Movie Review: The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters
I just watched what I believe was the best film of 2007. I haven't seen No Country For Old Men (I heard it's just a rip-off of The Terminator) but I have a hard time believing it could possibly be better than The King of Kong. It's about a guy named Steve Weibe and his quest to break the world record for the highest score in the 1981 arcade classic, Donkey Kong. But it's more than that. It's hilarious, somewhat unsettling, occasionally sweet and always intriguing. It's a look inside of a bizarre subculture as an outsider attempts to dethrone their hero.
Steve Weibe is a likable "aw shucks" kind of guy. He's a musician, an artist and an athlete. When he got laid off from his job at Boeing, he decided to spend his free time to try and break the world record for Donkey Kong. The problem is that the record was currently held by one of the doucheist characters in cinema history: Billy Mitchel. Billy was a video game "prodigy" in the 1980s and in 1982, he scored 874,300 points on Donkey Kong to set the world record. The second highest score (something like 500,000. I forget exactly.) was set by Billy's sidekick/toady Brian Kuh. As the film begins, Billy's '82 record still stands and Billy is still remarkably cocky as a result. He's also a dead-ringer for Ben Stiller's character in Dodgeball. But he's way funnier than Ben Stiller and this movie is way funnier than Dodgeball.
Billy is also a "referee" for Twin Galaxies, the organization that governs "world records" for video games. This makes Weibe's quest all the more difficult. It's as much about politics as it is about hand-eye coordination. It really is a fantastic movie that I highly recommend.
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2008
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
getting hurt, watching foreign flicks
Last night I sprained my ankle big time. It totally blows. I was playing a little bit of ultimate frisbee, went up for the disk and just landed wrong. I herd a snap and it hurt like hell. I thought it was broken for sure but that sound was just the sound of ligaments snapping. I'm on crutches now. My insurance company bought some crutches for me for like $48.00, which strikes me as a little pricey. I bet Walmart has the same ones foe a few bucks. I also broke my dining room table by leaning on it too hard as I was trying to walk without my crutches. So I made it a short work day today. I think I deserve it. I meant to do some work from my couch while I elevated, iced and applied compression, but the drugs situation made that difficult. I watched two foreign flicks instead. They both made me feel helpless because I can't walk, but they were both totally awesome too.
The first one was called The Flying Scotsman. It's an English biopic about Graeme Obree, a Scottish cyclist that broke the Hour record in 1993, and again in 1994. Most people, and most Americans in particular, aren't familiar with the Hour record in cycling. When we think of cycling, we think of stage races like the Tour de France. The Hour is exactly what it sounds like. Whichever cyclist can ride the farthest distance in one hour owns the record. Cyclists that attempt the Hour do it in a velodrome, and usually by themselves. One of the main reasons why Lance Armstrong isn't the greatest cyclist of all time is that he never did anything but the Tour. He never even tried the Hour. Eddy Merckx, on the other hand, held the Hour record for 12 years on top of his 5 Tours de France.
The Flying Scotsman focuses on Obree's life from just before his first attempt at the Hour in 1993 to just after his second Pursuit title in 1995. Obree was a very good cyclist, but he was great at the Hour. Part of the reason was that he designed his own bike an riding style, and part of it was that he was tough as nails. Prior to his first attempt, he built his bike out of spare parts, he even took the main bearing out of his washing machine. He narrowed the bottom bracket to make the foot position more natural and streamlined the bike to reduce resistance. He also rode in a "crouch position" in which his chest touched his hands.
He made his first attempt on a professionally designed bike that incorporated all of the new ideas that he put into his original prototype. He didn't break the record. Then he tried again on the actual prototype with the washing machine bearing. This second attempt took place less than 24 hours after his first attempt. He broke the record.
Obree ran into a lot of opposition from the UCI, cycling's governing body. After his first Hour record, they banned his riding position (for "safety" reasons) by making it illegal for a rider's chest to touch his hands. In response, Obree started riding like this:
Ultimately, this position was banned (for "safety" reasons) too, after Obree had retired. Anyway, Obree's story is pretty fascinating and The Flying Scotsman tells it pretty accurately. Obree himself even stands in for some of the cycling scenes.
The other foreign flick I watched was called District B13 and it was fucking awesome. District B13 stars this dude named David Belle that invented this shit called parkour. You know that first scene in Casino Royale when Daniel Craig is chasing that dude that runs and jumps all over buildings and construction equipment? That's parkour. It's basically like martial arts geared towards the "flight" reaction instead of the "fight" reaction. Here's a video of David Belle doing some parkour:
District B13 takes place in a near future France in which ghettos have been walled off and left to their own, with no police or schools or anything like that. The "plot" revolves around Bell's character, a resident of one of these ghetto's that teams up with a cop, also proficient in parkour, to take down the gang of dorky wigger (is that word un-PC? I really don't know. If it is, and it offended anyone, I apologize) thugs that run District B13. Awesomeness ensues.
Okay, that's all I got. I'm going to go ice, elevate etc.
The first one was called The Flying Scotsman. It's an English biopic about Graeme Obree, a Scottish cyclist that broke the Hour record in 1993, and again in 1994. Most people, and most Americans in particular, aren't familiar with the Hour record in cycling. When we think of cycling, we think of stage races like the Tour de France. The Hour is exactly what it sounds like. Whichever cyclist can ride the farthest distance in one hour owns the record. Cyclists that attempt the Hour do it in a velodrome, and usually by themselves. One of the main reasons why Lance Armstrong isn't the greatest cyclist of all time is that he never did anything but the Tour. He never even tried the Hour. Eddy Merckx, on the other hand, held the Hour record for 12 years on top of his 5 Tours de France.
The Flying Scotsman focuses on Obree's life from just before his first attempt at the Hour in 1993 to just after his second Pursuit title in 1995. Obree was a very good cyclist, but he was great at the Hour. Part of the reason was that he designed his own bike an riding style, and part of it was that he was tough as nails. Prior to his first attempt, he built his bike out of spare parts, he even took the main bearing out of his washing machine. He narrowed the bottom bracket to make the foot position more natural and streamlined the bike to reduce resistance. He also rode in a "crouch position" in which his chest touched his hands.
He made his first attempt on a professionally designed bike that incorporated all of the new ideas that he put into his original prototype. He didn't break the record. Then he tried again on the actual prototype with the washing machine bearing. This second attempt took place less than 24 hours after his first attempt. He broke the record.
Obree ran into a lot of opposition from the UCI, cycling's governing body. After his first Hour record, they banned his riding position (for "safety" reasons) by making it illegal for a rider's chest to touch his hands. In response, Obree started riding like this:
Ultimately, this position was banned (for "safety" reasons) too, after Obree had retired. Anyway, Obree's story is pretty fascinating and The Flying Scotsman tells it pretty accurately. Obree himself even stands in for some of the cycling scenes.
The other foreign flick I watched was called District B13 and it was fucking awesome. District B13 stars this dude named David Belle that invented this shit called parkour. You know that first scene in Casino Royale when Daniel Craig is chasing that dude that runs and jumps all over buildings and construction equipment? That's parkour. It's basically like martial arts geared towards the "flight" reaction instead of the "fight" reaction. Here's a video of David Belle doing some parkour:
District B13 takes place in a near future France in which ghettos have been walled off and left to their own, with no police or schools or anything like that. The "plot" revolves around Bell's character, a resident of one of these ghetto's that teams up with a cop, also proficient in parkour, to take down the gang of dorky wigger (is that word un-PC? I really don't know. If it is, and it offended anyone, I apologize) thugs that run District B13. Awesomeness ensues.
Okay, that's all I got. I'm going to go ice, elevate etc.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Nobody knocks off an old man in my neighborhood and gets away with it.
Last Saturday, as I was recovering from last Friday, I watched this flick called Disturbia. Disturbia is somewhat of a remake of the classic thriller, The Burbs. In this incarnation, Tom Hanks's everyman character Ray Patterson is replaced by an angst-ridden teen named Kale, played by Transformers star Shia LaBeouf, while Hanks's Burbs detective associates, the bumbling Art (Rick Ducommun), and the paramilitary nut Rumsfeld (Bruce Dern) are replaced by Asian stereotype Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) and really really really hot chick Ashley (Sarah Roener).
In Disturbia, Kale is sentenced to a summer of house arrest and passes time by spying on his neighbors. He becomes convinced that one of his neighbors is a mass murderer and attempts to investigate with the help of Ronnie and Ashley. Like The Burbs, Disturbia attempts to make you question whether or not the neighbor is really a killer, or is the protagonist just crazy. There's nothing particularly new or brilliant about Disturbia, but it was a solid popcorn flick. LaBeouf is actually a pretty good actor and I bet we will see him in bigger and better roles in the future (well, obviously not bigger and better than Transformers). And Sarah Roemer is really really hot and she has cute freckles. It's worth seeing just for that. If you like hot chicks with cute freckles. Like I do.
Also, I heard it's similar to some other movie called Rear Window too, which I can only assume is another remake of The Burbs.
In Disturbia, Kale is sentenced to a summer of house arrest and passes time by spying on his neighbors. He becomes convinced that one of his neighbors is a mass murderer and attempts to investigate with the help of Ronnie and Ashley. Like The Burbs, Disturbia attempts to make you question whether or not the neighbor is really a killer, or is the protagonist just crazy. There's nothing particularly new or brilliant about Disturbia, but it was a solid popcorn flick. LaBeouf is actually a pretty good actor and I bet we will see him in bigger and better roles in the future (well, obviously not bigger and better than Transformers). And Sarah Roemer is really really hot and she has cute freckles. It's worth seeing just for that. If you like hot chicks with cute freckles. Like I do.
Also, I heard it's similar to some other movie called Rear Window too, which I can only assume is another remake of The Burbs.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
A Book, a Movie, and a TV Show
Baseball season is over so it's time to entertain myself in other ways. So here's brief list of stuff I've been reading, watching, and.. uh... watching. Maybe I'll try to do something like this periodically.
Book: More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, by Stephen Landsburg. This is one of those pop-economics books that have been popping up since the success of Dubner and Levitt's Freakonomics. Like Freakonomics and Landsburg's earlier book, The Armchair Economist, it's a collection of essays that discuss the underlying economics of everyday situations. In particular, it explains why "conventional wisdom" in many situations is wrong. The title chapter argues that the spread of STDs would decrease if people that have no sex, or very little sex would have more sex. The argument goes like this: Say that if you're a woman (You can switch the genders around in this example if you want to. You can even just switch one if you're into that.) on the prowl and there are 4 dudes in the bar that you're willing to bed. Two of them are very promiscuous and the other two only venture out once a year. Assuming that the two man-whores are more likely to have herpes, your odds of finding a safe mate are around 50%. Now assume that you could magically make every dude that only bones once a year into a dude that bones twice a year. Then, on any given night, there would be twice as many of these relatively safe dudes out on the prowl, including our hypothetical evening. Your odds of safe sex mating would go up to 66%. And there's like a multiplier affect because then when you go bed some other dude, you'll have less chance of spreading herpes yourself. Get it? Increased activity by sexual conservatives, according to Landsburg, would slow down the spread of STDs.
But Landsburg's point in this chapter, and most of his other chapters, is that the benefits of doing something like this are mostly for others, not for the sexual conservative choosing to get it on more often. He'd obviously receive the benefit of getting laid more often, but he'd only be sharing the benefit of a safer pool of partners with a jillion other people. It's this problem that he really analyzes. If the only good that is caused by a particular one of my actions is a benefit to everyone else rather than a benefit to me, what motivates me to act that way? Here's where I started to get a little uneasy with some of Landsberg's ideas. He pretty much wants to subsidize everything. That's not something you hear a lot of economists saying, but he things the government should pay sexual conservatives to have sex (and pay them with condoms), pay jurors to find verdicts, and fine them for bad verdicts, and it should buy every patent and put it into the public domain. This stuff all sounded crazy to me at first, but Landsburg has a way of almost convincing you that these are great ideas. Whether or not you buy into anything he says, it's an interesting read and a great way to see how an interesting mind works.
Movie: Children of Men was a pretty heavy movie. It was really well made if you're into artistic shit like cinematography and "style." It's got some Citizen Cain style newsreel stuff in it, and a single shot action battle sequence that is really really cool. All this stuff was secondary to the story about a post-apocalyptic future in which nobody can have babies and everyone has lost hope and gone bonkers. Great Britain is the only functioning government left and it's being torn apart by a flood of refugees and terrorist groups. Clive Owen ends up finding a pregnant chick and trying to escort her... somewhere. It doesn't really matter where because this is one of those road movies where the journey is more important than the destination. It was a solid movie, but I have a hard time with movies where the journey is more important than the destination. I'd rather the story teller finishes their story than leave it up to me to interpret. But it's well worth watching regardless.
TV Show: Season two of Dexter started Monday. Before I talk about Dexter, I need to say that Showtime is the best network on TV and those bastards at Time Warner totally sold me on it by giving it to me free for 6 months. I know HBO generally defines what constitutes great television drama, or "dramady" in some cases, but with the [non-]death of the Sopranos, Deadwood, and that show with all those ugly chicks in New York City, Showtime has a stronger overall lineup right now. Showtime's lineup now includes one outstanding show in Weeds, and at least four very very good shows in Bullsh!t, Dexter, Brotherhood and Californication. Bullsh!t was great in it's first two seasons but has declined somewhat due to the fact that they're running out of bullshit. That's good for society I suppose, but bad for TV. But I digress.
The hero and title character of Dexter is a serial killer. That premise alone is just so interesting. In Silence of the Lambs and it progeny, they made us a little sympathetic to Hannibal by having him find respect for Jodie Foster and kill that weaselly vice principal dude from Bostin Public. But we still all knew Hannibal was a bad guy. Dexter is actually a pretty good guy, despite the fact that he's murdered tens or hundreds of people. The premise is that Dexter was raised by his stepfather, a cop named Harry. Harry realized pretty early that Dexter was crazy and would probably end up a killer. So Harry trained him to control his urges using what Dexter refers to as "the code of Harry." He still kills, but he only kills bad guys. He finds out who the bad guys are through his work as a forensics cop specializing in blood spatter analysis. This skill also helps him make his own crime scenes perfectly clean. At first I found this premise a little too far fetched, but as I watched the show, I got into it. It helps that Michael C. Hall (the dude from Six Feet Under) plays the part so well.
This season begins with Dexter unable to kill, but he doesn't see this as a good thing. Which is kind of weird. Meanwhile, and more intriguing, some divers find the place where Dexter dumps all the bodies of his victims. That's about all we got in that story line, but I'm interested to see how the public reacts when they start identifying Dexter's victims, who are all really really bad guys.
Book: More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, by Stephen Landsburg. This is one of those pop-economics books that have been popping up since the success of Dubner and Levitt's Freakonomics. Like Freakonomics and Landsburg's earlier book, The Armchair Economist, it's a collection of essays that discuss the underlying economics of everyday situations. In particular, it explains why "conventional wisdom" in many situations is wrong. The title chapter argues that the spread of STDs would decrease if people that have no sex, or very little sex would have more sex. The argument goes like this: Say that if you're a woman (You can switch the genders around in this example if you want to. You can even just switch one if you're into that.) on the prowl and there are 4 dudes in the bar that you're willing to bed. Two of them are very promiscuous and the other two only venture out once a year. Assuming that the two man-whores are more likely to have herpes, your odds of finding a safe mate are around 50%. Now assume that you could magically make every dude that only bones once a year into a dude that bones twice a year. Then, on any given night, there would be twice as many of these relatively safe dudes out on the prowl, including our hypothetical evening. Your odds of safe sex mating would go up to 66%. And there's like a multiplier affect because then when you go bed some other dude, you'll have less chance of spreading herpes yourself. Get it? Increased activity by sexual conservatives, according to Landsburg, would slow down the spread of STDs.
But Landsburg's point in this chapter, and most of his other chapters, is that the benefits of doing something like this are mostly for others, not for the sexual conservative choosing to get it on more often. He'd obviously receive the benefit of getting laid more often, but he'd only be sharing the benefit of a safer pool of partners with a jillion other people. It's this problem that he really analyzes. If the only good that is caused by a particular one of my actions is a benefit to everyone else rather than a benefit to me, what motivates me to act that way? Here's where I started to get a little uneasy with some of Landsberg's ideas. He pretty much wants to subsidize everything. That's not something you hear a lot of economists saying, but he things the government should pay sexual conservatives to have sex (and pay them with condoms), pay jurors to find verdicts, and fine them for bad verdicts, and it should buy every patent and put it into the public domain. This stuff all sounded crazy to me at first, but Landsburg has a way of almost convincing you that these are great ideas. Whether or not you buy into anything he says, it's an interesting read and a great way to see how an interesting mind works.
Movie: Children of Men was a pretty heavy movie. It was really well made if you're into artistic shit like cinematography and "style." It's got some Citizen Cain style newsreel stuff in it, and a single shot action battle sequence that is really really cool. All this stuff was secondary to the story about a post-apocalyptic future in which nobody can have babies and everyone has lost hope and gone bonkers. Great Britain is the only functioning government left and it's being torn apart by a flood of refugees and terrorist groups. Clive Owen ends up finding a pregnant chick and trying to escort her... somewhere. It doesn't really matter where because this is one of those road movies where the journey is more important than the destination. It was a solid movie, but I have a hard time with movies where the journey is more important than the destination. I'd rather the story teller finishes their story than leave it up to me to interpret. But it's well worth watching regardless.
TV Show: Season two of Dexter started Monday. Before I talk about Dexter, I need to say that Showtime is the best network on TV and those bastards at Time Warner totally sold me on it by giving it to me free for 6 months. I know HBO generally defines what constitutes great television drama, or "dramady" in some cases, but with the [non-]death of the Sopranos, Deadwood, and that show with all those ugly chicks in New York City, Showtime has a stronger overall lineup right now. Showtime's lineup now includes one outstanding show in Weeds, and at least four very very good shows in Bullsh!t, Dexter, Brotherhood and Californication. Bullsh!t was great in it's first two seasons but has declined somewhat due to the fact that they're running out of bullshit. That's good for society I suppose, but bad for TV. But I digress.
The hero and title character of Dexter is a serial killer. That premise alone is just so interesting. In Silence of the Lambs and it progeny, they made us a little sympathetic to Hannibal by having him find respect for Jodie Foster and kill that weaselly vice principal dude from Bostin Public. But we still all knew Hannibal was a bad guy. Dexter is actually a pretty good guy, despite the fact that he's murdered tens or hundreds of people. The premise is that Dexter was raised by his stepfather, a cop named Harry. Harry realized pretty early that Dexter was crazy and would probably end up a killer. So Harry trained him to control his urges using what Dexter refers to as "the code of Harry." He still kills, but he only kills bad guys. He finds out who the bad guys are through his work as a forensics cop specializing in blood spatter analysis. This skill also helps him make his own crime scenes perfectly clean. At first I found this premise a little too far fetched, but as I watched the show, I got into it. It helps that Michael C. Hall (the dude from Six Feet Under) plays the part so well.
This season begins with Dexter unable to kill, but he doesn't see this as a good thing. Which is kind of weird. Meanwhile, and more intriguing, some divers find the place where Dexter dumps all the bodies of his victims. That's about all we got in that story line, but I'm interested to see how the public reacts when they start identifying Dexter's victims, who are all really really bad guys.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Transformers
Holy Shit. I just saw Transformers and it blew my mind. Thank you Ronald Reagan for making this movie possible. You are truly a great American. [Prior to 1984, the FCC forbid toy companies from making program-length commercials. But the Reagan administration got rid of that reg and paved the way for program-length commercials for toys like "Transformers," "Strawberry Shortcake" and "Masters of the Universe," among others. That's right, my favorite TV show when I was nine was just a commercial.] I'm sure my appreciation for this flick is mostly based on nostalgia. When I first saw the Autobots driving in a caravan down a dessert highway, I got goosebumps. Awesome stuff.
Michael Bay has never made a movie that I would call "good," but I think he was a good guy to direct Transformers. You don't really need "character development" or "believability" or "a plot" in a movie about giant alien robots that turn into cars that come to Earth to fight other giant alien robots. And Bay actually made a couple improvements to the Transformers mythology. Most notable is that none of them drastically change size when they transform. When I was a kid I had a huge problem with the fact that the Megatron character was totally gay. He changed from a 30-foot tall robot into a little handgun. It was just retarded. Usually, Soundwave would fire Megatron when he was in gun-form. Soundwave was pretty lame too. He changed from a giant robot into... a tape player. In case the Deceptacons wanted to... like... record something... onto a cassette tape. The concept of Megatron turning into a gun and Soundwave shooting him at the Autobots would be akin to Darth Vader turning into a lightsaber and having one of those A-holes in the grey suits that he always chokes to death go after Chewbacca with it. Well in the Transformers movie, Soundwave doesn't appear and instead of being a little handgun, Megatron is this big-ass jet thing. Most of the Autobots were changed into GM cars for obvious product placement reasons too. The biggest change being that Bumblebee is a Camarro instead of a Beetle, like Herbie the Lovebug or the car that Mandie Moore drives in the video for Candy. Thanks again President Reagan.
[Spoiler warning]
So anyway, the "plot" of Transformers is that there are these huge sentient robots from planet Cybertron. They destroyed their own civilization through wars and stuff and were scattered across the galaxy. They're looking for this thing called the "allspark," which transforms electronic stuff into living creatures. It is essentially the Transformer God, except that it's a big cube instead of a muscular guy with a magic hammer like our god.
So the allspark ended up on Earth and was discovered frozen in the arctic circle by some old explorer dude a hundred years ago. He discovered Megatron there too. This old explorer dude's grandson, Sam, now has some artifacts from grandpa's exploration, including a pair of glasses that Megatron etched instructions for finding the allspark on.
The Deceptacons learn this and go after Sam, while the Autobots try to protect him and find the allspark themselves. A 1 hour, 45 minute car-chase/shootemup/robot fight follows. Awesomeness ensues. The end.
Transformers isn't without it's problems. It had several massive plot-holes, as is common in Michael Bay movies. And there was a little too much ham involved. They tried to make the characters more contemporary or something. Like they made the character Jazz a total douchebag. He was all "hip-hop" or something. I was happy when Megatron tore him in half.
But the biggest problem was the two assholes sitting behind me in the theater that wouldn't shut the hell up for the entire movie. Could someone please explain to me why two people that wanted to have a conversation would go to a movie? Why not go get some coffee or a beer? Why not just sit in your F-ing living room for Chrisake? We avoided the Mayfair theater because we didn't want to deal with this garbage. But I guess people talk in movies at the FoxBay theater too. I would have said something, but I think that people who talk in movies usually pack heat too. Also, these two assholes appeared to like the Jazz character, who, as I previously noted, was a douchebag.
Michael Bay has never made a movie that I would call "good," but I think he was a good guy to direct Transformers. You don't really need "character development" or "believability" or "a plot" in a movie about giant alien robots that turn into cars that come to Earth to fight other giant alien robots. And Bay actually made a couple improvements to the Transformers mythology. Most notable is that none of them drastically change size when they transform. When I was a kid I had a huge problem with the fact that the Megatron character was totally gay. He changed from a 30-foot tall robot into a little handgun. It was just retarded. Usually, Soundwave would fire Megatron when he was in gun-form. Soundwave was pretty lame too. He changed from a giant robot into... a tape player. In case the Deceptacons wanted to... like... record something... onto a cassette tape. The concept of Megatron turning into a gun and Soundwave shooting him at the Autobots would be akin to Darth Vader turning into a lightsaber and having one of those A-holes in the grey suits that he always chokes to death go after Chewbacca with it. Well in the Transformers movie, Soundwave doesn't appear and instead of being a little handgun, Megatron is this big-ass jet thing. Most of the Autobots were changed into GM cars for obvious product placement reasons too. The biggest change being that Bumblebee is a Camarro instead of a Beetle, like Herbie the Lovebug or the car that Mandie Moore drives in the video for Candy. Thanks again President Reagan.
[Spoiler warning]
So anyway, the "plot" of Transformers is that there are these huge sentient robots from planet Cybertron. They destroyed their own civilization through wars and stuff and were scattered across the galaxy. They're looking for this thing called the "allspark," which transforms electronic stuff into living creatures. It is essentially the Transformer God, except that it's a big cube instead of a muscular guy with a magic hammer like our god.
So the allspark ended up on Earth and was discovered frozen in the arctic circle by some old explorer dude a hundred years ago. He discovered Megatron there too. This old explorer dude's grandson, Sam, now has some artifacts from grandpa's exploration, including a pair of glasses that Megatron etched instructions for finding the allspark on.
The Deceptacons learn this and go after Sam, while the Autobots try to protect him and find the allspark themselves. A 1 hour, 45 minute car-chase/shootemup/robot fight follows. Awesomeness ensues. The end.
Transformers isn't without it's problems. It had several massive plot-holes, as is common in Michael Bay movies. And there was a little too much ham involved. They tried to make the characters more contemporary or something. Like they made the character Jazz a total douchebag. He was all "hip-hop" or something. I was happy when Megatron tore him in half.
But the biggest problem was the two assholes sitting behind me in the theater that wouldn't shut the hell up for the entire movie. Could someone please explain to me why two people that wanted to have a conversation would go to a movie? Why not go get some coffee or a beer? Why not just sit in your F-ing living room for Chrisake? We avoided the Mayfair theater because we didn't want to deal with this garbage. But I guess people talk in movies at the FoxBay theater too. I would have said something, but I think that people who talk in movies usually pack heat too. Also, these two assholes appeared to like the Jazz character, who, as I previously noted, was a douchebag.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Getting fit, campy sports flicks and being no-hit
I'm sort of an all-or-nothing exerciser. There have been periods in my life when I was in spectacular shape. I don't just mean that I was the proper weight for my height and exercised a few times a week. I mean that I was fit as a fricken fiddle. There have also been times when I was closer to fit as a Cello. This is one of those times. I competed in an Ironman Triathlon a few years ago. The few weeks leading up to that, I was a warrior. I was fast and strong and could go all day (that's right ladies, all day). I had been biking over 300 miles per week and running close to 70. I ran a solid enough race that I felt like I had accomplished something.
I haven't worked out since.
In spite of the complete 180-degree reversal, I'm really only about 20 lbs. fatter than I was. In the next two months, I am going to lose [most of] that 20 lbs. As of today, I've worked out 2 days in a row. Tonight at the gym, I weighed in at 189. So on August 13th, 2007, I pledge that I will weigh under 170 lbs.
_________
As an inspiration for getting off my ass and accomplishing my dreams, I watched Invincible, starring former Funky Bunch front-man Marky Mark and the gay guy from As Good as it Gets. If there's one movie genre that I truly love it's the Disneyesque sorta-true underdog sports stories. This one centers on Vince Papale, a South Philly bartender that never played college football that overcame the odds and won a spot on the Eagles' roster after impressing new Coach Dick Vermiel at an open tryout. In real life, instead of being a bartender, Papale was a, um, well, professional football player in the now defunct World Football League. And there was no open tryout. But "Bartender becomes pro footballer after impressing upstart coach in open tryout" is a much better story than "pro footballer becomes more highly paid pro footballer after upstart coach's scouts notice that he's fast and good at football and arrange a tryout." [I have no idea why I just used the word "footballer" instead of football player. What a dorky word. "Dorky" is a pretty dorky word to, huh?] Anyway, Invincible is some good TV in my opinion.
Another movie in this genre that I love is Miracle, in which Kurt Russel gets a bad haircut in order to play Herb Brooks, and coaches a rag-tag bunch of college hockey players to an Olympic gold, on the way defeating the Soviet Union and winning the cold war or something. Perhaps my favorite film in this genre is The Greatest Game Ever Played. It's the sorta true story of Francis Ouimet, a young caddy who overcomes the odds to win the 1913 US Open against several top English professionals. This feel-good G-rated instant classic actually sticks very close to the real story. The DVD special features include a documentary from 1963 (50 years after the 1913 US Open for the mathematically impaired) that features the real Francis Ouimet telling the story. It's really cool. And man did those guys have some shitty golf clubs.
_______
The Brewers dropped a brutal game last night, being no-hit by Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander. Nice show Justin, seriously, nice show. But shame on Ned Yost. My crew has these two aging infielders that bat like 210 or something. Having one of them in is like having two pitchers batting. So here we are in an American League park, and he plays both of them? And makes them the first two batters to boot! Are you kidding me Ned? Here is a tip: you know that dominating rookie you have that is batting like 320 with 4 homers in like 10 games [or whatever], play him! I love you Neddy, I really do. You seem to be good at relating to your young team. But maybe you should pick up "Coaching Baseball for Dummies" (I thought I was making this book up, but it actually exists. Heh.) or something.
I haven't worked out since.
In spite of the complete 180-degree reversal, I'm really only about 20 lbs. fatter than I was. In the next two months, I am going to lose [most of] that 20 lbs. As of today, I've worked out 2 days in a row. Tonight at the gym, I weighed in at 189. So on August 13th, 2007, I pledge that I will weigh under 170 lbs.
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As an inspiration for getting off my ass and accomplishing my dreams, I watched Invincible, starring former Funky Bunch front-man Marky Mark and the gay guy from As Good as it Gets. If there's one movie genre that I truly love it's the Disneyesque sorta-true underdog sports stories. This one centers on Vince Papale, a South Philly bartender that never played college football that overcame the odds and won a spot on the Eagles' roster after impressing new Coach Dick Vermiel at an open tryout. In real life, instead of being a bartender, Papale was a, um, well, professional football player in the now defunct World Football League. And there was no open tryout. But "Bartender becomes pro footballer after impressing upstart coach in open tryout" is a much better story than "pro footballer becomes more highly paid pro footballer after upstart coach's scouts notice that he's fast and good at football and arrange a tryout." [I have no idea why I just used the word "footballer" instead of football player. What a dorky word. "Dorky" is a pretty dorky word to, huh?] Anyway, Invincible is some good TV in my opinion.
Another movie in this genre that I love is Miracle, in which Kurt Russel gets a bad haircut in order to play Herb Brooks, and coaches a rag-tag bunch of college hockey players to an Olympic gold, on the way defeating the Soviet Union and winning the cold war or something. Perhaps my favorite film in this genre is The Greatest Game Ever Played. It's the sorta true story of Francis Ouimet, a young caddy who overcomes the odds to win the 1913 US Open against several top English professionals. This feel-good G-rated instant classic actually sticks very close to the real story. The DVD special features include a documentary from 1963 (50 years after the 1913 US Open for the mathematically impaired) that features the real Francis Ouimet telling the story. It's really cool. And man did those guys have some shitty golf clubs.
_______
The Brewers dropped a brutal game last night, being no-hit by Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander. Nice show Justin, seriously, nice show. But shame on Ned Yost. My crew has these two aging infielders that bat like 210 or something. Having one of them in is like having two pitchers batting. So here we are in an American League park, and he plays both of them? And makes them the first two batters to boot! Are you kidding me Ned? Here is a tip: you know that dominating rookie you have that is batting like 320 with 4 homers in like 10 games [or whatever], play him! I love you Neddy, I really do. You seem to be good at relating to your young team. But maybe you should pick up "Coaching Baseball for Dummies" (I thought I was making this book up, but it actually exists. Heh.) or something.
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