Category Uncategorized

Jan 16 1999

JFK

Brilliant dramatization of Jim Garrison’s JFK Assassination investigation. Don’t think about the politics or accuracy. It’s not a documentary. Just sit back and enjoy.

This movie started it all for me. I wasn’t even born when JFK
was assassinated. Why should I even bother thinking about the whole thing.
It didn’t affect my life. Or did it? It can be argued that the USA hasn’t
been the same since.

##Recreations

Let’s just get one thing straight. This movie is *not* history. It is
a dramatization of history. There’s a *very* big difference between
the two. The major detractors of this movie use the argument that because
there are inaccuracies, it’s not a good movie. They need to get a life.

recreations are incredible.

little girl in the red dress

##Editing

##The extra footage

##The way I see it

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