Archive for the 'Movies and Music' Category

The One About the Cheap Movies and Babylon A.D.

Published on August 12, 2009 in Movies and Music. 2 Comments

Saturday, I wanted to take The Wife out to the movies. Problem is there’s nothing out there we want to see. The new Harry Potter movie came close to being chosen, but then we found out that my parents were over at my sister’s place, which means they’d want to stop over, which means that heading to the movies would be like telling them we didn’t want to see them.

Alright, that made more sense in my head. Also, it wasn’t anywhere nearly as drastic.

At any rate, we ended up stopping by Blockbuster to pick up a rental. Yes, we have Netflix. We LOVE Netflix, but we wanted something now (or then, whatever). After going in and looking around for a bit, we found the 2-for-$20 and 4-for-$20 tables. Jackpot. We put the movies we were going to rent back on the shelves and started looking through these pre-viewed wonders. Luckily, we had time enough to search, because it was at that moment that heaven’s pipes broke and flooded the streets.

Half an hour later, when it stopped raining, we walked out with a handful of movies, including The Golden Compass, Babylon A.D., Inkheart, and some dragon documentary made by Animal Planet. (I can’t remember its name, sorry, but it was this documentary which chronicled what the evolutionary path of dragons would have been if they were real. Very cool, although it had the cinematic quality of the made-for-TV Dynotopia, which we also own, and which I’ve watched more times than I can count.)

It’s lucky for me that my quality threshold is lowered the cheaper a movie gets. While The Golden Compass, Inkheart and the dragon movie are movies I’d pay more than $5 for, Babylon A.D. isn’t. In fact, the only way I can really justify this movie being in my collection is if I think about this as a “buy 3 get 1 free” deal.

Alright, so Babylon A.D. isn’t that bad. In case you haven’t seen it, it’s a Vin Diesel (his stage name; his real name is “Weenie McWeinerton”) sci-fi movie, sort of like Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick but with less space action. (Actually, Chronicles of Riddick is one of my favorite movies, as it ties in a pretty good story with phenomenal special effects and awesome action. In fact, that’s one thing about Vin Diesel movies, they’re usually great for action. But I’m digressing.) It’s about this mercenary, Turop, who’s hired to transport this girl with huge lips and some kind of power into the U.S. Problem is that he’s considered a terrorist, and by this time North America is essentially a fortress, guarded by unmanned jets, jets easily dispatched by Turop on a snow-mobile. (I think it was a Scootie-puff Jr.)

I’d go on with the story line, but… honestly, I’m not sure where the story line went. First there were these guys fighting who look like they came out of Westside Story, then the pair, accompanied by this kung-fu expert nun, make it to New York where a mafia-style religious order starts a massive gun battle with what look like understudies for the part of Skeletor in the 1980′s He-Man movie, all of whom ride bikes. That’s before everything blows up, Turop dies so that he can live, and the Westisde Story gang dips into his brain to find where the girl ran off to.

So yeah, all in all it was a great movie. Really. It was just missing a coherent story line and a good ending. (I blame the writers.) Other than that, awesome. My favorite part? The big Coca-Cola Zero airplane that takes up about a minute of screen-time. I don’t know how much Coca-Cola paid for the spot, but they got their money’s worth, as it was easily the most memorable spot in the film: I laughed so hard and for so long I had to pause the movie. I don’t think they meant it to be quite that funny, however. The next memorable moment was when Turop shot a cute arctic bunny. Sorry, but any film in which a bunny is so hilariously shot is one I can’t take all that seriously. “Oh look, a bunny!” I said. 10 second later, I see a man, then a laser point, and suddenly rabbit brain cells, millions of them.

You’ve probably noticed how incredibly rambling this post is. Well now you know what the movie feels like. I can only recommend this movie if you like Vin Diesel movies, action, special effects, or sci-fi. Actually, for those of you looking for good sci-fi, a couple of cool technologies are featured in this film, and a few anthropological ideas are pushed, but nothing is explored in depth, which was a big disappointment I felt with this film. The concepts they touch on, of a religious order pressing towards the next level of evolution by the creation of a “miracle” combined with the levels of political instability displayed, were topics I would have loved to know more about. Alas, they surrender talk of that for the Coke Zero plane and explosions, lots of them.

In short, the movie was enjoyable to watch, though I think it’s one I’ll feature at my next “Bad Movie Party”. Yes, I’ve seen worse, but this one is good enough to enjoy and bad enough to be made fun of.

Come to think of it, maybe it was worth the $5.

A Short Breakdown of the Free and Open Source Software Crowd

Published on January 19, 2009 in Movies and Music, Observations and Open Source & Linux. 0 Comments

While I’m not into the FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) movement as I was in the past, I feel that one of the things new people dealing with that community should understand is the different types of people they’ll encounter. With that in mind, here are the four types for users of FOSS.

Continue reading ‘A Short Breakdown of the Free and Open Source Software Crowd’

When Should I Start Caring?

Published on December 29, 2008 in Life, Movies and Music and Observations. 3 Comments

NOTE: This post was actually written about 7 months ago, when I was in the middle of getting tested for a number of conditions. I was hurt and afraid. Its tone will therefore be considerably different than what you’re used to, if you’re a frequent reader. I decided to publish this because I felt it a fair question, one that could elicit discussion and would elicit thought.

I belong to more than a few email groups. Usually, these are for subjects I wish to learn on: psychology, health, writing, philosophy, etc. Recently I joined a particular health group because I wanted to find out more about a particular condition, one that isn’t well studied but which is being revealed as being more prominent than people once thought. I did this in order to learn, and to help others. However, the old adage “No good deed goes unpunished” proved true, as it was my helping others that cost me my ability to learn more about it. I’ll explain: Continue reading ‘When Should I Start Caring?’

Walmart Commies Clean

Published on October 22, 2008 in Movies and Music and Observations. 3 Comments Tags: , .

We’ve been buying furniture lately to furnish the new place. For the most part this has involved going to estate sales, garage sales, and antique shops to look for those just-right pieces of furniture. After all, we have a lot of space in the house and don’t wish to fill it with crap. And I subscribe to the theory that all the pieces in the home should be both useful and individually appealing, things which stand out on their own, yet blend in within the framework of the decor. It’s hard to do that with furniture from the big sellers, at least within our current budgetary constraints.

After seeing as much as we’ve seen, as as many prices as we’ve seen, I decided to walk to the local Walmart (which is in the same strip as a used furniture store and a Goodwill) to remind myself what crap looked like, and how it was priced. (This way I could get my bearings again.) Now, I know that going to Walmart is bad for your self esteem: when you go in, demons land on your shoulders and begin feeding on your soul. But walking around the store I saw signs which made me think that Walmart finally came clean, after a swift double-take. Compare the pictures and see if you can spot the similarities.

Walmart and China

(On the left, a sign I saw all over Walmart. On the right, the Chinese flag.)

Yes, China’s prices ARE unbeatable. Thanks for telling us, Walmart! Thing is, it’s easy to be unbeatable when you artificially devalue your currency and peg it to that of your biggest potential economic competitor, thereby ensuring a price imbalance. But hey, at least Walmart’s finally being (mostly) honest as to where their loyalties lie. Has the company finally (un)officially admitted to becoming the commercial wing of the Chinese government? The signs point to yes.