Two Year Hiatus . . .

Where did the time go?
It’s been two years since my last post.
Bleh.

 

My First Trip to China

I had the privilege of actually traveling to China a few weeks ago — it was for business.  My first time.  For a guy who “loves” to travel, I thought it was odd that I’ve never been to China.  My time in China was brief and I really got to see two cities; Beijing and Shanghai.  I did, however, reconnect with a lot of people that I knew from a long time ago who are currently working in China.  And that made the trip great.

My new travel strategy is to hit large developing countries while I’m young — namely the BRIC countries.

BRIC = Brazil, Russia, India, & China.

One down and three to go.  And as for rest of the developed world, I’ll see them in a wheel chair on a senior cruise later on in life.

I’ll slowly start to post about my trip.  This was basically a business trip, so the accommodations, people, and tenor are very different from my earlier backpacking/hostel days.  There are plenty of very adventurous 20-somethings out there running around doing what I once did a long time ago.

My whole philosophy of travel has evolved has I started using different guide books — I no longer use the Let’s Go! and Open Road books, which are fantastic books for young budget minded folk that don’t mind bumping into a lot of other young post-collegy expats.

I’m currently using a mix of Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide for my travels.  The Lonely Planet has great downloadable chapters in PDF format — I downloaded the sections on Beijing and Shanghai.  And I purchased The Rough Guide to China because it was the most current edition out there.  I like the two guides because they mention the really upscale accommodations with the budget ones — truly giving one a choice.

I’ve not graduated to Fodor’s or Frommer’s quite yet.  Give me about 10 more years.

More posts to follow . . .

 

Awesomest Pug Video: Memo Pug

Apropos of nothing, here’s a video of our dog, Memo, doing what he does best, being inexplicably cute.

 

Shantaram

Shantaram = Good book.

A real page turner without it actually devolving into super piss-poor bestseller prose. It’s not the literary book of the year or anything, but it was a damn good read. (Don’t get offended if you like the book — the author writes well enough, but he’s not up there with Chabon, Atwood, nor McCarthy).

The book is by Gregory David Roberts. He is an Australian writer who now permanently resides in Mumbai, India. Shantaram is semi-autobiographical — although it is a work of fiction.

Gregory Roberts (like his fictional protagonist, Lin), was incarcerated in Australia. He escaped from prison. He fled to India to start a new life (like his fictional protagonist). And you should just read the book . . .

It’s going to be made into a movie. Apparently Johnny Depp loved it like I did and convinced a few of his friends to back it. I am not as influential as Johnny.

However, I wanted to talk about the book before the movie came out and of course, inevitably, the movie inspired cover that I will be embarassed to be seen with (a vestige of my English major snob ways — what are you gonna do?).

Any book that convinces you to travel to another country is something. Mumbai here I come . . .

 

The Dark Knight + Noblesse oblige

I’m clearly behind in my blog.  Whatever.  I suck.

And I’m clearly behind in writing about Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight.

The normal litany of excuses:  work, rewatching Season 1 of Mad Men, work, and more work.

Please read Recycled Film’s musings and analysis of the “The Dark Knight” — very good stuff.  (You have to scroll down a few posts to get to the Dark Knight posts, because Charlie’s clearly on top of things and has moved on, whereas I’m still stuck in the past).

Great movie. I’m still chewing over whether or not it’s a better than Iron Man.

I’ve been busy, so here are some points:

1. Heath Ledger’s Joker made Jack Nicholson’s Joker look like a total p*ssy.  (If you want a more eloquent discussion on the two cinematic Jokers, please read the post by Recycled Film — good reading).

2. Chris Nolan made one of the best transitions from awesome independent filmmaker (Memento is one of my favorite movies of all time) to an awesome mainstream film director (yeah, I changed filmmaker to director — I think I did that unconsciously, to acknowledge the increased resources one has when making a movie that grosses $300 mil in the first weekend).

3. Dark Knight made Tim Burton’s movies look like Saturday morning cartoons. (However, in all fairness to Burton, in this post-9/11 world where Bourne rules with his realpolitik spy tactics and even James Bond has ceased to become a Cold War cartoon character, the world (and its flawed mirror, the movies) has changed dramatically.)

4.  My wife, who is a current public defender, really didn’t get the big deal about the transformation of Two Face (Harvey Dent, played very well by Aaron Eckhart) — and I understood exactly what she meant (yeah, I was a former public defender).  HE’S A PROSECUTOR!!!  That meant inherently that he was corruptible (most people don’t get that the majority of DA’s in the US are elected and therefore really politicians) from that standpoint.  I knew what would Harvey Dent would ultimately become Two Face — but my wife was not aware of any of the history with Harvey Dent.  So she just assumed that he was a villian and when he became Two Face, she kind of expected it.  Anyone who’s that sanctimonious and hypocritical is bound to become the thing they hate.  And yes, that applies to all those prosecutors.  So if you’re a DA reading this, go bite me.

5.  Don’t watch this movie with a bunch of pimply dumbass adolescent kids who are whooping it up in the theatre.  The comics have gone mainstream despite these idiots.  Now I’m going to write a letter to the editor as I take my daily dose of Geritol.

6. The whole notion of noblesse oblige is imbued into the Batman character — especially in this film.  I know that every comic and movie deals with the inner motivation of this dark hero as the killing of his parents by a criminal (it really wasn’t the Joker, was it?!?  C’mon, give me a break).  Noblesse oblige is the a very anachronistic notion that those who are more powerful (aristocrats and nobles typically) should look out and assist those who are less fortunate (peasants, normal denizens of society).

Superman is the perfect character to attribute noblesse oblige to — he is a morally upstanding individual that feels that because of his powers he must protect those who are lesser than he (mere mortals without the yellow sun given super powers).

But once you get past this notion of general revenge on the world, Batman also shoulders the burden that he too must protect society at large because of his greater abilities/resources.  Given Bruce Wayne’s place in the world I think he does have a sense of noblesse oblige.   He is a wealthy man, a smart man, a very capable fighter, and with almost limitless resources at his beck and call.  He uses all of these resources to support his night job as a caped crusader.

This has to be more than just a general sense of retribution against all criminal elements.  I’m looking at this in a very Marxist way rather than the psychoanalytic way that most people do.  Because as the movie points out, he is not about to let amateurs (those who wear hockey pants and try to do vigilante thing as batmen auxiliaries) do what he alone can do and do well.

I’ve overextended myself.  I think the next topic is going to be one of my favorite topics, Batman versus Superman.

 

WiFi is OK @ Coffee Bean

In all fairness to the Coffee Bean, I should note that their wi-fi is up and running.

And it logs on MUCH faster than the AT&T Wireless that is now available at Starbucks.

There are rumors that it kicks you off after two hours of use — although I haven’t reached that limit yet. I’ll let you know as I find out.

But as far as internet connections at Coffee Bean go, so far, so good. I’m back at Coffee Bean, although I now have to use up the Starbucks card that I got from the internet blackout from Coffee Bean . . .

 

Coffee Bean Wifi = LAME (RippleTV shows its rookie stripes)

I love my Coffee Bean. And one of the many things I loved about Coffee Bean was that it had nice super reliable and super fast wifi — which I can use because I have AT&T DSL at home and work (of which I’m not a big fan — wifi great, dsl not so great).

But I am writing this blog at Starbucks. Yeah, can you believe it?

Coffee Bean, probably being roped in by whatever slick-in-law-ex-dot-commer dumbass from RippleTV (the people who run the TV ads at Coffee Bean), decides to switch to them as their Wifi provider. I think RippleTV in turn, contract out with another company called Sputnik to do their work.

The whole idea is that the new improved WiFi is supposed to be FREE. You get the access code for your free Wifi by looking at the RippleTV — thereby actually looking at the RippleTV flatscreen rather than ignoring it like you would normally.

So get this — Coffee Bean doesn’t allow former AT&T Wireless users to login, but they won’t let people use their “free” Wifi for another week. BLEH.

It’s minor, it’s not a big deal, but it is annoying — considering that Starbucks performed their transfer from T-mobile Hot Spot to AT&T WiFi pretty seamlessly. And AT&T usually screws everything up (yeah, they’re the number #1 reason why I will NEVER EVER get an iPhone).

So it just goes to show you that things change all the time. I’m praising Starbucks, sitting here at the Starbucks and actually talking trash about my beloved Coffee Bean . . .

 

WALL-E for Best Picture or Disney you’re soooo screwed . . .

Saw Wall-E this past weekend. GREAT movie. Yes, this is another over the top enthusiastic endorsement of the Wall-E movie, despite it being a product of the Diseny juggernaut. And yes, it’s a cartoon. A story is a story, especially if it’s well told.

I’m not inclined towards animated features (for kids) and I don’t worship the Pixar brand.

HOWEVER, with Wall-E, they really outdid themselves.

I mean, really, the story is about robots and you care that it’s about these robots. When did we ever care about ROBOTS?

TV/The Movies/Books (esp. sci-fi) have raised me to be prejudiced and bigoted towards Robots:

They are our servants, they are our enemies, they must be crushed, they are jealous of our status, etecetera.

1. Terminator Series: Beware of robot masquerading as a big ass buffed out human — he’ll kill you. Beware of robot masquerading as a skinny ass LAPD officer — he’ll kill you. Beware of robot masquerading as a hot chick — she’ll kill you.

2. I, Robot: Robots needs rules (three really), because without them, they’ll kill us.

3. The Matrix series: Computers will rule the world and use robots to farm us of static electricity. And kill us.

4. Blade Runner: They wanna be us. And kill us.

5. Battlestar Galactica: Robots are better than us. Hotter than us. Holier than us. And they want to kill us.

6. Transformers: Decepticons are bad robots. They want to kill us. Autobots? Whatever, if there were no robots, no Decepticons, no Autobots, no problems.

7. Star Wars Ep.1, The Phantom Menace: Robot armies lead to Clone Armies, which lead to the Empire becoming taken over by a Sith Lord.

Etcetera.

Robots = Bad.

The protagonists of WALL-E are robots and they aren’t particularly warm looking. They look like this:

And yet we really care about them. They are imbued with such humanity that they become better versions of ourselves. How subversive is that?

And there’s the oft discussed lack of dialogue in the first half of the movie. Brilliant. BRILLIANT. Coming from a guy who was a fan of the rapid-fire-way-too-erudite-bombastic dialogue trend of recent times (really, I think started by Dawson’s Creek (Season 1 only please)). Was.

Best Picture Contender. But this movie was way too ahead of its time for the popularity machine that is the Academy to understand (I’m still bitter about how City of God was treated by the Academy). There’s no way the Academy will ever treat animation as a serious form of film — it may put them out of a job. Just like you would never vote for the talkies if you were a silent movie star. Plus, they’re idiots.

And the social commentary . . . I love how a giant invisible finger was pointing at the audience saying you are the antagonist and this is all your fault and it was still a great movie. Nothing destroys a great movie like putting in a guilt laden lecture in the middle of it. The rightwingers hate lectures because it’s everything they hate about the sanctimonious left and the leftwingers hate it because really, do you think choir members really enjoy being preached to? But here it’s done well.

And to clarify the above title about how Disney is screwed — really they are — after this movie, there are rumors that the bulk of the creative team at Pixar (whom Disney owns) that brought us Toy Story I & II, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo are leaving. Disney will probably be able to make a few megabucks off of the next two or three Pixar “branded” movies and merchandise the crap of them, but seriously, they’ll slowly kill off genre off like they did with their 2D animation movies.

Seriously.

But for now, enjoy the darling buds of May and watch Wall-E.

 

Why They Should Do A Remake of “To Catch a Thief”

Alfred Hitchcock’s “To Catch a Thief” is one of my favorite movies of all time. It had that classic vibrant color print (VistaVision baby!), the awesome locale (the classic French Riveria, before the high rises), humor, romance, and of course, the dramatic thirller elements. At the risk of sounding like the curmudgeon that I am, they don’t make them like they used to.

Yeah, as noted before, the movie is right up there with “Good Will Hunting” and “Karate Kid Part II” as my favorite movies — Some people try to impress you with their favorites — clearly that’s not the case with me — I speak the truth.

But back to “To Catch a Thief” — it should be remade. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah, I know, the original is really cool, there was the whole Psycho remake fiasco. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, right? I’m not suggesting that one do a shot for shot remake, but rather a redoing and an update. The only way a new generation of moviegoers are going to be exposed to this very different side of Hitchcock is if they remake To Catch A Thief. I know I sound like a Hollywood suit, but something in me would to see another version of this set in the here and now and I think I would enjoy it.

Hollywood has gone through a recent mini-rash of redoing/ripping off Hitchcock. Disturbia is Rear Window. Flightplan with Jodie Foster is a remake of The Lady Vanishes. Both Hitchock remakes were slickly produced by a creatively depleted Hollywood machine. Now there is talk of remaking the Birds. And there are so many others that have redone Hitchcock. So why not with this film?

So bear with me in my little fantasy about how I would remake To Catch a Thief.

George Clooney = Cary Grant

Obvious. The older man good looks and the self-deprecating humor, along with the smirk. Basically he plays the same character that he did in Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12, and of course, Ocean’s 13 (they really should have called the last one, Ocean’s Baker’s Dozen). He’s made his mark with Michael Clayton (a great ‘lawyer’ film, right up there with My Cousin Vinny and A Few Good Men — seriously), so he can go back to making light movies where he plays a charismatic scallawag. Perfect as John Robie. If that’s not the new coming of Cary Grant, I dunno what is.

The young French girl, Danielle, played by Brigitte Auber, needs a remake as well. In the movie, I found her character annoying (or maybe it was just because she was overshadowed by Grace Kelly). If one keeps the setting in the south of France (which is one of the reasons the movie worked so well), then the actress playing her has to be French. I’m not in any shape or form up on my French cinema — I only know Sophie Marceau (good non-native English speaking actresses from overseas should never agree to act here in the states in English — it kills their career, and I mean you Gong Li and Aishwarya Rai).

But I think an actress from Mr. Bean’s Holiday (yeah, I watch Mr. Bean) might fit the bill, Emma de Caunes (on the left):

Not a great picture of Brigette Auber (on the right), but if you’ve seen both movies (I’m not recommending anyone go out and watch Mr. Bean’s Holiday, unless you’re on a 12 hour transpacific flight, like I was), you’ll see that both actors can play the “spunky” ingenue Danielle.

But the big question is: Who would play Grace Kelly’s character, Francie?

I dunno. Someone beautiful but classy. Hard to do . . .

This would be the most difficult part of my purely academic excercise.

Hard to find that rare combination of beauty, poise and presence these days. Yes, I do realize that I’m on the verge of heroine worship here. There are great actresses in our era and it’s really unfair to compare them to someone from a different era (you know, Michael Jordan v. Lew Alcindor, Rocky Balboa v. Mike Tyson, Jackie Chan v. Bruce Lee, etcetera). It becomes more unfair when you realize Grace Kelly actually became a PRINCESS. That kinda takes the cake.

I have to actually think about it. (Natalie Portman? Charlize Theron? Rachel McAdams? Anne Hathaway?)

As a matter of fact, I think I have to get back to you on this one.

 

I Think My Wife Is Trying to Kill Me . . .

I think my wife is trying to kill me. . .

HA HA HA. Just kidding. I love you baby!

Michelle reads my blog and so I thought I would write this post just to get her attention. No, my wife is not trying to kill me. I thought I would be a swinging single bachelor hooking up with crazy women with self-esteem/drug/family/money/psychotic issues until I hit that strange demographic of the older single never been married live with my mother pedophile stage. Until I met Michelle. I knew she was everything I ever wanted in a soulmate (Yeah, I hate it when other people gush about their relationships, so my apologies, this is rather disgusting . . .). But of course, because she was so perfect, she ignored me the first time we met and continued to ignore me afterwards (and it wasn’t because I wasn’t trying . . .). But that’s a story for another post . . .

In a former life, I was a criminal defense attorney and I now watch my share of news shows. So, I’ve gleaned these lessons if you ever want to get away with killing a spouse (because the same things happen over and over again):

HOW NOT TO KILL YOUR SPOUSE

1) NEVER EVER TAKE OUT AN INSURANCE POLICY ON YOUR SPOUSE

It seems everyone thinks they’re being slick by taking out life insurance policy THREE months before the “accident” or whatever tragedy that they’re actively premeditating. If you want to make an easy 100K by killing your spouse via a life insurance policy, seriously, dude, look elsewhere. There are better ways of doing it. Get a better job. Kill a mid-level drug dealer. Become a prostitute. The life insurance angle always creates suspicion. Especially if you max it.  This is an old old story and the cops know it and so does the jury (please see Double Indemnity).  High life insurance policy = motive.

2) NEVER EVER GIVE OUT A MEDIA INTERVIEW

Guilty people, especially those that think they are smart enough to fool everyone. And usually these smug bastards are never as smart as they think they are. Kind of like that obnoxious guy at work who likes to correct everyone. That obnoxious guy is an idiot. Providing un-retractable statements to the media leads only to your demise. Cuz you’re not as smart as you think you are.

3) NEVER HIRE A MEDIA ATTORNEY

And what I mean by “media” attorney, is someone who is more interested in his or her own profile than in your case. Enough said.

Although the one guy who’s in the press a lot is Tom Mesereau, of Michael Jackson fame. Despite his proclivity towards double breasted suits, I’ve seen him in action and he’s good. But I don’t think he seeks publicity in the way some other attorneys do. I think he still cares about his craft.

4) NEVER HIRE SOMEONE ELSE TO DO IT

Because, as we all know, good help is hard to find.