V for Vendetta

So last night I watched V for Vendetta over on the local IMAX. Movies that come out in March always make me wonder just a little bit. Typically, there are some really good movies that come out over Christmas and then it kinda dies down a little bit until the summer season starts in mid to late April. Usually, everything in between is a little questionable. Studios typically use this time to dump some bad movies or release ones originally set for summer they just aren’t real confident in.

V, however, was a movie worth watching, especially on the IMAX. I had seen Goblet on the IMAX and it didn’t make much of difference to me. But with this one, wow. The best part… the movie itself is good too.

Based on the handful of commercials I had kinda half seen (I try to not pay too much attention to movie ads because they sometimes ruin the movie), I went in expected an action movie. In that I was disappointed. An action movie it is not.

It starts off with a bang, and on the giant IMAX screen it makes for a pretty big bang. But from there is turns into more of a thinking man’s movie. They tell a story that kept me entertained, waiting to find out what would happen next, even though, in the end I knew what was going to happen, but I still wanted to see how we got there.

Surprisingly, Natalie Portman even got to do some acting in this movie, which is a change from her performance in the Star Wars prequels. She showed just a little rust, but delivered a believable character.

I’ve since added the comic to my with list over at Amazon because I’m very curious to read the original story to see just how true they stayed to the story.

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Deep Sea

So last Monday I went to watch the new movie over on our local IMAX screen, Deep Sea 3-D. Once again I was pretty impressed. The movie itself was pretty typical for a nature movie, pretty much the same thing you’d see on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. However, seeing it on a gigantic screen and in 3-D, makes it completely worth it.
Next up, V for Vendetta.

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Gamil Ads…

Every once in a while the Google Ads I see in gmail are just a little bit funny. Today, while reading my Onion Daily Dispatch, there was a stock tip with the following in it “Analysts are bullish on this maker of fun, edible wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy following reports of a radiation leak at New York’s Indian Point nuclear facility.” The ads on the side of my email window were for:

“Chernobyl! Do we really want more nuclear power plants?” which was an ad for Greenpeace.

Another ad to find out all about nuclear reactors.

Finally, a spot where I could find out all about the leading provider of coal.

Some rather serious and interesting ads to put next to the Onion news. This provided a nice little bit of entertainment today.

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16 Blocks

Another day, another movie. OK, that is overkill, I don’t see that many movies, but I did see another movie tonight. I watched the new Bruce Willis/Mos Def movie 16 Blocks.

I actually liked this movie quiet a bit. I walked away from feeling a little bit like when I left Crash, the feeling of having just watched a good movie. Neither of these movies are what one would call a popcorn flick (ie a movie that you go to be purely entertained), but I’m not really sure how’d I classify them. Probably as a thriller, but that doesn’t even really ring true for me. 16 Blocks is also similar to Training Day. More of a gritty, this is the life of a cop movie.

Willis seems to have a knack for nailing the portrayal of a down and out cop. He pulled it off nicely in the Die Hard’s and he does another excellent rendition here as well. Mos Def does a great job playing the criminal being taken to the grand jury as well. I first really recognized him in The Hitchkiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and he’s playing someone completely different here.

There are going to be people that don’t care for this movie. It isn’t a Die Hard. These are the same people that probably didn’t like Training Day or Crash. I thought those were both great movies and this one is too.

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What I Learned at Think Tank

Overheard in the bar on Saturday night…

“If you are going to jump over a fire, be sure to get a running start.”

I’ve never had the urge to jump over a fire (yet) but if I ever do, I’ll be sure to keep this in mind.

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Crazy Wisconsin Weather Continues…

So a couple weeks ago we pretty much had a blizzard (at least by my standards) that even had some thunder and rain mixed in with it. Tonight, we have thunderstorm with a good mixture of hail. Just plain weird weather if you ask me. Although I’ll consider tonight’s weather a sign of spring, since we normally have thunderstorms in the spring.

And Spring = Start of Water Ski Season.

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Olympic Wrap Up

I was reading Tristan’s blog and I guess I feel the need to kinda of second his opinion. People are saying that the US team was a disappointment. I couldn’t disagree more. Yea, there were some less then stellar moments (speed skaters arguing about team, show boating, Bode) but there were some really good moments too. Sasha Cohen’s short program was great and she had a strong finish to her long program that earned her a silver, Apollo just embodies the Olympic ideal, some excellent speed skating performances, and a skier that came back from a horrendous crash to compete well. And how ’bout the half pipe snow boarders. Having fun and taking home the medals.

I just can’t get over how when our athletes are competing against the rest of the world’s best athletes and the fact that they don’t always get a medal is a disappointment. Some of these sports aren’t everyday sports here in the states and we’re losing to these other countries where these sports are THIER sports. Holland is speed skating, Germany is luge and bobsled.

Also, people are disappointed in the ratings. Do you know how hard it is to stay in the dark all day and not find out results? It isn’t easy. Open the browser and BOOM, there is a result you didn’t want to see yet. And very few people like to watch a sporting event knowing the result, especially if it isn’t the result they want.

All in all, I thought we did very well. I would have liked to see the men’s hockey team do better, but there are a lot of good hockey players in the world and not all of ’em are from North America.

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My Interesting Factoid of the Day

Nothing major to post, I didn’t see another movie today. But I did come across an interesting article about what we (Americans) know. Here is a link to it (don’t worry, it is a very brief article).

It got me thinking about how I can watch the first few seconds of a Seinfeld episode and damn near play the entire rest of it back in my head, remembering all of the funny little jokes in it. Sometimes, I’ll even remember jokes made in subsequent, or previous episodes, that make reference to the episode I just thought about. All this takes place in a just a few seconds. I’ll take this as a sign about just how true this article is.

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Capote

Finally managed to catch this movie today. I had been waiting for it to arrive at a theatre I frequent and this past weekend it did. I only really knew the premise of the movie going in, author goes to small town to document a murder trial. That’s about all I knew. I had heard of Truman Capote, but didn’t really know anything about him other than he was an author.

Assuming you enjoy truly good movies and go to movies that are more than popcorn/chick flicks on occasion, this movie is definitely a must see. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a phenomenal actor and nailed his role. This is kind of a hard movie to describe, the movie documents what an author went through to write a book and I’ve gone and added that book to my wish list on Amazon. I’m not sure if this’ll win best movie/picture or whatever, but Hoffman better win best actor.

As good as this movie is, I’m not real sure how it’ll do when it comes to repeat viewing. But you better see it once.

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