writhaus

Honey is Jessica Alba as a youth instructor in NYC. She has the hottest dance moves and gets noticed by a music video producer. She becomes the hottest hip hop choreographer and tries to share her success by getting her rec center kids in a video. When she spurs her bosses advances, he fires the kids. She decides to open her own dance studio, and suddenly the movie shifts gears to an all out dance finish. Somewhere along the way, a cute little boy gets braids and his brother goes to juvie.

Honey doesn’t sound that bad, and really, it isn’t. It’s just not good, either. It reminds me of the teen movies pumped out in the 80s. For every Wargames, you had at least a dozen My Chauffeurs. I personally think Honey was designed to run indefinitely on Stars Kidz or whatever they call it now. Jessica Alba definitely looks hot in the film, but other than that, a few cute kids and a Missy Elliot cameo, that’s about all there is to this film.
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Get Rich or Die Tryin’ stars everyone’s favorite hip hop superstar 50 Cent. I was pretty bored as I screened this flick. The acting was passable, and fortunately it wasn’t anywhere near as expoitive as I feared it would be. There are some nice moments in it, but over all, I don’t see it having much staying power.
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Ah, Step Up. It stars Channing Tatum, perhaps one of the most wooden actors I have ever seen, as a kid who hangs with the black kids and gets sentenced to mopping a preppy school when he gets busted one night. At the school, the pretty Jenna Dewan studies ballet. The two meet and infuse classical dancing with energy not seen since Save the Last Dance, a much superior film, and one that this one basically clones.

If Tatum’s performance wasn’t so stilted, it might have had something to it, but as it is, I would suggest not wasting your time. This will be repetitive, but this film is the exact same plot as Save the Last Dance, except with the black/white ratio reversed. If that isn’t insult enough to avoid the film, then let the New Kids on the Block-ish Tatum push it over the edge.

Building a PC is probably the one right of passage that is required of any self-proclaimed techie. For years I considered building my own machine but avoided for one reason or another. But now, I think it is safe to say that ‘yes’ I am one very tech savvy individual.

Recently I was a very happy laptop owner, but for the last two years I was limping along. Purchased back in 2001, it was my second Gateway machine – a Pentium 4, 2Ghz 356MB RAM, 30GB hard drive. It served me pretty darn well. I did some Photoshop, MS Visual Studio, and even some MMORPGs, though the graphics performance was not all that great. It was the third PC I owned and cost me somewhere around $2500. She would have turned six years old this October.

Like I said, the machine served me well, but I had been nursing it along for quite some time. About three years ago, I had issues with the machine randomly shutting down on me. This was most likely because of overheating. I first thought the machine had power issues, so I spent $40 on a new power supply. Three months later I purchased a new battery. About a year ago I gathered the gumption to take the laptop apart and clean the heatsink and apply new thermal paste (I waited to crack the case in order not to void the warranty). It ran solid for another year. After reading about this incredible feat, my friend Will said to me, “Zandi, if you can take apart and put back together a laptop, you damn sure are able to build your own machine!”

Ironically, a few weeks ago, just after ordering an external hard drive and backing up my precious data, a thunderstorm rolled through the neighborhood. The power flickered but nothing seemed wrong. About 10 minutes after my lappy gave the BSOD with a kernel error. For several days I tried to work on my laptop, which seemed fine. As soon as the laptop got warm enough, I heard a springy click and about 5 minutes later the same kernel error came back. With a little research on the web, I discovered that the hard drive was most likely going bad. It was over! I had to get a new machine.

Sure, I was second-guessing myself. Wasn’t building a PC something that only people with A+ certifications did? What about electrostatic discharge? What if components came DOA? How the heck do you read the schematics for pins on the mobo? Luckily, I had several friends who had built their own machines so I had no problem getting guidance. For damn sure I didn’t want to spend another $2000 to $3000 on another machine, and I did not want to even think about saving personal stuff on my work issued laptop. So it was off to Newegg to shop for components.

Honestly I wanted to spend about $1100 on machine components. It actually ended up costing me about $1275 after shipping. That figure may seem high, but it included a new copy of XP Pro, a Samsung 22.1” monitor, a “media” keyboard, and a snazzy ergonomic mouse by Logitech. I decided I didn’t want to go through the ordeal of trying to convert my Gateway’s XP Home edition to this new machine and I avoided XP Pro 64bit. It was advised against since there were so many driver support issues. I may not have ended up with an OS that could take advantage of a dual core, but I still ended up building a pretty robust machine - AMD Athalon 64 X2, ATI Sapphire Radeon X1950GT 512MB graphics card, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB SATA 3.0GB hard drive – all built in a mini-tower.

I did encounter a few problems while building. 1.) the Zalmar heatsink/fan suggested didn’t fit. 2.) Freaking out about the possibility of shorting out the motherboard if I didn’t do the connections for the LEDs right. 3.) the TV tuner I order gave several problems with the driver installation. 4.) Samsung had a cluster of 3 or 4 dead pixels – at least 8 are required for returns. 5.) Working with a mini-tower was a bit of a squeeze, but luckily I have small hands, so that wasn’t much of an issue.

In the end I was able to find a friend who could use the Zalmar fan. I figured out how to read the motherboard schematics and was able to get the LEDs, power buttons, etc. without shorting out the motherboard. I RMAed the TV card I plan to purchase either a Hauppauge or ATI TV card at a later time, and as for the dead pixels…thankfully they are in a portion of the screen where I don’t usually travel. I guess I will have to live with them, but it’s very annoying to know they are there.

Why this configuration? I wanted to option of watching TV in my office (I work from home). I also wanted a decent graphics card if I wanted to play a few older PC games or jump in an MMORPG. The 320GB hard drive is enough for me since I don’t do a ton of recording or a lot with photos, but my mini-tower has a bay for a second hard drive if I ever need it. Also I partitioned the hard drive, giving me ample space to mess around with any flavor of Linux and Beryl.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the end result. On top of that I should be pretty good PC-wise for the next few years. I am not a hardcore PC gamer, but should I ever be in the mood, it will be easier changing the components of this machine than purchasing an entire new one. I am over being a laptop devotee? Hardly, but I am at peace having a desktop machine for the time being. The list of components I gave is not exhaustive one, but for what I spent, I believe I got a lot of bang for my buck!

Thank God for premium cable television. There are fewer boundries, few restrictions, and freedom to do as one pleases. For these reasons, HBO and Showtime draw some of the best talent and they tend to do their best work. The same is true for Showtime’s new series Californication.

Californication is a sexy, wild, and fun ride. David Duchovny stars as Hank Moody, a writer suffering from a crisis faith with an inability to write. He’s got an ex-wife (Natascha McElhone) and a daughter (Madeleine Martin) and the busiest sex life an unemployed, unmotivated, fucked up guy can have (and that’s A LOT of sex). He’s a perpetually self-loathing smart ass who can’t seem to move on from his split with his wife and after his soul-searching, dark novel was turned into a happy romantic comedy.

But Duchovny’s pitch-perfect performance adds intelligence and depth to Hank and a longing for something greater. What he is searching for, he cannot find, and the salacious situations he finds himself continually buried under make this a jilarios time. McElhone is not to be taken lightly either; she is Hank’s core and brings the right about of sexiness and nurturing quality to her character to nicely counterbalance Hank’s imbalance.

Some good twists and continuing storylines are well established in the pilot and certainly will play out in the future. The writing is strong, even though a little suprising from a writer whose only other credit that I can find is for Dawson’s Creek. Series directors, however, have a good pedigree and this may be a good instance of fresh scripts working well with established directors to make a fantastic episode. I think I’ll stick around for a while to see what Hank’s future holds.

6 outta 7.

My modus operandi for the last month has been getting up just like it was a workday on Saturday and going to the beach. This has yielded many pictures, some audio and now a couple of videos.

Honestly, it’s amazing how calming the beach can be. My Saturday mornings are filled with an endless blue above and below me stretching out into infinity. The sound of the tides is calming to doze to or to read by.

I try hard as a photographer/videographer to help people see what I see, to understand what I think when I see things. The images I capture are not objective. They are me trying to show you something. It’s funny to think about that fact in relation to my past career as a journalist. How objective can I be when I try to make your heart ache when you see the soldier’s casket lowered into the earth while Taps plays?

In the end, I don’t even know if it matters. People need to look at things more closely. They need to keep their ears and eyes open. Only in that state can they properly decide what emotions to feel.

3 stars

Philly, PA’s the Starting Line has had a tough go of it. When Geffen Records showed no interest in publicizing their 2005 disc (Based on a True Story), they moved to Virgin. Two years later, we have Direction, an up tempo, Emo-tinged disc that plays strongly to fans over the course of its 12 (13 via iTunes) tracks.

Kenny Vasoli’s voice sounds great singing these songs. The first single, Island, is a great song. The lyrics float lightly, and the beat thumps steadily. It will flow brilliantly from the open roof of your convertible as you wind down the PCH. It’s a song about getting away. What better summer album concept!

What You Want should be the second single, in my opinion. Thematically, the song speaks of wanting to make a difference, opening people’s eyes and changing their outlooks. The guitar work that begins the song is infectious and ties the whole song together. What You Want brings the album to a nice positive close.

The downtempo Need to Love stands out as well. Who hasn’t been lost in thought while traveling posing unasked questions to strangers? The pace of the song transports me to a different place which is exactly what good music should do.

The songs between feature solid performances, although get a bit repetitive lyrically. Several songs mention writing songs and explore problems that happen in that process. None of them are bad songs; they just indicate the importance songwriting had for TSL. It does get repetitive, which is something you don’t really want in an album. This might be might be attributed to an albumic theme, but for me, it doesn’t play as well.

Overall the album represents the band well. I do think Based on a True Story was a stronger album (and feel the bands pain at Geffen simply dumping it on the market). TSL kept it together though, and hopefully growth between this album and the next will knock it out of the park instead of this discs double.

Scale:
0. Shoot yourself
1. Poor
2. So-So
3. Good
4. Excellent
5. Instant classic

The first (and only) time I met Liev Schreiber was on the set of CSI. Schreiber was doing a stint on the show to fill a spot left by William Peterson for the run of Dublin Carol in Providence, R.I., at the Trinity Rep Theater. Schreiber struck me as a very serious actor who delved into the each moment with great focus. He was not to be bothered, and he only spoke when he, the director, and other actors were discussing the scene. Other than that, nothing else.

It was this same intensity I though I would find in Schreiber’s Everything Is Illuminated. A story that follows Jonathan, a man seeking reminants of his Jewish heritage after the horrors of World War II, could very easily be a tough, dour story; it is an era that has been often documented on film. Schreiber’s seriousness was there, for sure–the focused narrative, the imaginative inner life of the characters, the methodical structuring of images–but I had not expected a sense of humor. Goofy with engaging characters, the film features a Ukranian grandfather (and chauffeur) who swears he’s blind, his grandson (and English translator) who admires American culture film above all else, grandfather’s “seeing eye bitch” (a dog named Sammy Davis Junior Junior) and Jonathan, an American collector and awkwardy out of place in all of this. If anything, it’s a solid road trip movie, with humorous interludes. In one scene, Jonathan must explain to his tour guides and waitress that yes, he is a vegetarian, no he’s not crazy, and yes, he really did want food without any meat with it. The solid performances from all three men elevate the film substantially. Everything Is Illuminated relies heavily on cultural misunderstandings and sharp dialogue. The Liev Schreiber I saw on set was undoubtedly only one side; had not fully realized how funny he could really be.

Where the film begins, however, is not where it ends. The light-heartedness and humor switches to a dark, profound personal examination for each character. Most of all for the grandfather, the three men reexamine their relationship with their personal past, the past of their family, and history on the larger scale. Roger Ebert wrote of the film, “‘Everything is Illuminated’ is a film that grows in reflection…. I admired the film but did not sufficiently appreciate its arc.” It is a film that has stuck with me more than most and on further reflection, it had a lot more going on under the surface than it seemed originally. It touches on the horrors of the Holocaust, about living in a community, about saving and passing on heritage and sustaining one’s culture. It is thought provoking and pensive while also entertaining.

I’m sure a lot of these themes and considerations are transplanted from the original novel (which I have not read). One night, several of my friends were arguing over the book and one, a jewish history scholar, made the claim that the book is “ahistorical” and said “the shtettle is not an amusement park.” From what best I can piece together is is a a place of origin, a “home” of jewish faith. Now only remembering the words and not the meaning, I can only assume my jewish history scholar friend thought the story trivialized the jewish experience by influsing the road trip with a sense of nostalgia for the past, a past so horrible it still lingers in our super-conscious. I bring this up because while, yes, the film did have a feeling of nostalgia for the past, I believe it was more a seach for truth and understanding of what meaning those events held for those living it and how the past still affects us today. What the story is ultimately trying to convey is how we should keep a hold of the past, learn from the past, and learn to move on.

The dialogue is sharp, the scenes well paced and there are enough parts keeping the story going that it is an enjoyable film. My one major criticism of the film is how the two main stories of the film never added together. This is not to say that every story should tie together arbitrarily narratives that have no reason being tied together. Rather, in this case, the stories of the American’s grandfather and the Ukrainian chauffeur seem connected somehow but it was never clear to what extent. Did the American’s grandfather know the Ukrainian grandfather? Were they together in the same town when the Nazis took over? Do they have some familial connection? If you see or have seen the film, I think you will know what I am talking about. The connections between the two story lines seem present, but never explained satisfactorily.

At the end of this, I cannot quite decide whether or not to give the film a 5 or a 6 out of 7. I resist the 6 because it was off-beat to the extent it wandered a bit, but the 5 doesn’t quite express the quality of filmmaking I found present in the film. And no, there are no half ratings; that’s cheating. Ultimately I believe it deserves a 6 because it is a film one could watch multiple times and get something new from it. I’m curious to see what he would work on next.

I knew by the conclusion of the first scene of The House of Flying Daggers that it was going to be a boring movie.

The first shot, actually, clued me in. The film begins in the interior of a police station in feudal China introducing us to one of the three central characters. Remember, this is a period piece, set in a psedo-mythical land of epic scope and grandeur. If not in the first shot, certainly in the first scene we need a feeling of expanse and the place where mortals and gods meet. Where do we begin? In the interior of a police station.

Furthermore, the film continues by using a convention popularized by the X-Files, spy versus spy films and the like: a slug line informing the audience of the specific location in which the present action is taking place (often a time is given as well). For example: Los Angeles, 12:43 a.m. It is inconsistent with the style of narrative to include such a specific notation of place. It doesn’t matter where this police station is. Nobody really cares either. Epics often occur at moments of historical significance, like the Arabic Desert in Lawrence of Arabia, but cinematic epics certainly don’t begin in the interior of police houses.

So much about this movie was wrong. The dialogue was simplistic and used simile and metaphor, intended to enhance the mythical elements of the story, badly. Sexual innuendoes were crass. I swear I noticed they reused the same shot for different scenes. The characters rode American thoroughbreds. The story was unbelievable, the love story was worse. And the big battle at the end of the film never happened (what happened to those soldiers?).

However, what was truly contemptible, something I haven’t mentioned yet, was the egregious plagiarism from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of my favorite films. Ziyi Zhang plays central characters in both films. Though she displays her physical prowess in both films, she is made to do such ridiculous things in The House of Flying Daggers it isn’t so much of a joy to watch. Moreover, if you played those movies side by side, you would notice a direct similarity in the order of scenes, transition to locations, character development, and conclusion. The stylistic considerations to the film were exceedingly similar as well as the fight sequences, music, and settings–all a cheap cash-in on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s brilliance. The House of Flying Daggers even has a fight at the tops of bamboo trees! How awful is that!

While the one stellar aspect of the film–its use of color–stands out, The House of Flying Daggers is a poor reproduction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon hoping to lure the same audience. In my case, it worked.

I was bored by this film, and I have lost two hours of my life that I will never get back. If I save someone from this same fate, then I’ll feel better about seeing the film.

2 out of 7 stamps.

Like many people, I have watched the HD DVD/Blu-ray battle with a mix of interest and contempt. One side of me says, “How dare they be so stubborn as to allow a format war to happen?” The other says, “Given how Sony’s entire corporate structure seems to be based on owning their own format, what happens when they finally have one they control?” [On a side note, Sony’s lust after owning an industry standard format reminds me of a guy who completely obsesses over a girl who has no interest in him. It’s creepy and usually ends badly.]

Initially I was going to sit out this format war all together, but I was lured in by what I perceived as a good deal. I bought into HD DVD first for the princely sum of $200, thanks to the add-on for the Xbox 360. I was amazed at the quality, even on my 720p HDTV. Things just seemed more alive. With that I was sold on high def video discs.

Now we are a year into this morass. Things don’t look very good for HD DVD, pretty much only because of the Playstation 3. We can charitably say the Playstation 3 has been much less of a success as a game console than it has as a (comparatively) cheap Blu-ray player.

All is not lost for HD DVD, though, if a few changes happen.

First, for combo titles, DVD-only SKUs must be eliminated, i.e. 300 doesn’t need to have a stand-alone DVD sold if there is a DVD/HD DVD combo disc being produced. By doing this, you force people to start buying an HD DVD library. Once they have a few key titles (the aforementioned 300, The Departed, and a few others), then they will lean toward HD DVD when they upgrade.

Second, because you are going to blast the sales of these titles through the roof, we need a reasonable price for them. As an HD DVD owner, I want to own Slither, but I am not paying $37.99 for it at Best Buy, period. Once you remove the redundant SKU and the sales surge, I don’t see why these would have to be priced any higher than $21 or $22.

Third, if you have combo discs, have a minimum of one killer feature on the HD side. Give people a compelling reason to upgrade. Make them want to play the HD side.

Finally and maybe most importantly, transition to twin discs. For those who don’t know, the DVD/HD DVD combo discs are dual-sided. That means you have to flip the disc. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t always supplements you wanted to see on the standard def side, but when you make your consumers have to get up to continue watching their bonus features, you are turning people off. Twin discs remove this problem by having up to three layers glued together on one side. To my knowledge, the only twin disc released to date has been Freedom 1 by Bandai. Guess what else they did? That’s right, there is only one SKU for this title. If you want it, you get the HD version and the SD version, all without having to flip.

If these changes are made, software sales will go up immediately. Next thing you know, everyone has a few HD DVDs on their shelves. At Christmas when they are looking at things, they will see the HD DVD players and remember they already have a mini library of titles, and didn’t we want to see the blue screen version of 300?

When I was a kid, the Muppet Babies came along. It was then, combined with Scrappy Doo, that my detest for young versions of classic characters was born. Paul Dini must have had a similar experience because what he’s done with Batman Beyond is much, much different.

It’s the future, and Batman (voiced, as always, by Kevin Conroy) is on the ropes. During a fight, chest pains cause him to pick up a gun and aim it at a hooligan to save someone. This, combined with the age-related problems that created the problem to begin with, cause Batman to retire to seclusion in Wayne Manor.

We skip even further into the future and find Gotham a much different place. Without Batman to keep criminals in line, the underworld has flourished. Bruce Wayne’s corporation has been merged with a Lex Luthor-ish Derek Powers’. In this world, teenager Terry McGinnis (voiced by Will Friedle), is a kid with a bad attitude. When he blows off his dad’s orders, encounters a gaggle of gang members dubbed the Jokerz, has a fateful meeting with a reclusive Bruce Wayne, and returns home to find his father murdered, it doesn’t take long for someone new to be in the Batman’s cowl. Throughout the season, Terry will encounter classic Batman villains such as Mr. Freeze and Bane and establish his own rogues gallery of the likes of Ink, Shriek, and Spellbinder.

The transition of Bruce Wayne to a mentor with someone else in the suit works wonderfully. Wayne always played the father figure for his Robins, and perfectly eases into that role for Terry. He treats Terry as an extension of his own legacy, which fits well with the character. This is how the Batman of the future really should be.

Dini definitely knew what he was doing by this point, as the series is uniformly excellent. Even throwaway episodes explode to life. The settings are more futuristic, but they don’t overwhelm the general noir feeling established in previous series. I also have to add that the opening still impresses nearly a decade after the series premiered.

In the end, I think everyone enjoyed Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Batman. Anyone sad with its ending got a huge present in the form of Batman Beyond. My only regret is that there are only three seasons. They are all available on DVD, so there is no reason not to enjoy them.