Adventures From My Netflix Queue: Linda! Linda! Linda!

While watching the Jets/Colts AFL championship tilt, I have some time to jot down some thoughts on this film. Usually, I would write a review for a movie that had moved me, good or bad. I liked Linda! Linda! Linda!, but not moved enough. I’m writing this just to ponder some of the comments I have read on the internet about the movie.

Comments about it being slow and boring. Hmm. What they are most likely criticizing is the static nature of the shots in the movie. The director, Nobuhiro Yamashita< eschews the normal medium shot-close up-reaction cross-cutting. What he does do is just set up the scene in a medium shot and let's it roll. In fact, I wanted to see the interaction between the characters: their reactions or their emotions, but was hardy treated to it close up. I can see that this static set up can make the movie seem slow, less dynamic, but it can't be boring. It's about girls doing rock and roll that can't be boring! Linda! Linda! Linda! is about rocking out. The movie’s plot is about a music club (K-ON!) upon loosing members still wants to participate in the fall school festival. They’re search gets them a lead singer, the Korean exchange student, who’s comprehension of Japanese gets her into hilariously awkward situations. They’ve got three days to come together as a band. The rest shows them practicing and going about their high school lives: preparing for the school festival, warding off love confessions, etc. It’s a fine movie culminating in the rocking cover of The Blue Hearts, “Linda Linda,” the namesake. It’s a movie that inspires the awesome episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, “Live Alive!” K-ON! also seems to be inspired by it. 4 of 5 stars.

Baltimore Orioles Fan Fest 2010

Baltimore Orioles 2010 Fan Fest

As soon as I got home yesterday from Fan Fest I posted some pictures of that fun day.

Here’s how the day went…

Got down to the convention center around a quarter of. The hardcore Baltimore fans were already filing in dressed in black and orange.

Baltimore Orioles 2010 Fan Fest

First listened to a bit of Dave Trembley and Andy McPhail talking. But I came to get some autographs so jumped in the smallest line available: Ken Dixon, Jeremy Guthrie and Jimmy Johnson. I went to see Jimmy Johnson. That dude doesn’t have a baseball card.

Then found out Nolan and Felix would be signing soon and made a bee line to their table. We had to wait as Felix and Lou Montanez were 15 minutes late. They must’ve over slept or something. After getting their autographs on their Topps T206 cards, I go and get some memorabilia: a Gregg Zaun! bat and a “This is Birdland” flyer.

Standing in lines started making me tired, so I seek a chair while listening to the coaches talk. Interesting. Hopefully, these guys can make the team 20 wins better.

There’s a lot of bobbleheads out there!

Baltimore Orioles 2010 Fan Fest

I’m tiring so I go get in one last line for Josh Bell, Jason Berken, and Brad Bergesen. I almost don’t get in line. I went to get a picture of Brian Roberts as the line to Bell, Berken and Bergesen fill up and closes. The lady was sympathetic and she lets me in as well as a few more. I chat with a bunch of collectors in line. These guys are hard core. One guy has a flag that he gets Orioles players to sign as long as they have played a game in the majors. Two guys from the Eastern Shore go to minor league games to get everyone’s signature. Some girl’s got all 83 Orioles and Phills on a ball. One dude with an oversize baseball has been for 2 years continuously striving for current players. Me, I just want my cards signed. I’m not as hardcore as these guys.

Baltimore Orioles 2010 Fan Fest

I leave early to do the tour of Camden Yards. Is this the one you pay money for during the season? If it is, it is kind of a rip off. Maybe this year, I’ll check it out.

Looking forward to the season. I felt like baseball was soon around the corner. Can’t wait.

Guns Don’t Argue

Yes, it’s ska again. I love it.

If you can find some more ska, please post it in the comments or over on your blog.

Link of the Day [1.22.10]

Sleep talkin’ man.

It could describe any number of friends and family, but this link goes to the world famous one.

I know I caught CapSwell sleep talking some times. Funny stuff.

Some say that I talk in my sleep. Until someone documents it, I will deny it. Sometimes, I want to document my sleep talkin’ too, but I’m scared to find EVP on the recording. Who knows who else is in my room as I sleep?

http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/

Spinning Vinyl

I’m amazed at the number of youtube videos showing records spinning around and around and around. Best use of the internet ever!

Here’s a classic that I’m sure I’ve already posted, but need to post again because I recently heard this at Starbucks. The next song after it was a rocking dance hall tune of the old school 80s variety. I really wanted to know who sang the dance hall tune, but sadly they never did implement that Starbucks music service via iTunes-iPhone. When the hell did that not show up?

Adventures From My Netflix Queue: Sunshine

Considering I have had this DVD in posession for two months, I'm gonna have to provide a summary review just to cleanse it from my conscience. I shouldn't hold onto my netflix for this long, but I still want to watch the DVD. My problem is to hold onto it for so long. I should find room in my entertainment time for watching netflix. There's got to be a way to find the time in between reading manga, surfing the internet, watching torrented anime, watching television, reading, and sleeping. I mean I don't need to sleep much.Anyhow, I had Sunshine, Danny Boyle's sci-fi thriller, at home for longer than I wanted. I watched it last night.The plot: Earth, in the future, is threatened by the dying light of its sun. They send a scientific team to jumpstart the star. The movie follows the second attempt to save the Earth.Surprisingly, to me, that Boyle chose to direct a science fiction flick. I didn't think he had it in him as his style seems unsuited for the genre. Off course, he's able to make the film successful because the science fiction genre adapts well. Maybe Boyle at the helm makes this movie slightly more interesting.Like all save-the-world flicks, the mission's crew are on a one way ride. Not all will survive, and when they start falling, they start to be picked off one-by-one. It is how they meet their grisly fate that is interesting. Do they know it's a one way ticket? Do they care for saving themselves or the earth? Do they realize the enormity of the responsibility in their mission? And does that scare them or enable them?One thing about space, it makes you aware of how alone man or mankind is in the universe. This makes you think too much and adapt religion or scientific skepticism. Is the universe awe inspiring because of god or is it awe inspiring because of the physics of it all? Space makes dying a lonely thing.As I watched the movie, my palms were sweating. Something about the cramp crew quarters, the heat from the sun, and the spooks. I could actually understand the desperation. Finish the mission. Don't let anything get in the way.If you send religious minded people, expect them to flip out when confronted with the universe. Crazy. Don't send these people. They'll end up wearing Nikes, packed onto bunk beds, sleeping the eternal sleep under black sheets. They'll also expect the grim ending to be in concurrance with god's plan and ruin the mission.It ended up a good flick for waiting two months to watch. Worth the long wait, but I have to stop doing that.3 of 5 stars.

Daybreakers

Daybreakers is the dark side to vampirism. If all you Twilighter, fan girls only knew how painful being a vampire is, you’d not want to snuggle up to the next cutest one you saw.

Daybreakers imagines the world over come by vampires. They have become the human race, and what is left of the human race run from them in fear of becoming food. It is that food that has become scarce for the vampires. The world’s human population has dwindled and the blood supply nearly non-existent. The vampires try rationing; the only get 20% real human blood. They look for a substitute. If they don’t find it, they revert to Nosferatu. There may be a cure. Look to the sun, not for the shiny skin, but for the burn that may bring the undead back to life.

Ethan Hawke is the vampire scientist looking for the blood substitute. He harbors feelings for humans wishing that he wasn’t a vampire. Willem Defoe is a vampire who may hold the cure. Yet, the last days of vampires approaches fast and they may not be able to save vampires or humans.

With the world run by vampires, you would think that humans would like the day and fear the night. Nope. They do all their covert work under cover of the dark, because it’s harder to see them that way.

The ending will remind you of 28 Days Later.

Vampires are stupid. Yeah, but once your undead, you will wear snazzy clothing. And a fedora.

I really wish there were werewolves.

2 of 5 stars.

Linda! Linda! Linda!

Randomly flicking around youtube looking at people play K-ON! or ENOZ. Run into the comparison of Live Alive with the movie Linda! Linda! Linda! Yes. It’s the same. Song kind of rocks. It’s a cover of a song from the premiere Japanese punk band, The Blue Hearts. They’re the Japanese Clash! Look at the structure of the song. The use of Spanish — dead give away that they want to be The Clash.

Funny things you run into late night.

Golden Fail

The Golden Globes is a joke. I'm looking at the nominees for last nights program and I shake my head trying to understand any of it.For example, the best Drama pictures are: Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, and Up in the Air. The winner, Avatar, was no more dramatic than Aliens, and some may even call it an action flick. When you divide pictures arbitrarily into Drama and Comedy/Musical, you start pigeonholing films into categories that make no sense! And why are musicals still around? There's only one or two non-animated musicals made a year. That shouldn't be enough to earn them a part of one category. Here's another example of a headscratcher coming from the Golden Globes: Robert Downey Jr won for best actor in a comedy/musical for his hilarious portrayal of that truly funny guy, Sherlock Holmes. What you didn't LOL all through that film? Jokes on you then. Sherlock Holmes was as much an actioner as Avatar, but didn't qualify for Drama the way Avatar did! Hunh?The Golden Globes also lump in television into their awards. Now, there's nothing wrong with TV, but throwing it into the mix is like comparing apples to oranges. The star wattage between the two is megawatts in difference. Funny that.There. The rant is done. Perhaps fueled by Avatar's win. But then I look at the films and realize I don't think anything about them. Weird. Who knows what the Oscar race is going to be like?