Capote

Tonight, I saw "Capote."

The film follows the period of time where Truman Capote reseaches the events described in his book, "In Cold Blood" which took place in Kansas in 1959.

"Capote" stars Phillip Seymore Hoffman as Capote, and Katherine Keener as Harper Lee. Hoffman's performance is amazing. He has perfected the speech and mannerisms of the eccentric author.

All of the supporting cast did we also very good as well.

I like the film so much, I just purchased the book from Amazon.ca

I'm giving this a strong recommendation with 4 / 5 rating units.

Flickr Blogging

DSCN4004
Originally uploaded by McCaesar.

I've setup Automated blogging via Flickr. I can also Blog photos via Hello and Picasa, but this seems easier. How nice of them to make this esay for me. Well, it's easy on the rare occassions when I can get the Flickr uploader tool to work. So far, every 11 out 12 attempts results in a Windows error.

Death in the Family

It seems my smallish family is getting even smaller. Three times in the last month, I have received emails from lawyers informing me that a distant relative, who was a national of my country, died along with their wife and child in a tragic car crash while working in Nigeria.

Here's the latest letter. I'm still a little broken up about the death of the previous two, so this one is especially hard to take.

ATTN:McCaesar, I am barrister Markus umeh a solicitor at law. I am the personal attorney to Mr. Morie McCaesar,a national of your country, who used to work with an indeginous company here in Nigeria, Here in after shall be referred to as my client.

On the 16th of August 2003,my client, his wife And their three children were involved in a car accident along Badagry Expressway, All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of my clients extended relatives,this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where these huge deposits were lodged. Particularly, the Access Bank of Nigeria Plc where the deceased had an account valued at about [$10,586,068.00 dollars] has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the funds confiscated within the next ten official working days.

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over a year. Now I Seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at [ $10,586,068.00 dollars] can be paid to you and then you andI can share the money 50% 50%.

I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we shall make. All I require is your honest co-operation to enable us see this deal through. I guarantee you that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law.

PLEASE ON YOUR REPLY.DO SEND ME YOUR FULL NAME AND ADDRESS PRIVATE TEL/MOBILE/FAX NUMBER INCLUDING YOUR COUNTRY CODE. PLEASE REPLY THROUGH MYPRIVATE EMAIL: markusumeh115@myway.com

I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards, Barrister Markus umeh.

To have so many exceedingly wealthy members of my extended family die in the exact same manner, on different expressways in Nigeria is truly shocking.

I am thankful for the generosity of Mr. Markus umeh. In his letter, he offers to split the proceeds of the $10 million with me 50/50. The other thieving barristers were only going to give me 40% of the $10 million dollars with 10% going for administrative fees.

Laws in Nigeria must be very lax indeed to allow lawyers to collect half of an estate where there is no will, and where anyone who merely shares the same last name as the deceased is able to collect such an inheritance.

I am convinced this must be genuine. The circumstances are far too similar to be coincidence. Perhaps there is an international conspiracy to murder my rich relatives working in Nigeria? After all, each lawyer who has contacted me so far has all the "necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we shall make."

Next time I post, I think I shall be a millionaire.

p.s. I changed my real last name in the email to "McCaesar" because I thought it would be funny,

King Kong

Tonight, I saw King Kong. Tonight, I'm writing this while the experience is still fresh in my mind.

To start with, the movie is 3 hours long. That's too long, and too boring and too blah.

Why? Why remake this film? This question I have been asking since I heard Peter Jackson was planning on following up his Lord of the Rings trilogy with a King Kong remake. However, it got good ratings from the professional critics, so I went to see it with an open mind and optimistic spirit.

After seeing the film, I still don't know the answer to that question. There's spoilers ahead, so don't read ahead if you want to be surprised by the ending.

Other things I don't understand are listed as follows in no particular order:

1. What is Kong's motivation for carrying Ann (Naomi Watts) around? Does he want a meal? He doesn't eat her given many chances. He apparently tore his previous victims limb from limb and likely ate them. Does he want a mate? Poor girl if that's the case. Does he want a friend? That's not a nice way to treat a friend, crushing them in your big paws and throwing her around like a ragdoll. Does he want a pet? Perhaps that the answer. No one else on the island, or New York seems to like the brute.

2. I always assumed that if three T-Rex chomped on someone's arm or leg, the arm or leg would come off. Apparently, Kong's arms are made of stronger sinew than lesser apes. His stay on, and with no significant bloodloss, he's fine to keep running, girl in paw.

3. Why would a T-Rex with a mouthful of elephant sized dinosaur drop that meal to chase after a rather skinny girl?

4. Can an island the size of Skull Island really support the feeding habits of three large T-Rex and lots of raptors and a herd of Brontosaurus?

5. Why does Jack Black always have that goofy half-grin on his face?

The film could have been made an hour shorter without missing out on anything important or interesting. Many scenes, especially the T-Rex scene went on far too long. I consider it a personal victory that I was able to stay awake throughout the entire movie.

Many scenes looked quite fake. In particular, any scene where Kong is picking Ann up, or putting Ann down, or shaking Ann violently half-to-death while not bruising her, or rupturing her spinal cord, or making her dizzy, looks fake. Ann looks fake like a Barbie, and so does Kong (not like a Barbie, but still with a plastic like quality).

Sounds like I didn't care for King Kong. There were some good things about it. As many scenes that looked really fake, some scenes looked very very good too. Naomi Watts was very good. Adrian Brody did a good job. The recreating of New York City in the 1930's was very nicely done.

Wait for it play on TV in a year or two. Perhaps the network will edit where Jackson couldn't or wouldn't.

My rating is 2.5 / 5 rating units.

Oh yeah, I promised a spoiler. In the end, King Kong dies.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

How many movie reviews for this film are going to start exactly like mine; "I loved the Narnia books as a child?"

I've been waiting a few months for the film to be released because I loved the Narnia books as a child. I tried to re-read them a year or so ago, but my attention span is so short now, something shiny must have caught my eye, and I didn't get far.

The movie was good. I liked it. The talking animals were excellent. So much better than I expected them to be. For some reason, having seen too much of the BBC version from a few years ago, I was expecting 6 foot tall beavers, but the short beaver sized beavers were perfect.

Aslan, voiced by Liam Neeson was excellently done. The children were perfectly cast.

I would have liked to see more on the melting of the snow and the return of spring. One scene I remember vividly from the animated was the scene with Edmund and the dwarf pulling the sleigh across the grass as the snow melted out from under it.

Minor quibbles aside, it's the best adaptation of the book I've seen. I'm looking forward to Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader if they make those films too.

4 out 5 rating units.

Trip to Ottawa

Just got back from Ottawa for a visit with the family. While we were there, we visited the new National War Museum. It was a good trip. Click the title link for my webshots gallery of photos I took. 

Aeon Flux

I saw Aeon Flux on Friday. I usually don't see a movie until I've checked the Tomato Meter at Rotten Tomatoes but there was no rating for Aeon Flux on Rotten Tomatoes because there was no prescreening for critics for this film. Usually, a very bad sign. The studio determines from pre-release audiences that the movie is a dog, and would rather not have the critics destroy it before it's released so they can make a bit of money before it fades away next weekend.

I see a lot of movies, and only a few times a year will I intentionally see a bad film. This week, there was nothing else of interest to me opening, so I figured "the trailers have intrigued me and it's better than watching nothing" so I went to Aeon Flux.

The film is based on an MTV series I've never seen so I had no preconceptions. I liked it just fine. The plot was a little convoluted, and the constant "hand-springing and never stop jumping" method of evading bullets and kicks got tiresome after a while but there was a definite design and style to the film that was interesting to me throughout the film. Acting was fine, direction was mostly ok, but the film "looked good" and sometimes, that's all it takes.

Not a bad film, not a great film. I wasn't disappointed, but I had no preconceptions.

I haven't decided what, if any, rating system I'm going to use my occasionally sporadic reviews, so this time I'll say 2.5 / 5 units of rating.

Fight Club

I watched Fight Club last night on DVD again. A great film, I enjoy every time I see it.

I watched last night with a purpose. According to IMdB and other sources, the director, David Fincher, has said there's a Starbucks coffee cup in every scene. This wasn't product placement, but a artistic statement about commercialism and marketing which is one of the themes of the film.

So, I watched with intent and purpose for the Starbucks cups and a few other trivia items. I didn't see the coffee cups in every scene. I saw the ones we were supposed to see in a few scenes, but I didn't see them in every scene, or even in a large number of scenes. Maybe I missed them and they're really there. Perhaps I need to stop-motion through the DVD on every frame. That's not going to happen.

Blogging - Everyone's Doing it

Is that the title of everyone's first blog post?

I have to publish so I can preview my template.

Perhaps later, if I haven't bored of it already, I'll post a movie review. I saw Aeon Flux on Friday.