Month: March 2007

Categories
cinema

300: It wasn’t the Persians …

… who killed King Leonidas.

It was the bloody narration.

300 was entertaining at best, and worth watching in the theater if you enjoy stylized battle cinematography. Otherwise, the superb acting of Gerard Butler as Leonidas, and Lena Headey as his queen, don’t do quite enough to pull the film’s head out of its ass and give us something interesting to watch. I enjoyed the sylistic fighting, but I wasn’t invested in it, mostly because I felt like the film kept me at arm’s length the entire time. And I think a lot of that was because of the narration. I would find at times that just as I was getting drawn in to a moment in the film, all of a sudden I’d be slapped in the face by the narrator’s voice, telling me what the character was thinking, describing to me a moment that I could plainly see on the incredibly large IMAX screen.

Following the annoying narration present in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, I’m really hoping that this isn’t going to become a new trend in Hollywood. Some narration is fine: see Chocolat and Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain for examples. Too much narration strangles the story, and constantly reminds the viewer that they are sitting in a movie theater, watching something.

A further, excellent and concise review may be read over here.

Categories
personal poetic webcomics

A Paragon of Productivity

Due to my complete and utter lack of drawing skill (except for when I was in Paris and became, inexplicably, endowed with the spirit of Henri Rousseau), I’m always looking for some way to create a webcomic that doesn’t involve my creating images. Okay, so this is no great artistic ideal, but I’m quite taken with the medium, and want to find some way in which I can contribute. I thought about becoming a critic, but I found that that was already something that Websnark was doing incredibly well and that Fleen was doing incredibly in bulk. Disappointing.

Anyway. Yesterday I came up with an idea for a webcomic that I could create that would match three of my (currently) major interests. Libraries, World of Warcraft, and … webcomics. Okay, so maybe the third one is redundant. Drawing or no, creating a webcomic requires a large committment of both time and energy, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up that such a thing will actually be created. I was just excited about the idea. Who knows, maybe I’ll become endowed with the spirit of Alexandre Dumas and become a paragon of productivity.

As if.

Note: Alexandre Dumas’ collected works fill 277 volumes, and he claims to have written 1,200 volumes, though that was in the day of multi-volume novels. (from Trivia Library)

Categories
game humor libraries

I smell nice.

Maya sent me two comics that are currently sitting over on the Salon website. If memory serves, Salon limits non-member access to fairly recent materials, so you should check them out while the checking is good (while noting that “if memory serves” is really the key operator here, and that memory, often, doesn’t).

The comics involve librarians, censorship, and a dog scrotum. In my book, that right there is what we call a winning combination. Oh, and it involves how nice librarians smell, which is always a plus (and totally true). They’re sequential, so read this comic first, and then move on to this one.

In other news that ranks similarly in awesomeness but has no other discernable association, Penny Arcade is going to have a video game, and there is a trailer for it that is very, very wangtacular (which is a good thing). I was heartened to see that the Fruit Fucker (that lovable little bastard) appears to have a fairly large role in the game, which pleases me to no end. If you’re not familiar with the FF, then you should start here, and continue onward if you’ve got the stomach. If you have a particularly positive inclination towards fruit, and might therefore have issues with its … violation, then you might want to skip that link. However, if you laughed during American Pie then you should know that you’re a goddam hypocrite.

That is all.

Categories
personal school

On the snow-slick precipice of April.

The past couple weeks have been spontaneously draining and invigorating. The same could be said for any particularly busy, productive period, I imagine, so long as the work is rewarding in some way. That hasn’t always been the case, unfortunately, and I’ve spent nights awake, fingers to keys, really annoyed and frustrated with each moment of productivity. Inevitably, by the time I’ve finished, I feel at least reasonably satisfied, either with the process, the creation of something from my mind and through my body, or, occasionally, with the final product itself. For instance, I wrote a killer strategic plan.

April approaches and marks, among other things: the end of the term; the return home; and yet another year of life in my increasingly impressive resume (I’ve almost collected 27 of them!). Sure, I’m average among my age group, but I’m exceptional when compared with those younger than me. It’s been a fine collection, so far. Sure, some years are a little shabbier than others. Looking at them, it’s obvious that some have been through the proverbial ringer. No amount of polish can make those years shine, but they have a certain, grizzled charm to them, nonetheless. Though I do admit a certain bias; it’s my collection, after all.

This year, when hung up and compared with the others, has been exceptional. There’s no doubt of that. It’s got adventure written all over it; a few major decisions etched indelibly into its surface; the fulfillment of one dream and the birth of many more. It’s had its grey days, certainly. It’s had it sunny days as well. It’s even had a few fairly large blizzards. But when all is said and done, it’s been a year; it’s been three hundred and sixty-five days; it’s been one more eventful trip around the sun.

And just like every year that’s preceded it, it’s been my favorite year to date.

Categories
photo

Insurmountable Odds

toughodds

Sometimes this is what life feels like.

Categories
wordpress

Because change is overrated

I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.1.2 for whatever reason, but mostly because the site was being incredibly sluggish today – to the point where I couldn’t load my login panel – which made me want to try and fix something. Ergo the WordPress upgrade. Immediately after the upgrade, I went through and tried to make it so that as little as possible actually changed.

Today is the day to fight off the blues. Somewhat contradictory to this purpose, it’s also the day to play Tom Waits and Johnny Cash. Perhaps most pressing, it’s also the day to write my collection development policy project. First and foremost, however …

It’s a day to go get some lunch. Ciao.