LOST and other stuff

I was looking at the ZZL on insidecarolina and came across a supposed preview for the 4th season of LOST. Pretty weird, not really sure what's going on in it... I've also watched Magnolia and Little Children in the last few days, both of which were excellent, and will have reviews up in the next few days. I also just rewatched Casablanca (4th time I've seen it) - what a great movie. Watching and enjoying it again has inspired me to go back and watch some of the all-time classics and my personal favorites in the next few weeks, movies like The Godfather, Braveheart, Citizen Kane, Goodfellas, Schindler's List, Heat, North by Northwest, and the like. Finally, the marathon training is going well but starting to get a bit painful. I finished off week 4 today with the longest run yet - I did 11 miles at 7:50/mile. I'm very sore right now and have about 10 blisters but I think (hope) I should be ok to start week 5 after having tomorrow off.

The Simpsons, Tsotsi, Reign Over Me

The Simpsons Movie - 3.0 I'll start off by saying I'm not a huge fan of The Simpsons - I haven't watched it regularly in years. I was intrigued by the prospect of a movie, especially when I saw it was around 90% on rottentomatoes. While there were some funny moments (mostly provided by Homer), the overall product was disappointing. It was essentially a normal episode, only 4 times longer. Whereas the South Park franchise successfully used its movie to stretch the boundaries and do things that weren't possible on a cable TV show, it seems like the producers of The Simpsons were happy to just make the movie essentially the same as the TV show, undoubtedly knowing that they would be making a ton of money either way. The funniest part might have been the opening sequence where a bunch of people in Springfield are watching the new Itchy and Scratchy movie and Homer stands up and asks why the hell did you pay to see something you could see for free. It was the same thought I had after this movie had ended. Tsotsi - 6.0 This South African film won the best foreign language category at the Academy Awards two years ago. It tells a coming of age story of a young criminal living in a Johannesburg slum. Overall, it's relatively effective in getting the viewer to identify with and feel sympathy for the main character as the plot moves along. It is a pretty good, small film and to his credit, the writer/director Gavin Hood, seemed to realize this and not go overboard with broader and more ambitious goals. This is both its strength and weakness - strength because as it was, it was a pretty good movie and if it had tried to do more it probably would have failed. However, this was also its weakness because unlike a movie like City of God it never really had a chance to be great. Reign Over Me - 4.0 If I had written this review right after seeing this movie, I would've probably given it a better rating. But as time has passed, I realize it was pretty ordinary and not really memorable at all. Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler both give strong performances, which is pretty much the comprehensive list of the things this movie did well. The rest of the movie was unexceptional at best, and contrived (Sandler's character beginning a relationship with the random psycho hot girl who wanted to get with Cheadle earlier in the movie) and poorly acted (Liv Tyler sucks) at worst.

AFI top 100

So about a month ago, AFI came out with a new list of the 100 best American movies of all-time. Their old list came out in 1997 and I ended up seeing 96 out of the 100 (Birth of a Nation, Duck Soup, The Jazz Singer, and City Lights are the ones I never got around to watching). So anyways, I was very excited to see the new list, I actually watched the 3 hour show on CBS as they counted down (and it was highly enjoyable btw). Here's a link with both the old and new lists: AFI The new top 10: 1. Citizen Kane - the rightful number 1, maybe not as enjoyable to watch as some of the other greats but technically it's perfect, and I actually found the story engrossing as well. 2. The Godfather - in my personal top 5 favorite movies, incredible in just about every way. 3. Casablanca - another essentially perfect film. The lead performances by Bogart and Bergman are charismatic, the story is compelling, there are several good supporting performances, the dialogue is amazing, etc, etc. Even if they messed up in other places (and I personally think the list overall is pretty good), nobody can argue that AFI didn't at least nail the top 3. 4. Raging Bull - I was sort of shocked to see this so high, it was #24 in 1997. I think it's a testament to the rising regard for Scorsese as one of the greatest directors of all-time. I think Raging Bull is a fantastic movie and it contains probably DeNiro's best performances ever, which says a lot, but I still think it's a little over-ranked in this list. It belongs in the 10-20 range in my opinion. 5. Singin' in the Rain - I don't like this movie at all but I'm pretty biased against musicals - one of my least favorite genres. 6. Gone With the Wind - definitely a classic, belongs in the top 10. 7. Lawrence of Arabia - not my favorite David Lean epic (I prefer Doctor Zhivago, which inexplicably went from #39 to dropped from the list completely) but this is another movie that is definitely justifiable in the top 10. 8. Schindler's List - I would have this in the top 5. One of the most moving films ever made and made by one of the best directors ever. The best movie made in the last 25 years in my opinion. 9. Vertigo - it's interesting that this jumped from the lowest ranked of the 4 Hitchcock movies in the previous list to the highest in the new one. I prefer North by Northwest but Vertigo is no doubt a masterpiece. I was just glad to see Hitchcock represented in the top 10. 10. The Wizard of Oz - another worthy top 10 film. Some other thoughts on the list: -Goodfellas (#92) and Pulp Fiction (#94) should both be ranked much much higher. Pulp Fiction especially has had such an effect on modern filmmakers that it's a crime not to have it in the top 25. -I was very excited that Shawshank (#72) made it this time around. Would of only been happier if Braveheart or Heat made the cut. -The Sixth Sense (#89) was a pretty good choice IMO but above Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction is a little ridiculous. -All the President's Men (#77), 12 Angry Men (#87), Do the Right Thing (#96), Blade Runner (#97), Saving Private Ryan (#71), LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (#50) were all no-brainers and I was glad to see them included. I would've moved LOTR up some, like top 20-30 but I love those movies so I am biased. All the President's Men, 12 Angry Men, Blade Runner, and Do the Right Thing were glaring omissions last time around so it's good that AFI corrected those mistakes. -I wasn't so happy to see Nashville (#59), Cabaret (#63), and The Last Picture Show (#95) added. All three are decent but unexceptional, in my opinion. -I was a little disappointed that The Godfather, Part II didn't move up from #32. I personally prefer it to Part I though I wouldn't expect it to be ranked higher. I guess it says a lot since it is even included at all as the only sequel in the whole list. For the other classic trilogies (Star Wars, LOTR, Indiana Jones), only the original is included even though in the case of Star Wars and LOTR, it is extremely arguable if the first is the best movie. Speaking of trilogies, I'm actually pretty surprised they didn't drop The Matrix in the 90-100 range somewhere. If the sequels weren't such trash, I bet they would have. That's all I got for now I think. I was relatively pleased with the list, in all I think the movies that got added are a stronger group than the ones that were removed. I've seen 90 of the 100 and will probably try to watch the last 10 over the next few months. Not sure if I'll ever get around to it though. If anyone's interested, the ones I haven't seen are City Lights, The General, Intolerance, Duck Soup, Sullivan's Travels, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Sunrise, A Night at the Opera, Swing Time, and Sophie's Choice. Several of these are from pre-1930 and I don't think I've really liked (appreciated maybe, liked no) any of the handful of films I've seen from that time period. But whatever, I'll get it done.

Reviews and stuff - TV and movies

And now onto the reviews:

Deadwood, Season 1 – 8.0

The first few episodes are a bit slow but I started to really get into it towards the end of the season as the story arcs came into focus. Al Swearengen is a great anti-hero - he really makes the whole show work. Everyone else plays off of him, Cy’s introduction as another relatively bad guy was effective, as was Trixie’s evolving role as Al’s beaten down but essential companion (I don’t know what’s a good word for her relationship with Swearengen…). Seth and the doc are both likeable ‘good guys’ and E.B. is the opposite – easily hateable. Even, the arc with the little one (for some reason it delights me every time someone calls the little girl ‘the little one’), which I was highly skeptical about, turned out to be solid. Hell, Alan Matthews from Boy Meets World even showed up.

With all that said, the highlight of the show for me is pretty much every scene Calamity Jane is in. She’s fucking hilarious (gotta let the f-bombs fly when talking about Calamity Jane). Omar from The Wire is still the best character on TV, especially now since the fucking smoke monster took Mr. Eko out of the running, but Calamity Jane is up there with some of my other favorite current TV characters like Desmond, Dwight Schrute, and Hiro Nakamura.

Heroes, Season 1 – 8.0

Speaking of Hiro Nakamura, I also watched the whole first season of Heroes. It has a lot of similar elements that make LOST so effective – an interesting and fresh idea behind the show (though not that that fresh since it is pretty damn similar to X-Men), good ongoing storylines and cliffhangers that make it hard to stop watching, intriguing mysteries, and several good characters. Hiro is easily my favorite, but I also like Claire, Mohinder, Mr. Bennet, Isaac, D.L., and Agent Weiss … I mean Parkman, to name a few. However, unlike LOST, a few of the main characters kind of suck (suck might be too strong a word – let’s just say I don’t like them that much). The Niki and Micah and Peter and Nathan Petrelli storylines never grabbed me. And Sylar’s a good villain, but him getting away is getting a little old – they should’ve let him die in the finale and moved on to something else, in my opinion. My other main qualm is that the acting, at times, has been pretty bad. The main culprit is the dude playing Peter Petrelli – he’s gotten better (or maybe I’ve just gotten used to it) as Peter has become more and more badass, but he was terrible at the beginning of the season. The actress playing Niki isn’t so great either. I’m sure everyone is tired of me professing my love for LOST but this aspect of Heroes makes me appreciate it even more – for a cast that big to have excellent acting throughout is amazing.

Sicko – 6.0

The overall point of this movie is right on – there are a lot of fucked up aspects of our healthcare system that need to be fixed and we could probably learn something by looking at some other countries like Canada and *gasp* even France. Michael Moore took a much more understated approach in attempting to prove this point than he has in his previous films. This might be an effective way to gain more widespread support for his ideas, except most of the people who disagree with the point of the movie would never see it because it is after all still directed by Michael Moore. However, despite its merits, this more understated approach also made a more boring movie than anything else Moore has done. It especially dragged in the last half hour, though the ending in Cuba was quite good. If I didn’t agree with the message wholeheartedly, I’d probably drop a point or four off my rating.

Toy Story 1 and 2 – 7.0

So I never saw these, mainly because when the first one came out in 1995, I was in that backlash against animated movies phase of my boyhood, and never saw a reason to watch them anytime since. Well the updated AFI top 100 movies of all-time list, in which Toy Story comes in at #99, gave me all the reason I needed – if I can watch The Gold Rush or An American in Paris Toy Story wouldn’t be so bad (and you can expect a post coming up in the next day or two on the AFI list – I meant to do it when the list came out right before I left but never got around to it). then I figured I didn’t expect I would like Toy Story a whole lot, mainly because I don’t like animated/pixar/dreamworks movies all that much, but I watch as AFI commands. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. These were clever and entertaining, perfectly paced (keeping them at 90 minutes or less was very smart), and not quite touching, but at least not cringe-worthy. Best of the bunch when it comes to the new generation of animated films, except for maybe The Incredibles or Shrek 1.

Reviews and stuff - books

I got back from my trip a few days ago and am a little jet lagged - my sleeping schedule right now is 5 am to 2 pm. Of course, this isn’t all that different from my normal sleeping schedule so it isn’t that big a deal. Anyways, in the last few weeks (especially the last week in Fiji) I did a lot of reading and watching (mostly TV shows), so I guess I should do some reviews.

I don’t really feel like writing any book reviews but here are some general impressions of what I read:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – I’ve loved every Harry Potter book since 1 and 2 (and I liked those a lot too) and this one might be my favorite, though I would really have to go back and reread them to be sure since all of it tends to run together for me. I might be a little more biased towards this one too because it basically filled all of my time on the 20 hour trip home (which is actually how I started reading Harry Potter – read the first 2 and part of the 3^rd on a much much longer trip home from Kenya). Anyways, it was a tad slow and meandering in the middle 3^rd (Harry, Hermione, and Ron wandering in the forest) but the last 3^rd really made up for it. Awesome ending.

And can we please god get a real director to do this movie?! No offense to David Yeats (Yates?) or whatever his name is because Order of the Phoenix was good but would it kill them to go after Spielberg or Peter Jackson to finish it off? The decision to get Alfonso Cuaron to direct #3 was inspired, especially after the first two movies were kiddie crap, but I’m getting tired of this British nationalistic bs where some random British TV guy gets one of the biggest movies on the planet just because they don’t want a foreigner doing it. Rant over.

Cloud Atlas – this is a relatively new novel by David Mitchell mixing multiple connected storylines across time. It’s a big idea type book and was really good. Highly recommended.

One Hundred Years of Solitude – I really liked this book also but wouldn’t say I loved it. The writing is incredible but it’s true that there really isn’t a main character there that you can connect with emotionally. Still a great book though.

The Brothers Karamazov – I have about 100 pages left in this. I started reading it last summer in Guatemala but only got through 200 pages and stopped when I got home, mainly because it’s pretty dense and hard to get into, particularly since there isn’t an especially coherent storyline at the beginning. I started where I left off in Fiji and really liked it. It’s not as good as Crime and Punishment in my (very humble when it comes to comparing classic Russian literature) opinion but the psychological and spiritual aspects of Karamazov are quite interesting and thought provoking.

Fiji

So I'm in Fiji now - it's pretty interesting. The city we are near (Nadi) is pretty third world trashy, but so far all the people I've encountered have been friendly and we've now done 2 trips that have gotten away from the city and its surroundings (1 to a garden, 1 to a tiny island) and these parts of Fiji are really beautiful. Not sure if we're going into the interior at all (think mountaneous rain foresty type place) but I imagine that is beautiful as well. At the tiny island today, I had a chance to do an introductory scuba dive which was awesome. It's so cool and I was only down for maybe 20 or 25 mins. I'm thinking I might get certified when I get home but we'll see how that goes - especially with marathon training not sure when I'll have time. Anyways, gotta give credit to Nadav for the scuba tip (and subsequent harrassment which helped me follown through on it)... When I get home I'll do reviews of Deadwood season 1 (I'm thinking 8.0 right now), Reign Over Me (6.0), and whatever else I watch in the next few days and then on the 30 hour or however the hell long it takes trip to get home. And for the few of you who might be reading this and don't read Jeremy's blog, go to it (www.wildfiring.com) and look at some pics and funny captions from the Australia leg of the trip - I recommend it even though several of the funniest captions aren't so kind to me. And one last thing, just saw this: http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/659302.html !!!!!!!!! Roy Williams is the fucking man - all the message board retards were doubting him but I've always had faith...

West Wing, Marathon Training

The West Wing, Season 1 - 10 I was a little hesitant to give this a 10 but in my opinion, it was that good. I ended up watching the entire season (22 eps) in 4 days, which I believe tied my record for fastest full season of a TV show watched - LOST season 1 is the other one I did in 4 days, but my LOST feat was slightly more impressive (if impressive is the right word) since I watched the last 8 episodes in one night, starting at like 10 pm (with 4 or 5 other people mind you). Anyways, West Wing is the perfect blend of drama, comedy, political intrigue, and romance. The characters are all very well-developed, not to mention the acting is superb all around. It's basically like a really long version of The American President (great movie) that never gets old, or at least hasn't gotten through one season. It's no coincidence that both are Aaron Sorkin products - it's obvious he's the driving force which makes this show great. Bottom line, West Wing, though only one season, is probably behind only LOST, The Wire, and The Sopranos in my all-time TV hierarchy. I put it on the same level as Alias and Six Feet Under, though both of these shows were much much much stronger in their first and second seasons than after. Marathon Training, Traveling So I'm back in Sydney right now for 1 more day (and oh my god, it isn't raining!!) before going to Fiji for a few days as the final leg of the trip. I just did a really nice 9 mile run (at 7:15/mile...way faster than I meant to go) around the botanical gardens and opera house here that completed my 2nd week of marathon training. So far I've kept up with the training except missing one 3 mile run because of travel; however going 18 weeks, with the distances getting longer and longer, is going to be tough. I had a little left today, probably could've made a half marathon without slowing too much if I had really tried, but thinking that for the real thing, I've got 17 more miles to go is a little daunting. We'll see how that goes... I have also begun watching Deadwood, season 1. Watched the first 4 episodes, didn't hook me right away like West Wing did, but I'm starting to really get into it now. Will probably finish it before I get home. And finally, someone (Jeremy?) needs to make sure to read their copy of Harry Potter really quickly so I can take over right when I get home. Maybe I'll be able to pick up a copy in Fiji to read on the plane but for some reason I doubt it...

Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – 7.0

While I enjoyed it, I felt like this movie lacked something that was present in the previous two installments. Of course, it’s probably unfair to expect it to live up to those two films when #3 (the Prisoner of Azkaban) was made by one of the best directors out there, Alfonso Cuaron, and #4 (the Goblet of Fire) picked up where Cuaron left off and didn’t miss a beat. My main complaints, other than that is wasn’t as good as the last two movies, was it was too slow in the beginning and then felt a little rushed at the end, which is unfortunate, because I felt the last 30 minutes were very good. It was worth seeing just because I had forgotten a lot of what happened in the book and it was a nice refresher that has me pumped up for the Deathly Hollows.

I am still abroad – I saw this in a relatively packed house in a small city called Taupo in New Zealand (when you go outside there’s a great view of Mount Doom from LOTR). Australia was pretty awesome and NZ is beautiful. When I have more time I might post reviews of the two books I’ve read, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Solitude was really good and Cloud Atlas great.