From All Over

I've scanned some more film. These are from the Austin wedding, College Station, home in Wisconsin over break, a few leftovers from Eagle Cap and Moscow, and two from our road trip between Texas and Idaho. The black and white wedding photos were shot with Kodak TMax 400, and the others in Fuji NeoPan 1600. The bus and Eagle Cap were Fuji 100.

Hardy Har

I heard one of the best expressions of disgust with Christ Church today:

"They're just so...inclusive."

We Dare to Disagree

After much thought and discussion with Amy, I can safely say that The Golden Compass was the worst movie I saw in 2007. My interest in and opinion of this movie enjoyed quite the roller coaster ride, which ended up being far more enjoyable than sitting through the movie itself. I began with a low opinion when I first saw the gigantic banner at the Village Centre Cinemas this fall, and thought “Lame. More child-oriented fantasy schlock that somehow looks even cheaper and more derivative than the Harry Potters. And somehow Daniel Craig got roped in.”

A few weeks later I read an article on the books and coming movie in the Atlantic which stressed the anti-Christian vibe of the books, and the Hollywood diluting of said vibe. While the article was somewhat interesting, I still haven’t finished it and Pullman’s whiny complaints that his books haven’t caused as much controversy as Harry Potter stirred up, did little to entice me into the theater.

And then I read Joshua’s thoughts. While I don’t usually notice the same things he does in films, the overwhelmingly positive (and interesting) review was too much to resist. Amy and I saw it in Texas over the break, and we have yet to think of one good thing about it, with the possible exception of Kate Bush’s hilarious song over the credits (Lyraaaa, Lyraaaaaaaaa…..and her face….full of grace).

First off, Lyra’s character was embarrassingly unsympathetic for me. I just can’t handle the “sassy and defiant child hero/ine,” who always knows what’s best beyond her years, and is constantly flying in the face of authority to “teach them a lesson.” I don’t know if it’s the sheer annoyance of kids who are actually like that, but think that their rebellion against doing chores is a worthy cause, or the fact that bratty know-it-all kids being heroes is tired news in movies. Meh.

Josh’s review noted a number of ways that the movie inadvertently glorified Christian principles, which sounded like an interesting nugget lodged in an attempt to humiliate Christianity. I went into it knowing that I probably wouldn’t feel as strongly about these moments, but was prepared to look for them. When the credits rolled however I found myself not only lacking the conviction of themes seen, but flat out disagreeing with a few, specifically the line that, “all human beings are composed of dust and when humans die, they become dust again.” It was during the witch attack scene (?) that I realized that the human bodies were dying and lying cold, while the animal-soul vaporized into dust. To me, that spoke more of a direct connection between a man’s body dying and his soul vanishing into nothingness.

While we’re on the subject of witch attacks, it was moments like that that really ruined the movie for me. I really wouldn’t have minded if Jesus wasn’t jumping out of every character and situation if they had at least put together a show that didn’t feel like Eragon, that is, written by a 13-year old. Why did witches have to appear? Well, to defeat the crazy-ass Icelandic army that similarly came out of nowhere. And even if these leaps in the story remained, aesthetically the movie was one of the hardest for me to sit through. I thought the CGI was absolutely wretched compared to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As with Narnia, I felt that the CGI just looked awful in lots of light. Peter Jackson’s films came off almost spotless because of the gloom and, of course, the forgotten arts of costume, makeup, and camera angles instead of CGI.

CDs Acquired in the Last Few Months

The Lonely H - Hair
Apollo Sunshine - s/t
Fruitbats - Spelled in Bones
Beulah - The Coast is Never Clear
Muse - Absolution
Albert Hammond Jr. - Yours to Keep
The Apples in Stereo - Discovery of a World Inside the Moone
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
The Stills - Without Feathers

Goodness

Wha?

Well Will, I suppose after so many years of being the Fresh Prince something like this was to be expected. And I'll probably watch it.

Rad Pictures of the Packer Game

This looked like the game to be at.

Beeeeeyoouuuu

While I maintain that I Am Legend was great, I have been thinking a bit on one of it's flaws/shortcomings/whathaveyous:

Computer Generated Imagery - CGI use nowadays in film might be likened to the use of synth in 80's music. "Why use a guitar/drum kit/human voice? We can just hit this key!" It seems that the excitement at the possibilities of electronic elements proved too great a temptation for most. There have been countless times I've heard a great 80's song covered by some guy and his guitar that sounds way better than the soulless, bleeping original. I'm all about electronic beeps and hums thrown in to augment a great rock song, or electronically based music (sometimes) but the problem seemed to be the forcing of a perfectly good rock song through a Casio mold.

Likewise with CGI in movies, there's definitely a way to use it that doesn't feel like an obnoxious keyboard solo, which is sometimes what the special effects in Legend felt like. Could they really not find someone to lie on a table with makeup on and breath quickly? Or someone else, again with makeup, to run out of a dark doorway and frown at Will Smith? Why did it ALL have to be CGI? I'm actually surprised that Sam the dog was real. Sure, there were a few times that the Darkseekers were pulling some crazy shiz that necessitated some computer help, but it should have been by far the exception. This is one of the areas that The Lord of the Rings excelled in. Wherever possible characters were living, breathing, often slime-excreting characters. CGI was used to create vast numbers of them, or to render a creature that probably couldn't be physically created realistically enough to blend with the film. Legend, with a youthful Tom Cruise, is another example of what costuming can pull off, and that movie was made in 1985.

I think that much like we look back on 80's music and laugh (or I do anyway) at the excessive use of electronics, we'll look back at movies of this time and chuckle at the excess of CGI. And not because the effects will look out of date or "old," just like we don't listen to an 80's hit and think "Man that fake trumpet sounds sooo fake, we could totally make a fake trumpet sound way better now." Thankfully we came out of the era of replacing instruments with synths and returned to using a snare drum where a snare drum would sound good.

So, like Mr. Gibbs, I'm kinda looking forward to more guys in rubber suits in the cinematic future.

I Am Legend, Round 2

After my second viewing of I Am Legend, three things are certain to me:

1. I Am Legend is a legitimately terrifying movie. I was scared the first time I saw it, but chalked it up to the fact that I avoid creepy movies because I scare easily and feel like an idiot when I look over my shoulder in the dark later at night. But after watching it with my sister (a scary movie connoisseur of sorts) and seeing her reaction, I am convinced.

2. Will Smith rules. I knew this before seeing Legend again, but a victory lap is always nice.

3. I Am Legend is much better the second time around. I went into the theatre knowing I'd probably like it better since the edge would be taken off of the scare factor. This was true, although I still found myself wanting to look away from the screen at certain scenes. Having that first viewing under my belt made the second go considerably less stressful, and that alone would have made it a more enjoyable watch for me. But I also had the pleasant experience of noticing little nuggets in the film that had escaped me.

• Fred the Mannequin - When I first saw Fred, coupled with the look on Will Smith's face, I though that the "Darkseekers" had ventured outside during the day by donning clothing. I was prepared to be furious at such a cheeseball bit of writing that allowed the infected to become more dangerous to Smith, but fortunately that wasn't the case. The second time I saw this scene I caught what had given me my initial impression. Fred's head moves to look in Smith's direction when he stops the car. And after that, every time the camera cuts away and returns to Fred, he's in a slightly different position.

• Smith's "love interest" in the video store is in the porno section. And he put her there.

• Most folks probably caught this the first time around, but I didn't; when Smith wakes up from his suicidal night on the town and walks into his kitchen, Ana and Isaac(?) appear as his wife and daughter.

Also, wasn't it amazing to see Smith frantically trying to convince the infected of their illness and his ability to fix them while they screamed and flung themselves against the glass to tear him apart?

Intimidating for Jesus

This is incredible.

What Ho, Mr. McConnell

A splendid day of photography and visiting at the McConnell Mansion can be viewed here.

Engrish Slays Me

Need help staying up late studying for those finals, suckers? Try Marxism!

Compound Interest

"Though Christian charity sounds a very cold thing to people whose heads are full of sentimentality, and though it is quite distinct from affection, yet it leads to affection. The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or 'likings' and the Christian has only 'charity'. The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes' them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on - including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.

This same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite direction. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become - and so on in a vicious circle for ever.

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible."

~Clive, Mere Christianity

New Guy Ritchie Flick

Two nights ago I watched Revolver, Guy Ritchie's latest movie that came out in October 2005 over in jolly old England. I was actually lucky enough to be there when it did and caught it on the big screen in Oxford. Everywhere around London and Oxford were posters claiming it to be Guy Ritchie's "return to form," the form being Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, and not the travesty that apparently was Swept Away.

Revolver definitely has some of the Ritchie stylization, but more so visually than in the dialogue. Jason Statham stars (with hair!) and gives a great show as he always does with Ritchie at the helm. There's a bit of metanarrative writing that can feel a little tired though, along with a FightClubish dilemma that may turn some folks off.

However, those issues aside, the movie is more than worth watching for Ray Liotta's performance alone. I just saw on the apple trailers site that it's being released in the US today, but nowhere around Moscow/Pullman yet. And yes, that's Andre 3000. Check out the trailer.

Victoire!

After many hours spent tinkering, the 4Runner once again glides down the road with power steering. Yosh.

DIY (for amusement only) or Jack of No Trades

In a flurry of hobby activities this past month I’ve had light shine on an aspect of my character. A breakdown of what I’ve been up to with my boatloads of free time:

The Toyota: Always a project to work on, sometimes crucial, sometimes cosmetic, the 4Runner’s 20 some years have been surprisingly kind with no major problems to date. The current task is fixing the power steering system, which blew a pressure line minutes before driving down to Colorado in May. I recently had a new one made for my quirky setup of a 1988 Supra engine fitted into the 86 4Runner body, and plugged it in. While attempting to loosen the pump in order to slide the belt back onto the pulley, I inadvertently removed part of the casing of the pump, exposing an O-ring fitted to a gasket which proceeded to dump ATF fluid everywhere, including my brake which now has a wonderfully high pitched shriek.

After replacing my mistake, I got everything else back together only to find no power steering. Many automotive forums and email conversations later, still no luck. Not only no power steering, but a slight leak from my early endeavor with the pump that I thought I’d pinch off by tightening what I thought was a loose bolt. The bolt stripped the inside of the bolt hole so I found myself searching for a new pump. Found one on eBay for $45 (normally $115), and got it Saturday. This afternoon during a break in the rain I pulled out the old pump and discovered a missing air control valve on the new pump. The valve is fused to a bolt that threads into the pump and runs one line to the engine and another to the air intake. I managed to take the good valve off of the old pump, but was unsuccessful in removing the broken one from the new. Then I wondered if that valve is supposed to come off at all. Then the rain started up again.

It sounds like I know a lot about cars, right? I mean after all, I’m talking about valves and pumps like I know what’s what. It’s true that I’ve learned a ton about cars by taking on all these projects by myself or with a knowledgeable friend’s help. But when the day is done, I’m still left with a car that doesn’t have power steering.

The Sears-Kenmore: My Mom was good enough to let me take her old Sears-Kenmore sewing machine back to Idaho with me after a swell time home for Thanksgiving. We spent an evening working out the kinks and she showed me step by step how to thread the thing, load a bobbin, and perform minor miracles with needle and string. I even took pictures of the process to help me get started back here.

Well this morning I decided to have a go at patching up my old Carhartts, which are fashionably worn through at the thighs, but pow’rful cold lately. And sometimes you just don’t want to wear the overalls, you know? So I brought up my tutorial pics, threaded that mother, loaded the bobbin, and ran a practice stitch through some scrap cloth. Perfect. To the task of wrestling burly duck cotton under the pressure foot without snagging the needle. Things weren’t going so smoothly so I removed the pressure foot and needle, positioned the pants and patch in place, and replaced them. Now there’s some crazy voodoo that happens on sewing machines where the thread from the top travels via needle to the underworld of the machine and returns with a loop of bobbin thread. I don’t get it, but it has to happen to get a decent stitch. Once the foot and needle were back home, the bobbin loop wasn’t jivin’ for an infuriating 45 minutes. I finally removed all thread and replaced everything, had it working for about 3 minutes before breaking the needle. Then to the truck.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve had a revelation, but these failures on both extremes of Manliness and Domesticness have caused me to really look at my rag-tag assembly of “skills” and how I spread myself over too many interests and hope to be master of all of them. I want to write well, take great pictures, be a strong bike rider, fix cars, know about music, play music, write music, make clothes, hike, and read everything. It’s not happening.