Thinking that I must have just missed some important plot element, I tried watching The Bourne Supremacy again. No, I didn’t miss anything. It’s still stupid. The craziest part is that The Bourne Ultimatum was even worse.
I switched over to the SciFi Channel to watch Casper van Dien in Meltdown: Days of Destruction. Believe it or not, this was actually an improvement.
Technorati Tags: matt damon, julia stiles, casper van dien, the bourne supremacy, meltdown days of destruction, movies
Seven Samurai (aka Shichinin no Samurai) is the Japanese version of The Magnificent Seven. Vice versa actually. Samurai was made six years earlier.
A remote village in 16th century Japan has been under the thumb of bandits for several years. When the bandits promise to return after the barley harvest, the villagers determine to fight back by hiring seven down on their luck samurai. The story and acting was good. Yoshio Tsuchiya and Takashi Shimura were great. The character and subplot involving Rikichi’s wife could have used a little more attention. The battle scenes were sometimes very confusing. (Maybe that was on purpose. I’ve heard combat can be that way.)
What I found most interesting was a glimpse into how the Japanese see their own past and how almost no attempt was made to glamorize the characters or setting. There were no knights in shining armor, no super-human martial acrobatics, and very little selfless heroism. This was a story about real people in a dirty world and in bad situation.
Worth watching.
Technorati Tags: seven samurai, shichinin no samurai, takashi shimura, toshio tsuchiya, japan
I rent out my spare room, and I receive far more phishing attempts than legitimate inquiries from real renters. This one is the most common:
Hi,
Hello to You overthere and how is your day? I saw your advert that You have a room available for rent and i am interested in knowing the availability of the place and i will also want to know more about the place, neighboourhood ,and the utilities included…?
I am Kristen Hall,a Medical Humanitarian Nurse ,and ve been involve since the past 8 years,taking care of the motherless babies,Homeless one and all of that,I am still kind of young because i just turned 27yrs old…I Can speak both English and German,i love to live with clean people,caring,responsible,neat type. I’m 5″7′ straight,and i am in south Dokota now ,I will want to move by the ending of January depending on the availability of the room ,I speaks English fluently ,so we have no barriers.
I’ll let You know more about me if i am to rent this particular room that you have to offer
I will be anxiously waiting for your next email
Kind Regards
A Medical Humanitarian Nurse? Are there non-medical nurses? Mechanical nurses? Electronic nurses?
The same rules apply to screening these kinds of communications that apply to just about any other electronic communication from someone you don’t know.
One time I had an email from someone who claimed to be coming to town for a business-related convention. He said he worked in Nigeria (or some other West African country) for British-American Tobacco. The phisher wanted to stay for one month, but pay for two. He wanted to ship a clothes washer, a wide-screen tv, and a full bedroom suite from Europe, because he just couldn’t bare to be without them. Does anyone ever actually fall for that? A clothes washer!? Is it even possible to be that stupid and still know how to use email?
Update: Also watch out for anyone who asks you to cash a check and then reimburse them a portion of the face value. It’s the Nigerian 419 Scam that has been floating around for years.
Update: BTW, Summer, if you ever get tired of Hollywood, I have an empty room at my place, just for you.
…is what 28 Weeks Later meant to be.
A viral Frankenstein’s Monster turns people into raving, mindless cannibals, only there are no helicopter people-blenders, and there’s actually some acting going on. I thought the stretchy-mummy-jaw thing was kind of stupid, though, and, really, human vocal cords can only achieve so much volume.
Technorati Tags: i am legend, will smith, 28 weeks later
When I checked the movie listings I didn’t even mention this one to my son. I didn’t think he’d be interested in a cute father-daughter story. Instead, we settled on Martian Child despite my misgivings about the pro-homosexual theme of the original book. (The reviews said that Cusack’s character had been straightened for the movie version.) However, as soon as he saw The Game Plan on the marquee, all thoughts of cardboard boxes were out.
I was expecting another story featuring an incompetent father, but I was pleasantly surprised. Johnson’s character was vain and self-obsessed, but not stupid. I think the audience heard the line, “Peyton needs her father,” so many times that someone out there might get the idea that the writers think fathers are more than sperm donors and cash cows. Good for them!
I really liked this movie. And not just because Roselyn Sanchez was all over it. That doesn’t hurt, though.
Technorati Tags: the rock, dwayne johnson, madison pettis, kyra sedgwick, roselyn sanchez, the game plan, movies
The Bourne Ultimatum isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen, but it’s far from the best. There is lots of confusing photography, running, shooting, fighting, and exploding, but almost no plot. It doesn’t come close to measuring up to the first two Bourne movies. It’s confusing and a little boring. I actually drifted off to sleep a couple of times in the first thirty minutes.
Julia Stiles is cute, as usual, but that seems to be the only reason she is there. She adds nothing important to the plot. They must have finished filming and then realized there was no romantic interest, no lady in distress, so they called up Stiles and asked if she could reenact a few scenes of another character from the first Bourne movie.
Technorati Tags: the bourne ultimatum, matt damon, julia stiles
One would expect a Transformers movie to be for kids, but it’s not. A certain amount of violence was suggested by the nature of the Transformers storyline. However, the movie depicted people flung hundreds of feet through the air, crashing into cars and buildings, and impaled and crushed by robotic appendages. It wasn’t bloody and didn’t approach some recent Mel Gibson creations, but still didn’t appear to target the five to twelve year-old audience. It was a fun movie, but perhaps too violent and frightening for most of that age group.
Two other problems:
I enjoyed 28 Days Later. It was an attempt at a more plausible Night of the Living Dead scenario with some actual acting and drama thrown in just for kicks. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later, took it to a new low. All the dialog in the entire movie could probably have been printed on two pages. Here’s how the rest of the movie goes: blood, biting, screaming, vomiting blood, blood, running, screaming, blood, shooting, vomiting blood, screaming, biting, blood, running, fire, flying body parts, blood, shooting, screaming, running. The End. I’m not worried about spoiling the ending for you. If you like your movies to have a plot, you won’t like this one anyway.
I’m glad I didn’t pay full price to see it when it first came out.
Technorati Tags: 28 weeks later, 28 days later, movies
If you live around Denver and you like doing instead of sitting around thinking of doing, then you’ve looked at Westword, OnStage, the regular local papers, and special interest pubs to find events worth your time. You probably also found them all wanting. Whatever it is you like to do, there never seems to be a single resource that tells you everything. You have to hunt through several different sources and compile your own events calendar.
ActivEight Digital Magazine just put out their first issue. Their plan is to put all of this information into a single place, so you can keep spending your time doing instead of wasting your time wondering what to do. Here’s a blurb from their home page:
We are currently working in the ActivEight Labs creating you the very best “One Stop Shop” for all of the great activities Colorado has to offer! Keep checking back each and every month for new features like interactive music and events calendars, a “Locals Only” music player, Podcasts, interactive trail maps and much more! Between a website and our digital magazine, I know we will cover everything you will want to hear about.
The content is a little sparse right now, but it should be worth keeping an eye on.
Technorati Tags: activeight, colorado, denver, music, sports, arts, events
I never actually qualified as a Trekkie. I’ve always been a fan, but never that obsessive. My son just discovered the original Star Trek series and is eating it up. I think that’s great, since it’s so much healthier than Digimon and the like. However, we watched the first seven episodes, and I was surprised at how suggestive Star Trek was. Much more so than any subsequent spin-offs. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t pick up on any of that when I was a kid. Our culture has certainly become much more puritanical since then, and definitely not in a healthy way.
Technorati Tags: star trek, trekkies, television
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