And now we have dusting of stars

I saw Stardust on Sunday. The movie was fantastic and Robert DeNiro was, shall we say, absolutely fabulous. (If you don't understand that reference, then you can start your education at this website.) I first found out about this movie when I saw the trailer during Transformers. I remember being blown away by how cool the trailer was, and then I was blown away by how awesome the movie was! Stardust is on the short list of my favorite movies of 2007, though I need time to pass (not to mention several more months full of movies that will be coming out) before I can figure out precisely where it ranks.

As far as I can tell, the entire gang approved of the movie wholeheartedly. As I wrote above, I consider it to be awesome. Zifnab was even more enthusiastic, as this movie has converted his erstwhile trimvirate of all-time favorite movies into a quartet. Lemming correctly writes, "If you don't see it, it's your own damn fault.". The movie really is that good. I can certainly see why fantasty-philes might like the movie better than the average person, but I would nevertheless argue that the so-called average person who might not normally like fantasy should see the movie because it really is that awesome. Gazebo had positive things to say about Stardust as well, and I'm sure the sentiments all of us have been conveying will be repeated by others. (But don't just listen to us gush... go see the bloody film!)

I should also point out that numerous people seem to be making (both general and specific) comparisons to The Princess Bride. While I certainly observed the very superficial similarity of both of them being in the fantasy genre, the stronger statements aren't things that occurred to me at all during the film. Based on the commentary by others, this basically tells me that it's time to go watch Princess Bride again...

By the way, the title of this entry is a reference to a certain poem that you can find reproduced in full at this website.

Movie roundup

I haven't been very good about posting blog entries about movies for quite a while now. In this post, I'll briefly discuss some of the movies I've seen recently. A few of these deserve their own entries, and you'll notice that I'm including movies that I saw more than 2 months ago that I simply didn't get around to discussing. I'll list them in the order I saw them:

Paprika (6/9/07): Lemming felt that the movie was awesome. Zifnab felt that the movie was good. Certainly, I agree that the movie was trippy, but I found it to be merely decent. I was disappointed because the trailer made me think that I would like it a lot more than I actually did. (Though unlike one of our party, I remained awake during the entire flick.)

Knocked Up (6/16/07): This movie was great! I really enjoyed it! Now I need to go see The 40-year old virgin, which comes from the same group.

You Kill Me (6/23/07): This artsy dark comedy was nice and enjoyable, but it was good rather than great. I also appreciate the fact that the lead actor Ben Kingsley, who played an assassin in this film, has also played Ghandi.

Ocean's Thirteen (6/27/07): Mindless fun. (By the way, I was literally the only person watching this showing of the film.)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (7/11/07): I really liked this movie as well, though of course it was more of the same. The character Luna was awesome and the Raistlinesque view into the character of Snape was much appreciated. My plans concerning this series are to finish watching all the movies, let a little more time pass, and then start the story over with the first book. (I haven't read any of the books yet.)

Rush Hour 3 (8/10/07): This was the movie the gang saw last night. I really liked it, so I'll classify it as at least very good and possibly great. I enjoyed this iteration more than its two prequels, though it's possible my not having seen the first two films in the series for quite a while is influencing this perspective. (It actually has the highest IMDB rating of the three films, though there does seem to be some inflation in IMDB ratings for recent films. I know I've heard Lemming briefly mention this before, but I wonder if this perception corresponds to a statistically significant result?) The cab driver was fantastic, the female assassin was also really awesome, and I always enjoy the outtakes in Jackie Chan's films. Also, Chris Tucker was far less annoying in this film than he sometimes can be (which also has a lot to do with why I liked this film better than the first two). This film also can also be described as "mindless fun" and it's a particular good example of that type of film.

There are a number of upcoming films I really want to see. Among the ones (of those not already ot in theatres) at the top of my list are Balls of Fury, which is supposed to be released on August 29th of this year. In fact, I've been waiting for this film for quite a while --- ever since my ping pong coach Wei Wang discussed her role as the film's technical advisor (she also appears briefly in the film as the nun, who appears in some of the trailers). Yesterday's film included an expanded trailer for this film, which pretty much typifies the phrase "mindless fun". (It's definitely not going to be winning any major awards that are considered to be "good" ones.) Moreover, it centers around ping pong, which makes me want to see it even more than I otherwise would. Coming out in 2008 is the film version of Get Smart, which was a fantastic TV show from the mind of Mel Brooks that appeared way back in the day. (I had a chance to see some reruns while growing up --- and again briefly a few years ago --- and comedy has held up extremely well over time.) I was really excited about this film as soon as I heard about it a couple of years ago, and I became even more excited about it with the superb casting of Steve Carell as Agent Maxwell Smart. (Incidentally, Lemming told me today that the trailer is really good. I haven't watched it yet, but I will during one of the commercial breaks for the Dodger game.)


Non sequitar: One other thing I wanted to mention about the trek to see Rush Hour 3 last night is that while we were eating dinner at Carl's Jr., I heard an elevator music version of the song "Falling Down" by Tears for Fears.

There's a Rat in Mi Kitchen!

I really ought to go to bed because my body is shaking somewhat uncontrollably from sleep deprivation (and I skipped dinner tonight for something like the 5th night out of 6... I've just been feeling too tired at night to eat in recent days even though I feel hungry), but I'll start dealing with my movie review backlog. Well, it will actually be pretty simple. This movie, Ratatouille, gets an individual entry. One other one also might, but then I'm just going to lump them together.

Anyway, I saw Ratatouille on June 29th. It's a Pixar film, so of course it's very good. It's about a rat who works some miracles in a kitchen. Well, it's also about discovering oneself, rediscovering one's inner child, and not judging books (creatures) by their covers (species). The one major disappointment for me is that the credits were bland. And of course, the movie wasn't as good as The Incredibles. But that is a very high standard that I don't actually expect even of Pixar movies. At any rate, the film was extremely good and if you haven't already seen it, then shame on you!

By the way, points for anybody who knows the reference in the title without googling. (Hints available upon request.)

I need food. And sleep. I guess I'll have a fruit roll-up before I go to bed. (Sigh... I want to shift back to the correct time zone.)

Slayage

As was noted in another post, we (Lemming, Zifnab, [Mike]^2, Lanth, and I) have been powering through Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently. We finished the first season a while ago and are currently about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through season two.

I've been enjoying the series quite a bit predominantly because it has one of my favorite things in life: lots of witty one-liners.

Thus far, my two favorites are (possibly in order):

Xander: "Angel was in your bedroom?"
Willow: "Ours is a forbidden love."

Principal Snyder: "It's fuzzy-minded liberal thinking like that that gets you eaten."


So, I could write more, but I figure that can happen in the comments. Naturally, I always gravitate towards the nerdiest character in just about every show/movie, so I'm in the Willow camp (t-shirt style + occasional deadpan comments = win).

Sam and Matt's Wedding: A Review

Here's another post that I should have written about three weeks or so ago.

Anyway, in early March, I went to the wedding of former Techers Matt Reese '01 and Sam Bench '01. (Matt is now officially known as Mr. Bench.)

The wedding was held in a cabin in Estes Park, Colorado; this allowed for a lot of hanging out because most of us were staying in the cabin. Sleep was rather sparse but flicking was plentiful. In fact, that was my favorite part of the weekend, because I really don't get a chance to do traditional flicking very much anymore. The wedding guests included one very close friend of mine (Jit Kee Chin '01) and some people I had not seen in a very loooooong time (such as Selwyn Scharnhorst '00 and Jaideep Singh '00). I volunteered to help do gofer work in the kitchen a couple of times, but Jit Kee knew to keep me away from there, because this likely would have led to a negative contribution. (It's good to have that kind of reputation.)

Stephen Shepherd '00 conducted the wedding, and the neuroscientist in him came out in several of his comments. Anyway, the fact that he presided over the wedding was highly amusing.

A few people also arranged it so that The Ride started playing (though it was stopped after a few bars) right after the vows were exchanged. (I knew it was coming and my heart rate still went up!) The reaction from the audience was a mixture of horrified shock and utter confusion, so it was very easy to tell who went to Tech (not that one couldn't already do that).

Anyway, it was very fun and very tiring, and it was especially nice to hang out with some people I hadn't seen in many years!