FuzzyCo

Run

2010-03-14T15:22:11Z

Robot shoes say: ran 3.05 mi on 3/14/2010 at 9:43 AM with a pace of 10'06"/mi

I forgot the daylight-savings time chance this morning, so I was still in bed when Shaun buzzed the door to meet me for a run, but other than that a fine run.

Daybreakers

2010-03-12T04:31:58Z

Daybreakers starts with an incredible premise—if vampirism starts spreading in a population, before long everyone will be vampires and who will they feed on then? And for kicks, it layers on a noir feel, which is like the bacon of movie motifs—it goes with everything!

And from that great start, the movie manages to squander every good idea and meanders around from pointless action sequence to makes-no-sense confrontations, until the final dramatic but-why-did-he? ending.

FuzzyCo grade: C-

Bottoms Up

2010-03-12T04:20:05Z

Bottoms Up's claim to fame, if you can call it that, is that its two stars, if you can call them that, are Paris Hilton and Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay & Silent Bob). I had picked up a copy of the movie for $2 at a Big Lots because hey, Paris & Jay! And then someone gave us a copy with a post-it that said, "Not that you asked, but I was uncomfortably surprised w/ how much I liked Paris Hilton's performance in this otherwise crap movie." I don't know who that was, and I almost don't want to know because I don't want to know which of my friends is insane. Otherwise crap? It's entirely crap. This is a terrible, terrible movie. And not even so-bad-or-weird it's good like Plan 9 or The Room or something. Just teeth-gratingly bad. It's boring and offensive and badly acted and makes no sense and poorly edited and just really, really bad.

FuzzyCo grade: F

Next Day Air

2010-03-12T03:56:14Z

I think the trailers for Next Day Air did it a disservice. I went in expecting a certain kind of low-brow stoner comedy and instead found a dark, gritty comedy about drug dealers and thieves—sort of Elmore Leonard meets The Wire.

FuzzyCo grade: A

Julie & Julia

2010-03-12T03:38:04Z

I think everyone I've talked to feels the exact same way I do about this movie—I would happily watch a two-hour movie with Meryl Streep as Julia Child; as charming as Amy Adams normally is, I'd like the forty-five minutes I spent watching her as Julie Powell back. I especially think the contrast is not flattering to Powell, because it seems that Child met every challenge with a cheerful attitude and a sense of self, where Powell whines and mopes and seems to be focussed on external validation. And it's not the movie's fault, but the thing was really tainted for me by knowing that the real-life Powell's next memoir was about her adultery. It adds such a sad subtext to all of her interaction's with her husband Eric in the film.

FuzzyCo grade: B- (A+ for just the Julia Child parts)

4 miles

2010-03-12T01:38:36Z

Nike+ sez: ran 4.01 mi on 3/11/2010 at 6:33 PM with a pace of 10'42"/mi.

This is the farthest I've run since the 18 miles I did of the 2007 Chicago Marathon. Erica points out that I did 6 miles in the 2009 Triathlon, but I didn't run the whole distance—I ran about 2 1/2 miles and then walked/hobbled the rest of the way. So I'm pretty chuffed that I'm back up to 4 pain-free miles. The goal for 2010 is a pain-free triathlon. So here we go…

Résumés

2010-03-11T06:57:14Z

You're supposed to keep your résumé up to date every year or so, even if you're happy at your job. I was just reminded of that because I'm going for an acting audition tomorrow that wants me to bring my IT résumé (it's a longish story). So I was trying to get my résumé up to date tonight and realized that I haven't touched it in 5 years, and even that wasn't a very good update. So step one was just chopping out huge swathes of obsolete technologies that I had proudly listed I was fluent in. WebStar, anyone? 4D First? Yeesh.

The Princess and the Frog

2010-03-11T03:44:37Z

We went into The Princess and the Frog with very low expectations and gosh-darn it, it was good. It was funny and suspenseful and romantic, and really captured a lot of the flavors that go into making New Orleans the city that I love so much.

FuzzyCo grade: A

District 9

2010-03-11T03:35:56Z

There is so much to love about District 9 that I feel almost bad that it bugged me that it wasn't consistent about the documentary-style camera work. Is that picky of me?

FuzzyCo grade: A

Moon

2010-03-09T04:23:51Z

I go on sometimes* about plausibility and contrivance being qualities of a movie that can satisfy or turn me off, respectively, very quickly. Moon is a great example of a movie with the potential to be very contrived, but I thought it led us into Sam Rockwall's character and his situation with enough plausibility that by the time we get to the really out-there stuff, we're pretty much along for the ride. I've really only got one big quibble with the movie… and this is really a movie that's hard to talk about with spoilers. So I'm give my grade and then we can talk about the movie in more detail after the jump.

FuzzyCo grade: A

* Maybe more in person than here.

]]> Is everybody gone who hasn't seen the movie yet? Good. So, what I mean about plausibility is like, we see that opening promo video and it promises a shiny corporate future, but then as soon as we meet XXX he's all unshaven, XXX the robot has post-its on his case, the place is a mess — we see that this is still a very flawed, human future. And so by the time we get to the clones, the part of my brain that might be wondering about questions like "oh, so they have the ability to implant memories, what kind of technology is that" is instead occupied with the whole notion that, yes, if corporations had access to disposable people, of course they would chew them up and then discard them.

My one big quibble, since I mentioned it above, is the whole notion of the communications jamming towers. Why wouldn't they just have some sort of kill-switch or fakery built-in to the station's communications mechanisms? It seems very contrived to have the complete apparatus to communicate with Earth in the station and then build a whole extra set of equipment to jam that signal. If I was speccing out that system, I'd point out that each of those jamming towers is a whole point of failure and a big expense instead of a problem that could probably be solved fairly easily in software.

Law-Abiding Citizen

2010-03-09T03:47:48Z

Why do I waste time watching movies I know I'm not going to like?

FuzzyCo grade: C-

The Colour of Magic

2010-03-09T03:07:42Z

As I've mentioned repeatedly, I'm a big Terry Pratchett fan. So I was pretty excited to see this made-for-TV adaptation of the first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic. Now, admittedly, the book is a mess, an episodic parody of a variety of fantasy genres. But this movie is even more of a mess. It's… boring. I think it really highlights that Pratchett is a very literary writer. I mean, he's got wonderful footnotes and those just don't translate to the screen very well.

FuzzyCo grade: C

Smiley Face

2010-03-08T05:06:18Z

If nothing else, I guess you have to applaud Gregg Araki for thinking he could bring something new to the field of stoner comedies. He almost succeeds, as Anna Faris (always a treat) struggles to complete a fairly ordinary day's to-do list, hampered by an accidental extreme over-indulgence of weed. Do you think she might encounter a cast of wacky characters, in an episodic journey? You bet! Also, more drugs.

FuzzyCo grade: C+

Sandman Slim

2010-03-08T04:56:53Z

Sandman Slim sounds, on paper, like it would be right up my alley. A occult noir set in a modern LA, featuring a hit man newly back from Hell. But I just think it's trying a little too hard to be cool. And the way it's all set up at the end for endless sequels was so clunky that it really turned me off.

FuzzyCo grade: B-

Far Arden

2010-03-08T04:36:26Z

Who doesn't love dark tales of swashbuckling and polar bear-fighting in the frozen north, especially in comic book form? This guy does, for sure.

FuzzyCo: A