apple juice

I’ve sat here for a few minutes, staring at the screen, trying to come up with something coherent, intelligent, adhering to the rules of the english language, anything. and I’m having trouble doing that.

I’m pretty much in a state of shock. Everything I just saw has so completely knocked me on my ass, I won’t even try to give you some sort of review. I can only suggest that you go see this movie.

To try and give you an idea: I was so completely gripped, so completely engaged in the movie, I could not move for the last hour and a half. I sat, mouth agape, goosebumps all over, arms limp.

Maybe one or two observations: (I won’t give anything away)

• I had purposely avoided all media related to the movie prior to seeing it. However I had gathered a few things based on the one trailer I saw, and one story about the technology.
• It went far beyond what I had guessed was going to happen.
• The main action scene that has been hyped is, in my opinion, probably the greatest special effect acheivements in a movie, ever.
• I am so completely dissapointed and dissolutioned with Star Wars now it’s not even funny. (I may even consider selling my Darth Vader, okay maybe not)
• Seriously, first the Lord of the Rings, and now this? My new rankings:
  1. The Matrix
  2. Lord of the Rings
  3. Star Wars
• The soundtrack, once again, is awesome.
• If there was ever a sci-fi movie that was not a sci-fi movie (as I was trying to explain to a co-worker yesterday) this is it.

That’s all I can give right now. I’m going to see it again soon. Anybody want to go?

Some people from college will remember this, but when the original Matrix came out, I saw it right away (almost by accident) and then proceeded to see it about 8-10 times in the theatre as I went along with different groups of friends. I could definately see that happening again.

One actress I really enjoy watching is Parker Posey. Unfortunately I’m not skilled in the art of dissecting movie performances, but when you see Parker Posey acting in a movie, you can tell she has done her homework.

One movie they didn’t mention was Party Girl, one of my favorites. It’s definately quirky and weird, but I love those kind of movies

Though few have honed the art of cinematic sarcasm quite as adeptly as Posey, she always conveys far more than just snark and sass. Indeed, her performances in films like Hal Hartley’s “Henry Fool” have revealed Posey’s dramatic depth, her ability to invest virtually any role with nuance and complexity.

Read the interview

Sonja and I watched a movie last week, recommended by my sister, called The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat).

I knew nothing about the movie as we were settling in to watch, but it turned out to be one of those movies you’ll want to learn everything about:

Igloolik is a community of 1200 people located on a small island in the north Baffin region of the Canadian Arctic with archeological evidence of 4000 years of continuous habitation. Throughout these millennia, with no written language, untold numbers of nomadic Inuit renewed their culture and traditional knowledge for every generation entirely through storytelling.

Our film Atanarjuat is part of this continuous stream of oral history carried forward into the new millennium through a marriage of Inuit storytelling skills and new technology.

The movie tells the story of an Inuit legend. It written and directed by Inuit people, and all the actors were Inuit. Obviously they aren’t speaking english, but luckily there are subtitles.

I think that’s all I’m going to say. Oh, and I’m such a geek, that about 30 seconds into it, I proclaimed.. “This was shot digitally!” I received the quizzical look from Sonja, but my internet research later proved me correct. The digital ‘film’ works wonderfully in this case and gives a feel of being right there, seeing it all happen in front of you.

Wow.

It’s hard not to repeat what has been said elsewhere about this movie, but I’m here to say that it delivered. There was no feeling of expectations not met (Star Wars), no feeling that I was cheated out of my seven dollars (Star Wars). The Two Towers is a masterpiece.

To give you an idea of how amazing this movie was, how completely it grabbed your emotions, there were times in the movie where you could not hear a single person take a breath in the theatre. A collective sigh of relief would comfort you when the danger passed, but the unrelenting action of the movie swept you up and soon there was another moment that held you in mid-breath.

I don’t want to give away any of the key moments, because even though I’m sure most of you are at least familiar with the story, there are parts, that when realized on the screen, are much more powerful than what I had read in the book. The battle of Helm’s Deep, for example, was hard for me to get my head around in the book. I wasn’t thinking on a grand enough scale. In the movie, however, the battle is realized with perfection. (Minus the dwarf jokes)

Basically, you need to see this movie. If you haven’t seen Fellowship of the Ring yet, go see that first. This one picks up right away. You will be confused. There is very little backtracking.

I told a co-worker this morning that this trilogy is replacing Star Wars as my all-time favorite. And I haven’t even seen the last one yet! It’s that good.

Side note. This movie is rated PG-13 for a reason. Don’t bring your little kids to see it. It will scare the crap out of them. Parts of the movie scared the crap out of me. I saw one little girl that was maybe eight on the way out. I can’t imagine the dreams she’s going to have for the next week. Sonja called the people who designed the Uruk-hai “geniuses of terror”. And once you see them in action, you’ll have to agree.

This is easily my favorite movie of the year. Go see it! (And go read a real review if you want fluffy-artsy talk)

Going to see The Two Towers tonight. I can barely contain my excitement. So far at Metacritic it’s garnered a 92, pretty dang good. At work we’re doing a demo for most of the afternoon, so I won’t have too much time to think about it… but the countdown has begun… 10h 17m

Whoops, 10h 16m

Full review tomorrow…

Wired, in my opinion, has gone downhill since I first started reading the magazine. However, they still write some cool articles from time to time. This article, discussing some of the battle scenes for The Two Towers is amazing.

When an animator places agents into a simulation, they’re released to do what they will. It’s not crowd control but anarchy. That’s because each agent makes decisions from its point of view. Still, when properly genetically engineered, the right character will always win the fight. “It’s possible to rig fights, but it hasn’t been done,” Regelous said. “In the first test fight we had 1,000 silver guys and 1,000 golden guys. We set off the simulation, and in the distance you could see several guys running for the hills.”

It’s scary to take two leaps ahead and think about the possibilities of some sort of “intelligent” program wired up to a robot. that has more advanced motor movements than the newest Asimo robot.

The Dumbest Movie Ever.

Okay, that’s a little harsh. Goldmember wasn’t a terrible movie, but I do think it was the worst of the three. I admit I laughed pretty hard when Dr. Evil got hit with the “meteor”. Other parts were very funny as well. However, when a movie becomes aware that it is a movie, (Austin reading the subtitles on the screen) you know there is a problem.

I hope that it is the last of the series. The first one was excellent, and they’ve been downhill from there.