Everybody Staze...

Return of the King. What can I say? Well, I’ll save some of the plot info for the extended entry… so if you HAVE NOT seen the movie DO NOT read the extended entry. I warned you.

All and All, amazing movie. While it was 42 minutes longer than the previous 2, (3:42 as opposed to 3 hours) it felt shorter than Two Towers. Two Towers dragged during Helm’s Deep, and while I loved it, it just made me want to wiggle out of my theater seat. Return of the King wasn’t like that. I never felt like I wanted to get up and stretch, or anything. Very well paced, and enough was always going on that I never thought “when is this movie going to end?” Part of that is no doubt the fact it’s the final movie of the three… but then, if I may make a general statement, Matrix 3… yeah, wanted to know when it was going to be over. But that’s because the Wachowski brothers screwed up that one good. George Lucas, eat your heart out. You very well may NOT be the worst thing to ever happen to a story… well, then again, maybe you are.

In hind sight, watch the LotR’s movies before reading the books. That at least will eliminate the possibility of doing what I did… picking out everything that did or didn’t happen in the book. From what I’ve heard from other canon critical people, the second viewing helps with this phenomenon… so I’m anxious to see it again. It’s just hard to justify spending that much money on something when you barely have enough money to buy food, or pay bills… ya know?

I dressed up of course, and our group of 20 got to the theater on opening day around 4, so we began the line. I showed up the first time around 8, and then came back at 9 after changing into my outfit. They let us into the theater at 10 (for a midnight showing). Garret, a friend of his named Brian, and myself all played Quake 3 for a while… I like that game when there are several people playing it. with just 3 people, I have a hard time not getting owned because I obviously am not as good as Garret. Though after I stopped, Romes proceeded to beat Garret 10-6 and Romes had never played Quake 3 before. That’s saying something… someone who has never played Quake 3 and considers themself a gamer.

Crowd was good, all and all very considerate. A few cheers at key points, but no yelling at the screen, or screaming, or anything like that. That was nice. Not much else to say about the movie… so on with the next topic(s). I also want to mention that I think the version we saw was a preview reel. There were no subtitles for the Elvish, and the beginning of the movie was kinda screwed up (turned green and yellow and the sound stuttered). In hind sight, well all should have complained about it and gotten passes to another showing of the movie. Oh well.

Work has been good. Not nearly as busy as I would have thought. We’ve calmly be going through the work to be done, and so far it’s been quite relaxing. No constantly nagging professors or students, so we can just do the stuff we need to do. The batch of eMacs haven’t arrived yet. But the Terminal Services server is set up, all the main servers (Auth, Data, and Video) have been upgraded to 10.3.2 (after I botched an install on the Auth server, and had to pound on it for 5 hours to get it back to pre-upgrade, then upgrade it again). All and all, a good time working so far.

Was up in Portland this weekend, and I’m back down in Eugene for the next few days (well, day) then back up to Portland tomorrow night. Just had to work. Kinda sucks, but I need the money, so I’m not going to pass up the chance to get that.

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it at all, but the planning for the next con has gotten underway. I’m hoping to get some work done on a site soon. Zach said he’s going to take care of that, and threw in that he might be able to get Gabe and Tyco down for the next KumoriCon. That would indeed be sweet.

Right now I’m sitting here watching RC (Rivenchan) play Final Fantasy X-2. I’m really not sure what to think. Part of it really scares me, and upsets me. It has a very teeny bopper girly girl feel to it. Too cute or something. It reminds me of Charlies Angels. It’s freaky. I don’t know… I’m starting to wonder if Square did the right thing merging with Enix. If they release a new Dragon Warrior, then we’ll talk.

Well, I think I’m going to save the actual plot analysis for later… it’ll be attached to this post, but not right now. Once I’m done, it’ll appear.

Thanks everyone, hope to see as many of you as possible over break. That means you Val… hopefully sooner rather than later.

Well, here it is. Hopefully I can say something that is interesting. First of all, I’ll say that this is my favorate of the 3 movies. Though, I’ve only seen RotK once. I want to watch the extended editions of the first 2 again, then go watch the movie again.

Main complaints… they completely destroyed Eomer’s character. He is supposed to have much closer relationships with Eowyn, and all the others. He is traumatized by the death of Theodin’s death. While this isn’t a big thing, it does bother me. Arwen is completely different than what Tolkein wrote. She’s too big… she’s supposed to just be a small character… someone that keeps Aragorn from going off and having a relationship with Eowyn, or anyone else. She’s his love from his childhood. She’s Elrond’s daughter… and therefore part human, which is why she can choose mortality. She is a further infusion of elven blood into the line of kings (who are already partially elven, hence their long life). Oh yeah, biggest complaint… Narsil. ARGGGG. He was supposed to get it when they first went to Rivendale. Not in the Return of the King. Gar. I was very scared when I saw the movie, thinking that the person in the cloak was Arwen, and she was bringing the sword to him. That would have just been WRONG… Elrond was bad enough, but at least his speech was good.

Minor complaints: the men under the mountain. too ethereal. Too ghostlike. I thought, when I read the book, that they were just men who could not die. Haggered. Not ghosts. The CG was great when they just rolled over the Oleophant… but still, they were like the end all warriors… so it just seems kinda silly. The Palantir… it was supposed to be thrown from the Tower by Wormtong… they just found it in the water… that’s dumb. It was obviously in the Tower in the first 2 movies… how did it suddenly get in the water when the Tower was in perfect condition. Leading to another complaint… the lack of Christopher Lee in the movie. While his part was basically over by the end of the Two Towers… he still could have been put in.

Minor Minor Complaints: That WAS NOT the last ship to the west. Celeborn stayed behind for a while. The captain of the ship was supposed to have a beard. He is/was supposed to be the oldest elf in middle earth. I also was greatly worried when they showed the three of them standing there (Elrond, Galadriel, and Celeborn), thinking they were trying to say that they had all 3 rings. Gandalf clearly had the ring on when they finally showed his hand.

Compliments: Amazingly well done. Cinematography was excellent, acting, superb. I really can’t complain about the movie except those things that are just in contradiction to the book. And really, that’s the case with every book and movie… I could do the same with Interview with the Vampire, Hunt for Red October, Starship Troopers, etc. So really, read my comments with a grain of salt, and see the movie. If you’ve neither read the books, or seen the movies, see the movies first. That will at least keep you from doing what I did.

Good luck to you all in your movie going… I just can’t wait to see what the extended edition brings, and whether it addresses any of these issues I had.

So yeah… figured it was finally time for a new update. Tonight I head off to see RotK, but last night I went and saw Last Samurai. Very Edward Zwick (Glory, Legends of the Fall). Very good movie as his other ones were. Also in a very good position for some awards. With Tom Cruise as the star, and some great cinematography, I think it will do quite well. While the historical aspect was adequate, it wasn’t quite a history movie. Some things bothered me… but they did not try to make Cruise too native. When speaking Japanese, he sounded white, and he didn’t learn to read Japanese. That to me seems accurate and believable. The interaction with Emperor Meiji seemed somewhat accurate for the time and the Westerisation of Japan. The dwindling population of the Samurai seemed accurate… their desire to remain. Their Loyalty to the Emperor obviously was something that would have only appeared since the unification of Japan. Ken Watanabe, who plays Katsumoto, does an excellent job.

Really, i would suggest the movie to anyone if only for the extremely vivid battle scenes, and the cinematography. But I would say in hind sight, don’t expect anything truly great if you’ve seen Zwicks other movies… while it isn’t quite like Braveheart and The Patriot, there are some simalarities.

As for personal things, not much is going on. Val is home for break and I plan on going and seeing her this weekend. The Con was great, we ended up making about 2k… which will shortly be dumped into reserving a hotel for the next con. I am now the Communications “officer” for the con. I am incharge of making sure people know how to talk to eachother, and keeping the website, etc up and running. I am not sure if I am supposed to take care of content for the site or not… but that will be sorted out in short order.

My 23rd birthday was a short while ago (Friday the 12th). Many people showed, and I thank them all for coming and buying me Kitchen Gadgets. And while I continue to be annoyed at a friend of mines insistance at becoming the female mirror of her beau.

Well… I will be posting some more stuff shortly about my experiance at the Con. I was going to backpst it a while ago… but I’m lazy, so I’ll just post it as an insert for my next post.

I’ll be at the theater tonight at 20:00… and the showing is at 00:05, and being a 3:42 movie… I should be home about 04:00. I am going to be D-E-D dead tomorrow… so don’t expect a post again uuntil Thursday.

Be well everyone… and have fun at the movie. =)

So, this post has been coming for a long time, but I really haven’t had any reason to post. I’m quite sorry about it, and I realize that my last post rolled well over a couple weeks ago, so yeah… I’ll work on it.

My weeks in movies, that’s one topic I decided I wanted to cover with this post. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve seen 4 movies, I think. Underworld, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill Vol. 1, and Intolerable Cruelty (in that order). Let me cover them all real quick: giving a quick opinion.

1. Underworld. Good, the female lead is cute, the supporting actor that plays the head Vampire is quite cool. Would I pay full price to see it again? no. See it when it hits the cheap theater.

2. Lost in Translation. See it. Amazing movie. Sophia Coppola has 2 great movies under her belt, and I can’t wait to see what she produces as she goes on in life. She is going to be like her father, produces little, but all of it quality. Oh, and the female lead… HOT.

3. Kill Bill Vol 1. What can I say? Covert and I (and Outlaw too to my knowledge) love revenge movies. There’s so much potential there for truly brilliant action, and gruesome actions toward other people (mentally and physically). This movie is very Tarentino. Great shots, amazing soundtrack, and really, I have to agree with Gene Siskel, this movie was very much about the genre of Samurai movies of the 50’s-70’s and not so much about the story. Nevertheless, since I have seen the movie, I have wanted to go see it again and again. Not for the hemophobic, but I will say that while there is a huge amount of blood in the movie, almost all of it is humorous in nature. Then again, I was shown in Psychology that laughter is a common human response to an uncomfortable situation… so it could be that it was humorous only for that… but I tend to think just because most of the bleeding was such an exercise in hyperbole as to be hilarious rather than grotesque.

4. Intolerable Cruelty. Coen Brothers to the core. As usual, a story that may have been covered before, but not to the level that they cover it. A tried and true story, often almost Shakespearean with humor infused throughout. Amazing fight scene as seen in Raising Arizona, or the couple in Barton Fink, or the rather violent/graphic one in Fargo. This one involving a rather lovely character named “Weezey Joe”. Clooney plays his part wonderfully and very reminiscent of his role in O Brother Where art Thou. Catherine Zeta Jones does a wonderful job, even without her husband. 😉 I highly suggest going and seeing this movie if you’re a Coen brother’s fan. If you’re not, or are unfamiliar with their work, see it anyway… and if you’re a cheapskate, wait until it hits the $1.50 theater and see it there. Then go rent the rest of their movies and see those. Please don’t ask me to rank their movies, I don’t think I could.

If I was to rank these four in the order I’d suggest seeing them, then I’d have to go: 2, 3, 4, 1. But 3 and 4 are very close. And 2 is my main suggestion because I think it’s amazing… Bill Murray is wonderful, Johansenn is amazing, and Coppola is perfect. I hope it gets some nom… though I’m not sure what. Kill Bill will, and Cruelty will too… but they are mainstream movies. Lost in Translation is just now getting main stream coverage at major movieplexes, so my hope is that it will gain the acclaim it deserves. Though, I will say, it takes a few minutes to get over the Japanese references.

School is interesting. I’m taking a whole lot of chemistry, and when I can convince myself to go, I rather enjoy it. Really, I’m pretty burnt out. I know it’s just a whining, but I really haven’t had a good long vacation in a long time. I really just need to go somewhere. But, I really don’t know where. Work is interesting, and overall pretty uneventful, but building up to to Winter Break. For those of you who have seen the Jschool, we will be upgrading our really old shitty lab (full of 7500s and beige G3’s) to be all modern. Flat Panel 17″ iMacs. The bitch is still going to be print accounting, but hopefully we can get that taken care of. It will so speed up the lab. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about quark or pagemaker, but that’s all Andre’s job to figure out.

On that note, I must say I love MacOS 10.3… I have been running the final build for some time. The biggest thing, I must say, is that on my 12″ powerbook, it makes my machine run much cooler.

Some of this post was done while I was in Central Oregon over the weekend. Could be the last time I go over there. My Grandparents put the property up for sale. Really has me pretty upset. I’ll miss that place a lot if I can’t go over there anymore. It’s been around longer than I have, so I always remember going over there and enjoying the dry heat, thunderstorms, beautiful landscape, etc. Probably one of the main reasons I believe Oregon is the most amazing and pretty state there is. And I’ve been to a lot of the states, though I must admit, not all of the areas within them.

Well, anywho, I should go. I’ll try to make another post by the end of the week, but I’m not making any promises. Thank you for being so patient and not bugging me about my lack of posting, or the nice black background you see since my last post rolled. I think I might have some different posting topics if I get a chance to post again. Partially sparked by books I’m reading, and partially by what’s taking up a lot of my free time at work and home… watching Good Eats.

See ya.