Bendable Blog

Today is a two-fer because I didn’t get around to writing a review for Burn After Reading, that I saw on Friday, until today.  I didn’t make it home much on the weekend.

I didn’t get around to watching The Incredible Hulk in the theatres, and now after seeing it at home, I feel it would have been spectacular on the big screen.  I had heard mixed reviews, and if any excuse exists it might be that there is little explanation as to the origin of the hulk; they explain it as such, but not to the length the Hulk movie from 2003 did (for it’s betterment).  I think if one is familiar with the back story, it’s more than sufficient to pick up a couple years into the chase.

The creature/villian in a Hulk movie is always going to be a bit over the top, because otherwise it’s hardly a challenge and this one is no different.  There is an art to making special effects not look like they came out of a computer, and I think there is actually a lot of that in this movie, but nit-pickers will only notice how the Hulk doesn’t really look real;  He just can’t, no matter what a big green dude running around throwing Hummers is going to be unbelievable.  But a giant green Hulk free running over the tops of New York buildings is fairly satisfying and the fight on the college campus in the bright sun is gorgeous and got me right into it.

I thought it was a bit odd bringing out Hulk and Iron Man in the same year, but the cameo at the end really helps explain the bigger picture they are working in the following years (spoiler of sorts if you follow).

The latest Coen brothers movie Burn After Reading was not what I was expecting.  I have a theory that the Coen’s each write their own style of movie and then decide to just make whichever is ready first.  Their movies are easily placed into two groups.  For sake of argument, lets say Ethan writes movies like Miller’s Crossing, Fargo,  The Man Who Wasn’t There, and No Country For Old Men; while Joel writes movies like Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, and Burn After Reading.  For this reason, it’s tough to know exactly what you are in for with a Coen brothers movie and that is a great idea on their part.

I would hazzard a guess that anyone who likes the movies I attribute to Joel will really enjoy Burn After Reading.  It’s fantastic and wity and full of surprises and topped off with a fantastic cast playing great roles.  I wasn’t sure about Brad Pitt in this movie from the previews, but he really pulls off this impossibly dim gym trainer who finds a CD of files and thinks he can get a reward for returning it to the owner.

Without spoiling anything, there are several parts that just work and become hilarious as you watch it.  I don’t know if it’s specifically the writing or also how it’s shot that really makes it go beyond a simple comedy, but in my opinion it certainly does.

Rating: Definately worth seeing, if not in the theatre, at home will work just as well.

I’ve just finished watching The Mist, and I wish I hadn’t.  I feel this movie does not even deserve a review, it’s so terrible.  The story is about a small town near a military base that is suddenly engulfed in a mist so thick you can barely see a metre in front of you, which hides scary monsters from another dimension.  I haven’t read the novella by Stephen King, so I can’t say for certain that this could have been made better or worse by straying from the original story, but I bet it would have been better.

There are so many parts of this movie where I couldn’t stand the characters, they would scream at someone while trying to be quiet, mindlessly wander off looking for their dad and stand right in the way of a creature, suddenly decide that they should kill people because a lady you know is totally insane told them to.  I’ve watched enough doomsday type movies to know that if a giant mist and War of the World style aliens started walking around the military always drops a nuclear bomb on the town to contain it before it spreads, but instead they send out guys with flame throwers to just burn them.  ”Don’t worry about how the creatures are 100% dangerous and can barely be stopped with bullets, later on there will be privates with flamethrowers that will fix it in minutes.

It starts out like a typical alien being horror movie where you don’t see the creature and it’s fairly suspenseful but then about 30 minutes in you see the tentacles of a beast and soon after they show off such a variety of absolutely deadly creatures.  Any creature could be considered scary if it hasn’t been seen before, but they have to make them have poison barbs, acid spider webs, and parasitic larvae to beat home the point.  It soon becomes a lecture on fundamental Christianity and how people are all barbaric at heart, quick to follow any mad woman who spouts select pieces of gospel and promises saving.  While narrowly escaping the crazy worshippers who want to use them as human sacrifices to appease their angry God, they decide to escape the fog in their Land Rover.  Sounds like a typical end, where they would usually manage to get the star, his kid, and a new hottie (and some extras if space permits) out of the fog and onto a new life far from the creatures.  Unfortunately it becomes even worse as they run out of gas in the fog and decide the best course of action is to all commit suicide with the gun they have.  Problem is they have one less bullet then they have people, so Tom Jane shoots his own son, the hottie and the elderly people filling up the back seat and goes outside to be eaten by aliens.  At which point the army comes in and the mist amazing clears in minutes revealing all the townsfolk being evacuated.  The is the actual end of this movie, it’s not really a spoiler, the spoiler would be having to watch it.

Things this movie teaches that most wouldn’t:

1. If a crazy fundamentalist is preaching doom and gloom, get on her side early.

2. If a bunch of people decide to leave the grocery store you are holed up in to find rescue, just let them.  You’ll be saved while they are busy shooting each other minutes from being saved.

3. If someone is badly burned, let him die because if you make a trip to the drug store for pain killers for him, at least 4 of your team will be killed and the burn victim will just die anyway.

Rating: Dismal, I wish I had never heard of this movie, let alone sat and watched it.

I had forgotten I wanted to see The Nines back when it came out until I was wandering through Blockbuster and saw it on the shelf.  Ryan Reynolds plays three seperate characters in the film, and actually it’s more like three seperate plots where all the actors play different roles, but they are somehow related in minor ways.  If I ever knew what it was about, I had forgotten; and I think that was for the best.  I can’t say much about the plot without explaining every twist.  In the end it’s as interesting as that John Cusack movie where he was in a small hotel with 10 other people who are killed off one by one, Identity.  I really didn’t see where this movie was going until it was explained to me, and I found myself going back, after about 100 minutes in, to the 30 minute mark to see if I could figure it out, which I couldn’t.

There are a lot of good throw-away comments that are really funny, and not played for a laugh as such, which I love.  I also love when a movie has tie-ins at the beginning of a movie that show up later, and help to fill in the overall story.

I expected the movie to be a horror, because I had totally forgot any plot point or trailer I would have ever seen, and I think that’s the best way to see this movie.  Trailers always spoil good movies, in the pursuit of saving you from bad ones.  I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and how well it ended up being.

Rating:  Definately rent this movie, I may buy it.

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro have made over 100 movies in total, over 25 are considered to be great.  This is not one of them!

I think a lot of people believe if you throw enough good actors at a movie, it will be great; and people might think this is going to be this decade’s Heat.  I would have rather watched Heat twice instead of this movie.  When this movie was over I turned to my friends and said “That was dog shit”, and then we commented on how we felt it was 3 hours of our life we won’t get back, surprised to realize it runs less than 1h45.

To the actor’s credit I think the acting was passable, but it was ruined mostly by cinematography, writing, and editing.  From the opening credits onward there are so many interstitial cuts that don’t add to the plot, and actually remove any sense of coherence that you can quickly give up on following it.  I didn’t see the “twist” at the end because, frankly, I didn’t think the movie was capable; I really thought it was so poorly written that the guy you think is the killer throughout, was just going to be the killer.

After you know the twist, you might feel like I did in that you have seen this plot before; I wish I knew where, it was probably a much better movie.  The Carla Gugino plot line seemed to exist purely to fill out the length, add something pretty to look at, and some awkward sex scenes.  Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson is a terrible actor who cannot be understood through most of his mumbled lines, and should be considered a deal breaker for any future movies someone puts him in to “get the youths”.

Rating: I would do just about anything else rather than see this movie.

So recently I’ve been very upset about how low my pay is in comparison to national average and the average of other developers at the same level as I am.  I don’t get paid the least, but only a few thousand more than a junior developer, which is nearly an insult.

I’ve spent a lot of time becomming accustomed to the custom built software and API’s, I’m basically a go-to-guy and I get along well with everyone;  This would seem a huge boon to an office.  The problem is that I started when I was out of work and accepted a junior pay which hasn’t had much opportunity for large jumps.  To be clear I feel I should be making at least 10k (maybe 15k) more than I currently am, which would be no simple raise.

To this end I spoke with my manager today, but I feel since he is less than a month in the job that he doesn’t want to make too many waves.  I may end up with a decent increase and title if I can make it to my annual review in January, but that is 4 months away and I have other companies calling me willing to give me it now.  Why are people so stingy with their most important asset (people not money)?  If I were them I’d be throwing as much money as I could reasonably afford to good developers so that I didn’t have to continually hire new people who don’t understand the software and don’t get along with anyone every month.  In the last year and a half (nearly) I’ve worked there, we have gone through something like 14 staff.  They leave and go someplace else for more money and/or less late nights.  I feel taken advantage of in this regard, like “Oh this project requires 2 weeks?  Give it to Glen and tell him we only have a week, he’ll work extra hours for nothing”.

Why can’t this be simple?

So I saw this movie in Blockbuster, and realized right away the concept is similar to Super Size Me, the documentary about a guy who eats nothing but McDonalds for 30 days.  In this documentary, a comedian decides to go without weed for 30 days, taking various tests of his mental and physical capacities, followed by 30 days of smoking nearly constantly from the time he gets up to the time he goes to sleep.  The idea is to show what, if any, detriments there are to being stones all the time (for someone who doesn’t have a day job and can get away with being stoned during the time he does work).  For the most part the results are as expected, slightly diminished lung capacity and slight weight gain with basically no other differences.  Mental alertness tested through simple memory excercises and SAT scores can be chalked up to being more prepared during the second set of tests (while high).

It is interesting as a documentary specifically on Marijuana usage, and legalized sale in California, showing the number of legal stores increasing 300% in a year and how apparently easy it is to get a card to legally purchase and smoke pot in California.

What I would have liked to see is the statistics of drug dealers and/or gang violence since the legal stores have been added.  I personally think while you will always have drug dealers and gang violence related to controlled substances, that it would go down at least a little as the main cash crop moves out of back alleys and into legitimate shops.

After seeing the amount of resources spent on finding and raiding illegal grow ops, I think taxes would be lower if it was legalized.  If it were taxed like tabacco, it would also be a huge boon to government.  One of the interesting stats in the movie is that weed sales were estimated at $12 Billion last year, and if taxed that would have meant roughly $1 Billion for the government, just in California.

I side benefit would be, with government regulations all marijuana would be pure.  Also farmers without a decent cash crop would be able to grow something that by all accounts is very easy to grow.

Rating: I’d suggest renting or downloading if you can.