Monthly Archives: January 1999

Jan 13 1999

News for 1/13/99

I just love [[Frontier]]! I’ve written a modified News suite
to handle my scrolling news homepage. The other day
I thought it would be cool to put recently changed pages
on my site there. I spent about 15 minutes writing a script
to automatically do it for me. Here’s what the output
looks like:

##Recently Updated Pages

  • [[Hard Boiled]]
  • [[Aliens]]
  • [[Contact]]
  • “Navbar”
  • “Recent Movies”
  • “Hong Kong Action!”
  • “Movies 1999”
  • “Movies 1998”
  • “Movies 1997”

I dare you to try and find another tool that can so easily
do that!!!

Jan 10 1999

Contact

Good movie about our first contact with an extraterrestrial race. Drags in some parts, but was able to hold my attention throughout.

##Space… the final frontier

So, how would aliens actually make contact with Earth? Would
little green men walk out of a ship and declare “Take me to your leader”?
Probably not.

The movie opens with a young girl learning about the stars from her
father. We find out later that her father died when she was 9 and her
mother died during childbirth. She has a personal fantasy that heaven is
out there, and that she’ll somehow be able to get in touch with both of
them some day. She knows its only a fantasy, but the idea is an important
one for the finale of the film.

There’s also another important moment early in the film. She has a one
night stand with a guy (who becomes important later in the movie) and we
find out in their pillow talk a little later that she doesn’t believe in
God.

##Enter: madman

The President’s advisor and head of the NSA is a paranoid man. He thinks
that the reason the aliens have contacted earth is to start an invasion.
Everyone else is pretty balanced in their appraisal of the aliens’
motives. Why would a civilization advanced enough to send the designs for
the transport bother with all the niceties before an invasion if that was
their motive.

##So, is there a God?

One of the central themes of the movie is faith. Is science
really any different than religion? Scientists take it on faith that there
is an explaination, religious folk take it on faith that they already know
the explaination.

At one point, she quizes her lover, a spiritual leader, on how he can
believe in God without proof. He asks her, “Did you love your father?”
“Yes,” she replies. “Prove it.”

Near the end of the movie, this question came into perfect focus. After the
journey (was it really a journey or a hallucination?), she was asked by
the paranoid former NSA director, “So, you just expect us to take it on
faith that you actually went somewhere, when there’s not a single shred of
evidence that you did?” Jodie Fosters character has to reluctantly
confront her own problems with the ideas of religion and God.

##One little nitpick

Near the end of the movie when Jodie Foster’s character flies off through
a wormhole to the other end of the galaxy, it really fealt like a typical
Star Trek copout. “We took this form because we thought you’d be more
comfortable with it,” or some such nonsense. Can you say Q? I knew
that you could 🙂

Jan 6 1999

Armageddon

Great testoserone ride. Just sit back and enjoy!

I really don’t understand why this movie got almost
universally negative reviews. This movie has everything I look for in a
movie. When it was over, I felt thoroughly entertained and emotionally
drained.

##Script was tight

First of all, let’s just say that the script worked. Unlike another big
special effects movie of the summer of 1998 ([[Godzilla]]), the script was
well thought out wih characters that clicked and dialogue that very quickly
got us in touch with those characters (not unlike [[Aliens]]).

##Action was fantastic

##Acting was good

##Cool stuff

Jan 5 1999

Godzilla

Aweful retelling of the cheesey Japanese classic monster movie.

##Should have been “Godaweful”

What can be learned from the exercise in movie production
masturbation that’s we’re talking about now? The greatness of a movies lies
not with its budget, but rather with its script.

As far as I can tell, it was basically a wannabe “Jurrasic Park” with
inferior direction, acting, writing, effects. Did I say writing

##Ripoffs ‘R’ Us

Here’s a partial list of ripoffs from other movies that I noticed on one
painful viewing:

  1. Raptors. ‘Nuff said
  2. The **thump** telling people that Godzilla is on the way.

    Remember “Jurassic Park”?

  3. The car chase
  4. The hatching. Remember [[Aliens]]?

##Questions

  1. Why was Godzilla asexual? IOW, why would a species that is altered

    by a radioactive exposure be made to switch between sexual reproduction

    and asexual reproduction?

  2. Could somebody have exposed Matthew Broderick to some radiation to

    maybe have given him a personality

  3. Was that car moving at 200 MPH?
  4. Is Steven Spielberg going to sue over the unauthorized use of

    raptors in this production? Nevermind. At least raptors were smart.

  5. could the moving matt lines have been made any more obvious?
  6. Why do mayors always have to be idiotic political tools?
  7. I enjoyed the Blue Oyster Cult song a lot more

Jan 5 1999

Sleepless In Seattle

Will Sam ever find true love again? Annie has something to say about that.

OK. I admit it. I’m a sucker for a good chick-flick now and
then. I love my action movies, and my [[Jackie Chan]] movies, and my “John Woo”
movies, but a good love story that makes me say “aahhh” is wonderful
too. Many people told me that *Sleepless in Seattle* was way to gooshy
to be good, that it was so sweet they got cavities from watching it. But
for me, it was just the right amount of sugar to make a perfect glass of
ice tea.

##I hated it, but loved it

For me, the thing that told me how effective this movie was, was the way
that I literally started yelling at the screen when Sam and Annie
*didn’t* get together at various points during the movie.

This is key because at this point I realized how completely I was drawn
into the world of this movie.

##Did you notice?

Did you notice the way that Annie peeled the apple is exactly the way that
Sam described to Jonah that his mother used to peel them?

Jan 4 1999

Let’s Party

A new year begins. Will it be better than the last? Let’s hope so!

Let me be the first to use what will become the
most overused phrase of the year: “…party like it’s 1999.” This is an
incredibly rare opportunity. This year is the last of a decade, century,
millenium. Do you realize that this has only happened once before since the
common era began? And we’re alive to witness it.

##Not the end

If you are a literal minded Christian, you might as well stop reading now.
We’re not going to agree, so nevermind.

The millenium isn’t the end of an era, but rather the beginning of a new
era that can expand on the profound advancements that have been made in
the last 1000 years toward a better world for us all.

##Things to remember:

* Gutenberg
* the net
* the Constitution of the United States of America, along with the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.” What an incredibly ballsy statement to make at the time the document was drawn up!!

##Things to avoid:

* the Inquisition
* WW I and WW II
* genocide
* absolute power corrupting absolutely (Hitler, Nixon, etc.)
* believing that there is one absolute truth applicable to all

##Things to work on:

* Let’s move out of the cities and back to smaller communities. Doesn’t the net facilitate that in large part? This will help with the world ecology and bring us closer together and back to a simpler time.
* Let’s put an end to war once and for all. Could a world government set up along the lines of the US Constitution work? Each country would become a “state” with 2 votes in a world senate, and representatives based on population. All world law would be written and voted on by this body and ratified by the UN. I’ve never heard of California and Nevada going to war, so maybe this could keep North and South Korea in line as well. Just a thought.
* More space exploration
* Slash and burn politics

##Things to look forward to

* New “Star Wars” movies
* “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy