- thursday 10 14 04 -

I am a geek. I not only have an eight-node network including wireless, but it's all bound together with an Active Directoy implementation, Exchange 2003, and Live Communications Server. I have Certificate Services, Outlook Web Access, and my own self-hosted website. I have Directory-based Group Policy management with auto-installed apps, DFS roots, and complex passwords, and I'm trying to decide where to put SQL 2000, SMS 2003, and ISA Server in the mix. Somebody save me ...

When I'm not being a geek (only happens about once every four days or so), I watch movies. I read books. I think about computers. Wait. That's still being a geek. Anyway, on the movie front, I've been perusing a bit of anime provided by a friend in the form of some retired VHS tapes. My daughter is hooked on Tenchi Muyo, while I've been wandering through some of the more obscure stuff. In between those, I managed to find time to watch this bit of fun. With a pre-Pirates Keira Knightley and some talented newcomers, this is not some earth-shatteringly serious flick about racial tensions or anything else. It's a soccer movie with cultural humor and flavor in the shape of a traditional Sikh Indian family trying to figure out why their non-traditional daughters are acting like, well, teenage daughters. There's a little bit of risque humor, a little bit of language, and quite a bit of fun to be had here. I'm quite sure there are better movies out there that cover some of the same ground, but if you're looking for something light to watch on a week night, snag this.

On the reading front, I've been getting depressed by reading sadly funny stuff by this guy about this idyut (yes, that spelling is intentional). While it's about as unbiased as this Canadian's ranting, it makes me sincerely regret not throwing my vote into the pot last time (even if the electoral college and the Supreme Court would have ignored it). I can guarantee you that this November I will be voting for someone besides the incumbent doorstop who's currently running the country. Combine willful ignorance, arrogance, self-entitlement, and God-given right to rule with lots of money, and you get the current kettle of rotten fish that we find ourselves as Americans sitting in. I don't have any illusions about the other players in the race being necessarily better or different, but the current ruling class seems bound and determined to jack the rest of us up as much as possible. Clinton enjoyed the luck of riding the biggest boom in the past 50 years, but no one can deny that a lot of the cause for that was collective relief at having the right-wing Yankee boot off our middle-class necks, meaning people had money to spend and *wanted* to spend it. Enough of my ranting - make sure that whatever your political leanings, you make it to the polls and register your opinion.

On the music front, I've been digging into some bizarro club music from 1930 (forgive the awful Flash bleeding) and a little bit of the most depressed gay guy in the world, both of which are a nice change from the flood of emo crap that comes leaking out of my car radio every time I tune in to the new Borg. I am convinced that there is now only one radio station being broadcasted across all the frequencies, and it sucks. I'm to the point where my tuner stays here just about all the time that there's not something angry spinning in the CD player. Joe Bob sez check 'em out.

- monday 09 27 04 -

I'll start off by saying I am the owner of the newly minted Star Wars trilogy on DVD (it's about damn time, you bloody wanker). I only just made it through part one, or Episode IV, or A New Hope, or whatever the hell it is now, so I'm reserving comment until I've been back through them all. It's really hard to divorce all the history that I have with these movies from the actual quality of the films. For Chrissakes, Santa Claus gave me the original Kenner Death Star for Christmas in 1978, man. If you wanna take a trip down memory lane, go wander through that site.

If you're reading this, it means your local DNS server has picked up the latest in an ever-more-frequent change in my life. Comcrap, in their infinite wisdom, has seen fit to pull the plug on my IP address every Friday or Saturday night for the last several weeks and refuse to give it back. I have had nothing but praise for the service I've had up until the last month or so - since then, I am strongly considering going back to the dark side. I had the same IP for almost two years, only having to change it when a NIC burned up in one of my systems. Now, I get to enjoy days of down time as my new IP propagates across the web. I shouldn't have to screw around with some dynamic DNS hosting crap, constantly monitor my firewall and spam my work address with email if the IP changes - I'm paying $55 per month for a 35-cent Taiwanese cable modem and 3Mbit (maximum) of downstream bandwidth. If I were running some high-bandwidth warez FTP server or hosting email for thousands or running a Nimda-infected server in zombie mode (like five other systems on the local segment), I could understand them jerking me around. I'm not. I'm hosting tiny web pages for my own personal edification and allowing myself to send and receive email. If ya keep fucking with me, you're gonna lose my $55 per month, and gain my vocal opposition to your crappy practices.

NOW, with that off my chest, I thought I'd clean up a few more movie reviews:

• Amelie - From one of the brains that thought up Delicatessen comes this friendly tour-de-France (or Paris, to be more accurate). Audrey Tatou does wonderful job of charming the camera to no end, and Jeunet's use of unconventional-looking leads pays off by giving an authentic feel to this slightly surreal journey. Yet another freebie from the local library, but probably worth owning.
• Mission to Mars - My wife detested this movie. I thought it was pretty damn good. We don't see eye-to-eye on everything. It's not 2001, but it is an entertaining take on the Martian life theories that occasionally pick up some airtime. There's not a whole lot of horrible science, and the special effects are tasty enough. It's a solid B.
• Seabiscuit - A really enjoyable, good-guy-wins, underdog-triumphs, feel-good movie about a point of light during one of the darker periods of American history. Tobey Maguire does a good job being pissed-off for pretty much the whole movie, the quintessential guy with a chip on his shoulder the size of Maine. William H. Macy does his usual magic capturing the spirit of radio announcers from an era before visual aids became a requirement. Of course, the horse is the centerpiece, and the handlers who managed him did a great job of conveying personality without cheese. A good one, and even good for the kids. It's not The Black Stallion, but it's pretty close.
• Secret Window - Bleccch. Johnny and John and Stevie K. Depp manages to be as unappetizing as you'll ever see him, Turturro does this wacky hillbilly shiznit, and King manages to tack his name to yet another mangling of his writing. It just doesn't work - there's some scary moments, and there's some horrifying moments, but the whole thing just feels forced. Reminds me of the way I felt at the end of Identity - somebody pulled the wool over my eyes and yanked my underwear up.
• Spartan - Kilmer does stoic ... again. I seem to remember seeing this character in Thunderheart, The Saint, and the sober moments during The Doors. Wait, that's just Val not acting. Despite the fact that he acts like a wooden Indian, I enjoy watching him give his opponents that thousand-yard stare as he talks to them. A tight and rather unpleasant story with a bit of fantasy thrown in at the end. If you like Mamet's other work, you'll probably enjoy this one. A decent action flick for a Friday night.
• Starsky and Hutch - They sure do want another hit, but it's just not in this one. Owen struggles to get the lines moving, and Stiller is a neurotic flake (hmmm, where have we seen that before?). There are some genuinely funny moments in this, but not enough to keep the sodden plot moving for two hours. Rent something that will really make you laugh instead.
• Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her - A chick flick. Really. Lots of women, talking about stuff that most men go "huh?" at. If you get past that, it's an interesting look at the ways that people deal with all the gritty shit that life throws at you. The stories are threaded through each other smoothly, nothing forced, and the performances (even from Calista Flockhart) are uniformly solid. Holly Hunter gets some excellent lines and powerful moments, and the pacing and mood are helped immensely by crisp cinematography and sound. One to snag for a Sunday afternoon.
• To Kill A Mockingbird - Went over to the local library, which like all other public libraries these days is not just about books. Hadn't seen this film since I was a sophomore in high school, at which time I was surprised to find something that my English teacher labelled "classic" that I actually enjoyed. My wife had just finished reading (and thoroughly enjoying) the book and wanted to see how things translated to film. I think Peck and crew did a hell of a job with this one - the performances and direction don't feel dated, and are just as relevant today as they were when they first hit the screen in the mid '50's. A very good movie, and one that you should watch with your kids once they're old enough to start realizing that people with different skin color are treated differently, even (or maybe especially) today.
• Triggermen - A funny little gangster flick. It probably wouldn't be as enjoyable if it weren't for the off-center performance of the Brit actors. Everyone has fun, a few people get killed, and a few careers get changed. Nothing to shout about, but a good one for a sit-at-home-and-drink-beer night.
• White Oleander - Pfeiffer plays a pyscho. An interesting turn for her, with a decent supporting cast, but this one just didn't get under my skin very much. You mainly stay pissed at Pfeiffer's character as she mercilessly manipulates her daughter from behind bars, making you wish somebody would just put a shiv in her neck. A strong performance there, but not enough to make you want to buy it or anything.

- saturday 09 11 04 -

Oy vey. Sitting in Fort Worth, trying to recover a computer with a blown capacitor on the motherboard while drinking Maredsous 8 (oops, I've moved on to Paulaner Oktoberfest) as fast as I can slam it down. With 8% alcohol content, the recovery process is rapidly becoming an exercise in futility. SO, as I wait for chkdsk to finish running for the seventh time, I'll finish what I started a few nights ago:

• Kill Bill: Vol. 1 - Holy Mother of God. The dopest shit Tarantino has come out with since the magnificent splatter of Pulp Fiction. I suspect some people walked into this looking for a standard revenge flick, and they got knocked sideways by this bloody, brutal pastiche of Hong Kong Fu, graphic-novel gore, noir cool, ballet of limb-slashing, head-chopping arterial spray that is this movie. A beautiful dance of death that edges into camp at moments, usually right before it swings into the spray zone. Get ready for a thrill ride.
• Kill Bill: Vol. 2 - And here comes part two. Those expecting another two-and-a-half hour slash fest are in for a disappointment. Those who *watched* the first part and paid attention are in for a steady ride to a satisfying denouement. The five-finger slap of death is a perfect conclusion to this wild four-hour plus trip. Tarantino casting, direction, production, and music kept this two-part adventure cohesive, fascinating, and well worth owning on DVD.
• Lost In Translation - Ignore the Oscar buzz and slip into this quiet meditation on the dislocation that modern life lends to a lot of us. Waking up in strange hotel rooms and dealing with people who you're not sure are from the same planet, and the ways in which you deal with these things. An abnormally subdued performance from Murray works beautifully with Coppola's (Sofia, that is) direction. One to watch.
• Love, Actually - A sharp, witty look at several different couples and the ways they deal with temptation, love, and all the other things that get rolled up into relationships. A very British film, with Hugh Grant turning in his standard knavish naif role as both a pivotal character and narrarator. Fun and interesting with solid performances from all of the leads. The blond yob who wanders to America and finds that rural Ohio really *is* home to hordes of bikini models is pretty damn funny.
• Master and Commander: Far Side of the World - Wow. An excellent swashbuckler, uniform flick, and broad adventure all rolled into one. Patrick O'Brien's novel translates wonderfully to the screen with an excellent cast and a skilled director at the helm. All the classic virtues and failings are on display here, with honor and duty competing with love and compassion on the grand stage of the ocean. Probably the best film of it's kind released in the last ten years or more. A worthy addition to any library, and a great lead-in to introduce such classics as the Errol Flynn version of Robin Hood or Gregory Peck in Moby Dick.
• Mona Lisa Smile - A chick flick with a message. A bit heavy-handed at time, but Julia Roberts could sit around and stare at the walls and be entertaining. When she puts some effort into it, she can be really entertaining. A good flick that you won't be pissed off about watching. The supporting cast is quite good, although you'll be ready to kick the living shit out of Kirsten Dunst by about 15 minutes in. Be patient - there's redemption for even the most unrepentant sinner.
• Monster - Very well done. An unrecognizable Charlize Theron turns in the imitation of her career. Aileen Wuornos is right there, on the screen, telling you and her companion and anyone who'll listen about why and where it all went wrong. An impressive movie that takes an unflinching, unjudgemental look at one of the more infamous people of our time. Not something I'd watch more than once, but an important movie to see.
• Mystic River - And again. Well done, with characters you probably won't empathize with, and people you really wish you didn't know as well as you do, but a powerful telling of a rich story. Robbins and Penn turn in finely honed performances, and the female leads manage to keep up all the way through.
• Ned Kelly - A popcorn flick. Heath Ledger reminds me of Val Kilmer (see Spartan below). He is a weird actor, playing any character he runs with in this stilted, offbeat manner. An entertaining movie about an outlaw on a mission - how well-aligned with reality it is will be up to the viewer to judge. An inevitable conclusion takes some wind out of the sails, but there are a lot of good moments along the way.
• Once Upon A Time In Mexico - Robert Rodriguez is the Mexican budget version of John Woo. He really reaches for that operatic level of violence mixed with the testosterone bonding of good and evil that Woo pulls off in movies like The Killer and Face/Off. He just doesn't *quite* make it. The body count piles up, and Depp and Defoe do their best, but it's the TV movie version of a really good action flick. Fun, but you don't need to see it more than once.

- wednesday 09 08 04 -

I have to warn you - stay away from this steaming pile of crap masquerading as a movie. I have lost 97 minutes of my life for no good reason. The acting is atrocious, the direction painful, the cinematography about as good as the last mid-day soap opera I suffered through, and the plot a tired rehash of every other serial killer flick released in the last 10 years. Unbelievably bad, with none of the principals escaping unscathed - Andy Garcia spontaneously explodes in Type-A stereotype behavior, even though his character is supposed to be calm, collected, and cool - Samuel L. Jackson just sucks wind - Ashley Judd spends a lot of time stoned out of her skull on Rohypnol-laced cabernet. Of all of the utterly stupid shit in this movie, that's probably the worst - a hyper-aware detective who can pick up every nuance of behavior in a crowded bar fails to notice that every time she has a glass of wine at her house, she blacks out cold for hours. Hmmm. Pile on obvious attempts at misdirection and confusion trying to extend the 15 minutes of plot past the hour-and-a-half mark, and you have a recipe for disaster. Guess what? It worked.

- tuesday 09 07 04 -

Just archived the page and realized it has been damn near a *year* since the last time I did that. Oof. Makes me realize how little I've put into the site over the last twelve months, or more correctly, how little time I've had to do things like the site in the last twelve months. The good news is that I've read a lot of books, seen a lot of movies (good and bad), and generally made a lot of progress with my plans for total domination of my network. The bad news is that I'm still fighting to keep the lights on and gas in the cars, one of which, seemingly out of spite, decided to shit itself and die yesterday. SO, I'm further in the hole, staring at the inevitability of a maximum of a 4% raise (if my company doesn't go belly-up from the complete lack of enthusiasm in the economy right now) at the end of a year during which my cost of living increased by at least 10%. If you'd told me 15 years ago that I'd be earning as much as I am now and that I'd *still* be running on empty three days before payday, I'd have called you crazy. So much for the wisdom of youth.

On a lighter note - movies I've recently seen:

• 50 First Dates - Adam Sandler wanders into something decent every once and a while - this is one of those. Without the sick edge that the Farrelly brothers put on movies like Something About Mary, this is a movie about dysfunction and the way we work around it. It's funny, painful in spots, but overall just a warm fuzzy. Your tolerance for Drew Barrymore may be more of a factor than your Sandler resistance in determining whether you can deal with this one.
• A Knight's Tale - Big, goofy, anachronistic, and hammy - all of that and more. A popcorn flick with the whole pauper to prince myth rendered up to rock tunes. Chaucer does the WWF announcer thing, and nobody really gets too seriously hurt, including the audience. It's not anything as serious as Mystic River, but it was never intended to be.
• Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe's homage to all the rock stars he grew up around. For anyone who ever dreamed of living out of a bus and playing guitar for thousands of screaming fans, this is a picture of what you might have gone through. An interesting take on the swing from the idealistic image of the '60's to the harder-edged gloss of the '70's, with a really well done performance by Patrick Fugit as the wide-eyed naif who comes of age while preserving a sense of innocence and integrity. What could have turned into a crass celebration of the coke-head rockers of the '70's or a mushy lamentation on the loss of the the soul of the '60's is instead a funny, moving story about love, trust, and what can happen when you step out your door. Recommended.
• Bad(der) Santa - How this escaped an NC-17 rating, I have no idea. Funny in places, but mostly just brutally crass. Billy Bob verbally assaults humanity for two hours while having unrestrained sex with a nympho department store worker, psychologically battering an essentially orphaned, emotionally dysfunctional 11-year old, and drinking his way into oblivion. Very funny in places, but just too damn much after 2 hours, with an ending that suddenly jumps at you out of nowhere, as if the filmmaker realized he was at an hour and forty-five minutes and had to figure out how to wrap in fifteen. Probably more enjoyable while drunk with a group of your rowdy friends.
• The Big Bounce - Owen Wilson is one of the more unlikely stars to wander out of Texas into Hollywood over the last several years. Starting with the wacky road movie Bottle Rocket, he's made a lot of money out of being a distinctive-looking surfer dude in a lot of settings. From the over-the-top Zoolander to The Royal Tennenbaums to Behind Enemy Lines to Meet The Parents, he's a consistently enjoyable actor, coming across as somebody who could chill out on your couch with a beer. This not quite noir flick with a lot of teasing shots of it's female star's thighs doesn't get where it wants to go, but it's not bad enough to piss you off. As long as you don't pay too much for it, worth renting some night when all the good flicks are checked out at the local video store.
• Big Fish - Tim Burton can produce some intensely magical movies when he gets all the right pieces in place. Mixing a solid cast with a whimsical story of a man who always seems to stretch the truth too far, he pulls off a beautiful elegy of a movie, a celebration of people who are unwilling to live an ordinary life. One to own and watch with your kids, with moments of laugh-out-loud comedy and tear-jerking heartache. Good from start to finish.
• Butterfly Effect - Ashton Kutcher blows ass. This was not a complete waste of my time, but it sure didn't make me want to see any more of his movies. An interesting premise wrapped up in a forced, nonsensical plot with a lot of general unpleasantness and screaming along the way. Blecch.
• Chicago - Not quite. This could have been a helluva good flick, but it just didn't quite come off. My lack of tolerance for both Richard Gere and Catherine Zeta-Jones probably has a lot to do with my impressions of the movie. Proof that the folks who decide on Oscars sometimes have a crack pipe in hand while deciding who gets the little golden men.
• Cold Mountain - A brutal movie set in a brutal time, unflinchingly showing the evil that men do to themselves and those around them, balanced against the power of love. Well-crafted, powerful, moving, but not something that you want to watch too many times. You'd probably end up wanting to put your head in an oven.
• Connie and Carla - Toni Collette has the biggest teeth I've ever seen on a human being. Stick her into a movie with Nia Vardalos (of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame), toss in a horde of drag queens, David Duchovny, and a Victor / Victoria twist with girls playing boys playing girls, and after a slow start, you get a fun, entertaining movie. Homophobics need not apply.
• The Fog Of War - Errol Morris is one of those filmmakers whose work always manages to stick in your teeth. He interviews Robert McNamara, one of the most controversial figures of the '50's and '60's, about what it is to have your finger on the button, with the power to push it. A level, well-filmed discussion with one of the driving forces behind American military might from the end of World War II through LBJ's White House. The eleven lessons resonate just as strongly in today's political climate as they do when applied to the 20th century. A must see.
• Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban - The film that finally drove me over the cliff with all the other lemmings. After seeing this, I broke down and decided to try my luck reading The Sorceror's Stone again. I'd given it a shot after the first movie came out and couldn't get 10 pages into Rowling's oh-so British prose. The movies were okay, but when lined up next to the magnificence of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, they just paled. That said, a change in director and a strong shift in tone were exactly what was needed to bring this series up to par. I was thoroughly hooked by the end of this film, a darker, colder rendition of the world of Hogwart's. I've gone back and read all the books and I'm anxiously waiting with the rest of the world for The Half-Blood Prince. The main problem will be keeping the cast for the remainder of the films - losing Ron or Hermione or even Neville at this point would be hard to swallow.
• Hellboy - Fun, loud, and oh-so graphic-novel-cool. Lacking the harder edge that defines the comic and novellas based on it, with toned-down violence and language making for an enjoyable but not-quite satisfying ride. It's like the difference between a nice choice grade ribeye and a glass of beer and a dry-aged prime steak with a great cabernet - you just want it to be *that* much better.
• Hidalgo - Like a Reader's Digest condensed version of a really good story, this one could have been another Dances With Wolves. Alas, even at over two hours, there's just not a lot of meat on the bones of this one. Fast-paced and enjoyable, like a cold can of domestic beer after you've been mowing the lawn. Get it down and move on to something more worthwhile. Sorry, Viggo, this one didn't quite get there.
• Home On The Range - American animation blows ass. Pixar is the only company out there making decent animated movies, and they don't even animate them any more. This piece of poo just makes me want to cry. Wherefore art thou, oh Little Mermaid.
• The Hours - As noted below (I wrote this later), Nicole Kidman is in my opinion one of the best actresses out there. Whatever the role, she invests in it whole-heartedly, whether she's playing a cold-hearted manipulative bitch (a la To Die For) or a wounded outcast (The Human Stain) or any other part she takes. The fact that she's drop-dead gorgeous doesn't hurt things at all, although that facet of her is as visible under the Virginia Woolf makeup she wears in this. Combined with powerful performances by Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris, this interesting collage deals with three women in three distinct times, all facing the spectre of death, natural and otherwise, and its consequences.
• House of Sand and Fog - Ben Kingsley rocks. I wanted to kick the ever-living crap out of the female lead in this one, and the ending just didn't satisfy, but Kingsley carries the film with a quiet potency. Not the equal of his performance in Sexy Beast, but powerful.
• The Human Stain - I really dig Anthony Hopkins - hell, I even enjoyed his I'm-getting-paid-a-lot-to-act-like-a-dork-so-I'll-have-fun-doing-it Van Helsing in Coppola's florid Dracula. A good May-September pairing with Nicole Kidman (IMHO, one of the best actresses out there right now) combined with a classic tragic love story - a good combination. Much like American Beauty, you know it isn't going to end well, but the road travelled eases the sting of the final plunge.
• The Whole Ten Yards - Matthew Perry and an emaciated looking Bruce Willis pair up to play mobster again. An unrecognizable Kevin Pollack plays the East European shtick as far as it can go, and the plot limps on by. Funny, laugh-out-loud in spots, but not the best movie I've seen this year.

On the music side of the world, I've been digging into Radiohead. I've avoided them on general principles - I've come to the conclusion that if the popular press is telling me it's the best thing since sliced bread, it's most likely the worst thing since plastic vomit. I'm finding that in this case the assumption may be wrong. It's been a while since I found music that's a challenge to listen to. It's nice to have to concentrate on what's going on instead of just humming along in neutral. With Kid A and the newer Hail To The Thief, I've found some interesting new music that doesn't sound like much else that's going on out there - stuff that I can identify as something I'd like to play, given a drum machine and some like-minded guys to jam with.

Along those lines, I was also introduced to a unique sounding group from Poland called Skalpel by my next-cube neighbor at work. This stuff kept me going during our recent disaster recovery testing in the lovely lowlands of New Jersey - don't let the pretty pictures fool you. Jersey is still a friggin' sewage dump for NYC. However, Skalpel is not. A cool and mellow remix of classic Polish jazz and house beats, it's like a really well-mixed martini in a quiet club, one of those places with cool, clean leather seats, a gleaming brass and oak bar, and just a hint of cigarette smoke hanging in the air. Sometimes, good things do come from Apple ....

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