Suriyothai Review

This is an interesting movie just because it is about Thai history, specifically about Queen Suriyothai who gave her life to save the life of her king and husband. It starts with her as a rebellious young women who is marries to unite two kingdoms, even though she loves another man.

The costumes are beautiful and the elephants make the battle scenes stand out. The acting is a bit flat in places, and the end is a little abrupt, but all in all I recommend this movie.

I give it 3/5 acorns.

A Bittersweet Life Review

Byung-hun Lee is a cool, slick enforcer, who just seems to have it all together. He has worked for the boss for 7 years with steadfast devotion. The boss sends him a simple job to watch his very young girlfriend who he suspects is having an affair. Her youth touches him and when he makes one decision on his own, his whole world comes down on him.
There are several great fight scenes. The story is put together well and the music and scene changes are also well done.
I will give this movie 3.5/5 acorns.

Alive Review

Ryuhei Kitamura, the director of this film is known for Versus and Azumi and reviews I have read of this movie are soso. It is quite dark and slow. The fight scenes were a little overdone, and there wasn't much original about them. I liked the background music. I usually watch movies in the original language and read subs, but I can't knit and read subs at the same time, so I watched the movie with the English dub.

The premise of the story was decent, but never quite develops well.

I will give it 2/5 acorns.

Crafts have moved to a new blog

I created a new blog to house most of the craft related stuff, leaving this one for movies, rants and whines (can be sung to the tune of Gypsy's Tramps and Thieves)

My Neighbors the Yamadas Review

Here's a silly movie about a very odd family. They stumble through life and yet always manage to come together as a family when there is a crisis. It's by Hayao Miyazaki's studio. He is listed as "studio boss" in the credits. The dubbing is not bad, and there is Japanese audio with English subs for the purists.

I give it 4/5 acorns.

Seabiscuit and Sin City Reviews

It was a hot one today. I actually did a few errands today and since once of them took me by Blockbuster, I rented some movies. I managed to watch two today and started the knitted mesh shopping bag, too.

1. Seabiscuit
In the 3-5th grade I was very interested in horses, and had read all of Walter Farleys books and most of Marqarite Henry's books, too. Seabiscuit and all those famous horse held such a high place in my memory, that I didn't want it ruined by a bad movie. So I put it off. It was a tear jerker. The story woven in to the facts of the horses's career no doubt is embelished, so I will leave it at that. The horses were so very beautiful in this movie, and the message was heartwarming. I'll give it a 3.5/5 acorns.

2. Sin City
This movie is made to look like a comic book and tells several tales that all come together in Sin City. I liked the way it was done. The stories were dark. I will give it a 4/5 acorns

Exit Glacier

Hive Island

This is a picture from cruise ship of an island that has a lot of nesting birds. There were a lot of puffin floating in the water. The sky was overcast and it was very chilly that day.

Weeding, big DUH

For years as a child, my parents made me weed, like it was some great honor and relaxing rewarding event. The patio is made of bricks and has sand in between. The weeks come up regularly and I was led to believe the solution was to get those roots out. In fact, I was threatened and called stupid if I didn't do it just right.

Well I now own this house and so the weed problem is all mine. Not so surprisingly, I hate weeding, and do not find it relaxing or enlightening, but that's just me. I have tried allowing them to grow, justifying them by saying, that I like the "natural" look. Roundup is a great herbicide if one is trying to defoliate the planet, but unfortunately it is not discriminating between unwanted growth and treasured bird of paradise or sweet smelling pakalana, so I have taken to encouraging my sons to get those roots out. My reasoning has not been that they will find it rewarding and relaxing, but that it will enable me to keep the house if they help with those jobs I don't like. (and I don't call them stupid!)

So, number one son is out there attempting to get out those roots, when the yard service man comes by with his weedwhacker and says, "Hey, I can get those for you." I came home to a very neat looking patio. I know the roots are still there, but I'm thinking after 50 years, there is nothing short of digging up all the stones, and pouring some potent poison on there that will anniliate all those roots, so I can't be any worse off.

So I ask myself, why the heck didn't I think of that! I honestly had contemplated a blow torch, but worried about the use of fossil fuel. After all, I do pay for yard service and I bet it didn't take him very long to do it!

Four Brothers Review

I was expecting something like Mystic River, but the action makes this movie feel more upbeat. I'm not sure what the messages are...Trust your brother? Revenge is good thing? Happy workers are loyal workers? Detroit is not a great place to visit in the winter? Lots of guns, lots of snappy comebacks, and car chases keep this movie exciting. Also there is a Fargo-esque scene on a frozen lake.

I give this movie 3/5 acorns.

The Crooked Earth Review

This movie is about Maori brothers settling who will be the next leader and how their father's legacy will be carried on. The New Zealand scenary is a beautiful backdrop for the story. One brother has just returned from military duty and the other has gotten into the drug busines.

The relationship of the brothers and their relationships are not well developed, but the would have made the movie unecessarily long.

I found this movie beautifully filmed, moving, and interesting as well. I give it 3.5/5 acorns.

Almost Goodbye Keoki

Every once in a while I meet someone who I just click with and I have been very fortunate to have Keoki work with me for the last 2 years or so. She is my assistant but feels like a very good friend, too.

While I am happy she has this opportunity to move on with her life and have a chance at a better life with her family, I will miss her very much.

My last day working with her is 9/6 and that is coming up very quickly. I'll feel sorry for myself later, sniff sniff and work on saying thank you, Keoki. I love you very much.

Save the Green Planet Review

STGP is a Korean movie that tries to do it all. Some of the plots involve serial killers, down on his luck detective, bees, underestimated rookie, religion, horror, romance, surprise ending and sci-fi, plus a little Takeshi Miike thrown in for good luck. A "rift" was a direct copy of a scene from 2001, Space Odessey.
I don't think it succeeded very well at any of those genres, but the composition was quite entertaining.
I give it a 2.5/5 acorns. Not for the squeamish.

G@me Review 2003

Here's a movie that tries hard to have an interesting plot with twists while portraying the high rise dwelling single businessman and throwing in a passionate love story. Fujiki who plays the main character is very handsome and is very good in his role. In fact, all the acting is good. There is chemistry between him and the main female character, but it doesn't always work, at least from my western view of it. The kidnapping plot is a bit unbelievable. The music is sometimes distracting. The pace was a little slow in the beginning. All in all I rate this 2.5/5 acorns.

WORK Rant, Waaaah!

I've been working at the same job for the same company for 25 years now, and I feel like I want to bolt! The benefits are good, the pay is good, the work was once very fulfilling and interesting and I have been blessed working with some very good people. But, the work load has changed and the technical advances have changed how I get through my day, and I just don't feel like making thoses changes. It has changed my day to drudgery. I adjust and then get told, oh, don't do it like that any more, here's the new way. Meanwhile the basic job itself is very demanding and still requires a lot of time, so the "adjustments" are just added on. Added on after work, before work, through lunch, yadayadayada. If one more "list" gets dropped on my desk...
Burnout. I know I've been there before and have worked through it, but I'm sick and tired of it and want to retire. The good news is that I can retire at the end of this year. That is the light at the end of the tunnel. The bad news is, is that I'm not sure I can fully retire. But, I'm going to find out!
The real question is, do I wanna quit cuz I just can't hack it? Or do I wanna quit cuz I have something better in mind? Or, do I need to have something better in mind? Cuz, work ain't doing it for me right now!

Utu Review

Utu means (compensate, cost, fee, pay, price, ransom, rate, revenge, reward, salary, or wages) in Maori. The story develops several story lines about people involved in a conflict between native peoples and their colonialists. There is Te Wheki the impassioned native leader and Wiremu, a native man who "scouts" for the British. There is Williamson, a settler who has risked everything to make New Zealand his home and Scott, a military white man, born and raised in New Zealand. There is also Kura who loves Scott and her people.

I found the subject matter fascinating. I know nothing of New Zealand's history so I can't say how authentic the stories are. The movie does a good job at showing the main characters as heroic and flawed. It points out the complexity of such situations. The acting was all great. Kelly Johnson who was in Goodbye Pork Pie did a really good job as Scott,and Tania Bristowe is so very graceful.

I give it 3/5 acorns.

The Stickmen Review

Here is another New Zealand movie I watched. Stickmen refers to pool sharks. 3 friends get trapped into matches with the Men in Black and Pincushion, and also get conned into playing a match for more money then they have by a loan shark. The narrator, who is the guy who will break your legs if you don't pay your debts, tries to make analogies between the game of pool and life.

I quite liked this one, although there were no cyborgs or zombies.

I give it 3/5 acorns.

Hurray! I got my pictures back!

Well, I found out what happened to my pictures. They were blocked by my browser. I don't know how that happened, but perhaps it happened when I upgraded Firefox and loaded the new Win2K updates. Who knows, but at least I got them back!

Goodbye Pork Pie

This is a 1981 movie that is basically a travelogue through New Zealand back in a time when life a simpler.

The plot is that a guy tries to return a wallet to a lady in a car, but she snubs him and speeds off. He used her credit card to steal a yellow mini, and goes on a spree. Along the way he picks up a man who is on quest to find out why his girlfriend has moved to the other side of NZ without explaining it to him. They pick up a trail of police on their way.

The movie itself has some funny moments. There are no deep revelations, but the scenary is nice and now I want the yellow mini.

I give it 2/5 acorns.

The Ugly Review

The Ugly is a New Zealand movie about a serial killer and his interviewer. There are a lot of dream sequences and flash backs. It was entertaining in a dark way. The killer is atypical in that he is a serial killer without a pattern. He does actually have a pattern in that he uses the same murder weapon over and over.

He is a hospital ward and gets beat up regularly by his two guards and the "doctor" is rather weird, too. The doctor's role is the weakest one. I keep thinking he is up to something, but what never materializes.

I'll give it 2.5/5 acorns.

Spoiler: the blood is not red in this movie, but black, and there is a fair amount of it.

Summer

Darn, August is well underway, and I hate to see summer go by. There is an energy that summer has and I like it a lot. It is suited to cruising. I have cruised by some new things, snuggled up to some old comfortable things, and peered into the future and ruminated on the past.

Okay, I still have weeds in my yard and I still am not neat, but I have reconnected with some of my relatives and friends and I watched a lot of movies and knit a womb and did a bnch of things I really enjoyed. Besides I can hire a gardener and a housekeeper!

I have been separated for more than a year and the divorce (boy it's hard to say that D word) will be final this month if the papers are all in order. It's not a topic I like to blog about, but it does make me think.

I think I'll cruise a while longer until I am ready to work on my values. My last bracelet still needs work. The links keep coming apart and sometimes catch on my clothing and knitting. I'll be ready to move on when I can keep it together.

Whine: My Firefox browser won't show the picture on my blog:(. I can see everyone elses pictures and I can see them on the IE browser. What is up with that!

I Love Totoro

Totoro is a cute woodland spirit that only children can see. He is big and cuddly and very comfortable. He is greatly appreciative of small kindnesses. He shows great joy over simple things. He presents thoughtful little gifts. He can make trees grow and he can fly. He makes music, knows some magic and rides on a catbus. He is always there when he is needed.

Totoro is simply the best!

PS: I assume Totoro is male because he has a deep booming voice, but I'm not really sure.

War of the Worlds, 2005, Review

I wasn't sure what to expect from this movie. Some friends liked it and some said, just okay, not as good as the original. I'm not a great Tom Cruise fan, but I like Tim Robbins, Dakota Fanning and Morgan Freeman. There was a bit of an Independence Day feeling to the movie, but no wisecracks or comic relief. It was even scary in parts. I must say I rather liked it and give it 4/5 acorns.