Tuesday, July 31, 2012

"Get your head in the game!"

If anybody has a spare $125 lying around and is thinking "I was meaning to buy K a birthday present and forgot! What will I do?" May I suggest this?

Monday, July 30, 2012

Monday Movie Reviews #6: I Confess

Every time I watch a Hitchcock film I haven't seen before, I find myself marveling at how well he made movies. Even when he had to deal with an indifferent plot, or bad actors, or poor technical equipment, he was still capable of making a decent film. I Confess doesn't suffer from any of these problems and it is a magnificent example of Hitchcock's work. Some spoileration after the jump.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Beer Photos #3: Mississippi Mud

This one was probably a mistake, I do confess it. On the other hand, at the time I was not nearly so knowledgeable or experienced. It's tough to find much about this beer on the internet. Best I could determine from the internet is that it's brewed by the same folks that make Arizona Iced Tea. I suppose that doesn't mean it necessarily isn't good, but I wouldn't say it's a great omen.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Yasujiro Ozu

I'm not sure if my distaste for modern "slice-of-life" movies has to do with them being modern, them being stupid or just the fact that I'm rarely in any sort of sympathy with the motivations and actions of the characters, but I rarely run across a movie about ordinary people that I like at all. There are a few exceptions to that rule, however.

One of my favourite films is Café Lumière. It was made by a Chinese director, Hsiao-hsien Hou, as a tribute to the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu was known for making movies about ordinary people in ordinary circumstances that beautifully illustrated various aspects of what it means to be human.

I've been watching through the Ozu films Netflix has in chronological order (after starting out of order) and it's amazing what he did with his movies. The people are simple, ordinary and the plots are often exceptionally mundane, but the story leaps off the screen and grabs you by the shirt and forces you to pay attention. Ozu convinces you that the struggles in the lives of his characters are real kinds of problems that could happen and have happened to you and people like you.

These aren't movies for people whose idea of a great movie is Transformers, The Bourne Identity, or even something like Gladiator or Saving Private Ryan. The focus is tight and narrow on the scale of the human family. He had a deft touch that I've not seen matched. Kurosawa was a director equally as good, but he dealt with the macro scale and stories of heroes, nations and wars. Ozu didn't deal with the same topics, but he made his stories feel just as important.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Monday Movie Reviews #5: Arthur

So, there were a couple problems. One, I didn't watch this movie in time. Two, I didn't end up watching the whole thing. I watched the end and bits and pieces throughout. Three, it was really stupid. This isn't a proper review, but you get what you pay for, hey?

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Beer Photos #2: Odin's Gift

I really ought to find this one again. The juniper berries really added a nice bit of flavour to the beer. This is Odin's Gift (you'll have to scroll down a bit) from Odin Brewing Company in Seattle. You'll also notice that these are from before I received my super-awesome glassware last Christmas.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Busy week.

Been a busy week, with my wife's youngest sister visiting, work and such. Also, I had a birthday last Saturday on which I turned older. I keep having those.

Anyway, I used some of my birthday scratch to purchase some computer games. I tell you what, it is ridiculously economical to play games a couple or 10 years behind everyone else. I bought about 7 or 8 games from Steam for less than 50 bucks.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Monday Movie Reviews #4: Vengeance

I tend to think movies that are billed as "a film by" some famous director as dubious propositions. Also, movies that do really well on the independent film circuit, but don't make any money can also be the sort of thing that you have to be an empty-headed film critic to like. But I've generally had good luck with Johnnie To movies. Fulltime Killer, Triad Election, Sparrow, PTU, were all good. So I was prepared to like Vengeance.

Vengeance is definitely a bit more art-house than some of his other movies I've seen, but it still delivers pretty good action (in a Hong Kong vein) and a fairly reasonable plot. Simon Yam and Anthony Wong are both excellent, per usual and I thought Johnny Hallyday (who is apparently a French film icon) wasn't bad either. Very minor spoilers after the jump.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Beer Photos #1: Old Rasputin Imperial Stout

I decided last year to start taking pictures of the various kinds of beer I tried. Here's the first one,  Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout from North Coast Brewery. It's excellent, but my wife thinks the aroma is too strong and is reluctant to buss after I've had one so I don't drink them as often as I might like.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Strawberry Milkshake

I found a booklet in a magazine at my sister-in-law's house that had recipes (barely enough steps to call a milkshake recipe a recipe) for milkshakes. Now it's mine! I figure a milkshake a week won't do me too much harm. And I do love milkshakes.

First up was the strawberry milkshake. Turns out the new blender is a lot more powerful than the old one and I probably didn't need to put any milk in. It ended up a bit thinner than I like, but it's also really hot around here lately, so maybe it got a bit melty a bit more quickly than usual. Also, it probably could have used more actual strawberries and a bit less ice cream. I'll have to experiment with that. Otherwise, quite satisfactory.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Monday Movie Reviews #3: Killer Elite

Killer Elite is a not-quite remake of a 70's film of (almost) the same name with James Caan and Robert Duvall. From the descriptions, about the only thing they have in common is that they both have assassins.

I've noticed that when a film has a trailer that actively works to deceive you (see: The Negotiator), the movie is going to be awful. Here Clive Owen has only one scene with Robert Deniro and the plot driver is a group of Arabs who don't appear in the trailer at all. Not only that, they go out of their way to make it appear that Owen is the one holding Deniro prisoner.

In the recent film, Robert Deniro had a high billing, but he had few enough scenes that it seems reasonable to say that he was just collecting a paycheck for putting his name on the film. This was not a great movie, but the flaws were not such that usually disqualify a film from being popular.

The problem of uncertainty runs throughout. Portions of the film just feel tacked on. The epilogue text talks about how the movie is based on a book about "The Feather Men". This is apparently a secret cabal of former SAS officers who... meet together... for some reason?

The justification for why this committee is in the film never really is made apparent. One of them gives the most awkward bit of exposition I've seen in a long time to explain to the audience who they are. For no reason at all he reiterates it all to another character who knows it all already. There's not even a pretense of making it part of the conversation that was occurring. The only real point they seem to have is to finance Clive Owen in his efforts to fight Statham.

In the end, like just about all the movies starring Jason Statham, it's a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. The movie is confused about whether it is simply telling an exciting story or if it is a morality tale about the futility of revenge.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy Birthday America

Oh, and Canucks who don't like me using "America" as shorthand for U.S. of A.? I can't hear it when whiny people talk.

I have, as I have grown older and been less interested in the outcome of politics (since I know we'll never really solve any problems with them, the goal has become more to keep them from being actively evil), I have become more ambivalent about the American founding. Well, the founding itself is all well and good, but the revolution troubles my mind. The more I read in Paul's letters about how we are to defer to the government where and when possible and to focus our efforts on our fellow man and keep our eyes on heaven, the more I wonder if I can support any sort of armed insurrection against authority.

Be that as it may, it is not really a suitable topic for deep exploration on a day of celebration, and there is indeed much to celebrate about our great land. And, if I may misuse Shakespeare to my own ends, I'll say that the country is established and, being in, I'll bear't that the opposed may beware of me. Enjoy your celebrations all: may you enjoy good food, good company and wake up tomorrow with all your digits attached and in good working order.

Give this man an internet award!

Reading First Things' the other day they linked to a story about a German court has ruled that circumcision is a violation of German law. Anyway, the whole thing is ridiculous for obvious reasons, but that, of course, has never stopped the secular, liberal, self-righteous do-gooders at any point in history. But! There was a commenter who made a comment full of win. Link (which doesn't work for me) and the full comment:
Even if circumcision is outlawed, won’t Jews just go to back-alley circumcisers and it will become a much more risky procedure? Shouldn’t this be a reason for it to remain legal?

Monday, July 2, 2012

Monday Movie Reviews #2: 9

I'm not happy with this post title, but what can you do? The title of the movie is: 9. It's suitably esoteric and intriguing, but it is difficult to use it in a review. What did I think of this movie? In a word, it made me angry.