Posted by Allen on April 29, 2005 under Introspection | 
I don’t frequently take the goofy tests that proliferate online…and even when I do take them, I certainly don’t put much stock in them since most were more likely written by bored 20-year-olds–there’s not a lot of scientific data to back up the findings that the Muppet to which I’m most akin is Scooter. (SCOOTER!! Please.) But scientifically accurate or no, this one on OKCupid caught me off guard in the effect it had on my always-delicate psyche.
(And no, I’m not out trollin’ for strange on the ‘net dating scene; my good buddy -b passed the link along because, I believe, it had much the same effect on him.)
According to this particular test, I’m going to die in September, 2050, aged 80, most likely of cancer. “Wow, 80,” I thought to myself; “That’s pretty good, especially for a guy what’s got the diabetes.” I felt that little satisfaction at knowing that all my attempts to live a somewhat healthy life–trying to control the urge to eat pre-processed crap, cutting out alcohol and coffee, running three times a week–could, if this online test were to be believed, going to pay off with a nice long life. (I hope it will be nice, anyway; it sure has been thus far.) Considering the average male life expectancy is 72-and-a-half, that’s good news for me indeed.
But then I got to this last little statistic at the bottom:
You’ve already lived 43% of your life.
And that kind of hit home to me.
We know the test itself is ludicrous, of course; some silly web script can’t tell me how long I’m going to live. But the principle of the results is the same whether the science is valid or not: even if I do indeed live a long life, I’m getting on up toward halfway done. I still have plenty of years left in front of me, barring freak accidents or hideous diseases, but it drove home the point that (and this is where we tie into the previous post) I should stop wasting time and get serious about the things I want to accomplish.
Don’t get me wrong, my life is not all about my accomplishments or the lack thereof; even if I never succeed in becoming a professional writer, I have the love of an amazing woman and two (maybe more at some point) spectacular children. Those things are far, far, far more important to me than any career goals. But regardless, I think that I’ll be happier with myself, more personally fulfilled, if I can reach the goals I’ve set for myself, and if I’m happier with myself I’ll be better for my family. (Also, I want my children to see me reach said goals to show them they can accomplish whatever it is they want to do.)
And I have more than just career goals to achieve, too–there’s so much of this world I haven’t seen yet, both in the United States and outside of it, and I would dearly love to show as much of it as possible to my family. I still can’t speak any foreign language fluently (since my three years of Spanish have atrophied horribly; my one year of Russian was barely enough to let me order vodka were I ever stranded in Moscow). I want to play the piano better. Guitar, too. I want to run a marathon at some point (some point far in the future–I’m still a long way from this one).
Forty-six years left. That’s really not much time, if you think about it.
Posted by Allen on under General, Organization, Writing |
While I certainly don’t consider myself an anarchist–it’s entirely possible that I’m the least anarchic person I know–I found this Flash presentation (via BoingBoing) to have a number of good ideas I can apply to my life.
Jim Munroe knows that being liberated from your day job, whether by your choice or not, can offer an excellent opportunity to work for yourself on projects meaningful to you. But the problem for most people, or at least most people used to the regular 9-to-5 world, is that having no structure in which to work makes work itself difficult. When left to our own devices, we tend to lack direction and have difficult actually accomplishing anything without externally-mandated goals and deadlines. (And yes, you can read every instance of “we” in the last sentence as “I.”) The secret to working for yourself and actually getting stuff done? Organization.
I want to be a full-time writer, but that’s been largely a vague desire to this point–I know it’s something I want to do, but I haven’t really figured out how I want to get to that point. I’ve made some baby steps recently–this blog being one, actually –but those moves won’t get me anywhere without solid organization and planning. Three of the tricks Jim mentions in his presentation seem like they’d be particularly helpful to me:
- Write down everything. If you write it down, then you don’t have to spend processing cycles trying to remember it or worrying that you forgot something important.
- Break bigger, scarier tasks down into smaller, friendlier tasks. This one’s a big one. I tend to want to jump right into enormous tasks without truly being prepared for them. I want to write a novel, for instance, but don’t want to do any of the necessary prep work for it. Thinking about what needs to be done, writing down each of those tasks and breaking those down necessary as further into small, manageable tasks will make the entire project seem much more doable.
- Attach your self-imposed deadlines to coincide with external deadlines. I know that I’m a deadline-oriented person, but the deadlines I create for myself tend to be pretty meaningless and difficult to enforce. If I give myself a deadline that’s connected to something I want to do–for instance, I know that John Scalzi’s accepting submissions for the science fiction anthology he’s editing in October–then that gives me something meaningful to shoot for.
I’m going to try to start putting these ideas into effect and see if I can start making progress on the various projects rattling around inside my head. Too much to do and not as much time as I might like means I need to make the best of use I can of what time I have.
(Whaddayamean playing Knights of the Old Repbulic on my Xbox isn’t making productive use of my time?)
Posted by Allen on April 28, 2005 under General |
Hot on the heels of the grandeur of the Serenity trailer, Apple now has the final trailer for Batman Begins and it’s got me pretty geeked. While there are certainly a couple of goofy moments in it, the many, many bits of utter kewlness thoroughly trumped them.
What we can see of the overall look and feel of the movie is fantastic–far more what I’d expect from a Batman movie than the primary-color fetish-fests Joel Schumacher staged. The aesthetic follows the grounded look of Tim Burton’s first Batman but without Burton’s (pardon the pun) gothic sensibilities. (Of particular interest to me was the fact Gotham City looked like a real city, not a city conceived by a production designer strung out on amphetamines.) Most of the actors seemed to fit their roles well (I most enjoyed what little bit we saw of the always-excellent Morgan Freeman), though Katie Holmes didn’t much impress me as the requisite love interest. Still, it’s only a trailer and I’m certainly not going to judge too harshly based on seeing twenty seconds of her performance.
I don’t want to say too much more here because I don’t want to blow my bat-wad, so to speak, when the movie doesn’t come out for six more weeks. But Batman Begins definitely tops my list of most-anticipated films of the summer. “But Allen,” I hear you asking, “what other movies are you looking forward to during this blockbuster summer movie season?” Well, that smells like an upcoming column to me, so keep your eyes peeled!
(Not literally peeled, of course; I’d think that would damage your vision pretty terribly and make it impossible for you to watch the glory of Batman Begins. I wouldn’t wish that on you.)
Posted by Allen on April 27, 2005 under Introspection |
I’ve been in this world for a little over 34 years; I’ve only been really angry, and I mean really angry, maybe 15 or 20 times. Ever. I’m a pretty laid-back kind of guy; I’m just not the kind of person who’s quick to anger. Or even sluggish to anger. But on those occasion when I do finally lose my temper, it’s a fearsome thing to behold (or so I’m told). I’ve always described myself as having an incredibly long fuse attached to an enormously large bomb.
Because I’ve been truly angry so infrequently in my life, I have trouble dealing with it. I know that anger is supposed to have some constructive uses, mainly in a “spur to action” sense, but so far the only constructive use I’ve found for it has been to make people fear me. Since those people I end up striking fear into also usually happen to be the people I care most deeply about–and because being feared really isn’t something I desire–perhaps “constructive” isn’t really the right word. (During one of my more memorable rage-fueled rampages, I threw my roommate through a window. Well, OK, more “into” the window than “through,” really, but I did manage to use his ass to break the glass…sorry, Dave).
I don’t always take the fact that I’m not easily angered to be a positive; I’m afraid it’s symptomatic of something bigger. I know that I don’t feel deeply enough for current events or for human suffering in other parts of the world. I care, but I don’t, y’know, care. I know plenty of folks who do: people who want to fight for issues they believe in or who seem to feel as much for people they’ve never met as they do for the people in their day-to-day lives. One of my friends cares passionately about both local and national political issues–I’m reasonably sure he’s going to run for public office in the next ten to twenty years.
And these people that exhibit that capacity for such caring intimidate me, in a way; when confronted with this great compassion for the human condition, I begin to think that something’s wrong with me for not caring enough. Makes me feel shallow, honestly, and I don’t like feeling shallow…even though it’s quite likely that to some degree, I am.
When Terri Schiavo gets used as a sound bit by politicians lookking to gain public approval, that annoys me.
When 200,000 people lose their lives because a freak tsunami slams into the coast of Indonesia, I realize the magnitude of the loss and truly feel bad and wish it hadn’t happened, but it doesn’t intensely affect me.
When I read about American soldiers losing their lives in Iraq…OK, that starts to push my hot buttons a little bit more because I so vehemently believe those soliders have no business being there in harm’s way in the first place.
But when someone insults or purposefully mistreats people close to my heart…well, that pisses me off royally. And I mean gets my heart slamming in my chest and makes me hands tremble–and usually makes me want to break something. Or, y’know, throw someone through a window.
I’m curious as to exactly why I am the way I am in this respect; I honestly don’t know if this particular trait of mine is nature or nurture. Certainly neither of my parents were ever ones to rally around a political cause; I don’t recall ever discussing much in the way of politics or issues with either of them growing up, so environment could definitely be a factor. But my father, whom I take after in temperament more than I do my mother, is also slow to anger–I’ve rarely in my life seen him well and truly mad. (One of the few times was when I refused to cut my long hair when I was a teenager; I think that probably says something, though I’m not exactly sure what.)
The part of me that doesn’t like to think of myself as shallow would like to say that this inadequacy of feeling (as opposed to my usual feelings of inadequacy) is something I’m going to change, but I don’t see how I can…and I’m not sure I want to. I can’t purposefully make myself amp up my feelings about anything–if I do that, then the feeling’s dishonest and therefore invalid. And honestly, I don’t know that it’s a bad thing that I care more about the people that are actively part of my life than I do about those half a world away. Maybe the best I can do is to care enough to support the people who care enough to make the world a better place; maybe all I can do is try to make my world a better place.
Posted by Allen on under General |
Welcome one and all to Do or Do Not, my stab at having somewhere to put those ideas that sprout into my brain and don’t fit into of my other repositories for pop culture spewage (Movie-, Comic- and Sportsgeekz; see links at left). I’m still not 100% sure what you will and won’t be seeing on this site, but I’ve got some vague ideas:
- You might see anything I think I have to say about politics, technology, spirituality or generally heady topics of that sort.
- You might see some navel-gazing; I have a lot of thinking I need to do about a large number of topics, and that thinking tends to work better and crystallize more clearly when I write it down. Knowing that I’m going to publish my thoughts out to the Webbernet and expose them to mass ridicule makes me more inclined to put actual work into those thoughts.
- While you might see some insight into the inner workings of my mind, such as they are, you won’t see any personal attacks on anyone or spilling of secrets or anything of the like here; not even any gossip, sorry. This is a journal intended to make me write more frequently and with more effort, not a LiveJournal intended to stir up drama.
- You might see some short fiction pieces. I really need to get back to working on my fiction, and the whole bit about publishing from above applies here, too. You get to laugh at my comical attempts to recapture my fiction voice, which I apparently allowed to escape sometime during the last two or three years.
- You will get to see occasional bits of news I find interesting and occasional nuggets of wisdom I find inspirational or amusing.
- You won’t get to see anything about sports, movies or comic books, since I cover those topics elsewhere (again, see left), but you might get discussion of music, TV, books or other forms of pop culture I don’t have specific sites set up to dissect.
- You might get satire. If you’re good.
So that’s what we have to look forward to together. I hope I can provide you with something reasonably interesting and/or entertaining to read, and I hope you can provide me with feedback–don’t be afraid of the “Comments” link below each post.
Posted by Allen on April 26, 2005 under General |
The official trailer for Serenity came out about an hour ago and man, does it look good. The effects look sharp and the dialogue is typically Whedon-y. I feel pretty confident in saying that anyone who dug Firefly, the TV series from which the movie spawns, is probably going to like this movie. It honestly looks like the TV show on steroids, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
More dicussion of Firefly and Serenity later, but for now, go watch the trailer.
Posted by Allen on April 22, 2005 under General |
Warner Brothers has released the first official picture of Brandon Routh in the new Superman getup from Superman Returns. Two things to discuss here: one, the suit; and two, Routh himself.
The costume I like. It’s not necessarily the way I would have gone with it, but I like it. I especially like the fact that they didn’t do what I was most afraid they were going to: give it the the padded, latex sculpted-muscle look. It’s just a set of tights, which is as it should be for Superman. (If you’ve got to go the padded, sculpted route, then you’ve probably cast the wrong guy.) I like the deeper red for the boots and cape and I don’t mind the slight tweaks to the S-shield. The main thing I don’t like, and this is just a minor quibble and a personal preference, is the small size of the shield; I like the logo to be a lot bigger on Supes’ chest, at least in the comics. Maybe it would’ve looked ridiculous in live-action, and anyway, the smaller shield definitely keeps more in line with the obvious influence for the suit, the old Max Fleisher cartoon series.
(I wonder…will the comic books adapt to match the way the suit looks in the movie? Wouldn’t surprise me.)
About Routh…well, he definitely fills out the suit nicely. From the neck down, I can buy him as Superman. I don’t think Superman has to be huge; he’s not super because of the size of his muscles. Christopher Reeve certainly didn’t have the physique of a bodybuilder. But Reeve just plain looked like Superman, and that’s my main complaint with Routh–he doesn’t have the face of Superman to me. Maybe I’ll change my mind when I see some footage–all I’ve had to go on so far is stills, most of which haven’t been related to this production. We’ll see.
Posted by Allen on April 20, 2005 under General |
The cast for Ron Howard’s adaptation of The DaVinci Code just keeps getting better and better. This movie was going to be an absolute smash no matter who they got to star in it, but man, they’re certainly not going for “movie stars” with the casting…they’re getting Actors. In addition to the already-cast Tom Hanks as protagonist Robert Langdon, Jean Reno as French policeman Bezu Fache and Audrey Tautou (Amelie) as cryptologist Sophie Neveu (though I would have preferred Julie Delpy), we now have Alfred Molina as Bishop Arigarosa and Holy Grail scholar Sir Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing. That’s most certainly an impressive cast so far.
My hopes for this movie are getting higher and higher. A movie like this one–a thriller relying so heavily on mathematics and small visual cues–could prove difficult to film, but Howard’s opening to A Beautiful Mind makes me think he can pull it off. And the cast will be top-notch. I only hope that the execrable ripoff National Treasure won’t predispose people to think The DaVinci Code’s going to suck just as badly.
Posted by Allen on April 19, 2005 under Movie Reviews, Movies, Pop Culture |
Ocean’s Eleven was one of my favorite movies of 2001: great cast of actors and an excellent director (Steven Soderbergh) making an easy, fluffy movie and obviously having a ball doing it. The witty interplay between the characters and the slickly-executed heist succeeded largely because the A-list stars were obviously having fun making the movie. The audience felt more like they were privy to a Hollywood party that happened to result in a movie than like they were watching a crassly cobbled-together clunker driven by some studio’s marketing department.
The same can’t be said, however, for its sequel, Ocean’s Twelve. While O12 would seem to have all of the compenents of the original in place, it’s missing one crucial part: the fun.
I think it should be writ down as Tinseltown Law that George Clooney and Brad Pitt should be required to make a movie together every couple of years. Both Clooney and Pitt are pretty boys who really wish they weren’t; neither of them takes themselves all that seriously; both, honestly, are among my favorite actors. Their chemistry together was one easily of the best parts of Ocean’s Eleven…so, of course, they have very few scenes together in the sequel. Clooney might have top billing again, but the importance of his Danny Ocean has been pushed slightly off to the side in favor of Pitt’s Rusty Ryan. That alone isn’t a problem; Rusty’s actually a more intriguing character than Danny.
| Ocean’s Twelve (2004) |
| Grade: C+ |
| Directed By: |
Steven Soderbergh |
| Written By: |
George Nolfi |
| Starring: |
George Clooney
Brad Pitt
Julia Roberts
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Matt Damon
Vincent Cassel |
| Studio: |
Warner Brothers |
| Other Links: |
Official Site |
The problem’s more with the members of the infamous eleven not named Rusty or Danny…they’re largely non-existent. It felt like the actors were each under contract requiring them to come back for a sequel, but the producers weren’t required to do anything interesting with them. Bernie Mac spends almost half the movie in jail–if it weren’t for a cutaway to him late in the game I’d have forgotten he was even part of the story. Don Cheadle gets to do almost nothing; same with Elliott Gould and Carl Reiner. Casey Affleck and Scott Caan might as well not even have been in the movie (though their absence might have made the movie better). Julia Roberts has a limited part, likely in no small part because of her real-life pregnancy, but she at least gets to tweak her public image some.
The script for O12 was reworked from an earlier, unrelated script that Warner Brothers asked screeenwriter George Nolfi to refashion for the O11 characters, and it shows: the movie feels very much like the characters from the original were shoved into a story that didn’t concern them. The plot involving master thief “The Night Fox” (Vincent Cassel) and his pursuit by Interpol (excuse me, “Europol”) detective Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) feels entirely separate from the goings-on of the rest of the crew, though there are efforts made to connect the storylines. Nolfi and Soderbergh didn’t use quite enough stitching between the two storylines, however, and the resulting jumble doesn’t hold together well.
I don’t mean for all of this criticism to imply that Ocean’s Twelve is worthless–while the movie doesn’t compare well with the original, it’s still reasonably entertaining and has some funny moments: Roberts’ awkward situation toward the end of the movie; Topher Grace’s repeat cameo, once again playing a not-so-flattering version of himself, as well as the other suprise celebrity cameos; Cassel’s performace as the extremely confident and slightly skeevy “Night Fox” (man, how does he move like that?); and Pitt and Clooney both bring the same charm they brought to the first film. Not a bad way to spend two hours, but it felt not unlike visiting old friends you haven’t seen in awhile and discovering you just don’t enjoy their company as much as you used to.
Posted by Allen on April 18, 2005 under Movie Reviews, Movies, Pop Culture |
Miles Raymond, the wine connossuier at the heart of Alexander Payne’s Sideways, would surely have looked down on, if not openly mocked, the bottle of wine the wife and I opened up as we cozied down on the couch to watch this fascinating movie. The wine was an ‘02 Firesteed pinot noir, and though Miles may be a fan of fine pinots, this $9.99 bottle would surely not have met his definition of “fine.” (It barely met my definition of fine, and I’m far from the wine expert Miles is–I prefer a good cold English stout with lots of suds, preferably served up with something that was once part of a cow.) Wine–the tasting of it, the savoring, the buying, the talking about it–is Miles’ passion, possibly the only passion left in his life as the movie opens.
Sideways has a very simple story driven by very complex characters: Paul Giamatti plays the emotionally crippled and neurotic Miles, who takes best pal Jack (Thomas Haden Church), an out-of-work actor who specializes in voice overs, on a week-long pre-wedding trip through California’s wine country, ostensibly to teach Jack something about wine…though Jack’s motivations for the trip reside somewhat south of his wine palate (in Jack’s words, he wants to “get his nut on,” a phrase we don’t hear nearly enough in non-pornographic movies). And that’s exactly what he does, as Miles tries to keep the fragments of his plans for their trip–and his sanity–together along the way.
Thanks to Jack’s boyish charms (and here I’m really using “boyish” as a synonym for “obnoxious”), Miles and Jack end up pairing off with two locals: Miles with the stunning Maya (Virigina Madsen), a waitress studying to be a horticulturist, and Jack with Stephanie (Sandra Oh), who works at a winery and really isn’t studying to be much of anything–she lives completely in the moment, which makes her perfect for Jack, who’s trying desperately to fit a lot of living into the moments before his wedding. The complex flavors of this foursome blend deliciously. Much like in Closer, the entire movie centers around the dynamics between and among four people, though the characters in Sideways are far less vitrolic and far more likable those in Closer.
| Sideways (2004) |
| Grade: A |
| Directed By: |
Alexander Payne |
| Written By: |
Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
Based on the novel by Rex Pickett |
| Starring: |
Paul Giamatti
Thomas Haden Church
Virginia Madsen
Sandra Oh |
| Studio: |
Fox Searchlight |
| Other Links: |
Official Site |
Giamatti’s performance as Miles was easily one of the best acting jobs of the year–how he didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for his performance is completely beyond me. All I can think of is that Giamatti, normally known as a classic example of “That Guy” from any number of films, doesn’t fit the standard Hollywood concept of a “lead actor” as much as guys like Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx. The Academy already had a “character guy” in Don Cheadle, so the short, balding, pudgy, nerdy Giamatti gets left out, and that’s really a shame. Giamatti absolutely nails the insecurity, anxiety, hurt and disappointment of Miles. It’s a tough job Giamatti has for himself in this movie: he has to take a dishonest, weak mess of a man and make the audience care for him–and root for him. And Giamatti more than meets the challenge.
Madsen’s reponsibility in this movie is almost as tough as Giamatti’s: she has to make the audience fall in love with her right alongside Miles. She accomplishes most of that job simply by being luminous, which she does exceedingly well. But she’s also got to convince us that she’s smart, capable, and driven…yet sensitive enough to be attracted to a neurotic schlub like Miles. Maya is both Miles’ ultimate woman and his unattainable fantasy at the same time (or so he thinks; he seems completely oblivious to the near-constant “hey, I’m interested” signals she throws him). Maya, like Miles, is also somewhat broken: she’s coming off of a painful divorce and to her, Miles represents everything her ex-husband wasn’t and couldn’t be. As much as she clearly likes Miles, she’s tentative and conflicted.
Jack and Stephanie are, in many ways, the anti-Miles and Maya. While Miles and Maya both listen to their heads too much, spending hours on end talking, Stephanie and Jack fall into bed almost immediately. Stephanie wraps her heart around the shallow but loveable Jack; she’s needy yet passionate, emotionally fragile, more than a little irresponsible (we see her mother caring for Stephanie’s six-year-old more than we do Stephanie), yet an unforgiving warrior when injured. (This might be a good place to interject the fact that I don’t normally find Sandra Oh particularly attractive, but wow, she’s smokin’ hot in this movie.)
Church digs his way out from the cinematic detritus that is his recent film career to find a part perfect for his smooth egotism; it’s not hard to imagine that the once-famous actor Church is playing is a minor-chord variation on himself. Church reveals all in this movie–literally–as a man wildly out of touch with himself and what he truly wants. Jack is everything a woman like Stephanie could want–charismatic, wild, passionate, caring–and yet at the same time he disgusts her: he’s a liar and a cheat. Church, who (like Madsen and unlike Giamatti) was nominated for an Oscar for his work, brings both sides of Jack to life and finds surprising depth in a character that initially seems like one-dimensional comic relief.
Payne’s previous movies have been kind of hit-and-miss with me. I loved the hell out of the exuberant Election but was unimpressed by the bleak melancholy of About Schmidt. Payne’s complex characters usually don’t find themselves in situations too far removed from the mundane–he seems more intrigued by examining the “real world” reactions of his characters to situations just outside their comfort zones. Miles Raymond’s comfort zone barely extends past his skin, if even that far, so Payne doesn’t have to push far with him, and the results he gets satisfy like a velvety smooth Zinfandel.
