V for Vendetta

"There are no coincidences." - V

That line may seem kind of stupid (or corny), but it sounds a lot better when V says it and it's actually one of the main themes of the movie. The last movie I saw in IMAX was Batman Begins, and while it was a better movie I don't think that V for Vendetta is anything to scoff at. If you don't know what it's about, think 1984 but a little more modernistic and slightly more realistic. Much in the vein of Minority Report, it uses a pretty feasible vision of technology 10 years from now, and I thought that it made the movie more believable. The whole movie is in Britain and is at a time when censorship is strong as enforced by a very conservative and religious dictator. I know that this may sound familiar, but I'm probably one of the few people who don't see much of a connection between the movie's antagonist and George W. Bush. I don't think that Bush is evil, just misguided, whereas the Chancellor in this movie is very much aware of what he's doing. However, it's clear that the message of the movie is to make sure that you don't ever let your government get too much power over your lives. Anyway, Hugo Weaving plays a pretty convincing V, which I would consider quite a challenging role in that mask. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Natalie Portman (portraying Evey Hammond).

What's strange is that Ms. Portman really acted pretty well, but this role just didn't seem to suit her. I didn't feel the emotion where I should've, and there was actually an animated scene in Kill Bill very similar to one of her scenes except that I only got teary eyed in the Kill Bill version of it. That's one of the two things I felt really held this movie back. The other thing was that the pacing wasn't right. It felt quite uneven where some parts were stretched a bit too long where others came too fast and could've used a bit more character development. However, this was one of those movies where I walked out feeling a lot better about it than afterwards when I talked to a friend about it a bit. I still consider it an A- movie. I felt that the plot was rather compelling, and I loved how the whole background story was unfolded via an investigation of sorts. The commercials were wrong to market it as an action movie because it was really more of a dramatic thriller with a few pretty good action sequences, but don't expect The Matrix action-wise here. I haven't actually read the graphic novel so maybe my grievances are unfounded when compared to the book, but either way I'd consider it very worth seeing. I'm being harsher on it than I would normally because of all the hype, but don't let that discourage you because I really did enjoy it. There's no question that the production values were pretty high (including some great set designs and special effects), it was fun to watch, and it's probably the first movie to come out this year that's truly worth seeing.

HD-DVD has suffered another blow in their fight with Blu-ray as they have now had to delay their March 28 launch by three weeks, and with less movies to boot. Of course, Blu-ray won't be launching until the middle of May itself, but that was planned all along (to coincide with the release of the players) whereas HD-DVD has now lost the confidence of some supporters. It looks like iTunes has really boomed as far as unique users is concerned as it has already surpassed Quicktime and will soon pass up RealPlayer as well, which would leave only Windows Media Player in front of it. I think that iTunes is a far better overall media experience than WMP though, although I believe the latter does support more codecs (correct me if I'm wrong). Apple has put the 60 GB iPod on its "at risk" list, which means that there will either be a price change, discontinuation, or replacement in the near future. This could be to throw us off, but there could be no new iPod without it. Note that the 30 GB is still not "at risk" though. Bad news for Gmail: Google has been subpoenaed for all the e-mails (including deleted items) of an account in a lawsuit against AmeriDebt, and a magistrate judge ruled in favor of turning over the e-mails. This can't bode well for those who have had privacy concerns with the web application from the start (though for different reasons), but I'm sure that they'll appeal to the district court. Good news for the environmentalist in you: European Smart Cars are coming stateside at reasonable prices and sickening gas mileages. Any car with more than double the gas efficiency of mine is ok by me. Lastly, GamerFeed put up a pretty comprehensive look at some of the biggest blunders in video game history, which will be a trip down memory lane for most old school gamers.

I think that that's a rather cool shot of Superman in his Fortress of Solitude, and it was just released. AICN actually saw some footage from the film at ShoWest and put up a recap (in text though, no video, sorry). Also at ShoWest were a bunch of new posters, and Latino Review posted a bunch of them include the Da Vinci Code poster. There are also some good character shots from Miami Vice so you should take a second to check those out. The big news was actually the release of the new MI:3 trailer, which wasn't radically different from what the Japanese saw but it's hard to not make a kickass trailer with that theme song attached to it (soon to be remixed by Kanye West, remember). There's a good amalgamation of footage from Snakes on a Plane over here, but I'm not really motivated to see this movie yet (despite having Sam Jackson). It turns out that Indiana Jones 4 really is ready to shoot despite what we previously heard about more revisions being made. However, insiders claim that Spielberg is taking a year off though, so we'll have to just wait a little longer (which may give more time for revisions to be made anyway). Lastly, there are some more stills for X-men 3 floating around, one of which I may have posted here since they actually look pretty good if not for that Superman Returns shot I found.

Now for the Friday's Feast meme that I missed yesterday since I went out with some friends:

Appetizer
What job would you definitely not want to have?
Garbage man. It just seems like such a demeaning job. I would place a janitor on a higher level than someone who just drives around and operates a big garbage truck crane.

Soup
Oprah calls and wants you to appear on her show. What would that day's show be about?
It would have to be two months ago when we won the Rose Bowl so that I could talk about how awesome of a season we had since I actually managed to catch every single Texas football game.

Salad
Name 3 vegetables that you eat on a regular basis.
Salad, corn, and black-eyed peas. Salad goes down the best because I got these awesome croutons now (forgot what they're called though because they're back in Austin).

Main Course
If you were commissioned to rename your hometown, what would you call it?
Crapsville I guess. Ok, I guess that's a bit harsh, but Houston really does kinda suck. Houston seems to be an alright name for it, though it was founded by the Allen Brothers, not General Sam Houston.

Dessert
If you had a personal assistant, what kind of tasks would you have them to do?
My Physics homework, first and foremost. That, and my chores, and my laundry. Then maybe I'd have more time to learn to cook better.

The next post I make will be in Austin, so I hope you all have a good weekend and you can expect to see another comparison picture of me before and after contacts tomorrow now that I have my trial pair (though they're a pain in the butt to wear).