Movie Review: Up

Pixar just might be the most entertaining movie producing company out there. Let's see how their 10th attempt worked out for them.

Gains: +6
Up is either a funny movie with serious undertones or a serious movie with a comedy streak. The depth of emotion conveyed, especially in the opening 10 minutes showing Carl and Ellie meeting as kids and growing up to be old married people, is fantastic. Knowing the history in such an intimate fashion is a boon to the audience and increases the power of the themes shown.

This movie did not have me rolling with laughter the entire time. But at certain moments, I thought I couldn't breathe because I was laughing so hard. I had to wipe laughter tears from my eyes at least three times.

The plot was interesting, both in it's inplausibility and in it's realism. One kept you grounded in reality; the other shot you deep into the fantasy world of a child. The main characters were intricately layered, though the bad guy was stylized, as most bad guys are to children.

The animation was great. Nothing new for Pixar here. Their attention to detail astounds me.

Losses: -1
For a kids' movie, the themes were a bit deep. I'm not sure this is a bad thing, necessarily, but I know I did not expect it. Not having kids myself, I cannot be sure what their reaction would be. Perhaps they just ignore what they don't understand like I did for Disney cartoons.

The bad guy dies, and though they didn't show it, you know. He falls from a great distance and disappears, heading downward through the clouds. I'm not sure I want endings like this in my kid movies.

Final Judgement: +5

Go see this movie if you like Pixar. It's worth your time. If you bring small kids, they may ask you annoyingly deep questions while you are trying to rush to the restroom.

Mom in Bad Car Accident

My mother was in a bad car accident. She's fine--abrasions, bruising, soreness. Nothing broken though.


She turned left through an intersection, not seeing an oncoming car.




It hit hard on the passenger side of the car. She's lucky, if you asked me.




It took them 20 minutes to extract her from the car.




Ambulence ride required.

Movie Review: Terminator: Salvation

Finally, the movie I have been waiting for since I was a kid. The movie that shows the older John Conner fighting lots of machines. I had to think for a couple weeks about this review. Let the mayhem begin.

Gains: +5

Let's see. Giant, unkillable robots. Add a point. Killing those robots in lots of action scenes. Add a point. Hehe.

Sam Worthington was fantastic as Marcus Wright. His acting was so good that he made everyone else's efforts pale in comparison.

The musical score really worked for me. It ramped up the intensity quite well. The throwback songs to previous movies was also great. The throwback lines were well delivered, too--basically avoiding cheesiness while delivering expected lines is super difficult.

Losses: -3

For the first time since he became a Hollywood superstar, I really got annoyed with Christian Bale. He delivered a solid role, but the focus on him was a bit overmuch. Instead of showing us awesome scenery, much time was spent close up to his face. It was enough to iritate me within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Methinks he's riding on an ego trip a bit too much. That's just my impression.

In all three of the other movies, the good guys were just trying to survive against an overpowered opponent. Then even worse things happen. This movie had none of the character and desperation of the others. It didn't feel like a Terminator movie.

Very few things annoy me more than powerful bad guys who are toned down in order to force the plot to go the way the writers want it to go. In this case, every time a terminator gets it's claws on a person, it throws them against the wall. These machines could just punch their fingers straight through a human, but they never do, except when it's more dramatic. For instance, in this movie, a terminator is dying, but gets close enough to scrape a large gash into John Conner's forehead, parting his skin like butter before dying. Why didn't it do that to him before? Because it would just ruin the writers' day, that's why. Weakening the bad guys just makes it look like the writers had to save the good guys. It doesn't make the good guys look more awesome or dramatic.

Final Judgement: +2

This movie suffered greatly not from hype but from horrible previews. Every single truly dramatic moment was shown in the previews. Every moment where I should have been blinded by the sheer scope of the story or the situation or the cool terminator machines had already been shown to me several times on previews. Instead of cheering these cool moments, I found myself predicting what happened in each scene based on what I knew was coming. If you've seen the preview, you've seen the movie. Everything else felt like filler. Watch this movie because you are a fan of the trilogy, not for it's own sake.

Top 5 YouTube--replacement video

I forgot about this one! This definitely would replace #1 or #5.

This is one guy doing both roles in the scene of Batman interrogating the Joker, a spoof of several funny items from the movie The Dark Knight.

Class #6

This was the class where everything went wrong (which I noted here and here). Luckily for me, all things being equal, I only needed my projects to look better than the other students. We had fun. The professor graded a little easier, given that this was our first attempt.

Long and short is that I received another A! It was hard and the most stressful two weeks of the program so far, but it's over. I think things from here on out will be easier. That's based on hope, probably not realistic hope, either.

6 classes and all A's. I'm enjoying the success.

Top 5 Reasons I'm Thankful for YouTube

I love Top 5 lists. I make them for every subject I can think of. So here are the Top 5 reasons I love YouTube. My basic criteria is that it should be an amateur video, not part of a professional show (though one breaks this rule). These are also videos I probably wouldn't have seen without YouTube (or email forwards).

Here we go. These are in no particular order. I just rolled a die to determine which goes first.


1. How You Killed Your Brand. This song is a remake of a lame song that was sort of popular. This version is great, having a combination of parody and mockery. It came out during the big market war between the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii.




2. Flight of the Conchords--Business Time. I first heard this on Glenn Beck's radio show, but then quickly spread it around to my friends via YouTube. It is now a favorite show for several of my friends. This is the most professional video of the bunch, given that it is related to a cable comedy show. I cried for about ten minutes when I first heard this.




3. Julie Andrews' Do Re Mi in the Train Station. This video caused me to smile all day when I saw it. It continues to make me happy...every time.




4. Tribute to John Williams' various movie songs with Star Wars lyrics. This is just plain cool in so many ways, though it gets stuck in your head.




5. John Daker. This is a classic in my office. Enjoy.




Hope you had a good time! Turns out I like musical YouTube videos the best.

Movie Review: Star Trek

This movie is a modern rethinking of the classic cancelled television series which spawned half a dozen movies and several spin-off shows and movies. Here we go. I cannot claim to be a serious Star Trek fan. I've seen some of the shows, but only just finished watching the last couple movies (Next Generation) a couple months ago.

Gains: +10
Let's start with the strongest gain and work our way down. In a universe where nearly anything is possible providing the writers are creative enough, I could not be sure what to expect. What I found was a plot worthy of being called genious. With the sheer amount of lore Star Trek has accumulated, keeping some sense of linear plot while rewriting the history was a monumental task. Without spoiling anything, let me just say that the plot gives ample reason for changing old characters into more modern ones. Instead of rewriting history, they took the opportunity to write the rewriting into the plot. Genius. The plot device is brilliantly conceived, has Star Trek lore precedent, and is well developed, and full of suspensful action.

The writing should win awards. Characters had lines that were exactly the same as the original cast of the TV show and movies, but these were woven into a more complex element of character development. Only once did a line feel cheesy. Just once. That's amazing to me for this series.

The acting is perfect. Characters showed elements of their old-time counterparts, though ones who've made different choices. Delivery of well known lines was spot on. This is the first time I've enjoyed watching Eric Bana in any role. Good for him. I didn't recognize him until his name flashed in the credits at the end.

The sound effects were great. I heard many of the old sounds (ex. the bridge sound of the original TV series). This is worth mention.

The camera work gets a point for awesomeness. Taking a page from Serenity, this movie's special effects are built around giving the illusion of reality. The camera will be viewing the action and zoom in or pan out and be out of focus, then bring the action into focus--thus giving the illusion of actually being a film camera. Brilliant. One particular scene literally made my draw drop. Let me tell you, space action never looked so beautiful.

Losses: -2
Uhura has one cheesy line that completely threw me out of the movie for a second. One character, Scottie's companion, seemed more artifical contrivance than anything else. It had no basis in the plot for any reason other than to confuse me.

Final Judgement: +8

This movie destroyed my expectations and set the bar really high for the rest of the summer. I'm even going to go see it again, hopefully this weekend. I hear from friends that it's even better the second time around, but they missed the brilliance of the plot the first time. I may have an update after the second viewing to see if I enjoyed it as much as Batman, my only other +8 score.

Marco Rubio

This is a speech from a guy leaving the Florida House of Representatives to run against Charlie Crist for the Republican party nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Trust me. It's worth 7.5 minutes of your time.



Update: Look, ma! No teleprompter!

Thinking about church

I've been thinking a lot about church, trying to process my core reactions to things I see.

Then I found this, which is just about right:



These thoughts I'm experincing feel dangerous and potentially wrong (a specifically ambiguous term - I'm not exactly sure what's wrong). However, the further I delve into these thoughts, the more powerful the Holy Spirit becomes inside me. This seeming incongruence between my entire life perspective about church and what I feel the H.S. telling me - well, let's just say it's awkward.

Summertime...the results

GUESS WHAT? WE LOOKED LIKE AMATUERS!

Go figure, right? It was fun, though. Each group had problems. I know I learned tons. I just hope my grade doesn't suffer. There were so many variables to the performance that actually quantifying anything beyond a participation grade would be unfair.

Hope this works out!