Movies/TV

Ok, it wasn't a subtle title for this post, but hell.. it's a nice and fitting title nonethesame. As you will have guessed, I've seen The Dark Knight at the movie theater. Actually, as of today, I've seen it twice. And I'm not sure I can say I've seen it for the last time during it's theater run. You see, I find that the movie pretty much rules everything I can think of. And there are numerous reasons for this. But it wasn't until I emerged from the theater today, that I realized just how to explain what made the movie so good to me. In short, it's the paradox of the tagline (why so serious) vs. how serious the movie actually is. Because it deals with issues that I can relate very closely to. Not great personal issues, for once, but issues I have with views of the world. I saw someplace, somebody wrote: there is a little joker in all of us. And rarely are truer words spoken. You see, that's exactly the point I've been trying to formulate in my head for years. And finally, Heath Ledger and Chris Nolan visualises it so supremely for me. Because that was exactly what made the movie so good for me. 

The Joker represents the insanity in all of us. The wish for anarchy and the wish to see just how far you can push people before they snap. The movie is a sociological study in my eyes. I've always thought that every living person on this earth was a psychopath in the clinical sense of the word, and the degree of manifestation was relative to how far they were pushed by society or other people. The movie does explore into this, and concludes that people are, when push comes to shove, inherently good. I'm not sure if I agree or not. I don't fully disagree, let me say that much at least. But that's besides the point. I enjoyed this movie, if for nothing else, then the fact that the joker was so spot on the purified version of every human being. Besides this, of course, the movie just simply kicks ass. Heath Ledger. Well, he shouldn't get sole credit, but he does an amazing job with the Joker. I've always been a big fan of the original Batman movie, with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. But whereas Jack did a spiffing job, his Joker was goofy. Not a negative Disney kind of goofy, but he was light hearted, and while he was a murderer and so on and so forth, he had a controlled madness about him. Heath Ledger on the other hand, takes that, and adds a whole new layer. The layer of uncontrolled chaos. He takes the wish for chaos to another level, by really inciting anarchy at every chance he gets. Pitting people against people, and turning honest men against their peers is his sport, and the character study is interesting, and cool. He's cool as the Joker, plain and simply. His uncontrolled chaos and mannerisms makes for smiles and breathtaking excitement at the same time. He has you wanting more. Wanting him to come up with new schemes and plans, so you can spend more time in his company. He appeals to the person in us who'd like to shout at people who annoy us in our day to day lives.

Ok, I won't go deeper into it all for now, since some of you might not have seen the movie, and don't want too much ruined. I will say briefly, that another really interesting character study is Harvey Dent. He's played very well in my opinion, and the turn in his persona is excellent. Very impressed by Aaron. I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal too much, but then again, I didn't like Katie Holmes too much either. Rachel Dawes wasn't an appealing character to me, so who plays her doesn't upset me too much. And finally, of course, Christian Bale returns as Bruce Wayne, and he's doing with the role what you could expect of him. Solid performance, that doesn't disappoint. Mostly though, the overall feeling of the movie is that while the Joker makes you smile, and Batman inspires awe in you, you can't help but feel the movie creep up under your skin. And I felt that was extremely different from what you'd expect from a superhero movie. It had a message other than Good vs. Evil. Other than evil scientist vs. human race or similar plots. It was very down to earth in a sense. That made a huge impact on me. And it made me take it very seriously. You should too.

With LAN over, all we had left to do was drive home, deliver our belgian friend to the authorities at the airport, then turn back the car to the rental folks. Had an interesting time renting the car, being quoted lots of different prices. We ended up on a semi-ok price, with included 700km roadtime. We were glad to find that we could make it all the way there and back again on 3/4 of a tank. Economic car for sure. But we did exceed the km amount with about 30 due to the airport run. But what the hell. It was like 2 kroner per extra anyway, and I wanted to give the foreigner a ride out there. 

Anyway, having turned in the car, and no LAN to attend, Bense and I were standing outside the rental place, eyes glaring at the busy street life we had been removed from, for a full week. 'Now what', was the question that presented itself most urgently. And the reply: why the hell not just catch a movie. We're in town anyway. It's sunday and neither one of us have anything to do. It was 10:45 in the am, and most movie theaters had their matinees about to start. We went in, and after a bit decided upon Hulk. I've heard decent things about it, and while the 2004 version by Ang Lee absolutely sucked, I had confidence that not only would Edward Norton to a better job than Eric Bana, but the makers of the new one would have learned from the disaster run of the older version. Before the movie we had a good 45 minutes to kill, and since it was early, and neither one of us had had breakfast, we decided we'd grab a bite. McD is usually the only choice in town unless you wanna go to a sit down restaurant and order from a menu. So McD it was.

And then, the movie. And it didn't suck. I was well impressed with it actually. While the first movie spent a lot of time with how the hell Bruce Banner got himself into the Hulk predicament, this new movie got that whole deal over with before the beginning credits had finished rolling. At first I was a little bewildered. "Is this it for the pre-story" I found myself wondering. But when the next 5-10 minutes didn't present itself with further explanation, I figured it was. And I was pleased. Because, to be honest, it's pretty boring. Bruce Banner isn't an interesting enough character to carry a lot of movietime without Hulk backing him up. Not like Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne can anyway. But here, it did get interesting. Even though it took a fair amount of time before we got a look at the Hulk himself, the movie had a good drive and a fair amount of suspense.

I guess you could say that this movie, as opposed to the 2004 one, does require the viewer to have a certain knowledge of the story. As I mentioned, the whole prelude explaining how Bruce Banner got himself into trouble, is dealt with in images only, during credits. Granted, some more explanation can be gathered during the movie itself, from dialogue, but even so. Didn't bother me tho, and as I had expected, Edward Norton was pretty friggin good. Also, I enjoyed how they dealt with the inevitable lovescene between him and Liv Tyler (who is as stunning as ever). William Hurt lived up to his usual standard as the war mongering general, and of course... the Stark cameo in the final moment of the movie. Gives you the feeling that something big is being cooked up for us down at Marvel Studios.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie a whole lot, and I doubt I'm alone on that front. I never understood why they'd want Ang Lee to make a Hulk movie (he did the 2004). I mean, if you look at his resume, he is well out of his usual genre. For that matter, I dunno why he'd even wanna do it. I guess he wanted to try something different. He does good movies usually, so I don't doubt his abilities as a director. I'm just saying, sometimes it's best to stick with what you know. But of course, if everybody did that, where would we be. Kudos for trying, Ang. You did get bested though.

Back in the good old days.. Way back. I'm talking 95-96.. When I used to live stateside North America, I was introduced to a lot of things. Among these droplets of gold, counting Dr. Pepper, PB and Js and Twizzlers, was Star Trek. Now, I had heard of the show before coming over, sure. But I hadn't in fact ever really seen it. I remember making fun of a guy in my school because he was into Star Trek at the time. Oddly enough, I hadn't ever seen it, nor did I really know what it was. All I knew was, people who were into it were counted as some of the geekiest people on planet earth.

So when I found out that the matriarch of the family I was going to live in in trusty old United Bluff was two tricorders short of a trekkie, I was a little worried. Little did I know, that the lurking geekness in me would soon be revealed. Because I did in fact realize that Star Trek is one helluva fine show. Sure, it's outdated (most of them), and the odd episode can be too damn corny. But overall it's just dandy.

So, over the years, I've made it a point to watch all of Star Trek.. all series, seasons and episodes. I've had Voyager around for quite some time, but never had the chance to watch it. Voyager was my host-mom's favorite Star Trek series, mainly due to the fact, I'd guess, that it had a female lead, as opposed to the largely popular Captain Jean-Luc Picard of The Next Generation fame. Captain Janeway wasn't liked by as many trekkies, because.. a woman as a captain? What will be next? But she gained popularity as the seasons progressed, and Voyager is regarded as a good a show as the rest, I'd dare say.

I've watched 6 episodes now, and I still like the show. I know, 6 ain't a whole lot. But it takes time getting into things, and since I do have 140 episodes give or take to go, I'd say easing in to it, is key. I watched TNG with an old roomie a few years back, but I guess I'll have to watch that again too. My agenda now, tho, is Voyager, DS9, Enterprise, TNG and then The Animated Series, a rare version of the original show, that was voiced, largely, by the original cast, but still fell out of canon because of some small technicality.

Yes, perhaps I'm a geek. But geek or no geek, Star Trek still carries a lot of punch. And it's a damned good ride, while you're on it. Two thumbs straight the hell up!

Brief update on my recent doings around these parts. Can't say it's terribly interesting, but what the hey... it's good enough for this blog, so it'll be good enough for you, thank you very much Mr. High and "I've got something interesting to say everyday" Mighty. Where's your blog then? No? Not so largemouthed now, are we?

Aaaaanyhoo, last week might possibly have been the slowest and most dreadful week of me life. It was insanely dull and boring, and generally just a huge pile of salamander feces to traverse. I managed as usual by my quick wit and runny mind, to get through it, but it was hard, folks, lemme tell ya. Work is about as much fun as walking around in waist high sewage, and no less vomit inducing. And my sparetime is mostly spent messing with the server and stuff. Good ole mgb has put me on to music player deamon - a program running on eg. a server. It sets up a webbased and network enabled streaming possibility for your music, meaning you can listen to it through any browser any place in the world. Also, you can use one of many media players to access your music across the network at home. It's nifty, and it's something I'm gonna be utilizing soon. Being able to listen to my own music while at work or anywhere, really, through any old browser, is pretty damn cool.

Gonna set up some wireless at home in the not so distant future. As soon as I have the cash to shell out for an access point and a PCMCIA wireless card for me laptop. Neither are expenssive purchases by any means, but still it's money out of the budget. Ranc recently announced the arrival in our home, of 1gbit switches. So we're gonna install them at some point. "Install a switch? Isn't it just a matter of switching them, as it were, with the old ones?" you might very well be inquiring at this point. Of course, I've no chance in hell actually hearing you or react to that question unless you email it to me. BUT, since I'm a pretty brilliant guy, I've gone pro-active on your rear end, and anticipated you pondering this very thing. And yes, yes it is just a matter of performing a simple switch. But you have to consider who you're dealing with now. Ranc and I are pretty notorious in our ways, when it comes to doing stuff pertaining to crawling around underneath the table, with wires and stuff. Also, it'd mean going offline for X amount of minutes. And nobody likes offlinetime. But yeah, we'll give it a go, and see how fast stuff is transferred... at some point.

This weekend I was with mum in her summer residence. Was nice enough to get away for a day and just kick back. Weather was pretty nice, sun being it's usual shiny self, but not too hot. We watched the entire Season 10 of Friends, which neither of us had seen yet. I had, through various channels, learned that Rachel and Ross eventually made up, but it was still nice to see. Yeah I know, I'm a sentimental mofo when it comes to my Friends. But it's been 10 years in the company of these 6 quirky NYC pals, and it's hard not to take a sympathetic point of view regarding Rachel and Ross' off and on relationship. Of course we had to finish off with the classic get-off-the-plane stint, but it was nice.. it was good. At least I've seen all the 10 seasons now. S10 wasn't my fav season by far, but it had a lot of the classic laugh out loud moments, so enjoyable overall.

Also, I acquired, from mum, the 7th, and so far final, installment of the Harry Potter series of books. Read 150 pages or so that day, and another 120 at home last night. It's a pretty decent read, something I've been looking forward to for some time. Not being a fanatic, I couldn't be arsed shelling out 300 bigones for a book on opening night, so getting it now and reading it quietly will do me just fine.

Right... that's about it. Interesting, huh? You got to hear about wireless stuff, servers, Harry Potter and Friends. Even the least adamant of readers won't be able to say no to a blog post like this. It's what dreams are made of, folks... dreams are made of. Until next time, keep your pants dry.

I went to see Transformers the other day, with Louiszche. She'd seen it 4 times already (wasn't it 4?), and was still pretty psyched apparently in deepest awe of Optimus P and his host of former trannies. Anyway, I had declined on seeing it a few times, but thought wtf... I don't get out anyway, and apparently it's getting somewhat decent reviews. I'm not a Michael Bay fan by any measure, only really liking Armageddon because Bruce W and a few other cool people are in it, and of course The Rock, because it's just a fucking amazing piece of action. Besides those, Michael Bay is fairly annoying. He looks like a German daytime television star for crying out loud.

Oh well. The Transformers was a decent enough flick. I'll split my brief review into two sections: visuals and content.

• Visuals; let me say, right off the bat, that this flick is one of the most amazingly crafted visually stunning movies I've seen. The cg bots were picture perfect. Animations detailed and flawless, colorful, fast and seemless. It was very stunning, and it made the geek in me cry out in sheer happiness.
• Content; I wasn't impressed. The actors did an ok job. Shia Labeouf was ok, altho he wasn't believable as the nerdy guy who wouldn't be able to get a date or get noticed. And what's her face, Megan Fox didn't pull the bad-girl-turned-good role off very well either. Most of the characters came off as comic reliefs, with the usually exceptional John Turturro in the lead. His Agent from Section 7 was just laughable, and not in the good way. Many sort of childish jokes and lame situations were stuffed in between amazing visuals, overall pulling the film off somewhat nicely. Oh yeah, and what's with the fucking aussie chick? She annoyed the hell out of me, with what sounded like a lame faked australian accent.

So yeah... I was both impressed and let down by the movie. It's crisp to the look tho, and I suspect that after I've gotten an HDTV with an HD-DVD player for the release of the Ultimate 300 Edition (GIVE THEM NOTHING BUT TAKE FROM THEM EVERYTHING).. I might grab Transformers in HD-DVD just so watch the bot-scenes over and over and over again in 1080 hi def. That's how fucking amazing it looked... and perhaps a few scenes involving Megan Fox, but don't tell anyone I said that. No really, don't tell. It's important to me.