Looks like I got out of college just in time!

So now there's a bill law that says that for schools which are publicly funded, the ones with the highest number of copyright infringement notices will be investigated and their funding will change depending on the results. Really. To some this may sound like a good idea. I assure you that it is not. First of all, I don't care whether you are for or against pirating. Technically this law has nothing to do with any crimes. It has to do specifically with the amount of notices of infringement are sent. Yes, RIAA and MPAA, I can see you fondling the senate under the table and that's simply not appropriate. At a time when the RIAA is starting to falter in court on both how they glean information about people as well as whether they really should be pulling those people into court to begin with why is the government giving them more power? Additionally, why is it suddenly a university's responsibility to preemptively enforce copyright law? That sounds like a job for the police.

MP/RIAA buys government. Government strong-arms schools. Schools become police forces for MP/RIAA. Well, that certainly isn't comforting.

Of course, what do you expect from a president who bought his way to power and has an illustrious family legacy of supporting fascist policy to overcome the established ruling system of the day.

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Completely unrelated note: Does anyone out there use Twitter?

Harry Potter 7: don't worry, I've used LJ Cuts

I'm playing it safe and putting the whole entry behind a cut. If you haven't read the book, this contains many spoilers. If you have read the book then it's just a bunch of details. It's all relative I guess.

So, I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday. People out there who know me already are aware that I'm not a huge fan of JK Rowling's writing. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy her plots. I do not thing that she's a great writer, though. The books were fine in the early years but I'm going on record to say that starting with Goblet of Fire the movies are better than the books. She's been writing these stories of 10 years now! She should be better. Unfortunately she has not matured her style while the actors and directors involved in adapting her works have. This is all painfully obvious when it comes to the last book in the series. The first thing I noticed was her death scenes. She's always had a problem with good death scenes. She's too attached to her characters and she never got used to writing them. In this case she tries to overcompensate, knowing that this book has to be "dark and depressing". Let's take a quick look at the body counts in the books. This is a chart of people why die in the book, not people who are mentioned who have died.

Philosopher's Stone	0
Chamber of Secrets	1
Prisoner of Azkaban	0
Goblet of Fire	3
Order of the Phoenix	1
Half-blood Prince	1
Deathly Hallows	24

(actual count may vary depending on your definition of death. The above is based on a very liberal acceptance, i.e. it includes Tom Riddle who is really just a horcrux, as well as Hedwig who is not a sentient species.)

Does anything look a little forced here? I think so. the fact that the death toll hits 4 by chapter 5 is a good indication of the pacing. The real issue is that they aren't good deaths. Most of these people don't die, but are listed as killed. For instance, We never see Moody die. We simply hear that he fell off a broom. Now, Moody is the ultimate survivor. Missing a leg and an eye, this guy will take anything that's thrown at him. If there was one person to suspect a return from it's him. But Rowling just wants it over with so he's reported as dead and she moves on. Problem: In a series where she's made it a point to drop little clues and return to things that have previously been small details why does she now expect everyone in her audience to accept things like this? Because she's immature about death in her books? Hell, take Tonks and Lupin. The first time we find out they're dead is when Harry sees their bodies on the ground during the battle of Hogwarts. Fine, kill off some random professor who's never been mentioned (who teaches a class that's never been mentioned) off screen. That's... OK. But to kill off two big characters who you've been building up for a couple of novels the same way? That's cheap and sleazy. Those characters deserved a better author than that. And then to not get around to mentioning their son (who, because Harry is his god father, should have been living with Harry) until that slap dashed, soft-focus "19 years later" epilogue? It's (painfully) obvious JK Rowling loves her characters. The problem is that she lets that get in the way of writing them the way they should be. Instead she panders to them and attempts to make it easy on the characters, the readers and herself. There is no greater instance of this weakness for her characters than in the final fight between Harry and Voldemort. It's the same "fight finale" as in Goblet of Fire. The only difference is that this time Harry has both wands on his side. This is such a powerful turn of fate that Harry doesn't even have to cast a single offensive spell against his opponent. No, instead Voldemort simply kills himself. Now I get something like that in a kid book. And I know that these started off as such. But at this point it's being written for a mean (math term, not "nasty") reader of 17. That's pushing what can be considered the upper bounds of Young Adult. Also, we've had 10 years to see how she's trying to develop people in her world. Top that off with nearly a whole chapter of her having Dumbledor say "Harry needs to die" and it's a safe bet the stage is set for something darker than "Evil kills itself. good will triumph because good is... better at being good...." In the midst of a war that the good guys have been fighting for years (and books) on the side of right we are suddenly told that pacifism is the ultimate ideal? I know that's now what the author meant to put across, but in being so careful not to hurt Harry in any permanent way that's what she has told us. There are all sorts of problems in this novel but most of them point to the writer's ability rather than bad plotting. In a series where she's made it habit to lay the foundations and clues early on the whole "hallows" concept seems to come out of nowhere. Fine, she may have had plans for the cloak. I'll buy that. But the ring that meant nothing until now? The wand that didn't exist until this book. Suddenly Ron knows all about it and it's the one thing that Mr. Lovegood isn't full of crap on. Deathly Hallows starts to sag under the weight of all these easy coincidences. That's not to say I didn't enjoy this book. I have a lot of criticism for it because it has a lot to live up to. Sure, most of the middle of the book is boring and pointless. Endless days camping and not accomplishing anything. As much as Ron was criticized for leaving them on their quest he absolutely had a point. They didn't have a plan and were not accomplishing anything. It felt like she was stretching out Harry and Hermione's time in the wild simply because her books all have to take place over the course of a year. Once things picked up again the book was entertaining. The overall style was a little too bipolar as a whole. I felt that there was no consistent pacing. The opening is manic. The camping is a lull. The race to the horcruxes comes from nowhere and is manic, then it calms a bit while they crash at Serius' old place. Suddenly there's a battle and it's over. I know that there's rising and falling action but this was all over the place. I think it would have fared better had she done a 7th book at the school and then an 8th book out in the world. It would have given her more opportunity to lay the groundwork of th hallows and the super-wand business that came from nowhere. Once the main characters went out into the world they didn't know what to do. I don't think that was just Ron, Harry and Hermione. I think that was JK Rowling as well. She was out of her element. She had so much room to move around in that she panicked and they spend months doing nothing at all. I know I'm complaining a lot. I swear, I was entertained by it. It was a fun read. It was frustrating at the slow middle third, but overall I liked it. Just the blad fact of know how it ends gives this book a "must read" banner. The battle was ridiculous and nerds the world over will ponder: Who would win in a fight: Xavier's School of the Gifted of Hogwarts? And I think it's a pretty close fight. The mythology was fleshed out more. Snape was (as I never doubted for a moment) vindicated, if a bit ham handedly. Ron and Hermione kiss (about goddamn time) and technically a bunch of the characters did get laid in this one. Hooray for all of that. And although it was a little strange, I did like the Serius house section. The turn of both Kreacher and Ron/Harry was nicely done. The part where Harry kicks Lupin's ass for running away; I liked that too. So I don't mean to seem all down about that book. The fact still remains that it just didn't live up to what book 7 had to be. Some of you might say it's not fare to factor in the hype for a book review. Normally that's the case, but this is "Harry frickin' Potter". There's 10 years of hype and it's not all media induced. The author has been reveling in it and, for the most part, living up to it. Each element of this has been rolling downhill like a snowball, getting bigger and better. The books, the movies, all of it. This needed to be the biggest part of all, a fine send off to a publishing monster. And it wasn't. Sure, it was better than the early books, but it didn't top Order of the Phoenix. Even Half Blood Prince had paced itself better. If the books were all part of an evolutionary path, this book would thrive for a bit in it's time, but die out in the end.

Rating +1.5 I would love to give this a higher rating, but actually wrestled this up from a -1. Now, here's my idea for a better ending. I hate the fact that the themes she's been trying to establish for 10 years have been broken or at least bent to the limit in order to insure that Harry end the series with clean hands an no long last ill effects, as evident in the Hallmark quality epilogue. Here's how it should have ended.... Harry and Voldemort begin their duel to the death. After a few rebounded attacks Voldemort realizes that the wand is not obeying him. He launches one last desperate curse against Harry, who deflects it and expels Voldemort's wand. They both look at each other. Voldemort then lunges for Harry and Harry casts the killing curse. Voldemort dies but Harry's soul is damaged. Voldemort was evil and trying to kill Harry, but was unarmed and beaten. Harry is then taken to St. Mungo's for treatment and rehabilitation. We get to see a little bit of Harry here, trying to balance the fact that he acted in the right with the fact that the master plan was wrong on some level to damage him. Perhaps the rules aren't perfect? Did Harry know better? At St. Mungo's he has to face all the elements that would have made him a great Slytherin. The last chapter ends. Epilogue: They're all at the platform as in the novel. This time Harry and Ginny only have Teddy Lupin in their care while Ron and Hermione have 2-4 kids. The children run off to the train. Once more, we see Malfoy sending off his kid. Instead of just giving a nod he comes over. He's friendly, though not polite, with Ron, Ginny, Harry and Hermione. We can see that he has become very close to Harry since Malfoy was partially redeemed and Harry has partially fallen. End

Say, who would win in a fight between Xavier's and Hogwarts?

"S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche"

"I hate cake."  That's what started all this today.  I told my friend Ashly I hate cake and she called me a liar.  She called me a liar because she asked if I still like cheesecake and ice cream cake.  I told her I do and then she called me a liar.  I sought the advice of friends, far and near.  I researched.  I looked up definitions and etymology.  This is what I found. When I say I hate cake, I'm referring to the spongy stuff.  You all know what I mean.  And that's what I meant.  But I was now challenged with proving this is what cake really is.  Which is hard.  cheesecake and ice cream cake are both called cake.  So what was I to do?  The first step was to realize that "cake" has many different definitions.  At some time or another I am sure you've had mud caked onto your shoes.  Kokon is the base, from old western Germanic.  It used to mean "A flat, round loaf of bread".  Neither of the two "cakes" that I do like would fall into that, but when's the last time you heard someone say "No!  Kokon!  Not cake."  Probably never.  So Let's look at what it means today. Dictionary.com defines it as such:

cake  /keɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[keyk] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, caked, cak·ing. –noun 1. a sweet, baked, breadlike food, made with or without shortening, and usually containing flour, sugar, baking powder or soda, eggs, and liquid flavoring. 2. a flat, thin mass of bread, esp. unleavened bread. 3. pancake; griddlecake. 4. a shaped or molded mass of other food: a fish cake. 5. a shaped or compressed mass: a cake of soap; a cake of ice. 6. Animal Husbandry. a compacted block of soybeans, cottonseeds, or linseeds from which the oil has been pressed, usually used as a feed or feed supplement for cattle. –verb (used with object) 7. to form into a crust or compact mass. –verb (used without object) 8. to become formed into a crust or compact mass. —Idioms

This brings up an interesting distinction.  Which version of cake do I hate?  Well, to give both benefit of the doubt and to err on accuracy I will take definition 1.  This is the standard version of cake.  Whether you think so or not, this is what you ask for when you order cake.  The stress here is on breadlike.  I know that not all cakes contain flour.  Passover cakes usually make use of a potato starch.  But it is still breadlike and, to a degree, relies on leavening.  Since this is cake I shall call this true, high cake.  I hate true cake.  But where do the exceptions come in?  Let's take them one at a time, starting with the most abstract. Ice cream cake.  This confused me.  It isn't nearly definition 1.  Then what is it?  Is it because of the shape?  Maybe, but that's a bit loose of a definition for cake.  In fact, ice cream cake is usually completely ice cream.  Does ice cream become something different depending on the shape?  Is it one thing in the gallon or pint containers and something else as a scoop?  Are cups and cones two different forms of dessert?  Looking through the definitions I see that 4 applies nicely.  In fact, it appears that ice cream cake is cake solely based on shape!  Perhaps my friend was right, and I need to specify.  Maybe when I say "I hate cake" people will assume I also hate foods that fall into my "love" range.  But no.  Look at the example: a fish cake.  If you sat down and ordered cake and then was served a fish cake you would not accept that.  Variations through chocolate, strawberry short, marble, pound and even coffee are all acceptable variances, but they all fall into the definition for true cake.  So it's not safe to assume I mean anything in definition 4, or low cake, when I say I don't like cake.  Ice cream cake is safe.  It falls outside of the dessert formula of cake. But what of cheesecake?!  My first thought was to try and use semantics to edge it out.  Maybe it's one of those words that we use together so much (cheese and cake) that it is nearly a proper noun now.  Like a warehouse.  No one puts the words "housing" and "wares" together when they say it.  It now means "large storage building" and not "housing for wares, or sellable goods".  But that would be the easy way out.  "Lawyering" if you will.  And that's cheap.  I'd be going by a population wide assumption to prove my point, and that's bad form.  Perhaps... yes!  Look closely at what true cake is.  Cheesecake doesn't quite fall into that category.  I tell this to my friend Leigh.  She points out that most cheesecakes have a bready crust.  Lightening strikes.  That is my way out!  The separate crust.  Suddenly I race across the internet, looking for something.  And I find it. "A baked food having a filling of fruit, meat, pudding, etc., prepared in a pastry-lined pan or dish and often topped with a pastry crust" And there it is.  I'm safe.  That is the definition of cheesecake.  It's a sweet filling (sweet cream cheese in most cases) with a pastry crust.  It's not topped, but it doesn't need to be.  This, my friends, is the definition of pie.  Cheesecake has taken the two words, as I thought, and tied them together.  Yes, it is called cheesecake but cheesecake is a type of pie!  So, after all of my research I find out that cheesecake is a pie and that ice cream cake is really just ice cream.  At best, ice cream cake is as close to cake as fish cakes and crab cakes.  Which is not very.  Pie and "low cake".  These were my exceptions but now I can say for a fact that they are not true cakes.  What did all of this get me?  Vindication?  No.  I wasn't out to prove people wrong.  I wanted the truth.  And the truth is I can say "I hate cake" with less ambivalence than ever. But I love ice cream cake.

... he typed while wearing thick rimed glasses at the library with a pen stuck in his hair...

Sooooo nerdy but I'm excited.  My dad bought a USB barcode scanner.  I've got database software so I guess someone gets to catalog a personal library this weekend.  Fun!

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Not a side note.  I guess a parallel note.  Al's band will be performing this Sunday with a bunch of big-namers at the Starland Ballroom Summer Campout (click for directions and whatnot).  The band list is: Reel Big Fis, Less Than Jake, Streetlight Manifesto, Plus Against All Authority, Suburban Legends, Patent Pending, The Bad Scene, A Midnight Tragedy, Calamity Menagerie, Flashlight Arcade, The Amaury, Awful Waffle, 9:18, Jester, Echo Movement, 10 Cents "and more". As it stands, they are scheduled to open the main stage and since doors are at 11they'll probably go on around 12.  Tickets are just $25.  I'm not a big scenester, but that's a pretty fine price for a lineup like that.  You can get them online here (watch out for the $8 inconvenience charge) or get them from Allison or myself for $25 even. Commercial over.

Fuck the police

Yesterday I saw the new Harry Potter movie, but this isn't going to be about that. No, I think I'll talk about the cop that almost hit me and my friends in a car, then threatened to physically assault me. Yes, I do believe that is what's on my mind. I want to preface this first. For my general opinion of police I draw on my personal experience as well as that of my friends. I can say that I myself have never met a cop, out being a cop, who could also qualify as a good person. At the very best i have met a cop who was ignorant of his job. At the worst I have seen them be abusive. First example. I had a friend who, in high school or there about, was a volunteer fire fighter. One day while on his bicycle he was pulled over by a cop. This wasn't just any cop. This officer had been my D.A.R.E. officer. This is the guy who works with kids all day long. And this is what he did. He had my friend get off his bike and walk to the car. He was then questioned for... burglary? Yes. Finally, his scanner was confiscated. He was told that if he wanted it back then he'd have to go to the police station. 1) It was for his job as a fire fighter. 2) It is completely legal in this state to use a scanner as long as it's not in furtherance of a crime. A cop should know that since they are supposed to enforce the law. How about that time when I was taking pictures. I was still at college. I set up a tripod on the front porch area of my dorm and was taking some medium length exposures at night. There was a new building going up across the street and I thought there were some good shots to be taken. The main stairwell was still exposed, the bottom of the building looked like it had an exhaust pipe. Lots of glass. It was neat. So I'm out there, snapping away and an officer comes strolling up the street. He walks over to me and asks what I'm doing. I tell him I'm taking pictures of the construction site. Now, here's the thing. I have read up quit a bit on photography law. I know that if I can see it from public property and there's no expectation of privacy I can take the shot. 90% of the time, if there's a person in the shot (or it's of a person) this doesn't matter. Selling it later, if there are recognizable people, is another matter. But of buildings and land and whatnot I was golden. The only issue would have been that the dorm isn't public property. Worst case, I would move 5 feet closer to the construction site and set up on the sidewalk. So, the cop asks some questions about what I was doing. He says that I probably shouldn't be taking pictures of that building. I tell him that I can and there's no reason that I shouldn't be able to. He looks at me oddly and asks me my name and where I live. I tell him, then point over my shoulder at my dorm. I give him my room number and check his spelling of my name. Then he tells me again that he doesn't think I should be taking these pictures. I say it's fine, really. The cop then says that I should stop and he'll get around to asking about it next time he's at the station and get back to me. Until then I should stop taking pictures. i say OK, pick up my camera and collapse my tripod. He walks away. As soon as he's around the corner I set up shop again and keep snapping. Some people might wonder if that was smart, actively ignoring a policeman's instructions like that. I think it's the only responsible thing to do when the officer in question admits that he isn't clear on the law he's enforcing and says that I should suspend my rights until he gets back to me. For the record, he never got back to me. So, yesterday I was riding along in the back seat of my friend's car. We're in the left lane. She needs to get to the right to make a right turn. Being a responsible driver, she looks in her rear view and sees a black Cadillac sedan right on her tail. Dangerously close. She puts on her signal and as soon as she does it swerves into the right lane and blocks her. It backs off a bit and she gets over. While she's changing lanes it swerves again, this time into the left lane once more. It guns past her and I put my hand up and casually flip the middle finger. The car seems to slow down for a moment, then jumps forward and cuts her off. Suddenly, it slams on its brakes, forcing her to slow down. He then lurches back into the left lane (nearly hitting a car that was coming up in the empty lane) and slams his breaks again to get next to her. He rolls down his window and screams that we should to, possibly to expose ourselves to the spray of spittle he's frothing out in rage. My friend is worried at this point. I'm curious and roll down my window. Keep in mind, we roll up to a red light, us in the right turning lane, him in the left lane to go straight. The exchange went like this: Cop: What the fuck do you think you're doing? Why the fuck are you giving the finger? At this point I see that he's a cop because of his jacket. His car is unmarked and possibly not even a cop car. But he has the satin/polyester jacket with the flag on the shoulder so I should have known he was a cop when he was behind us... Also, he had a name tattooed across the knuckles on his right hand. My friends in the front seat think it was Todd. Me: You nearly hit us and then tried to cut us off on the right. Cop: Do you know who the fuck I am? Do you know who the fuck you're giving the finger to?! Me: You nearly hit us... Cop: You better fucking watch it. Know who you give the finger to before someone pulls out your fucking long hair. Me: What? He then guns his engine and speeds through the red light, across two lanes of traffic and makes the right turn in front of us. To punctuate this move the car behind us honks for us to make a right turn on red; a legal move but by no means mandatory. We look at him and see that he is making for the Turnpike. It's a single lane entrance ramp. There's a red car already on the ramp when this cop speeds up to the entrance. He then tries to pass the guy on the left (on a one lane ramp) before he disappears around the corner. When we get back to my apartment the passenger from the front seat calls the number to report aggressive drivers and gives a location and description of the car as well as an abridged report on his behavior. And I don't think he mentioned that it was a cop in an unmarked car... My point? Maybe it's that cops are highly uneducated when it comes to the laws that they are supposed to insure are followed, instead erring on the side of paranoia, knee-jerk reactions and whatever makes them feel better. Maybe it's that police applications should have a much more stringent standard for psychological profiling so not everyone who was a bully in junior high and then was insulted because people didn't think they were awesome in high school simply on the grounds that their car was loud gets to be an officer and carry a gun to replace their self esteem. Or maybe it's that if you're in the area and you see a big black Cadillac sedan with a suspiciously large antenna on the back swerving around and nearly hitting cars as it speeds by, give him the finger. Because he probably deserves it more than you know.

Cell Outs

There, now you have your Joel Siegel memorial pun.

Rating note:  I will be rating movies on a scale from -5 to 5.  Zero is a complete average rating.  I feel nothing at all to it.  It leaves no impact.  The negative numbers create actual antipathy.  The positives are good ratings.  Films are really meant to be felt on a scale from love to hate, not love to bland.  To get a full review a film can't really be scored by a number or grade.  There are good "Bad Movies" and things like that.  For instance, I love The Core and don't like About Schmidt.  I will, however, admit that The Core is not a good movie, but a fantastic bad one.  About Schmidt was a really good movie, I just didn't care for it.  So nothing is really as simple as a single number.  Despite that, I'm going to rate movies with a single number.

Ok, so this past weekend I watched two movies.  Just last week I saw another.  Here's the hook to my blog.  At least one of them was a complete waste of my time.

Hard Candy
The first movie I watched was Hard Candy.  It's been sitting at my apartment for more than is reasonable for a Netflix disc.  I had two other movies for just as long, but one is being saved for Wednesday and the other was put in queue for Allison.  So I sat down with it.  I had heard mostly good things about it.  I had heard the main twist (who is the real aggressor in this movie, hmm?) but figured that if it's getting some positive comments then it must have enough left in it to mix things up more than that.

It started with some really crisp visuals.  The dialogue was pretty flat, but this was all exposition.  Lady and the tramp get back to his place and he proceeds to get her drunk.  But oh, the tables are turned as she takes control of the situation.  Sort of.  I must put in *spoiler warning* but it's more of a saving grace to be honest.

It only gets crappier from this point.  The guy, who really can remain nameless for how much the girl cares about who he is, is tortured mentally until the end of the film.  You see, the young girl he's brought home is convinced he has perpetrated a crime.  Actually, she isn't completely convinced.  But by the end it's clear that she doesn't really care if he's guilty or not.  But that's OK!  Because the audience never sees any evidence either way!  And that's not all!  She is actually the one who invites herself over and insists on drinking.  After he says she shouldn't come over and after he offers to give her a soft-drink when she gives him an odd look!  So he's not a great guy for meeting her, but she's not really a victim since she's the aggressor from the start of the film. 

How does it end?  It doesn't really matter.  I started looking at the DVD countdown after 30 minutes.  By the time I realized that it wasn't getting better it was far enough in that it would have been a cop out to eject the disc.  The "crisp" cinematography gets a little repetitive pretty quickly.  The camera moves get distracting.  The writing is a little below your average Lifetime movie of the week.  The acting is passable but that's all I'm willing to give it.  There was no character thesis developed, there was no attribute in either of the two people that the audience could grab hold of or at least be intrigue by.  The twists don't build up in any way.  In fact, they drain the audience rather than the tortured characters.  The pacing is plodding once you watch them interact for a few minutes. 

This movie isn't about about justice or defending the weak.  It's not even about female empowerment or turning the tables on abusers.  It's about two people who both get off on victimizing others.  They are both equally despicable and, at the same time, pathetic. 

-3

Transformers

Directed by Michael Bay.  And it wasn't The Rock.  I think that's really all I need to say. 

More?  Ok.  The movie keeps jumping from kitchy 80s humor to serious epic action flick.  It's cute when, say, the transformers are hiding from Shia's parents.  It's awkward when an over the top John Tuturro has to be in both funny and serious scenes throught the movie.  Instead of either fearing him or laughing at him I was just left with the question: "Will his health plan cover the therapy he needs?"  It needed to pick a single style and run with it.  There was no idea of what the movie wanted to be, just how many ways it could ingratiate itself to viewers. 

The special effects were pretty well done, but terribly filmed.  Bay constantly used off kilter camera angles and extreme close ups during fights.  This might have worked (but why would you not want to show the huge, sprawling fight scenes or the combatant choreography?) if the robots still had complete car parts on them, like hoods or doors with solid colours.  They don't, so during the climax we zoom in on two of them,  see a foot land, the foot vanishes, a tire flies and then they both run off.  I had no idea who was hurt.  Way to piss on the one thing this movie had going for it, Michale Bay.

In the end, I wouldn't mind watching this in the background on TV if I had a really good book I was already reading.  And honestly, there are a lot of other movies that can fulfill that function.  And most of them didn't bastardize an 80s TV icon or cost nearly as much.  I didn't hate it but it's certainly not a success of a movie.

+.5

Ratatouille
This one simply must be seen.  I don't know what it is about Brad Bird, but he manages to put at least as much original characterization into everything he makes as Joss Whedon, but manages to do it successfully.  His cartoons tend to have more realistic consequences to impulsive action than most live action flicks.  This is no exception.

I'm pretty sure all of you know the plot to this one.  Remy is fantastic.  he has some of the most developed motivation of any animated character I've seen.  He knows what he wants and he's willing to make sacrifices even before he's learned his lesson from the plot.  There isn't really a flat character in this movie, except maybe Remy's father and Gusteau.  Hell, I was even impressed by Janeane Garofalo and I like her to begin with! 

I can't even put my finger on what makes his movies tick so well.  Maybe it's because the worlds he sets up in can act as direct microcosms for political and social issues in ours  without getting preachy.  Maybe it's just because he can make rats and robots appeal on a human level that Michael Bay will never be able to achieve (understand?).  Whatever it is, he's done it consistently for 3 films now.  Disney, please give him Pixar.

Oh, and the animation and design is really stunning as well.

+4

And now you have my judgment.  I hope that if you haven't seen these movies they help guide you in what to put in your brain hole.  If you have then I hope they give you something to think about.  That is all for now.

I told you I'd start a good book.

Well, I've just finished 1984.  I liked it a lot.  I can see why it always gets paired with Brave New World and while similar in theme they are completely different in thesis.  Not the least of which is that there is not victimization in 1984 while that is the intent of Brave New World.  Brave New World is a totalitarian state while 1984 is a deeply embedded socialist autonomy.  From a literary standpoint Brave New World has a huge focus on narrative while Orwell's story focuses on political essay.  I found it rather undated, which was a pleasant surprise.  Oh, and I loved the stress on language and cognition in 1984.  Brave New World nearly falls into its story.  I feel it gets a little lost in there.

Now, for some blog toys that I've caught.

Your Score: quotation marks You scored 53% Sociability and 88% Sophistication! There is a lot more to you than meets the eye. You certainly get plenty of "action," but you'd be happier if those who lusted after you were more selective. You hate being used as a general intensifier; haven't these people ever heard of underlining? Italics? And yes, you remember the cruel words Mr. Joyce directed at you. But you let none of this get you down; those who abuse you are destined for a "special" reward, sooner or later. You feel particularly warm toward periods, commas, exclamation points, and question marks, and usually wish to have them next to you. Parenthesis can sometimes trouble you. Link: The Which Punctuation Mark Are You Test written by Gazda on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Mingle2 - Online Dating