Wow

Who knew?


Credit where it's due: this picture is from from a book by David
and Kelly Sopp: Safe-Baby-Handling-Tips

Whanganui

Went camping this weekend with the GW, ES, SD and ER and families in Whanganui, about 3 hours up the East coast of the North Island. It wasn't really camping as we were staying in a little room at a 'campground' but it was fun. Did some cooking out, swimming in the river and checked out a local park and 'gypsy faire' that happened to be in town. E brought his zodiac so all the kids got a quick ride in the boat. A good time was had by all ... well except for GW, who ran into a concrete bench with his BMW ... and ES, who lost his wedding ring, yeah, other than that (and it was all taken in stride) we all had a pretty good time. There are far too many pictures for this blog, so you can see
them here.

Whanganui Pictures

Shot

Finally got around to uploading this.

Review: Cloverfield

So, another movie that I've been looking forward to for a while. The thing is, no one has really known what it's about. The production has kept a pretty tight lid on the whole thing, and the only advertisement has been viral marketing on the internet. I mean, everyone knows it's a monster movie, but, what's the story?

Well, I'm here to tell you is that within the first ten minutes of the movie you realize that it's a love story, set among the total destruction of Manhattan by a giant monster from outer space. Yes, it sounds odd, but it's essentially Titanic in a different setting ... and much, much shorter ... with monsters. But the monster really is secondary to the story. The only problem is, the love stroy has a hard time carrying the movie for ninety minutes. There's just too much with the screaming and the biting and the dying to do any real character developement. They tease us with a couple glimpses on the tape, but I wanted more backstory. Anyway it's an entertaining movie. And I think the studio was right to market it the way they did, I don't think they would've gotten the viewers any other way.

It's a decent story. It's well directed. They didn't go for the cheap scares. I personally don't mind when a film doesn't use any 'stars'. The effects are competent. All in all I'd say it's one of the better monster movies that has come out in a long time.



Four Stars

Marty

Dive

I'm going on my first dive tonight with CB, ES and DC. If I post pictures later, it means I didn't get eaten by sharks, or drown. I'm excited and a bit nervous, although I know how to swim, so it's probably just fear of the unknown. It's a bit choppy from a bit of a breeze blowing offshore but there's zero swell so he water is pretty clear. It's low tide just as we're getting out of work so I couldn't ask for much better conditions for my first time.

Hair

RC got his hair cut today. I don't know how long it's been, but I'm pretty sure that it's been over a year. He wasn't sure, but he went with me becuase I was getting a haircut. I tried to talk him out of it. No hard sell, but I tried just hard enough to make sure that it was what he really wanted to do. There's been a fair amount of complaining about a cold head but after the initial shock I think that he's happy with it. He liked the non-conformity of it being long, but he wasn't fond of how much of a pain in the ass it was. It always grows back.

Boxes

So, our stuff showed up today. They brought the whole 30 foot shipping container. It's a lot of stuff. They even brought my motorcycle, but them customs came and took it away, bastards. Customs comes this morning to look through about 40 boxes that were set aside. They will probably want to fumigate anything made of wood to kill any wayward organisims and I suppose they want to make sure that there isn't 20 kilos of heroin stuffed in the TV. My guess is it's going to take about a month to fully unpack. It's like a bomb went off in the house right now. The beds are put together at least. No more sleeping on the floor.

Review: I Am Legend

What Can I say about this movie. I've been looking forward to seeing it for quite some time now. I even had to wait an extra month, as it didn't release in NZ until this week. This movie is based on what is arguably the best vampire story ever written, "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheston. It's a great, great book, a novella really, that, like the first three quarters of the movie, can not be more highly recommended. I really liked this movie. Had I never read the book, had I never seen what the ending originally was while I worked at the same place the effects were being done, I might even have loved this movie. It pains me to say how disappointed I was at the ending, only because of how good it was up until that point. It was like watching the defensive replacement at second base trying to score an inside tha park, game winning, home run in the bottom of the ninth, only to trip over third base and get tagged out to end the game. They were that close, that close, to making a classic. An epic monster movie. One for the ages. The worst part was how it was just tacked on. They spent so much time setting up the right ending. The book ending. All the little things about how smart the vampires could be, how social, how they were learning, only to end up with a weak, bullshit, feel good, Hollywood ending. Oh the beginning of this movie is so good. Sooooooo good. I love that Neville had decorated his house with Van Goghs. I loved the lack of a score, it made the Bob Marley tunes that much more powerful. You're totally sucked in to the isolation that Neville must have felt. It's very powerful. I mean, this movie got me to cry, and that's crazy. Not that I'm emotionally crippled or anything, I just very, very rarely cry at movies ... even more rarely when I'm actually watching them in the movie theatre. It can scare the crap out of you. When Neville follows his dog that follows a deer into an abandoned building, it doesn't get much better that that, but it's a compelling, emotionally powerful movie for 80 minutes ... and then ... silly zombie attacks, pandering to the religious right and a tacked on, crappy ending. So disappointing.

The effects are competent. I particularly liked a lot of the animation. A lot of the work making Ney York look decrepit was very nice as well. All in all, if you've never read the book, you'll probably like the movie, but I can't get past the ending.

Three stars.

Idiots

Wow, Huckabee? Iowa is full of idiots. It's like their voting for Bush all over again. This is a guy who has publicly, on camera, expressed his belief the there is no such thing as evolution. On the other side. I'm glad Anyone But Hillary won, although I hope Edwards gets into the lead when they swing down the east coast.

Quick

One ... point ... five ... miles ... to ... work.*


* This post is made of %100 Win