McCaesar's "Blog"

London

McCaesar — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:56:00 +0000

by stevemiedema

I have returned from my 3 week business trip to the UK. We stayed in Chertsey in Surrey during the week, but we got to visit London on the weekends. Take a look at the links for the photo galleries.

Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace
General Sightseeing
Tower of London and Tower Bridge

Some pretty good shots, if I do say so myself.

Ultraviolet

McCaesar — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 01:40:00 +0000

Ultraviolet.

Wow. Ultracrappy. Ultrastupid. Ultrabad.

Seriously, this film sucks. Sucks a lot. Sucks without anything good going for it at all.

Not a good story, not a good director, not a good actor, actress, editor, special effect, musical score, credit sequence. Nothing.

One might think it can't be all bad because you get to watch Milla. One would be wrong.

Milla was filmed, or post-production edited with a very soft focus effect. You don't see her, you see an impression of her.

The plot is incomprehensible. For some reason, a virus affects a portion of the population of the future. It's got something to do with blood. Other than giving them pointy teeth, and making them vaguely vampirish, there don't seem to be any other side effects. For this reason, the uninfected portion of the population has given full control of the their military and government to one man who heads a militant version of the Red Cross or World Health Organization.

The whole situation can be summarized as a "we'll kill them before they kill us" situation. A poor excuse for boring action sequences that are usually over before they start. Milla flips her hair and tilts her neck and a dozen bad guys lay dead.

This clever person has apparently decided the soldier of the future should wear glass armour (yes, glass armor that shatters when Milla kicks them), carry swords (yes, swords) that they're apparently not trained to use, and guns that they're also apparently not trained to use. Honestly, Milla kills dozens and dozens of these poor, stupid soldiers without even a single scratch on her lovely soft-focus skin. In fact, not only does she kill them all, she's very efficient at killing them all while spinning, spinning, jumping, spinning and flipping so they don't even land a blow.

The most effective offense and defense against the soldier of the future is non-stop spinning and jumping.

In my 15+ years of watching 50+ films a year (Math says 750+ films) in the theatre, I've never seen one by myself until tonight. I'm happy none of my friends or family were subjected to the pain and confusion I paid to see tonight.

It's not the worst film I've ever seen but I'm still giving it zero of five rating units.

It's not even worth seeing for camp, or irony. It's just bad. Very bad.

A Few Loose Ends

McCaesar — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 23:53:00 +0000

A quick hit list of films I saw but couldn't be bothered to write a whole review for (like the few ranting paragraphs I usually write would pass for reviews)

Hostel. This film was hyped as the scariest, grossest film in a long time. I've seen scarier and grosser and worse films. I liked it ok from a pure exploitation point of view, but it was meaningless and pointless. 2 out of 5 rating units.

Serenity: I downloaded this and burned it to DVD and watched it on my 32" TV. This is the first film I've ever downloaded and burned to DVD. If mine was the typical experience people get when downloading films, I have to wonder why they bother. The file took 2 days to torrent, and it was encoded in AVI so the transfer to DVD was crap. I'll keep going to theatres with the expensive concessions and mouth-breathers talking through the film so I can watch quality and crappy films they way they're supposed to be seen. Ranting aside, I like Serenity a lot. It was funny in parts, and smart and enjoyable. 4 out of 5 rating units.

Munich. Munich was well done. It made a conscious effort to tell the story from both side, showing both as human. Neither side was demonized, in my opinion. A solid film. 4 out of 5 rating units.

Survivor Rant

McCaesar — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 02:26:00 +0000

Survivor is the only TV show I make time to watch. It's o.k. if I miss other shows (Simpsons, CSI) because they'll be on in reruns and unending syndication.

I've watched every episode of Survivor. I could be described as a fan.

There are two things that annoy me about the Survivor contestants.

The first thing that annoys me is when the tribes vote off members for the wrong reason. In the first half of the contest, tribes should be voting off the physically weakest members of the tribe so that they merge in a position of strength. Then, after the merge, you vote off players with strength. At this point, physical and mental strength should be voted off. It's harder to vote off mental strength because the smart ones are in alliances that protect them. Everyone makes mistakes. Too many tribes get the order of voting backwards. The best example was Survivor: Palau when the tribe voted their best players off first and then were left decimated by the merge where only Stephanie survived to the merge. Someday, I hope, some Survivor contestant will read this and take my advice. Keep your physically strongest players until the merge. Your strong players win rewards for the whole tribe. Your weak players lose immunity challenges for you.

The second thing that annoys me about Survivor is when they vote the hottest women off the island too soon.

Tonight, they voted off Misty. A crying shame. She was great to watch, a real beauty, and damn smart too. There should be a rule to keep the good looking contestants around longer. Why, why, why would you vote off the former beauty pageant contestant? Don't like having pretty smart people around? The neck massages were bad? The flirty smile was driving them mad? I think people go crazy on that island.

Of course, it's entirely possible my motives are slightly different from their motives.

Shark Attack

McCaesar — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 12:10:00 +0000

On Tuesdays, we play NTN at our not-so-local restaurant.

One of the games on the NTN playmaker is called "Shark Attack". It's basically hangman but the Shark eats your points as you get letters wrong instead of a man being assembled on the gallows.

Last night, one of the puzzles in Shark Attack was __W_. The clue was "Movie".

To recap, the game is called "Shark Attack", the clue was "Movie" and the puzzle was "__W_".

I did not get the points.

On a not totally unrelated note, Peter Benchley's death was one of the trivia questions on BrainBuster last night.

Summer Films

McCaesar — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 21:16:00 +0000

There are a few movies I'm looking forward to this summer.

X-Men 3
Superman Returns
Spider-Man 3
Miami Vice

The one movie I'm anticipating the most is the Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder rotoscoped Richard Linklater interpretaion of Philip K. Dick's "A Scanner Darkly" Click that link to watch the trailer.

I read the book a few years ago. A great, original, engaging story that pulls you into it's schizophrenic vision.

One thing that concerns me is the last Richard Linklater rotoscoped film I saw was "Waking Life" That was a steaming pile of regret.

Still, even if the film sucks, I feel confident it can't be as bad as Garfield 2. Garfield 2? Really?

We're moving to Blog.McCaesar.com

McCaesar — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 02:21:00 +0000

I've created a new domain for some PHP and MySQL testing I want to do. My other domains couldn't handle databases and scripting.

So, I'm moving this "Blog" over to Blog.McCaesar.com. Once this is posted, the version of the blog hosted at Blogspot will no longer be updated.

If you link to me, kindly update your sites when you get a chance.

See you on the other side.

Magical Elves

McCaesar — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 03:34:00 +0000

magic elves
Originally uploaded by McCaesar.

This distorted and nearly destroyed candy wrapper is what remains of the most amazing advancement in the candy and chocolate sciences in recent history.

The wrapper is from Cadbury's "Magical Elves". A candy whose description made me all giddy with delight: "Cadbury's chocolate and popping candy."

Chocolate and Popping Candy!

Crikey, the geniuses at Cadbury Labs in Cadburyland have hit upon the most amazing idea for a candy/chocolate combo I've eaten since I was a young fella.

Imagine this. Pop the chocolate bar in your mouth. Chew, or let it melt. It's your choice. I won't impose my chocolate eating bias on you. Once the chocolate is gone, the "magical" part begins. The magical popping part.

God Bless 'em. That's good candy eatin'. Must find more...

The New World

McCaesar — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 23:26:00 +0000

Today, I saw the matinee of the new Terrence Malik film, "The New World."

Terrence seems to have a knack, or innate skill for taking an historic story, scene or setting and filming it in absolute beauty and making it godforsaken boring.

The movie is the story of Pocahontas. One must assume all of this since nowhere in the film are any but one of the main characters actually given names. The one character who's name is spoken is "Smith", played by Colin Farrel. Pocahontas' name is not spoken until her name is changed to Rebecca. Her husband's name is unknown, and is her child, and everyone else living in Jamestown. I suppose if you're interested in names, you can just look it up.

How can a movie that's two and half hours long leave out details like the main character's names? It's easy when there's only 10 minutes of actual dialogue in those two and half hours.

The movie progresses like this:

5 minutes of gorgeous nature shots
10 minutes of people looking at each other, then averting their eyes, and furtively touching each others faces
5 minutes of voiceover poetry about what they're thinking and feeling
5 minutes of gorgeous nature shots
5 minutes of voiceover poetry
10 minutes of people looking at each other
2 minutes of people speaking to someone, but the other person not answering, just staring back or looking away.

Repeat for two and a half hours.

There's a short battle scene or two in there as well.

At some point, this pattern became clear to me, and I began to look for instances where someone replied to a question or statement made to them. I counted no more than 6 times during the entire film where there was actual dialogue. There was lots of poetic voiceover.

After watching Terrence's previous film, "The Thin Red Line", I asked the question to my friend, "Why did the army put all of it's poets in the same unit?"

Near the end of "The New World", I began to ask myself, "Why did England send all of it's poets to Virginia?" Thankfully, once they arrive in England, there was still one poet in England reading a scroll in the Royal court.

I'm not asking for explosions, yelling or screaming, or dancing and singing raccoons. People talking to each other would go a long way to keeping me more interested in the film.

On the other hand, I am somewhat impressed with Mr. Malik's ability to tell a story without people actually conversing.

I'll give this one 2.5 rating units.

Capote

McCaesar — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 03:25:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 03:15:31 +0000

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

McCaesar — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:41:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 04:53:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:34:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:31:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 00:06:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 12:03:00 +0000

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

McCaesar — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:56:00 +0000

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.