Below are the most recent 6 friends' journal entries.

Monday, December 21st, 2009
tskirvin	12:49a	Up in the Air Up in the Air: *** 1/2 (out of 4) Amongst the most awkward movie experiences of my life was when I saw High Fidelity. I went to the movie with a pair of friends, one of which was an ex-girlfriend, bearing a Transformer I had just purchased across the street at Meijer. The movie was in large part about breakups, seeing those ex-significant-others, and putting away childish things. I had clearly seen the movie in the most inadvertently appropriate manner possible; and years later, I still feel both awkward and wistful as I think about it. Up in the Air is in large part about the loneliness of a crowd. I saw it alone, in a fairly packed theatre, surrounded by others that choose to go to movies on a Sunday night. And as I left the movie, I felt that I had to take a walk around the neighborhood to contemplate the situation. And I wonder if I'm going to be thinking seriously about this otherwise-innocuous evening in nine years. From the trailers, I had originally pegged the movie as a romantic comedy. I suppose that it did, in some ways, fit that bill; but it was not (as I feared) about the relationship between George Clooney and his 23-year old assistant, but instead about the relationship between Clooney and his job. The main hook of the movie is this job: Clooney (Ryan) is a travelling consultant who fires people for a living. This, of course, resonates well with the modern economy (which is why it's doing well at the box office); but more interestingly, this makes it a bit of a period piece, as well as movie about a specific setting, that being (for the most part) the Midwestern and Plains States. And while I'm not sure that just the existence of Omaha was meant to make us laugh, I wasn't (quite) the only one in the theatre to do so. But what we really get is a character piece. Clooney has chosen to live his life on the road; we spend the movie seeing both what this offers him, and what he has to give up in order to maintain that life. He has also chosen a role in life that many would consider, at its heart, evil; and of course we see what this costs him. We see him respond to changes in his life (outsourcing comes for all employees), and indeed to try to change his life as well. And we see him come back to the beginning, slightly changed. The plot was, in many ways, incidental, at least for Clooney. Interestingly, the movie felt authentic to me. The firings were, indeed, brutal, without being over-the-top or evil. The new young worker - not an assistant at all, I might add, another place that I was misled by the trailer - seemed both stereotypical and a lot like several brilliant-but-unlucky women I've known in my life. Speaking from someone right in the middle of the generational gap presented, the arguments on both sides were spot-on. The wedding and its trappings were properly excruciating for me, because of the sheer awkwardness of the situation for the family. And the airport scenes always felt like airport scenes, in a way that invoked both just a touch of pity for having to be in the airport, and jealousy for getting all of the perks that there were to be had. And you know what? I liked the actual romance of the movie too. It was sweet and modern and doomed and cute, as well as, somehow, kindof natural. I may not have liked where it ended (not an attack on Chicago, mind), but I... respected it. Clooney got his comeuppance in a perfectly natural, perfectly unfair way - just like all of the people that he had fired throughout the movie. It was just... how things had to be. It's a strong movie, very well done. I liked the direction, the script, the acting, and the settings. And I think that I'd have enjoyed it just that little bit less if the theatre had been empty, or if I had had somebody with me to hold hands with. *** 1/2 URL: http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/up-in-the-air/ (Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
tskirvin	11:52p	Ninja Assassin Ninja Assassin: ** (out of 4) Seeing movies on Sunday nights is generally a solitary thing. Sure, there's a few people in the audience with me, others that were looking to kill some downtime and see a movie without a huge crowd. This takes something away from comedies, as hearing when the rest of the world laughs is often as fun as the movie. But for action movies, dramas, and so forth, it's generally ideal. But every now and then, I run into an outlier, where more people show up than usual. I can never predict these times; certainly, I never would have predicted that people would come out in droves on a Sunday night to see a mediocre martial arts/ninja movie with an exceptional amount of gore. I suppose that, by at least one measure, the movie fulfilled its goal: there were, indeed, ninjas, and they did, indeed, assassinate. In fact, the opening scene not only offered us those two concepts, it did so with style. If the rest of the movie had been as well-made, I would have been very happy; but there also wouldn't have been a plot, or characters, or actors from Coupling. And I suppose that would have been something of a loss. Instead, we got a perplexing movie. The action scenes were clearly meant to be exciting set-pieces, and they were indeed pretty and exciting to watch; but they were also difficult to actually understand, to the point of incomprehensibility. The background was supposed to be detailed and tragic; but it turned out to be poorly balanced, with an odd combination of too-dramatic and understated. And the plot attempted to be both paper-thin and over-wrought, but managed to be... well, really not bad for something like this. When it comes down to it, I can't really tell how good of a film the creators were aiming for. And that's a bit weird. As for the movie itself... well, I didn't hate it. Rain did a fine job in the lead role, I guess. The archetypical fights were fun. Those few fights that actually involved person-on-person martial arts battles, instead of just cutting people's heads off, were kindof interesting. And the training-to-be-a-ninja stuff was at least thought-provoking, even if it wasn't in the way that the creators were pushing for. But I still would have liked something that had been polished. Give the fighting scenes a purpose beyond arterial spray; give a reasonable sense of scale of the ongoing war; revel more in the silly; and maybe all of the ninja trainees should actually be doing the same testing. Instead, we came up with something adequate, but not very good. ** One random note: JMS, the creator of Babylon 5 (my favorite TV series), was the co-writer of this movie. It did shine through, but perhaps not in a great way. If you've watched the show or read his comics, some of the speeches will sound a little familiar. shrug That's not really a big problem, just worthy of observation. URL: http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/ninja-assassin/ (Comment on this)
tskirvin	9:52p	ITS Christmas Diorama ITS Christmas Diorama, originally uploaded by tskirvin. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
tskirvin	4:44p	If I'm going to be drafted to be creative... I was just requested to help decorate for tomorrow's Christmas Party at work. I set up an interpretive diorama, showing two big trees - ITS (big and shiny and covered in... stuff) and AS (nothing but flashy lights!) - as well as two smaller trees - Unix Systems and Windows Systems - that are currently being absorbed into the larger ITS whole. Additionally, the trees have network connectivity. And there is a Battle Santa. And a beheaded raccoon. I am curious how long these trees will stay up. I did label the scene, as well as take pictures; but will somebody grow offended by the implications of my art? (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
tskirvin	12:29a	A Serious Man A Serious Man: *** (out of 4) For the first time in my movie-reviewing career, I feel like I'm in over my head. As I came out of A Serious Man, I felt like I had been to an art gallery. I had seen many things, and while I recognize that I had liked those things, I had no idea why I liked them. Worse, I didn't like all of those things, at least not as much as I felt like I ought to have! In the past, I've been able to paper over this response by, well, not writing anything. Now that I'm writing reviews, I have to display that lack of sophistication to the world. Well, here goes. A Serious Man tells two stories: a prologue, regarding an 18th century Russian Jewish couple and a visitor to their house, and the main story, telling of the trials a Jewish professor in the late 1960s. The first part sets the tone: dark. The second part adds absurd despair, mixed liberally with a black humor and topped off with a dollop of pathos. Together, the Coen brothers end up with something painful, profound, and pitch-black humor. The cinematography is spectacular, especially considering the relatively mundane setting. The soundtrack - mostly lots of Jefferson Airplane - was well-used and thought out. The characters were well-realized and, though perhaps somewhat stereotypical, quite authentic. The community seemed both large and manageable; everybody had a challenge, and they responded to those challenges in ways both reasonable and absurd. The acting was excellent (and full of unknown actors - always a plus!). And I think I even picked up a few pieces of Jewish culture along the way. But the problem, from my point of view, is that this was also an Art Film, in the most dangerous manner. Coming out of the theatre, I could not identify how the elements of the prologue presaged what came later. I had laughed in many places where the rest of the audience had not, but I couldn't tell if this was my own dark sense of humor or me just understanding the difficult humor. In general, while I didn't exactly feel like I was lost during the film, I also didn't feel like I understood it all. I came out of this movie wondering if, perhaps, I should take some film-studies classes. Perhaps that sums the movie up as well as anything. Don't go in expecting a straight-forward Coen brothers comedy; this ain't it. Burn After Reading, The Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy, are all much more "comedic" comedies; even Fargo doesn't hold a candle to the darkness of this movie. Perhaps this is some kind of cross between the darkness of No Country for Old Men and the comedy of Fargo; I'm not sure if I can think of anything else comparable. But still, it's worth seeing if you recognized any of the movies I just listed (and if you're reading my reviews, you probably do.) ***. It probably would have been higher if I had understood; and, perhaps my estimation of the movie will go up as I allow myself to read the reviews of others. URL: http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/serious-man/ (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
tskirvin	11:43p	The Men Who Stare At Goats The Men Who Stare At Goats: ** (out of 4) When Jon Ronson, the author of the book version of The Men Who Stare At Goats appeared on The Daily Show a few months back, he amused me with his story: a (non-fiction) look at the US Military's attempts to harness psychic and new-agey techniques for combat purposes. He came in primarily to talk about the book, but it was in relation to the upcoming movie version; and at the very least, I was intrigued. But when the time came to see the movie, I was a little bit less enthused; after all, the movie is "inspired by" the book, not "based on". This concept has worried me every time that I've run across it - think I, Robot, which proves my point quite well, or Starship Troopers, which at least shows that it doesn't always end badly. Regardless, I went into the movie without reading the book, but open to the idea that there was something fun th ere. Well... there were some good parts. The movie turns out to be an absurd comedy, trying to show off the silliness of a bunch of military-types taking themselves seriously while find their chakras and (yes) kill goats with their minds. There is a story behind it, but it's hardly relevant to the situation and its associated comedy, and more often than not it gets left behind so the main characters can tell lengthy stories, detailing sections of the history of the project. Most of the laughter comes from this (maddeningly divided) history; and honestly, those stories were told better in front of Jon Stewart. The most clever joke of the movie is based around the casting. The soldiers trained in psychic warfare are referred to as "Jedi", and one of the two stars of the movie is Ewan McGregor. This made me laugh, at least, even if most of the rest didn't... Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate this movie. I was just disappointed. Before the movie began, there was a commercial for Levi's Jeans. This isn't unusual. What is unusual is that a) the commercial involved a shot of Multnomah Falls, and b) I had been there about 45 minutes before the movie began. Sadly, this amused me more than the movie itself. ** URL: http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/movies/men-who-stare-at-goats/ (Comment on this)