A.I. was good. It was truly Kubrick cum Spielberg, and unfortunately the good and bad qualities of both came along for the ride. For those calling it Pinocchio 2001, you sure are clever…. How did you find the Pinocchio subtext in the film? Was it the fact that they DIRECTLY reference Pinocchio throughout the whole movie and it is an important plot point? It was definately a Spielberg ending that will make the masses feel good, but also feel strange. This movie wouldn’t have been watchable if Kubrick had executed it, but Spielberg did a great job of making it safe for human consumption.
Unfortunately, Spielberg made it pretty readable as well, but that didn’t make it a bad movie.. I guess I liked it, and it was a good “Summer Event Film”, but it wasn’t going to change the world (just bring a tear or two to the eyes of the world’s residents).
The hyper-weird thing about yesterday, however, was that when we were waiting outside the theater, we ran into Dink & Sara Berg (and ultimately Manny). We got to talk to Dink quite a bit, but we were lining up by the time we ran into Sara, et. al. They all live in this area, however, so I am sure we will run into them soon…
My dad is coming up this weekend for some “hang-out” time, which should be fun. He should be here in a little bit…
…I just wish I was… :) Actually, I am going to see A.I. at 7pm tonight over at the swank Fenway theater. I employed one of my discount tickets I got here through work (so I only had to pay \$5.50 vs. \$9), which is totally rad. I had to order more, however, since I am beginning to run out. I don’t have high confidence in this film, but it has garnered rave reviews, so who knows… Hopefully that scrawny little kid has developed some acting ability now that he is a little older…
The excuse for afterbirth director of this movie could have saved all of the viewing public some time by titling this film “Generic Drug Movie”. I loathed Pi, it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I held off in seeing his follow up, Requiem for a Dream based on my sheer hatred for Pi. I finally caved into peer pressure, renting the DVD, and subsequently learned that I had wasted 4 dollars.
What I liked: Marlon Wayans surprised the living christ out of me… I guess he can act afterall… Ellen Burstyn is one of the greatest actresses of our day. She did a wonderful job convincing me she was going crazy…. And why shouldn’t she with one of the thinnest plotlines I have ever let my senses encounter.
What I hated: Seriously? Almost everything else. The son-of-a-bitch even used the “DV Cam Duct-Taped to the Chest Cam” again. I give up on this reject…. I am sick of people who make annoying art being praised for being visionary. Visionary does not equal bad, get it through your heads. There is nothing about RFAD that makes it any more special than the “don’t be a junkie” after-school-specials they forced us to watch in high-school health classes.
_…destroy us, or make us saints
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_we don’t care, it’s not our fault
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_that we were born too late
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_a screaming headache on the brow of the state
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_killing time is appropriate
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_to make a mess and fuck all the rest,
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_we say, we say
_
so what? so what?
_now i know what is right
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_i’ll kill them all if i like
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_i’m a time bomb inside, no one listens to reason
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_it’s too late and i’m ready to fight
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_so what?
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_now i’m ready to fight
_
This page talks about Microsoft’s upcoming Smart Tag feature, where they will insert links into documents. Now, these things have to be enabled by the user, and sites can “opt-out”. If you don’t feel like reading the article to learn how to opt out, I will make it easy for you. Add this meta tag:
One year in public view. One year delivering noise about my life to my friends, family, and more. One year of figuring out how to use this here LiveJournal. One year ago today I created this journal, and since then I have made 459 entries into it. One year ago today I started spreading the LiveJournal word, and many of my friends signed up. One year ago today, I was sobbing in my Capstone apartment.
One year A.L.J., I am better, happier. I don’t think that this state is a result of LiveJournal, but what do I know. Perhaps LJ was the life-altering thing that changed me forever. Perhaps altering life was the thing that changed my LJ forever… I have learned that LJ is the way for me to vent, for me to get some of this noise out of my head, and for me to simply babble at the people I think are cool.
One thing I do know: Every neo-Tom Hanks movie is about bleeding underwater and pissing.
One other thing I do know. Tomorrow is jerronimo’s one-year anniversary. He has 3 times as many journal entries as I do. Of course most of those are lists of music, one line pastes from some chat room, and posts consisting of one word and an emoticons. :P
I have tried to make this weekend a “Me” weekend, spending some time alone, relaxing… To that end, I have been somewhat successful, Friday night I went over Adam’s for a party, and tonight Molly is cooking up a Pot Roast for the crew.. My original goal was to avoid other people, but I guess my real goal was to have a weekend defined on my terms. As wonderful as the guests that have visited me here in Boston have been, it is somewhat stressing to have to “do the visitor routine” every weekend, and sometimes I need a weekend off. By no means am I saying that I want the stream of visitors to stop, but I need a break on occasion. :)
Saturday I cruised out to the Cambridgeside Galleria to just wander. I ended up picking up replacement copies of the Fight Club and Se7en DVDs that “i no longer possess”. I also started re-reading Fight Club, hoping to answer a few questions I have popping around in my head. Specifically, “Is Tyler a real person when ‘Jack’ first meets him?” Well, I have switched back and forth on this issue, and watched the movie several times trying to decide. I have read the book once, and since it treats the Tyler/‘Jack’ introduction differently, I figured it might be a good place to get an idea of what Mr. Palahniuk had in mind, and how that was interpreted on the screen by Mr. Uhls. I watched the film again yesterday, with commentary by Palahniuk and Uhls, but it didn’t address my question. The book is a very quick read, perhaps it will clear up this conflict. Any ideas?
I also scored Chuck Palahniuk’s new novel, Choke. He is coming to town for a reading next week, I might check it out…