We went and saw Batman on Friday, and all I can say is "WOW!" It was awesome. I like the fact that they focused more on the man than the bat; they really did a decent job of delving into the psychological aspects of Bruce Wayne. Batman played almost a minor (but increasing) role in the film. Very dark, very Frank Miller-ish.

My recommendation: GO SEE IT!

Mary and I went and saw this yesterday. Actually, our day was really good. We had breakfast, then decided to go out and get our pumpkin (which we'll be carving with an improved design over last year's). After that, we drove through the parks, looking at the leaves, then ended up at Fisher's Restaurant. We were trying to figure out what to do, so we thought about going to the movie. After a brief trip to Half Price Books (it was 20% off day for teachers), we found that the movie wasn't for another two hours. Well, we drove around a bunch on the backroads, watching the leaves. In the end, we ended up at the movie.

Well, this movie was hilarious. For the first half, I was pretty much in a constant state of tearful joy and laughter. The second half, in my opinion, fizzled a bit when compared to the first, but it was still pretty funny. There have been a couple review going around about how Un-PC and offensively funny it was, so I won't go into it here. Suffice to say, in classic South Park fashion, nobody is safe from mockery, and it is definitely done in a way that almost everybody will have at least one thing in it that they find totally offensive. I'm trying to figure out what it was for me, since I'm pretty hard to offend, but I haven't found anything really offensive, yet.

The point of my review, though, is to say that all day today I've had one major thing going through my head, “America! Fuck yeah!”

WARNING! Perhaps spoilers about this movie, so go see the movie, then come back and read my opinion. I'll put a few blank lines here to give you time to go see it before you read this.

Mary and I just got back from seeing “The Village” (according to imdb, it is AKA "M. Night Shyamalan's The Village"). Well, we definitely had differing opinions of it.

Coming out of the theater, Mary basically said she was unimpressed, remarking how it was ridiculous that these people would force themselves back in time, even taking on the speech patterns of people in early America. She thought this was way too contrived, just adding more hassle to what they were doing. She didn't understand why they bothered dressing old-style like that, or really anything about it. Needless to say, she was totally unsatisfied with the movie and its entertainment value.

On the other hand, I thought it was a really good allegory for the times that we live in, stressing how it is fruitless to hide yourself away from the world just because there are bad things. The elders created an enemy outside the borders that they used when necessary to keep their children from venturing too far away, from being too curious about the outside world, basically to control them. However, as a result of this, they suffered greatly when the time came to depend on it (in the case of medicine, for example). Plus, Lucius and Ivy started to question what was happening, not bowing to their fear. Mary mentioned that the elders were stupid, because even in the first generation of children, they were starting to question. I think that was a good point made in the movie that it is inevitable that very quickly people will begin to distrust the whole framework of fear that they see ruling their lives. In the movie, when it is found out that Noah had gone into the woods, the elders decided it was time to bring the monsters into the village to make them a bit more real, deliver a warning. This is, of course, a very obvious comparison to the way that our government uses the so-called Terror Alert, raising it and lowering it as they need to draw attention away from things.

Now, I'm no great scholar or movie critic, and there are definitely things in the movie that I think I missed and am eager to think a bit more on, specifically the relationship between lucius, ivy and noah and what it may represent. But, as is common with M. Night Shyamalan's movies, there are layers upon layers, providing quite a bit of entertaining thought.

And here I am, one of the few people I know that loved Unbreakable.

[Update: I was talking to some guys at work, and I now have met 4 people (myself and my brother-in-law included) who loved Unbreakable]

Yup! This is going to be awesome. I hope more people see this and start thinking a bit. Michael Moore is going to do it again.

Okay, Mary and I went and saw this movie tonight. Well, all I can say is that it was 2 hours of watching a man get brutally tortured then crucified. Frankly, I can't say that I'm better for spending those two hours engaged in that activity. In fact, it was really quite difficult to watch. I don't think I'd recommend this to anyone. Reminds me of watching Faces of Death, very little redeeming about it. Another snuff film playing off some religious slant. UGH!

Okay, now I'll be the first to admit that I'm a sucker for the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore combination, and, coupled with the fact that I think Drew Barrymore is absolutely, hands-on the most beautiful, sexy and all-around best thing to look at in the entire world (with the exclusion of my ever-so-beautiful girlfriend, Mary Maruna), my opinion probably is a bit biased, but I really did enjoy “50 First Dates.” It was very funny, very romantic with just a tinge of sadness. I heartily recommend it to anyone.

Plus, it topped off a pretty damn good day, as I finished up my Internet Fundamentals class in the morning, had lunch with an old friend, then went to the movies with another old friend. All-in-all, what a great day. On the way home, Mary and I stopped by Grumpy's to see her (and my) old friend, Kathy. Grumpy's, incidentally, is the place where Mary and I met.

According to this article, Peter Jackson says the Return of the King DVD will be more than 4 hours 50 minutes long. [via Tim Sneath]

Trivial Pursuit put out a lord of the rings edition. That would be a great christmas present, for sure! It might be a bit late for christmas, but perhaps an early january present. :)

[thanks to my friend, Mike E., for pointing this out in the comments]

And remember, if you order online, use RSS for Charity!

If you can't wait to buy the game, here's some questions online you can do.

Wow! They are making a movie of I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov. That was such a definitive robot story; I sure hope they do a good job.

I saw the preview in the theater with Lord of the Rings. The website is set up as an advertisement for a robot. Very cool. The take on the whole “I” portion of the title, merging it with the modern usage of it in front of a word. Needless to say, I'm eager to see more about this project.

!AWESOME!

I'd love to write something more thoughtful right now, but I'm so pumped up. During the drive home, I kept pausing, tightening my fists and yelling it!

[Update: Mary and I were talking about some of our favorite parts, and I would like to write which ones they were, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll wait a bit. Plus, I'm going again today with another friend, so I'm sure I'll be pumped again when I get home. Maybe I'll write a list with a warning at the top about spoilers.]

[Update: I'll be coming up with a rapidly expanding list of my favorite scenes in another post]

Today is the day! I'm so excited! And I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it! I'm going to see Return of the King this afternoon!

This whole one movie per year thing was pure genius. Unlike some other crappy trilogies (cough...cough...star wars prequels...cough...cough) that are only coming out every 20 years, or so, these have just enough time between them for us to start getting anxious, looking forward to that day in December when the world just seems right. Yeah, I'm a big geek, I did, after all, buy the box-set versions of the dvd's, rather than just the simply, cheaper, extended versions. I paid a little extra and got that great gollum figurine. Ahem. Actually, the bookends that came with the first movie are really nice, and I do use them to hold my lord of the rings books / dvds, proudly displaying my disposable income.

I got into work early, okay, not so early for me, so I could get out in time to see the 3.45 showing! I'll be home in the mid-to-late evening the proud owner of new lord of the rings memories!

IanW went to the Lord of the Rings marathon yesterday. Wow! I don't know if I could have spent all that time sitting in the theater, especially considering that I've been struggling with painful death disease since Saturday!

While the odds of the movie being great were high, I'm glad it turned out that ROTK was worth it! I'm planning on seeing it Thursday with Mary and then on Friday with my friend, Mike Ehrman. Two different days, two different theaters, both amazingly fun times! Friday is Mike and my “Day O' Fun!” where we are taking the day off of work and hanging out, starting with breakfast, then ending with drinks. Unfortunately, he has some family stuff at 6.30, so our day is not going to extend into “Night O' Fun!”

Awesome trailer! Spider-Man 2 comes out in July!

I'm going to see the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring in the theater(!) tonight! Just one week until Return of the King. I'm super excited!!!

[Update: From the Comments, IanW says he is going to try to see all three on Tuesday in a marathon. Yikes! I'd heard about that, but I don't think I could sit in a theatre for, effectively, 12 hours or more. I'm waiting for the extended DVD of ROTK to come out, then I'll have some friends over and watch them all one day in the comfort of my home, where we can pause for potty and other breaks.]

[NOTE: If you are looking for the post on my view of the RSS vs. Atom debate, please look here.]

Google Answers is a service that allows you to put in a question and have a human research it for you, for a cost. I wonder how many students use this to create a basis for a thesis. :) You can also use it to answer some of life's larger questions, such as What Is The Matrix? [via Evan Williams]

In my opinion, it was a decent usa or sci-fi network original movie.

Even god thinks so!

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