I will be posting my ramblings/reactions to the final episodes of BSG sometime this week--but in sum, I loved almost every second. I just haven't been able to formulate my thoughts into coherent enough sentences, not even for this thing.
The following is me waxing poetic about my personal computer history.
I've always been a desktop computer user. I grew up on ye olde beige CPU towers of yore, battling my brother for precious after-school computer time (mostly playing Sim City and then later logging on to AOL/CompuServ--eesh). My first very own computer was a blueberry iMac--all glossy polycarbonate clear and blue plastic, taking up over half of my desk real estate. I loved that computer fiercely for over seven years(!) thanks to my dad's computer know-how and upgrade-happy tendencies. Then I got a new iMac for a graduation/birthday present after college, and it was instant love. A huge 20" screen, DVD/CD burner, bazillions of ports, and it didn't take 20+ minutes to sync my iPod anymore! I was in love all over again. At that point I still didn't see why I would ever want to have a laptop as my main computing/entertainment device. Such small hard drives! Smaller screens! Less horsepower!
Then I got my iPod touch in Sept. 2007, and things started to change. Now, it's not like I hated laptops or anything; I just didn't see the point in making that my main means of computing. My dad was always leaving his work laptop at the kitchen table, and more than once I made use of it checking email, browsing, and whathaveyou. But my iPod gave me a sweet, sweet taste of what it's like to be able to get a hit of that internet anywhere there is an available wi-fi connection. Suddenly, checking email became exponentially more fun when done from the comfort of my own bed. Now when my mom and I had a pop culture factoid dispute, I could whip out my iPod and know in seconds who was right (usually me, heh).
But as much as I loved and continue to love my iPod, I can't help but realize that even though Apple claims you get the "whole internet in your pocket" with the iPod touch, you really don't. No flash video support means No Hulu watching in bed for me. And as nice as it is to be able to read poorly written fan fic right before I drift off to sleep, sometimes no matter how much I zoom in, it's still a bit hard to read. And scrolling down every two seconds gets to be a right pain in the ass after awhile.
This week my dad gave me a refurbished iBook G4 that he found at my mom's work just as something to noddle around with and use as a secondary computer--finally, the full, real live internet in my bedroom! And I have to say, that it is awesome. Even though the computer runs a bit slow when I'm browsing on Firefox and watching a video at the same time on VLC, I'm willing to forgive because this thing is, like, 5 years old and not in pristine condition. Still, pretty frakkin' cool. All of this to say that I've decided that my next computer purchase will be a Mac laptop of some kind (duh, would I get any other kind?)--whatever the latest permutation of the Macbook is depending on my computing needs/requirements. Now, it feels like overkill to have all that computing horsepower when the bulk of my time is spent browsing the web, listening to music, watching video, and sometime doing some photo/video editing. I will miss the gigantic screen because it is kind of like having a second TV in my living room--only this one has internet access. But I'm now willing to sacrifice a few inches of LCD real estate to be able to reduce some of the computer clutter/detritus and sit and type wherever the hell I want. It just makes sense.
Also at LJ
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Because the best thing about being underemployed right now is going to the movies on a Friday morn..
...I saw Watchmen today, all by myself. Literally. I was the only person in a 300+ seat theatre. My spoilerific thoughts coming up afer I guess Adrian Vedit's computer password.
The best thing about it, and conversely the worst thing, is that it changes/exorcises some key plot points from the graphic novel. They wisely changed the part of the ending where Veidt's evil plan to unite people in fear--and therefore avert WWIII between the USSR and USA--was unleashing an alien on NYC and killing millions of people. In the movie, they altered the means from alien to framing Dr. Manhattan, which was a wise move in my opinion because I found the alien reveal to be somewhat cheesy and having Veidt frame Dr. Manhattan has more emotional resonance and less giant alien-brain-mutant-tentacle-thing. So props for that.
On the flip side, they still had to exorcise large-ish chunks of the graphic novel in order to not have the movie clock in at 5+ hours in length. A lot of this is at the expense of character development, specifically Silk Spectre and Rorschach. I found the truncated Rorschach backstory hurt his character because it didn't give a clear enough explanation of why he became the sort of uber-crime-and-punishment vigilante-justice-wielding borderline sociopath he became. There were only a couple of flashes to his childhood--at least they kept the part where he bites off a piece of one tormentor's face (charming)--and no mention at all of the infamous Kitty Genovese indecent in the mid-sixties that spurred him to don his Rorschach alter-ego. All that said, Jackie Earl Haley was a superb choice to play Rorschach. Even though most of the movie has his face covered in the Rorschach mask, his physicality and his raspy-gravelly voice is exactly what you'd imagine Rorschach's to be.
As for Silk Spectre, the reveal of her bio-dad (Comedian) and her acceptance of it is so slam-bang fast as to almost give me metaphorical whiplash. Her truncated backstory did nothing but hurt the character. And of all the Watchmen, she comes across as the flattest, which seems counter intuitive since she got more screen time than most. I think a lot of that had to do with Malin Ackerman herself. She just looks too young to be playing someone in her mid-thirties, and unfortunately her performance didn't do enough to overcome that. I had the same problem with Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias). He just looks too young and too--I don't know, slight?. He's a good looking man, no doubt, but the character is someone who is sort of classically handsome, a kind of all-American ex-football jock type. He has brains and brawn. Goode really only has brains working for him at the level he needs for this role. And the weird, vaguely German/English accent did nothing to help. That was probably the most distracting thing in the whole movie for me.
As for the rest of the Watchmen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan brought just the right amount of sadistic glee to the Comedian, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl proved it is possible to make a pretty man look convincingly schlubby with prostheses, and Dr. Manhattan's almost complete detachment from humanity is right in Billy Crudup's wheelhouse. And yes, you do get several shots of Dr. Manhattan's glowing blue junk. And his fine, fine derriere.
As adaptations go, this was a pretty good one. Director Zack Znyder is a professed fan, and you could tell. There were many scenes in the movie lifted directly from the pages of the novel, right down to each "a" or "the" from the original dialogue. Film is a different medium that comics. It just is. Where in the comic you can linger on a panel or page and have pages and pages of extra material not directly tied in to the action in the panels, a movie is always moving forward to the finish--and will get there in under 3 hours, preferably. As I understand it, much of the extra stuff from the comic--the comic-in-a-comic, the magazine excerpts, news clippings etc. will be included as extra features in the DVD. Which is nice, because it does a great job of putting the action in a much richer, colorful context. It's just too bad there couldn't have been more of it in the actual movie itself. But you could tell he wanted to cram in as much as possible, which resulted in some very compelling visual story telling. Perhaps the best example comes right at the beginning when we get an introduction to this parallel universe by way of a montage of significant historical events from the '40s-'70s if superheroes had been there. This was adaptation at its most effective.
I enjoy the graphic novel quite a bit--it's long and dense and begs repeat readings to peel back the payers. The same is true of the movie version. There is simply too much going on to be able to absorb it all in a single viewing. I'm just concerned people will decide it's not worth their time--it's about an AU where not-very-popular superheores are real and just as fucked up as normal people--or they'll see it and be disappointed that the ads misled them into thinking it was going to be a nonstop action-fest bloodbath. And that would be a shame. Because as comic movies go, this was definitely one of the more original and interesting takes on the genre and I would hate for this to been seen an epic fail (a steep drop-off in second weekend ticket sales will tell) and result in more dreck like fucking Spiderman 4.
Also at LJ
The best thing about it, and conversely the worst thing, is that it changes/exorcises some key plot points from the graphic novel. They wisely changed the part of the ending where Veidt's evil plan to unite people in fear--and therefore avert WWIII between the USSR and USA--was unleashing an alien on NYC and killing millions of people. In the movie, they altered the means from alien to framing Dr. Manhattan, which was a wise move in my opinion because I found the alien reveal to be somewhat cheesy and having Veidt frame Dr. Manhattan has more emotional resonance and less giant alien-brain-mutant-tentacle-thing. So props for that.
On the flip side, they still had to exorcise large-ish chunks of the graphic novel in order to not have the movie clock in at 5+ hours in length. A lot of this is at the expense of character development, specifically Silk Spectre and Rorschach. I found the truncated Rorschach backstory hurt his character because it didn't give a clear enough explanation of why he became the sort of uber-crime-and-punishment vigilante-justice-wielding borderline sociopath he became. There were only a couple of flashes to his childhood--at least they kept the part where he bites off a piece of one tormentor's face (charming)--and no mention at all of the infamous Kitty Genovese indecent in the mid-sixties that spurred him to don his Rorschach alter-ego. All that said, Jackie Earl Haley was a superb choice to play Rorschach. Even though most of the movie has his face covered in the Rorschach mask, his physicality and his raspy-gravelly voice is exactly what you'd imagine Rorschach's to be.
As for Silk Spectre, the reveal of her bio-dad (Comedian) and her acceptance of it is so slam-bang fast as to almost give me metaphorical whiplash. Her truncated backstory did nothing but hurt the character. And of all the Watchmen, she comes across as the flattest, which seems counter intuitive since she got more screen time than most. I think a lot of that had to do with Malin Ackerman herself. She just looks too young to be playing someone in her mid-thirties, and unfortunately her performance didn't do enough to overcome that. I had the same problem with Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias). He just looks too young and too--I don't know, slight?. He's a good looking man, no doubt, but the character is someone who is sort of classically handsome, a kind of all-American ex-football jock type. He has brains and brawn. Goode really only has brains working for him at the level he needs for this role. And the weird, vaguely German/English accent did nothing to help. That was probably the most distracting thing in the whole movie for me.
As for the rest of the Watchmen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan brought just the right amount of sadistic glee to the Comedian, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl proved it is possible to make a pretty man look convincingly schlubby with prostheses, and Dr. Manhattan's almost complete detachment from humanity is right in Billy Crudup's wheelhouse. And yes, you do get several shots of Dr. Manhattan's glowing blue junk. And his fine, fine derriere.
As adaptations go, this was a pretty good one. Director Zack Znyder is a professed fan, and you could tell. There were many scenes in the movie lifted directly from the pages of the novel, right down to each "a" or "the" from the original dialogue. Film is a different medium that comics. It just is. Where in the comic you can linger on a panel or page and have pages and pages of extra material not directly tied in to the action in the panels, a movie is always moving forward to the finish--and will get there in under 3 hours, preferably. As I understand it, much of the extra stuff from the comic--the comic-in-a-comic, the magazine excerpts, news clippings etc. will be included as extra features in the DVD. Which is nice, because it does a great job of putting the action in a much richer, colorful context. It's just too bad there couldn't have been more of it in the actual movie itself. But you could tell he wanted to cram in as much as possible, which resulted in some very compelling visual story telling. Perhaps the best example comes right at the beginning when we get an introduction to this parallel universe by way of a montage of significant historical events from the '40s-'70s if superheroes had been there. This was adaptation at its most effective.
I enjoy the graphic novel quite a bit--it's long and dense and begs repeat readings to peel back the payers. The same is true of the movie version. There is simply too much going on to be able to absorb it all in a single viewing. I'm just concerned people will decide it's not worth their time--it's about an AU where not-very-popular superheores are real and just as fucked up as normal people--or they'll see it and be disappointed that the ads misled them into thinking it was going to be a nonstop action-fest bloodbath. And that would be a shame. Because as comic movies go, this was definitely one of the more original and interesting takes on the genre and I would hate for this to been seen an epic fail (a steep drop-off in second weekend ticket sales will tell) and result in more dreck like fucking Spiderman 4.
Also at LJ
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Spoiler alert.
This post contains spoilers for the most recent episodes of BSG and Lost, so click through at your own risk.
TV Thoughts: BSG "Someone to Watch Over Me"
I would have more to say, but when I watched the episode, I was nearly falling asleep and knew I had to be up about an hour before the asscrack of dawn the next day. So just a few thoughts this time, though I really did enjoy the episode. It was certainly one of the best Chief showcases of the series, and I loves me some Chief. I really felt for him when he found out he'd been played by Boomer. And man, is Boomer a manipulative bitch. I don't think I've ever truly hated her, but this episode really made me hate her--emotionally screwing with Chief like that, taking advantage of Helo's susceptibility to the Eights like that, and making Athena watch! Bitch! As far as the Starbuck stuff goes, that was also good. I felt pretty confident by the end of the second act that the mystery piano player was ghost!Dad or whatevs, but I enjoyed their chemistry anyways because at this point, I don't care much about the plot as much as spending time with these characters before it's all over. I love that they are really incorporating the musical score into that character's lives. The Gershwin-influenced score this week was really an auditory treat; plus, I felt a cut above average for being able to identify that even before I read Bear McCreary's blog post on the episode.
TV Thoughts: Lost "LeFleur"
I'm loving Lost these days--LOVING! IT! This Sawyer-centric episode was by far one of my favorites of the season, and possibly the series. Last week's Locke-centric mission to reunite the Oceanic 6 band was great, as many Locke episodes are, but this was had that extra something that kept me glued to my sofa. Sawyer screen time has been in short supply recently, so maybe that's why I loved it so much--Sawyer clearly gets the best dialogue, and as a bonus we got to see him with clean hair--something we haven't seen since sometime in season 3. This episode really felt like a breather--there really wasn't a whole lot of plot momentum, other than getting an extended look at life in the Dharma Initiative during their heyday in 1974, until the end, and the rest of the hour was filling in blanks and spending time with the no longer time-traveling-sickened left-behinders. There wasn't a lot of Daniel, but what there was packed a wallop; Jeremy Davies really knows how to sell distraught and quasi-catatonic. Miles got to be a smart-ass and just generally be Sawyer 2.0. Jin's English improved! As did his hair. But the heart of the episode belonged to Sawyer and Juliette. They are teh cute! I really like them together. Of course, as soon as he gave that spiel to Horace about how three years is enough time to get over someone, it was obvious that the next development was going to be Kate & Co. getting zapped back to the island. All of that being said, the gaspiest part for me was getting that frustratingly brief glimpse of the Four-toed Statue (I'm just guessing but come on, that's pretty much a gimmie) back when it was A Whole Statue. Cuselof, you bastards!!
Also at LJ
TV Thoughts: BSG "Someone to Watch Over Me"
I would have more to say, but when I watched the episode, I was nearly falling asleep and knew I had to be up about an hour before the asscrack of dawn the next day. So just a few thoughts this time, though I really did enjoy the episode. It was certainly one of the best Chief showcases of the series, and I loves me some Chief. I really felt for him when he found out he'd been played by Boomer. And man, is Boomer a manipulative bitch. I don't think I've ever truly hated her, but this episode really made me hate her--emotionally screwing with Chief like that, taking advantage of Helo's susceptibility to the Eights like that, and making Athena watch! Bitch! As far as the Starbuck stuff goes, that was also good. I felt pretty confident by the end of the second act that the mystery piano player was ghost!Dad or whatevs, but I enjoyed their chemistry anyways because at this point, I don't care much about the plot as much as spending time with these characters before it's all over. I love that they are really incorporating the musical score into that character's lives. The Gershwin-influenced score this week was really an auditory treat; plus, I felt a cut above average for being able to identify that even before I read Bear McCreary's blog post on the episode.
TV Thoughts: Lost "LeFleur"
I'm loving Lost these days--LOVING! IT! This Sawyer-centric episode was by far one of my favorites of the season, and possibly the series. Last week's Locke-centric mission to reunite the Oceanic 6 band was great, as many Locke episodes are, but this was had that extra something that kept me glued to my sofa. Sawyer screen time has been in short supply recently, so maybe that's why I loved it so much--Sawyer clearly gets the best dialogue, and as a bonus we got to see him with clean hair--something we haven't seen since sometime in season 3. This episode really felt like a breather--there really wasn't a whole lot of plot momentum, other than getting an extended look at life in the Dharma Initiative during their heyday in 1974, until the end, and the rest of the hour was filling in blanks and spending time with the no longer time-traveling-sickened left-behinders. There wasn't a lot of Daniel, but what there was packed a wallop; Jeremy Davies really knows how to sell distraught and quasi-catatonic. Miles got to be a smart-ass and just generally be Sawyer 2.0. Jin's English improved! As did his hair. But the heart of the episode belonged to Sawyer and Juliette. They are teh cute! I really like them together. Of course, as soon as he gave that spiel to Horace about how three years is enough time to get over someone, it was obvious that the next development was going to be Kate & Co. getting zapped back to the island. All of that being said, the gaspiest part for me was getting that frustratingly brief glimpse of the Four-toed Statue (I'm just guessing but come on, that's pretty much a gimmie) back when it was A Whole Statue. Cuselof, you bastards!!
Also at LJ
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