What did everyone think?

Personally, I liked it.  I know a lot of people are mad because it didn't really answer any questions, and certainly, I think that's a valid complaint.  But I still thought it was a really awesome couple of hours of television, and a fitting way to close out the series.  My initial reaction to the whole purgatory/heaven final scene was definitely a pretty strong WTF, but the more I think about it the more I like it.

Also, this (it's old, but I hadn't seen it before):

Actually, let me clarify: not as funny as it used to be.

I've been watching the Daily Show pretty much since Jon Stewart took over.  I was somewhat dismayed to see it slowly morph into an entirely political-centric show (since I have almost zero interest in politics), but the writing always remained sharp, and it was almost always very, very funny.

But it seems like over the last year or so, Stewart et al have become more concerned with the politics than with the funny.  Am I alone here?  Obviously it's still funny, and it does make me chuckle every now and then, but it does seem like the focus is more on political commentary / newsmedia critiques, with humour being a secondary goal.  It feels (to me, at least) like it used to be the other way around, with humour being the first priority and commentary being the second.

Even the guests are less interesting than they used to be -- they used to have a good mix of political figures, authors, and actors/directors.  Now it's pretty much all political people all the time, with a non-political guest maybe once every couple of weeks.  They almost never have non-political authors on anymore.  At one point I had a pretty interesting reading list thanks to recommendations from the Daily Show -- no longer. 

Maybe my tolerance for politics is going down, I don't know (though it was pretty low to start with) but I've been watching since the beginning, and I haven't missed an episode in something like five years, but now I'm thinking about just turning it off altogether.

So I recently decided that I was going to attempt to watch every movie from the book "1001 Movies you must see before you die" and read every book from "1001 Books you must read before you die," and of course, blog about it.  I'm sure I'll lose interest before I read/watch all 2002, but in the meantime the blog is here:

http://2002.omega-films.ca/

It's brand new, so let me know if anything's wonky.

...and all is right with the world.

 (I thought it was awesome, by the way.)

...and it's killing me.  I was supposed to see it yesterday with a friend, but then he was all "I slept badly all week, I'm tired, let's see it later."  So we ended up seeing the latest Zemeckis mo-cap abomination, A Christmas Carol, and now I'm going out of town until the 30th.  The 30th!  I can't wait until the 30th to see Avatar!

Urge to kill... rising...

Seriously.  I wasn't particularly sold on it from the trailer, but the movie is really, really good.  It's definitely right up there with Anderson's live action stuff.  If you're a fan of his at all, you really do owe it to yourself to see it on the big screen.  Even if you're not, go see it anyway -- it's a really fun movie, with such charming, beautifully shot animation; I really don't see how anyone could not like it.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back to peanut butter now that I've had an almond butter fluffernutter.  It was mind-blowing.  Seriously.  Try it, and prepare for your life to change -- forever.

So I just saw 29 movies over the last nine days.  Good times.  Some highlights:

Up in the Air -- This was just as good as the awesome trailer would lead you to believe.  Maybe better, even.  The trailer makes it out to be a flat-out drama but it's actually surprisingly funny -- but the humour never comes at the expense of the characters.  George Clooney gives what is quite possibly his best performance ever.  Jason Reitman has definitely come a long way since the enjoyable but overrated and smug Juno.  This is tied for my favourite movie of the festival with...

Enter the Void -- Sprawling, bizarre and amazingly visceral, this is definitely not a film for everyone, but I thought it was pretty mind-blowing.  I've heard it described as the last 20 minutes of 2001 stretched out into a whole movie, which I think is somewhat apt.  It was quite possibly one of my most memorable movie-going experiences ever, and a film that absolutely needs to be seen on the big screen.  Seriously -- I don't think they should even bother releasing this on home video.  You need to watch this on a gigantic screen and just let it surround you and draw you in.

The Loved Ones -- A really well made horror film that just gets more and more twisted as it goes along.  Kinda reminded me of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original, not the awful remake).  

Harry Brown -- This is a movie about Michael Caine as a badass vigilante -- if that's not a sure thing, I don't know what is.  The director would have had to really work hard to mess up this concept, which he thankfully did not.  Michael Caine was amazingly good.  Plus, there was a scene involving Michael Caine buying a gun off a shifty drug dealer that was one of the best things I've seen in a while.

[REC] 2 -- Just as good as the original [REC] if not better.  Pure, unadulterated awesomeness.

Perrier's Bounty -- An Irish gangster movie starring Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and a scene-stealing Jim Broadbent.  Funny,well made and almost ridiculously fast-paced, this was definitely one of the better entries in the gangster genre of late.  

There were some other gems as well -- A Serious Man was bizarrely hilarious, Last Ride featured a great performance from Hugo Weaving (A.K.A. Agent Smith from the Matrix), and Leaves of Grass was yet another winner from Tim Blake Nelson.  As for the duds, the Dirty Saints was so pretentious it almost came off as a parody of strange foreign art-house films, Making Plans for Lena (a "mystery screening" that didn't actually play in the festival proper) was unpleasant and boring, and Kamui (a movie featuring both ninjas and shark-hunting pirates) wasn't nearly as good as the premise would lead you to believe.  There was also Air Doll, which, while not a dud by any means, was a pretty big disappointment.  

Can't wait for next year!

George Clooney will win the Oscar next year for his performance in Up in the Air.

I shall post a link to this prediction the day after the Oscars next year, so that I may gloat.

That is all.

So the air conditioner broke down a couple days back, and now the damn repairman is saying that the part he needs probably won't come in until next Monday.  Next Monday!  Of course this had to happen during the like two weeks that it actually gets really hot in this damn country.  Son of a bitch.

So I'm thinking about starting a business doing wedding videography / corporate videos, and I'm applying for a government program that gives assistance to new entrepreneurs.  Part of the application is that I need to survey some potential customers, so... you're a potential customer (work with me here): what are you looking for in a wedding video?  What's important to you? If you're already married, what did you like/dislike about your wedding videographer?

If anyone can help out with opinions, I'd really apreciate it.  And I need to hand in this application on Monday, so I need feedback in the next day or so.

So, about a year and a half ago, I made this short film.  I submitted it to a bunch of film festivals, and it got rejected everywhere I sent it.  It's ridiculously long -- just about half an hour, which really makes it too long for a short, and too short to be a feature.  Plus, I think my reach really did exceed my grasp; I had pretty much no budget at all, so this particular heist movie was a bit over-ambitious (putting it mildly).  I should have just made a film with two people talking, especially since I wanted this to play in a few festivals and be a "calling card" of sorts.  Oh well.

So here you go.  It's not the best film ever, but if you have a half an hour to kill, I can think of worse ways to spend it.  It'll probably end up being the the last film I ever make. 

So I saw Star Trek yesterday, and it was pretty awesome.  I know I probably don't have the most credibility ever, but you'll just have to take my word for it.  I think it may just be my favourite movie of the year so far, and it's definitely right up there with the best Trek films.  The casting is great across the board, and the film does a perfect job of straddling that fine line between staying true to the original material while still appealing to people who've never watched any Star Trek (unlike, say, the ridiculously terrible Nemesis, which also tried to go for a wider audience with a more action-heavy film, but failed miserably).  There are definitely quite a few changes, but you never get the "this is a slap in the face to the fans!" feeling, or the feeling that things have been changed just to be different.  It's nicely reverential to the source material, with lots of little references for the fans.  It's exciting when it needs to be, emotional when it needs to be, and has a healthy dose of humour sprinkled throughout.  It's pretty great.

   

I don't get it.

The Far Side is easily my favourite comic strip ever, and makes me laugh-out-loud more frequently than any other comic, but I just don't get this one.  I've showed it to a bunch of people, and they don't get it either.  So what's the deal?  Clearly, it has something to do with the bowl of meat and the tattered state of the guy's house, but I just don't see the connection.  Someone needs to tell me what the joke is. 

And in case you're wondering -- no, there isn't supposed to be a caption.  I thought maybe it was some kind of misprint, but I checked another copy and there wasn't any caption there, either.

In case you care (you probably haven't noticed but I've been pretty much non-existent around here for the last couple of months).

 A)

I've been horribly addicted to World of Warcraft since the last expansion came out a couple of months ago.  If you value your free time, stay as far away from this crazy game as you can.

 B)

I've been preparing for my impending move to South Korea.  I'll be teaching English to a bunch of rowdy Korean children.   I leave on Saturday, so I'm starting to freak out just a little bit.

 I'll probably be back in full force here in a few weeks (once I get settled in and get my internet connection going) as my shitty laptop can barely run World of Warcraft.  I've been accumulating a fairly large stash of videos since I've been gone, so I'm all ready to go (assuming that everything hasn't been posted already).