Ahnold

This blog is really liberal (like more liberal than me, and I am a pinko commie), so I generally take any "news" I get from them with a grain of salt, but this post hits the nail on its head.

Crash - 8.5

And the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay goes to ...

Paul Haggis for Crash.

That's right kids; I'm playing with fire and making an Oscar prediction in August. Crash deserves it though. The movie has an incredible script. It's a complex story, but it's not so complicated that you can't keep up with everything. (Well, almost everything, I did have to get clarification from Ben on one fairly obvious plot point that I forgot all about.)

Crash reminds me of a lot of good movies, but I think it might be better than all of them. It's like Magnolia, but with real, believable characters and no frogs or like Traffic without the throw-away child prostitution story line. Maybe 21 Grams or Amores Perros is a better comparison. Still, I'd say that Crash is more emotionally potent than any of those films.

So the script was amazing, but the acting was great too. If there were an ensemble cast Oscar, I'd probably be giving that puppy away tonight also. Don Cheadle follows up Hotel Rwanda with another solid performance, and, Ludacris (yes, Ludacris) out-performed all the stars in this movies. I shit you not. I guess Sandra Bullock was a little annoying and Brendan Frasor was a little bit miscast as the D.A., but, hell, those are quibbles. Everyone in the movie is pretty damn good.

Now, I suppose it's theoretically possible that a movie comes along sometime in the next 4 months that has a better script than Crash, but I would happily trade one incorrect Oscar prediction for a movie with a story better than this one. I know this came out a while ago, so I'm a little late getting on the bandwagon, but I'm on now. Crash is the first great movie of the year.

Lost (Season 1) - 7.5

I finished up the first season in just under a week. That's pretty fast, but not record time or anything considering my girlfriend is in England, and I've been sick. It was consitently good, although it did fade a bit as things progressed. I think they stretched the plotlines just a bit too thin towards the end of the season, but once things finally started happening in the last 3 or 4 episodes it was worth the wait. They set up the 2nd season very well, but answered a few questions at the same time. The premiere for season 2 was very strong also, and, well, what more can I say, I'm hooked. Tivo is set, and with Arrested Development already on board, I'll now be watching 2 shows on network TV this fall for the first time in years.

By the way, I would not recommend watching the second season without seeing the first. It seems like it is going to be much more character based, and you'd probably be missing a lot without watching season 1.

Lost (Season 1, Episodes 1-11) - 8.0

So, this isn't quite as compulsively watchable as season 1 of 24 (I finished that in 3 days I think,) but it's pretty damn good really. Some of the episodes have kind of pointless subplots (the rockslide episode was probably the weakest yet,) but the structure of the show is strong and the island plotlines have stayed interesting thus far. We'll see what happens as I trudge forward ...

Lost (Series Premiere) - 8.0

I watched the first episode of the first season of Lost last night (thanks, Ryan). It was impressively tense and pretty entertaining in general. Most importantly it was definitely waaay better than the first episode of Desperate Housewives. The lead actor was very Tom Crusian and it was nice that they threw an obese hairy guy into the cast for me to identify with. I worry that things can only go downhill after the first half dozen episodes or so. The monster (or whatever it is) will probably only be scary as long as I don't know what it is, but at the same time, if they don't tell me what it is within a few episodes I will be pissed. It's like X-files, which was cool until they ran out of new ideas and had to start turning inward and making stories about Scully getting pregnant with an alien child and Mulder getting abducted blahblahblah. Here they might have even more trouble coming up with new ideas since there's only so much that can happen on an island. Anyway, it will be interesting to watch and see how the show handles itself as things progress. I'll post periodically and update you on my thoughts.

Beach Pictures

Alexa doing her best Marilyn Monroe impression in the wimpy Hurricane. (9/14/05)

Alexa's parents and the Pickerings by the beach. (9/14/05)

Me, Alexa and her mom kayaking around the swamp (9/17/05)

CUCKA CUCKA CUCKA

Arrested Development may not be the best show on television (I'd vote for The Wire at this point), but it is probably the funniest. The third season starts on Monday. You should watch it. Until then, here's Gob's doing his chicken dance:

New Homepage

My non-blogging materials now live on my UNC webspace. The link is:

http://www.unc.edu/~wildfire/

There are also links to the right.

Some Pictures

Alexa and Le Tigre (8/30/05)

Sunset at Maple View Farm (9/3/05)


Alexa's going away dinner at Rio Currascaria (9/7/05)

Pre-Hurricane sunset at the Beach (9/13/05)

Snatch - 8.0

This was a very good movie in general, but Brad Pitt steals the show. It makes me wonder what Ocean's 11 would've been like if it didn't have to be rated PG. As long as you're not a puritan, Snatch is highly recommended.

Donnie Darko - 7.5

I half watched this for the 2nd time last night while taking my friends' poker money. It's interesting how hype for a movie works. Donnie Darko comes out, gets decent reviews, but no press. It leaves the theater without making any money. Then, on DVD it gains a little bit popularity via word of mouth, and eventually gains a bit of a following. Then a new version is released in the theatres to RAVE reviews (but as far as I know, once again no one really sees it.) Anyway, now instead of a no-hype movie with Noah Wylie and Drew Barrymore it's a cult classic and one of the best films in recent years.

Of course, the truth lies somewhere between those two extremes. It's one of the best scripts in recent memory. Usual Suspects was better, but it's on par with Sixth Sense or Seven. The movie was extremely well put together. They set up the twist at the end of the movie the entire time, but it's still very hard to predict.

There is definitely a reason this is a cult classic instead of a box office smash. After the script, the music was the second strongest part of the movie. The song from the ending scene should leave a large majority of the audience humming its slightly suicidal lyrics for days. The acting was ... well, it could've been better. The teens were better than the adults. I wouldn't go so far as to call it campy, but the dialogue was definitely a bit too tongue-in-cheek for my taste a lot of the time. The special effects serve their purpose, but it's definitely a pre-Matrix production.

Jon's first reaction to the film was "How overrated," which I can only agree with to the extent that people have built this up a bit too much. One of my favorite movie watching experiences ever was watching Sixth Sense in a half-empty theatre on opening weekend when I knew nothing of the film. It was before any of the hype had built, and I wasn't expecting much. There's nothing better than being hit with a surprise twist that you haven't even been looking for. It was like I discovered an uninhabited paradise on my way to the grocery store. Of course, the tour buses started flowing the next week and by this point much of the luster is lost. Donnie Darko is a very good movie. Don't go in expecting the Godfather (or even American Beauty) and you probably won't be disappointed

The Constant Gardener - 7.5

The Constant Gardener is the 2nd movie from Fernando Meirelles, who came on the scene with the undeniably great City of God a few years ago. Gardener is a complete 180 from his debut. City of God was in your face and brimming with charisma every step of the way, but The Constant Gardener is very deliberate film.

The plot is only slightly twisty. It focuses on a pharmaceutical company's (and tangentially the British government's) treatment of patients involved in an African-based clinical trial for a vaccine. The story was fictional and a bit far-fetched, but these days, I am just cynical enough to buy into it. In general, the acting was good, Fiennes was solid, and the supporting cast left nothing to be desired. You could argue that the movie was the slightest bit boring. It was definitely slow and it had all of the self-importance of Hotel Rwanda, but it just didn't have the emotional bite. Instead of focusing on the Africans, it followed around a mid-level British diplomat, and turned the plot into a pseudo-love story. I think it was a mistake, and muddied the water considerably. Still these are problems with the script and LeCarre's book, not the movie making. Given those questionable decisions, I this movie is about as well done as it could possibly be.

The poster says it's a spy movie, but in a lot of ways it's the exact opposite. It's more a study of bureaucracy than anything (I'd like to see them put that on the poster.) The movie's biggest strength is that it was relentlessly realistic. From the constantly shaking camera that disabled Alexa five minutes into the film to the on location shots in the shanty towns of Nairobi to the brilliant scene where the main character is given a gun which is never fired, every thing that happened emphasizes that we are not watching James Bond at work here. We are watching a real person. The movie slips away from it's realism for one misguided action scene set in Rwanda. It's near the end of the movie and feels completely out of place, but it's forgivable since the movie ends on a perfect note a few minutes later.

Even though it's no City of God and there are little slip-ups here and there, The Constant Gardener is a fine movie in it's own right. It's easily in my top-5 for the year so far.

ugh, blogs

After the pleasant unorganized sprawl that was wildfire.koden.org, blogging feels particularly clean and orderly (2 things no one would dare accuse me of,) but I'll give this a shot for now, and see how it goes. Now for the obligatory statement of purpose.

This site will contain:
Reviews - mostly of movies, but I'll occasionally branch out
Sashaisms - only on the rare occasions that I see the bard ... unless we can find a Seattle coorespondent that is.
Pictures - Whenever I take one of something I feel like posting. Hopefully at least once a week or so, but no promises.

I'm not sure just how much rambling (like I am doing now) I will do. I just read a post with no vowels from some high schooler who was mad that she got a bad grade on her English paper, so in general I'm guessing the rule should be "less rambling is better." The few blogs I read have a content to BS ratio of 5:1 or higher, so I'll aspire to meet that at least. At any rate, I'll be moving some stuff over from the old site in the next few days and then I'll be gone to the Outer Banks for a week. After that I'll be a pseudo-bachelor with fairly easy classes so hopefully I can get things rolling.