Archive for March, 2006

Movie Review: Signs - 4.5/5

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Austen
on March 27, 2006
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M. Night Shyamalan, the young director who directed and wrote “The Sixth Sense” has another movie I’ve recently seen on T.V. called “Signs.” It stars Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, and Rory Culkin who is Macaulay Culkin’s brother (Home Alone).

The movie starts out with a father of two children (Mel Gibson) who finds signs in his crops… as shown in the poster on the left. Kind of football-field sized cut-outs. The T.V. then shows them that they are not alone and there are 18 things just like theirs in India. Then the aliens come.

The movie is very well directed and keeps you interested throughout. Mel Gibson plays a good religous man who gave up his faith after his wife died 6 months earlier, Joaquin Phoenix plays Mel Gibson’s brother, Rory Culkin plays his son who has a book that seems to describe how, when, and where the aliens will attack, and Abigail Breslin plays the little sister who… well, you’ll see. The acting is terrific, especially by Rory Culkin and Mel Gibson.

The movie is very much a thriller, but it also has a few funny scenes, but not so it takes away from the plot. M. Night Shyamalan did a great job of building up the movie one thing after another till the climatic ending. You only see the aliens briefly until then, and even at the end your not entirely sure what they looked like.

The soundtrack is done by Jame Newton Howard who also, more recently, did music for Batman Begins and King Kong. The music is a great accompany to the slowly building situations in the movie, and uses strings to scare you. Very well done, perfect for the movie.

[rating:4.5]

Titanic - again

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Austen
on March 18, 2006
in Movies
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Okay, so I finally convinced my parents to watch titanic. About half way through, they were thinking “It DID deserve an academy award, very well done… beautifully shot…” A good part through the second half, though they were like “When does this end? It’s soo long…” they just don’t understand… disaster movies are exciting. My mom, while watching a scene where Jack and Rose almost drown locked behind a gate on a ship says “Oh… I hate these kind of movies! They get my adrenaline running and I’m all on edge!” Um… THAT’S THE POINT!

Anyway, I was thinking about Rose’s granddaughter. I didn’t really understand the point of having her in the movie at first, except maybe to contrast Rose when she was the same age? Anyway… I got to thinking: Rose is the grandmother, but who’s the grandfather? It’s very possible, because there is a scene on the ship where she and jack do…. So I thought, that’s cool because the granddaughter is then like Jack’s living legacy. But then near the end of the movie the older Rose says to her granddaughter: “I never told anyone about Jack, until now… not even your grandfather.” THAT COMPLETELY MESSES IT UP! Isn’t the point that they’re true lovers and “My heart will go on” and that she loves him for ever and ever? So what’s she doing having kids with some other guy?

I think they should have made it so that her granddaughter is also Jack’s granddaughter - I mean the scene is there, and it’s part of the whole “living legacy of jack” thing. There is the possibility that the “grandfather” was only like an acting grandfather, like she married him and they raised Jack and Rose’s baby… which would be alright. But if so, they should have emphasized it!

Meanwhile I can’t get that theme song out of my head!!!

So this is Windows Live…

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Austen
on March 11, 2006
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Microsoft recently released their “Windows Live” package.

Microsoft said a few months ago that they would soon come out with a search engine “better than google.” That caught a few people’s attention. And now it’s out. Windows Live (live.com) is a new bundle of internet products. The first, and most important is the new search to rival google and replace msn. The search is similar to google with web, news, images, but it also has “feeds” and “local”. Local is basically a rival to google maps/google earth. It’s also has fairly high-quality satellite imagery along with “bird’s eye view” seemingly taken from airplanes, though at angles, but higher quality than even the best on google earth, in select cities.

In addition, there is also a new email service meant to replace hotmail called “Windows Live Email” which isn’t open yet for beta. And then there’s Microsoft Office Live which appears to be microsoft office, only online and to build websites. There’s also A LOT more things to do, that would take hours to read, and days to write. So just head on over the live.com (which you can custimize like google and yahoo and msn to show info you’re interested in.)

Almost all of these products are rivaling google and other companies like yahoo, which is an interesting step for microsoft. Just when we thought they were left behind, they’re back. More coming when there’s more stuff.

Amazing chalk paintings

Published
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Austen
on March 11, 2006
in Life
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I was emailed some great chalk paintings that, from the right angle, look 3D.

They’re by Julian Beever, and are AMAZING! You can see some more of his work (also non-3D) on this page.

[Thanks Warren]

PowerPoint and it came!

Published
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Austen
on March 7, 2006
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Should’ve posted this last Thursday, sorry I’ve been busy. Okay, maybe sick isn’t busy because I’ve missed the past two days of school, but whatever.

Mom’s computer came a week early last thursday! But of course it took 3 days to open the box and make sure everything was there. It was all very well packed into a fair-sized box. Mom wouldn’t let me take any of the free stuff like the keyboard or speakers, only to install powerpoint. Not arguing with that.

So I installed powerpoint, excel, and a different version of word (all came as part of ms office that came with mom’s computer) on my computer and powerpoint is SOOOO awesome!

I’ve used it at school a few times before and know the basic stuff but now it’s really awesome that I can use it and really know how and it’s soooo cool. In addition, we’re not even setting up the computer until the tech guy comes to help out when I can then finally get the free extra stuff. (Not that I couldn’t do it, it’s just that I’d probably mess it up somehow.)

Movie Review: Titanic 4/5

Published
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Austen
on March 5, 2006
in Reviews
. 1 Comment

I saw Titanic today (thanks to the wonders of DVR) on TV. I’ve been wanting to see it for a while because it IS the highest grossing film of all time. My parents of course said “that doesn’t mean anything, lots of movies…. blah blah blah.” But anyway, I saw it, and here’s what I thought:

The movie is almost 3 and a half hours long, a pretty long movie (still, nothing compared to the extended version of LOTR). The first half is about the poor guy (Leonardo Dicaprio) and the rich women (Kate Winslet) falling in love. Rose (the women) is engaged to another man and there’s the whole thing about how she hates all of the upper-class formalities, and wishes to be more free. Jack Dawson(the guy)shows here this, and the fiancee of Rose gets all made and mean. Then, an hour and a half into the movie - BAM, iceberg hits, and the titanic starts sinking. The first half hour after that it doesn’t seem to be a major problem, but then the evacuation starts.

After that it’s a thrilling movie with Jack and Rose trying to escape together, and the lifeboats, and then the fiancee gets mad and takes out his gun, and it’s a great 45 minutes where the ship is slowly sinking. Then, without reaching a lifeboat, Jack and Rose are one of the few survivors barely holding on as the half of the titanic still above water is pointed up, and they’re all hanging on, it sinks, and there’s the whole “stay alive, rose” speech from Jack in the freezing cold water. I won’t say much after that.

From what I know this is a very accurate version of what happened to the titanic, showing it split in half, sink, and the thousands of people left freezing to death in the cold water afterwards. It is intense, but still a great movie, with a very good soundtrack. (Don’t tell me you haven’t heard it).

[rating:4]

Also, happy birthday Aaron.

Possible Touchscreen Video iPod

Published
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Austen
on March 2, 2006
in Life
. 4 Comments

These images have been floating around for a while, but I thought I’d post them. Rumor had it that this was the iPod that would be introduced on the February 28th announcement by Apple. It turned out to be a “Hi-Fi stereo” thing that costs about $500 that’s compatible with the ipod completely - dock and all. But people are still saying that this thing is real. Basically, this rumored 6th generation iPod is just one huge touch screen. Because of that, you can turn it sideways and watch widescreen movies in their original format.

It definitely looks awesome, and sounds awesome, but there are a lot of problems. First - how are you supposed to click with the click wheel. You could move around by using the touchscreen - but to click on it you need a button or something - not a touchscreen! Second, smudges and fingerprints. Judging by the Nano, Apple’s screens for iPods aren’t very good. If Apple wants to improve their screens to be more like PDA screens, that’s the only way you can partially avoid the fingerprints and scratches.

These photos are almost definitely photoshoped, the one on top comes straight from images of the original (current) video ipod, just edited to look like a screen. So although this is a great looking thing, it’ll doubtfully happen. Still, it’s fun to imagine.