Author: karan

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Movie Review: Man of the Year

Man of the Year isn’t a movie I mentioned in my Movies of 07, but that’s mostly because there was no hype around it at all, and I only found out about it when the trailers started appearing on TV last week.

The set up: A comedian gets elected president. How much more do you need?

Robin Williams is Tom Dobbs, a Colbert-esque comedian poking humour into news. One night, a member of the audience suggests he run for president. So he does, and because of a glitch in the computerised voting system, he gets voted in. Storyline ensues. What’s most important about this movie is that it’s got Robin Williams. Robin Williams. And Christopher Walken! Sure-fire humour!

Or is it? Williams drops plenty of humour, sure, but he’s obviously got a message to tell, underneath it. And that’s where the trailer and the movie go their seperate ways – the trailer seems to bill it as a non-stop comedy ride, while in reality, it’s a little bit political satire, a little bit we-have-a-message. That discrepancy got me; I was expecting more laughs, and while there are plenty, it’s in the grand comedy tradition, not slipping into screwball comedy. I want Robin Williams to do something like that dammit!

But that’s not to say it’s a bad movie. The message is pertinent, and this should be compulsory viewing in an election year. By delievering its message through humour, the message gets through and, while you’ll laugh at first, afterwards the message will linger. And Williams is Williams; you couldn’t be disappointed by a man that smart & ernest about everything. I’d vote for him, if he ever stood.

The best line of the movie comes right at the end: “Politicians are like diapers; they should be changed often, and for the same reason.” =)

★★★☆

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Spam: (n.) former problem of the internet

Akismet says: 15,309 spam comments blocked since I first installed it, about 9 months ago. 2 false positives that I’ve had to deal with.

GMail says: well not a lot cumulatively, but it’s been around 50 a day lately. Over two years, averaging at 25 spam/day, that’s 13,250 emails I haven’t had to deal with. Only one false positive that I can recall.

Assuming 10 seconds to deal with something like that, that’s about 80 cumulative hours I’ve saved. So if you don’t have Akismet or an effective mail filtering service…

… yeah, just thought I’d say that.

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The hardest thing about these things is coming up with this stuff

I don’t know, stuff is happening but then stuff isn’t really happening.

My sister’s moved out. It’s a little different, because she was the one that did most talking. We’re compensating though, and anyway she’s still calling regularly. Adelaide sounds like a nice town.

Been listening to Hilltop Hoods a lot more recently =D Sweet hip hop.

Oscars were good this year, though I thought Ellen held back a bit. The winners were for the most part deserving, though cases could be made for various others to have got it (Rinko Kikuchi was robbed).

Coming down to Melbourne on the 17th and heading back up the next day. Nathan’s put his wedding in an entirely too-far-away place, so there will be little time for much else =( However, I am flying basically free thanks to my trip to London (mm frequent flyer points), so it’s not so bad from my perspective :) Now if I can just work out everything else around that trip…

A week in Singapore at the end of next month for training, to be followed some point later by 6 – 9 months in London for my second “rotation”. I have no idea what I’m going to do in London this time around; I’ve mostly seen everything around there I intended to last time because I thought I wouldn’t be back any time soon. I’m not even sure I want to go to London… but then again I’d be mad to turn it down. Anyone even thinking about a trip to Europe this year can assume I’ll have at least a couch for you to crash on for whatever time you might be in London, so put some more thought into it – it’s worth at least 30 pounds, or $75 a night =P If you haven’t thought about any trip like that yet: get to thinking!

Iemma vs Debnam (NSW Election): Iemma, but not because of any convincing reason, just because he’s got the lead and he’s not going around talking about job cuts.

Rudd vs Howard: moving into the too-close-to-call zone, as opposed to a clear Liberal win. Very interesting move to throw Maxine McKew against Howard in a must-win seat – wouldn’t it be such delicious irony if the Liberals still won but Howard lost? Oh I would cackle long and loud. I suppose I’ll be voting from it from London.

I think too many people know about this blog now. There are downsides to getting recognition on Google. Perhaps scary when acquaintence comes up and talks about “that last fiction post”.

Yeah, Hiya dude. >.>;

… Which is part of the reason I don’t post so much anymore; it used to be anonymity to some extent, but now it’s more of a visible platform. And staying on the stage isn’t something I do so easily without losing some of the original feeling…

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So I Says to him, I say, oh, you’re never going to believe it…

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable, let’s prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

WFT-II was the only British software company that could be mentioned in the same sentence as such major U.S. companies as Microsoft or Lotus. The sentence would probably run along the lines of “WFT-II, unlike such major U.S. companies as Microsoft or Lotus …” but it was a start.

It was his subconscious which told him this – that infuriating part of a person’s brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing.

Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat when its founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila.

I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand.

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.’

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

— Douglas Adams

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Lil’ Steelpants Johnny

Reporter: Mr Howard, you’ve said that pulling troops out of Iraq would be a bad thing, and–

John Howard, PM: Yes, and I’ve maintained it, the Coalition should not be pulling troops out of Iraq, and I stand by George’s troop surge.

Reporter: Is it true that you’re also sending in more troops?

John Howard: Yes, we’re looking at sending in more troops, to help train more Iraqi police so that they can maintain law and order in Iraq.

R: Isn’t it true that police are the most targeted of all Iraqis?

JH: Which is why we need to train more.

R: To send them to their deaths.

JH: Ye-, no, now, that’s not fair. They’re a little untrained right now, and understaffed…

R: Because most of them are in the mortuary?

JH: Now I said that’s not fair, and…

R: Mr Howard, Tony Blair is pulling 2000 troops from Iraq, while you’re sending more in.

Picture Bambi jumping onto a busy night motorway.

JH: (mumbles under breath Bugger me) Well we’ve always maintained that the coalition should maintain an appropriate number of troops in Iraq

R: Which is 20,000 more Americans, 700 more Australians and 2000 less British?

JH: Well what’s appropriate for the British isn’t necessarily so for us or the Americans. I’ve always said they’re too close to the French surrender monkeys. They really should have moved the whole island towards America, that would’ve stopped the pansies from the Continent influencing things. Load of crazies, all “freedom and liberty”, driving on the wrong side of the road…

R: Like America?

JH: What? No, of course not, they do it the right way.

R: The ‘right way’?

JH: That’d be the American Way. It’d be unAustralian to do things any other way.

R: Thanks, Mr. Howard.

(*any resemblence to reality is purely coincidental)

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Movie Review: Babel

Babel is one of those occasional movies that aim to be a little “high-concept”, exploring new ways of storytelling in movies, usually to express an idea rather than tell a direct plot. It’s left up to the viewer as to whether they absorb the message, or indeed what message they absorb. Crash was one of those that proved to be successful enough with viewers and critics alike; it remains to be seen if Babel will quite achieve the same.

The story starts in the Moroccan desert, in a thread that forms the core of the movie. There are two or three other threads, depending on how you choose to look at it, which throughout the movie illustrate the idea that we affect each other more, and across greater distances than that which we commonly perceive.

What some might consider spoilers follow, so if you’re sensitive to those things, don’t read on =)

Continue reading “Movie Review: Babel“

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A Whole Year!

I’ve been working a whole year! Only 44 more to go.

What have I got to show for it? Um… Not a whole lot. Sure, travel, experience, knowledge, all that kinda fuzzy stuff, but nothing I can “hold”, y’know?  It’s one of those things about working in an information-based industry, but I do occasionally hunger for something physical to be produced from my endeavours.

Is it just me?