If at first you don't succeed… [Timecrimes (2009) review]

Note:  This review was originally posted on Epinions.  I'm reposting it here, not really knowing what will become of the original.

I had heard that Netflix plans to rotate its selection of streaming movies, prompting me to go through the list of movies in my queue.  I had been meaning to watch Timecrimes for a while.  I knew it was about time travel, which I don‘t always like.  They tend to either be predestination movies, where nothing can be changed, or more fluid, where things can get screwy.  Thus, I kept putting it off.  It wasn’t until I saw “streaming available until…” that I was prompted to watch it.

The movie follows Héctor, a man who has moved into a new house with his wife, Clara.  They’re still getting everything set up.  While taking a break, Héctor is looking around the surrounding area with binoculars when he sees someone.  They’re not on his property, but it is unusual.  (It’s a forest, so he’s probably expecting wildlife.)  Upon closer inspection, he finds a woman undressing.  This makes him very curious, so while Clara is out picking something up, he goes over to investigate.

This is where things get unusual.  He finds the mystery woman lying naked on the ground.  He wants to help, but gets stabbed in the arm.  Some strange guy wearing bandages on his head is following Héctor.  He makes his way to a compound that appears deserted at first.  Fortunately, a scientist is there that is able to help Héctor hide from the strange man.  Héctor enters a large vat at night and comes out a few moments later to see daylight.  He realizes that he’s gone back in time a few hours.  He’d like to go home, but the scientist him advises against possibly interfering in his own life.

When events do unfold, certain things start to make sense.  (Héctor had gotten a phone call when no one should have known their number.)  More questions pop up, though.  What’s he supposed to do if he can’t go home?  Well, he comes across the woman that he saw undressing.  He might be able to help her, except that he gets run off the road, leading him to wrap his head in a bandage he had been using for his arm.

What’s interesting is that you have four main characters:  Héctor, Clara, the scientist and the woman in the forest.  That’s it.  There are also just a few locations to keep track of.  This makes it relatively easy to follow.  This is not a movie to watch when you’re tired or in the mood for something easy to understand.  It’s not that it’s difficult.  It’s more that you have to pay attention.  The story is consistent, meaning that I didn’t notice any mistakes.

Being that it’s a foreign film, I didn’t recognize any of the actors.  (On that note, Netflix streaming only has subtitles as an option, so I can’t speak as to dub.)  It’s not too heavy on suspense or on the sci-fi angle.  You have a man that gets caught up in a time-travel experiment gone horribly wrong.  From what I can tell, a remake is being made.  It would be interesting to see how that plays out.  (As with most remakes, I’m not holding my breath.)

Ten Digit Keypad = Add Tiny Geek Pit (Targus PAUK10U A0126554 Wired Keyboard review)

Note:  This is a review that I'm reposting from Epinions.  It has been modified slightly.


When I got a netbook, I soon realized that I’d need a ten-digit keypad.  I wanted something small and inexpensive.  I went to OfficeMax and found Targus USB Ultra Mini Keyboard Keypad for about $25.  It was small and under $30.  I also didn’t need to buy anything else, as it came with the cord to attach to the netbook.  There was no software to install, either.  I had a winner.

All I was looking for was something that had the ten-digit keypad.  I’m used to entering long strings of numbers using the ten-digit keypad and have become pretty good at it to the point where I find it difficult to enter numbers using the row of numbers at the top of the keyboard.  It was worth the $25 to buy the keypad just for that alone.

The keypad has been plug and play.  I didn’t have to download anything nor did I have to install stuff from a CD, which is important; my netbook doesn’t have an optical drive.  The one downside is that it does take a few seconds for the keypad to warm up.  There’s a green indicator light that lets you know when it’s good to go.  Actually, it's the number-lock key, but if you keep it on, it does serve this function well.  There have been a few times where I plugged the mouse in through the keyboard and couldn’t use the mouse until the keypad was ready.  At first, I thought the mouse had broken.  It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened.

Most laptops and netbooks come with several USB ports.  If you only have one on yours or you use all of them, the keypad has two USB ports.  I believe that they are USB 1.1, but I haven’t had a problem with them.  I’ve attached a USB mouse through the keypad and have been able to use both of them normally.  I’ve also been able to attach the mouse through a neighboring USB port on the netbook.

One big advantage is that, despite the name, the keys are big.  This makes things very easy, considering that I’m coming from a netbook with very small keys.   This is good both for people with big fingers or for those with not-so-good eyesight.

The only thing that I really question is a 000 key.  Presumably, this is meant for people that are dealing with whole powers of 1,000.  I find it ironic that I only need that key when I’m not using my netbook.  I’m a member of a site called Where’s George that tracks currency by entering the series and serial number.  Very rarely do I come across a serial number with 3 zeroes in it.  It almost always happens when I’m entering bills at home rather than when I’m away somewhere using the keypad.

The keypad has proven to be worth the $25.  One thing I’ve come to find about things designed to be small is that they’re often designed so small that they’re impossible to use.  This keypad has been the only exception so far.  It’s small and durable enough that I can carry it around with me in a backpack, but is still big enough that I can hit the key I want on the first try and not have problems with it.  I’d recommend this to anyone who has a netbook or laptop that doesn’t have a built-in 10-digit keypad.

Winterbeast = Re: Bane Twits

Note:  This is a review that was originally posted on Epinions.  With the closing of the site, at least to new content, I've begun to move my old reviews here.  This is one of them.

It’s hard to say what makes one movie a cult classic while another fades off into the sunset.  Some, like Plan 9 From Outer Space, were so bad that they became famous for being bad.  Then, there are those, like Winterbeast, that I hadn’t heard of until I saw it mentioned on badmovies.org.  So, I headed over to Netflix to see just how bad it was.

The movie starts with some sort of bad horror sequence.  After this odd sequence, Ranger Bill Whitman goes in to work at the ranger station.  One of the other rangers, Stillman, is already there taking a report about a ranger who is “gone” as in dead.  Whitman and Stillman figure that the missing ranger stayed out overnight putting up trail markers or something.  All of this is distracting them from sitting around looking at girlie magazines.  Stillman even has a deck of playing cards with pictures of naked women. 

Speaking of naked women, we cut to a woman is getting undressed in the local inn when a really tall monster attacks her.  The monster is tall enough that it can forcibly take her from a second-story room and kill her by beating her against the wall.  I know that it’s a horrible, random way to go, which is to say nothing of the stop-motion animation.

Several more people are killed in horrible, random manners leaving the rangers to wonder if something’s really going on.  Bill wants to put up signs warning people that there may be dangerous things going on around the trails, but Sheldon won’t have any of it.  You see, Sheldon owns the local inn that I was talking about.  Telling people that there’s something dangerous in the area could be bad for business.  (Apparently, it’s better to let a few customers be attacked and killed.)

It turns out that Sheldon has a connection to what’s going on.  A ranger finds the grave of one of Sheldon’s ancestors, but is killed before she can tell anyone.  Whitman and Stillman find him at the inn dancing to an old recording of "Oh, Dear! What Can the Matter Be?"  It’s official:  This guy is totally out of his gourd.  It doesn’t matter, though. We’re not going to have to worry about Sheldon much longer.

From here on out, the movie gets weirder, more disjointed and has a few more deaths.  I mean, I can’t even begin to explain how it unfolds.  It just happens.  The movie ends with the main demon/beast being dispatched.  At least, we hope so.

The tag line for the movie was, “It Must Be Seen To Be Believed.”  This pretty much describes it.  According to the Internet Movie Database, filming was started in 1976.  The project was abandoned, only to be resumed in 1989.  (Two scenes survived from the original filming.)  This may be the primary reason why the movie looks so bad.  It’s not that it’s disjointed.  It’s more like one of those story projects where several people each write a chapter and pass it on to the next person, except that each person only had a vague idea of what the other people were doing.

For instance, the first scene at the ranger station had Whitman and Stillman talking, but it looked like the lines were written after the scene was filmed.  There are cases where the voice doesn’t match the lip movement if there’s any lip movement at all.   The film quality also varied.  Usually, it wasn’t that bad, but there were some scenes where it looked like the film wasn’t developed properly.

There’s a reason that the movie is listed on a site for bad movies.  I could understand if you were going for a cheesy look, but this movie just sucks.  Even if you were going for a really crappy movie, you could have done better.  The acting is wooden and the script isn’t very well developed.  It’s like the story is used to string together some bad stop-motion animation.  I wouldn’t be surprised if, when the writers realized that they ran out of story, they resorted to drugs.  (Note to legal department:  I’m not actually alleging the use of illicit drugs.  I’m just saying that the possibility exists.)

This movie is not suitable for children.  The DVD that I got from Netflix started with one of the characters saying, “Holy s__t!”  Then, you have these monsters that could give small children nightmares.  Add to that the violence and a story that even an adult has trouble understanding and you have something that children should not be exposed to.

In fact, I’d almost recommend that most adults stay away from it, as well.  The one scene that I really liked was the one of the inn proprietor dancing.  It was bizarre, but was at least entertaining.  I think that it makes the rest of the movie worth sitting through.  If you can find a clip of just this scene, I wouldn’t bother renting the rest of the movie, though. 

Future War (1997)…The Best of the Worst (Movie review)

Note:  This is another review posted from my Epinions reviews.   I am making a few modifications since it was written so long ago.


I actually bought Future War many years ago at the mall. It was $3.  I figured that it was about the same price as renting. I should warn you that this movie was overpriced.

It starts with three people walking through these narrow corridors looking for something, presumably to kill it. They find it, but one of the three people trips and gets eaten. This marks the start of the opening credits, which alternate between names on a black background and scenes inside this empty ship. You get the impression that someone’s on it, but you can’t actually see anyone. Finally, Runaway, played by Daniel Bernhardt, washes up on shore. He’s a runaway slave (hence the name) running, and running from something bad. If you want to know how bad, remember that the writers didn’t bother to come up with a better name than Runaway.

Killer cyborgs and their dinosaur trackers are after him. The cyborgs look like the original concept was a vampire and the makeup department couldn’t even get that right. The dinosaurs also look like it was a real dollar-store effort. I’m not trying to demean dollar stores, but you’d think that a movie could do a little better than cheap puppets. That’s not even mentioning the point-of-view shots. For the cyborgs, we see a shot with the colors distorted and some lines framing the image. Dinosaurs only get a strong red tint.

For the first 15 minutes of the movie, there’s no real dialogue, unless you count the screams of innocent bystanders as dialogue. Apparently, the dinosaurs aren’t too smart and the cyborgs don’t talk much, so the dinosaurs will kill anything in their path until they eventually kill their intended target. This includes a guy on the beach and some homeless guy. Runaway manages to kill a dinosaur before he runs into a warehouse to hide from the cyborg. When we finally do get to see the cyborg (it had been point-of-view shots for a while) we get to see the epitome of bad acting. Think of all of the zombies, androids, and other things that walk stiffly. How it had managed to keep up is beyond me.

The set design for the warehouse looked like it was done at the last minute and/or with a microbudget. There were lots of empty cardboard boxes filled with thing that, when they fall, make a cheap, broken-glass kind of sound. We even get to see Runaway pull out some martial arts on the cyborg. There was one scene that made me think of Jean-Claude Van Damme channeling Bruce Lee. He dispatches it quickly and moves on.

He eventually hooks up with a sister who’s on the verge of losing her faith and has friends played by actors reading off of cue cards. They can’t figure out why Runaway can’t speak English. (He does pick it up eventually.) The movie takes off from there as they mobilize to take on the threat from another killer cyborg and dinosaur, both of which take a lot longer to kill than their predecessors. As is typical with a b movie, the good guys win and the bad guys stand only enough of a chance to get some good fight scenes into the movie.

The entire movie wreaks of a low budget and is even confusing at times. As I mentioned, the acting is sub par. The set for the church looks like the movie rented out someone’s bedroom. Also, notice that when the reporter from Channel 2 is doing his report, it looks like the microphone has only a piece of paper with ׀” written on it. It’s pathetic to think that someone doing a movie couldn’t bust out to have a fake microphone made up.

Now, there are a few things that I can’t figure out. We know that there’s a ship in the area of Earth; I’m assuming that this is the one that Runaway escaped from. However, did he steal the ship? Was it just some ship that he was being transported on? Was it the cyborgs’ ship sent to retrieve him?

About the cyborgs, it says that they were sent from the future to retrieve Runaway, but there’s no mention of time travel other than the text right after the opening credits. Also, are cyborgs the masters who enslaved Runaway or are they simply sent out as automatons? We know that the humans and dinosaurs are actually from Earth. They even have Christianity as their religion. It’s odd that Runaway could quote the Bible, even though it took him a while to figure out spoken English.

This movie is what other bad movies aspire to be.  At least it's good for a few laughs.

Alien Nation (1988)

Note:  This is another repost from Epinions.  This is why the first paragraph may seem a little dated.



Illegal immigration is a hot-button issue today.  Arizona passed a law making it legal for police to ask people for their papers.  (There’s talk of a similar law in Florida.)  There are several walls at the U.S.-Mexican border.  Immigration is on the minds of a lot of people.  There are lots of opinions and ideas on the topic.

How would you stop aliens from outer space?  Yes, the E.T., funny-looking, nanu-nanu, pointy-ear, little green kind.  In Alien Nation, Southern California had to deal with just that.  The movie was released in 1988, but set in in the 1990s.  An alien race called the Newcomers have landed on Earth and have no way to get back home.  Most were bred for slave labor and meant to survive in almost any environment.

Now, they have to assimilate to life on Earth.  They work, go to school, raise families and do everything that humans do.  They just look very different from us.  They have larger heads, no hair and spots all over their heads.  They’re also much stronger and smarter than humans.

The movie starts with two detectives, Bill Tuggle (Roger Aaron Brown) and Matt Sykes (James Caan), responding to a robbery of a convenience store.   Two Newcomers shoot and kill the guy running the store, then turn on the detectives and kill Tuggle before they get away.  Sykes didn’t like Newcomers to begin with.  Now he really hates them and wants revenge.  Sykes has been told not to investigate Tuggle’s death, but has no plans on not looking into it.

When Newcomer police officer Samuel Francisco (Mandy Patinkin) is promoted to detective, Sykes volunteers to be his partner.  Sykes makes it clear that the only reason that he’s doing this is because he needs a connection to the Newcommer community.  Francisco will be able to talk to people that Sykes can’t.  Francisco will know things that Sykes doesn’t.  Their partnership isn’t any sort of act of goodwill.  He also tells his new partner that he’ll be calling him George since he can’t very well go around calling him Sam Francisco.

The two are an odd couple.  Sykes tends to be more street smart, willing to cut corners when necessary.  Francisco is more by the books, but not very knowledgeable about humans or the new society he’s in.  Together, they find out that there’s a lot more to Tuggle’s death than just the robbery.  A group of Newcomers are making a drug that was used on the ship to keep the slaves in line.  It’s very potent and very dangerous.  It could undermine everything that Newcomers have done on Earth.

The movie has a split personality about it.  On the one hand, it’s a movie about two good police officers trying to take down the bad guys.  On the other hand, it’s a movie about culture clash.  Sykes is a racist and Francisco is the target of his prejudice.  The two of them have a lot to learn about the other.

Much of the movie deals with Sykes coming to terms with Newcomers and with Francisco learning about humans.  In one scene, Sykes has to explain to Francisco what a condom is.  (Francisco is amazed that it actually does what Sykes claims.)  Also, many of the Newcomers have weird names, which is something Sykes asks Francisco about.  (One of the other main characters is called Rudyard Kipling.)  Francisco points out that in his language, Sykes translates roughly as “excrement cranium.”

It ended up being a very good movie.  Yes, I am a bit biased towards science-fiction movies, but it was well paced.  It’s also interesting to think how our society would react to a shipload of aliens landing on Earth with no way off the planet.  Even though the difference is obvious, deporting them really isn’t an option.  (This really isn’t addressed in the movie.)

It’s not really the kind of movie I’d buy, but I do watch it when it comes on TV.  Even if you’re not a fan of sci-fi movies, it’s still possible to watch this movie.  While it does deal with societal issues, it doesn’t really beat you over the head with the aliens being from another world.  At worst, you get to see them drink sour milk, which is like beer to them.


IMDb page

I have a soul…I just don't have it with me (Cold Souls review)

Note:  This is a review that's reposted from Epinions.



Very few works of fiction try to tackle what a soul is.  What is it about or minds and consciousness that makes us self-aware?  What does a soul do, exactly?  What would happen if we could have our soul extracted and put into storage?

In Cold Souls, Paul Giamatti plays Paul Giamatti.  (A brilliant stroke of casting, I think.)  Giamatti (the character) is preparing for his role in Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, but just can’t seem to get it right.  Someone tells him about a service that will remove his soul and put it into storage.  When he reads about it in the New Yorker, he seriously considers it.

This may all sound sinister, but in this movie, it’s really not.  When Giamatti goes in to speak to a doctor, he’s told that it will remove the burden of his emotions, allowing him to go through life much more easily and clearly.  After a little convincing, Giamatti has the procedure done.

At first, it’s not so bad.  There’s no guilt or fear, but his work and social life do suffer.  When he and his wife are out with some of her friends, one of the friends is talking about caring for a terminally ill patient.  Giamatti casually suggests that she just pull the plug.  When talking about it in the car later, Giamatti has absolutely no idea what he did wrong.  As for the play, he starts overcompensating.  He’s going in a totally wrong direction.  Giamatti soon realizes that he needs his soul back.

Back at the facility, the doctor convinces Giamatti to take the soul of a Russian poet instead.  He gets through the play fine, but realizes that the only soul that will do is his own.  He goes back and insists on getting his own soul back, but it’s too late.  His soul has been stolen by Nina, a woman working for a Russian dealing in black-market souls.  His wife wanted the soul of an American actor and Giamatti’s was the only one available.  After finding out what Nina did, Giamatti sets off with her to get his soul back.

You’ll notice that Russians factor into the movie quite a bit.  Not having actually read Chekov or any other Russian literature, it’s hard to tell how much this influences the movie, but the movie can be somewhat heavy at times.  Giamatti is conflicted about having his soul removed.  A soul is a pretty big thing to have taken out.  Yes, he can have it reversed, but is it really necessary?  He’s a very tormented character.

There are also a lot of aspects of the movie that are depressing.  For instance, Nina is little more than a mule.  Transporting as many souls as she has, she’s left with residue that means that she may not be able to get her own soul back.  There is also a scene with Giamatti waiting in a Russian hotel.  It seems he has little to do beyond walking around the hotel property waiting for Nina to get back.

There are some humorous points.  For instance, each soul looks different.  Giamatti’s looks like a chickpea.  Another looks like a jellybean.  It’s not known why each looks different, but it does bother Giamatti that his is so small.  (Apparently, size doesn’t matter.)

Also, being able to harvest souls does create a black market, complete with the aforementioned mules.  The group of Russians dealing in black-market souls collects them from people that apparently need the money.  They sign away all rights to getting it back, as shown in a scene where a woman wants hers back.

The movie doesn’t deal directly with what a soul is.  The doctor repeatedly admits that modern science knows very little about the soul other than how to remove it, store it and put it in someone else.  I suppose this is a good thing.  There are so many views on what a soul is that to try to pin down a philosophy for the movie would have been unnecessary and probably would have alienated some viewers.  The movie simply explores what it would be like to have your soul removed without being too technical about it.

It gets a bit confusing at times.  Giamatti apparently has visions associated with the former owner of the soul.  It wasn’t until I started reading reviews about the movie that I realized what this was.  I think part of the problem is that even at 1:41, it drags on at parts.

The acting great as was the basic premise.  My only real complaint was that it dragged on a little too much.  About halfway through the movie, I felt like I was still waiting for the movie to get interesting.  At that point, I figured that I might as well finish it.  At the very least, I’d be able to know how the movie ended and write a complete review.

When I heard about the film on NPR a few years ago, the movie sounded interesting.  Having seen it, it’s hard for me to recommend the movie to someone mostly because I had trouble finishing it.  Had it not been for my desire to review it, I probably would have shut it off halfway through.  Overall, I’d give it three stars.  Catch it if it comes on TV, but I wouldn’t recommend renting it.

How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America (book review)

Note:  This is a review that was originally posted on Epinions.  I'm reposting it almost as is.  This was one of my more detailed reviews, so I'd definitely like to get this one on the blog.


 
There have been a few movies that I’ve watched knowing that not many people would be affected by them.  Those that agreed with the message would be glad that someone made a film showcasing their views.  Those that disagreed would hold it up as a bunch of lies.  (I’ve usually been in the first group.)

When I checked out How Evil Works from the library, I thought it would be about the psychology of evil people.  You’d have maybe a chapter on dictators and another chapter on criminals or something.  When I started flipping through the book, I realized that I had gotten something entirely different.  The first chapter title I saw was Chapter 7’s Rejecting God.  (It’s subtitled Why Militant Atheism is Becoming a Badge of Honor.)  I realized that I was going to be part of that second group.

I wanted to read the whole book, mostly so that I could give examples of what I don’t agree with.  I did finish and I wanted to be more specific than “all of it”, so I took notes.  Normally, I don’t like giving too much detail on each chapter, but I think I’m going to have to here.  There are a lot of things that I want to point out.

Chapter 1 is In Government We Trust.  Basically, David Kupleian says that we elect leaders not to do the right thing, but to lie to us.  It’s easy for a politician to get in with a big lie because we don’t question them.  Some will even start a crisis, like global warming, so that they might solve it for us.

We tend to elect liars based on the lies that make us feel best.  Do you feel guilty about murdering your unborn child?  Then vote for a pro-choice candidate.  (This is halfway down page 13.)  At the end of the second full paragraph on page 23, he states, “You can destroy lives and civilizations” if you’re sinful and not sincere.

In Chapter 2, which is called Sexual Anarchy, the author states that sex is for marriage only.  It’s “obvious” that sex is for a man and a woman because if the irrefutable proof that a child needs one mother and one father.  (This is from page 44.)  One thing I disagree with is with the author’s equating homosexuality and wanting to have a sex-change operation with having sex with children.  If it’s not one adult male and one adult female in the confines of marriage, it’s not good.

With Chapter 3, or How Terrorism Really Works, the author explains how use Stockholm syndrome to control people.  We give in to our captors out of fear for our lives.  Governments can do the same thing.  His solution?  Be strong, like Reagan.  Don’t be weak like Carter.

On page 51, Kupleian says that the political left is the total opposite of reality where up is down.  It’s a worldview that emanates from anger.  He says that we shouldn’t give into terrorism.  Instead, we should be strong and bomb the crap out of those that would do us harm.  (So, Stockholm syndrome is bad unless we’re the ones perpetrating it.)

Chapter 4 is called The Secret Curse of Celebrity, in which the author states that you have to be an raging egomaniac to want to be a star.  Even if you’re not, you have so many yes men, fans and whatnot telling you how wonderful you are that it’s not healthy.  God created us to worship Him, not each other.

Well, according to this chapter, there really is a God and only man has choice.  He can either chose to be with God or he can chose to be prideful.  We can either chose to be good or we can chose to blame others for all of our problems.  I get the impression from this chapter that there are a lot of egocentric, prideful celebrities.

Chapter 5 is Doctors, Drugs and Demons.  Kupleian rails against handing out diagnoses (and, thus, medication) to solve all of our problems.  Does your son twitch too much?  He has ADHD.  Give him some meds.  Are you depressed after having a child?  On page 107, the author states that god didn’t make us to be depressed and/or suicidal after childbirth.  Does this guy have a medical degree that I don’t know about?

Chapter 6 is called False Gods and is about witchcraft, paganism and the various new age religions.  This is the chapter where I came to realize that the author is pretty much full of it.  The basic premise is that the Christian God is the one true God.  Given the title of the chapter, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the author doesn’t have a high opinion of other religions.

On page 126, he asks who would believe in good-luck spells and magical potions?  Yet, praying is supposed to work?  Well, actually, submitting to God is supposed to work.  We go against God and chose these other religions is that we’re not noble.  We seek alternate religions as a way to rebel against the Church.

Chapter 7 is Rejecting God, which is about what he calls “militant atheism”.  (You have to look no further than the subtitle to find the term.)  As I said, this is the one that caught my attention.  The chapter tends to be mostly how religion (read: Christianity) is good and not having Christianity as a moral framework is bad.

Kupleian points out that Obama put non-believers on equal footing with believers.  Almost half of all Americans would be willing to vote for an atheist.  (Both of these come from page 140)   Are these supposed to be bad things?

On page 144, he states that atheists view the three major religions as being “dangerous monotheistic fairy tails.”  I’ve never really thought of religion in general as being dangerous.  Yes, people have done dangerous things in the name of religion, but I don’t see religion itself as being dangerous.

What really gets me is on pages 148-9, where Kupleian calls the lack of proof for Intelligent Design to be nonsensical.  He says that the proof is in the complexity.  In fact, he claims that there’s no proof of evolution.  Forget all the fossils.  Mutating viruses?  Ha!  Your unproven set of beliefs is nothing more than a religion.

I’ve never accepted the complexity of a system as proof of a particular creator.  Yes, one might wonder if there was someone or some group playing a part in it or setting everything in motion, but just because something exists doesn’t mean it supports your particular version of events.

In Chapter 8, Kupleian feels that fathers are no longer respected.  In fact, he calls the chapter The War on Fathers.    He seems to believe that society has it in for men.  Girls are getting ahead in school.  There are more women than men going to college.  Colleges are having to resort to gender-based affirmative action.

On page 173, the author implies that being feminist means that you hate men.  On 177, it’s implied that rejecting stereotypes is basically hatred of men.    On 175, he calls those wishing to change their sex through surgery “obviously troubled.”  (Did it ever occur to you that maybe a few social factors might play into that?)

Chapter 9 is The Mysterious Power of Hate.  This chapter covers things like genocide and raising children to hate other ethnic groups.  On page 196, Kupleian says that there are two types of people.  There are those that accept God no matter how flawed they are and those that can’t face reality and their own shortcomings.  (So, if you don’t accept God, you’re delusional?  I don’t accept that.)

On page 200, Kupleian speaks of standing on a ledge and there being some force pulling you over.  This is called gravity, but he seems to think it’s the devil.  He holds the same to be true of head-on collisions.  Could it be that the road was a little wet?  Maybe you misjudged how sharp the turn was.  Or maybe the devil told you to do it.  The answer?  Trust in God.

Chapter 10 is So, Where on Earth is God?  The chapter doesn’t actually deal with physically finding God.  It’s more about accepting the emotional and spiritual path to God.  Instead of physically following Jesus, you’re dedicating your life to him.

On page 213, Kupleian calls Christianity a spiritual religion where Islam is more legalistic.  (Look at the fourth paragraph.)  Islam seems to be big on how often you pray or what kind of rug you use.  Christianity is about actually accepting the supreme being rather than going through the motions.  If I’m not mistaken, Islam literally means to surrender to God.  That doesn’t sound like someone that’s going through the motions.

Chapter 11 is the last chapter.  It’s called Turning the Tables on Evil in America.   Kupleian wrote a book before this called The Marketing of Evil.  Apparently, people wanted a sequel about marketing good.  He didn’t write the book, but he did write this chapter, partly in response.

He states on page 231 that “Deceivers have the upper hand.”  Deceivers are pumping you full of lies, like the government is there to help, homosexuality and abortion are good, and prayer and the Ten Commandments are bad.  (Instead, we should apparently think that homosexuality is bad and that the government is there to hurt is.)

One thing that stuck out in my mind about this chapter is a story starting on page 251.  Kupleian tells the story of William Wilberforce, who tried to end the slave trade in Britain in the late 18th century.  He couldn’t get the job done after 11 attempts.  His brother-in-law gave him an idea.  Instead of tackling it head on, use anti-French sentiment to sneak it in.

After he tells this story, Kupleian warns the reader that Democrats, tired of trying to get the Fairness Doctrine reinstated, used a set of laws to accomplish nearly the same thing.  So, the message here is that brilliant ideas are good so long as they accomplish something that you agree with?

This is the problem that I had with the book overall.  It seems like the author is saying that if you truly give your life over to God, then you’re in good hands.  If you’re a Muslim, an atheist, Wiccan, Democrat, liberal or feminist, you’re bad and there’s something wrong with you.

I’ve been able to comment on Chapter 7 mostly because I identify as atheist.  The chapter is misinformed at best and insulting at worst.  I have to wonder if the author spent any actual time with atheists or if he’s getting his information elsewhere.  There is evidence of evolution.  Those that don’t believe in it often make ridiculous arguments, like fossils were put there to trick us or to test our faith.  It’s like Groucho Marx said, “Who are you going to believe: Me or your lying eyes?”

I’d love to see what Wiccans and other believers of “false” gods have to say about Chapter Six.  I’d imagine that there would be a similar reaction.  Kupleian may get a few facts right, but I’d imagine that a good deal of it is his being misinformed.  There are a lot of other people that I imagine would have something to say, such as celebrities and doctors.

I apologize for the long word count, but I had a lot to say about this book.  I didn’t want to simply be glib or dismissive.  I realized that if I was going to pick apart the book, I might as well go all out and give examples of what I didn’t agree with.  There was very little about the book that I did agree with.

It seemed that overall, Kupleian was saying that God was good and everything not serving God is bad.   It came across as condescending.  It’s not that I think that abortion is good.  And I do agree that making an informed decision is the right thing to do.  It’s just that I think that there are times when having the option to abort the child should be made available.  I also don’t agree that homosexuality is bad.  I don’t think that it’s my place to tell people who they can date or marry.  Also, what’s the big deal about other religions?  What’s it to you if a law-abiding citizen wants to worship another deity or supreme being?

You don’t have to like everything that I do or believe.  I’m not going to like everything that you do or believe.  There are just times when I have to sit back and wonder.

Worth the low price (ASUS 7 [8 GB, Intel Celeron M, 900 MHz, 512 MB) Notebook review]

Note:  This is a repost of a review I wrote of the ASUS 7" (8 GB, Intel Celeron M, 900 MHz, 512 MB) Notebook on Epinions, located here. It was originally posted on Jan 24, 2010.  I know it's out of date, but I'm testing a site I just found to automatically post on Facebook and Twitter.



I'm a member of a currency-tracking web site called Where's George.  Last year, I went to Las Vegas and knew that I'd be entering a lot of bills on the site.  Right before I went to Las Vegas, I decided to get a small laptop or netbook.  My primary reason for getting one was that I wanted to be able to enter bills from the comfort and security of my hotel room.  I knew I'd want a computer to take with me on the trip, but I didn't feel like dragging a desktop along for the ride.  (Airport security is strict enough about laptops.)

My primary criterion for purchasing said computer was the price.  I knew that I'd be using it after the trip, but I didn't know how often.  I didn't really want to have to shell out too much money for something I'd be using once or twice per year.  I also needed something that could connect to a network wirelessly since I‘d be using it on the road, so to speak, and most places that have Internet access have the wireless kind.  Size was also a big factor.  I'd need something that could easily fit in my backpack and still leave room for other things.

This was back when I was working for Wolf Camera and we had just brought in the Asus line of netbooks.  (For those that are wondering, a netbook is a smaller version of a laptop.)  The price was about as small as I could expect to pay and still get something that turned on most of the time.  Add to that the fact that I could get an employee discount.

My manager and I both bought one of these.  We didn’t really have the option to upgrade anything through Wolf.  It came with a 7.5 GB hard drive, 504 MB of RAM and a 900 MHz Intel Celeron processor.  My manager has been able to upgrade the RAM, but I don’t know about any of the other features.  The operating system is Windows XP, but I've heard that you can get Linux on it.

I don’t know how easy it is to get at the solid-state hard drive or what’s involved in replacing one.  The comes with one SD card slot and three USB ports.  Given how cheap SD cards and USB drives are, I think these would be my best option for expanding file storage, especially considering that I don’t really store files on here.  All of my files are on my desktop.

When it arrived at the store, I opened it up immediately to make sure it did turn on.  (Which it did, thankfully.)  I didn't really have a chance to try it out until I got home, mostly because we don't have wireless at work.

It didn't come with any major programs outside of Internet Explorer and Microsoft Works.  You do get the standard assortment of games like Freecell and Minesweeper.

Connecting through a wireless network is pretty easy.  For some reason, I've had issues staying connected at home, but I've never had a problem in other places.  (My mother's laptop has never had these problems, so I think it may be some issue unique to this laptop and our router.)  The entire time I spent in Las Vegas, I was able to stay connected using the Asus without problem.  (There’s also a port for connecting through a network using cables.)

That's not to say that I didn't have issues.  The first thing I noticed was that it doesn't have any sort of CD, DVD or floppy drive.  If you want to use a physical device to get information on to or off of the 701SD,. You have to use either a USB drive or an SD card.  If you have software on a CD or DVD that has to be installed through the CD or DVD, you'll have to get an external drive.  I don't know how easy it will be to install.  I can only hope you can get the drivers online.

This is ironic because the netbook comes with a DVD backup of the computer.  I'm told that it's an image of the hard drive when it left the factory, which means that you'd just have to copy it on to the computer.  What this means is that you'd have to have some other computer that has a DVD drive so that you can copy the information onto an SD card or a USB drive to then copy on to the netbook.

Also, the 701SD is small.  Yes, I wanted small, but I didn't expect it to be this small.  The netbook has small keys and I have big fingers, which made typing hard.  I'd often miss keys and end up typing a bunch of other stuff in trying to hit the backspace key.

Add to this that I was trying to enter serial numbers most of the time.  Because of size limitations, there's no 10-digit keypad.  I had to use the numbers at the top of the keyboard.  After checking what I had entered each time I entered a bill, I noticed that I was making a lot of mistakes.  I didn't have a chance to get a separate 10-digit keypad while I was out there, but I knew I'd have to get one eventually.

Fortunately, I had a USB mouse that I had won during some employee training.  If I hadn't had that mouse, I think I would have sought out the nearest Office Max.  Having used laptops before, I knew I wouldn't want to have to use the tracking device.  This one has proven to be especially problematic when trying to click on a small box.  When I raise my finger, the cursor will often move down a little.  The USB mouse, on the other hand, works perfectly.

One issue that cropped up by my next trip was the battery shelf life.  It seems that the battery won't stay charged for more than a week if you leave it off.  This means that you have to remember to charge it up before going out.  Even when you do go out, bring the power cord if at all possible.  The computer's initial estimate seems to be about 3 hours, but it could end up being much less depending on what you're using it for.

Another issue is that the screen size isn't standard.  This isn't really a problem unless you're installing software, which I haven't done a lot of.  (The only two programs I've installed are mIRC and Juno.)  When I went to install a printer recently, I noticed that the two buttons on the print screen fall below the bottom of the screen.  Hitting enter works in this case, but I could see someone running into issues with this.

The sound on the netbook wasn’t that great, but I wasn’t buying it to play music.  (If you are, there’s a headphone jack.)  Immediately after turning the machine on, I disabled the audio and haven’t missed it.  I generally don’t listen to sound while surfing the web.

I wasn’t looking to do much with this netbook and I pretty much got what I wanted out of it.   I'd recommend this netbook for anyone that needs something cheap and small and can handle the small keyboard.  The 701SD is almost small enough that I can fit it in my pocket.

If you buy it, I'd recommend getting the USB mouse and additional 10-digit keypad.  I'd bring it out with me more often if I didn't have to bring all of the additional stuff out with me, but I do bring it on trips where I'm staying in a hotel.  The Asus 701SD has done what I need it to and will hopefully continue to do so.

Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law [Robocop (1987) review]

Robocop is one of those movies I remember growing up.  I don’t remember when I first saw it.  It came out when I was 11, so I don’t think it was in theaters.  (Yes, it’s a very violent movie.)  It was probably on TV when I was older.  I had heard that there was going to be a remake of the movie.  I haven’t seen the remake yet; I’m expecting it to be a shiner version of this one.  However, if I do rent it, I’d like to have a recent memory of the movie to compare it to.

For those that don’t know the basic story, the Detroit of the future.  Detroit is bankrupt and has outsourced it’s police department to Omni Consumer Products, or OCP.  One division of OCP is working on new ways to patrol the city.  One idea is the ED-209.  When it fails miserably, an up-and-coming employee named Bob Morton (played by Miguel Ferrer) suggests the Robocop project, which needs an officer to die so that he might be remade into a cybernetic enforcement unit.

This infuriates Dick Jones (played by Ronny Cox), the senior vice president who happened to want the ED-209 to work, at least long enough to get a lucrative military contract.  Enter Alex Murphy, played by Peter Weller.  He’s just transferred to a precinct serving the wrong part of town.  As luck would have it, he ends up ‘volunteering’ for the Robocop project on his very first call in his new precinct.

Robocop a wild success.  He can’t be hurt.  He can’t be bribed.  He’s able to single-handedly clean up Detroit.  The trouble is that there’s corruption within OCP that Robocop cant’ quite seem to deal with.  He also has to deal with lingering memories from Murphy.  He can’t let his old life go that easily.

This is one of those cases where the movie seems dated, mostly in the special effects.  (The ED-209 has a definite stop-motion feel to it.)  It seems like an eighties version of a dystopia.  I will say, though, that they did seem to call Detroit going bankrupt.

I don’t imagine it was too easy for Weller as Robocop.  The costume covers everything except around his mouth for most of the movie.  We don’t get to see much facial expression as Robocop except towards the end, and even then, it seems emotionless, which I’ll admit is appropriate.  I don’t imagine it was particularly easy wearing that costume.  (However, it’s one of the few times that a stiff performance is called for.)

The movie is very violent.  Murphy being tortured and killed alone is enough to not let children see the movie.  Add to this that Robocop has to deal with all manner of criminals from rapists to drug dealers.  He also hunts down the people responsible for his being tortured and killed.  The violence is over the top.

What surprises me, though, is that the movie spawned not only several sequels, video games and the like, but also two animated series.  I’ve never seen either one, but I don’t imagine they could be that appropriate for children.  (From what I can tell, they do follow continuity at least marginally, so it’s possible that they’re intended for adults.)

The movie is primarily action.  There’s no twist ending.  There’s no romance.  We get to see a lot of gore.  At least the pacing was good.  I don’t feel like the movie overstayed its welcome at all.  I’m curious to see what the modern version looks like, but I’m also interested in checking out the sequels.  (It looks like Netflix has the live-action series as movies that were reedited from the episodes, although I don’t see the animated series.)

Extracted (Movie Review)

Extracted is about a man with a dream.  Tom's dream is to be able to see other peoples’ memories.  He has an idea for a machine that would literally let him get inside someone’s head.  He could walk around inside someone’s memory and even interact with them, which would be great for things like therapy.  The one thing holding him back is funding.  He doesn’t like the idea of an anonymous donor, but no one else seems interested in his technology.  Tom takes the money and does his best.

When the donor wants a demonstration before Tom can create a full prototype, Tom objects.  He’s not ready.  The alternative is losing his funding, so Tom agrees and meets the mystery donor, who happens to be an official with the Department of Corrections.  The idea is simple:  They can use the machine to tell if someone is actually guilty or innocent by seeing how they remember events.

Tom’s not thrilled, but he’s already made his deal with the devil.  He agrees to go into the memories of a prisoner named Anthony.  When the time comes to leave, Tom finds that he can’t.  His body is comatose but his mind is living out Anthony’s memories.  Anthony goes back to jail and Tom is left no way to communicate with the outside world..

After a while, it gets pretty boring for Tom, but he does find a way to communicate with Anthony.  It’s not entirely reliable and Tom realizes that he’s at the mercy of his host, but at least it’s something.  They’re able to better work out what happened the night of Anthony’s alleged murder.  The question is whether or not it will matter.

I had held this one in my Netflix queue for a long time before watching it.  It was one of those movies that looked interesting, but I wasn’t sure how they’d get 98 minutes out of the premise.  It seems like the whole idea of going into someone’s head is unnecessary.  It could have been done just as easily with a monitor and a microphone.  Actually putting someone at risk like that was undoubtedly only done to have some sort of suspense.

This may be why the movie seemed to drag.  Someone probably got the basic idea, but much of the movie comes across filler.  We get to see Tom spending a lot of time in Anthony’s head, moping around.  In this case, I can at least see it being done for effect.  Tom had to spend a long time without any meaningful contact with anyone.  It didn’t take long to get to the point where I was like, “Ok!  I get it already!”

At least with other movies, you can marvel at the technology.  In The Thirteenth Floor, the technology was cool.  Here, much of it seemed unnecessary.  Tom is just a bystander in Anthony’s memory.  There’s also no big twist.  It’s not like Tom is really Anthony or something.  There’s no real metaphor or special message.  It’s more like a commentary on the nature of memory.  The movie just peters out.

I’m not sure I can recommend buying the film.  If you have Netflix and it’s still available streaming, you can try it.  I have to admit, though, that even streaming, I was only watching it to see how it ended and possibly get a review out of it.  I watched it with my brother; I felt bad dragging him through it, but he didn’t seem to mind that much.  I could see this having been an episode of a sci-fi TV series like The Outer Limits.  It’s a good story that just got dragged out too far.

Fall from Grace (2007) movie review

I was going through my reviews on Epinions.com and came across this one on the film, Fall From Grace, about the Westboro Baptist Church.  Given that Fred Phelps just passed away, I thought now would be a good time to repost it here.  In this case, I've made no edits except for the addition of this introduction.

The Westboro Baptist Church is known for one thing:  Hating gay people.  I’ve seen them with their signs, including God Hates America and Thank God for IEDs.  When I came across Fall From Grace, I decided to watch it, mostly because it wasn’t that long and I didn’t really know that much about the Westboro Baptist Church.  (I didn’t understand the thing with soldiers and IEDs until watching this.)

The movie is simply interviews with the Phelps family and footage of protests.  The church was founded and run by Fred Phelps, who had 13 children.  Nine of those children and their children attend the church.  For some reason, Fred Phelps as chosen homosexuality to rail against, citing Leviticus.  As another interviewee points out, Leviticus mentions other things you shouldn’t do, like mix fibers in your clothes and plant different crops in the same field.  (Sites like http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/ were set up to mock this.)

At this point, it seems like the Phelps family isn’t going to win any converts.  The documentary shows people interacting with the family as they protest.  One woman comments that it’s crazy that she’s going to Hell because of her haircut.  (Women who have short hair are called a less-than-polite term for lesbian by the Phelps family.)  In fact, four of the Phelps children left the family as soon as they were able.  Two were interviewed by phone and described Fred Phelps as being a horrible person.

The movie is almost all footage with some text thrown in to explain things.  It’s not heavy on the commentary.  It would be interesting to have some sort of professional analysis, psychological or otherwise, on what makes Fred Phelps the way he is.  He seems passionate to the point of maybe having some disorder.  Some of his children that believe as he does aren’t as extreme, making me wonder.  (One thing I noticed was that the grandchildren also spout the God-hates-America rhetoric.  I have to wonder, as I have with other similar documentaries, as to whether or not the children will grow up to regret what they’ve said.)

This is one of those situations where I honestly think that the Phelps family is simply making themselves look like fools.  At several points, people point out how crazy they are.  Someone mentions that if you bring up Topeka, KS in certain places, people there will say something along the lines of, “Oh, yeah.  Where those crazy people live.”  They come across as so vehement and so in everyone’s face that most people can’t get past their hatred.  Instead of making people turn to their version of God, most people are thinking of how they can get out of the line of fire.  (If you’re not with us, you’re going to be called names and told you’re going to rot in hell for all of eternity.)

I got this streaming through Netflix.  I mention this because there may be bonus material on the DVD.  The movie doesn’t go into great detail about the Phelps family or other people interviewed.  It is interesting to note that Fred Phelps was disbarred for being too unethical.  It would be interesting to see how many of his children attended college.  It would be interesting to see if any of his grandchildren socialize with peers outside of the family.  I’d at least be interested in knowing where the name came from. 

Space, Time, and Gravity The Theory of the Big Bang and Black Holes (Book review)

I'd like to post at least one review per week.  I'm posting two reviews today since I didn't post one last week.  This is a review that I originally posted on Epinions.com of Space, Time, and Gravity The Theory of the Big Bang and Black Holes by Robert M. Wald.  The review has been modified for the blog.  (The oriiginal review had a thank you to a category lead, dramastef, who added the product to the Epinions database.)



Every so often, I feel the need to read a science book.  Usually, it’s something current.  When I get something older, the book is either by an author I like or I don’t realize how old the book is until I get it home.  In this case, it’s the latter.  The book was published in 1977 and is based on lectures that the author, Robert M. Wald gave the year before.  The book is, as you might expect, about physics.  Each chapter corresponds to a single lecture that the author gave.

The first three help set up the rest of the book.  Chapter One is called The Geometry of Space and Time and explains about spheres and what it means to be simultaneous.  Chapters Two and Three are called Special Relativity and General Relativity, respectively, and deal with how Einstein helped to further define our universe.

The remaining five chapters deal with Black Holes.  Chapter Six, Stellar Evolution, deals with a few ways that a star might end up as a black hole.  Chapter Seven, Gravitational Collapse to Black Holes, deals with the actual collapse and what that might look like.  From there, you have Energy Extraction from Black Holes, The Astrophysics of Black Holes and Quantum Particle Creation near Black Holes.  These are yet more technical chapters on black holes.

In the introduction, Wald says that the book was intended that anyone could pick it up and read it regardless of what they know previously.  As you might have guessed from the last paragraph, it did tend to be on the technical side.   He admits that it wasn’t oversimplified, but I do think that you would have to know something about physics before beginning.  (If I were to use the word ‘isotropic’, would you need to run to the dictionary?)  Other times, it seems to be a little silly.  I noticed an overuse of exclamation points.  By Chapter Five, he was using them in parentheses.  ( ! )

I think if I didn’t know much about science, I’d be lost.  There were a few places where I think someone wouldn’t have made certain connections.  For instance, Wald talks about Lorentz Contractions during the chapter on Special Relativity.  I don’t think most people would realize what this means for an observer’s frame of  reference affecting said observer’s measurements of the speed of light.

The other problem is that these lectures were given the year I was born.  I think it’s safe to say that our understanding of the universe, particularly black holes, has come a long way in my lifetime.  I figured I’d read the book because it was short and I could get a review out of it.  I definitely don’t think it would be worth buying unless you needed it for a class.  (Historical astrophysics?)  If you’re looking for a short book to read, I’d recommend seeing if your library has it or if there’s a historical astrophysicist that will let you borrow it.

Time Guardian, your time is up…way too soon

Note:  This review was published on Epinions.  I'm reposting it here with some modification.



I'm always looking for a really bad movie to review.  (Yes, I've seen Plan 9 From Outer Space.)  I think part of it is that I like to punish myself.  It's as if I don't deserve to watch good movies all the time.  Maybe I was inspired by the first-review contests that Epinions used to have.  (Many of these really bad movies had never been reviewed before.)  I had also always wanted to see Epinions put up a best and worst list for each category.  No way to prepare for that like reviewing every one-star movie out there.

What do you do if you are a fellow sadist like me and want to review really bad movies?  If you have access to any sort of on-demand service and they have a free section, this is the best place to look for one-star movies.  This is how I found The Time Guardian.  I truly wish I could just tell you to run in the other direction if you ever see this movie, but you deserve more.  If you are a fellow movie-watching sadist, you deserve to know what you're getting into.

At the very least, it looked interesting.  A city from far in the future is traveling through time to escape some evil cyborgs.  The movie doesn't give a lot of detail about the cyborgs.  We know only that they want some sort of power source from the human city.  We're also led to believe that this is the last human city left.  Apparently, all the others have been destroyed.

Two people, one being a woman played by Carrie Fisher, are sent ahead to prepare the area for the city's arrival, but the two people don't seem to do much other than get into fights and get hurt.  Carrie Fisher's character spends most of her time in the present resting from having a large sphere land on her.  The guy that she's sent back gets some heavy machinery to move rock.  It's not clear exactly what he's doing, but I guess it's what he needs to do.

This leads to one of the more confusing scenes.  We see the machine moving rock with some random people helping.  It's not clear where the people came from or why they're helping.  The movie uses music and camera angle to make it seem more suspenseful than moving rock usually seems to be.  I expected something interesting to happen.  Maybe have a cyborg pop out or something.  Nothing.  Just cut to the next scene.

The use of time travel is the movie is also a little confusing.  There's little talk of the repercussions of time travel, for starters.  Plus, it's not clear how long this technology has been in use by humans.  The movie opens somewhere in the 43rd century or something, but have the humans come from beyond that?  Have they been bouncing around in time or have they been working their way back in time?  Different parts of the movie seem to indicate different things.

The movie looks like it was written and directed by a 3-year-old child.  Half way through the movie, it still felt like they were setting it up.  It took me another quarter of the way through to realize that that was the movie.  It's one long narrative with a battle scene on either end.

I think the only place you'll find this is in the free section of On Demand.   The reason that Comcast won't charge for this crap is that people would be asking for their money back and rightfully so.  It looks like you can buy a used VHS copy, as the link above would indicate.  Netflix doesn't have it listed and IMDb doesn't have any listings for any releases.  I think the only reason it's listed on IMDb is that it is a movie that was released, thus requiring an entry.

Don't bother watching this movie.  It's overpriced at free.

Will this review ever see the light of day? (Dark City Review)

Note:  This is another review that was originally posted on Epinions.com   I've reposted it here with a few modifications.


I had heard about Dark City from someone somewhere and for some reason, I thought I’d rent it. The premise looked pretty good. A guy named Murdoch wakes up to find that he has apparently committed a murder, but has no memory of it. I figured that at worst, I’d have something to watch on a night when nothing was on TV. I’m still debating if reruns would have been better.

The premise is pretty simple. This dying race of aliens, known as The Strangers, has taken a group of humans to experiment on. The race is dying and somehow thinks that humanity may be able to save them. They’re trying to see if they can figure out what the human soul is. They’re conducting a grand experiment that seems to hinge on Murdoch.

It turns out that Murdoch has some sort of special ability. I’m not going to say what that is, but it allows him to throw a monkey wrench in to The Strangers’ plan. This is in part because he likes to ask a lot of questions, such as why no one can tell him how to leave town or how it is than an entire day goes by without anyone having seen the sun. (I think this special ability was supposed to provide the answer to the Stranger's problem.)

I have to admit that it’s a very confusing story. It’s never explained why the human soul was supposed to provide a solution. The Strangers are part of some sort of collective species, kind of like the Borg from Star Trek. They may think that individuality is the way to go. It’s possible that their collective nature is what doomed them. I think that it was The Strangers intent to program humans with their memories so as to allow something of their race to continue on.

It’s also never explained where the rest of humanity is. You’re left to assume that the Earth is still out there somewhere and that The Strangers just took a small group of test subjects. The thing is that no one can remember anything other than what The Strangers fed them and The Strangers aren’t in the mood to explain anything. The one human character that’s not part of the experiment, Dr. Schreber, erased a good portion of his memories so as not to be fed new ones every night.

The movie reminded me of a book called The Identity Matrix by Jack L. Chalker. I have to say that I liked the book more than this one. I don’t really know what it was. It’s like I want to like it, but something just didn’t click with me. I’ll probably end up watching the movie again in a few years and wondering why I didn’t like it sooner.

Men in Black (1997)

Note:  This is a review I originally posted on Epinions.  With the closing of Epinions, I’ve decided to repost many, if not all of my reviews here, on my blog.  I’ve made some minor modifications to reflect any changes that have occurred since first reviewing the movie.  With any luck, I will be doing this at least once per week.

One way of writing an alien movie is the alien-in-disguise, humanity-doesn't-know-the-truth way.  Aliens live among us, but we don't know about it because aliens either look human or can fit into an inconspicuous disguise.  In Men In Black, the title organization protects us from alien threats because, well, no one else is authorized to know that aliens even exist.

The movie starts with agents K and D on a mission.  D decides that it's time to quit.  He misses looking up at the sky and not knowing the truth.  That leaves K to find a new partner.  People are recruited from all manner of organizations, mainly military.  It's James Edward, a New York City police officer, that K seems interested in.  When James becomes Agent J, we get to find out all about the various things that let the MIB stay in the shadows.

To become J, James can  no longer exist.  His fingerprints are removed.  All files are erased.  Anyone that knew James has their memories of him erased with a device called a neuralyzer.  (This device also comes in useful for covering up major incidents.)

Meanwhile, a big bug crashes on Earth and kills Edgar to take his appearance.  You'd think something like this would get out.  Yes, the ship crashes in farmland, but someone has to have seen something.  It has to have made it into a newspaper.  That's where tabloids come in.  We all think they're full of crazy half-baked hoaxes, but they're really the best investigative journalism around.  J and K go to Edgar's house and talk to his wife, Beatrice.  After the interview, she's neuralized and the agents are on their way.  Around the same time, different aliens show up demanding The Galaxy.  The MIB have a galactic standard week (one hour) to find and deliver it.

The movie was based on a series of comic books.  From what I've read, though, there were more than a few changes.  The comic version hat the MIB investigating all sorts of things and could protect their identity however they saw fit.  I don't know how well that version would have done, mostly since I've never read the comics.

It's still a very dark movie.  There are a few scenes that aren't going to be appropriate for children.  For instance, when The Bug takes Edgar's skin as a disguise, you don't see The Bug actually killing Edgar, but you know what's going on.  Also, as the movie progresses, the skin deteriorates.

I remember liking this movie when it first came out.  For some reason, this is one of two movies that I can recall where the sequel seems to get more TV airplay than the original.  (Ghostbusters is the other.)  I'd like to watch it again, but I don't know that I want to rent it.  Two sequels have been made, both of which I‘ve subsequently seen.  I'd still love to get my hands on a neuralyzer.

IMDb page

Closing Time

I just found out that Epinions is to close…permanently.  This means that all future reviews will likely be posted here, unless I can find another option.  This saddens me, mostly because I had so many reviews and so much time invested in the site.  (I was six reviews away from having reviewed all of the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.)

I haven't made much money from from it in a long time.  In fact, it was only in the past few months that I was able to cash out once every month or two again.  It's more the principle that I was notified by email that the site was closed (not closing -- closed) and that I wouldn't be able to add, delete or modify any reviews.  My reviews will continue to be displayed on the site.  I just won't be paid for any revenue they might make off of it.

I had also submitted the link for some of my movie reviews to IMDb.  I had held off only to see what effect it might have on my hits.  I'm glad I didn't take the time to do this for all of my movie reviews.

All I can say is that it was fun while it lasted.  I am sad that I can no longer post reviews there, but I'll have to focus on finding new opportunities rather than trying to get the old ones back.

Blood Angels/Thralls (2005) Movie Review

I have to admit that I’m a ‘sucker’ for female vampires.  Since I have access to streaming movies, I can pick out movies that I might not otherwise rent.  I could tell that Blood Angels, a.k.a. Thralls, was going to be one of those movies that I might not otherwise have rented.  (I almost didn’t make it through the introductory voiceover.  If you want to use a deep voice, find someone with a deep voice.)

The movie is about several half-vampire women, called thralls, that want to escape from their evil vampire captor, Mr. Jones.  Thralls can’t fly or turn humans or anything, which makes it difficult.  However, Marlene finds a possible way out.  She manages to steal Mr. Jones’s Big Book of Vampire Stuff, Latin Edition, and finds a passage about some ritual to make a thrall into a full vampire.  With one exception, the women manage to escape.

Cut to a woman waiting at what I’m assuming was supposed to be a bus station.  Her name is Ashley and she’s waiting for her big sister, Leslie, to pick her up.  It’s late.  It’s dark.  Of course, several guys try to attack her.  Leslie shows up just in time to attack and drain them of blood.  Yes, Leslie is one of the thralls.  (Ashley doesn’t see any of the blood sucking.  She doesn’t know and won’t find out until later.)

They go to a large building that the women are using for raves.  There, a wide assortment of people are waiting to get in.  Some do.  Some don’t.  They’re collecting some sort of emotional energy for the ceremony, which has to be held on the Winter solstice at midnight.  Just as the moment is about to come, Mr. Jones shows up and starts wreaking havoc.  Turns out that it wasn’t that easy.  The ceremony is to bring over a demon.  As you might expect, the ladies win.  (Well, three of them win.  The rest aren’t as lucky.)

The voice over was the first of many things to bother me.  As much as I like vampire movies, I hate it when vampires don’t reflect.  I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll probably mention it again.  They’re physical objects that light interacts with.  What is it about being a vampire that makes their photons not interact with reflective surfaces?  I’m sure that there was some reason.  As far as I can tell, it’s currently only used as a plot device to let other characters know that there’s a vampire around, and even that’s far fetched.  How is it that the protagonist always has a mirror and is looking at just the right angle?

Most of the actors were in other movies, but the acting is just a little over the top.  I think everyone involved knew that this wasn’t going to be a serious movie.  Most of the action is gratuitous and/or exaggerated.  You also have gratuitous nudity, some of which I’m not complaining about.  Add to this some really corny one-liners and you have a B movie that you’ll either love or hate.

There further into the movie, the less obvious the explanations were.  Towards the end, the writers were throwing things in at random.  (Leslie and another thrall figure that if a thrall is half a vampire, two thralls could make a whole vampire.)  I think at this point, the writers knew that very few viewers would remain.

I’m not saying that I don’t recommend the movie.  Several of the women were pretty hot and made the movie worth watching.  Unfortunately, many of the scenes are dark and you can’t always get a great view of the women.  In fact, one of the women has snakes that come out of her chest.  That alone may make the movie for some people.  The bad news is that it’s one brief scene late in the movie.  All I know is that I’m glad I was able to get it streaming through Netflix.

IMDb page

 

All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. (Europa Report movie review)

I think that interplanetary travel is necessary for the survival of our species.  Even if it’s within our own system, our future lies somewhere other than Earth.  This past thanksgiving, my cousin and I were discussing what that might look like if it’s to be privately funded.  (The tourism possibilities are endless.)  Well, in Europa Report, a ship is sent, using private funds, to Jupiter’s moon Europa.  Instead of setting up a hotel, three theme parks and hundreds of Starbucks, they’re looking into some strange thermal readings; the mission is strictly scientific.

The movie starts with footage transmitted back to mission control.  It’s presented out of order, so we get the impression that something bad happened, but we don’t know what.  We get the explanation of what the mission is and why a manned mission is being sent up, rather than just some probe.  Jupiter is pretty far out, which makes impatience seem somewhat rational.  (It takes almost two years for the crew to get out there, to say nothing of the trip back.)

The mission starts with six crew members.  If you’ve seen similar movies, like Apollo 18 and The Blair Witch Project, you know that things will tend to go from bad to worse.  This is where I didn’t like the out-of-sequence nature of the footage.  One crew member is dealing with survivor’s guilt after a spacewalk.  We know something bad is going to happen to one of the crew members, but we don’t know what.

The other five do make it, but even then, there’s an element of danger.  There’s radiation.  They have to worry about landing on and taking off from ice.  There’s also the unknown.  There could be all sorts of untold dangers.  And one of them wants to go out to get samples after the probe is lost.

The movie is definitely better than Apollo 18.  Very little of the movie takes place on Europa; most of it is spent in transit.  You’d think it would be all cheesy, but it’s done well.  The crew members interact and manage to not get on each other’s nerves.  You see them sending messages home or explaining the artificial gravity.  Most of the buildup is in hoping that they’ll find something.  They expect single-celled organisms, if anything.  Would the mission be a bust if they find nothing?  Not really.  Finding nothing would be a discovery in its own right.

The big problem with going out that far is that you’re on your own.  This is used to nice effect at several points in the movie.  If something breaks, it’s not like you can call for roadside assistance.  You have to fix it yourself.  If someone gets sick, you have to hope you have what it takes to heal them.

The CGI was well done, all things considered.  Seeing Jupiter in the sky was pretty nice.  My only complaint was that Europa is about the size of our moon.  Shouldn’t there be considerably less gravity than Earth?  I’m not sure how close Europa is to Jupiter, but the planet is pretty big.  (It is called a gas giant, after all.)  I’d think that tidal forces would have been more noticeable.  I was also surprised that they didn’t bring more experiments.  You’d think they’d have brought some algae or be doing experiments on frog reproduction or something.

I found this through Netflix streaming.  Since the movie probably has little replay value, I’d say that renting or streaming is the way to go.  It’s not a bad movie.  It definitely tends more towards 2001 and 2010 than Apollo 18 and Blair Witch.  It’s just that I don’t think I’d sit through it a second time.

IMDb page

Persona/Perusona (2008) review

There are certain indications of how well a movie will turn out.  There does seem to be a direct correlation between both the length and clarity of a description and how good the movie is.  If the description says simply that it’s filled with action, but doesn’t describe what kind, that’s not a good sign.  Another indication is how many other projects the principal actors have been attached to.  However, I’m not yet sure what it means when IMDb doesn’t list the characters’ names next to the actors.  (You’ll have to look for Perusona, which was released in 2008.)

The movie is about a doctor, Koichiro Kiba, who loses his wife.  All he’s told is that she died unexpectedly.  He takes it hard.  He’s not doing things with coworkers.  He’s not cleaning the house.  He’s even taken to hanging out at a local park at night, where he meets a strange woman.  When I say strange, she seems to know things about him like his name.  She’s taken off in a van to go back to the hospital.

The funny thing is that the markings on the van match the place where his wife was supposed to start working.  Koichiro finds the woman, but the facility caring for her isn’t all that forthcoming with information.  It turns out that his wife was to be part of some secret project that can transfer memories into another person, which somehow makes them stronger.  Koichiro’s wife is still alive and he’s able to find someone willing and able to help.  He just has to fight off a bunch of these enhanced soldiers first.

This is one of those movies that had so much potential.  The film quality and acting are at least decent, but not much about the plot is explained.  For instance, I’m not sure how transferring memories also transfers strength.  Since the movie is subtitled, it’s possible I missed something.  It’s also possible that no one wanted to explain it.  They just needed people to be really strong.

Also, I got the impression that the wife had some moral objections about her new job.  There was no indication that she tried to warn anyone before she ‘died’.  Her being comatose was necessary for the transfer procedure.  No one said anything to the effect of, “Well, that’s what she gets…” or anything.  For that matter, I’m not really sure why she was used.  You’d think that they’d use someone with combat experience.  Even if you say that she’s expendable, it seems like she had experience that would have been useful to the scientific aspect of the project.  How hard would it have been to find someone no one would have missed?

This is basically an action movie with a very thin plot holding it together.  When I say very thin, there seems to have been no effort into explaining anything.  Yes, this is something I found on Netflix streaming and I‘m glad for that.  At least I didn’t have to spend money on it.  This is one of those cases where the description was misleading.

IMDb page

Buraddo/Blood (2009)

There are movies that I’ll hold off watching if my only option is getting it as a DVD rental.  Netflix has allowed me to watch a lot of movies through its streaming service that I might not have otherwise watched.  Blood looked interesting.  There was an attractive woman on the cover.  She’s a vampire.  I put this on my list, knowing that renting it on DVD would be a waste, but streaming might just work.

The movie starts in Japan, some unspecified time in the past.  A warrior is near death on a woman’s property.  The woman, Miyako, is a vampire and can make him one, too.  Cut closer to the present.  A young girl is brutally murdered.  Years pass and the statute of limitations is approaching.  Detective Hoshino is transferred to the cold-case division and is assigned the case.  He sets out to find answers, so he starts with the woman who owned the house where the victim had been a servant.

It turns out that it’s the same woman from the start of the movie.  She has a young assistant, Brigitte, who doesn‘t say much.  Miyako knows what’s going on, but can’t really just come out and say it.  She makes Hoshino into a vampire and tells him about the murderer, which complicates things.  He knows who did it, but can’t really give the family justice without sounding crazy.

As you might expect from a vampire-police movie, there is a fair amount of fighting.  We also have two very attractive women, one of which has a lot of screen time naked.  Admittedly, I was hoping for this.  Other than that, the movie wasn’t that good.  The plot and script were marginal.  The pacing was slow.  The nudity was great, but there wasn’t a lot of it.

For instance, it was said that vampires couldn’t truly die.  If you wound one, they can regenerate.  If they appear dead, they’ll come back.  Beheading isn’t really acknowledged.  Could a head grow a new body or reattach itself to the old one?  Hoshino does get his wish, but at a cost.  The ending seemed more like the ending you’d use if you know you have to end the movie, but can’t come up with a good way to do so.

At least I didn’t have to waste the DVD rental on this or even pay for it.  This isn’t the worst of movies, but is far from the best.  It does have potential, though.  I’m just happy I was able to get a review out of it.  I imagine one day, I’ll find a soft-core vampire movie with an all-female cast.  I may not be able to stop watching it.


IMDb page

Review Overflow

It seems that it's gotten a little more difficult to post reviews over at Epinions.  If the product is in the catalog, I can post it.  If not, there's no way to have it added to the database.  This means that I either have to wait for the product to be added or find someplace new to post the review.

I'm actually thinking of posting them here.  The only issue would be figuring out how.  I'd have to post the product name and all and have to worry about searchability.  I may do one or two just to see if it works out.  (I have been adding my reviews to the External Review section of the appropriate pages on IMDb.  This may help with search engines and hits.)

I'm also wondering if I should just use this blog or start a new one.  I haven't been using this one for much else and I don't know that I want to start a new blog for what intermittent reviews I'll be posting.  Is it better to have a new blog or to use an existing one?

Voting

I'm in line to vote. I've been here for about an hour. The problem is that we have two precincts, one of which is split in two. There are three machines and you can only use the machine for your area. If I was in one of the other two areas, I would be able to get in and out, but noooo...

At least I'll get to vote.

Wolf Camera Going Out of Business

I found out last week that Wolf Camera is closing.  Yes, I know retail jobs aren’t the best, but it’s still sad to see a former employer go out of business.  I had hoped to buy a new camera when my cash flow permitted it.  I may have to do it through Ritzcamera.com if they’re still available (they say they will be, under new management) or someplace else.  I don’t really have any loyalty to the site, as I worked in one of the stores, so it may be just as easy to get the camera somewhere else if I get around to buying one.

I knew when I left in May of 2009 that I wasn’t going to be rehired.  After a while, it became clear that I probably wouldn’t want to, as the store had a rotating lineup of manufacturers and sales incentives were either shrinking or disappearing.  I could tell that there wouldn’t be any room for me at any of the nearby stores.  I figured that the store would limp along for a while longer, so the closing came as one of those surprises that I saw coming. 

I’ll probably go back to the store in coming weeks to see how the store is doing.  From what it sounds like, the store will be open until everything is gone.  (From what I recall from my store’s liquidation, all the good stuff has probably already been sold.)  I just hope that everyone can find another job.

Of Fribiz and adf.ly

Again, I’ve lost track of posting time, especially with so little to post.

It looks like Fribiz did actually go under.  The site is no longer responding, and this was in the middle of an auction.  I sent an email to them using an address in the last message I got from them, but no response.  I figured something like this was going to happen.  They had one auction going at a time, and they were all these tablets.  It was impossible to get a response from them, it seemed, regardless of how you sent a message.

Also, I’m giving up on adf.ly.  It seems to be more trouble than it’s worth.  I was suspended from Yahoo! Answers and the only reason I can think of is that I used an adf.ly link in my references section.  I’ve been with the site for years now and I have yet to make more than $10.  I’ve removed the links and top banner from this blog, and I may go through and do the same for some other sites.  Whatever else there is, I’ll let sit.  I’m not going to go crazy for a few dollars.