Link of the Day [1.02.08]
Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy is coming to the theatres as a CG film and not anime. I wonder if it will work?
Spiraling and Spinning
Ringing in the New Year and your head hurts just as much? Spinning ain’t it?
More Browser Metrics for BrowserMetrics
Thanks to all my readers for making 2008 a big hit. You make reading these browser metrics for BrowserMetrics fun to do.
The first chart is monthly visits. The numbers are reasonable for such a low read blog.
Here’s the daily scribble that shows you the average volume I’ve been getting all year:
Finally, a year by year comparison. The trend is going up!!!
Link of the Day [1.01.09]
When I first started reading manga, I stayed on the male side with reading shonen manga. I avoided shojo because the girls with the big eyes just creeped me out. As I read more and more, it became apparent that I had to read some shojo because there’s a lot out there. Also, shonen manga is too much filled with ninjas and pirates, at least the ones that were sold in the US. I needed to see some more school comedy romances. Shojo is filled with these type of stories. I may be turning into a shojo reader. It’s weird where things lead you.
Quote of the Day [1.01.08]
“Happy New Year to you… in jail.”
Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), It’s a Wonderful Life
Quote of the Day [12.31.08]
“Thirteen fifty-four. Thirteen fifty-two. Thirteen fifty. You see a pattern emerging here Scully?”
Special Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), The X-Files: Fight the Future
New Year Eve 2008
New Year Eve 2009 fireworks 3
Originally uploaded by Azrol Azmi.
Have a happy, safe evening! And a prosperous, healthy new year!
Marley & Me
What’s so special about a dog? Marley & Me has the answer. Of course, all dogs in movies are special, and your dog is also special. Dogs in general are special except Cujo and that mutt of yours that shat and pissed everywhere in your house while tearing things up. Of course, that can also describe the adorable Marley.
It’s a movie of how a dog touched the lives of its owners as they grew from a couple to a family. You know how that works: meet cute, go over the good times, show the trouble with the dog, go over the bad times, the kids show up and overtake the dog, they grow up, they grow older, the dog grows older, the dog will die. Then the lights come up and the little girls behind you are sobbing their eyes out.
Dogs are special. This movie isn’t.
3 of 5 stars.
Link of the Day [12.31.08]
Was watching Nova last night on PBS. It’s been a long time watching anything on PBS. It was about the last Mars missions. It’s pretty cool to explore another planet. They said the next mission will be the Mars Science Lab. That’ll be cool to hear about that in the years to come.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons
There’s a lot of fancy CG effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. There’s the site of a Brad Pitt growing younger as he ages. There’s a riveting attack on a German U-boat. There’s a wonderful, old-timey gag on lightning strikes. And there is Cate Blanchett — young and old.
There was the CG effects, and it dominated every scene of the movie to a point that I had to think about what wasn’t real and was. Then I thought about how they pulled that off. Did they put Brad Pitt’s head on a kid? A midget? Or was he completely built up as a CG model like Neo in the later Matrix films. The most intriguing CG was the your Cate Blanchett. How did they graft her face on that body so seamlessly? Or did they digitally stretch and shape her to look young and svelte?
The effects really got in the way of the story. It was a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, but was mainly written and adapted by the guy who did Forest Gump. It shows. Benjamin Button seemed to go from one thing to the next just as Forest did. So the story was rather meager. It was filled with love, but was so boring.
And it was long. The problem was that Brad Pitt is in his 40s and when he reached the look of his natural age, the movie was already two hours old. We followed that dude to the grave and it felt like it.
It also had an unfortunate framing device of the old Cate in the hospital dying and her daughter (Julia Ormand!!!!) reading Benjamin’s diary in New Orleans as hurricane Katrina bears down on them. You get too worried about the present to enjoy the past. I’m hoping Julia Ormand made it out of New Orleans to safety.
Just not that good and intriguing. A disappointment from Fincher (!) whose last film was very, very good.
2 of 5 stars.