Ron's posts with tag: movie
 I've got a set of Klipsch ProAudio 4.1 (4 satellites and one sub woofer) speakers and really like them. So I've been bidding on 2.1 systems (2 satellites and the sub woofer) on eBay for awhile, and finally won an auction at a great price. It just takes some patience. They showed up on my doorstep Friday, so now I have a smaller set for the other computer. The sub woofer fits nicely into the TV stand. Sounds terrific!
 I'm ashamed to admit it, but I clicked an advertising link somewhere (Gmail?), and ended up at the Coffee Fool. I ordered a 2.25 lb bag of French Roast (which turned out to really be three 12 oz bags). That package arrived Saturday, so I had some awesome freshly-roasted (by them) and freshly-ground (by me) coffee this morning.
 I picked some new DVDs on the way home from work Friday. Among them was 21 Grams, which was on sale for $6.99, so I figured I'd take a chance. I thought it was really good. It's done in the Quentin Tarantino "all the scenes are out of order" style, which was a good way to tell the story. It's about three families. One is a man and his wife. The man (Sean Penn) is a college professor and a long-time smoker who is close to death from heart failure. He's weak, coughs and gasps, and drags around an oxygen tank to help him breath. He's on the transplant list for a new heart. His wife wants nothing more than to get pregnant by him before he dies. In the second family, the father (Benicio Del Toro) is an ex-con that has spent more time in jail than out, but has reformed and is working in a church, spreading the gospel, and helping kids that are heading toward the same kind of trouble he's been in. He and his wife have two young children. The mother in the third family (Naomi Watts) seems to be a typical housewife. She and her husband have two young daughters, and they seem to have an ideal life until the ex-con accidentally runs over her husband and daughters while they're out walking. Both of the little girls are killed, and the father ends up brain dead. The wife consents to organ donation, and her husband's heart ends up being transplanted into the college professor. The ex-con turns himself in for the hit-and-run and goes to jail, but is later released. The college professor recovers and hires a private detective to find the donor family. The detective gives him information not only about the donor and his widow, but also about the ex-con. Most of the movie is about the relationship that develops between these three main characters.
They say we all lose 21 grams... at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained? How much is gained? Twenty-one grams. The weight of a stack of five nickels. The weight of a hummingbird. A chocolate bar. How much did 21 grams weigh?
 Kiss the Bride is about a dysfunctional family of four sisters. One of the sisters still lives in the same hometown as her parents, and is about to be married. The other three sisters return to the hometown for the wedding, and the movie is all about the things that happen in the days leading up to the wedding. Funny and light-hearted, a little sappy, but not too bad.
 I also picked up Premonition. As far as I'm concerned, anything with Sandra Bullock can't be bad. This is a new movie, and I'd heard of it, but didn't have an idea what it was about. The story is about Linda Hanson (Bullock). The movie opens as she and her new husband buy a house and start their life together. Then it quickly cuts to later, when they've got two daughters, aged about 7 and 10. Her husband goes on an overnight business trip, and on the day he's supposed to return, a police officer appears at her door to inform her that there's been a car accident, and her husband is dead. She reacts as you'd expect. She has to tell her daughters the news after school, and her mother shows up to help her. After a long, difficult day, she finally falls asleep. When she wakes up the next day, an observant viewer notices that some things are different. She's not on the couch hugging the picture of her husband, she's in her upstairs bedroom. She knocks on the guest room door and calls out to her mom, but there's no answer, and the bed in the guest room looks unslept-in. She goes downstairs and ... finds her husband eating breakfast. After quietly freaking out, she decides that the whole previous day was a bad dream of some kind. That is, until the FOLLOWING day, when all her family and friends are gathered for the funeral. Days in these two parallel worlds begin to alternate, and she starts putting some order to them, finally determining that the days in which her husband is alive are in the fact the week before his death, and if she does things correctly, maybe she can prevent his death before everybody around her thinks she's totally insane.
 This morning at church, I got the honor of assisting with the baptism of Lucky Lisa, who is now a member of the church I attend. Congratulations on both counts, Lisa!
 It's been hitting the 100 degree mark here in north Texas. Electric bills soar while we stay indoors and enjoy the air conditioning. That's my weekend report. Back to work tomorrow. [whip crack]
 (Links within this entry will open in a new window.) Last month 24 men from my church drove to the Men's Conference at MO-Ranch. I rode with a gentleman named Gordon Green, who is a medical doctor. His wife Jeanne works with expectant mothers. Listening to Gordon's stories on the way back was interesting. He described an article he'd written on the history of television in east Texas. He also talked about what his son David was doing. I joined the church in 1992, and I remember watching a movie that David had made. It was a short "art" film that was scheduled to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival. I don't think I ever met David, and I remember not being very impressed with the movie, but being impressed with his ability to make a movie. At the time, he was taking some cinematography classes at the college level, and the movie we watched was a class project. Over the years, I've heard about some of the work that David has been doing. He currently has a house in Louisiana and in Colorado, but spends most of his time living in an apartment that he rents near Hollywood. Gordon talked about how he and his wife had recently spent some time in California and got to see David doing some of the filming for Pineapple Express, which is due to be released next year. Gordon said it wasn't the type of movie he liked, but he'd watch it anyway, since he knew the director. :-) David has his own page on IMDB, an entry in Wikipedia, and of course a blog where you can keep up with the latest. What impressed me the most about what he's doing is hearing that he's been signed to write the screenplay of the John Grisham nonfiction book The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. Not only is he writing the screenplay, he'll be directing the movie for George Clooney's production company. How's that for name dropping? Seems like David's gone big time. There are even some rumors being reported about this, and IMDB already has a page for The Innocent Man, which is scheduled for release in 2009.
 From what movie does this picture come?
Did the Persian girl know she bought blanks?
 Ice Age the Meltdown just came out yesterday on DVD, so I had to pick up a copy of that. Robots has been out for quite awhile, but for some reason, I haven't been able to find a copy in WideScreen for the past month - until today. The other two are fairly recent releases, so I figured what the heck. For my big Thanksgiving dinner, I got a Marie Callendar's "Harvest Turkey and Vegetables" crock pot meal. Made with real Butterball Turkey. LOL I've had their crock pot meals before and they're pretty good. Oh, and picked up a can of jellied cranberry sauce (you know, the good kind). I'll pick up a pumpkin pie and Cool Whip too. And to drink? Sam Adams and .. hmmm, what goes with turkey? Ah, here's a nice California merlot. I'll stick that in the fridge. Pretty fancy, huh? Well, my family's all in Utah, and I usually only see them once a year, and that's for Christmas. This year I'm flying up on the 21st and coming back on the 27th. My dirt poor daughter and her dirt poor fiance' are probably going to be there then too, but will leave a day earlier and get back a day later. Greyhound. Arg. For a minute, I considered riding the bus with them. For a minute. It's about 31 hours altogether, which doesn't really sound too bad, until I started thinking about stopping in every podunk town along the way, not showering for a day and a half, and having to take two extra days off work. I've already bought my airline tickets. I hope y'all have a great Thanksgiving!
 | Stuff | Nov 10, '06 12:32 AM
for everyone |
Well, I haven't written a "real" blog entry in a long time, so here goes a long, rambling one about a whole bunch of things... Two weeks ago, Paul's van got hit in his apartment's parking lot. The guy took off, no note or anything. The damage is bad enough that the van can't be driven. By piecing together the broken taillight parts left behind, Paul figured out that it was a Chevy Lumina that hit him, so he was on the lookout. A couple days later in the laundry room, he encountered a Spanish-speaking resident that asked him if he'd gotten his van fixed yet. There was apparently a communications problem, but the guy ended up pulling a piece of paper out of his wallet with a license plate number written on it! Paul took a look at PublicData and found that the plate belonged to a Chevy Lumina. (What do you know?) It also gave a name and address. On Halloween night, Paul and I took a drive to that area of town, camera and flashlight at the ready. It wasn't nearby, and wasn't one of the nicer areas of town, but there were trick-or-treaters still roaming, so we walked up and down the street for awhile without raising any suspicion. Didn't see the car. The next day, another resident told Paul his pickup had also been hit, and he had the license plate number and even knew where the guy lived. This was a closer address, and they went there - it was a lot closer. The car wasn't there, and nobody was home. Paul walked back later in the evening, found the car, took a picture that showed the license plate and missing taillight pieces, and was pretty excited to have found the obvious culprit. The guy has no insurance, and the police are investigating. Paul still hasn't been able to get his van fixed since the police case hasn't been resolved or something. I don't know how he gets by without wheels. Paul's an avid bicycler, and his solution to the problem was to buy a bus pass. I'm meeting him for dinner tonight, and he'll take a bus, the light rail, and another bus to get there, even though I said I'd pick him up. Before Halloween, Wal*Mart had all their old lame scary movies on DVD on sale for $4.88. I bought a few, and then later returned and found the complete collection of Friday the 13th (volumes 1 through 8!) and bought them all. In the time since Halloween, I've watched 7 of the 8, and the last one is in the bedroom DVD player now, ready to be fired up this weekend. Jason takes Manhattan. They're starting to all be about the same though... I saw Saw III in the theater last weekend. I liked the first two, and a friend called asking if I wanted to see III so I jumped at the chance. Plus I had $6 ticket coupons in my Passbook. It was great. I always used to kind of tolerate the scary movies, but Lisa taught me an appreciation for a good horror flick so I guess that's one good thing that came out of that relationship. (Just kidding, Lisa!) Every couple of years, I call up a tree company (arborist) to trim my trees. I have three vey large Fruitless Mulberries, which left to their own devices would take over everything in their path, including the overhead power, phone and cable lines. I've been told that the best time to trim is right before the leaves begin to fall. Four years ago, it cost $275. Two years ago, it was $495. This time, they quoted me $695. Yikes! Those trees aren't growing exponentially faster. I guess I need to get another quote or two before I do that. I've lived in my house now for 12 1/2 years now, and have been paying extra on the mortgage toward the principal. It will be paid off with my December payment. Since I paid so little in interest this year, I think I'm going to pay my property taxes in January instead of December. Then I'll take the standard deduction for this year instead of itemizing, and double up the property taxes for 2007. Mortgage burning party! I've never owned a property free and clear before, it's a pretty neat feeling.
\r\n \r\n Wednesday, September 20 \r\n After breakfast at Burger King, we headed to downtown Denver to visit the Downtown Aquarium. The pictures above are all from there. Yes, they have tigers at the aquarium. Go figure. We wandered around in there from about 10:45am until 3:45pm. \r\n Then we drove up to Broomfield, where I've been before (I helped with the installation of the voice system on their ZIP Shuttle, the free shuttle that takes people around the Flatiron Crossing area). We had lunch at Red Robin, and then rode the ZIP Shuttle around the loop. I recognized the driver and called him by name, which kind of surprised Lisa. \r\n After our little bus ride, we watched The Black Dahlia at the AMC theaters in Flatiron Crossing. Good movie, but a little hard to "get" on the first watch. Might be a good one to pick up in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart someday. \r\n After driving back to Denver, we found a Super 8 motel in a better part of town. \r\n\r\n \r\n
My assignment from the Yahoo 360 Product Blog:
 The first movie I ever watched in a theater was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was released in 1968, so I was about 7 years old. I remember that my mom and dad and both my sisters went to see it, so my little sister would have been only 4. I remember it seemed like a very long movie, and she got a bit fidgety. The IMDb says it has a run time of 144 minutes, which is VERY long for a kid's movie. I really liked it, and the whole movie-going experience was great! Some of our favorite stories back then were Around the World in 80 Days, Mary Poppins, Swiss Family Robinson, Winnie the Pooh, and Dr. Doolittle; so this was one my parents knew we'd like. The tagline is "The most fantasmagorical musical entertainment in the history of everything!" I was mesmerized by the big screen. On the way home, we were singing the Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theme song. My dad sang Bang Bang Shitty Shitty Bang Bang, which got a huge glare from my mom. It was the first time I remember him cussing. This is going to go way off the topic of the first movie I saw, but speaking of my dad cussing, the SECOND time I remember was in 1976. Both my parents were working, and they shared a car in those days. Usually Mom would ride to work with Dad, and then she would drive the car back home or to her part-time job so she'd have it during the day, and she'd pick him up when he got done at work. Since he drove the car to the college (he was a math professor), it would usually be his key in the ignition, but when they got there, he'd need his keys. But they didn't park - just stop - he'd get out, Mom would slide over, and she'd drive away. So they'd gotten in the habit of doing a key exchange on the freeway on the way to the college. The old station wagon was "three on the tree", so he'd step on the clutch, pull out his key, Mom would give him her key and he'd put it in, turn it, and pop the clutch. The car would stay at highway speed for quite awhile in neutral even with the engine off. Anyway, we'd gotten a brand spanking new Dodge Colt in the summer of 1976. Such excitement! This car was a five-speed and it was shiny and new and had that new car smell. I think Mom was staying home that day, and I got to ride along in the new car when Dad went to work and Mom brought the car back home. What my parents didn't yet realize about this new car with all its newfangled safety equipment was that when you took the key out of the ignition, the steering wheel locked. (You saw where this was going, didn't you?) So we're cruising down the freeway and Dad steps on the clutch, pulls out his key, puts them all in his pocket, and <click> suddenly can't steer. I heard "@$!%&*@ HURRY UP" as Mom was digging in her purse for her key. Luckily, the road was pretty straight, and Mom found the key pretty quickly. They didn't do that key swapping thing anymore after that. 
| Crash | Jan 5, '06 12:53 AM
for everyone |
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Crash is a movie that I had the opportunity to see as a sneak preview when it first came out, but I passed it up. But my friend Melody said she'd seen it and she thought it was really good, so thanks to her, I went and bought a copy, and she was right, it's terrific.
It has an all-star cast, and the acting is excellent. So is the story. Here's what IMDb has to say about it:
Several stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a black police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the distracted district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful black Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more.
For two days in Los Angeles, a racially and economically diverse group of people pursue lives that collide with one another in unexpected ways. These interactions are always interesting, and sometimes quite unsettling. The film explores and challenges your ability to judge books by their covers.
Well worth the price of a rental.
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 I watched this for a second time this weekend. This time, on DVD with English audio *and* English subtitles. (First time I saw it was on VHS and there was only Italian audio). It's a great movie. Who'd think a comedy about the holocaust could win Academy Awards? Real Title: La Vita è bella A handful of awards:
- 1999 Academy Awards
- Best Foreign Language Film
- Best Actor (Benigni)
- Best Original Dramatic Score
- Online Film Critics Society Awards
- Best Foreign Language Film
- 1999 Screen Actors Guild Awards
- Best Actor (Benigni)
- 1998 Cannes Film Festival
- Grand Jury Prize
- 1998 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
- Best Foreign Language Film
- 1998 Los Angeles International Film Festival
- Best Feature Audience Award
- 1998 Montreal World Film Festival
- People's Choice Award
- 1998 National Board of Review
- Special Achievement in Filmmaking (Benigni)
- 1998 Toronto International Film Festival
- People's Choice Award
- 1998 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury Award
Geek says check it out.
| Thursday | Dec 6, '05 12:29 AM
for everyone |
Gulp |
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| Movies | Dec 1, '05 12:25 AM
for everyone |
Nothing really important here, just wanted to talk about some movies, and play around with using external Flickr pictures and creating a table in a blog entry.
That's all folks.
Went to a sneak preview of Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith tonight. What a trip! The preview was at 7:30pm. I left work just after 5:00pm in order to get to the theater and get in line. I got there about 5:25pm, and the first thing I noticed was that there were tents pitched on the grass outside the theater's parking lot. There was a line of people wrapping around the building. There were four TV news vans parked in front of the building. I found a place to park and walked up. The people waiting outside were waiting for tickets for the next day! Inside the theater, about 100 people were already in line for the sneak preview. I got in line. They let us into the theater at about 6pm. There were 5 radio stations there, and I recognized (by name and voice) several of the disc jockeys that were there handing out T-shirts and posters, etc. Apparently, they were showing the preview in two different theaters. Other than a few seats reserved for press, the auditorium was full. I won't say much about the movie itself, except that this was the third of the three "prequels", and it did a good job bringing everything together, answering questions, and tying up loose ends. The audience was real excited, and there was a huge round of applause at the end. As we were leaving the auditorium, the group that had been waiting outside the theater had been let inside, and one guy at the front of the line was holding up a big sign that said "PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE MOVIE". :-) Outside it was chaos. The Plano Police had their Sky Watch booth set up with an officer about 30 feet above the parking lot with flood lights on it. All the people from two theaters leaving at the same time people were arriving for the midnight (and later) showing made the parking lot situation a mess. It took over a half hour just to get out of the lot and onto a main street.
Saw a sneak preview for Monster in Law tonight. Very funny. It opens May 13.
XXX: State of the Union I got to see a sneak preview of this tonight. Good stuff. One of the critics that was there said he counted 28 explosions. :-) Lots of action, violence, a little bad language, no sex.
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