Tuesday, 5 October 2004
Life Right Now
A week after returning from the U.S. (more about that, some other time), I'm finally getting back to my normal sleep schedule. I'm still not sleeping well, though. Probably has something to do with worries about work, not enough exercise and my getting older. I just don't bounce back like I used to.
This last weekend was fun, involving a Saturday night out (snapshots to follow) and bagels (brought back from the U.S.) for breakfast on Sunday. When I say "breakfast," I mean "first thing we ate that day." A small group of friends and a couple of childlings over at Heather's, the last ones leaving around (after?) 3:00 PM.
It's definitely autumn. I've seen that written countless times by other bloggers in Europe, and I feel it too. Nice, crisp air. Much shorter days. More rain (unfortunately). The funny thing is, I didn't really notice the big picture those things formed until I'd left for a week and come back. Funny how a small change in latitude (and differences to Minnesota's continental climate) will do that.
Work, on the other hand, is such that I've got doubts - serious ones at times - about what it is that I'm doing and how much I actually bring to our company. Doubts turn into fears, nebulous and nagging, fears into panic. Sometimes, though not now.
Tomorrow, I'm going to try to evaluate a company's CMS so that we have a basis to pitch programming a replacement (not our bag of tea) along with a site redesign (our bag of tea). "Try" being the operative word.
Exercise is definitely on the wane, something I need to work on. Tomorrow, really really, I'm back at it. I'd have gone tonight, but there's the whole deal about sleep and tomorrow morning on-site and the gnawing worry at the back of my mind and blah blah blah.
Actually, I'm lying. I'd probably have exercised some and then balanced it out by going to a farewell party for a friend (not a close one, but hey).
Look on the bright side: France may not always be a bed of feathers, but at least it's made me cynical, right?
I Hate Doing Laundry
Truly, I do.
Heh
On a funny note, in light of my previous two entries - but mostly because it's been some time since I first slammed bloggers - I bring to you a link. (This, after all, being a blog - though sometimes I think we all forget that.)
Ladies and gentlemen, cower and tremble at the power of The Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator.
Oh, how far the mighty I have fallen.
Wednesday, 6 October 2004
Aller-retour
I took taxis to and from an on-site meeting with a potential client. Which, by the by, went very well - much better than I ever had the right to expect.
The driver on the way out was funny. "I hate my job," he said - first in French and then English, as if to ensure that his point was absolutely clear. "It makes me really mad. The traffic makes me mad. And now your destination takes me way out into the middle of nowhere. Which makes me mad." (Some comments he repeated in English, all are my rather liberal translation.)
The half-smile on his lips belied his good humor, though. And in case there was any doubt, he later added (out loud) that he had been joking. I'd never had a doubt: I can definitely tell by now when a Parisian is truly mad. Because if I can't tell, how am I supposed to express the same?
My driver for the return trip tuned in to a comedy-and-music format station (named, oh-so-creatively, Rire et chansons). A short skit played, followed by a song. And, wouldn't you know it, the song was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Now, this is the point that I'd have expected my driver - on the near side of his 60's, probably (it's hard to tell, some French don't age gracefully) - to have changed the station. But no, he left it on. Not only that, he started humming along. My crusty old taxi driver hummed along to "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
Needless to say, I tipped him extra.
Saturday, 9 October 2004
Armed and Dangerous
I don't know how this slipped my mind, but I got a very important envelope in the mail on Thursday: my absentee ballot. Because I'm officially a French resident, I only have the right to vote for Federal offices, but you can bet that's plenty enough for me.
On a related note, my deep-seated desires must've must have been influencing me when I typed rm -f * in my home directory rather than within the data directory that I'd intended to clear out. This effectively and irrecoverably erased the various files I had sitting around. Though for the life of me, I don't even know for sure what I lost (must not have been too important).
At least I'd (on purpose) not used the -r option. Bush and Cheney should be so lucky.
Sunday, 10 October 2004
Things That Some People Take for Granted
My sole source of hot water in my apartment is an electric heater, so supplies are limited. When I had long hair, I often ran out of hot water just doing the necessary cleaning 'n' hair washing.
Now that I have short hair, I can relish the times when - after the half-hour walk home through damp and chilly air from a two-hour exercise session - I can take a long, lingering hot shower. Like, for half an hour. Like, say, tonight.
Tuesday, 19 October 2004
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Never let it be said that I'm not pig-headed obstinate when I want to be. Well, I don't think that too many people would say that about me. But now you can insert another word somewhere in that sentence's grammar tree: "stupid."
I knew that Resident Evil: Apocalypse - the second, sad heap of narrative rubble that passes for a cinematic adaptation of the eponymous video game series - would be stupid. Professional reviewers told me. Game industry writers told me. Friends told me. Friends of friends told me. Strangers on the street practically bowled me over to tell me.
So it's small wonder that I have no one but myself to blame for seeing this film - which, in a sad comment on my social life, essentially amounted to my first "movie meal" after a two or three week-long fast. In a way, you could equate it with a man condemned to death choosing mac 'n' cheese - made from the box - as his last meal.
But hey, I thought to my self, it'll have two hot, gun-toting babes who kick ass. Sure, as expected they'd be surrounded by the prerequisite melange of Eurotrash accents and indeterminate Canadian shoot locations. But at least there would be two hotties. And if that wasn't enough, they would be hot.
Thus began my downfall.
True babedom was severely lacking in this film, aside from some clumsy pandering to the Madonna-whore hangups of most adolescent males (er, well, more like "bitch-whore" in the case of the film), the demographic whose bubbling testosterone makes up pretty much the entire target audience. The few, scattered women present off-screen were apparently these ambulant hormones' poor girlfriends, who to the one were doubtlessly fomenting their plans for revenge, the kind that involve "Sex in the City" marathons and conversations about what their man-child was really thinking the next time he replies "nothin'."
And I feel for these troubled souls, puppets of their own sex drives, I truly do. I remember the days when chemistry controlled my actions - literally dictated them, like some lurching toddler at the controls of a remote-controlled car. I remember them like, well, like tonight when I went to see this film.
But that doesn't excuse what appeared on the screen. Like I said, the babe aspect was sub-par, action-wise and visually (superficial, but true). In fact Sienna Guillory, holding the keystone role of Babe #2 to Milla Jovovich's Ur-babe, seemed to change mid-film. Physically, even - like she'd aged a few months in the space of a couple of frames, or had the shape of her face shift along with her character's previously acerbic personality. For literally seconds, I thought her stunt double (maybe even the computer-generated one) had replaced her after she'd come to her senses and stormed out of the film. But no, all sources point to it being her throughout. I guess even hard-ass babes are hard-pressed for pocket change.
Not that the unattained babe-nirvana was really at fault. At best, a Milla in full-on babitude would merely have been a band-aid on the gaping wound of a film. Indeed, its plot seemed to eschew all form of logic and reason, making cognitive leaps that would be at home in the plot lines of a video game, or a few Japanese films that I've seen.
Normally, I'd blame my dissatisfaction - other than that in the babe department - on Paul W.S. Anderson. This young man - not to be confused with Paul Thomas Anderson, the more respectable driving force behind Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love - is credited (and I use the term loosely) as this film's screenwriter. You may also know him as the director of another suck-fest adaptation, Alien vs. Predator. (Thus laying bare my prejudices, since I haven't even seen the latter film.)
But no, the direction and the editing were even more confused than the plot - jerking hither and fro, in some sympathetic synchronicity with the countless number of mutant zombies present within. And the characterization? I think you'd have to teach the word to a few involved in making the movie before you could ask them that question. Not that I'd expect Oscar material here, but still...
Oh, since I bring up plot and characterization in the same breath, may I just pose one question? (Aside from that one, which was mostly rhetorical.) A mini-skit clad, gun-toting, high-heeled ex-cop I can accept (whose full back story, like many points, is left for us to infer - I like the version involving... no wait, I won't subject you to my daydreams). Tough-as-nails? Sure. Spin kicks and Kung Fu grip? John Woo has wet dreams about less.
But isn't there a point in Hollywood anymore when someone - anyone stands up and says, "Wait! Enough with this hackery. Let's make a few departures from the video game back story, acceptable to the core audience, yet helpful for the 99.9% of the world who isn't familiar with the scenario and the characters from repeatedly stabbing at the controller buttons to bypass the game's 30-second intro sequence." Guess not. Too occupied by playing with whatever their hack-money will buy nowadays.
Meanwhile, my own time - though not money (but who's counting!) - was spent in a dark theater with other, similarly stupid people. And their girlfriends, who were also probably stupid. And we all sat through a parade of ideas that surely took the express train from video game land (next stop, Nocluesville).
And we feasted together at that table, laden as it was with plot morsels such as trigger-happy, leggy cops who inexplicably dress like hookers, and companies who can nuke a city with impunity (but only after running experiments on its apparently incommunicado citizens). You know, I'll have to remember that city planning trick: when building an urban center, make it accessible solely by one bridge because that apparently also cuts off all forms of communication, wireless and otherwise. Oh, and speak with a vaguely Dutch accent because that sounds cool, in an evil-cool kind of way.
This film, in brief, is suck. Pure suck. If it had a middle name, it would be "suck." So would its last name. And starting the whole name off would be, "suck." Its neighbors would be suck, and the children who didn't scramble to get out of its way would shout after it, "SUCK!" Like Midas, only not, anything that it touched would turn to suck.
This, of course, virtually guarantees a third entry in the series.
Since movie execs don't have to shoot for that magical number of episodes to reach the Promised Land of Syndication, I'm puzzled as to why. But if Milla looks at least half decent in it as she normally does, my few remaining active hormones will probably overpower any feeble struggle I put up and get me to see that one, too. Oh wait, there's your reason, right there.
Still, the words "hour and a half" do bring up one positive point to the film: it's almost short. I apologize, albeit halfheartedly, for not being able to say the same for this review.
1 / 5 : suck.
Wednesday, 20 October 2004
Things That You Didn't Miss, Aren't Missing Anymore
Any of you (all one or two) who actually follow my movie "reviews" may have noticed a distinct dearth of said material in recent times. I started falling behind way back in March, so many of you (the other three or four) may never have noticed at all.
In one failed experiment, I tried to catch up by doing a review a day for the month of July. I made it to 11. I guess at least you could say that I made a useful discovery: Imaginary deadlines apparently motivate me much less than any real one would. Good to know.
Part of my writer's block was that I tried to write each entry in the same order that I saw the movies. That's great for writing up the more complex ones, and I regret having lost some of my impressions (and expression thereof) by procrastinating. But many experiences just don't lend themselves to insta-punditry. So, the list of writer-blockers grew, while I continued passing on reviewing other films until I could "catch up."
With my previous entry, I hereby declare amnesty. Maybe I'll get back to the missed reviews - I hope so. In the meantime, here's to starting up again...