Dr. Doggin It

Beth and I saw Dr. Dog last night.
And it was fantastic.



Dr. Dog - The Old Days (via thetapeisnotsticky)

Dr. Dog - The Ark (via quarterlifeparty)

Dr. Dog - The Rabbit, the Bat, the Reindeer (via kate.oberlist.com

Dr. Dog - My Old Ways via weallbelong

We shared the charming experience of standing behind a group of hardcore pot smokers. Apparently I give off vibes as being one myself because I was randomly asked by a drunk blonde if she could get a toke. I kindly informed her to ask the theater patrons ahead of us.

Great times for all were to be had.

Brick - A (Very, Very) Delayed Movie Review

View Trailer
Brick
****-

It's fun reviewing film's like Brick because there really is no leeway when it comes to the viewers opinion. You're either going to like this movie, or you're going to hate it, like my roommates do. The concept is simple, Brick is a film-noir mystery set in a modern day highschool. The premise on the other hand is rather sophisticated, Brendan has just found his old girlfriend dead underneath an old tunnel. Last he heard from her she mentioned something along the lines of a bad Brick with a Pin on it. But kids being what they are these days, Brendan doesn't want revenge with whoever pulled the trigger, he wants everyone who was involved.

In a way, I would be more willing to compare Brick to the Baz Luhrmann remake of Romeo and Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. The dialogue seems out of place, the character interactions seem oddly forced, but there is this undeniable air of intentionality to it. It's like a mystery novel come to life. Characters converse with lingo heavily weighed down by intensive 1940's slang, spitting out words so fast that it takes a few seconds even to mentally register what's going on.

The common complaint concerning this is that the dialogue is initially so distracting that it becomes impossible for some viewers to accept the fact that these characters are even in highschool at all. The film is rather brutal in it's innefficiency to provide it's audience with a moment to suspend their disbelief. You either go along with it, or you complain throughout the ride.

Comparing Brick to Romeo + Juliet is in some ways litterally comparing second-hand mystery novels to Shakespeare, however in this case the levels of sophistication have been reversed. Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet was an scholary work of literature catered to highschoolers, Brick is a highschool drama catered to literature scholars. It is intelligent, intruiging, and, as one of the film's characters notes in regards to his love for Tolkien, Brick exists in an immersive universe you can't help but want to be a part of.

The least anyone can say about Brick is that it is original.

But I think we need to slow down here.

Original?

A crime saga starring kids?

Aren't we forgetting something here?

A little film I like to refer to as, Bugsy Malone?



You know, I've never actually seen Bugsy Malone. Probably because after watching the trailer just now I'm thinking the same thing I did when I saw the trailer when I was ten years old. But if that movie has the point I'm going to make right now, then well done Bugsy.

There is something inheritly childish, maybe even romantacized, about the crime world we have captured through film and written stories. Roger Ebert in his review of Bugsy said, "we remember that the old Bogart and Cagney classics had a childlike innocence, too. The world was simpler then. Now it's so complicated maybe only a kid can still understand the Bogart role." The same would probably hold true for highschool students, the delinquents of the adult world, the members of a social group in which everyone is an outcast. What would the Bogart from the Maltese Falcon been like had he been in your homeroom? I think Brendan is probably a close bet.

For those who embrace mystery films, even in their convoluted flaws, Brick will easily fit in that niche you didn't even know you had. It did for me, and with each repeated viewing it tends to grow for me even more.
For the rest of you, however, who consider Brick to be an excuse for artsy people to further inflate their ego's, I suggest you wait. Even if you don't like it, I consider it to be a promising look at a director with an original point of view.



Watch it.

I Post On My Blog Fairly Frequently

I'm not going to lie to you.

I have no idea what to post today.

I've spent that past two days mostly running errands I have put off for a month, such as getting the Honda checked out. Apparently there was some kind of recall for the brakes, along with something along the lines of the wheels possibly coming off during traffic. So I guess it was a good idea to get it looked over.

Me driving a Honda

Today it'll be runs to the Post office, and maybe dropping off job applications.
Luckily, I'm now basically fully registered for going back to Biola University this Fall. Except for the last step which involves actually paying the money to go there. So hopefully I can figure that out.
When I say hopefully, I mean, I'm going to need to rob a bank.
So if you have any advice, or a gun and an inconspicuous hide-out, please let me know.

In other news, I foud out yesterday that my house-mates had never seen the video of the Lyre Bird.
Have you?



Ah, David Attenborough, we spare no expense.

This mash-up of it is charming too.



To complete this entirely unneccessary post, I will include a photo of my niece amber.

mAwwwwww

Okay, one more.

CUTE.

Alright, I'm done.

Commercials, Kangaroo's, and the Dirty Mind

This story may not be entirely appropriate.

We were watching TV a few nights ago when this commercial for Aussi Shampoo suddenly appeared.



All of us tend to zone-out during commercial breaks, so I was surprised when Anthony unexpectedly leaned forward with his eyes wide open.

"Wait." He said, with a confused and disturbed expression. "Rewind it!"

I usually forget that our cable box even has the ability to rewind shows. Slowly leaning forward from my imbedded groove in the couch, I reached for the remote control.
As I fumbled with the buttons I decided to ask, "Why exactly do we need to rewind this?"
Anthony looked at me, apparently unsure how to phrase his response. Eventually he said, "I'm pretty sure that shampoo bottle just shot out of that Kangaroo's vagina."

Now, I want you to think long and hard about that sentance, because I'm fairly certain no one has ever, or will ever utter it again.

"Huh." I replied, while pressing the play button.
I watched it closely. It certainly looked close enough during the fast editing, but the only way to be sure would be to watch it again.



"Whoa. Wait, no. No, that's it's pouch." I explained.
"Ohhhhh!" Anthony exclaimed.

But there was this undeniable air of dissappointment in the room. It was as though we just missed a moment in history. I think, deep down inside, we all live in a world where we would like to see a stuffed-animal kangaroo shoot shampoo bottles out of it's vagina on television. Perhaps someday we can, for our children's sake, make it happen.
Or we could all just move to Japan. I bet they have all sorts of hair care products shooting out of their animals.

21: Movie Review

View Trailer
21
**---

The MIT Blackjack Team was a collection of gifted math students who combined forces and, by use of various card counting techniques, managed to outsmart numerous casino's and beat the game of blackjack. The team goes all the way back to the 1979, when MIT offered a mini-course entitled "How to Gamble if You Must," which I assume required additional work from home such as placing bets on a game of beer-pong until four A.M. while getting wasted. All in the name of mathematics, of course. It wasn't until the early 1980's that the team began to be managed like a business, and actually turn a successful profit.

Although I know little beyond what wikipedia has informed me about the actual MIT Blackjack Team, I know I am far more fascinated with the real-life story than the over-dramatized (and apparently fictional) melodrama that the film "21" portrays. The film is based off of the nonfiction novel "Bringing Down the House," which although based off of the true story of the team of gambling math geniuses, was also highly fictionalized.

So what we have here is a movie that enhances the fictional elements of a somewhat already fictional story. Although the most notable change for some was the fact that the team went from being entirely Asian to mostly Caucasion, for me I didn't really feel entirely bothered by it. I was a little confused in it's chosen time period, which is present day. Then again, in a way, 21 is kind of like an old folk tale, one that is constantly repeated until the version that exists is hardly even recognizable to the one that actually occured. It's hardly even worth mentioning that it is based off of a true story at all by this point.

So really all we have to look at is the story as a narrative, which reads the same as an after-school special. Boy has friends but is poor, boy discovers his talent, get's overwhelmed by his talent, betrays his friends, gets rich, gets poor again, and then discovers his friends again. That, and there's also the love interest.

It's fairly cut-and-paste, but it's there for a reason. It's entertaining. And when you throw wild cards like Kevin Spacey and Lawrence Fishburn into the mix, things become especially exciting to watch. The extemes in personalities work great in contrast to eachother, and tension builds quite nicely.

The only problem here is that the film is apparently only focused on the audience that has been seeking Jim Sturgess to do anything on screen after singing Strawberry Fields Forever. And when I say "anything," what I mean to say is "make out" with Kate Bosworth. The truly fascinating characters, the one's pulling the manipulative strings, are kept away from the viewers eyes despite the fact that we can't look away from them. We have the professor-turned-businessman with a cold sense for profit, the casino detective who arms himself with brute force rather than MIT brians, and all we want to see is these two thugs compete. Instead we are treated to watching Ben and Jill flirt for a majority of the trip.

What I personally felt most cheated over was the character's utter lack of motivation, or I should say convincing motivation. The character of Ben is only driven by his need to raise funds for going to Harvard Medical school, all the while claiming that the games of blackjack are "not for the money." Somehow that motivation lands flat when you consider how much he'll be making after medical school, or more specifically, his drive for the profession or the status as a college student. I was more convinced Ben wanted to go to Harvard than be an actual doctor, which actually made me like him a lot less.

Still, I watched all of 21 without feeling cheated, which is more than you can say for most gambles. It's entertaining, and satisfying at it's conclusion. But it's forgettable. So when it comes down to it, 21 becomes a great movie to watch when it ends up showing repeatedly on TNT, which I'm sure it will.

I Found Them

Oh yes. I found them.

The two least interesting postcards in existence.



But unfortunately my picture taking skills are terrible, so I will have to describe them to you in the same manner I would describe it to a blind man. The first is of the "Chiriaco Summit" travel center.

In reality, it is just a Chevron gas station in the middle of a desert. Even today it takes a solid drive of fifty miles across bare nothingness to even come close to it.

This "travel center" however, proudly proclaims that this gas station has been around since 1933, a time in which I assume the only passing automobile was driven by a man wearing driving goggles and was accompanied by a dog in the passengers seat, also wearing goggles and a long red scarf.

Still, there is a smidge of an interesting site here at the Chiriaco Summit, specifically the General Patton Museum which has the added benefit of featuring a statue of Patton himself, along with a tank alongside the highway.

The tank and statue are not shown on the postcard.

The second postcard is perhaps even more intriguing, as it features three middle school kids holding up a flag and a wooden cross on a mountain.

What's somewhat strange is that the pictures appear to be straight out of someone's photo album. Even stranger still is the unsolved mystery as to how exactly one of the three kids appears to suffer from a severe glandular problem, yet still has managed to climb an entire mountain. What was the secret? Frequent breaks? Power Bars? Getting carried by the other two kids? The world may never know.

Back From the Desert

Look at the dust devils!



Gotta love the windmills.





I decided to visit my old friends.





This is one of me trying to take a photo of myself and the Rex, and not quite being able to.