Seen from this morning

broderic on February 7, 2008

If you notice the time stamp of the previous post, you’ll see a time around 4 AM.

I don’t know why I was up.

Actually, I do. I acted the fool this morning. Have you ever been amped to get up? Or knew you had the get up that you slept lightly? I had to rise early to be in work by 8 for a training class plus also I am trying to condition myself to get up earlier so that Jorge Cruise can motivate me. So I was somewhat awake and groggy around 3:30. I thought it was 6:30. The lack of sunlight seemed normal for winter at that time.

I could’ve actually looked at my alarm clock, but I rushed to take a shower. I didn’t feel tired, but underneath the warm water I had a hunch that I didn’t sleep the full six hours I normally do.

I didn’t. My iPhone told me what the actual time was.

I pondered if I should go back to bed, stay awake and go to work around 5:30, or get breakfast. So I posted that notice about TCM running some fine movies, and went back to sleep shortly thereafter.

I didn’t miss getting up. The alarm sounded at the normal time.

Updating Movie Queues

broderic on February 6, 2008

Every year for Oscar month, TCM hosts “31 Days of Oscars.” They show many films each one a recipient of an Academy Award nomination.

It sounds like lots of good movies, but in practice not so much. There’s plenty of head scratchers out there. Check the list. It’ll make you wonder how did this get nominated. That tradition lives on til today.

There’s still plenty of gems to choose from though. If you’ve got the time, catch a few. Or at least set your Tivo.

Cycling will make you happy

broderic on February 6, 2008

I assure you, my readers, that it will.

I’m not talking about those damned stationary bikes. Those things fixed inside a room are a faux simulation of cycling. They are a means of administering some insidious form of abuse on the mind. Those things will make you really, really sad even if you do get the same endorphin high.

No, cycling in the great out doors will make you happy. If you do it on a busy thoroughfare, I’m sure you won’t be so happy scared about the cars, but you’re much better off than indoors on a stationary bike.

Why?

Remember when you first learned to ride a bike? Remember the thrill keeping it upright. Wobbly at first. Then your pedaling smooths out, the front wheel straightens, and then, you’re cruising! You probably had a wide grin across your face. You probably also squealed. Nothing as delightful as that moment.

So, why aren’t you riding your bike more? You don’t have to ride in the road. Ride around your neighborhood. Ride in the woods out back. Ride the local rail to trail conversion. Just go out and ride.

You’ll like the breeze in your face. You’ll relish the hill to climb, because of the down hill and the speed to come. You’ll enjoy the rush from the exercise. You’ll breathe in the fresh air. You’ll be invigorated. You’ll be happy. I guarantee it.

Let’s go!

Vote Quimby

broderic on February 5, 2008

I don’t really write much about politics around here. Every time I do end up calling this president a fucking fucktard. (There I go again!).

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday when a lot of states hold their primaries for each political party to assign delegates for a particular presidential candidate. I think it’s about twenty states that hold these primaries or caucuses. Here in Maryland, we don’t have ours until the 12th, but by then the presidential race may have been decided by tomorrow’s poll results.

Even if it was Maryland’s primary day tomorrow, I can’t go because they are not open to registered independents. Thats’s right. I am not associated with a particular party. I sit on the fence and perhaps choose who I think is the best which is strange because I pretty much vote a straight Democrat ticket except for the judges who I don’t even know how they get on the ballot in the first place.

This is all prelude to letting you know that I am endorsing Barack Obama for president. For me, he stands the idea of change. We don’t need another set of royals running the country. It would be 12 years of Bush rule (excluding 8 years of GHWB VP) and 16 years of Clinton rule if Hilary can get elected twice.

That’s too long to see executive power confined to these two families. We need some new blood.

Now, I have some reservations about him. Mostly that he preaches some kind of cross partisan unity. We don’t need any of that. We need a Democratic party leader to put the fucking Republicans in their place. Make them a withered, destroyed, desolate party in full rather than just the souless one they currently play. And he doesn’t really ask for that. I don’t think any Dems are asking for that, but payback is a bitch.

I want change. Perhaps Obama can bring it to us.

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.