A little bit of movie geekery -

Just saw The Italian Job - buckets of fun. THAT is what Oceans 11 half-tried to be, a quality ensemble heist flick. In fact, Oceans wasn't bad as that - it was just not very good as a caper flick, the heist flick's more difficult cousin. Some real fun car chase work, too, in Mini Coopers - Salon's review is basically just about the cars, in fact. And there's a cameo by Shawn Fanning, of Napster fame. Very much worth a matinee.

TiVo is a wonderful thing. Duh. Specifically, TiVo is a wonderful thing because I have, sitting waiting for me to watch, Raise The Red Lantern, Eat Drink Man Woman, and American History X. Adding to this over the next week or so will be Quills, Woman of the Year, Truffaut's Farenheit 451, Cabaret, Platoon, The Searchers... I think you get the point. All that off three channels - IFC, TCM, and AMC. I've got HBO too, but I don't actually watch MOVIES from there - that's mainly for The Wire, which starts its new season tomorrow night, by the way. I read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls recently, and it's amazing how much easier it is for me to get access to important movies now than it was when people like Bogdanovich were getting started in the '60s. Technology is a wonderful thing.

Got a DVD in the mail today - a most-likely-bootleg-but-I-don't-care-'cos-it's-region-free copy of Hero. That's Zhang Yimou, director of (among others) Raise The Red Lantern, responding to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen starring in a historical epic of China's unification, or something like that. Honestly, I don't care WHAT the plot is. That's a brilliant director, great-great-great kung-fu stars, and f'n Christopher Doyle doing cinematography - he did, among many, many others, my current favorite for the title of Most Gorgeously Shot Movie Ever, The Quiet American. I mean, this is *perfect*. Got nominated for a foreign-language Oscar, too. But Miramax keeps pushing the US release date, demanding further changes, etc... Screw that. This is too good to wait for a little thing like legality - I picked up a copy for 15 bucks (including shipping!) on eBay. It's got English subtitles, though I'm still guessing at the menus - I did find a translation of the opening and closing text, which is nice. I'm not going to watch 'til tonight - I'm going to go full geek and seal the room from outside light and sound. I like to be a dork sometimes. =)

Had a recurring dream last night that I went back to college. Truly strange. I've been having more distinctive and memorable dreams lately, don't know why.

Picked up Homicide: Life On The Street seasons 1+2 on DVD yesterday - I forgot how amazing this show was, especially the first few seasons. There's very little or no background music, there's great editting, great pacing, great stories...damn, I love this show. And there's the always fun game of "Didn't I See Him/Her On Oz (created by Tom Fontana, co-creator and writer of most of the early Homicide episodes) or The Wire (co-created by David Simon, who wrote the book Homicide is based on)?" Watching one episode, I think the fourth, I've picked out Edie Falco (a.k.a. Carmela Soprano, though her first breakthrough was as Diane Whittlesey on Oz), Lee Tergesen (the central role of Beecher on Oz), Luis Guzman (more movie roles than I can count and El Cid on Oz), Paul Schulze (Falco's husband, who played another prison guard on Oz and the priest on The Sopranos), and Sean Whitesell (a writer on both Homicide and Oz, and he played Donald Groves on Oz as well). That's five of ten guest stars who showed up on Oz. Nifty.

Well, damn - Sharon says he's against the occupation of Palestine. Let's hope he means it.

Ack. Still not working - getting a javascript syntax error that I *think* comes from the "http://rcs.salon.com/rcsComments/comments?u=1033&c=counts" line in my source. Anyone have any ideas?

Hmm...my comments counter isn't working right. It's throwing weird javascript errors up. Trying something now...

So the Buffy series finale just finished - a life-affirming piece, fitting in perfectly with the theme of the whole series...just perfect.

And then a promo comes up for what's coming on at 9 on UPN - America's Next Top Model. Blargh. You have to TRY to juxtapose two polar opposites like that.

Well, that does it. I'm off beef for good now.

I just figured out The Matrix. And no, I don't mean I figured out that it's a simulation, you dummy. I just saw Reloaded for the second time (work? What's that?) and I'm pretty sure I know how he could do that thing at the end, and what it MEANS that he could do that thing at the end. I'm not going to say any more here - spoilers and all. But go see it, if you haven't - it's not the deepest movie ever, but neither was the first one, moron critics' beliefs to the contrary. An amalgamation of nifty action, shiny effects, swanky clothes, and Philip K. Dick-meets-Baudrillard is not some kind of revelation - but it makes for a fun, fun movie.

Speaking of Reloaded- that bit where Trinity's hacking? That wasn't traditional Hollywood faux-hacking - it was nmap and then exploitation of a hole in SSH1. For more, check out the author of nmap's page. Oh, and the version of nmap used combined with when the SSH1 exploit was discovered and then patched gives us a window for when Reloaded takes place, sort-of-vaguelly: June, 2001. Seriously. Check the page. =)

So where've I been? Work, mainly. Lots of it. I've been busting my butt on a new reporting system for our build and source control systems. It's *massive*. Cool f'n stuff, let me tell you. Not that anyone else actually cares, but damn, I like doing good work.

That, and spending a good amount of time with A____. We've done the MFA twice in a month, watched movies, you name it. Good times, good times. =)

But now I'm going to write again. Or at least try to. I'm going to try to avoid being too obsessed with politics - going up against the Bush junta feels like tilting at windmills these days. I dunno. I miss writing. Let's see if I can't get back into it.

And don't ask me why I just felt a compulsive need to quote Gloria Gaynor.

And so you're back from outer space.
I just walked in to find you here
Without that look upon your face.
I should have changed my fucking lock.
I would have made you leave your key
If I'd have known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me.

I'm baaaaack!