Untraceable

broderic on February 4, 2008

Untraceable is a thriller that tries to make a statement about our media obsession with junk. It tries to equate our fixation for torture porn and sick and disgusting websites with the depravity of a serial killer. It tries to make us, the audience, culpable for the rottenness of society. It doesn’t do it very well.

What it has going for it was Diane Lane. She’s still a hottie in my book, but this movie seems to be one were she’s just in it for the money. I think everyone in it was.

Diane Lane plays an FBI agent (does the fbi hire nothing but hotties) in the cyber crime department. She tracks down the miscreants who use the internet for illegal activities like credit theft and solicitation of minors. She is given a lead for a web site that is set up to deliver torture by the amount of people who view its pages. It starts with a kitten and ends up with several human victims. All for the people who view the site.

Needless to say the site was untraceable and hard to find the owner or where it was being broadcast from. Yet, they do find the perp. And save the day. The final shot is of the sites stats slowly dropping.

It’s not a very good film. Everything was telegraphed. Everything. “Here’s a present.” “Use morse code.” “I downloaded a video game from a friend.” You could spot that from a mile away.

2 of 5 stars.

Adventures From My Netflix Queue: This is England

broderic on February 1, 2008

Toots and the Maytals’s 54-46 Was My Number opens the film, This is England, playing over news reel footage of the turmoil and strife of Britain in the 80s during Maggie Thatcher’s reign. And that song hooked me.

The film is a semi-autobiographical story from the writer and director, Shane Meadows. It’s about a young english lad, Shaun, growing up without a father who had just died in the Falkland War. His father is replaced by a band of skinheads who become a surrogate family for him. They make him a skinhead. They are not the kind of skinheads that we are used to today. Woody, the leader, is compassionate. He takes Shaun under his wing, shows him respect, shows others respect, and preaches unity for all in his clan. Of course this is broken up.

Combo, just released from the pen, shows up preaching National Front ideology. Quickly the movie devolves to showing the nazi punk skinheads. Shaun must choose between Combo or Woody, hate or compassion. He sides with Combo, but soon realizes the mistake. Yet, Combo, for all his hate has a side that realizes what he misses the most and why it has made him susceptible to National Front rhetoric. It goes back to the father figure. He missed out on it, and it makes him a bleak, void needing something to fill it up.

So was Shaun. Woody tried to guide him away from Combo’s ways, but he had to find out for himself what depths Combo would sink to. That means being caught up in a horrendous beat down of an immigrant fellow skinhead/rude boy, Milky, who had expressed the truth to both Shaun and Combo of the good of a father figure.

While not expressly awesome as a film, I found that I liked it. The soundtrack I want to get. Including that Toots song it had some other ska that’s fun to hear. The young actor playing Shaun, Thomas Turgoose, gives a decent performance in a first role. But it is Joseph Gilgun as Woody as the kind hearted skinhead and Stephen Graham’s, frightening but sad, Combo, that makes it.

An early scene in the film has Shaun playing on the beach. Of course, as a coming of age movie, I thought that the film should end with him on the beach, looking into the camera a la Antoine Doniel. Damned if it didn’t end up like that.

One thing, I couldn’t find the English subtitles on the disc. Their English accents are tough to make out. I think I have to see this again to fully understand what they’re saying.

4 of 5 stars

Cycle Lift

broderic on February 1, 2008

Sometimes on my bike I wish I had this cycle lift to help me up hills. That’s fucking cool. Of course you find these in a city in Europe. Us Americans don’t need that. We have cars.

Swede!!

broderic on January 31, 2008

In a comment on marge’s blog and also in my review, I predicted that someone was going to insert their own selves into the action going on in Cloverfield and by doing, would make a more enjoyable film (at least for me).

They would take the conceit of the movie and recreate it for themselves and their friends. It will go on YouTube and people will judge it as its own creation.

They’ll swede it.

Hunh?

It’s the concept of filming an already released movie in your own interpretation with whatever you have on hand. That don’t sound right.

Just visit the site for Michel Gondry’s upcoming flick Be Kind Rewind and you’ll get the gist of Sweding. Once their compare this sweding with the original (click the original first!!).

I laughed at the original and I can’t wait to see this.

Cycling in Copenhagen

broderic on January 30, 2008

When theSeed, CapitolSwell and I were on the infamous cruise of 2001, the first city was Copenhagen, Denmark. One of the first things I noticed about that place was the amount of cyclists on the road. I was surprised to see dedicated bike lanes for them. Later on I find out that Copenhagen is one of the more cycling friendly of world cities.Here's a blog about the cycling culture there: http://cycleliciousness.blogspot.com/.Here's another about the girls over there cycling: http://copenhagengirlsonbikes.blogspot.com/.I'm so envious. What a way to commute! It's probably much better going on a bike to any activity that involves a car. Going to the cine on a bike. Going to a pub. Drunken biking afterwards. Tooling around the city shopping. Then drinking some café au laits. Even in the winter it sounds like fun.I've got to get on my bicycle soon.

January Miscellaneous

broderic on January 30, 2008

First homework assignment for CS712 Web Application Development with Java Servlets and Java server pages. This is interactive for anyone and everyone to test. Or maybe not depending upon the traffic the server at school gets. I wonder if they’ll shut it down?

Tour de Cure on June 7, 2008 around Columbia/Sykesville. Is it hilly there?

Kona Paddy Wagon is coming up soon. I got to get me a single speed for tooling around the NCR.

BBC Cue Sheet Library take a look at some of the rides in Baltimore County. The ones going from Franklin are intriguing.

Ono Coffee is a stranger in a strange land. Eating, drinking, being merry.

The one Barbara Stanwyck film I am dieing to see. It’s also a Preston Sturges penned film. How come TCM didn’t show it this year? Here’s where you can catch the trailer?

My own album

broderic on January 29, 2008

CD Cover Memes Pool on Flickr is pretty cool. I like it, but it’s tough to get a picture to use. Check the creative commons stuff.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. ???

5. Profit

Try this link to get a usable flick via the creative commons license.

Cloverfield

broderic on January 28, 2008

I don’t know if the hype of Cloverfield turned me against it right from the start or if it’s just something I don’t like. I do know that it made me sick. Even forewarned and sitting two rows from the back, I got a headache watching it. I wasn’t nauseous but maybe should’ve been. The shaky-cam effect meant to put us there but also made me sick.

The movie is a purported tape from some guys camera documenting his going away party and the monster attack on New York City. It’s a home video and like your typical home video, you want to forward to the good parts. The establishing scenes at the party and at the dude’s apartment I wish I could’ve fast forwarded through. Then when the monster attack was unleashed, I wish I could’ve fast forwarded through them as well.

The monster was the big secret in selling the movie. What was it? What does it look like? Under my headache when it showed up, I was underwhelmed. At first it was Cthulu. Then it was Dr. Zoidberg. Finally, in all it’s glory in the money shot of the movie, it was those landstriders from The Dark Crystal. Admittedly, I was nursing my headache so I might be wrong in my descriptions.

Anyway, all through Cloverfield I found it similar to the Korean monster film, The Host. I wasn’t fond of that film as well.

I think that when they do Cloverfield 2, it should be from the perspective of the army. And it should be a conventional film. That way we can find out what happened in the end. Also, I predict that a film will show up on youtube splicing some random dudes into the action. It would look just as real and perhaps be an even better story.

2 of 5 stars.

27 Dresses

broderic on January 27, 2008

There are some movies that I want to see, but need someone else to suggest it so that I can honestly say, “I wasn’t the one who said we should watch it.” And under my breath, I sigh, relieved that my secret wasn’t found out. Most of the time, these movies are romantic comedies. It’s inexplainable as to why I can watch movies from this genre knowing all the while that the majority of them are just pablum.

Last Sunday, my mom wanted to watch 27 Dresses. With wanting to catch the pretty Katherine Heigl on screen, I agreed. At least, I didn’t suggest it.

It’s the standard romantic comedy fair.

Girl loves the right boy who’s completely unattainable for her and the wrong fit (Ed Burns whose eco-friendly businessman I can’t ever imagine acting the way he does).

Girl meets the wrong boy who’s the right fit. She argues with the wrong-right-fit boy and they are steadily drawn to each other. This mutual attraction blossoms to full on passion after drunk karaoke. The wrong-right-fit boy breaks her heart over a little misunderstanding (okay. a bigger misunderstanding), but the right-wrong-fit boy doesn’t do it for her either. She’s really in love with the wrong-right-fit boy. They express their feelings towards each other in the end.

Also, in the plot was the sister who stole right-wrong-fit boy away. And the quirky sidekick who’s name in the script should be Judy Greer as this actress has cornered the market for this type of role. The sister is played by Malin Akerman who makes a living being the so-called hottie, but isn’t anywhere near good to look at. Give me Heigl any day.

Simple. It adheres to the romantic comedy conventions that you know this would be better seen on cable, on TBS, during next summer.

Yet, it wasn’t all that bad. No matter how dumb the setup is or how much of a cliche the movie gets, it was saved by James Marsden. The last year seemed to be Josh Brolin’s year in film, but I would argue that Marsden makes for a strong claim for Best Film year 2007. If Brolin is the drama guy, Marsden is the goto comic, sappy, hunk. He’s charming in this film, finally getting a chance to play the lead and win the girl. That big ol’ smile of his helps make his cynical wedding reviewer melt Heigl’s heart. Maybe this will be his year. Hurray for cyclops!

This was the better of the two movies that I watched that day. At least it didn’t make me sick.

3 of 5 stars.