drunkencomputing

It’s been months since I’ve posted here. It’s easy to explain why: blogs are all but defunct now. With Facebook and Twitter, there’s no real reason to maintain a blog. Except if you’re doing something over 140 characters (a la Twitter) or don’t want to make your Facebook wall all Myspace-y with quizzes and giant status updates. That’s where this post comes in: it’s a list of what movies and TV I liked for 2009. Mostly posted because it’s Sunday, I’m drinking coffee, sitting at my computer, listening to The Walkmen, and am bored. But also because I was inspired by Mr. Stephen King in the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly. Stephen King is easily the best columnist in EW, with Doc Jensen’s annoying TV column being second. Normally I’d include music and books too, but I didn’t do a lot of new-music searching this year, and I certainly didn’t read nearly as much to warrant any feedback on books this year (it would be one book long: The Lost Symbol, which I’m only about 5 chapters into anyway). So in the spirit of Mr. King, here’s my top movies & TV of 2009:

District 9: This is the only thing that Twitter has inspired me to check out. Yes, I get a lot of info off of Twitter, but it was solely because of the buzz generated on Twitter that I checked out this flick. Yes, Peter Jackson produced it (I like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I’m not so hooked to it that I’d follow the man blindly on anything he makes). So because of Twitter–and the numerous articles written about how popular the buzz was on Twitter–I actually got Rachael to go check out this movie with me. I was very, very surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. I loved the impromptu acting, the pace was perfect, the special effects were awesome, and the story was great, making District 9 a very well-rounded movie. There’s the obvious parallel drawn between Apartheid and this movie (fuck, it’s filmed *in* South America), and it’s very intriguing. But it’s the documentary-style film-making, the fantastic spur-of-the-moment dialog, and great special effects that drew me into the movie. On top of all this, this movie is reason one of three as to WHY YOU SHOULD BY A BLU-RAY PLAYER.

Inglorious Basterds: Everyone who knows me, knows that I love Quentin Tarantino. I can quote the entire Pulp Fiction movie, and most of Reservoir Dogs. I can even throw in an obscure reference to Jackie Brown at times (a good movie, in it’s own right). So it’s a no-brainer that when this movie came out, I was going to see it. It’s easy to compare it to Pulp Fiction, and seems to me that doing so would not only bore the one or two people who read this, but also cheapen my loyalty to Tarantino. So I’ll just stick with what I like about the movie (and, essentially, most Tarantino movies): the long shots, the dialog (of course), the ratcheting drama between two characters just with a conversation, and the bloody good violence.  Christopher Waltz as The Jew Hunter has a new special place in my heart as one of those bad guys who are so good you’re excited to see him on screen, regardless of what he stands for (you’ll find a lot of that in what I like, I guess). One of my favorite parts in the film is when–nevermind, I won’t ruin it for you, but let’s just say that when one of the protagonists is in France talking to Dr. Goebels (SP?) about a movie theater and when a special someone walks in, you’re heart will truly race for the next few minutes. This is my favorite film on the year, because I can watch it over and over again (I’ve watched it three times on BluRay already) without getting bored with it (kind of like Pulp Fiction, no?)

Public Enemies: I’ve always liked Michael Mann films for everything that’s said when there’s no dialog (come on, you can FEEL Tubb’s frustration on the way to the boat yard in the redo of Miami Vice, can’t you?). What he does with the camera is stupendous, and I always appreciate a good shot…similar to the opening scenes in the apple orchard of Public Enemies. I also like–suprise!–the high violence of a Michael Mann film. Probably the best since the street shoot-out of Heat is in this film, when the FBI raids a cabin in the Wisconsin woods, and Tommy guns run rampant. It’ll get your heart racing. Johnny Depp was also phenomenal–as he usually is–but Christian Bale is still only a “meh” actor in my book. Not sure why, but I can let it go, because he’s decent at his role. He just needs to decide on a dialect here.

Avatar: I really didn’t care for the story because it as way to predictable and only “meh,” but holy shit, the special effects. Skip this flick in 2D and prepare to have your mind blown in 3D. I kept taking off my 3D glasses just to see what real-life looked like again to prevent myself from letting the 3D world get “cheap.” The special effects along warrant a spot in my top flick of 2009, but acting and story line were only OK.

Terminator Salvation: In essence, a pretty bad movie. Special effects were awesome, but if you’re a Terminator franchise fan, then you’ll appreciate the flick as the first serious look into the world post-Judgement Day. Meh acting and a weak storyline, but very cool to see what’s going on with Skynet (our new robot overlords, for realsies) and how they are developed into what we saw in the first two Terminator movies. ANOTHER REASON TO OWN A BLURAY PLAYER. This flick’s sounds and special effects will rock your home theater.

In case you didn’t know, there’s a new X-Files movie coming out. I don’t give a shit what you think about the first one, I loved it. So I’m definitely wanting to see the new one. More:

http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/X-Files-I-Want-to-Believe/1809953361/#info

http://xfiles.com/

Even though it’s only four days into 2008, I’ve see the best movie of the year.  It’ll also be a hard one to beat, unless something amazing happens (like a “No Country for Old Men”-esque flick arrives).  And the funny part, is that it’s not even from 2008.

“Gone Baby Gone” is a–try not to laugh–Ben Affleck-directed movie.  After mulling over how bad I wanted to risk seeing the movie (I don’t trust previews very much any more, because they can be a pretty big let down), I gambled and watched the flick with Rach.  Turns out, it was pretty damn good.  I was very impressed by Casey Affleck…a little guy who normally has little roles.  In this flick, he’s a nobody, low-level private investigator who only does his job to do his job.  But when a different type of case is handed to him (do P.I.s get “cases handed to them?”  I’m not sure of the terminology here) that inspires him, he rises above his mediocre normal self to uncover a…here’s a James Patterson quote for you…web of intrigue.  The best part of the flick being the moral question at the end: what would you have done if in Casey Affleck’s situation?

Along the way is a super awesome Ed Harris performance and a typical Morgan Freeman performance.  The flick moves at a quick pace and there’s never a dull moment.  I half expected myself at times to get bored with the premise after a while, but never did.  I thought, “I should be saying ‘when is this thing really going to jump off’”, but never had the need to.  Before you knew it, the story had developed more, and if you weren’t paying attention, you could have been lost.

The entire time watching the movie, I thought of my favorite TV show (currently on), “The Wire.”  The flick has a gritty, hometown Bawstahn feel…just like “The Wire” has a gritty, Baltimore hood feel.  I dig that environment for shows like this, because it seems to be the last place that isn’t faked in a movie or TV show.  Every other setting for a movie–New York, L.A., etc–seems to have been glamorized, but not Boston or Baltimore.  Nay, they remain what they always have been.

Every single character seems to be well cast, except for Casey Affleck’s girlfriend/co-worker, who doesn’t really seem to have a purpose.  I mean, I think she’s supposed to be the main character’s conscience check/balance to his “get the job done and get paid” attitude, but the movie sets him up in this manner just fine already.  On top of that, you can see Casey Affleck’s torment and decision-making process on the screen.  There’s no real need for this character, I think.  But she’s there.  Whatev.

There’s no real directorial breakthrough in this movie.  I mean, it is Ben Affleck.  Don’t expect a miracle here.  But the director doesn’t seem to muck anything up, so the flick turns out good in that regard.  It’s really the story and Casey Affleck that make this movie work.

There might be a lot more terrific movies coming down the pipe for 2008, but this one is definitely a stand out for me.  It just got out of theaters, so expect to see it on DVD soon.

Some of you who are in the know (that phrase actually means, “who I’ve talked to recently”), are aware I am a huge fan of the book No Country for Old Men. I read it the last time on Isle Royale and couldn’t put it down. I read over that parts that I didn’t know what the fuck was going on again and again until I figured it out. Normally, this isn’t a practice I’m familiar with, since I lose patience very quickly, so a book has to be good for me to do that (Haruki Murakami is another author that I do that with from time to time). I even tried a little interpretation my self on what the book was all about…and I haven’t done that since grade school (and not even back then, sometimes).

So the book was good. And when I found out that they were doing a movie, I was stoked. And then when I found out that the Coen Brothers were doing the flick, I was really stoked. Lastly, when I saw the first few trailers and read early reviews, I was pee-my-pants-stoked. So my expectations for the movie were high.

Was I let down? That’s a tough question, and I had a 2 mile walk back from the theater here in Hawaii (yeah, I saw a movie while in Hawaii…that’s how bad I wanted to see it) to really get to my answer. The answer, in short, is NO…I wasn’t let down. The long answer, on the flip side, was YES, I was let down…initially. Then I reflected (my God, these grade school english and literature techniques are coming out of everywhere!) on my answer.

The movie was spot on for what I imagined the book to be. I mean, at one point when Lewelyn (SP?) is crossing the river, I could have sworn to God that was exactly the way I pictured it in my head. And the hotels that most of the movie take place in are near identical to the ones I imagined in my head. Why is this? Probably because Cormac McCarthy describes things with big, hard words, but when you figure out what they mean, you really get a feel for the environment. Next, they couldn’t of cast the characters better. The only character I was a little iffy on was Woody Harrelson’s: in the book I figured he was a bit more of a weathered type person, not a younger, sprier individual. But that’s a technicality.

Next, the movie stuck very close to the original book, with nothing really important left out (except maybe the interview with the boy Chigurch got the shirt from towards the end, I felt this should have been included). So you got the whole gist of the book with the movie. Next the “action” was kept intact to appease those coming to the movie for the “action” category it fell under. And lastly, there were the thrills: even when I knew what was coming or what was going to happen to someone, I still was shocked or surprised by it.

So whats this all have to do with “does the movie live up to my expectations?” Well, because I think that’s why the long answer was initially a “no.” When I left the theater, I felt as if something was missing from the movie. I felt that it wasn’t as wholesome as the book was. Then I realized why everyone always says “the book was better than the movie:” because the book always is better than the movie. That’s the source, the life blood. It’s the alpha stage, it’s what you grew up on. It created all the imagery in your ideal manner in your head when you read it. It made the characters who they are and how you imagined them. And each person imagines everything differently in their head. You remember some parts of the book stronger than others. You interpret a meaning in your head. Then when they see the movie, the scene or the character your imagined isn’t the same. The psychopathic killer you imagined from the words on the page doesn’t look or act like you’d thought. The interpretation of a part of the book isn’t what you made it out to be. So your disappointed by the movie. So the common phrase is hatched: “the movie wasn’t as good as the book.”

Now to the short answer, and the one I arrive at upon grade school, 500-words-or-less reflection: YES, the movie did live up to my expectations, because the Coen brothers got everything right. The scenes were shot either identical to how I imagined them or as close as you could get without a Government mind-probe. Javier Bardem was fucking Anton Chigurch. Tommy Lee Jones was so fucking dead on for the roll of Ed Tom Bell that I wanted to reach through the screen and grab him and tell him it was going to be O.K. Even Lweleyn Moss was as close as you could get to being the character from the book…and he was the character I was least impressed with in the flick.

Some of the scenes, in fact, are actually done better than I could of imagined. The first few scenes with Lwelyn finding the trucks were so Goddamn beautiful, I almost wanted to go to Texas. Then at the end of the movie I remembered why I don’t want to go there. Then I remembered Ed Tom, and I wanted to go back there and hug him.

With the images and characters intact from my imagination, the Coen Brothers put transferred my interpretation of the book nearly spot on. To me, the movie was almost a sort of vindication on how I made the story out (yaay me!). And yet even at times, the movie helped clarify a few things that I had missed or didn’t understand all to well in the book (hey, Cormac McCarthy uses a lot of big words and run-on phrases that I just don’t want to look up or decipher after a while!) These scenes that enlightened my experience with the book fit so well with what I interpreted things as, that it only reinforced the fact that the Coen brothers got it right.

Then there’s the dry humor. That’s the Coen’s specialty, I think, and the same with Cormac McCarthy. Neither rely on punchlines or canned jokes, just situational humor. It’s executed with Fargo-like precision here. So subtle at times, the humor is, that you almost miss it.

Oh, and another thing I liked: the complete lack of music in the entire film. This is pretty standard for Coen brother’s movies, but it caught some people off guard I think when the film just faded to black and was done with nary a sound.

So I left the theater feeling empty, but once I thought about it for like, five minutes, it made sense and I realized what a great flick I had just seen. It was truly terrific. It’s very easy for me to give this movie 5 out of 5 stars and answer the standard question “is it as good as the book” with a solid “fuckin’ A.”

I’m going to re-read the book when I get it back, but in the meantime, I blew right through The Road, and I’m very into All The Pretty Horses. Damn you and your hard-to-read-yet-cool and habit-making writing style, Cormac McCarthy. I was tempted to write this entire review in free flow or whatever your writing style is that you got there but I decided that no sir I wasnt going to do that because that would just confuse some of the people that may happen upon my website and so I didnt do it. Reminds me of the time when I was on the internet and someone posted on one of those internet forums and said how do you like that book No Country For Old Men and I was just there sitting and said well I enjoyed it very much even though it was hard to understand and I sat there and typed that away on my keyboard until it was displayed on the internet. Well sir wouldnt you know it someone in the very next post under the one that I had just composed completely understood and he spat on the ground and said I dont mind that at all.

Ahh man, that is fun. SEE NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Fin.

Today I bought an HD DVD player.

It’s true, that I’ve always been an early adopter of technology.  But usually, I only do it after careful and thorough research.  Today, however, was a different story, and I just jumped balls-deep without as much as a glance at an editorial documenting the format wars between Blu-Ray and HD DVD.

Why?  Because this HD DVD player was $98.  $98! I couldn’t pass that up, plus I got FIVE FREE HD DVDs on top of it.  I was sold.  I’m a sucker for free shit, especially when it’s the latest flash-in-the-plan stuff.  So in my book, HD DVD has won.  But there’s a catch…I bought the HD DVD player at Wal-Mart.

I know, I know, I’m a hypocrite.  In this post earlier this year, I preached of the evils of Wal-Mart…and then I go and give them business?  What a fucking piece of shit I am!

But that’s not all that it’s about.  Wal-Mart, it’s true, was doing a show-of-force for discount pricing: by setting prices to whatever they wanted.  Rachael checked the prices for the same HD DVD player in Wisconsin, and due to the State’s “Fair Trade” laws, Wal-Mart couldn’t as deeply discount the player as Minnesota could (Wisconsin, apparently, still values small business while Minnesota tells them to get fucked).  The player was $180 on the Wisconsin side of the bridge, and $98 on the Minnesota side.  So of course, I bought the $98 HD DVD player (hey, it’s RIGHT NEXT to my work, in my defense), and at the same time took a piece of food right out of some local family’s mouth.  But there’s still MORE to my defense…

…Toshiba & Microsoft, it turns out, is actually the mastermind behind this deeply-discounted HD DVD player.  In the ongoing format wars between companies such as Sony & Panasonic (on the Blu-Ray side of the fence) and Micorosft and Toshiba (on the HD-DVD side of the fence), Toshiba &Microsoft fired the first salvo…very silently.  By leveraging the flexible pricing techniques of Wal-Mart, Toshiba was able to ship out–en masse–HD DVD players to people who were either on the fence, or who just wanted to take the next step with minimal investment (me).  In their attempt, they will increase the amount of HD DVD players on the market, and at the same time gain market share.  Brilliant, if you ask me.  With Blu-Ray currently owning the market, HD DVDs finally made a jump into their turf.

It was still hard for me to shop at Wal-Mart, but it’s over and done now.  I’m actually not only screwing my own standards over, but I’m also embracing big companies’ slimy, under-handed techniques.  Am I OK with it?  Right now, YES, because I have a new shiny toy, but soon I think I will be more upset with myself as Thanksgiving and Xmas rolls around and the prices on the equipment start to drop again.  But in actuality, I can’t go to a local store and pick up an HD DVD player, nor buy HD DVDs from them.  This area is a slow adopter of technology, and as of right now, I’m ahead of the power curve.  So technically, my hand was forced.  Right?  RIGHT?!

So I’m behind HD-DVD.  I don’t like Sony (they think they rule the world), but I also don’t like Microsoft (likewise).  However, between Sony and Microsoft, Microsoft may be the lesser of the two evils.  At least Microsoft has vision, is intuitive, and demands customer satisfaction.  Sony is 100% about the bottom line (reference PS3s).  So between the two, I pick Microsoft.

Lastly, Blu-Ray uses Java technology–the bane of my existence at work.  HD DVD uses some proprietary, not-shitty technology to work.  Anything that doesn’t use Java is getting my vote, dead on.  Java is the worst application technology ever created.  It’s a management nightmare.  Who ever created it should be shot.  HD DVD wins again.

Likewise, I like saying “Did you get that movie on HD DVD yet?” instead of “Did you get that movie on Blu-Ray yet?” “HD DVD” sounds way better, and “HD” is already a norm in our vocabulary.

I feel silly buying an HD DVD player witht he war about the formats still ongoing.  Because of this, I’m not going to expand my HD DVD collection.  For $100, I’ll just rent HD DVDs until the dust settles between them and Blu-Ray.  I don’t need to dump money into a ship that may or may not sink.  So I’ll wait in that regard (guess you didn’t get me hooked with your sales gimmick, Toshiba!)

Either way, if anyone wants to watch and see some mind-blowing TV, give me a ring.  There’s nothing like watching “Backdraft” at 1080i in 47″ of sexiness.