fear of repeated pain/damage/trouble/whatever. Hm.

House of M. I believe it was the big crossover event for last year for Marvel (Civil War being the current one), though House of M is more similar to the classic Age of Apocalypse in its tinkering with characters and setting. This one was especially interesting in contrast as instead of a more likely trope of worst-conditions-possible, say, here each of the characters supposedly had the life they really desired. Naturally, what's supposed to be a utopia really ends up not being such, of course, and that's where the story begins, in a way. It's interesting - the utopia aspect of it makes it seem like as horrible as things get, they're always in watercolor (as opposed to, say, the lurid oilpainting AoA was).


Notting Hill, with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Yay guilty-pleasure romantic comedies....though I suspect something could be done here with William Gibson's ideas of the critical-mass of celebrity, perhaps with his novel Idoru and the lunatic romance therein.