In recent years, the American flag has been taken over as a symbol on the right for being a patriot. Apparently, freedom of speech only applies to some people when you say exactly what they want to hear. If you dissent from that, then you are anti-American. That's completely ridiculous I say.
Here's a song that takes that extreme view a little too far.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
So you think it's all fun and games?
I work as a software tester, or a QA analyst or a Quality Control Specialist, or whatever you want to call me. Most people have no idea what I do all day. To put it simply: I make sure that the program that I'm assigned to works the way it's supposed to regardless of the person's expertise. That is, if you do something correct, it works correctly. If you do something incorrect, it should stop you.
My first job in the QA industry was when I worked for Sega in San Francisco in their test department. I didn't really intend to make it my career choice, but I kind of stumbled into something I'm quite good at, which is pointing out other people's mistakes without having to explain how to correct them.
Whenever I mention to people that my first job in QA was working testing video games, I'm usually met with the same response: "That sounds like fun." To which I reply, "You'd think that, wouldn't you?"
This usually gets a puzzled reaction.
I've written a story a while ago about how I equated getting a job testing video games like being told that you're going to die, but in a way that starts with good feelings first. Maybe a better analogy is that it's like drinking. At first, it's fun and games. Then you start to get bleary eyed and black out. Then you wake up with a feeling that you wasted hours of your life when you could have been doing something more productive. Finally, the hangover ends and you start over.
Here's a video that describes the video game testing world. From my perspective, it's absolutely accurate with what I went through.
My first job in the QA industry was when I worked for Sega in San Francisco in their test department. I didn't really intend to make it my career choice, but I kind of stumbled into something I'm quite good at, which is pointing out other people's mistakes without having to explain how to correct them.
Whenever I mention to people that my first job in QA was working testing video games, I'm usually met with the same response: "That sounds like fun." To which I reply, "You'd think that, wouldn't you?"
This usually gets a puzzled reaction.
I've written a story a while ago about how I equated getting a job testing video games like being told that you're going to die, but in a way that starts with good feelings first. Maybe a better analogy is that it's like drinking. At first, it's fun and games. Then you start to get bleary eyed and black out. Then you wake up with a feeling that you wasted hours of your life when you could have been doing something more productive. Finally, the hangover ends and you start over.
Here's a video that describes the video game testing world. From my perspective, it's absolutely accurate with what I went through.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Cartooning under the influence
It has long been my belief that those who create cartoons or kid shows do so under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both. All you have to do is look at some of the old and current shows to see evidence of this. Scooby Doo is an obvious example. You have four young adults driving around in a wildly-colored van called "The Mystery Machine," which is a little pompous of anyone owning a van. They drive around with a dog that can talk to them named Scooby. One of the characters, Shaggy, dresses in bell bottoms, looks like he hasn't bathed in weeks and considers Scooby his best friend. Both of them are always hungry as if they have munchies. They always are the ones that see the 'ghosts' first. No one believes them, of course, and hilarity ensues when pretty soon everyone is seeing the 'ghosts' that always turn out to be fake.
Spongebob Squarepants is another one. It's about a walking and talking sponge named 'Spongebob', who lives in the shell of a pineapple next to his neighbor, a squid, that lives in an Easter island head. Spongebob's best friend is a walking and talking starfish named Patrick that lives under a rock. He works at a restaurant called the Krusty Krab, which serves up the Krabby Patty, a hamburger-like thing complete with a bun, ketchup, pickles, lettuce and tomato. Curiously enough, they also have electricity, televisions and computers under water.
When Julia was younger, she got hooked on a show called Dora the Explorer. The show centers around the adventures of a little girl named Dora. Dora travels around to various places to help animals get home, run errands, getting to parties, etc. She wears a backpack with everything she needs in it and has a talking monkey that wears boots and nothing else, who is named Boots.
Dora gets whatever she needs from her backpack because it's a thinking and talking backpack that happens to have everything you could ever need. Unfortunately for us, Dora can't just take off her backpack and rummage through it. You have to call the backpack and decide what to choose that's best for the job.
Then there is Dora's map. In the backpack, she has a talking map called 'Map'. Like the backpack, Dora cannot just look at the map, she has to have you call 'Map'. The Map then starts singing about how much of a map he is, so you have to wait for him to finish. Once done singing, he starts to give you directions to where Dora needs to go. He repeats it several times so you don't forget. Then you have to tell Dora where to go. Seeing as how Dora is usually trying to get somewhere on time to rescue somebody or something, she certainly puts a lot of trust in the young viewer to tell her where to go. What if you weren't quite paying attention? Then you'd really get her lost. Thankfully, she already knows what you're going to say and repeats what she thought you'd say anyway.
The map's directions are interesting in that it only takes 3 steps to get anywhere on the map. His directions usually go something like this: "To get to the (random thing), go over the (random thing), around the (random thing) and under the (random thing) to get to the (random thing). Who knew that you could get anywhere in the world in just three steps? Dora not only made it to the North Pole to help Santa Claus in three steps, but she has also made it to the South Pole to help a baby penguin in three steps. You can substitute any prepositions into the plot line that runs like the writers were playing Mad Libs. "Let's see. Today, Dora has to go up the chocolate stalks, around the weeping mice and down the screaming slide to get to the monkey fiesta. Sound good?"
After that, Dora and Boots start singing the song with the directions in it like this: "Chocolate stalks. Weeping mice. Screaming Slide. Chocolate stalks. Weeping mice. Screaming slide. Where are we going? To the monkey fiesta. Where are we going? To the monkey fiesta."
Along the way, Dora constantly needs your help. She rounds the corner somewhere and asks you if you've seen the random thing that she's looking for. She'll ask, "Do you see the (random thing)? (pause) Where? (pause)" At this point, any older kid will be screaming "It's right freaking behind you!!!, but then the screen clicks with a pointer showing the right object.
To make that worse, Dora is also constantly stalked by a fox with a mask by the name of Swiper. Swiper "swipes" their stuff, but instead of stealing it like any good thief might, Swiper just throws the object that they need into some bushes or into a group of trees. It's then up to you, the viewer (of course), to tell Dora where all the objects are. And if those objects happen to be parts of the road or something they're traveling on, it's also up to you to tell her where the pieces fit.
On an aside here, some of the evildoers in some of the episodes comment about how smart Dora is, but I argue that she's getting plenty of f&*^ing help from her viewers. I've often remarked that "For a smart girl, you sure are helping her a lot."
Also along the way, Dora encounters some of her friends, which include no humans, save for her grandma, parents or cousin Diego. Her friends include a bull, an iguana, a bird and others. I don't know what they put in the water where she lives, but it seems to be passed along family lines. Her grandmother has admitted to talking to a tree made of chocolate when she was a little girl. Dora's grandmother has also given her a star pocket for Dora's backpack that allows her to catch talking stars.
I suppose I could forgive Dora's parents for allowing their very young daughter to explore the wilderness while giant talking animals try to hurt her or her progress. Or that she's allowed to travel long distances without a guardian. But to allow their child to experiment with hallucinogens? I'm not sure I can forgive that.
I'd love to see the team from social services coming to visit.
SS: "Where's you daughter, Dora?"
Dora's Parents: "She's going to her Grandmother's house with her best friend, Boots."
SS: "Is 'Boots' a nickname?"
DP: "No, that's his name."
SS: "Oh, well do you have a description of Boots in case we find them?"
DP: "Boots is about 3 feet tall. He's gray colored and wears red boots."
SS: "What else was he wearing?"
DP: "Nothing. He just wears boots."
SS: "Okay... He just wears boots... and has gray skin?"
DP: "Yes, he is a monkey you know."
SS: "Uhh huh... I see. So what was she going to do at her Grandmother's instead of going to school today?"
DP: "She's going to pick chocolate leaves from the chocolate tree that her Grandmother used to talk to when she was a kid."
SS: "Oh really? (squelch on radio). Send back up..."
Julia used to love Dora the Explorer. Once it was introduced as a cartoon to watch (not by me) there was no turning back. She insisted that she watch it. Even when she couldn't really talk that well as a toddler, she would point at the television and cry, "Do watch? Do watch? Dor! Dor!"
More recently, Julia has suddenly professed her distaste for Dora the Explorer. One day, she said this when Dora the Explorer came on, "Uggh! Dora? Can you turn it please?" Then it moved on to "Uggghh! I hate that show!"
More recently, she said this when Dora started after her other show ended, "Dad? What about the Dora problem?"
"What problem?" I asked.
"Dora's on. That's a problem."
I can see how some shows just have a natural age limit that repels any viewer above a certain age. I'm not sad to see her lose her Dora fixation. On the other hand, it's a lot more tolerable than the spin off show called, 'Go, Diego. Go!' in which Dora's cousin, who can talk to animals, goes around by himself in the jungles to rescue wild animals. He also has a talking camera and a talking backpack that doesn't just have anything, he can turn into anything. Curiously enough, he never turns into something that could get Diego there a lot faster, like a helicopter.
Spongebob Squarepants is another one. It's about a walking and talking sponge named 'Spongebob', who lives in the shell of a pineapple next to his neighbor, a squid, that lives in an Easter island head. Spongebob's best friend is a walking and talking starfish named Patrick that lives under a rock. He works at a restaurant called the Krusty Krab, which serves up the Krabby Patty, a hamburger-like thing complete with a bun, ketchup, pickles, lettuce and tomato. Curiously enough, they also have electricity, televisions and computers under water.
When Julia was younger, she got hooked on a show called Dora the Explorer. The show centers around the adventures of a little girl named Dora. Dora travels around to various places to help animals get home, run errands, getting to parties, etc. She wears a backpack with everything she needs in it and has a talking monkey that wears boots and nothing else, who is named Boots.
Dora gets whatever she needs from her backpack because it's a thinking and talking backpack that happens to have everything you could ever need. Unfortunately for us, Dora can't just take off her backpack and rummage through it. You have to call the backpack and decide what to choose that's best for the job.
Then there is Dora's map. In the backpack, she has a talking map called 'Map'. Like the backpack, Dora cannot just look at the map, she has to have you call 'Map'. The Map then starts singing about how much of a map he is, so you have to wait for him to finish. Once done singing, he starts to give you directions to where Dora needs to go. He repeats it several times so you don't forget. Then you have to tell Dora where to go. Seeing as how Dora is usually trying to get somewhere on time to rescue somebody or something, she certainly puts a lot of trust in the young viewer to tell her where to go. What if you weren't quite paying attention? Then you'd really get her lost. Thankfully, she already knows what you're going to say and repeats what she thought you'd say anyway.
The map's directions are interesting in that it only takes 3 steps to get anywhere on the map. His directions usually go something like this: "To get to the (random thing), go over the (random thing), around the (random thing) and under the (random thing) to get to the (random thing). Who knew that you could get anywhere in the world in just three steps? Dora not only made it to the North Pole to help Santa Claus in three steps, but she has also made it to the South Pole to help a baby penguin in three steps. You can substitute any prepositions into the plot line that runs like the writers were playing Mad Libs. "Let's see. Today, Dora has to go up the chocolate stalks, around the weeping mice and down the screaming slide to get to the monkey fiesta. Sound good?"
After that, Dora and Boots start singing the song with the directions in it like this: "Chocolate stalks. Weeping mice. Screaming Slide. Chocolate stalks. Weeping mice. Screaming slide. Where are we going? To the monkey fiesta. Where are we going? To the monkey fiesta."
Along the way, Dora constantly needs your help. She rounds the corner somewhere and asks you if you've seen the random thing that she's looking for. She'll ask, "Do you see the (random thing)? (pause) Where? (pause)" At this point, any older kid will be screaming "It's right freaking behind you!!!, but then the screen clicks with a pointer showing the right object.
To make that worse, Dora is also constantly stalked by a fox with a mask by the name of Swiper. Swiper "swipes" their stuff, but instead of stealing it like any good thief might, Swiper just throws the object that they need into some bushes or into a group of trees. It's then up to you, the viewer (of course), to tell Dora where all the objects are. And if those objects happen to be parts of the road or something they're traveling on, it's also up to you to tell her where the pieces fit.
On an aside here, some of the evildoers in some of the episodes comment about how smart Dora is, but I argue that she's getting plenty of f&*^ing help from her viewers. I've often remarked that "For a smart girl, you sure are helping her a lot."
Also along the way, Dora encounters some of her friends, which include no humans, save for her grandma, parents or cousin Diego. Her friends include a bull, an iguana, a bird and others. I don't know what they put in the water where she lives, but it seems to be passed along family lines. Her grandmother has admitted to talking to a tree made of chocolate when she was a little girl. Dora's grandmother has also given her a star pocket for Dora's backpack that allows her to catch talking stars.
I suppose I could forgive Dora's parents for allowing their very young daughter to explore the wilderness while giant talking animals try to hurt her or her progress. Or that she's allowed to travel long distances without a guardian. But to allow their child to experiment with hallucinogens? I'm not sure I can forgive that.
I'd love to see the team from social services coming to visit.
SS: "Where's you daughter, Dora?"
Dora's Parents: "She's going to her Grandmother's house with her best friend, Boots."
SS: "Is 'Boots' a nickname?"
DP: "No, that's his name."
SS: "Oh, well do you have a description of Boots in case we find them?"
DP: "Boots is about 3 feet tall. He's gray colored and wears red boots."
SS: "What else was he wearing?"
DP: "Nothing. He just wears boots."
SS: "Okay... He just wears boots... and has gray skin?"
DP: "Yes, he is a monkey you know."
SS: "Uhh huh... I see. So what was she going to do at her Grandmother's instead of going to school today?"
DP: "She's going to pick chocolate leaves from the chocolate tree that her Grandmother used to talk to when she was a kid."
SS: "Oh really? (squelch on radio). Send back up..."
Julia used to love Dora the Explorer. Once it was introduced as a cartoon to watch (not by me) there was no turning back. She insisted that she watch it. Even when she couldn't really talk that well as a toddler, she would point at the television and cry, "Do watch? Do watch? Dor! Dor!"
More recently, Julia has suddenly professed her distaste for Dora the Explorer. One day, she said this when Dora the Explorer came on, "Uggh! Dora? Can you turn it please?" Then it moved on to "Uggghh! I hate that show!"
More recently, she said this when Dora started after her other show ended, "Dad? What about the Dora problem?"
"What problem?" I asked.
"Dora's on. That's a problem."
I can see how some shows just have a natural age limit that repels any viewer above a certain age. I'm not sad to see her lose her Dora fixation. On the other hand, it's a lot more tolerable than the spin off show called, 'Go, Diego. Go!' in which Dora's cousin, who can talk to animals, goes around by himself in the jungles to rescue wild animals. He also has a talking camera and a talking backpack that doesn't just have anything, he can turn into anything. Curiously enough, he never turns into something that could get Diego there a lot faster, like a helicopter.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Cloverfield and batteries...
I went to see the movie Cloverfield two Saturdays ago. It's the new movie from the Bad Robot production group that brought you the shows Alias and Lost. J.J. Abrams is the producer. If you haven't seen the movie and plan on seeing it, which probably includes none of you, then stop reading. If you haven't seen it and probably won't, then keep on reading.
The movie is basically a monster movie in the same general premise that Godzilla was. A monster attacks a city for some reason and things get destroyed. Where it differs from monster movies like that is that it's shot to look like it was filmed on a small camcorder. This has been tried before in other films like the Blair Witch Project and the Last Broadcast. In the case of the Blair Witch Project, most of the 'scares' occur off screen. It's only at the end that we see something that's a little disturbing, but even that loses its luster after a second viewing.
In the case of Cloverfield, the movie purported to be footage found at the site in New York City formerly known as Central Park. The footage with a guy and a girl talking. It's the morning after of a sleep over involving Rob and Beth. It then cuts to a party where a woman named Lily is telling her boyfriend, Jason, Rob's brother, to man the camera for a going away party. Rob has just accepted a job in Japan and she threw the party.
Jason then quickly asks their buddy Hud to man the camera. Hud is a doofus, but he willingly starts filming and asking goofy questions. Along the way, he awkwardly tries to hit on Lily's friend Marlena.
The party is a stereotypical Manhattan party filled with tons of young and pretty city dwellers, filled with lots of indie rock and filled with lots of inane dialogue. I read one review of this movie in which the reviewer complained that the party scene was too long to the point that you wished that a giant monster would drop down on the sky and start wrecking havoc. I have to agree with a lot of that, but maybe that was the point. You really don't care too much for the characters because they seem like spoiled young adults, so when shit starts to happen, you sort of believe the confusion and selfish choices a few of them make.
At the party, Rob finally shows up and so does the girl he likes, Beth, who shows up with another guy! The word is 'ouch' to describe this encounter, but I'm not feeling sorry for this guy. He's apparently had years to describe his feelings for Beth, who he slept with once two weeks prior (the footage at the beginning was the morning after), but is surprised that she'd find someone else when he announced that he was taking a job in Japan. Rob and Beth fight, Beth leaves, and Rob leaves the party to feel sorry for himself. It's shortly after this point that a giant monster starts to attack the city.
Giant explosions happen across the city. A few buildings get destroyed. People start to freak out and run around in all directions. In the distance, it looks like a giant something is tearing up buildings. The people quickly decide to leave the city, but no one thinks to drive. Everyone starts to walk out of town across one of the bridges (forget which). Halfway across, it is attacked and it falls down, so the survivors of that have to turn around and get out another way. During this commotion, Beth calls Rob. She's hurt in her apartment building and is pleading for help. Rob, of course, decides to go find her. The problem is that this is the direction of the giant monster.
Along the way, they encounter the monster and its fight against the Army as well as some of the monster's babies, children or whatever they were. The babies look and act like little lizard spiders. The gang encounter the little monsters and have to run and hide. In the meantime, the monster is still wrecking havoc. The Army is considering blowing up Manhattan, so they only have a few hours to get out of town.
All in all, I thought it was a really good movie. Previous attempts at a first-person perspective movie have been mostly disappointing. This one had enough realism that you could believe that someone was shooting the footage of this event. The camera's narrator, Hud, while a little goofy, has the right amount of humor, fear, cowardice and nobility to save the footage from feeling hollow. You actually get that this guy is freaking out while running away from the monster.
Those with weak stomachs will want to avoid this film. I've heard of people getting really ill at all the bouncing and running around from the first-person camera, but I was fine when I watched it. If you go, don't be one of those people that were warned beforehand that the movie was a shaky perspective. The information is clearly out there that this is that type of movie. So if you're just one of those people that go to see movies without researching what you're getting yourself into, then I don't really feel sorry for you for seeing something you probably didn't like. Do your homework beforehand. Seriously, we live in the information age. If you can yap on your cellphone while you're supposed to be bagging your groceries and holding up the grocery store line, then you can take the time to get on a computer. Sit. Type. Click. Read. Easy. There. I feel better.
What's intriguing to me about this movie are that people aren't questioning the premise that a huge monster can suddenly appear and start destroying New York. I think that's an accepted fact that this couldn't seriously happen at any time. We are the jaded generation after all, or at least my generation is. I don't know about Generation Y, but I think it'd be the same. We've been raised on monster and fantasy movies that have pushed the envelope of what is real and what isn't real. However, when a movie like Independence Day comes along, people my age are more likely to nitpick the viability of Jeff Goldblum hacking into the alien mother ship's computer with a Macintosh laptop and giving their computer a virus than the viability of 13 huge ships flying across the universe undetected until they fly over our cities.
So I guess it shouldn't come as a shock to me that people are nitpicking Cloverfield because of its controversial use of batteries: cell phone batteries and camera batteries.
After the monster attacks and Rob gets his phone call from Beth, he quickly realizes that his cell phone battery is almost dead. So instead of rushing out of the city, he rushes into an electronics store, finds a new battery, slaps it into his phone and tries to contact Beth again. That's it. That's a huge controversy.
I've read many discussions on the internet movie forums where people are declaring how false it is that a person could just get a brand new cell phone battery and use it because the package always tells you to charge it before you use it. Then people that work for an electronics store claim that they have some sort of charge because the batteries have to be tested before they leave the factory. Then other people tell their stories about how they have tried this before and found that they needed to charge their battery. Then other people challenge that by stating that sometimes they lose their charge from sitting on the shelf and other times it still has some of that factory charge left. And it goes on and on.
The other controversy is about the battery in the camcorder that Hud uses. Most batteries that come with a camcorder generally last between an hour and two hours, so it stands to reason that some people don't believe that Hud could be filming for over 7 hours. Now here is where it gets a little stupid in my opinion.
First of all, it's never mentioned how long Hud films for. You get the impression that he either filmed continuously and had it edited out for the flim version, that he was shutting the camcorder off and on during the night. Either scenario will drain most batteries in a few hours. However, it's also pretty obvious that he was shutting the camera off and on as he had breaks in action. Even if you have a low-cost battery, you can stretch the battery life by shutting it off and on. My old camcorder from the early 1990s had a two-hour battery that I used one day at Disney World for almost the whole day. So now over a decade later we have made significant advances in battery life. I've seen batteries listed at Best Buy that last for over 6 hours.
The problem is, it's never spelled out for the viewer in the movie. So this has led to long discussions about the feasibility what type of camera it was, how long he filmed, whether or not he kept the camera on the whole time, whether or not he recorded the whole time, etc. As a result, people are confused.
Even my brother, Joe, was wondering about that. He admitted that he was a little confused about how long a battery should last.
That's the problem with the viewing public. We need things spelled out for us.
My one big question in the movie is the viability of New York clearing out. For sure, there are people scrambling out of the way, but the city seems devoid of running cars, kids and old people. I didn't get the sense that there was a mad scramble for all of New York to leave the city. I would think that this would take days. But again, this isn't spelled for me, so now I'm a hypocrite for even questioning it while I'm mocking people who question other aspects of the movie. So much for my original premise.
The movie is basically a monster movie in the same general premise that Godzilla was. A monster attacks a city for some reason and things get destroyed. Where it differs from monster movies like that is that it's shot to look like it was filmed on a small camcorder. This has been tried before in other films like the Blair Witch Project and the Last Broadcast. In the case of the Blair Witch Project, most of the 'scares' occur off screen. It's only at the end that we see something that's a little disturbing, but even that loses its luster after a second viewing.
In the case of Cloverfield, the movie purported to be footage found at the site in New York City formerly known as Central Park. The footage with a guy and a girl talking. It's the morning after of a sleep over involving Rob and Beth. It then cuts to a party where a woman named Lily is telling her boyfriend, Jason, Rob's brother, to man the camera for a going away party. Rob has just accepted a job in Japan and she threw the party.
Jason then quickly asks their buddy Hud to man the camera. Hud is a doofus, but he willingly starts filming and asking goofy questions. Along the way, he awkwardly tries to hit on Lily's friend Marlena.
The party is a stereotypical Manhattan party filled with tons of young and pretty city dwellers, filled with lots of indie rock and filled with lots of inane dialogue. I read one review of this movie in which the reviewer complained that the party scene was too long to the point that you wished that a giant monster would drop down on the sky and start wrecking havoc. I have to agree with a lot of that, but maybe that was the point. You really don't care too much for the characters because they seem like spoiled young adults, so when shit starts to happen, you sort of believe the confusion and selfish choices a few of them make.
At the party, Rob finally shows up and so does the girl he likes, Beth, who shows up with another guy! The word is 'ouch' to describe this encounter, but I'm not feeling sorry for this guy. He's apparently had years to describe his feelings for Beth, who he slept with once two weeks prior (the footage at the beginning was the morning after), but is surprised that she'd find someone else when he announced that he was taking a job in Japan. Rob and Beth fight, Beth leaves, and Rob leaves the party to feel sorry for himself. It's shortly after this point that a giant monster starts to attack the city.
Giant explosions happen across the city. A few buildings get destroyed. People start to freak out and run around in all directions. In the distance, it looks like a giant something is tearing up buildings. The people quickly decide to leave the city, but no one thinks to drive. Everyone starts to walk out of town across one of the bridges (forget which). Halfway across, it is attacked and it falls down, so the survivors of that have to turn around and get out another way. During this commotion, Beth calls Rob. She's hurt in her apartment building and is pleading for help. Rob, of course, decides to go find her. The problem is that this is the direction of the giant monster.
Along the way, they encounter the monster and its fight against the Army as well as some of the monster's babies, children or whatever they were. The babies look and act like little lizard spiders. The gang encounter the little monsters and have to run and hide. In the meantime, the monster is still wrecking havoc. The Army is considering blowing up Manhattan, so they only have a few hours to get out of town.
All in all, I thought it was a really good movie. Previous attempts at a first-person perspective movie have been mostly disappointing. This one had enough realism that you could believe that someone was shooting the footage of this event. The camera's narrator, Hud, while a little goofy, has the right amount of humor, fear, cowardice and nobility to save the footage from feeling hollow. You actually get that this guy is freaking out while running away from the monster.
Those with weak stomachs will want to avoid this film. I've heard of people getting really ill at all the bouncing and running around from the first-person camera, but I was fine when I watched it. If you go, don't be one of those people that were warned beforehand that the movie was a shaky perspective. The information is clearly out there that this is that type of movie. So if you're just one of those people that go to see movies without researching what you're getting yourself into, then I don't really feel sorry for you for seeing something you probably didn't like. Do your homework beforehand. Seriously, we live in the information age. If you can yap on your cellphone while you're supposed to be bagging your groceries and holding up the grocery store line, then you can take the time to get on a computer. Sit. Type. Click. Read. Easy. There. I feel better.
What's intriguing to me about this movie are that people aren't questioning the premise that a huge monster can suddenly appear and start destroying New York. I think that's an accepted fact that this couldn't seriously happen at any time. We are the jaded generation after all, or at least my generation is. I don't know about Generation Y, but I think it'd be the same. We've been raised on monster and fantasy movies that have pushed the envelope of what is real and what isn't real. However, when a movie like Independence Day comes along, people my age are more likely to nitpick the viability of Jeff Goldblum hacking into the alien mother ship's computer with a Macintosh laptop and giving their computer a virus than the viability of 13 huge ships flying across the universe undetected until they fly over our cities.
So I guess it shouldn't come as a shock to me that people are nitpicking Cloverfield because of its controversial use of batteries: cell phone batteries and camera batteries.
After the monster attacks and Rob gets his phone call from Beth, he quickly realizes that his cell phone battery is almost dead. So instead of rushing out of the city, he rushes into an electronics store, finds a new battery, slaps it into his phone and tries to contact Beth again. That's it. That's a huge controversy.
I've read many discussions on the internet movie forums where people are declaring how false it is that a person could just get a brand new cell phone battery and use it because the package always tells you to charge it before you use it. Then people that work for an electronics store claim that they have some sort of charge because the batteries have to be tested before they leave the factory. Then other people tell their stories about how they have tried this before and found that they needed to charge their battery. Then other people challenge that by stating that sometimes they lose their charge from sitting on the shelf and other times it still has some of that factory charge left. And it goes on and on.
The other controversy is about the battery in the camcorder that Hud uses. Most batteries that come with a camcorder generally last between an hour and two hours, so it stands to reason that some people don't believe that Hud could be filming for over 7 hours. Now here is where it gets a little stupid in my opinion.
First of all, it's never mentioned how long Hud films for. You get the impression that he either filmed continuously and had it edited out for the flim version, that he was shutting the camcorder off and on during the night. Either scenario will drain most batteries in a few hours. However, it's also pretty obvious that he was shutting the camera off and on as he had breaks in action. Even if you have a low-cost battery, you can stretch the battery life by shutting it off and on. My old camcorder from the early 1990s had a two-hour battery that I used one day at Disney World for almost the whole day. So now over a decade later we have made significant advances in battery life. I've seen batteries listed at Best Buy that last for over 6 hours.
The problem is, it's never spelled out for the viewer in the movie. So this has led to long discussions about the feasibility what type of camera it was, how long he filmed, whether or not he kept the camera on the whole time, whether or not he recorded the whole time, etc. As a result, people are confused.
Even my brother, Joe, was wondering about that. He admitted that he was a little confused about how long a battery should last.
That's the problem with the viewing public. We need things spelled out for us.
My one big question in the movie is the viability of New York clearing out. For sure, there are people scrambling out of the way, but the city seems devoid of running cars, kids and old people. I didn't get the sense that there was a mad scramble for all of New York to leave the city. I would think that this would take days. But again, this isn't spelled for me, so now I'm a hypocrite for even questioning it while I'm mocking people who question other aspects of the movie. So much for my original premise.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Funny video - Everyday Normal Guy rapper
I thought this was pretty funny. Watch out if listening without headphones. This video has several motherflipping curse words in this mother fricker...
Sunday, January 27, 2008
If I have time...
It's interesting to me how kids view adults. When I was a kid, I assumed that being an adult was great because you didn't have to go to school, you got to drive a car and you could buy whatever you wanted. Julia seems to have a similar view. Lately, she's lamenting being a kid and wishes to be an adult for some of the same reasons. She's just started Kindergarten and fondly remembers the carefree days of Pre-school when it was learn for a few hours in the morning and play all afternoon instead of the learn all day stuff she's now subjected to.
Before Christmas, Laura and Julia gave Julia's kindergarten teacher a Christmas gift, which included a candle holder of some sort.
I was unpacking Julia's backpack a few days ago and came across a Thank You card. I opened the card and read it to Julia. It was a card from her teacher thanking her for the gift.
As we were getting ready for bed, Julia walked into the bathroom behind me chuckling to herself.
I asked, "What's so funny?"
She said, "Adults like candles a lot don't they?"
I said, "Well, women adults like candles a lot. Men like other things. Do you like candles?"
"Ya," she said.
I should point out that Julia has taken to saying "Yeah" like she was born in Minnesota for the last several years. Her pre-school teachers tried to rid her of that habit, but with little luck.
"Do you think you'll like candles when you're an adult," I asked.
"If I have time," she said.
I paused a second and asked, "What do you mean: 'If I have time.'? Why wouldn't you have time?"
"Because I'll be carrying babies around!" she said in a 'Isn't it obvious?' way.
Laura and I laughed about that one. She seems to think that being a Mom means that she'll have no time for her kids. Keep in mind, she's told me on several occasions that she doesn't want kids.
Julia also has a semi-distorted view of vitamins and medicines, too.
I read somewhere that kids don't get enough Omega-3 since Americans don't eat as much fish. So I decided to give Julia Omega-3 supplements for kids.
At first, I was using a brand that tasted like oranges, but this new one I got, while having a lot more Omega-3 than the other brand, is very squishy and weird tasting. Julia tried one and then gave me a look that screamed, "Are you kidding me?"
I tried one, too and did my best not to look disgusted by the taste. I swallowed and said, "Oh well, they don't taste that good, but they have a lot more brain food in there than the other brand did."
I had told Julia that the stuff was brain food so she wouldn't ask what it is. I'm sure she'd freak if she knew that it was taken from extracted algae and anchovies.
The next night I gave her two of the new ones. She grabbed them and started to eat one.
"Take two of them?" Julia asked.
I said, "Yes. That's what the bottle says."
"I better not take four then."
"Why?"
She said with a wry voice, "Otherwise, I'll be a genius."
"Oh." I said trying not to laugh.
.....................
Julia likes to gab a lot in her kindergarten class room. If you talk or are misbehaving, the teacher will pull one of three crayons on their desk. The first warning is your green crayon, like the 'Go' light on a stop light. The second warning is the yellow crayon like the 'Caution' light. The third and last warning that gets you sent to the principal's office is the red crayon.
The first week back from winter vacation, Julia would have at least one crayon pulled a day. One day, she hung her head as she walked into the house from the bus because she had two crayons pulled. Seeing a trend, we challenged Julia to not get crayons pulled on a Friday. If she did, we'd do something fun. Friday afternoon, she waltzed into the house and proudly proclaimed that she did not get a crayon pulled.
That Saturday night, I was reading a book to Julia called 'Cheater Pants' from the Junie B. Jones series of kid books. In the books, Junie B. is a too-smart-for-her-own-good first grader who bends the rules as she interprets them. In 'Cheater Pants', she forgets to do her homework, so she copies off a classmate that left hers out while she was away from her desk. Junie B. is caught because it was an essay about what you did that weekend. Of course, hers perfectly matched the girl she copied from. Junie B. tries to explain that she was only copying homework and not a test, so it was okay. She didn't realize that she was doing something wrong.
We went upstairs to get Julia ready for bed. As I was giving her vitamins and some allergy medicine, Julia asked if it was lying if you got in trouble in class, but didn't tell us about it.
I said, "It depends on what it is. Why? What happened."
Julia nonchalantly said, "Well, you said that if I didn't get any crayons pulled that I wouldn't be in trouble. I didn't get in trouble with the teacher. She yelled at me once, but she did NOT (throws her arms sideways for emphasis) pull any crayons."
I looked at her surprised and said, "Oh really!" with a tone of surprise and accusation touched with a little bit of sarcasm.
"What did you do to get yelled at?"
"Umm... Nothing." Julia said with a quiet smile.
"Julia... You brought it up. Just tell me."
Julia sighed. "She was yelling at me to be quiet, but she's always yelling!" Julia raised her hands in frustration at this.
All I can say is that it's going to be a challenge to stay on my toes as Julia gets older...
Before Christmas, Laura and Julia gave Julia's kindergarten teacher a Christmas gift, which included a candle holder of some sort.
I was unpacking Julia's backpack a few days ago and came across a Thank You card. I opened the card and read it to Julia. It was a card from her teacher thanking her for the gift.
As we were getting ready for bed, Julia walked into the bathroom behind me chuckling to herself.
I asked, "What's so funny?"
She said, "Adults like candles a lot don't they?"
I said, "Well, women adults like candles a lot. Men like other things. Do you like candles?"
"Ya," she said.
I should point out that Julia has taken to saying "Yeah" like she was born in Minnesota for the last several years. Her pre-school teachers tried to rid her of that habit, but with little luck.
"Do you think you'll like candles when you're an adult," I asked.
"If I have time," she said.
I paused a second and asked, "What do you mean: 'If I have time.'? Why wouldn't you have time?"
"Because I'll be carrying babies around!" she said in a 'Isn't it obvious?' way.
Laura and I laughed about that one. She seems to think that being a Mom means that she'll have no time for her kids. Keep in mind, she's told me on several occasions that she doesn't want kids.
Julia also has a semi-distorted view of vitamins and medicines, too.
I read somewhere that kids don't get enough Omega-3 since Americans don't eat as much fish. So I decided to give Julia Omega-3 supplements for kids.
At first, I was using a brand that tasted like oranges, but this new one I got, while having a lot more Omega-3 than the other brand, is very squishy and weird tasting. Julia tried one and then gave me a look that screamed, "Are you kidding me?"
I tried one, too and did my best not to look disgusted by the taste. I swallowed and said, "Oh well, they don't taste that good, but they have a lot more brain food in there than the other brand did."
I had told Julia that the stuff was brain food so she wouldn't ask what it is. I'm sure she'd freak if she knew that it was taken from extracted algae and anchovies.
The next night I gave her two of the new ones. She grabbed them and started to eat one.
"Take two of them?" Julia asked.
I said, "Yes. That's what the bottle says."
"I better not take four then."
"Why?"
She said with a wry voice, "Otherwise, I'll be a genius."
"Oh." I said trying not to laugh.
.....................
Julia likes to gab a lot in her kindergarten class room. If you talk or are misbehaving, the teacher will pull one of three crayons on their desk. The first warning is your green crayon, like the 'Go' light on a stop light. The second warning is the yellow crayon like the 'Caution' light. The third and last warning that gets you sent to the principal's office is the red crayon.
The first week back from winter vacation, Julia would have at least one crayon pulled a day. One day, she hung her head as she walked into the house from the bus because she had two crayons pulled. Seeing a trend, we challenged Julia to not get crayons pulled on a Friday. If she did, we'd do something fun. Friday afternoon, she waltzed into the house and proudly proclaimed that she did not get a crayon pulled.
That Saturday night, I was reading a book to Julia called 'Cheater Pants' from the Junie B. Jones series of kid books. In the books, Junie B. is a too-smart-for-her-own-good first grader who bends the rules as she interprets them. In 'Cheater Pants', she forgets to do her homework, so she copies off a classmate that left hers out while she was away from her desk. Junie B. is caught because it was an essay about what you did that weekend. Of course, hers perfectly matched the girl she copied from. Junie B. tries to explain that she was only copying homework and not a test, so it was okay. She didn't realize that she was doing something wrong.
We went upstairs to get Julia ready for bed. As I was giving her vitamins and some allergy medicine, Julia asked if it was lying if you got in trouble in class, but didn't tell us about it.
I said, "It depends on what it is. Why? What happened."
Julia nonchalantly said, "Well, you said that if I didn't get any crayons pulled that I wouldn't be in trouble. I didn't get in trouble with the teacher. She yelled at me once, but she did NOT (throws her arms sideways for emphasis) pull any crayons."
I looked at her surprised and said, "Oh really!" with a tone of surprise and accusation touched with a little bit of sarcasm.
"What did you do to get yelled at?"
"Umm... Nothing." Julia said with a quiet smile.
"Julia... You brought it up. Just tell me."
Julia sighed. "She was yelling at me to be quiet, but she's always yelling!" Julia raised her hands in frustration at this.
All I can say is that it's going to be a challenge to stay on my toes as Julia gets older...
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The Bee Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Happy Feet...
Introductions aren't my strongest suit, so let's just say that I had ideas to talk about three different kids movies, but couldn't think of compelling reasons to focus on just one, so I decided to meld them all into one story. That and I had a few of them partly written and was too lazy to finish.
........................
One Friday, Julia and I were on our own. Laura was out of town visiting a friend so I promised Julia that we would see the new movie, The Bee Movie.
We saw the 5:00 showing at the local theater here. Julia was pretty excited to see it. After all, if you've been watching television, it would have been really hard to miss the advertising for The Bee Movie. They were on for the two months before it came out non-stop on the kid channels.
We get to the theater and we go to buy popcorn. Julia really loves popcorn, so we ended up sharing a large popcorn.
Inside the theater, Julia decided that we're going to sit at the very top of the theater so that "we can see better." I tried to tell her that if we sat a few rows closer, we'd see it even better, but she had her heart set on the top row. Once you get Julia's mind set on something, it's hard to change it.
The previews were going and we're eating our popcorn. Julia was holding the huge bag on her lap. After a few minutes, she pulled the popcorn away from me.
I exclaimed in a loud whisper, "Hey! Bring back the popcorn!"
Julia defiantly said, "No, we're saving it for the start of the movie."
I tried to reach across her to get more popcorn.
She pulled away. After a few seconds, she put the bag back on her lap. I reached again. She slapped my hand! I reached again. She slapped my hand again!
I exclaimed, "Hey!"
She said again, "No! We're saving it for the start of the movie!"
I looked at her and then my watch. It's only a few minutes before the movie was supposed to start. I said, "Fine."
I sat there waiting, but I still felt hungry as I had not eaten yet. I looked over at Julia periodically. She was just sitting there watching the trailers, but then I noticed that she was putting popcorn into her mouth every 10 seconds or so.
I said, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."
She stopped eating for a minute. Then she began again.
I said again, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."
She stopped eating for yet another minute. Then she began eating the popcorn yet again.
I exclaimed, "Julia! Stop eating!"
She didn't stop, so I grabbed the bag. She slapped my hand again. This time, I moved close to her face and I said in a low voice, "Julia. This is ridiculous. I paid for the popcorn, and I'm going to eat it if I want to. Otherwise, I'm going to take this popcorn, throw it away and you'll get none. On top of that, you'll be grounded. Is that what you want? Besides, we can get a refill on the popcorn if we run out, remember?"
She looked at me for a second as if she was trying to figure out how serious I was. I think she got the message. Without sighing, she gave me the popcorn bag. I proceeded to eat.
Ahh... kids, aren't they precious? I'm sure years later she'll be convinced by her therapists that all of her problems in life can be traced back to the time when she tried to conserve her popcorn for the movie, but I ate it anyway. She'll come home one Christmas and yell, "You bastard! You ate my popcorn!"
So back to The Bee Movie...
The Bee Movie was written by Jerry Seinfeld, who coincidentally starred in the show Seinfeld. In The Bee Movie, Seinfeld plays the roll of Barry B. Benson, a young bee who's just graduated from school and excited to pick his new career. He gets freaked out that he'll get stuck in his career choice until he dies. After all, he hasn't seen anything out of the outside world. While flying with the pollen jockeys, the bees that collect and spread pollen, he gets lost in the big city. From there, he meets a florist, who he falls in love with. There are some funny scenes with her jealous human boyfriend and his dealing with the human world.
I don't really remember a lot about how the movie's plot goes, but it somehow moves to bees suing the human race for harvesting their honey without permission.
I fell asleep a few times during the courtroom scenes in the movie, which should give you an indication on how much I liked this movie. All in all, it was okay. It started out pretty good with lots of bee puns and humor that adults could appreciate. I just thought it dragged a little.
........................
Another movie we saw recently was the new movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks. As with every beloved franchise from our youth, they have to remake it into a cartoon, 3-D animated film or combination action and 3-D animated film. This is the latter.
The movie centers around a guy named Dave, like the guy from the original song (played by Jason Lee). He's a song writer, but not a very successful one. He plays his demo tape to his friend, Ian (played by David Cross), who is a record executive of some sort, or maybe he's an agent. Ian rejects it and tells him to find something new, so Dave does when he inadvertently becomes the guardian of three chipmunks who can sing and talk. How does one acquire three talking chipmunks you may ask? Well, if you are in the process of leaving a record company's lobby with a stolen muffin basket, it's possible that three talking chipmunks will jump in after their tree is cut down and erected as a Christmas tree in the lobby of said record company.
They introduce themselves to Dave, he freaks out, throws them out, they manage to get back in, and he blackmails them to sing his songs for free room and board. He throws them out again for ruining his dinner date with the girl next door, who happens to look like a super model (played by Cameron Richardson, who curiously enough played a teen supermodel on the show House, when she was about 24 years old). The chipmunks high tail it over to Ian's house without knowing who Ian is, what he does or where he lives. They sing for him the Christmas song and he proclaims them new artists on the record label!
Apparently, it's possible to record, produce and release a Christmas song sung by Chipmunks not only overnight, but so fast that when Dave is in the grocery store the next day, he hears the song on the loud speaker.
Fame comes to the chipmunks. Of course, Ian starts to wedge himself between Dave and the chipmunks, Dave loses the chipmunks, chipmunks miss Dave, Dave misses the chipmunks, Dave wants the chipmunks back, Ian won't let the Chipmunks go, yadda yadda yadda... the Chipmunks are back with Dave.
I left the movie twice to get a refill of popcorn and to go to the bathroom. Curiously enough, I didn't seem to miss anything. I even took my time. This should tell you that I didn't think much of this movie.
I joked with Laura when I came back the second time, "What did I miss?"
She rolled her eyes and said, "Nothing."
The movie was okay, but lacked a clever plot or jokes that weren't derived from trashing an apartment or chipmunk bodily functions.
The one interesting thing to me was the phone-it-in performance by David Cross, who has a dual career of corny movie actor and hipster comedian. You could tell that he was winking at the camera the whole time. Hey, I understand. If I was bit player actor, I'd probably be happy for any role that came my way, too.
One thing I'm getting tired of in these movies are the uses of the same plot device of two parties getting together, then one party goes away, which the other party realizes they were meant to be with the other all along. It's been used over and over with these films. Memo to Hollywood: Can't we just have a remake of a beloved pop culture icon(s) that involves a different plot device?
............
The next movie has been out for a while, but I'm finally around to reviewing it. It's called 'Happy Feet' and it's a movie about a penguin that tap dances instead of singing, which I guess most penguins do... This month, it's back on HBO and because it's also available in our On Demand section, we get to see it whenever Julia wants to see it. Yay!!!!
The movie centers around a penguin named Mumble. From the start, Mumble is different from the other penguins because he doesn't have a singing voice. Apparently, penguins not only sing, but they sing various versions of popular songs that include, "Heartbreak Hotel", "Somebody to Love", "Kiss", "Broken Wings", etc. It's like watching 'Moulin Rouge' with penguins. Curiously enough, they both star Nicole Kidman.
Watching this movie or even listening in the background to this movie makes me want to shove pencils in my eyes and ears. The butchering of songs is bad enough, but then it takes a turn for the worse by the two voices that Robin Williams provides for this movie. First off, he provides the voice of the sassy narrator, who turns out to be the character of Lovelace, the sassy love doctor, which he reads kind of like a grizzled Morgan Freeman meets Barry White. Then we hear him again as Ramon, the sassy Hispanic sounding penguin that Mumble befriends. For some reason, the writers of this movie felt the need to have the smaller penguins that Mumble encounters voiced like they came across the border.
The segments with Robin Williams drive me crazy because I personally can't stand him anymore. There was a time when I really liked Robin Williams. My brother and I thought that he was hysterical, and we'd see every movie that he was in. After a while, you start to notice that he's just doing the same voices whenever he's in a movie or appearing on a show. His list of characters include the sassy John Wayne, the sassy gay guy, the sassy southerner, the sassy Hispanic, the sassy preacher, the sassy cop, the sassy kid or the sassy grandma. I'm sure I've forgotten one. It wasn't so bad in the movie 'Robots' when he played Bender, the sassy, kleptomaniac robot made of spare parts, but it was definitely restrained. He's much better in movies when he's restrained like his roles in Awakenings and Good Will Hunting.
Another thing that drives me crazy about Happy Feet is the non-stop use of music for the sake of plot. You see the plot revolves around Mumble being an outsider because he can't sing like the other penguins. Because of this, he's kind of an outcast due to his crazy dancing that he does instead.
Because the plot, voices and music drive me up the wall, I'll admit that I'm not sure what happens in the middle of the movie. I do know that Mumble loves a girl named Gloria, he can't sing, he's shunned and explores a lot because of it, which is where it's discovered that fish are disappearing. Where it gets really weird is when Mumble and others try to figure out what happened to all the fish. In a very weird turn, Mumble is captured and placed in a zoo in which he faces real actors. He's depressed because he's away from his family and Gloria, the girl penguin he likes. He starts to tap dance one day, people notice and suddenly it turns into a save the world by dancing sequence. Mumble appears back home (with a tracking device on his back) and convinces the penguins to dance to bring back the fish. They do and the humans watching are astounded. It ends with real actors yelling at each other about how they must save the penguins!
It's a very weird movie, and I can't believe it got the good reviews it got. Julia seems to love it though, which I guess is the whole point...
........................
One Friday, Julia and I were on our own. Laura was out of town visiting a friend so I promised Julia that we would see the new movie, The Bee Movie.
We saw the 5:00 showing at the local theater here. Julia was pretty excited to see it. After all, if you've been watching television, it would have been really hard to miss the advertising for The Bee Movie. They were on for the two months before it came out non-stop on the kid channels.
We get to the theater and we go to buy popcorn. Julia really loves popcorn, so we ended up sharing a large popcorn.
Inside the theater, Julia decided that we're going to sit at the very top of the theater so that "we can see better." I tried to tell her that if we sat a few rows closer, we'd see it even better, but she had her heart set on the top row. Once you get Julia's mind set on something, it's hard to change it.
The previews were going and we're eating our popcorn. Julia was holding the huge bag on her lap. After a few minutes, she pulled the popcorn away from me.
I exclaimed in a loud whisper, "Hey! Bring back the popcorn!"
Julia defiantly said, "No, we're saving it for the start of the movie."
I tried to reach across her to get more popcorn.
She pulled away. After a few seconds, she put the bag back on her lap. I reached again. She slapped my hand! I reached again. She slapped my hand again!
I exclaimed, "Hey!"
She said again, "No! We're saving it for the start of the movie!"
I looked at her and then my watch. It's only a few minutes before the movie was supposed to start. I said, "Fine."
I sat there waiting, but I still felt hungry as I had not eaten yet. I looked over at Julia periodically. She was just sitting there watching the trailers, but then I noticed that she was putting popcorn into her mouth every 10 seconds or so.
I said, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."
She stopped eating for a minute. Then she began again.
I said again, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."
She stopped eating for yet another minute. Then she began eating the popcorn yet again.
I exclaimed, "Julia! Stop eating!"
She didn't stop, so I grabbed the bag. She slapped my hand again. This time, I moved close to her face and I said in a low voice, "Julia. This is ridiculous. I paid for the popcorn, and I'm going to eat it if I want to. Otherwise, I'm going to take this popcorn, throw it away and you'll get none. On top of that, you'll be grounded. Is that what you want? Besides, we can get a refill on the popcorn if we run out, remember?"
She looked at me for a second as if she was trying to figure out how serious I was. I think she got the message. Without sighing, she gave me the popcorn bag. I proceeded to eat.
Ahh... kids, aren't they precious? I'm sure years later she'll be convinced by her therapists that all of her problems in life can be traced back to the time when she tried to conserve her popcorn for the movie, but I ate it anyway. She'll come home one Christmas and yell, "You bastard! You ate my popcorn!"
So back to The Bee Movie...
The Bee Movie was written by Jerry Seinfeld, who coincidentally starred in the show Seinfeld. In The Bee Movie, Seinfeld plays the roll of Barry B. Benson, a young bee who's just graduated from school and excited to pick his new career. He gets freaked out that he'll get stuck in his career choice until he dies. After all, he hasn't seen anything out of the outside world. While flying with the pollen jockeys, the bees that collect and spread pollen, he gets lost in the big city. From there, he meets a florist, who he falls in love with. There are some funny scenes with her jealous human boyfriend and his dealing with the human world.
I don't really remember a lot about how the movie's plot goes, but it somehow moves to bees suing the human race for harvesting their honey without permission.
I fell asleep a few times during the courtroom scenes in the movie, which should give you an indication on how much I liked this movie. All in all, it was okay. It started out pretty good with lots of bee puns and humor that adults could appreciate. I just thought it dragged a little.
........................
Another movie we saw recently was the new movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks. As with every beloved franchise from our youth, they have to remake it into a cartoon, 3-D animated film or combination action and 3-D animated film. This is the latter.
The movie centers around a guy named Dave, like the guy from the original song (played by Jason Lee). He's a song writer, but not a very successful one. He plays his demo tape to his friend, Ian (played by David Cross), who is a record executive of some sort, or maybe he's an agent. Ian rejects it and tells him to find something new, so Dave does when he inadvertently becomes the guardian of three chipmunks who can sing and talk. How does one acquire three talking chipmunks you may ask? Well, if you are in the process of leaving a record company's lobby with a stolen muffin basket, it's possible that three talking chipmunks will jump in after their tree is cut down and erected as a Christmas tree in the lobby of said record company.
They introduce themselves to Dave, he freaks out, throws them out, they manage to get back in, and he blackmails them to sing his songs for free room and board. He throws them out again for ruining his dinner date with the girl next door, who happens to look like a super model (played by Cameron Richardson, who curiously enough played a teen supermodel on the show House, when she was about 24 years old). The chipmunks high tail it over to Ian's house without knowing who Ian is, what he does or where he lives. They sing for him the Christmas song and he proclaims them new artists on the record label!
Apparently, it's possible to record, produce and release a Christmas song sung by Chipmunks not only overnight, but so fast that when Dave is in the grocery store the next day, he hears the song on the loud speaker.
Fame comes to the chipmunks. Of course, Ian starts to wedge himself between Dave and the chipmunks, Dave loses the chipmunks, chipmunks miss Dave, Dave misses the chipmunks, Dave wants the chipmunks back, Ian won't let the Chipmunks go, yadda yadda yadda... the Chipmunks are back with Dave.
I left the movie twice to get a refill of popcorn and to go to the bathroom. Curiously enough, I didn't seem to miss anything. I even took my time. This should tell you that I didn't think much of this movie.
I joked with Laura when I came back the second time, "What did I miss?"
She rolled her eyes and said, "Nothing."
The movie was okay, but lacked a clever plot or jokes that weren't derived from trashing an apartment or chipmunk bodily functions.
The one interesting thing to me was the phone-it-in performance by David Cross, who has a dual career of corny movie actor and hipster comedian. You could tell that he was winking at the camera the whole time. Hey, I understand. If I was bit player actor, I'd probably be happy for any role that came my way, too.
One thing I'm getting tired of in these movies are the uses of the same plot device of two parties getting together, then one party goes away, which the other party realizes they were meant to be with the other all along. It's been used over and over with these films. Memo to Hollywood: Can't we just have a remake of a beloved pop culture icon(s) that involves a different plot device?
............
The next movie has been out for a while, but I'm finally around to reviewing it. It's called 'Happy Feet' and it's a movie about a penguin that tap dances instead of singing, which I guess most penguins do... This month, it's back on HBO and because it's also available in our On Demand section, we get to see it whenever Julia wants to see it. Yay!!!!
The movie centers around a penguin named Mumble. From the start, Mumble is different from the other penguins because he doesn't have a singing voice. Apparently, penguins not only sing, but they sing various versions of popular songs that include, "Heartbreak Hotel", "Somebody to Love", "Kiss", "Broken Wings", etc. It's like watching 'Moulin Rouge' with penguins. Curiously enough, they both star Nicole Kidman.
Watching this movie or even listening in the background to this movie makes me want to shove pencils in my eyes and ears. The butchering of songs is bad enough, but then it takes a turn for the worse by the two voices that Robin Williams provides for this movie. First off, he provides the voice of the sassy narrator, who turns out to be the character of Lovelace, the sassy love doctor, which he reads kind of like a grizzled Morgan Freeman meets Barry White. Then we hear him again as Ramon, the sassy Hispanic sounding penguin that Mumble befriends. For some reason, the writers of this movie felt the need to have the smaller penguins that Mumble encounters voiced like they came across the border.
The segments with Robin Williams drive me crazy because I personally can't stand him anymore. There was a time when I really liked Robin Williams. My brother and I thought that he was hysterical, and we'd see every movie that he was in. After a while, you start to notice that he's just doing the same voices whenever he's in a movie or appearing on a show. His list of characters include the sassy John Wayne, the sassy gay guy, the sassy southerner, the sassy Hispanic, the sassy preacher, the sassy cop, the sassy kid or the sassy grandma. I'm sure I've forgotten one. It wasn't so bad in the movie 'Robots' when he played Bender, the sassy, kleptomaniac robot made of spare parts, but it was definitely restrained. He's much better in movies when he's restrained like his roles in Awakenings and Good Will Hunting.
Another thing that drives me crazy about Happy Feet is the non-stop use of music for the sake of plot. You see the plot revolves around Mumble being an outsider because he can't sing like the other penguins. Because of this, he's kind of an outcast due to his crazy dancing that he does instead.
Because the plot, voices and music drive me up the wall, I'll admit that I'm not sure what happens in the middle of the movie. I do know that Mumble loves a girl named Gloria, he can't sing, he's shunned and explores a lot because of it, which is where it's discovered that fish are disappearing. Where it gets really weird is when Mumble and others try to figure out what happened to all the fish. In a very weird turn, Mumble is captured and placed in a zoo in which he faces real actors. He's depressed because he's away from his family and Gloria, the girl penguin he likes. He starts to tap dance one day, people notice and suddenly it turns into a save the world by dancing sequence. Mumble appears back home (with a tracking device on his back) and convinces the penguins to dance to bring back the fish. They do and the humans watching are astounded. It ends with real actors yelling at each other about how they must save the penguins!
It's a very weird movie, and I can't believe it got the good reviews it got. Julia seems to love it though, which I guess is the whole point...
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