D A L I F . C O M - Movies/TV

Trekking the stars with voyager

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:14:00 +0100

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 Sure, it's outdated (most of them), and the odd episode can be too damn corny.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!

of late

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 09:45:01 +0200

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.

Live free or die hard, Prime!

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 09:57:56 +0200

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.

Bruce takes the piss out of me

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:13:29 +0200

Interesting fact: Dalif has only ever gone to that pesky bathroom during two movies he's watched in a movie theater. Both movies were Bruce Willis flicks. And it was the same theater both times. Coincidence? Hardly. Bruce just makes me have to go weewee. I hate going out on a flick, but I'd rather spend a minute going to take a piss, than have to share attention between a full bladder and the movie.

Besides me having to be in absentia for about a full minute (I went when Bruce was flying the chopper from the powerplant), the movie absolutely positively ruled. Granted, it was totally far out over the top and without so much as a shred of even attempting believability. But we don't give a fuck about that. It's Bruce, it's Die Hard, it's all out action for 2 hours. And boy was there action. Explosions, shootings and Bruce with a blood covered shirt. It's just like in the good old days. I loved it. Laughs, thrills and macho through and through.

I'm not really gonna go into details about plot, composition or any technical stuff like that. We all know what this is. Bruce was... well his performance is vintage Bruce. He basically wrote the book on the cocky, tough as hell, take no shit from anyone character. And he plays McClane to perfection. Easily the coolest movie character of all time. And his daughter wasn't all that bad (altho I'd never dare ask her out... Bruce'd beat me to death). Justin Long did a swell job as the nerdy Matt.

This movie has a lot of high tech stuff, and as always it's geared up for the big screen. So doing anything they'd like is as easy as pressing random buttons on a keyboard. However, as opposed to other movies (like Swordfish), this movie did portray the hacking population a little better than usual. Matt's dekstop is crowded with icons and his terminal is opaque, like a true geek'd have it :) And they do have some actual hacking displayed on screen.

Overall, it was 10 for 10. I didn't get a killcount.. lost track fairly fast. But it's got what it takes to be up there with any old flick you could toss at it. It's all about kickass, and it knows it. And that insight makes it a true gem.

Exactly like you had it pictured

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:24:00 +0200

I'm in love with this track. 'It's Just Like you Imagined' with Nine Inch Nails. It was used in the trailer for the movie 300 (which I've reviewed earlier on), and I dunno if it's the connotations that follows with being associated with that movie or if it's the sheer awesomeness of the song by itself, but I can't stop listening to it. It's totally captivating and enthralling. The composition, the images it creates, the harmony of whatever instruments. I can hear it on a loop for hours. Found the video today, and wanted to share it. First time I've seen this vid too.. it's kind of weird, but also cool in an artistic and absurd way.

Adblock

Indian Jonesy

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:01:38 +0200

Harrison for the win!

Nuff said!

Silverman aims for gold - and misses

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:27:50 +0200

Just watched the opening monologue by Sarah Silvermann from 2007 MTV music awards. Some random clip on the web. Now, don't get me wrong, I usually like Sarah Silvermann. Not only is she pretty amusing, she's also keen on me eyes. Anyway, I watched this opening, and it just felt wrong. Being a host of a prestigious award show is not an easy job by any means, I'm sure. And while she might've had bad writers, or just not had one of her great days, her monologue was extremely and excruciatingly embarrassing to me. It was like letting Borat do it. Lots of jokes seemed to bomb, and she went after the usual already too media hyped people. Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and a few others. Granted, they do deserve to be dragged through the mud, and while the jokes on these people are easy and can be quite amusing, Sarah's were just over the edge. I mean, they weren't really funny. Not in the laughing with you way. But in the laughing because its just so embarrassing that I can't help it way.

And then the whole song with swearing... I mean, really, that was too predictable. As soon as she said "oh by the way, this is completely live", the groundwork was laid out for some heavy and unnecessary swearing. I enjoy flavor in my language, and as most of you will know, I don't mind saying it like it fucking is, but people who thinks it is clever to swear just for the swearing, are way off. And it seemed like Sarah was just doing it because of the censorship shit that's usually instated. Which it was here as well... anyway, point being, she's cute and funny usually, but in front of a few hundred million people, she's just as obnoxious as the rest of the television fuckers.

Yo ho twiddle dee dee

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Thu, 24 May 2007 19:51:54 +0200

Yeah, went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 the other night. It was a marathon-thing, so they had all three movies at the cinema in one night. And of course, Ranc and I watched the lot. Started at 6pm, ended at 3am. Overall, it was a pretty cool experienced. I had, as usual, not slept a lot the night before, so I was pretty beat when we started. But besides a few minutes of nodding off half way through the first pirates, I had no trouble whatsoever.

We arrived in splendid time, and started off with a bit to drink and a small amount of candy. I'm not usually big on candy in the cinema, but thought wtf this time. The showroom was hot as hell tho, so I was well pleased with my drink. Of course, the showroom was pretty packed. Quite a lot of people in various degrees of costumes. Since it was packed, Ranc and I sat with people close to us. And the collective heat exhaustion from all the people in there, created a pretty hot and pretty humid atmosphere. Add to that an old weird guy on our right, who was snapping his fingers along to the music, half sleeping and saying lines from the movie a few minutes before they happened on screen. I dunno what the deal was with him. I can imagine going to a movie by myself. I'd have no problem with that as such. But going to a fucking movie-marathon for 9 hours all by me onesies just wouldn't be fun.. for me. Anyway, he was there.

When the third movie rolled around, we decided to scour the room for new seats. And it turned out it wasn't as packed as we had originally thought. So we found some comfortable seats in the back, same view as before, but lots more room to breath. At the end of the movie, which was a pretty decent watch (liked 1 and 2 better tbh, but it was still great stuff), it was still pretty damn hot. Against our normal course of actions, we stormed out of the theater, to avoid the crowd. Only later do I find out there's a scene after the credits. Pretty annoying. Anyway, I guess I'll just have to go watch it again :)

The movie itself, as I said, was a decent watch. I liked a lot of the things in this movie, but I thought it had a few points that were just... I dunno, not really called for. Tia Dalma was nice, as always. I love her accent, it's just too cute! And I enjoyed the scenes with her and Davy Jones. Showed a tenderness in the Jones character that I had sort of figured was there when I saw him in the second movie, but really only came out in the third. He's a cool character. Jack S is, as always, pretty amusing. Chow Yun Fat did a swell job as Sao Feng, but he could've gotten a little more screentime if it was up to me.

Anyway, overall an enjoyable experience. They showed the Silver Surfer original trailer as well as the Die Hard 4.0 trailer... both movies look awesome. I didn't like the first Fantastic Four particularly much, but the effects of the second one are just breathtaking. So the professional 3D artist in me is drooling. Die Hard just looks to be one of the coolest movies ever. Bruce Willis... seriously, does it get any cooler? (Well, Samuel Jackson might give old Bruce a run for his money, but still...). I think they'll do a Die Hard marathon as well. 4 movies. It's gonna be hard, but fuck it... it'll be many hours in the company of Bruce and lots of nonstop action. Yaarrrr

BW for president - seriously the man is too cool

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Mon, 14 May 2007 01:33:34 +0200

It's no secret that I've been a fan of Bruce Willis for years.. ever since I was a kid and saw Die Hard 1 for the first time. Then Moonlighting was on TV, and I loved that too. Of course it helped that my mom was a big fan as well, so we watched Die Hard together a lot (we both love repetitions). Anyway, as I've grown older, I've refined my taste in movies, and I'm not the "I only wanna see all out action movies" kind of guy anymore. But Bruce... Bruce just keeps on delivering quality. Of course there's been blunders. For heaven's sake, no actor that I know of, has a flawless record of films to his/her name. But Bruce just seems like he's the kind of guy who knows what the fuck he's doing. Most of the time. With the up and coming release of Die Hard 4 (which basically looks like it will rock my world like it was nobody's business), he's of course in the spotlight again. So what is it that keeps him cool? Hard to say. For me, it's the interviews I've seen with him, the talk shows and the public appearances. I don't idolize stars a whole lot. Sure I can find a particular famous person interesting or some find beautiful actress... well beautiful I guess. But I don't do any of that research into their lives that some people tend to.

So BW just seems like my kind of guy. His views on things may be different than mine, but he has a sense of humor, and he's not scared of standing up for what he believes.. and in the course, stepping on some toes. It happens. Also, he had a cool website, with a forum (on which I was a member), where he was a pretty active poster. That's always amazed me.. when the stars take time to do the fan contact like that. Down to earth, answering questions candidly. I mean, they're only humans like the rest of us, sure.. but they must have hectic schedules. And when it comes down to it, how many people at all would take time to interact with so many people. So BW is active on the internet. Fair. Then recently, I stumbled upon this story. I'm not gonna paraphrase everything, so just read up on the links. In short tho, he joined a message board under the name Walter_B, and started posting in a Die Hard 4 thread. Eventually he revealed who he was (after people had sort of guessed it)... when some didn't believe him, he started a videochat with one of the users. Anyway, I've often wondered if the 'stars' are ever on say IMDB reading on the message boards.. even posting. For all we know, one of the people posting on there, could be the actual person. That's kind of amusing to consider.. you might be discussing why a movie sucked, with the director himself, or arguing why some actress isn't all that she's cracked up to be, with the actress herself.

Sort of funny. Oh well. Check the links to the blog entries regarding his little stunt.

First Link, Second Link and Third Link of interest.

Death of a Prime Minister

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 23:07:28 +0200

Went to see AFR today, with Tessa. She alerted me to it's presence some weeks ago, and we talked about going to see it. The plot, very briefly, is the murder of the danish PM, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. It's a mockumentary, ie. a documentary that is admittingly fake. But while the story is fabricated, the issues the movie deals with are very much real.

The movie consists of two stories, interwoven. That of a youth, an anarchist named Emil, and that of the PM. We follow both up through their lives, and get to understand why they have become the person they were.

As usual, I won't talk a lot about the movie. But it contained a lot of television clips of interviews with various people, taken out of context, but made to fit in with the storyline. They, involuntarily, gave a lot of reasons to laugh at the people we know, claiming crazy things (again, it was out of context). The rest of the movie tho, was fairly bleak, and it painted a picture of a Denmark not everybody knows and understands. A Denmark that isn't as rosy-red and picture perfect as a lot of the front runners of society will have you know. And it also gives some decent insight into world affairs. It does all these things, while still maintaining the mock plot, which to me was a great accomplishment. I'll recommend people seeing this film, as it has a lot of interesting points to it. A great political piece.

To spidey or not to spidey

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 11:16:18 +0200

So... several sort of contradictory announcements have been made regarding the Spider-Man movies of late. Tobey McGuire announced, that he would not be returning as the masked webslinger (note my cool use of the otherwise lame movie critic terminology) in a potential fourth installment. Kirsten Dunst quickly followed suit (laying rest to the fans hoping/contemplating her character, Mary Jane's death in Spider-Man 3). Then rumors were about the web, claiming Sam Raimi would be doing The Hobbit, if Peter Jackson didn't settle his problems with New Line before it would go into production.

And just today, I read that Raimi is announcing Sony Pictures plans to make a Spider-Man 4, 5 and 6 in the future. So I'm left thinking (and I'm sure I'm not alone), what the hell will be going on with those 4 movies. Lord knows there are story archs enough to make hundreds of movies. But Toby did a splendid job as Peter Parker, in my opinion. Who will replace him? Will that work out? I guess it will, since the fan base of Spider-Man as a character is probably larger than that of Toby, altho I suspect he's broadened his fanbase considerably since signing up as Parker for the first flick.

It's a dark future, ladies and in a broader sense, gentlemen. I can only hope, along with a lot of other people in the world, that they won't ruin our beloved Spider-Man. And then, I will take rest in at least one more flick with the crew from 1 and 2. May 4th, I'm there, watching with beady eyes, the action unfold on the big screen.

Now tho, it's Free Hugs time. See you guys later.

DH 4 point O

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:58:59 +0200

MUST.... WATCH..... TRAILER..... bleeeh.

Seriously people, I don't care if this is taggy, corny, clichéed, pointless, stupid or whatever other adjective you care to throw it at. It's Bruce motherfucking Willis in what appears to be non stop action. How can that not be a winner? I'm gonna see it so many times my eyes are gonna bleed. Check the trailer below.

Continue reading "DH 4 point O"

I nearly fainted...

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 02:38:03 +0200

... watching 300. It's visually stunning and just overall *RRRRR*. 11 out of 10. I cannot begin to describe how cool this movie was. I need to watch it again soon... and again... and again. Raaawwr!

Did he play that flute or didn't he?

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:07:44 +0100

Pan's Labyrinth. Went to see it yesterday, and I was pleasantly surprised. Or perhaps not surprised, as I had seen and read about it, and the general consensus was, that it had a lot of good moments in it. I'm not gonna bore you with a full review, I'll save that for the papers, but I will say, that I found the movie really intruiging and interresting. It had a ver ycool visual style to it, and was pretty consistent throughout.

I overheard some people talk about the title afterwards, and one of them pondered why it was called Pan's Labyrinth. Now, I don't claim to any sort of expert on this area, but upon thinking back to my days of latin at school, which included, due to friends, a certain amount of greek mythology as well, I seem to remember Pan being the name of perhaps the most (in)famous faun. Pan is a goat herder/shephard with a knack for errect phalluses. He was also a god of inspiration and of panic, which corrolates nicely to this movie. The original title, in Spanish, happens to the the labyrinth of Faun. So at least some pieces fall into place. I'd go into more detail, but I don't want to spoil anything for people, so all I can say is, watch it and see for yourself. I'll be getting the nice shiny looking DVD whenever it's out, so swing by and I'll happily watch it with you. Don't forget to bring Coke Zero and perhaps a little bag of candy...