Hotel Disappointed

Wes Anderson's short film "The Hotel Chevalier" has premiered on iTunes.

If you are so inclined, click here to launch iTunes and download it. It's free, so don't be shy.

Mmm'kay.

You've all watched it then?

Good.

Soooo... I really wanted to like this. I did. I laughed pretty much right off the bat. Loved the exchange with the room service person, asking about the grilled cheese. Great. I was feeling Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman's phone call... I liked the vibe.

But then Wes Anderson and his editor forgot how to edit.

Let's take a step back for a second. I love movies that take their time and let scenes breathe. I like long takes, or shots where the camera reframes several times. Want to see a great example of that? Go see Children of Men.

But this? This is just sloppy. Almost every take is full of dead space, and goes on just... a... little... too... long. There's a reason few director's dare to attempt this stylist choice— it's friggin' hard! Extensive rehearsal is necessary to get camera and performance to move at the proper pace, with carefully synchronized timings. You can't just write a scene, set up a camera, and go.

"The Hotel Chevalier" has no energy. Yes, it's about two melancholy, depressed characters, but the film still needs to move. Bill Murray's character in Rushmore is just as sad and pathetic, but his scenes have actual life to them. Here, Portman and Schwartzman feel limp and boring— a total disservice, as they are both fantastic actors.

Editing is how you add dynamism to scenes such as these.* You juxtapose images, cut across time, and give us a quicker glimpse at these sad, slow lives. Give me a day and an Avid (or FinalCut Pro system) and I could give "Chevalier" the graceful edit it needs.** Because there is some amazing stuff in this short; it's just that it's still got the gristle and fat surrounding it. Someone needs to dress this steak to make it palatable.

This is a special shame because so much of it is good, or almost good. Fantastic set design and decoration (quelle surprise!), great actors, solid performances, a (mostly) solid script, great ideas... and it all falls apart. Despite a beautifully naked Natalie Portman, sporting a 2005 (V For Vendetta)-era haircut.

"The Hotel Chevalier" feels like a parody of the director's other, better work, and it's sad to me that he directed it. It plays just like a film student trying way too hard to make a Wes Anderson film, and simply not getting it.

Sigh.



[* I may be biased on this count. But dammit, I still think it's true!]
[** This sounds arrogant, I know. I'm not saying I'm the best man for the job; I'm just saying I could do it. And a whole helluva lot of other people could do it far better than me. But please, someone, do it.]

Video Break

This is why I love Wes Anderson.

And a reminder: at some point later today (Wednesday 26 Sept.), "The Hotel Chevalier," the short film "prequel" to The Darjeeling Limited, will be available as a free (!) download on iTunes. It's supposed to have a delightful scene with a partially clothed Natalie Portman (!!!), and just be good 'ole Wes Anderon in general.

So I'm there.

What Happens In Nippon...

Agent: Brad, buddy, I got a couple'a commercial guys beggin' to score a few hours of face time.

Brad: Hey man, I can't let my audience think I'm a sell out! I need to protect my principles!

Agent: Baby, I hear you! Who do you think I am? These are Japanese commercials!

Brad: Really?

Agent: And we're talking millions!

Brad: Let me get this straight. For a free trip to the Orient, and a fat paycheck, all I've got to do is show up and act goofy? Count me in!


Ladies and gentlemen, behold: what your favorite stars work so very hard to hide from you.

My favorites: Nic Cage, Ah-nold, and Harrison Ford.

Ubytek Czasu

David Holland introduced me to one of the most collosal time-wasters I have ever seen: The Polish Poster Shop.

Basically it's a collection of Polish movie posters for American movies. Sometimes long after release, not even for direct box office promotion. For all I can tell, it's mostly just for fun.

Awesome, awesome, and awesome some more.

For example, this is the scariest thing I have ever seen. Never before have I simultaneously A) Wanted something so badly, and B) Never wanted to look at it ever again. Quite the combination.

Other notables: Short Circuit 2, Crocodile Dundee 2 (complete with The Departed— styled cityscape), Willow, Star Wars, and David's favorite, Innerspace.

To continue listing the ones I really like would take a dog's age, so I'm going to have to leave you with that.

Happy hunting!

iMac Hard Drive

I think I've found my replacement hard drive: The Samsung HD501LJ 500 GB SATA drive.

The price is right, and with 446 5-star ratings at NewEgg (77% of the total ratings!), I feel like I'm getting a solid product. Hey, I like Samsung RAM, I want a Samsung TV more than just about anything, so why not a Samsung hard drive?

The time is most certainly now, as the iMac struggles more and more each day. I did a Carbon Copy Clone of the existing internal drive last night; so I am ready. Time to bite the bullet, order the drive, and spend the 110 bucks.

Unplugged

Sorry about the weekend absence, everyone. After a long couple of weeks of working weekends and long nights, I just needed to unplug myself from the Matrix and not sit in front of a computer for a while. And I pretty much did just that-- I barely checked my e-mail, and did pretty much zero websurfing, except for a quick IMDB check at one point.

Not too bad for the internet junkie, eh?

I do apologize for the lack of content, though. Had I been a smarter man, I would have planned ahead and had a few posts ready to go, so I could upload with a single click and keep you, my reading audience, happy.

Alas, though, for I am dumb.

As far as updates go... I did see Eastern Promises this weekend, and I was pretty impressed. I love seeing Cronenberg's style reigned in a bit... not nearly as wacky and out there as Existenz or Dead Ringers, but just as disturbing in a small, intimate and real-world way. Love it. Keep your eyes out for one of the most brutal and raw fights I've seen in a while... very evocative and intense, as it absolutely feels like a matter of life and death. Also, this film is notable for it's excellent makeup— Naomi Watts actually looks like a person, with skin imperfections, which really only serve to make her even more beautiful. And Viggo's fake tattoos must be seen to be believed...

Well worth the time and price of admission.

Looking forward, I do intend to resume my near-daily posts, so keep on my ass about it. As always, thanks for tuning in...

CSS & Templates

This is one of the things I hate about using web templates, and Blogger specifically.

I wanted to use a blockquote in the previous post, so I used the blockquote tag. But the Blogger templates are broken; all text after the blockquote tag had improper leading between the lines, resulting in ugly compressed text after this quote.

I had noticed this problem on other Blogger default blogs; "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" suffers from this broken code, for example.*

This kind of issue is why default templates get so much crap. They tend to be barebones in their technical execution, and excessively overdesigned in their appearance. Like an inbred peacock, you get a messy and defective genotype, with a gaudy and excessive phenotype.

You can tell I was a geek in school, right?

I mean, I don't love this template. At this point, it's a stopgap until I can design my own CSS/PHP template to use instead; I just need time to do that. It has a lot of graphics that have nothing to do with me or my blog (aside from the fact that there are lighthouses in Maine). And since I didn't make it, it isn't personal.

That's not to say that templates are a bad thing; they are what let 90% of web users/bloggers get started, myself included. Coding is hard and time consuming to learn to do and execute, or expensive to pay for. Templates allow the Everyman to access the web as a producer of content, not just a consumer.

But dammit it's frustrating when the templates aren't that good.

Anyway, I dug into the code and gave this site a quick blockquote fix. I like the look; not the most original or beautiful, but functional, individually coded, and not broken.

Hallelujah.


[*This is a fantastic website, and deserves to be read early and often. Wonderfully commentary not just on Apple, but the whole tech industry. Hilarious and insightful, a rare combination.]

Don't Touch That!

Yesterday's electronic NY Times had this linked on it's front page:

On Saturday night [in Carangas, Peru], a fiery object fell from the sky. Stunned residents said they tracked it to a fresh hole in the earth that was more than 60 feet wide, 15 feet deep, filled with boiling water and steaming with noxious fumes, according to a statement from the Health Ministry.

And then people started getting sick: more than 150 reported symptoms like dizziness, vomiting and skin lesions, according to a government statement quoted by Bloomberg News.

Say WHAT?!

If you're thinking that this sounds just like The X-Files, you are not alone. That was my first thought, and Mike Nizza says the same thing in the first paragraph of his piece, an entry in his column, "The Lede."

And being the geek that I am, I can actually tell you the *exact* episode this relates to.

The X-Files, Season 4, Episode 11: "El Mundo Gira" (trans: "The World Turns"). Something explodes in the sky over a shantytown in southern California, followed by a microburst of hot, yellow rain. The rain ends up being an organic enzyme that catalyzes fungal growth; two brothers end up as carriers, mutated by the enzyme, who can cause mold growth on anything around them. They have become the chupacabra, or "goat-sucker," a mythical Latin American monster.

I'm not saying the chupacabra is about to start rampaging through Peru, but the events of this week are startlingly similar to this episode of my favorite 90's show. It's weird sometimes the life imitates art.

Am I seeing the parallel because the show itself pulled its ideas from strange headlines, and history often repeats itself? Or because it lucked upon prescience 10 years ago? Or because I tend to see everything in a way that relates to pop culture, specifically TV/Film?

Who knows.

But it's an interesting story regardless.

The original entry I read is here; and a follow-up by the AP is here.

Woops

Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday Work got busier than I had expected, and the home computer situation, with the failing drive, isn't that good.

So here I am today, but I should have a few postings over the course of the day. We shall see...

Yarr!

[UPDATED BELOW]

Yes, it is International-Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day, so in honor, I look like this:



In other news, AT&T has still not finished the "Number Transfer" process, meaning I can make calls from my iPhone, but can't receive them— yet. This is annoying, so I am keeping my original phone on me, too, which can get calls. If you can't reach me, though, just shoot me an e-mail. My iPhone gets those, too.

Yesterday I purchased Red Sweater Software's MarsEdit 2, the blogging software I had been testing. I love it so far: it's a very simple piece of software, that does exactly what I need it to. It's quick and easy, and stays out of the way. I had a bit of a hitch getting Blogger photo uploads working, but that's because I hadn't yet set up Picassa (Google's Flickr), which Blogger needs for imbedded pics these days.

But what's really cool is this: In the purchase for, there's a comment box, in which I gave a short thanks, as well as feature request. Not five minutes later (seriously!), I had gotten an e-mail response from Daniel Jalkut, the designer/publisher of the software. He had read my comment, and responded to my ideas directly.

Awesome.

If he's that in tune with his customers, consider me loyal. And this is a guy who's software is being used by John Gruber, and being mentioned on his Daring Fireball blog, so I can imagine he gets some moderate traffic.

[UPDATE]
Sometimes all you have to do is bitch; I put up a blog post about not receiving calls on my iPhone due to slow Number Transfer by AT&T, and 30 minutes later I can receive calls. I love technology. Feel free to call me once again, everyone.

Happy Day

The picture says it all...

More later on AT&T and my thoughts thus far...

Wesleyana Musica

I heard about the following song twice today... schoolmate (and current LA friend/co-worker) Leanne mentioned it to me this morning, and my good friend (and college housemate) Kevin actually e-mailed me the song... seems a few Wesleyan University students (Past? Present? Future?) figured they could rock out a few beats in GarageBand and have some laughs.

See? This is why computers, and the interwebs, are particularly awesome.

I have no idea who wrote/performed this. I wish I did, because I would love to attribute this correctly, and help contribute to this person's (people's?) 15 minutes of fame.

Now, it may not be the best music you've ever heard*, but I tell you what: to a former Wesleyan student, this is pretty damned hilarious. Especially as I myself lived on Fountain Ave with Mike Kevin, and Ryan, with Tracy, Patti, Bryn, and Kristen living two doors down.

Ah college.

Definitely recommended for anyone who spent time on our campus, here is "Party On Fountain."


[*Though it does remind me of "The Lonely Island, specifically "Just 2 Guyz."]