musings

I saw Bubba Ho-Tep on Friday night. It’s a brilliant movie. Bruce Campbell plays an old Elvis Presley. No, he’s not dead. Elvis traded places with an impersonator back in the 70′s and it’s the impersonator that’s dead. Of course, nobody believes poor old Elvis – they just humour him. Ossie Davis plays the only guy that believes him. Mind you, he also thinks he’s John F. Kennedy. Anyway, the movie’s set in a rest home in Texas that’s haunted by a mummy, and Elvis and JFK take it upon themselves to destroy the mummy. The movie won awards at the US Comedy Arts festival, and was an official selection at both the Toronto and Hong Kong international film festivals. Definitely worth seeing.

I’ve deleted it, because it offended me, but I just had a spam comment appear in response to my post about Van Helsing. What the Hell is going on? I mean, spam email is one thing, but spam log comments? Who the Hell does that? Who do they think the target audience is? I’m pretty impressed at the idiocy behind this, though. I mean, somebody had to write a script to find web log comment forms and fill them out.

I’m not using Blogger as my journalling tool anymore, but I did use it for a long time, until this site got started. Anyway, Blogger’s relaunched, with a new look and feel, and new features like standards compliant templates. It looks really nice, and it’s much more streamlined than before. If you’re looking for an easy way to start an online journal, I can’t think of a better way to start.

So, I went and saw Van Helsing tonight. I know, I know, the reviews were uniformly bad, but the trailers at least made it look like fun summer blockbuster. I should’ve known better. It isn’t worse than House of the Dead, but it isn’t a whole lot better. The plot is horrid, and the acting even worse. Not only did everyone don a terrible accent, not one actor could hold said terrible accent for an entire scene. Top that with painfully bad CG and you’ve got a big budget bomb. Save yourselves! It’s too late for me, but you can still escape with your lives!
(On the upside, Kate Beckinsale looks really hot in that tight outfit she wears.)

Showcase showed The Ninth Gate on TV last night, and I decided to watch it again. I’d first seen it with my friend Mike Witt in San Jose, when I was there to interview at Namco. As I recall, it was a visually stunning film, but not a particularly great story. I enjoyed it rather more the second time through, though. See, this time I had the benefit of being able to read a few interpretations by other people, with more knowledge of Christian mythology than I, and I was much better able to understand the significance of a lot of the imagery in the film. I’m now intrigued enough that I’d like to read the book on which the movie was based. The cast was excellent (it’s a Depp flick, so I’m biased right away), and the performances were uniformly good, and I love Roman Polanski’s style, so the movie does have a lot going for it. I’m sure the movie works better if you’re more versed in Christian mythology than I, but I’d say it’s worth watching.

Hamilton, Ontario has spawned a musical demon in the guise of Warsawpack. Think Rage Against the Machine meets Godspeed You Black Emperor!. And it’s not just their music that rocks – they have a really great web site too. Check out the song “We Conquer” on the samples page. You’ll not be sorry. Thanks go out to Kourosh for pointing these guys out to me. I’m looking forward to seeing these guys live.