Autumn Cometh

So… after receiving ZERO comments on any of the posts I’ve made over the past month, I finally had the sense to go and check the blog and see what the heck was going on, and… BLOGGER HAS NOT EVEN BEEN DISPLAYING THE POSTS!!!

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Haha, yeah… no… I seriously just have not done any posts within the last month. o_o My bad. So, insert various half-hearted excuses about being busy, seemingly self-deprecating criticisms of inherent apathy, and earnest (but ultimately unrealized) promises of improvement here: ____________________, aaannndddd… moving on!

What have I been watching? Well, since late July when I went and saw Inception, I have viewed (in theaters): The Karate Kid, How to Train Your Dragon, Salt, and The A-Team.

Of those four films, only one of them was on my “top ten” list (The Karate Kid), and one was on the “runners up” list (Salt). How to Train Your Dragon would have been on my top ten list, but I created the list after the movie was released in theaters. I ended waiting to see “Dragon” at the cheap theater, which doesn’t get stuff in until waaaayyyy after the other theaters have stopped screening, but you only pay $1.00-$3.00, so… worth it.

I had debated going back and doing a review post on each film, but it’s really trippy trying to review a movie more than a few days after you’ve seen it, so the longer I kept trying to do that, the longer I ended up putting off posting, and I finally just said, screw it. I’ll post whatever the heck I want, and it’s not gonna be movie reviews. However, I will note that the above films were: Good (Salt), Good (The Karate Kid), Great (How to Train Your Dragon) and Good (The A-Team). Interestingly, I saw each one with a different person, and none of them were the people I usually go with. All good company, however.

If you’re an avid movie-viewer, and would recommend at least renting all of them. Salt and The A-Team had very summer-movie-type plots with either a very simple or “been there, seen that” feel, but were great on action. How much you enjoy them might depend on how you like your protagonists (testosterone-laden Army Ranger team, or femme fatale Russian spy), but both are good entertainment.

The Karate Kid was a little better story-wise, and seeing Jaden Smith in action will always be a treat. Definitely worth a viewing, even if you’re not into martial arts, but definitely if you’re into Jackie Chan. He really digs in with his acting spurs, drawing emotion out of his otherwise-quite-stoic character at the appropriate moments. Other than the mom getting kind of obnoxious at times, and the love story being a little awkward-tween-icky, I enjoyed this one (and was glad to cross the first “to watch” film off my top ten list, finally).

My favorite of the four was definitely How to Train Your Dragon. An excellent picture from Dreamworks that has received loads of positive reviews, I convinced my mom to take me to see this one for my birthday. She was iffy because of the title, and because if was from Dreamworks. I think she had more a of a Shrek-like film in mind, with the oft-inappropriate humor and spoofy story-line. However, she walked out voicing surprise and approval at how good the film was. Another winner from the ol’ Dream machine. They may not be quite on par with Pixar (yet), but they’re sure as heck giving it their best shot.

In completely unrelated news, my Mozy backup has passed the halfway mark like a herd of turtles. Also, I found out the upload speed was being severely throttled (my bad), so I adjusted that and it’s running a little faster now. I just hope these segmented sessions don’t results in a fuzzy backup. Only time will tell.

PS- My fellow bloggers whose posts I normally comment on… do not despair. I’m still reading, I just haven’t had time to comment. I’ll get right on that.

Last Day of Vacation

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I’ve been on “vacation” for the past week, which (for me) entails doing the same things I do when I’m not at work during a normal week: lazing about at home playing Xbox360 and messing around on my PC. Yes, I have no life. At some point during the week I tried to tidy up the room a bit… met a friend for breakfast Wednesday morning… spent most of today helping my pops clean out his garage (lots of tossing things in the garr-BAHGE ensued). Subsequently, I spent an inordinate amount of time outside, which is not really a good thing at this time of year because of the overwhelming swarms of plague-bearing vampire swamp parasites pesky mosquitoes.

And tonight I am going to “end my vacation with a bang” (as a friend put it) by going to a 10pm viewing of Iron Man 2. wOoT.

 
(currently gracing the front of my LG Voyager, booyeah)

I have to say that, as much as I’ve been looking forward to this film, I’ll be glad when it’s had its run in the theaters because I’m really sick of my feeds being cluttered with Iron Man 2 snippets, interviews, exclusive photos, and clips. Of course, any room that’s made by the absence of Don Cheadle junkets will be filled by Avengers hype. *sigh*
I believe that Robert Fure of Film School Rejects had a similar complaint in his weekly entertainment-related rant (and one of my favorite columns from FSR): Boiling Point.

I may or may not post a review of Iron Man 2 later on. I am generally pretty lousy at writing movie reviews, as much as I enjoy watching movies, because I’m not very objective. I can find a reason to like (and justify the purchase of) just about any flick. Hence, the inordinate (so I used the word inordinate twice… okay, three times now. So what?) number of Blu-Rays cluttering my desk and bookcase shelves. What can I say? I have a problem.